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Leora's avatar

Perhaps it depends on the religion, because Jews do this all the time. My family of atheists and agnostics just sat in synagogue and fasted for 24 hours because that's how we reflect and atone and close the chapter of the last year. While I enjoy incense and wine and book clubs, I don't think they can really substitute 5,000 years of accumulated tradition, philosophy, language, literature, music, etc., that tie you to a hundred generations of forebears. Of course, there are plenty of people who find all this unsatisfying, but it works for a lot of people. Jonathan Haidt is Jewish and I expect is speaking from this perspective.

(We call it observance, not playacting.)

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Luke T. Harrington's avatar

This is beautifully written, and you make some good points, but I feel like I can only half agree with you here. I do the Christianity stuff because I believe it to be true, and the Apostle Paul’s on your side (“If there is no resurrection of the dead, we are of all men the most to be pitied,” etc.)…but at the same time, it seems like there’s something entirely reasonable about saying, “I don’t believe God is real, but I *do* believe evolution has left me with a need for supernatural belief, and I have to satisfy that need however I can.” In that sense, practicing religion is no different from eating Splenda or whatever (“Evolution gave me a sugar craving, but the modern world has made sugar more dangerous than helpful, so I’m fulfilling the craving the safest way I know”).

It’s true that, if there’s nothing beyond the grave, religion is ultimately pointless, but then…so is everything. We’re all just here playing a game that everyone, eventually, loses.

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