Tuesday
19 July 2022, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Any replies to the organizer
- thormay@yahoo.com
Venue:
ZOOM online
Focus Questions
1. Most of the world's societies historically have required that
everyone had to believe in the power of a favoured god or gods.
Clearly these gods must have had some useful purpose for humans.
What was it? [Note: "Does god exist?" questions are quite
different from this question of value]
2. Australians in
accelerating numbers have given up on formal religions, or just
kept a skeleton allegiance for weddings, funerals etc. The
latest census, like the one before it, shows a stark decline in
formal religious belief. What is driving this move away from
religion?
3. While Australians may have abandoned formal
religion, have they (necessarily) also abandoned belief in any
supernatural power (e.g. being favoured by 'Luck')?
4.
Religions are all obsessed with human morality. Human morality
is important to humans. Why would any god with independent
agency and power be bothered with the trivia of human morality?
5. Some secular ideologies - for example, communism - have
tried to supplant the authority of god(s) with the authority of
a national political party. How successful has this been?
6. Humans are mostly a herding species who like to follow
and imitate. How much has this got to do with their attachment
to religious authority?
7. Being responsible for
anything more than washing up the dishes is hard for a lot of
people to handle. Would there be an evolutionary advantage in
somehow displacing the mental burden of responsibility? For
example our brains organize activities around 'drives' (food,
sex, etc). You could think of these drives as executive command
centres, or in computer terms, 'bots'. How about a 'bot' called
God who could take the rap for all the hard stuff we don't want
to own : "it was God's will, not my fault" ...?
8. Formal
religions have obviously had a huge social role in lending
colour, purpose, companionship and emotional security to
societies everywhere throughout human history. What is it about
life in modern Australia that has provided competition for these
traditional religious roles? Why have some sects rejected such
competition?
9. Why have very large numbers of people in
some countries - USA & South America, India, the Middle East,
Africa etc - continued to find religion useful as a central
principle in their lives while even larger numbers of people in
Euriope, Australia, East Asia have turned away from religion?
10. Christianity and Islam both got their real momentum
after being harnessed to political power. There have been rather
few politically ambitious individuals, past or present, who
haven't seized on the religious ideologies of their own
societies to advance their own agendas. This is because
religions organize large numbers of people about a common
purpose. How do religions and political power corrupt each
other? Solutions?
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Extra Reading
Thor May (2015) "The peculiar interest of god(s) in human
morality". The Passionate Skeptic website @
http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/peculiargod.htm
[Quote: "For the ungodly, even as they dodge being stoned to
death for apostasy or atheism, it is a perpetual puzzle why
any god, mere mountain spirit or kitchen god, or a thundering
master of the universe, would give a damn what humans do. And
given the misfortunes of virtuous humans, and the prosperity
of countless scoundrels, the ungodly search in vain for
actual, non-magical evidence that god, gods, spirits or
leprechauns do actually play moral favourites in any credible
way with humans. For the godly of course, this kind of
evidence has never mattered".]
Thor May (2016) "Count
Your Lucky Stars". The Passionate Skeptic website @
http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/DiscussionTopics/Luck-mu.htm
[Quote: "What part does luck play in the success of
individuals, enterprises and countries? Think of examples.
From politics to careers to finding the love of your life,
there has never been more advice available, yet at the end of
the game, some people seem to have been lucky and others not.
Why is this so? Can you really do much about it?" ]
Thor May (2014) "Does religion emerge as a product of complex
systems?". The Passionate Skeptic website @
http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/Religion.htm [Quote:
"Why do people take up religions, persist with them, and
abandon them ? Whatever you think of religions personally, or
any particular religion, they seem to have been around forever
amongst (most) humans, and seem unlikely to go away entirely
amongst the species as a whole. Clearly though, particular
cultures in various historical phases have many members who
are attracted to religions or substitute ideologies, but tend
to drift away from them in other phases. At a different level,
women seem to be the most persistent believers by numbers, but
religious hierarchies are almost always controlled by
(humourless old) men… What is it in human psychology that
generates these religious phenomena? Since religion is
universal across human groups, yet not universal within
groups, does it embody some optional extra mechanism in the
complex systems we call mind? Is it species specific? … the
questions are endless, and we can scarcely answer them here,
but following a long human tradition, I have written a small
allegory to explore some possibilities". ]
Thor May
(2014) 'What will be the dominant ideologies of the 21st
Century?" The Passionate Skeptic website @
http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/Ideology21stCentury2.htm
[Quote: "Ideologies are going to be with us forever. The
question is how seriously the herd takes them, and who become
the high priests for interpreting them to the unwashed masses.
The 20th Century gave us some pretty horrible examples of
ideologies used as vehicles for mass extinction while claiming
to be vehicles for mass progress. There is no particular
reason to expect that the 21st Century will be more
enlightened in this regard amongst those people who always
form the bulk of ideological foot soldiers. It is true that
there are more formally educated people on the planet than
ever before, and more available tools for critical thinking,
especially in the online world. Yet it is also true that the
tools for mass mobilization are more powerful than they have
ever been, while their control passes with increasing rapidity
to compromised governments, corporations and secretive elites.
This secrecy makes a considered response to genuine threats
especially difficult".]
Thor May (1998) "Good Man, Bad
Man." The Passionate Skeptic website @
http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/goodmanbadman.html
[Quote: "The unconscious assumptions that govern all our daily
lives and opinions are almost incurably simple-minded.
Philosophers have hoped that by making them explicit they can
make them sensible. They are betrayed by their own
selectivity, and an iron law of forgetting, which says that
for every flash of insight from a stray mind in the
marketplace, for every principled action by a functionary with
momentary power, there will be a million acts of stupidity in
the name of this slogan or that". ]
Thor May (2013)
"The Agnostic's Survival Manual". The Passionate Skeptic
website @
http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/TheAgnosticsSurvivalManual.htm
[Note: This is an ebook collecting many of Thor's reflections
on religious stuff over a number of years. Ideas evolve, so
not everything found here will necessarily be consistent with
the writer's current opinions. Quote: "Dear reader, are you
really hoping for a book of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’? Do you want
gentle ideas and a comfortable corner in which to rest your
half-formed prejudices? Alas, you have come to the wrong
place". ]
ABS (28 June 2022) "2021 Census shows
changes in Australia’s religious diversity". Australian Bureau
of Statistics @
https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/2021-census-shows-changes-australias-religious-diversity
[Quote: "Christianity is the most common religion in
Australia, with over 40 per cent (43.9 per cent) identifying
as Christian. This has reduced from over 50 per cent (52.1 per
cent) in 2016 and from over 60 per cent (61.1 per cent) in
2011. As in earlier Censuses, the largest Christian
denominations are Catholic (20.0 per cent of the population)
and Anglican (9.8 per cent). While fewer people are reporting
their religion as Christian, more are reporting ‘no religion’.
Almost 40 per cent (38.9 per cent) of Australia’s population
reported having no religion in the 2021 Census, an increase
from 30 per cent (30.1 per cent) in 2016 and 22 per cent (22.3
per cent) in 2011. Other religions are growing but continue to
make up a small proportion of the population. Hinduism has
grown by 55.3 per cent to 684,002 people, or 2.7 per cent of
the population. Islam has grown to 813,392 people, which is
3.2 per cent of the Australian population." ]
David
Chen (6 July 2022) "Religious group charged with murder over
death of Toowoomba girl Elizabeth Struhs remanded in custody".
ABC News @
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-06/religious-group-8yo-elizabeth-struhs-death-in-court/101212170
[The defendants have declined to seek legal advice or
assistance. Quote: ""Members of a religious group charged with
murder over the death of an eight-year-old girl in southern
Queensland have all been remanded in custody after appearing
in court today. The seven women and five men, aged 19 to 65,
were charged on Tuesday night over the death of Toowoomba girl
Elizabeth Struhs. The girl died at her Rangeville home on
January 7, 2022, after she was allegedly denied medical care
for type 1 diabetes for about six days".]
The Sunday
School Curriculum @
https://freesundayschoolcurriculum.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/5/0/12503916/lesson_80_samson_dies.pdf
[Thor, comment: This is an example of religious education for
kids. It seems to have trouble competing with the likes of
Tiktok etc]
James Oaten, Yumi Asada and Emily Clark (12
July 2022) "Shinzo Abe's family history might provide some
insight into why he was targeted by a man with a grudge." ABC
News @
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-12/shinzo-abe-death-motivations-religious-group/101225392
[Quote: "Shinzo Abe was renowned for his economic policies and
nationalistic bent, but his legacy also includes an
association with conservative religious groups and there is
some evidence it is this reputation that made him a target.
... His alleged assassin, Tetsuya Yamagami, sought out Mr Abe,
researched campaign events he would be at, made a gun, and, on
Friday afternoon, shot and killed the political giant. ...
Yamagami, 41, told Japanese police his mother was a member of
a religious organisation and their family had been financially
ruined after she made a "huge donation", Japanese media
reported, citing police sources. ... Conservative Japanese
politicians, particularly Abe's grandfather Kishi sought the
support of Reverend Moon and his church in a sort of
anti-communist alliance of civic and religious organisations,"
he said. The associations between conservative politicians and
religious groups in Japan serves a very clear purpose — it
helps win elections".
Clare Roth (2022) "The psychology
behind why we believe in horoscopes". Deutche Welle @
https://www.dw.com/en/the-psychology-behind-why-we-believe-in-horoscopes/a-62250008
[Quote: "What if I told you I could give you a very accurate
description of your personality? Rate below how much you are
able to relate to this text, from 0 (not correct at all) to 5
(very exact).
>> "You want other people to know you and
like you. You tend to be critical of yourself and often doubt
whether you have made the right decision or done the right
thing. You have a great deal of potential which you have not
always used to your advantage. While you have some flaws, you
are constantly trying to improve. Sometimes you can be very
sociable and extroverted, while at other times you are
introverted and prefer to be alone. You prefer some change and
variety and don't like to feel limited, but you also seek
security in life. You consider yourself an independent thinker
and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory
proof. You have found it unwise to be too honest in revealing
yourself to others".]
Carey Dunne (10 September 2018)
"A factchecker goes to psychic school: can you predict what
happens next?" The Guardian @
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/10/psychic-school-montclair-what-happened
[Quote: "... around one-third to one-half of Americans believe
in phenomena such as telepathy and precognition. These beliefs
fuel a $2bn psychic services industry that has been growing
steadily since the 2008 recession. ... In the 1970s, the US
army and the Defense Intelligence Agency launched a secret
program that, among other things, trained intelligence
professionals to become “remote viewers”, purportedly capable
of clairvoyantly spying on events from a great distance. The
army also entertained a proposal for developing a new military
of psychic super-soldiers who would “sense plant auras, attain
the power to pass [through] walls, bend metal with their
minds, [see] the future [and] be able to see and hear other
people’s thoughts”. These parapsychology experiments were, in
part, a cold war government’s response to the fear that
Soviets were using “psychoenergetic warfare”. The $20m
Stargate Project was declassified and shut down in 1995 after
a CIA report concluded that it had not produced any actionable
intelligence information. Its legacy, however, lingers".]
Harriet Sherwood (17 October 2019) "Americans becoming
less Christian as over a quarter follow no religion.
Self-identified Christians fall by 12 percentage points in a
decade. Fewer than half of millennials are Christians, survey
finds. As many millennials say they never attend religious
services (22%) as those who say they go at least once a week".
The Guardian @
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/17/americans-less-christian-religion-survey-pew
Ark Harris (15 November 2017) "Inside the first church
of artificial intelligence". Wired @
https://www.wired.com/story/anthony-levandowski-artificial-intelligence-religion/
Feifei Wang (n.d.) "What does the afterlife look like
in Chinese folk religion?". Quora @
https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-afterlife-look-like-in-Chinese-folk-religion
Brian Gallagher (30 May 2019) "The Worth of an Angry
God - How supernatural beliefs allowed societies to bond and
spread". Nautilus @
http://nautil.us/issue/72/quandary/the-worth-of-an-angry-god
Ana Swanson (March 30, 2016) "Why women are more
religious than men". Washington Post @
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/30/why-women-are-more-religious-than-men/
Sian Cain (16 July 2022) "Why is God a man? The woman
who searched the world for a feminist religion." The Guardian
@
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/16/why-is-god-a-man-the-woman-who-searched-the-world-for-a-feminist-religion
[Quote: “The fundamental question of why God is a man in
Islam, in Christianity, in Judaism, and in many others, it is
because they were born in a social context of patriarchy,” she
says. “Take Christianity – it rose up in a time of feudal
lands, lords and kings. All of this is represented in biblical
language we use today, so the way we relate to God serves male
power and authority.”]
Zuhal Ahad (Mon 18 Jul 2022)
"Send us a man to do your job so we can sack you, Taliban tell
female officials - As economy collapses, women from
Afghanistan’s finance ministry say they have been asked to
suggest male relatives to replace them". The Guardian @
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jul/18/send-us-a-man-to-do-your-job-so-we-can-sack-you-taliban-tell-female-officials
[Thor, comment : Male chauvanism is at the heart of almost all
practising religions. There is an argument that this occurs
because the dogmas of such religions stem from a time when
women were treated as mere breeding cows. However, it is
dominant also in so-called new religions as well as ideologies
(count the number of women in the politburos of communist
China or Vietnam). You could argue that a main purpose of
religions/ideologies has been been boost male sexual control]
Sherryn Groch (July 17, 2022) "Why do smart people join
cults? And how do they get out of them?
It’s not just
doomsday bunkers and goat’s blood. Cults are all around the
world, including in Australia. What are the red flags and how
do cult leaders operate?" The Age @
https://www.theage.com.au/national/why-do-smart-people-join-cults-and-how-do-they-get-out-of-them-20220315-p5a4uh.html
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