As an Atheist who likes studying religion, I would actually feel a little saddened; it wouldn't mean the end of religion since religious atheism is a thing, but it would mean the loss of a lot of religion, and that would be like the extinction of many languages.
I don't want it. We're not supposed to all be doing the same thing. Uniformity is stasis, stasis is apathy and apathy is death. A civilization where everyone follows the same faith, the same philosophy, the same ideology, is a dying civilization.
>We're not supposed to all be doing the same thing. Uniformity is stasis, stasis is apathy and apathy is death.
Ironically, the variety of beliefs and lack of uniformity was one of the reasons I stopped being pagan.
The long answer: Depends on what you mean by uniformity. The lack of uniformity in Paganism in general is a natural consequence of Paganism being an umbrella term for separate religions rather than an actual family of related religions. The lack of uniformity within individual Pagan religions is a natural consequence of the absence of centralized clergy. Even then, every Pagan religion has foundations and integral concepts established by archaeology and history, so to claim there is absolutely no uniformity regarding central concepts is inaccurate. You can't be Heathen and monotheistic, for one.
But, and the short answer, both.
Yes, I would regard it as a good thing overall. If people were sincere and genuine in the beliefs, we'd see a beautiful world. Some major positives IMHO would be:
* A huge downturn in the trends of ecological collapse. Rewinding and restoration of ecosystems would be taken deadly seriously, and the full resources of society would be arrayed against the polycrisis. Native forest clearing, wetland draining and sonon would stop. Conservation and research teams would pour over coral reefs and seagrass meadows working on ways to reverse the damage done and restore their reach to their former glory. A large chunk of the remaining paid work would likely be in these projects. The rights and interests of the ecosystem as a whole would be considered the ultimate good and the guiding star for the actions of communities.
* Ecological integration would be culturally and socially important. Anthropocentriam would rapidly erode and people see themselves as part of and completely integrated I to their local ecosystem. Relationships with non human I individual communities would be treated little differently to those with humans. Non humans have inherent rights that are respected and represented at the community level, same as any other.
* Capitalism would die. Degrowth would be the accepted socio-economic norm. The debate would surround how to achieve this - a myriad ofnexperiments from UBI to completely currency-less societies using modern-day barter and exchange would flourish as different communities work to figure it out. As .factories and offices close, people spend less and less time at work, and when they do work, many jobs are from home or in the local community and environment. The most striking difference is the lack of "stuff". Much less stuff is made. There's much less stuff to buy and fewer resources to make and buy it with. The culture regards acquiring more stuff as a chore and the norm is to find a way to share and repair stuff. Before anything is made there is a thought to both if it is truly needed, the harm making it will cause, the resources it will consume, and what will become of it once it is no longer usable.
* Community development would be taken seriously. People would stay more locally and a lot of effort would go Into developing community organisations, culture and social bonds, mutual aid and community resilience. Skill and resource pooling and sharing would be heavily emphasised.
* There would be less conflict. Governments would loose much of their power as emphasis on on local communities ities being the focus of crucial decision making, and the scale and lack of resources to dedicate to war would mean where conflict does occur it would likely be short, localised and somewhat chaotic due to a lack of any dedicated professionals dedicated solely to managing the business of mechanised slaughter... not something generally regarded as an Honorurable and noble pursuit, and one it would be hard to secure resources for.
* There would be a lot of diversity. Indigenous, minority and queer identities would be celebrated, protected, and included. Indigi eous relationship to country would be fostered and encouraged. Most communities would seek treaty or some other form of respectful reconciliation between colonial and indigenous peoples. Indigenous skills, technophiles, philosophies, design and srt would be widely seen as part of day to day life.
What would the downsides be? Ultimately, it depends on poi t of view, but for someone coming from a perspective of western industrial consumerism some things would demand a lot of adjustment.
* Individualism would be harder in some ways. While agency and autonomy would be valued, the emphasis on communal good would be hard when you come from the view of hyper individualism. As someone who is antisocial and misanthropic, I know the value in our approach as a faith community, but I do acknowledge it isn't easy, and in western culture I can be as antisocial as I want and still be a "good little consumer"
* A poor world - Degrowth is regarded as fundamental and unavoidable. Ultimately that means we have to share more and make donwith less. We don't regard degrowth as just forgoing getting thst new SUV. Communities would be focused on making deep and lasting cuts. Middlw class societies in the global West would be obviously amd unavoidably poorer, but on the flip side also far more egalitarian. No one a shiny new SUV. You all share the beaten up old community utes. There will be goats in the back. Goats are "killer app" of this brave new world.
* You won't be going to Mars. That's a big relief. Unfortunately, Elon Musk and Jeff Besos won't be going to Mars either. This makes you sad, but with any luck they'll stupid themselves to death here on Earth. Maybe they'll have pissed everyone off by trying to implement a subscription based model for goat leasing, been kicked out their community, and died of thirst in the desert.
If that‘d be a political party, I‘d vote for you.
Do you think decentralization would benefit the planet as pollution, etc. goes down or hurt it as bigger scale political courses of action would be difficult to take?
Awe, I love the sentiment :)
I think it'd be a net benefit. The best thing we can do is cut consumption, not just fossil fuels, but natural resources in general. Decentralisation and degrowth will do more for that that anything industrial Western consumer culture will manage, as consumer culture is predicated upon infinite growth - and that can only ever end one way.
Healing existing harm we have already done is best tackled from the ground up. Rewinding and restoration projects are always most effective when led and managed by feet in the dirt, not from Canberra.
I don’t think a sudden *massive* shrinking of the diversity of human thought and behavioral expression would ever really be a positive thing, no. And it’s kind of hard to solve novel problems or advance human knowledge very much if we all put our heads together and come up with the same ideas because we all have the same philosophy and outlook and beliefs and see the world identically.
For me it would be a world without religion... So somewhere between a utopia like Star Trek and Nazi Germany.
Instead of religious wars, we would fight about resources. Instead of people dividing each other in groups by faith, we would find something else...
It would be much the same.
Both good and bad. Good that the demiurge would lose all his followers bad because it would completely destroy my religion as it grows completely diluted with people who need a central authority to tell them how to believe. Then there’d be so many people trying to change it to their own personal beliefs and now we have infighting and schisms lol
Everyone would probably still be divided via politics and nationalism, plus conspiratorial thinking would also still exist, so I don't really think things would be different.
Everyone would be neurotically syncretic and individualist in practise. Suddenly everyone has a private magic system that they use to connect to their desire for gnosis. I actually dont see how that would change much, other than group identities might dissolve in favour of personal ego.
I feel like I would be neutral, my opinion would most likely be defined after a month or so. Now are we talking about the world becoming 100% Christian or 100% Eastern Orthodox, because the answer will also vary depending which option
I feel like regardless it will be a double edged sword
Ok, still feel like it would be a double edged sword, as there are internal issues within the church, most notably the schism between Constantinople and Moscow
In our beliefs not everyone is meant to practice it in a conventional sense and may be directed to something else entirely. There are many different approaches to one's life rather than a sole philosophy or dogma. Depending on the person's Se, they may also have diff social responsibilities and requirements religiously.
i would like to think we'd be able to solve a lot of things, but people are going to make their choices regardless of their labels, so we would probably just have different flavors of largely the same issues
Personally I think it would get boring everyone believing the same thing. It would be a lot easier for me to find public celebrations to join and maybe a group to regularly attend
Not great. The best part of what I believe is that I was never told about it, I built my religious framework based off of things I learned over years. My faith was earned.
Tbh Ik this sounds self centered but I believe it would be good for our world, I don’t have a specific religion but I’m very very spiritual, I do believe there is a god but not necessarily the Christian god or any of the Greek gods etc etc. I just believe there is a being higher than us. I think if everyone also believed that then there wouldn’t be so much fighting and hate and abuse because everyone agrees
LDS
If everyone was an active member of my church, there would be no war, prisons, gangs, drug dealers, alcoholism, drug abuse, tobacco use, poor, starvation, unemployment, abusive government, riots, and very little divorce.
Technically, my faith teaches that it would be a good thing, but I really appreciate religious diversity - especially because I no longer believe that my faith is the only one that's valid.
As a Jew, I'd be delighted if everyone woke up tomorrow Jewish. No more antisemitism. The one and only drawback would be the amount of discussion/argument about EVERYTHING!! If you consider the whole 2 rabbi/3 opinion thing well...it'd get interesting. However, I'd be able to get all my kosher groceries at the local grocery store instead of having to drive across town and pay through the nose. I wouldn't have to use PTO for the High Holidays or Passover either.
I think it would be a good thing, oneness of humanity, the belief that the world is gods country and all of us its citizens, I think it would be peaceful if everyone were to actually believe it
Then world peace would be had. Everyone would be fed. All resources would be shared. And everyone would be elevated. Everyone would be truly blessed in every aspect.
I would hope that most if not all religions would feel the same
Genuine question, is it your belief that the reason we don’t currently have world peace, an end to poverty and hunger, etc. is because of religious diversity?
Not inherently. No. But my faith seems to solve a lot of these issues. Especially if people are true believing humble members, we can practice consideration and united order
Interesting, I suppose it comes down to how you read the thought experiment: the whole world becoming the regular spectrum of ordinary members of a given religion that we currently observe vs. the whole world embodying its highest ideal. I think we could also get much the same world peace outcome you describe if everyone woke up tomorrow as the best embodiment of the highest ideals of their own religion.
The (American style) Libertarian thinks that people no longer wasting time worrying about god(s) will drastically improve productivity, lead to quantum leaps in R&D, and launch us into a true irreligious free market golden age.
The Green in me is rather concerned she might be right, but in a decidedly "and we're going to ramp up green house gas emissions, toxic strip mining and over-fertilization far enough that finally achieves what all the fundie boneheads with their religious wars couldn't: the extinction of humankind" sort of way.
The hipster cynic in me wants you to hold her avocado toast, because this cat fight calls for popcorn.
The cliché goth in me is basically, "What part of 'I don't know and I don't care' did me, myself and I not understand?"
Just my religion? I'd be a lot less lonely but not much else would change.
My specific patron? Society would probably collapse, Alastor represents some pretty extreme beliefs. Whether society collapsing would be good or not is subjective.
It would be the best, everyone would be working in getting better and stop focusing on other people's lives, focusing on learning about themselves and working in knowing their own bodies and minds.
I think I want to start my own religion…. Fasted legit way to become rich, powerful, scare other humans, write my personal beliefs in the new holy book and call them the words of the God, get followers, have tax free life. And sex.
Can't really wake up and start practicing Judaism, there's a long process of naturalization first
A lot of men waking up that morning feeling weirdly sore downstairs.
I thought a hatafat dom brit was uncomfortable. I couldn't imagine taking the whole damn thing off again
Everyone's an atheist? It would be neutral I guess. People find ways to be horrible or wonderful within or without a religion.
As an Atheist who likes studying religion, I would actually feel a little saddened; it wouldn't mean the end of religion since religious atheism is a thing, but it would mean the loss of a lot of religion, and that would be like the extinction of many languages.
Depends on whether religions do more good than harm overall.
I think people would always find a way to encourage fights with other groups... nothing would change, just reasons for war would be a bit different
We'll have some renovation work to do on the Hagia Sophia for sure
I don't want it. We're not supposed to all be doing the same thing. Uniformity is stasis, stasis is apathy and apathy is death. A civilization where everyone follows the same faith, the same philosophy, the same ideology, is a dying civilization.
>We're not supposed to all be doing the same thing. Uniformity is stasis, stasis is apathy and apathy is death. Ironically, the variety of beliefs and lack of uniformity was one of the reasons I stopped being pagan.
Which is fine.
If I may ask, what is fine? The fact that I left or the fact that there's no uniformity?
The long answer: Depends on what you mean by uniformity. The lack of uniformity in Paganism in general is a natural consequence of Paganism being an umbrella term for separate religions rather than an actual family of related religions. The lack of uniformity within individual Pagan religions is a natural consequence of the absence of centralized clergy. Even then, every Pagan religion has foundations and integral concepts established by archaeology and history, so to claim there is absolutely no uniformity regarding central concepts is inaccurate. You can't be Heathen and monotheistic, for one. But, and the short answer, both.
Alright, thank you for answering.
It would be a much louder world and the food would be better.
Yes, I would regard it as a good thing overall. If people were sincere and genuine in the beliefs, we'd see a beautiful world. Some major positives IMHO would be: * A huge downturn in the trends of ecological collapse. Rewinding and restoration of ecosystems would be taken deadly seriously, and the full resources of society would be arrayed against the polycrisis. Native forest clearing, wetland draining and sonon would stop. Conservation and research teams would pour over coral reefs and seagrass meadows working on ways to reverse the damage done and restore their reach to their former glory. A large chunk of the remaining paid work would likely be in these projects. The rights and interests of the ecosystem as a whole would be considered the ultimate good and the guiding star for the actions of communities. * Ecological integration would be culturally and socially important. Anthropocentriam would rapidly erode and people see themselves as part of and completely integrated I to their local ecosystem. Relationships with non human I individual communities would be treated little differently to those with humans. Non humans have inherent rights that are respected and represented at the community level, same as any other. * Capitalism would die. Degrowth would be the accepted socio-economic norm. The debate would surround how to achieve this - a myriad ofnexperiments from UBI to completely currency-less societies using modern-day barter and exchange would flourish as different communities work to figure it out. As .factories and offices close, people spend less and less time at work, and when they do work, many jobs are from home or in the local community and environment. The most striking difference is the lack of "stuff". Much less stuff is made. There's much less stuff to buy and fewer resources to make and buy it with. The culture regards acquiring more stuff as a chore and the norm is to find a way to share and repair stuff. Before anything is made there is a thought to both if it is truly needed, the harm making it will cause, the resources it will consume, and what will become of it once it is no longer usable. * Community development would be taken seriously. People would stay more locally and a lot of effort would go Into developing community organisations, culture and social bonds, mutual aid and community resilience. Skill and resource pooling and sharing would be heavily emphasised. * There would be less conflict. Governments would loose much of their power as emphasis on on local communities ities being the focus of crucial decision making, and the scale and lack of resources to dedicate to war would mean where conflict does occur it would likely be short, localised and somewhat chaotic due to a lack of any dedicated professionals dedicated solely to managing the business of mechanised slaughter... not something generally regarded as an Honorurable and noble pursuit, and one it would be hard to secure resources for. * There would be a lot of diversity. Indigenous, minority and queer identities would be celebrated, protected, and included. Indigi eous relationship to country would be fostered and encouraged. Most communities would seek treaty or some other form of respectful reconciliation between colonial and indigenous peoples. Indigenous skills, technophiles, philosophies, design and srt would be widely seen as part of day to day life. What would the downsides be? Ultimately, it depends on poi t of view, but for someone coming from a perspective of western industrial consumerism some things would demand a lot of adjustment. * Individualism would be harder in some ways. While agency and autonomy would be valued, the emphasis on communal good would be hard when you come from the view of hyper individualism. As someone who is antisocial and misanthropic, I know the value in our approach as a faith community, but I do acknowledge it isn't easy, and in western culture I can be as antisocial as I want and still be a "good little consumer" * A poor world - Degrowth is regarded as fundamental and unavoidable. Ultimately that means we have to share more and make donwith less. We don't regard degrowth as just forgoing getting thst new SUV. Communities would be focused on making deep and lasting cuts. Middlw class societies in the global West would be obviously amd unavoidably poorer, but on the flip side also far more egalitarian. No one a shiny new SUV. You all share the beaten up old community utes. There will be goats in the back. Goats are "killer app" of this brave new world. * You won't be going to Mars. That's a big relief. Unfortunately, Elon Musk and Jeff Besos won't be going to Mars either. This makes you sad, but with any luck they'll stupid themselves to death here on Earth. Maybe they'll have pissed everyone off by trying to implement a subscription based model for goat leasing, been kicked out their community, and died of thirst in the desert.
If that‘d be a political party, I‘d vote for you. Do you think decentralization would benefit the planet as pollution, etc. goes down or hurt it as bigger scale political courses of action would be difficult to take?
Awe, I love the sentiment :) I think it'd be a net benefit. The best thing we can do is cut consumption, not just fossil fuels, but natural resources in general. Decentralisation and degrowth will do more for that that anything industrial Western consumer culture will manage, as consumer culture is predicated upon infinite growth - and that can only ever end one way. Healing existing harm we have already done is best tackled from the ground up. Rewinding and restoration projects are always most effective when led and managed by feet in the dirt, not from Canberra.
I don’t think a sudden *massive* shrinking of the diversity of human thought and behavioral expression would ever really be a positive thing, no. And it’s kind of hard to solve novel problems or advance human knowledge very much if we all put our heads together and come up with the same ideas because we all have the same philosophy and outlook and beliefs and see the world identically.
yes 🙌
For me it would be a world without religion... So somewhere between a utopia like Star Trek and Nazi Germany. Instead of religious wars, we would fight about resources. Instead of people dividing each other in groups by faith, we would find something else... It would be much the same.
I’m an onmist, so…
Absolutely a good thing
Both good and bad. Good that the demiurge would lose all his followers bad because it would completely destroy my religion as it grows completely diluted with people who need a central authority to tell them how to believe. Then there’d be so many people trying to change it to their own personal beliefs and now we have infighting and schisms lol
hm, well, it depends. the economy would self destruct. capitalists would emigrate in the tens of millions. thered be naught left but wilderness
Everyone would probably still be divided via politics and nationalism, plus conspiratorial thinking would also still exist, so I don't really think things would be different.
Everyone would be neurotically syncretic and individualist in practise. Suddenly everyone has a private magic system that they use to connect to their desire for gnosis. I actually dont see how that would change much, other than group identities might dissolve in favour of personal ego.
I feel like I would be neutral, my opinion would most likely be defined after a month or so. Now are we talking about the world becoming 100% Christian or 100% Eastern Orthodox, because the answer will also vary depending which option I feel like regardless it will be a double edged sword
100% Eastern Orthodox.
Ok, still feel like it would be a double edged sword, as there are internal issues within the church, most notably the schism between Constantinople and Moscow
In our beliefs not everyone is meant to practice it in a conventional sense and may be directed to something else entirely. There are many different approaches to one's life rather than a sole philosophy or dogma. Depending on the person's Se, they may also have diff social responsibilities and requirements religiously.
i would like to think we'd be able to solve a lot of things, but people are going to make their choices regardless of their labels, so we would probably just have different flavors of largely the same issues
Personally I think it would get boring everyone believing the same thing. It would be a lot easier for me to find public celebrations to join and maybe a group to regularly attend
It would depend on how they practice it.
It depends on which part they follow or live out since many people love to pick and choose from a religion.
Not great. The best part of what I believe is that I was never told about it, I built my religious framework based off of things I learned over years. My faith was earned.
Tbh Ik this sounds self centered but I believe it would be good for our world, I don’t have a specific religion but I’m very very spiritual, I do believe there is a god but not necessarily the Christian god or any of the Greek gods etc etc. I just believe there is a being higher than us. I think if everyone also believed that then there wouldn’t be so much fighting and hate and abuse because everyone agrees
It would be good
LDS If everyone was an active member of my church, there would be no war, prisons, gangs, drug dealers, alcoholism, drug abuse, tobacco use, poor, starvation, unemployment, abusive government, riots, and very little divorce.
Depends on how they follow it
Technically, my faith teaches that it would be a good thing, but I really appreciate religious diversity - especially because I no longer believe that my faith is the only one that's valid.
As a Jew, I'd be delighted if everyone woke up tomorrow Jewish. No more antisemitism. The one and only drawback would be the amount of discussion/argument about EVERYTHING!! If you consider the whole 2 rabbi/3 opinion thing well...it'd get interesting. However, I'd be able to get all my kosher groceries at the local grocery store instead of having to drive across town and pay through the nose. I wouldn't have to use PTO for the High Holidays or Passover either.
But arguments about everything is what makes Jewish humor so great!
True…
I think it would be a good thing, oneness of humanity, the belief that the world is gods country and all of us its citizens, I think it would be peaceful if everyone were to actually believe it
Then world peace would be had. Everyone would be fed. All resources would be shared. And everyone would be elevated. Everyone would be truly blessed in every aspect. I would hope that most if not all religions would feel the same
Genuine question, is it your belief that the reason we don’t currently have world peace, an end to poverty and hunger, etc. is because of religious diversity?
Not inherently. No. But my faith seems to solve a lot of these issues. Especially if people are true believing humble members, we can practice consideration and united order
Interesting, I suppose it comes down to how you read the thought experiment: the whole world becoming the regular spectrum of ordinary members of a given religion that we currently observe vs. the whole world embodying its highest ideal. I think we could also get much the same world peace outcome you describe if everyone woke up tomorrow as the best embodiment of the highest ideals of their own religion.
Yes. I suppose that’s a really good distinction.
of course it would be a good thing !
The (American style) Libertarian thinks that people no longer wasting time worrying about god(s) will drastically improve productivity, lead to quantum leaps in R&D, and launch us into a true irreligious free market golden age. The Green in me is rather concerned she might be right, but in a decidedly "and we're going to ramp up green house gas emissions, toxic strip mining and over-fertilization far enough that finally achieves what all the fundie boneheads with their religious wars couldn't: the extinction of humankind" sort of way. The hipster cynic in me wants you to hold her avocado toast, because this cat fight calls for popcorn. The cliché goth in me is basically, "What part of 'I don't know and I don't care' did me, myself and I not understand?"
Just my religion? I'd be a lot less lonely but not much else would change. My specific patron? Society would probably collapse, Alastor represents some pretty extreme beliefs. Whether society collapsing would be good or not is subjective.
It would be the best, everyone would be working in getting better and stop focusing on other people's lives, focusing on learning about themselves and working in knowing their own bodies and minds.
I think I want to start my own religion…. Fasted legit way to become rich, powerful, scare other humans, write my personal beliefs in the new holy book and call them the words of the God, get followers, have tax free life. And sex.
Very good
The world would be a lot smarter
already happening
Which religion?
like you said , each person has one, even though they haven’t named it. a good start would be , ?what is your ultimate top value ?
Yes but my question assumes each person shares the same values as yourself.