Can religion be reintegrated into modern democratic societies? What i mean is the end to separation of state and church. Instead of trying to integrate religion into democracy or have it excluded do it the other way around. Democratize religion and integrate its ideas and cutoms on a national level. So inspect and filter all ideas through a much more open fluid and less authoritative religious structures. Have religion pervade society and social thought and be considered when questions are asked and answers are proposed.
Can Christianity with certain changes fit such a role in a way that would allow it to easy shrug off dogmatic oppressive ideas? With the death of positivism and a more open look at science and also language and interpretation is the time right to make religion a major part of life again in a beneficial way?
I mean if we assume for a moment it is possible how would we do it?
>So inspect and filter all ideas through a much more open fluid and less authoritative religious structures Not in the United States of America. We are protected from that kind of thought by our wonderful Constitution. (Thank God)
Cooper Brown
>dogmatic oppressive ideas Such as? There isn't exactly a Christian sharia. >Inb4 muh laws of Moses
Colton Phillips
Wouldn't that just be to call the religion itself untrue? I mean if the authority and "truth" of the religion doesn't come from God then you're basically just writing fiction by comity.
Kevin Brooks
It is not fiction in the sense that the writers did write it thousands of years ago. And its important(and unlike say lords of the rings) because it has had a huge impact on society throughout the ages and because of its pretense at the time to be telling a truthful account and important and foundations laws.
Benjamin Butler
>It is not fiction in the sense that the writers did write it thousands of years ago.
How long ago the writers wrote it doesn't really have any baring on whether it is fiction or not.
Nathaniel Ramirez
why on earth would you do something like that?
Zachary Morgan
Well for them it wasnt fiction. According to our judgments it is but to them, back then, laws and creation myths and history were all mixed up. It was true to them. And what is true to us now will not be true to people in another 2k years. What is important is that it was an honest view on different matters that was deemed important ot be written down this way. Our society now is much more complex and yet it is not separate, it is not alien, it is simple a stretched out more detailed version. In ancient texts we can still find a sort of mirror as to who we are. Ancient times for us are like the early ears in a person's life. They start the chain of his life going. they hold the roots of who we are and we can look back at them in moments of existential doubt. they can be sources of criticism, like a person telling himself before doing something questionable that this is now who he is, or that he knows this is wrong or right. Of course it has to be nuances which is exactly why religions needs to be taken back and adopted by everyone including intellectuals. It has to undergo a transformation. And I think instant communications embolden religious ideas and their methods of persuasion.
Adrian Parker
Can modern democratic societies be reintegrated into religion?
>Democratize religion
lel
Brandon Jones
God you atheist fedoras are a really special kind. Despite being essentially an atheist I find that I cant seem to stand you people anymore.
James Torres
Your points don't logically follow each other.
Saying....
>it was true for them as they had myths and history mixed up
...doesn't automatically lead to...
>in ancient texts we can find a mirror of who we are
...and that doesn't lead to....
>religions needs to be taken back and adopted by everyone including intellectuals.
You're just mashing points and sentences together with no consideration as to whether one supports the other or not.
A word salad.
Jayden Morris
Religion is already integrated in modern democracies. What you're asking is if they can be reintegrated into the modern state.
They can, but the problem is you end up with something resembling modern Islamic republics which put all religion under the tyranny of the majority (or the most vocal and least repressed among them) and has a populist, nationalist, and reactionary form of Islam pervade social thought and beliefs.
There are many ways to end up with dogmatic oppression that doesn't involve giving all religious power to a small group of men in silly hats. Democratization isn't about making anything a beneficial part of life, but about handing power and increasing the reach of whatever is democratized to the most powerful demographic.
Alexander Nguyen
Those were all points to support the idea that ancient texts presented a more concentrated and general world view, one that we expanded but did not really fully transgress nor can we. And in this sense ancient texts are a continuous source of information and criticism of modern expansions upon those ancient elements. There is a historical continuum through which religion over and over again played an important part in many areas of our lives, including law, art, politics etc..
Hunter Lopez
>Those were all points to support the idea that ancient texts presented a more concentrated and general world view, one that we expanded but did not really fully transgress nor can we.
That doesn't mean anything, in fact saying more concentrated and more general could be taken to contradict each other, if anything.
>And in this sense ancient texts are a continuous source of information and criticism of modern expansions upon those ancient elements.
In what sense? A more "concentrated general" sense?
>There is a historical continuum through which religion over and over again played an important part in many areas of our lives, including law, art, politics etc..
It's historically true that superstition has traditionally always played a role in human culture, yes. You're not making any sort of argument why that is a good thing.
perhapd contenrated is not the right term. The ideas are general and not as detailed as today but are concentrated in the sense that they are all mixed together into a single source. Supersition presupposes that there is some absolute truth out there through which certain things can be definitely said to be somehow absolutely false.
Gavin Lee
>Supersition presupposes that there is some absolute truth out there through which certain things can be definitely said to be somehow absolutely false.
Every religion presupposes there is an absolute truth.
Evan Flores
We interpret religion as we see fit. We can and some do reinterpret religious texts as writings of people, attempting to describe themselves or prescribe behaviors to themselves. As people who back then felt it is necessary for their functioning to believe in an eternal creator. Well you can reinterpret that as a creating force, as some sort of pantheistic or panantheistic ideas.
Nicholas Roberts
Religion presupposing something simply means that the followers of that religion choose to interpret or treat its texts a certain way. Something that can change.
Kevin Gutierrez
>democratize religion >integrate its ideas and customs on a national level. absolutely disgusting
Hunter Myers
>We interpret religion as we see fit
>Religion presupposing something simply means that the followers of that religion choose to interpret or treat its texts a certain way.
Then we're just back to the beginning of this entire discussion.
If there is no truth to religious claims then you are basically saying they are untrue but "hey, errr, something or other it sounds cool when I'm on acid maaaaan".
Jacob Ramirez
No, you are simply thinking like a fedora. Religious claims might have turhtg but religious claims are the claims of religious followers and they make those claims based on how they interpret religious texts. There is no "true" true meaning of a religious text since it is a text and thus must be interpreted in some way, the way we choose to interpret it. Religious people can simply interpret truth as a historical importance. Meaning that the value of the bible is in its historical influence over say the jewish people throughout history. Its truth lies in the fact that it has helped shape jews into the people that they are now, admitting that the bible has and always was reinterpreted by different jewish scholars based on the realities of a certain point in history. The text can be absolutely true, whatever, but since it must always be interpreted by us it has a progressing meaning.
Jackson Gomez
You appear to have written a long paragraph when you could have said "making stuff up is totally cool, anything anyone wants to make up is right".
Adrian Adams
All religions are democratized through interpretation. Those that aren't tend to die.
Nonetheless, you probably don't actually want to have your religions integrated with, nor as rampantly democratic as, their secular state counterparts.
The main reason being that religion is slower to change than society, providing an anchor of sorts against sudden and catastrophic change of societal norms. While secular society provides the mobility needed to adapt and survive, religion provides a drag against the temptation to accept anything and everything at face value, granting a certain level of stability, even though, religion itself, eventually adapts, only slower.
Granted, it's a tricky balance. Where religion is too slow to adapt, and has too much influence over society, it risks creating an inability to steer through the storm, risking its own destruction as well as the society under its control. Alternatively, when society runs amuck too quickly, and religion has no hold, you can create irreparable damage between the generational bonds that allow society to progress and, as a result, fragment it irreparably. Such imbalances can be isolated but the damage from them can spread in viral like fashion.
Ideally, each of these institutions should be separate, and to some degree, protected from one another, but each also needs influence, both from the other, and from the people governed by those institutions.
