The metaphor of the “game board” is theistic since it presupposes intelligent design. Game boards are artifacts designed and built by minds. So that would just beg the question at issue in the clash between theists and naturalists. Not a helpful analogy.
The article compares exoteric religion for the masses, with all its nakedly political roles, and the systematic effects of naturalism. I abstract from the idiosyncrasies of both religious and scientific individuals. I’m talking about the systemic roles of both institutions. When you compare them, you find that religion has justified theocracy and social dominance of elite classes, while science and engineering promote skepticism, technological progress, as well as capitalism and democracy. There are exceptions such as social Darwinism which likewise promotes class warfare. But science as a method is skeptical about all self-serving intuitions, whereas the religious methods of faith, dogma, and deference to archaic tradition are all too easily coopted for autocratic purposes.
“Spirituality approached critically”? Since when is criticism of spirituality a function of mass religion? Science and philosophy brought the criticism. You’re talking about the exceptions of esoteric spiritualists. The article is talking about mass movements and their methods.
Regarding 10, you merely asserted in lazy postmodern fashion that my writings express my personal attitudes rather than any external fact. That relativism can be just as emptily applied to any knowledge claim. This postmodern gambit is part of the decadence of progressive culture, and it impresses no one who takes philosophy seriously. It’s juvenile, it’s cheap, and it’s beneath contempt.
If there’s no good or evil, why are your comments filled with so much venom as though I’d done something wrong? Why aren’t you more morally neutral if you think good and evil are illusions? My point wasn’t that there’s no interesting discussion to be had here. It was just that you made a bunch of bald assertions, and took those to warrant your rude, sneering tone at the end. That discrepancy beclowned you.
Regarding 6, the scriptures are not “merely experiential guides,” contrary to what you say. Obviously, they’ve been used for more nefarious, totalitarian purposes. They’ve been treated as sacrosanct dogmas to back up autocratic theocracies and persecutions of outsiders. They’ve been coopted by tribes and demagogues, predators and parasites.
But the point in my article is to question whether there’s a respectable spiritual core to that public face of religion, to justify the interpretation that these scriptures have, as you say, been “misused.” The article points out that you can interpret religious history that way or you can take the more deflationary view. In an upcoming article, I point out that the spiritual core would have to be entheogenic and based on the availability of peak states of consciousness. But that has little to do with mass, exoteric religion, which is what the above article is about.
The historical details you’d add wouldn’t affect the logic of the article’s overall argument. That’s why the article itself concedes that the account I give in the first few sections is simplified. The point is that there was some such evolution of the conceptions of divinity.
You strawman the article when you pretend that I presented a “timeline.” That word doesn’t appear in the article. On the contrary, I explicitly said that the distinctions I made there are simplifications. You ignored that and alleged that a more detailed and precise history of religions would somehow undermine the article’s main point. How so? You haven’t said.
I don’t say that the analysis I give of religion’s evolution is “factually wrong.” I say it’s simplified, so there will be exceptions to it. The patterns at issue are ceteris paribus.
Yet the reason I draw conclusions from them is that I understand the argument I’m making. It doesn’t matter what the exact structure of religious history is. It doesn’t matter how exactly religions have been systematically used for political purposes. The ominous fact is that there’s been some such tight allegiance between religion and politics. Religions have been used to justify patriarchal and monarchical social structures, most of which were breathtakingly bestial. That fact forces the choice between the charitable and the deflationary interpretations, and the question is which interpretation is best. That’s what should "worry" religious believers, as the title says.
The fact that you thought the historical details are decisive here demonstrates that you didn’t understand the article’s argument. That’s a reading comprehension problem, as I said at the outset.
