The “mother and father” of all religions is the Perception of Hope and Threat, PHT. You see the extremes explicated in the religions because it is by PHT that ALL living creatures guide their behavior (thus the god of the Media). The stronger the PHT involved, the stronger and more enduring is the associated behavior. Heaven and Hell depict the extremes of PHT. That is why they appeared in the religions.
In everyday, “Earthly”, life, there are very few perceptions of hope or threat with which to guide one’s behavior. And without a solid PHT, there is no guidance. Chaos, misery, and death usually follow. Governance methods tend to emphasize the perception of threats (laws, terrorism, reputation,…). Religions more often emphasize the perception of hopes. Both use real, exaggerated, and imaginary perceptions.
Today, the most common perception of hope would be the potential to acquire vast monetary wealth. It is no accident that such is the case. Thus a very few will ever achieve their perception of hope, very many will strive for it, and most will never even come close to achieving it. In the mean time, as the strive, their perception of military or reputation threat is keeping them from going too far astray.
Today, money forms the new-age religion because it is controlled, thus giving power to the Godwannabes. Wealth is the perceived hope, as poverty is the perceived threat of Human Secularism (the new-age Earthly religion).
You really do not know what knowledge is. No wonder: you are not modern. Modern people know that nobody can tell them what happens when they are dead. They want to know it now, but they know that there is no single one who knows it now. As long as there is no knowledge about it, modern people do not care about it.
In addiion, they know that they live and have to live in this world, not in a “world” beyond this world, and so they live according to the conditions and principles of this world …:
Yes. Most of the modern people want to live according to a principle that can guarantee them a wealthy life. They want promises in this world, thus not in a “world” beyond this world, because they know that nobody currently knows whether there is a “world” beyond this world. And they believe that money is the best one of those promises.
A principle of the new religion, Human Secularism, is to emphasize insecurity in the masses causing them to not have confidence in anything other than the most immediately threatening (“clear and present danger”), the governance.
“Most of the modern people want to live according to a principle that can guarantee then a wealthy life” . If that is true , then you are right … I am not a modern. I don’t think that money is the best ‘good’. Thanks for the compliment.
The primary purpose of all religions should be resolving and providing solutions to that dreaded DOOM.
A religion can provide guidance for living successfully and many religions has done that and making a mess of it when their guides [commands, Laws and rules] are made immutable which cannot adapt to inevitable changes, e.g. the Abrahamic religions.
That unavoidable dreaded DOOM and its existential angst need not be managed by religions forever [which was useful and its shelf-life is expiring very soon]. The more effective approaches to deal with that DOOM in the future would be progressive spirituality rather than religiosity with its negative baggage.
Once the DOOM is managed and stabilized life can progress optimally with so many other approaches such a philosophy and other self-development approaches. There is no need for religiosity and religions especially those with immutable holy books that straight-jacket believers to one era of time and thus allow no potentials to cope with inevitable changes in time,
The answer there is nothing that can happen to ‘no thing’ or no soul after physical death.
There is no soul that survives after physical death.
The effective solution is to manage that unavoidable subliminal fear of death in the present - the NOW.
Most people will state they do not fear death, i.e. thanotophobia and that is not the fear we are talking about.
The “fear” we are concern with, i.e. the DOOM that is pulsating and oozing subliminally into existential angst without a spot to scratch and manifesting all sorts of secondary sufferings and pains that are alleviated by submission to a belief as done by the majority.
These concepts are merely names given for various psychological experiences in human growth and development. Any other names will do. So, what is it that lies beneath the idea of knowing by naming?
Let’s try to find the existential roots of religion without referring to the Abrahamic deity.
J. Huxley speaks of two types of experiences known by those who claim to have had a spiritual awakening. One type is “the dark night of the soul” in which one feels a sense of total disconnect from God. The other is the sense of being at one with all that exists, of being totally connected to God. These experiences appear to express the ultimate poles of what is often found in a heartfelt search for enlightenment. Yet they may indicate stages of spiritual development, not necessarily any final outcome.
Books are needed to pass on the knowledge.
Stability is one on the useful features of religion. Otherwise, it all just becomes one fad after another - ‘flavor of the month’ religion - what do you want to believe this month? What are the powerful pushing this month?
Books are acceptable and I agree with the need for stability.
The point is whatever ‘book’ that is to be introduced must not be made immutable, e.g. in Islam and the Quran;
Quran 50:29. The sentence [word, l-qawlu الْقَوْلُ ق و ل ] that cometh from Me [Allah] cannot be changed,
18:27 There is none who can change His [Allah’s] words, and thou wilt find no refuge beside Him.
Quran 30:30 There is no altering (the laws [revelations] of) Allah’s creation. That is the right religion, but most men know not.
Quran 10:64 There is no changing the Words of Allah that is the Supreme Triumph.
Quran 6:115. Perfected [watammat: perfect, complete, fulfil] is the Word [Quran] of thy Lord in truth and justice. There is naught that can change His words [the Quran].
What is wrong with Islam [in part] is the Quran contain loads of evil elements that can influence and inspire SOME evil prone Muslims to commit terrible evils and violence around the world. Such a doctrine of evil is made immutable and thus eternal within Islam.The evidence of the actualization and reality of the above is very glaring.
Religions are a critical necessity for the majority of humans but that is only for a certain era and not meant to be eternal.
The existential roots of religion is existence itself, i.e. the fear of non-existence while in existence which generate a cognitive dissonance.
It is the seeking of cognitive consonance that drives the majority of people towards religion as a balm to soothe the psychological angst of DOOM.
I believe atheist Aldous Huxley [I mixed up earlier] had better views on the above subject than J. Huxley.
When one start off one’s premise with the idea of God [which is ungrounded and illusory] the rest of the premises will fall into pieces ultimately.
One of the problem is the altered-states-of-consciousness experiences by people who have had experiences of the so-called ‘enlightenment’ [divine or spiritual] are usually no different from those who have similar experiences from drugs, madness [various sorts], brain damage, out-of-the-blue, etc. which has nothing to do with the divine nor recognized spirituality.
As such if one were to rely on experiences on the altered-states-of-consciousness, then there is a possibility of danger and a threat to humanity when mad people [schizophrenics, epileptics, etc.] who have had altered-states-of-consciousness are wrongly recognized as divine people and are worshiped by the masses.
In the past many of the wrong recognition has happened and people are misled to commit evil of scams, scandals, false gurus etc. The most notable case at present is Muhammad who had experienced altered-states-of-consciousness and was attributed with the founding of Islam. It is on the basis of this error and wrong recognition that has manifested terrible evils and violence by SOME evil prone Muslims who are awashed with the evil ethos of Muhammad running through the doctrines of Islam.
To avoid the above mistakes of promoting false religious leaders, we should dig deep to find out the ultimate root causes of religions. As I had proposed the ultimate root cause of religions arise from the unavoidable existential DOOM spreading its tentacles through the neural web of the individual life that compel him/her into clinging on to a religion.
Psychological sources of the need for religion may include the following:
Religion includes a desire to return to the womb wherein all physical needs are met.
Religion is a search for something personal and immobile in a world of impersonal flux and change.
Religion is a search for belonging, for being able to glean a sense of self-worth or substantiation from communication with what is other than the self.
Of the three basic existential experiences–Being, Becoming, and Belonging, Belonging appears to describe the essential goal of the religious search.
I think Aldous was an agnostic as was his brother Julian. Yes, both come to the conclusion that certain states of consciousness appear to be spiritual, but are actually natural. But, both conclude there is more to mysticism than can be rationally explained. Both men were primarily concerned with how to achieve morality in a society without relying on organized religions with their threats or enticements.
