SURELY YOU JEST!!
Copyright 1999, 2006, 2011 By Arthur M. Jackson
This site explores, directly the reasons for creating a Science of Religion. Click here for a more general presentation of these ideas, and here for an extended dialogue on this matter. In my mind an empirical, experimental Science of Religion is the key to the things that are most important to humanity; e.g., a sustainable feeling that one's life is meaningful. However, many atheists/agnostics/ humanists/freethinkers say religion and science are totally different and have nothing to do with each other. Certainly -- they say -- there can be no "Science of Religion." I believe Richard Dawkins' idea about memes applies here. The clergy have planted the idea in our head that religion is about God so firmly that we cannot shake it. Anyone with any brains realizes that changing minds on this issue is an almost impossible battle, and they elect to go along with the clergy and say religion is about the supernatural. What they don't realize is that by taking this step they have already lost the war! Everything they do from that point on is irrelevant. They talk to a handful of people, most of whom are so confused about the real issues they are willing to expend their life energy fighting folk religions rather than synergistically using their energy to build something of true value to humanity.
I realize that the odds of immediate success for this effort are quite small. But in the long run this project will succeed short of any disaster wiping out humanity. (And science has given us the power and folk religions the ignorance to eliminate our species.) A careful analysis of history shows that a Science of Religion is where we have been headed since the evolution of the language ability. Folk religion has merely been a vehicle to help us reach this point.
I think it is unfortunate that humanists, atheists and freethinkers in general have been conned by the clergy and been maneuvered toward irrelevance. Certainly, it's a valid point that it is difficult to separate God from religion in the mind of the average person. This is particularly true for persons raised and educated in Europe where religion and God are seen as being so tightly bound together that even enlightened thinkers have been unable to recognize their difference.
But I'm convinced that it is worth the effort to liberate religion which must be done unless we want the next 200 years to be a repeat of the last 200 years.
In order to accomplish the forgoing, science must assume its true role and take over all the tasks necessary to help human beings live a full life.
This requires a paradigm shift that most atheists/humanists/freethinkers are not prepared to make. But I say we must change our minds for the following reasons:
One excellent analysis and synthesis of these issues is presented by Eric Fromm. Another is presented in the March/April 1998, issue of THE HUMANIST.
When we are able to assemble an inspiring answer to the question, "What is the meaning of human life?" we might then be able to produce ways
to help folk religionists work with us to build something that would capture what is important at its deepest levels.
Of course not all atheists/agnostics/humanists/freethinkers are characterized by the above statements. My hope is to connect with those of whom these statements are not true and work together to build a new world, a Religion of Wisdom Network. Any who want to be a cause in creating the future rather than only an effect based on other's actions need to help create a new paradigm. Whatever path one takes science must be at its core. The ideas presented by a Science of Religion lie squarely on that path.
For further questions, or suggestions, etc. contact: Arthur Jackson
Eric Fromm (PSYCHOANALYSIS AND RELIGION, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1950) defines religion as "...any system of thought and action shared by a group which gives the individual a frame of orientation and an object of devotion." (p. 21) He goes on to say, "There is...no culture of the past, and it seems there can be no culture in the future, which does not have religion in this broad sense of our definition."
In his attempt to clarify this need he says, "Self-awareness, reason, and imagination have disrupted the 'harmony' which characterizes animal existence. Their emergence has made humanity into an anomaly, into the freak of the universe. Human beings are part of nature, subject to physical laws and unable to change them, yet they transcend the rest of nature. They are set apart while being a part; they are homeless, yet chained to the home they share with all creatures. Cast into this world at an accidental place and time, they are forced out of it, again accidentally. Being aware of themselves, they realize their powerlessness and the limitations of their existence. They visualize their own end: death. Never are they free from the dichotomy of their existence: they cannot rid themselves of their mind, even if they should want to; they cannot rid themselves of their body as long as they are alive -- and their body makes them want to be alive."
"Reason, humanity's blessing, is also its curse; it forces human beings to cope everlastingly with the task of solving an insoluable dichotomy. Human existence is different in this respect from that of all other organisms; it is in a state of constant and unavoidable disequilibrium. Human beings' lives cannot 'be lived' by repeating the pattern of their species; they must live. Humanity is the only animal that can...feel evicted from paradise. Humanity is the only animal for whom their own existence is a problem which they have to solve and from which they cannot escape. They cannot go back to the prehuman state of harmony with nature; they must proceed to develop their reason until they become the master of nature, and of themselves."
And this is what a Science of Religion aims to accomplish, to make humanity its own master within the framework of objective reality, and to do that by helping each person to become their best self.
We must master our "tribal" propensities by developing our "wisdom" potenital.
THE HUMANIST is published by the American Humanist Association. In this article,"The Way of Science," by Connie Barlow, p. 17-22, the author points out, "Smug disregard of the religious impulse has recently fallen out of fashion. Many people now realize that a sense of the sacred need not be based on superstition and supernaturalism."
She goes on to discuss various modern authors and writings that see religion in a broader way: Jacques Monod in CHANCE AND NECESSITY, Edword O. Wilson in ON HUMAN NATURE as well as Joseph Campbell, Huston Smith, Lawrence Kohlberg, James Gustafson, Loyal Rue, Jared Diamond, Mircea Eliade, etc.
But without a SCIENCE OF RELIGION to guide our searches such ideas end up spiraling into the ether and going nowhere, as did the above article.
Many individuals, including the average person, thinks that religion requires a belief in God, or at least some supernatural ideas. I am frequently asked how I can justify the definition I use in Science of Religion.
My response is as follows. The only acceptable goal of those who use anyword is to provide the best symbol possible for something in the world, in the human brain, or for how things work. When a word first comes into use it is often surrounded by great ignorance -- a lack of understanding about how the relevant things work. As we learn more we are able to more clearly focus the meaning of the word on what is most relevant rather than some less important element as the early definition may do.
"Religion" is such a word, although Science of Religion treats every word of social significance in the same way. All clear-thinking people for at least the past hundred years have realized that religion includes much more than God, angels, and prayer. But it is the U.S. courts that have done the most to clarify what religion means because in an important way religion is a legal term. This is true because organized religions function within the structure of law.
Since the U.S. was founded on the basis of separation of Church and State every religion was ensured legal standing -- the right to exist and function with all the legal perogatives allowed any religion. Because of this U.S. courts have been required to grant Humanist organizations, and other non-traditional groups standing as religions.
Although current anthropology, sociology, and psychology have not been particularly helpful in clarifying what religions actually are, if one utilizes these sciences to examine religion it is clear what they must say:
Religion is the institution within a society concerned with definitive issues including the meaning of human life and how this meaning can be achieved. It provides the binding institution within a society that connects every person with every other and furnishes the shared values that guide individual and group behavior. It is the repository of wisdom and the sustainer of vision.
However, there are some who say, "Words should have the meaning that comes to the ordinary person's mind. No one should give a word in common usage any other definition." This approach has even developed standing in the realm of philosophy (Ordinary Language Philosophers). But as we look at this issue more closely it becomes obvious that the only persons who would benefit from such an approach are those who believe in a static social order that does not evolve, or become capable of greater insights about what words actualy mean as oppposed to what the ordinary person thinks they mean.
For all these reasons a Science of Religion is committed to the idea of using words as they should be used, not necessarily as they have traditionally been used.