No, major religions don't provide a truer picture of reality

It isn't surprising that, as an atheist, I find a lot not to like in Ross Douthat's book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious. However, what does surprise me is how weak Douthat's arguments are. 

For while I admire his clear writing style, as befits a New York Times opinion columnist, often he simply tosses off glib statements about the marvelousness of religious belief without backing them up with either solid facts or persuasive reasoning.

Here's an example from the book's "Big Faiths and Big Questions" chapter, which argues that the world's major religions are a better bet than minor religions for someone wanting to dip their spiritual toe into religious waters -- or if they're gung-ho, their entire being.

I think the process whereby we moved from localized religion to the world religions was in fact a movement toward greater understanding and wisdom, while the (partial, incomplete) abandonment of those religions has been the late-modern world's great mistake.

Rather than just being a way station on an unstoppable march from pervasive supernaturalism to disenchanted secularism, the great religions represented -- and still represent! -- a balancing that comes much closer than either modern materialism or primeval religions to capturing the full story of the world.

So if you are a seeker on the threshold of religion, a browser in the Bookstore of All Religions, it's entirely reasonable to let yourself be drawn toward a major world religion rather than fretting that religious truth might be hiding from you in some minor Californian sect or exotic mystery cult.

These religions spread around the world for a reason, they're available to you for a reason, they triumphed over primeval belief systems for a reason, they have moral and metaphysical commonalities for a reason -- and that reason is that they represented an advancement, a convergence, toward a truer picture of reality.

I'm far from being an expert in the history of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism (I don't consider Buddhism a religion, though Douthat does). But I'm pretty sure that the reason these became major religions wasn't because they were so great at describing a truer picture of reality than other religions consigned to minor status.

For example, Christianity prospered when emperors made it the Roman Empire's state religion in the 4th century. And Islam prospered through early Muslim conquests. Yet Douthat would have us believe that the major religions attracted followers through some sort of Darwinian Survival of the Truthiest. 

This goes against one of the primal facts about evolution: that species prosper not because they possess a greater grasp of reality, but because they are adept at passing on genes, organisms being well suited to the environment in which they find themselves.

Similarly, a religion does well when it meets the needs of people who encounter it. If being in touch with truths about reality was the greatest need of people, then science would be hugely more popular than religion. 

But this isn't the case. Many more people are devoutly religious than are devoted to science. The reason is that religions meet needs other than conveying truth. In fact, religions prosper by denying certain key truths, such as:

-- Everyone dies, and there is no persuasive evidence for life after death.
-- There also is no persuasive evidence of the supernatural.
-- Since something must always have existed, this is more likely to be nature than God.

Religions appeal to people because they offer an alternative to the sometimes bleak truths of secularism and science. We are born, we live, we die. There is no God looking after us. In the grand scheme of things, we matter very little.

A religion typically brings like-minded people together in a communal fashion. It feels good to be a part of something greater than yourself, to worship with others in a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood. I don't deny all that, having experienced these benefits during the 35 years I was a member of an Eastern religion (a minor one). 

However, now I still feel I'm part of something greater than myself: reality. I still have a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood: friends, family, acquaintances. Religions don't offer anything that can't be obtained from other sources. 

Heck, even if what you desire is unreality, a lack of truth, the far corners of the Internet beckon. There's no need to join a religion to unmoor yourself from reality, if that's what you want. Just seek out your favorite conspiracy theory.

Comments

[October]

IMO
Religions provides authentic way to connect to something which can be incomprehensible by mind yet. Abrahamic faiths speak of God as benevolent and faithful if you are faithful to religion's private god.

Hinduism is different. They try to tackle the same question with karma and stuck in life-death loop until Moksha is gained. That's like adding spice to the mix we call god.

But Hinduism provides a way to look at things from more pragmatic view until you are caught in all dogma and stuff we cant understand.

So is there a really something when we die? Karma and kaal is looking at us just to devour the soul and put into 8.4 million cycle

what if i have absolutely no idea about karma and these things are.. say i am devout pure christian living in remote part of California and has never explored Hinduism and its complex set of all the things like Non-Dualism, Death God, (have to incarnate into another life) stuff

To be honest, It really matters what you put into your head before you die.
Say i reject Karma and all is absolutely BS to me but Jesus is my Lord and savior..

what do you think? what do you prefer... Or RS methodology of Kaal and Guru.

oh it becomes so complex in just matter of few lines and create chaos in mind.

My idea is to be "just Be". let it flow from there. No need to "Believe" in stuff . anyway that's not gonna be helpful.

Genuine advice i give to people is "Just Be". But be pure and Authentic in "self". Your self is always there . because you feel it. So where that "self is going if die.

Cultivate your own Reality( Here and Now) and never compromise on what your reality Tells you via intuitions.

You will see all the things are falling in places and and all complex theories melts in your Self.

Maybe then one needs no religion or RS or Non-dualism. Because my reality is my Root reality of self.

what u say

[October]

i am sorry if my English is bit tricky but the way i felt, i wrote. please dont mind

[sant64]

"Since something must always have existed, this is more likely to be nature than God."

But science does not say that something must have always existed. Science says everything that does exist-- materially exist -- came into being 13.8 billion years ago. That's one reason among many for the possibility of a divine creator of some sort.

Not having my hands on D's book and just going off what you say of his arguments for the big religions, I can agree with you that these religions have a lot of problems. For example, I've been reading a lot recently about the history of slavery in Christianity. Most Christians don't realize that slavery is fully condoned in the Old Testament, including the 10 Commandments, and in the New Testament, including by Jesus and Paul. Several popes wrote bulls condoning slavery which fueled the slave trade in the West, dozens of Catholic orders had slaves, and even some Catholic saints had slaves. Before the Civil War, no Catholic bishop spoke a word against slavery, and the church only finally condemned slavery absolutely in 1890. Again, most Christians are ignorant about this, and if asked would probably say that Christianity deserved credit for ending slavery. And so, in respect to one of the greatest moral evils of humanity, the big religions were actually on the wrong side of the moral reality of basic respect for human equality, only to be brought right by largely secular humanitarian impulses that forced the big churches to mend their ways.

I can see how one could appraise religions' shortcomings and conclude indeed bleakly: "Religions appeal to people because they offer an alternative to the sometimes bleak truths of secularism and science. We are born, we live, we die. There is no God looking after us. In the grand scheme of things, we matter very little."

But I see this bringing us right back to the still open door of how all the universe's grandeur came from nothing 13.8 billion years ago, creating a so far as we know lone planet where this thing called life came to be we know not how, creating we sentient beings from DNA that came to be we know not how, imbued with this wonder called consciousness that we can't scientifically account for, all pointing us to a compelling intuition that we have a relationship with Whatever or Whoever is responsible for all this. The door isn't yet closed on the possible reality of that Whatever or Whoever.

[avoidreifications]

No, Sant64, there is no such entity that you refer to as science that says unilaterally "Science says everything that does exist-- materially exist -- came into being 13.8 billion years ago."

To the contrary, much more accurate to say "scientists" since that avoids indulging in reification. For your edification, here are five distinct views that one should consider and I quote.

Did the Universe Ever Have a Beginning? The Case for an Eternal Cosmos
The prevailing Big Bang model suggests that the universe emerged from a singularity—a point of infinite density—approximately 13.8 billion years ago. However, a closer examination of cutting-edge physics reveals compelling reasons to question whether the universe ever truly had an absolute beginning. Several alternative models propose that the cosmos is eternal, cycling through infinite phases or existing as part of a greater, unending structure. These theories not only challenge the notion of a singular beginning but also offer solutions to some of the deepest cosmological puzzles.

1. Eternal Inflation: An Unceasing Cosmic Tapestry
Physicists Andrei Linde and Paul Steinhardt’s Eternal Inflation model extends the principles of inflationary cosmology, proposing that our universe is just one among countless “bubble” universes in a vast, ever-expanding multiverse. While each individual universe (including ours) may appear to have a beginning, the overarching inflationary process never truly stops. New universes are constantly being generated, much like an infinite fractal unfolding across time. If this model is correct, then what we perceive as the Big Bang was merely a localized event, not the ultimate beginning of everything.

2. Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC): A Universe of Infinite Aeons
Nobel laureate Roger Penrose’s Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) challenges the conventional idea of a universe that begins and ends once. Instead, it suggests that our cosmos is just one in an infinite series of "aeons," where each Big Bang is simply the transition from a previous universe's final stage. In this model, the universe undergoes a continuous cycle, evolving from one aeon to the next without a singular beginning or end. The death of one universe becomes the birth of another, implying an eternal cosmic process rather than a singular moment of creation.

3. The Big Bounce: A Universe That Contracts and Rebounds
Rather than emerging from an initial singularity, the Big Bounce hypothesis, rooted in Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC), proposes that the universe undergoes an endless cycle of expansion and contraction. Developed by Martin Bojowald and Abhay Ashtekar, this model suggests that before the Big Bang, the universe was in a previous state of contraction. When it reached a minimum size, quantum effects prevented a total collapse, causing a "bounce" that led to a new phase of expansion. If this cycle has repeated indefinitely, then the universe has never had an absolute beginning—just an unending sequence of cosmic rebirths.

4. The Quantum Eternity Theorem: Time Without Boundaries
Quantum mechanics provides another reason to question the idea of a universe with a definite starting point. The Quantum Eternity Theorem posits that if the total energy of the universe is zero (as some interpretations suggest), then time extends infinitely in both directions. This means that the universe could have existed forever, without a singular moment of creation. This notion aligns with several quantum gravity models, which replace the singularity of the Big Bang with a more fundamental, eternal quantum state.

5. Emergent Universe Models: A Universe That Grows From Stability
Physicists George Ellis and A. Banerjee have proposed Emergent Universe Models, which argue that the universe began not from a singularity but from a stable, eternal state. Rather than "starting" from nothing, the universe was always in existence, slowly transitioning into its current expanding phase. This idea bypasses many of the paradoxes associated with singularities and offers an alternative to both inflationary and bouncing models."

[Jimmy]

100+ APs are my proof that there is more to this life than meets the eye. In all those journeys I came back with this reality check you can use anytime. Why is it we can stare at a Sunset? The beauty hypnotizes us. It is the same way with a fire. Why? Because it reminds us of the worlds we came from. It is like the implant in the dove that drives him back home. This hunger will drive us into all kinds of pursuits- Drugs,Sex, Money, Rock n Roll. Where does that hunger come from?
It is God.

[Ron E.]

Generally, the meaning and raison d’etre of the word science "knowledge, awareness, understanding". There was a time when religion and science overlapped studying what we now call natural science and philosophy. But, the two evolved into different disciplines – probably because some of the findings naturally contradicted religious texts.

With us humans, we naturally gravitate toward wanting explanations (a survival thing) and depending on our inclinations, culture and conditioning we settle, often somewhat precariously, for one or the other. The difference seems to be that the nature of science is to question while religious thinking is to believe and accept (again, a survival thing).

Our debates, our questions and beliefs can be all very interesting, but all coming down to the same thing – survival. Questioning, understanding why and how things happen has aided our physical survival; and there is always the ego or self that needs to survive, desperately needing to be justified and secure in its line of thinking.

Science will undoubtedly reveal more of the unknowns of the universe, but there will always be things that are beyond our understanding (and perhaps there is no such thing as true reality) but with our tendency to desire answers, to be secure and right, we will always hope and believe that we, someone or something has the ultimate answers.

[Appreciative Reader]

Yep. It is no more than a lie, that monotheism is an evolution up from polytheism --- be it oafish monotheistic beliefs like in the Big Three, or be it Advaitic deism. Likewise the associated conceit, that "major" nonsense is any more reasonable than fringe ones. John Frum worshipers are no different, at all, than Jesus worshipers: both subscribe to halfwitted beliefs: and arguably the John Frum worshipers are less stupid, given their backdrop of lack of knowledge, and given Jesus worshipers commit to their particular halfwittery despite being exposed to much of present day knowledge, so that the delusions of the latter are all the more silly.

[sant64]

What is this all about? Gurinder tying turban

https://x.com/jesbhullar/status/1836331034746466749

[umami]

sant64,

I found this...
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/haryana/virendra-dhillon-named-jagmalwali-dera-successor/
"During the visit, Dhillon met the new dera chief of Dera Jagmalwali, Virendra Singh Dhillon, and ceremonially tied a turban on him."

Dera Jagmalwali is another Shabd yoga hub...
https://m.facebook.com/DeraJagmalwali/

What relation to RSSB? No idea.

[umami]

Oh, okay. The Tribune article mentions Mastana Shah Bolochistani Ashram. Mastana Bolochistani was a follower and representative of Sawan Singh (Great Master), so Virendra Singh Dhillon must be in one of MSB's successor lines...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastana_Balochistani

GSD and VSD, both Dhillon. Could they be family as well?

[umami]

"After Baba Sawan Singh, the [RSSB?] movement split into four groups, one of them led by Mastana Balochistani. After the death of Mastana Balochistani, his movement was split into three groups."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dera_Sacha_Sauda&wprov=rarw1

[sant64]

Grok's take on the RSSB financial controversy. How likely is it that Gurinder is innocent?

https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1898395660183015571

[umami]

sant 64,

I quit Twitter a long time ago, and Musk is so toxic, I won't sign up for X. Please summarize Grok's conclusion.

In my understanding, all the troubles for Malvinder and Shivinder started when GSD sent Sunil Godhwani their way, but here's a bombshell, it seems that Godhwani is off the hook in the siphoning of Rs 1260 crore (approximately $150 million) from RFL.
"The court discharged other accused persons and said, 'Accused persons namely Sunil Godhwani, Kavi Arora, Anil Saxena, Maninder Singh, Pankaj Sharma, Sunil Garg, Harpal Singh, Rashi Dhir, AC Mahajan and Narender Kumar Goushal, are discharged as no offence is made out against them.'"
https://legal.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/litigation/delhi-court-pronounces-charges-against-malvinder-shivender-singh-for-cheating-conspiracy/117321781