On Religion, Existentialism, and Conspiracy Theories
I think an emergence of conspiracy theories and pseudo-science theories and all the turmoil and confusion and people arguing what is moral and what’s is immoral, all this is a part of a bigger problem.
It’s mere symptoms of the disease that plagued Western civilization starting from Renaissance when the system of values and moral norms defining “good life” based on Christian faith was undermined by multiple scientific discoveries and emergence of philosophical theories questioning Christian dogmas and principles and its credibility in general.
Not even the credibility of mythology associated with Christianity and Abrahamic religions in general, but whether it really holds true values and morals people should follow. Like Nietzsche said, “God’s dead, we’ve killed him.” Also, it feels like there wasn’t any way to avoid it.
In my personal opinion, Abrahamic religions are a really strange phenomenon; they are pretty rigid in terms of their rules and the possibility to interpret their contents metaphorically. I can judge by the way they have a hard time turning into a source of philosophical wisdom stripping themselves from its mythological contents.
As opposed to Eastern philosophies and religions like Hinduism, Buddhism or Daoism where philosophical aspect prevailed over its mythological elements. It seems like it was never important for anybody whether the presence of various gods and deities correlated with objective reality. It was a mythological, fairytale aspect of those philosophies that we perceive according to the principle of the relation of fairy tale reality to objective reality; namely as symbols and metaphors.
For example, we don’t have arguments about whether gods and deities in Hinduism and Buddhism were real, and those religions still have a strong influence on their respective cultures. And for worshippers of those religions the aspects related to rituals and superstitions, and aspects related to philosophies and morals are separated.
In this respect what also comes to my mind are polytheistic religions of Ancient Greece and Rome. I was thinking; Are they even religions? I mean, I doubt if anybody in Ancient Greece and Rome ever really believed that those big pantheons of various deities and multiple convoluted and elaborate stories related to them could be real. They were way too convoluted, elaborate and by all means literary. And with deities having so many human qualities and flaws it would be difficult to take them seriously.
So it more feels like, in fact, those civilizations weren’t religious; what those pantheons and myths produced were mere rituals and superstitions, (plus inspiration for a very cool art) plus certain “fairy tale wisdom” and metaphors. But they didn’t serve what some philosophers now claim was the main and key purpose of religions in general; to provide society with norms, morals, feeling of purpose and identity, without which society wouldn’t be able to exist.
In Ancient Greece, the thing which served this purpose was, in fact, philosophy and it fulfilled its role pretty well, considering that this society was stable, with clear social norms, principles, and laws; plus with a certain level of freedom to choose personal values and beliefs.
This fact actually casts doubt on claims that from the anthropological point of view religions were necessary social constructs that allowed societies exist.
So, it makes me think that Abrahamic religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are a special breed that is really different from Oriental religions and philosophies, as well as Polytheistic religions of ancient and primitive societies.
And to the contrary to what some philosophers claim today their defining characteristics weren’t providing societies with values, morals, and purpose. As we can see Ancient Greece and Rome didn’t really need religion to have them. Also, in China historically and even today this task was successfully fulfilled by Confucianism, which was pure philosophical teaching that simply made sense.
As my personal observation, I’ve noticed there are two characteristics that differentiate Abrahamic religions from Hinduism or Buddhism or anything. First, they are pretty totalitarian in practice. During the centuries when Christianity was predominant (and to some degree in Islam now) the person was required to believe in what is written in holy books, plus to believe it almost literally, including obvious mythology, dubious dogmas, and controversies.
The scope of such belief also includes the necessity to interpret the world in a certain way, so it wouldn’t contradict religious teachings about it. Hence persecution of science. This leads to the second peculiarity of Abrahamic religions; namely, they have trouble distinguishing and disengaging its philosophical ideas from its mythology.
Basically, when we start questioning the credibility of events in those religions they begin to fall apart, their ideas begin to lose credibility as well. For example, it doesn’t happen to Buddhism, although, it’s most likely Buddha was a fictional character. In fact, it doesn’t really matter.
So it makes me personally suspect that those religions don’t really have valuable philosophy and wisdom that could exist on its own without being supported by a belief in myth.
It seems like the emergence of those religions was really a strange historical phenomenon rather than an anthropological necessity, considering that societies don’t really need strong religious beliefs to hold together, based on the example of ancient and eastern civilizations.
So considering these qualities, it wasn’t surprising that with quick progress of science and development of critical thinking and philosophy during the Renaissance, Christianity and associated with it system of morals and values started falling apart.
It wouldn’t happen to Buddhism, for example, because it’s philosophy itself, but as I’ve mentioned Christianity has trouble with dissociating its philosophical and mythological stuff. Or, I dunno, maybe if we don’t believe in miracles it stops making any sense at all.
So the thing is, whatever was supposed to fill this spiritual hole that was left after Christianity fell apart, it didn’t materialize. It’s also interesting and strange because once again looking at Eastern philosophies they fulfill this purpose pretty well for the thousands of years.
What I think failed to emerge as a unifying and universal philosophy had to be based on some deep core beliefs and convictions. But this placeholder for core beliefs had been filled by Christianity as well, so deep impact it had on human souls. So what followed included spiritual nihilism, the emergence of horrors of the 20th century, the emergence of fascism and devaluation of human life to nothing, which Nietzsche so sadly predicted. This all resulted from the disintegration of Christianity, as a fallout of its toxic explosion.
Or rather even due to the very existence of such strange phenomena. Not for nothing those religions were compared to drugs. Those are drugs, all right, and the consequences for the soul are similarly destructive.
So what, in fact, I wanted to say is that this whole turmoil, confusion, and beliefs in strange things and conspiracy theories are just an inevitable consequence of the existence of this spiritual hole left after religion. The hole not filled by any convincing philosophy, a system of values, or wisdom.
According to the principle of existentialism, it’s now our problem, for each of us to find some meaning in our lives. And without any core beliefs, so many people try to fill this void using any means they can find.
I heard some pseudo-scientific theories mentioning some pre-human civilizations living on Earth, possessing basically magic powers. I can see what it might mean for those who believe in such things; their existence would confirm that we are part of some meaningful process and so on. I personally believe that all the coincidences that led to the emergence of human life are too convenient to be mere coincidences and there is some purpose behind it.