| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Raymond" |
| Date: |
03 Sep 2006 04:18:51 PM |
| Object: |
Re: GEORGE CARLIN: On Religion |
bushlied wrote:
torresD wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv2yXh6pTDY&mode=related&search=
It is amazing in this age of scientific discovery and massive amounts
of information, people still believe this crap
"In this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are
the only profoundly religious people."
Religion and Science
--- Albert Einstein
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/einsteinsgod/einstein-religionandscience.shtml
"Primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of
civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we
must be on our guard."
This article originally appeared in the New York Times Magazine
(November 9, 1930)
Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with
the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One
has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand
spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and longing are the
motive force behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however
exalted a guise the latter may present themselves to us. Now what are
the feelings and needs that have led men to religious thought and
belief in the widest sense of the words? A little consideration will
suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside over the
birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is
above all fear that evokes religious notions - fear of hunger, wild
beasts, sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding
of causal connections is usually poorly developed, the human mind
creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills
and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure
the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering
sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from
generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed
toward a mortal. In this sense I am speaking of a religion of fear.
This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the
formation of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a
mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a
hegemony on this basis. In many cases a leader or ruler or a privileged
class whose position rests on other factors combines priestly functions
with its secular authority in order to make the latter more secure; or
the political rulers and the priestly caste make common cause in their
own interests.
The social impulses are another source of the crystallization of
religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human
communities are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and
support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This
is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and
punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer's
outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human
race, or even or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied
longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or
moral conception of God.
The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the
religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New
Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the
peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development
from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples'
lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and
the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice
against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions
are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on
the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.
Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their
conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional
endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any
considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of
religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is
rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling.
It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is
entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic
conception of God corresponding to it.
The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the
sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature
and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a
sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single
significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already
appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of
David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned
especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much
stronger element of this.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind
of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in
man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are
based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that
we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling
and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists,
sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus,
Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to
another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no
theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and
science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are
receptive to it.
We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion
very different from the usual one. When one views the matter
historically, one is inclined to look upon science and religion as
irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who
is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of
causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who
interferes in the course of events - provided, of course, that he
takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for
the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A
God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple
reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and
internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than
an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes.
Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the
charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually
on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis
is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be
restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death.
It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science
and persecuted its devotees.On the other hand, I maintain that the
cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for
scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and,
above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical
science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the
emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the
immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the
rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it
but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and
Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in
disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose
acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its
practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the
mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown
the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through
the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can
have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them
the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless
failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such
strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this
materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only
profoundly religious people.
.
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