Freedomain Radio

In a free society, without any welfare state, the role of voluntary organizations who try to help the poor and needy - like the church - will likely be bigger than under statist conditions. It is very probable that of all voluntary organizations who are helping the poor and needy the religious organizations have the best changes in competition with, for example, former socialist groups who possibly become less motivated if they can't spend no tax money anymore and have to compete with people with (fanatic) faith. 

If we look at history we can see that the church has flourished more while there was less statism (Ireland, Friesland and the highly decentralized Germany and Northern Italy in the Middle Ages for example). And while the state was big (the years after the French revolution, the Italian unification, the German unification, communist Eastern Europe, the social-democrat western world after World War I), the church was weak. The advocates of statism have always been fighting the church. Examples: massmurder of clerics and openly catholics after the French revolution, Kulturkampf in unified Germany, suppression of the church and even the killing of priests in Poland - and Eastern Europe in general - during the communist era, anti-christian views spread by the (cultural-)marxists in Western-Europe. 

I really don't know what the age of information has to do with the survival of an entity like the catholic church. That is like an assertion that choosing voluntary for being a member of the catholic church has to do with (a lack of) information, or a lack of rationality. I think that the attraction of voluntary organisations like the catholic church has to do with the lack of giving meaning and a lack of a spiritual component atheism has ''to offer''. 

I think it would be good to see where someones priority is. Striving to destroy the state or religion. Destroying them both would not happen. As long that atheists have no satisfactory answers to the big existential questions religion will continue to exist. Whether you will like it or not, whether you think all religion and all religious views are fiddlesticks or not, i think that religion is here to stay. As long people have the urge to transcend from misery, suffering, mental pain, unsolvable solipsism, lack of love, agony and the abyss of eternal death and entropy, and the rationalizations - adjurations of escapism - (''What do you lose? Come from nothing go back to nothing.'' /''Be glad that life has no meaning'' ''/You have to give a meaning to the moments''/ ''We all gonna die''/''It is ridicule to seek a meaning of live outside live itself''/ ''He lives on in his music/writings/children [or in our thoughts]" /''Where death is i am not and where i am there is no death etc. etc.)  some atheists come up with are held for what they are  there will be a market for religion. And i suppose that even such a simple thing like pangs of love will continue to exist as long there is time-space and human life, even under conditions of an extreme rational society, with long life, the best painkillers, holodecks and horns of plenty. 

Conclusion: Religion is here to stay. As long there is time-space and human life, there will be religion. If the highest priority for someone is to crush all religion, he should support the state, because less statism means more church. I have given the example of voluntary organizations helping the poor and some historical examples. Secondly: the lasting attraction to religion lies not in a lack of information or rationality but in the offering of meaning of life. "Accept what you call love is just a bunch of chemicals in your brain and there is no afterlife" has - no matter if it is true or false - less attraction to people who seek a meaning of life than God who is love and eternal life (no matter if that is true or false). If you look in the abyss, the abyss will look in you. So confronted with the ultimately meaninglessness of life (you die and all matter will face a big chill or a big crunch) you can ignore the fact, you can use some rationalizations as stopgaps, you can start drinking or using drugs or you can find a non-rational way out. All of these methods, including the methods atheists have, after being confronted with agony every day are a form of escapism. 

I know that Stephan Molyneux (and people attracted to his ideas) is vehemently anti-religious. This topic is not to provoke others to ridicule religion nor to let them expose arguments against religion, but to give some rational arguments why religion will be attractive forever, why religion will not disappear and how weak and unconsoling the ideas are where non-religieus people come up with while facing, for example, the prospect of total annihilation.

Taking refuge in delusions is a coping mechanism, which is why it's pervasive in society.

It isn't specifically religion that many find objectionable, but rather the lack of reason and critical thinking. People who believe religious claims also tend to believe in paranormal claims (eg. psychic phenomena).

You are wrong on two counts that I'd like to point out.

I won't speak for Stef's other listeners or Stef, but I will tell you the way I approach religion. It's not that I'm vehemently anti-religious, it's that I'm passionately pro-truth.

The second is that statism is a religion, not an enemy of religion. Just like religion, statism is the worship of an abstraction. It's just a competing religion, which presently appears to be a whole lotmore successful.

Alan Chapman:

It isn't specifically religion that many find objectionable, but rather the lack of reason and critical thinking. People who believe religious claims also tend to believe in paranormal claims (eg. psychic phenomena).

That is not my point. My point is that even the most rational and critical thinkers have nothing more to offer than a form of escapism (whether not thinking/feeling about it or an unconsoling aforism) while facing the prospect of total annihilation (death and entropy). That's why i think there will be always ''a market'' for religion (no matter if it is true or false) and even in a society with apparently pure rationalists. The main issue in choosing a view of life is not determined by reason alone.

What option has someone who faces the inevitability of death and entropy while everything rational turns out unconsoling and nothing rational can ward off agony?

Edit: Sorry, I don't think I was being curious enough in the post that was here.

Octo:

What option has someone who faces the inevitability of death and entropy while everything rational turns out unconsoling and nothing rational can ward off agony?

How do you cope with the inevitability of your own death? What consolation do you imbibe?

Octo:

...even the most rational and critical thinkers have nothing more to offer than a form of escapism...

What form of escapism are you referring to?

GregG:

How do you cope with the inevitability of your own death? 

 

All kind of ways that don't harm myself and others. Writing is one - a very important one - of them. But the most consoling, in a transforming way, is to reach the point that you experience to exceed language.

Alan Chapman:

What form of escapism are you referring to?

Not thinking about the subject. Aforisms that might be true, but do not help. Etc. 

Andrew Carey:

It's not that I'm vehemently anti-religious, it's that I'm passionately pro-truth.

The second is that statism is a religion, not an enemy of religion. 

I'd like to avoid a discussion whether religion has to do with anti-truth or truth. The only thing i wanted to point out, in a value free way, is that i have some reasons why religion is here to stay. 

I see the state, first and principally, as an instrument of agressive violence. And that's the only reason i am against the state. For me there is a fundamental difference between an institution, that i consider as anti-truth, is pointing a gun at people, robbing the people and an institution that i consider as anti-truth who does not such things. 

Not thinking about what subject? Do you mean not thinking about religion?

How is that a form of escapism?

What kind of help do aphorisms not provide?

Alan Chapman:

Not thinking about what subject? Do you mean not thinking about religion?

How is that a form of escapism?

What kind of help do aphorisms not provide?

No, i mean: not to think about death and entropy. 

Well, it doesn't heal anything of the tragic outlook. It is like a stopgab. The rational ideas and aphorisms do not solve any agony while confronted with the annihilation. ''You have to enjoy the years of life you have'' for example does not empty anything of the agony, which the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno has called ''el sentimiento trágico de la vida'', facing death and entropy. And that's why religion, which provides a frame that claims it is possible to escape from those things and gives a meaning, will always exist as long humanity exists. Rational arguments will not help to destroy religion. And this existence is beyond truth or not-truth. Beyond the question if religion is good or bad, fantasy or reality. That is my value free theory.  

Other arguments why religion is here to stay, in a free society: private organizations who help the poor will be probable basically christian and the church is historically weak while the state is big and big while the state is weak. The end of secular state schools will give space to more religious schools. If the state is a kind of religion like Andrew Carey has written, than it is probable that after the abolition of the state a lot of ex-believers in statism will search for a new religion on the free market. 

And just like Anarchism is the worship of being free....... well the delusions of being free.

If anything I find Anarchists views to be itself a self-coping mechanism. And as an anarchist.... that’s what I have come across... alot of people with alot of personal problems worshiping the destruction of others systems because they themselves cannot sustain within it.

A person who objects to being robbed or assaulted, who desires to live in peace, and who wants to be left alone isn't delusional.

Delusion is mental state in which a person is resistant to reason and evidence, and has impaired contact with reality.

The harboring of a death-wish for society, and the gratification of destroying the property of others, has nothing to do with anarchism; it's a psychological disorder which I would characterize as pathological schadenfreude (or possibly sadistic personality disorder).

Resistant to reason and evidence

Well firstly we must reason that we can never be free because we are always held to some account to something. Even to ourselves. If a person cannot see that then they are indeed deluding themselves of their own reality and ability.

Evidence: Freudians view on the ego as an example.

And delusion is only when we seek harm?? Soo the man with Schizoaffective Disorder sitting in his house alone rocking himself in the dark.... he’s not deluded at all because he doesn’t wear a government uniform and wants to hurt people... no problem with him at all…... If anything you must come to terms that we in some form are deluded, bound by the ID and Ego to become so. And again to feel that we can free ourselves is delusion.... and for an atheist to say such a thing is being a true hypocrite...