Now, TES. I have to respectfully disagree with you here. Granted, the manifestations of religion - as social and cultural institutions - create reason for thinking as you do. But religion, per se, is a different matter.
Yes, my apologies. I handed you a reasoned position I hold, which in sound-byte form resembles the common nihilist-atheist trope, but is held for probably a very different set of meanings and reasons. Many of those reasons bear dynamic inside the definition of religion in a philosophical, rather than a social sense. This is not what the club of atheism is saying at all - as they are promoting nihilism with the phrase. I am not. Nihilist-atheism (or Atheism) is itself a religion - and I shall expound accordingly below.
So even those who espouse no religious sensibility will still behave in a way that is consistent with those who do. So what is the problem? The impulse or the content of intentional response to that impulse?
You segue into the first point well here! But before we do that, some housekeeping. I need to discipline my casual form of the statement to 'philosophical religion causes, rather than is the solution to (as it claims to be) a critical mass of the world's problems'. Critical mass is the correct term and analog here - as one problem will serve to chain react and cause a series of additional problems. So you were not arguing with a straw man - rather simply my imprecise and non-contexted quip.
I was born in Belfast to a deeply Protestant family. My father fashioned a hatred of Catholics because of his culture and community. But because there was a social divide determined by religious affiliation, the question should whether religion is the 'cause' of the divide, or a manifestation of it. If we look into history we can see that it is a shared affair. But then I grew up as a Protestant in Australia, and I have no aversion to Catholics or Anglicans. That's because my religious experience was not determined by culture in the way my father's was.
Deep qualifications, which I respect enormously. However, here the context is the social definition of religion, rather than the philosophical one. The binding of men together under the auspices of a meaning which is difficult to define, is innocent, yes. Our reaching out the hand of mercy (not charity) is also an innocent action. However, these are not 'religion' in the below definition, they are 'faith' (a verb). These suffer the fallacies of etymology and anachronism when they are further then defined as religion. They can become a virtue shield as well, if abused. What I will present below employs the philosophical ethic of using neither fallacy of etymology nor anachronism in order to define a construct, rather - define a foundational term in the Wittgenstein discipline - it must bear several elements:
1. Distinct – serves in an incremental or discrete critical-path role
2. Cogent – is focused, concise and meaningful
3. Novel – has not been fairly addressed before
4. Non-obvious – not really obvious to the average philosopher
5. Leverages Prior Art – continues or fairly modifies prior philosophical work
6. Not Sophistry – not developed to feature nor protect an agenda
7. Clarifying – decreases the entropy of knowledge and understanding
8. Useful – bears incremental utility inside a specific context domain
9. Teachable – can be effectively communicated and sustained
I get your point. I am asking you to look deeper than the standard cant on the subject. That's more worthy of your style. I want to recommend two books. Larry Siedentop's 'The Invention of the Individual - Origins of Western Liberalism', and Peter Frankopan's 'The Silk Roads'.
I will stop here - because the explanation as to my version of 'philosophical religion causes, rather than is the solution to (as it claims to be) a critical mass of the worlds problems' is long and involved. In addition, I have a couple choice case studies in my national infrastructure work, wherein religious thinking was the core cause of suffering on a grand scale. However, I exhort all philosophers to define such constructs inside the context of the philosophical, rather than social definition (In other words, not from its word origin, nor how it expresses socially) - so that we do not suffer the 'bewitchment of our intelligence'.
Nonetheless as closing, I will offer up my definitions which serve to clarify the basis of this root fallacy, and rather than expound from that foundation - let you mull it for a while. :) These definitions, in my decades-long struggle to assess, constitute the Wittgenstein compliant definitions of the terms:
Religion – the compulsory adherence to an idea around which testing for falsification is prohibited. The process of a power wielding group abusing the rights of individuals through the desire to make compulsory, that which cannot be held to account.
God – Ω • ⊕ – any entity which has been ceded ongoing power, yet at the same time retains an ongoing lack of accountability. A standard employed by a proxy agent, as a virtual mass in the social leveraging of a victim.
Neither of these definitions stipulates bearded grandfather/ancient wisdom archetypes nor official organizations venerating such.
My family emigrated to the Colonies with Thomas Jefferson's family, and lived on the farm next door to his family during his foundational years. My 7th great grandfather was the same age as Thomas Jefferson. Since second grade, I have maintained a keen interest in Thomas Jefferson's philosophy and how it affected his view of a republic 'conditional powers' form of governmental representation. If you read,
The Road to Monticello by Kevin J Hayes, you may indeed find that religion is best not described by religious theists and atheists... those who seek to promote their club; rather those with a heart for the fate of humankind.
Thomas Jefferson was not a deist, he was an ethical skeptic.
Which segues us back to the sub-topic of this thread - the purpose of life.