Temple to Atheism

[Aggie]

A 'real' religion is one where the person who had the firsthand experience has been dead long enough that his estate is no longer receiving royalties. 

[Swatopluk]

I assume there are a lot of new 'real' religions but they are far outweighedby fake ones.
Unless we can check the initiator (and his state of mind), we cannot say for sure, which ones are which.
Of course there are a number of clear cases of fakery. The size of the bank account of the  founder (minus what (s)he started with plus what (s)he spend after for private use) can be a strong indicator.

I think a distinction is necessary though. Jesus for all we know did not intend to found a new religion but to reform Judaism. Mohammed on the other hand came up with something new while claiming to be only a reformer/restaurator of the 'original' religion. The least one can say is that Islam was an improvement over the local cults at the time which included at least occasional human sacrifice.
My (rather uninformed) view is that Mohammed had actual visions but shaped his new religion at least in part according to what he thought was necessary. I do not think that it was just a (far-fetched) get-rich-and-powerful-quick scheme. He was not the simple camel driver he is often depicted at by his detractors. To challenge the powerful and ruthless establishment he was by family part of is not what your run-of-the-mill fake cult leader would do. To do that one would have to be a loonie and/or a true visionary. At least according to tradition Mohammed himself believed at first that his visions were a sign of his brain not working properly and it took persuasion by others to follow the path that led to the (currently) second most popular religion on the planet. I doubt that he would even have understood what a billion is, let alone having so many followers.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

IMNSHO, Xtianity is not the religion Christos but the one successful scheme of Saul of Tarsus. Islam seems like a very clever (and long term successful) attempt to unify the tribes of the Arabic peninsula by Mohamed. The Jewish religion seems like a very clever attempt to unify the foreign worker underclasses of Egypt under one banner by Moses, although it seems that much of what passes for Moses handywork was really written in Babylon more than a thousand years after.

Buddhism seems to have some similitudes with Xtianism in that the prophet himself didn't write a word (that we know of) although the follow up seems a bit more straight forward in Buddhism than in Xtianism, plus, it isn't easy to find a clear political use of Buddhism (unless you consider the enlightened administration of Ashoka as political use) while the political use of Xtianism has been frequent since it has been a popular religion.

Were they all 'delusional'? Cause - effect relation in Abrahamic religions seems quite direct, so I have my doubts, I'm more inclined to think that each of the 'movers' (Moses, Saul, Mohamed) claimed to have visions to advance their argument. With Siddhartha the only possible delusion would be the claim that he remembered his previous incarnations, considering that those can be retrieved using hypnosis (regardless of what you think of the veracity of those events) it is plausible to think he wasn't delusional in the conventional sense. As for JC, it is very hard to tell anything, from my perspective his historicity is dubious to begin with, and there is likely a blend of individuals coined into one person, plus a good deal of exaggeration and/or tales after the fact that makes very difficult to tell if he (or they) was/were delusional.

I have not that much knowledge of Zoroaster to have and opinion there.

As for the 'new' prophets, Joseph Smith and Ron L. Hubbard, I think that the delusional bunch were the followers. J. Smith may have been delusional but the elaborated deception to prove his account was true makes me think he wasn't. and Ron L.... well he himself wrote that religion was wonderful business, so no delusion there either.

[Swatopluk]

Those are the two most prominent cases I had in mind too.
A most interesting case is the Bahai religion. To my knowledge it is the only one that considers itself to be not the ultimate truth but just another transition stage. When mankind would become mature enough, the next revelation would come. In essence humans (and other intelligent species elsewhere) are seen as school children that need to learn their lessons before they can advance. And among the most important lessons is to be humble about one's own developmental status. From that point of view the main problem with other religions is their lack of humbleness not their content. Given that the founder of the Bahai religion had cult leader attitudes himself (calling himself "The Door" ('Bab', the religion's name is derived from that) and that Bahai never held state power, it is of course speculation, whether that doctrine of humbleness would have prevailed had there been a Persian Constantine adopting the faith for his own purposes. Buddhism did not stop large scale atrocities in East Asia. All major religions seem to have their genocides attached to them even if the doctrine is totally opposed to that type of behaviour. And state atheism has as bad a trade record. Nothing seems to trigger violent intolereance in humans more than differences in spiritual belief (or lack thereof).

[Griffin NoName]

Of course there are a number of clear cases of fakery. The size of the bank account of the  founder (minus what (s)he started with plus what (s)he spend after for private use) can be a strong indicator.

But the reverse is not true? If the bank account is empty, the religion is the true path?

[Swatopluk]

No, not all frauds are successful. And even religion derived wealh is not a 100% proof of fraud. It's just something to rise suspicion.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Buddhism did not stop large scale atrocities in East Asia. All major religions seem to have their genocides attached to them even if the doctrine is totally opposed to that type of behaviour.

I don't think a religion in itself can stop atrocities, the question is if it encourages atrocities. For some reason I'm inclined to think that abrahamic religions are more prone to encourage atrocities than eastern ones, but I may be biased on the subject.

[Griffin NoName]

Buddhism did not stop large scale atrocities in East Asia. All major religions seem to have their genocides attached to them even if the doctrine is totally opposed to that type of behaviour.

I don't think a religion in itself can stop atrocities, the question is if it encourages atrocities. For some reason I'm inclined to think that abrahamic religions are more prone to encourage atrocities than eastern ones, but I may be biased on the subject.

Hang on there. What about the argument for religion because without it society would have no morality, and no frame of reference.

How does religion have it both ways?

[Swatopluk]

That one is simple. Religion is the ideal means to transform heinous acts into moral ones.
If you covet your neighbour's possessions and cut him to pieces in order to get them, that is atrocious murder and greed.
If on the other hand you declare him/her to be an enemy of god (a witch maybe) and either act as above or have the authorities do it and give you a large part of the spoils as reward, that is upstanding moral citizenry.
There is a notorious tradition esp. in the US of fundies committing theft, fraud and worse justifying it as acts to further the glory of god.
Nothing new there, the technical term is 'pia fraus' (pious fraud), i.e. e.g. faking miracles in order to improve conversion rates. It is behaviour like that that led to the theory that all religion is a fraud committed by 'the priests' for purely selfish purposes (Priestertrug). The first to put it in (surviving) words seem to have been pre-socratic philosophers in Greece.

[Sibling DavidH]

A real religon has silly clothes, particularly hats.  Its priests also chant stuff in a dismal drone.  Fake religions try to communicate with their adherents, not to confuse them.

[Swatopluk]

You have not seen some fake religions I have. There are many of what Scott Adams ('Dilbert') christened 'confusopols' among them.
It's at the very core of 'mystery cults' fake and genuine.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Somewhere or other, I read an article that was a follow-up to the God Helmet one, in that it appears we have a brain function that seems to make us perceive the "other".

Now if we've previously been indoctrinated in one or more forms of the god meme, then we typically associate this 'other' phenomena with some sort of deity or at the very least, metaphysical events.

It appears this 'other' function in our brains is normally used to allow us to dissociate thoughts from our own self, for more abstract ideas.  This ability is paramount in a self-aware, but cooperative species-- it enables more functional cooperative behavior (so you can easily see what drove it to exist in the first place).

And certain forms of head trauma (including being struck by lightning) can activate this 'other' function in ways that are far above the normal help-you-be-cooperative ways.  See the god helmet Wiki.

Next, the article describes OCD behavior-- not the highly compulsive types where the sufferers are truly victims of their brains, but the mildly OCD types that are otherwise highly functional individuals.

In many mildly OCD people, following certain behavioral rules becomes a coping mechanism (to deal with the OCD) to the point of fanaticism.   Normally, these rules are only applied to self, and possibly a few associative family members; not really impacting the larger communities.

But.

What happens when you get the following combination:

An individual is mildly OCD.
The individual is also somewhat in a position of authority, at least peripherally.
The individual has some charisma, or is at least prone to writing, or has potential followers who are prone to writing.
Some event triggers a major "god helmet" event-- changing the brain enough such that these "god helmet" events become stronger and more frequent-- at least for a little while.

The outcome?  The mildly OCD personality asserts it's desire for sometimes arbitrary rules, and is "legitimized" by the "god helmet" event(s), and the authority/charisma causes these to be impressed onto the followers/hangers-on, and someone writes these new rules down....

What are the odds of all of these events happening in the correct order, with the correct "friendly" cultural situation?  Not very high, I'd wager-- but just high enough that they happened occasionally. 

And you get a religion springing up from the OCD "prophet".

If you have a culture that also has easy access to hallucinogenic substances?  I'd think it would occur more frequently.

-----------------

In the final analysis, the article concluded that many of human's religions likely sprung up from people suffering from mild OCD...

.. but that the original god meme likely came from individuals who's "other" brain function was stimulated by some sort of trauma or other.

However, once an idea meme is invented, it tends to perpetuate itself within cultures, by ingratiating itself into the impressionable next generation, who in turn pass it on.

[Roland Deschain]

Interesting article on the god helmet. There is so much we still do not know about the brain and how it functions, that this is entirely possible. That there is an innate need and ability to believe in something is fairly self-evident when looking at human history, but we are slowly but surely socially evolving to the point where science is answering so much of what we once attributed to god, that the old beliefs are slowly dying out, although not without one hell of a fight.

This is the problem with religion in general, even if they were started as a complete fraud. Later on, as with scientology, many adherents truly believe that what they are following is real, with some adherents become so fanatical as to enter madness. Are some people so unhappy with their life and the truths that science has uncovered, that they are willing to exit reality completely, or is it something completely different?

[Griffin NoName]

........... with some adherents become so fanatical as to enter madness. Are some people so unhappy with their life and the truths that science has uncovered, that they are willing to exit reality completely, or is it something completely different?

never forget Abraham was willing to kill his son

I think as long as we don't figure out what happened before the big bang there will always be religion

[Roland Deschain]

never forget Abraham was willing to kill his son

I think as long as we don't figure out what happened before the big bang there will always be religion

I love hearing the apologists talk about Abraham, completely glossing over the fact of what he was willing to do (allegedly). I love science so much because of what it doesn't tell us to do.