Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief - Part III

I have now watched this whole series. I love it. It is a brilliant series indeed. I am now off to watch the tapes as well.

Just had to add that I really enjoyed the format of this doc. The rough, sort of home-made feel to the film set off the very candid and intimate discussions nicely. I felt like Miller was just stopping by for tea and a chat as though he does this regularly (as he may for all I know) with the likes of Arthur Miller and McGuinn. How fun would it be to have a circle of friends like that for a good debate?

sorry to hijack the board, had to get those ramblings off my chest. I welcome any comments/feedback.

I think some humans are designed to believe and some are designed to discover. It's like a leader/follower dichotomy. Some will see a flower and be awed by its beauty as a creation of God, they need go no further. Others have an inate drive to study in detail, catagorize, and learn all about that flower and why a certain bird visits it or why it looks similar to or different from another flower. The more one knows through observation, the less mysterious the world becomes, and therefore, the need for comfort from scary unknown natural events lessens. One could extrapolate, then, that eventually we will know everything and there will be no need for god. Or, if you like, we will have become god.

Now imagine that that revered person is proved wrong. He said the world is flat and if you sailed too far, you'd fall off the edge. But someone just sailed beyond the horizon and returned to say the world must be round. The revered leader can either change his mind, calling into question everything they've ever proclaimed and their very authority, or they can denounce the truth and start the inevitable inquisitions of those who refuse to "believe" what they "know" to be wrong.

Imagine the terror of witnessing a solar eclipse or a lightening strike without any knowledge of what they were. Some older, wiser member calms the group either with knowledge: this has happened before, no need to panic, or with speculation: you did something bad so god(s) is mad and if you do something to get back his favor, the sun will reappear. That person would be considered pretty powerful either way. And once you had the knowledge to predict such events, you would be god-like yourself.

Since the first apes began reconfiguring their posture to see over tall grasses, and even in species of considerably lower intelligence, groups have leaders. Some member of the group is in charge of learning about their surroundings and passing along this information to the group in useful bits. In human beings, these were the clerics, the elders, the seers, the alchemists, the priests. They, too, evolved over time as their role in the group changed. Some have split from the religio-philisophical realm into the sciences, but the sciences themselves emerged from this reading of natural surroundings and theorizing about why things happen.

As was mentioned by Marx, religion is the opiate of the people. It provides hope and guidance to people who live basically miserable lives. Humans will always try to alleviate pain, boredom, and anxiety. Prayer and the promise of paradise in the next life work well, alcohol and drugs alter the consciousness as well, meditation, etc. have always been used to make people feel better about having to get up everyday and do the same crap they had to do yesterday in order to be able to get up and do the same crap again the next. Religion, at least, offered regular get-togethers and celebrations and a sense of belonging, regardless of the follower's understanding or intentions. It also provided a moral authority, which offered support and guidance to people too uneducated to necessarily make the right decisions about their own best interests. This show could have been subtitled ..."or the rise of education and literacy"

Organized religions, I believe, were extrememly useful in controlling an illiterate and uneducated populace while at the same time exalting certain classes. Religion created a socio-economic asset and structure that maintained the lavish lifestyles of those who'd climbed up their self-created ranks.

I LOVE this series. What a wonderful man, reminds me of my grandpa. I've always thought, if given a "genie in a bottle wish," that I would ask that no more death, destruction, persecution, and insult ever be caused by or in the name of religion. Too many people have been killed, not only over disagreements over which god/gods are true, but over disagreements of HOW to worship a particular deity correctly. All organised religions have some degree of separatism, i.e. that we're better than them because we believe this and they don't. How many lives would have been spared had rulers not had a "god" on their side urging them into battle. How many of those rulers hypocritically claimed direction from god to gain favor for selfish reasons?

The name of the series is-a rough history of disbelief, not a brief history....

What sweet, wise man.

I don't fear death, but I'm not too keen on dying.