Religion: Belief; and Effect on People

Miss Sarah Itzkoff mentioned this film trailer on her status line.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/religulous

The movie is Religulous. It stars Bill Maher, and is about him interviewing religious people about religion's absurdities. I saw the trailer. It got me to thinking. The essay is not a direct answer to the trailer, but definitely birthed from it. Placenta and all.
**

I.
Religion is only secondary in:
- method of social control
and
- means to explaining how the universe was created

Religion, first and foremost, is a coping mechanism.

To believe "I don't know" about the nature of life or afterlife is pretty creepy for most people. If you are unable to feel fear in considering "I don't know" you've either spent your patience considering it as I have, or lack all parts of the brain used to feel fear.

Life sucks when your life might mean nothing. When you are only skin, muscle, and organs. When your heart stops, and the body falls apart, and ants pick at your remains to return to their Queen. When you look at some guy on the subway follow his ex-girlfriend around, and he is obviously harrassing her. When you see a child with a fresh bruise under his eye. When you see that a murder remains unsolved, and the police will probably fail in catching the killer. When you sit down and look at your children, and worry that they, despite your preference to the opposite, are only meat.

Religion and God are means to deal with the crappy parts of life. It's pretty damn nice to believe that after that murderer dies, he'll get what he deserves. It's nice to believe that abused children are cared for. It's nice to think that your life is more than meat.

If the sincere belief in God reflects an insanity in the believer, then the insanity is a reaction to a kind of despair.

Atheists, too, have dealt with this despair in their own personal way. Whether or not you have God in your consciousness, you must deal with life's absurdity and apparent hopelessness in some way, and many, religious or not, do. To live, people tend to support their living with a kind of logic, even if that logic is plugged with a hole or two.

Ultimately, our presence clinches the deal. We're already here, and few of us, upon believing life's meaninglessness, would commit suicide. Why? Because suicide hurts. If you eat chocolate, your tounge is happy. If you get a message, your back feels great. If you watch a funny movie, you laugh. If you have sex, you're probably in a good mood. Pleasure, even if that pleasure is scant. That's why people continue living, even when their explaination of life is irrational (religion), or incomplete (atheism).

The logic of living serves the reality of living. Rarely the other way around. When you find yourself alive (in the maternity ward, among the other babies, figuring out how your fingers work) you will from then on dedicate life to the act of living. The only trick from then on is explaining the reason for that living, so as to make that living more pleasant.

Maybe you could believe in Christ. Or some other God. Or maybe believe in some vague lifeforce in the universe. Or be apathetic, sweep the life question into the closet, and continue eating tostitos with cheese dip (a delicious meal). Either way, life is nicer when backed by a pleasant ideaology (eg. Human beings have dignity, and dignity is a true sort of substance.)

Faith. Faith, ever present. That the work that you do is actually worthwhile, beyond the pleasure you recieve from it. That people do good for you, and that good is really altruistic, etc, etc.

****

II.It seems that a lot of criticism against religion has to do with religion as a corrupting institution.

That religion has been associated with violence cannot be disputed. ("Christ be with you," said the Crusader, and then he threw the baby into the well.)

So if we prove that religions are the source or major cause of brutality among people--at least when those religions are used as a reason for this brutality (like the Crusades)--then yes, religion can be a corrupting institution like slavery. In other words, if we simply removed religion from an area, or the world, then people would act more civilly from one another.

Ir seems, however, people are beasts, in general. Beast: a creature that lives at excessive expense of others. If religion has no real effect on how people act, then even if we remove all traces of traditional religion from the Earth, people would still commit acts of brutality and oppression. Indeed, I argue that violence in the name of religion is in fact a perversion of religion. It has nothing to do with the true idea behind the religion except cometically. These jerks just happen to worship a God, for personal gain.

I think that commentators overestimate the power of social institutions. These institutions come and go. But the thing that brings them together, again and again, is the human desire to live and to succeed at living even at the expense of others. This personal desire is the Ultimate Institution, and it originates in the heart. If we miss this core, then we can remove religion, the corporations, the gov'ts, etc, yet we will keep running into the same problem of depravity among peopole.

With or without the idea of God hanging above us: the Holocaust, that Waco mess, the War on Terror (R), and Priests diddling children. These or similar events will still occur. Because people are feeders. Because the act of violence is satisfying. Because sex is satisfying. Etc. And in the face of that satisfaction, Man submits. He submits to his only true Lord. The only question know is how he will justifying his worship to himself. And, trust me, he will find a way.

I will say no more for now.

This subject requires a lot more experience, research, and wisdom than I am able to provide at this time. It's better to keep the mouth shut rather than blab in a public, idiot way.