Poverty of Conventionalism

Throughout the centuries, we have noticed that society has been profoundly influenced by a code of ethics that have almost since the beginning of their communities’ history been considered incontrovertible. It is almost as if they were the gift received from the gods, in some cases allegorically, and in other cases, literally.  The code of ethics that was presented purported to be unquestionable, as the authority behind it was deemed immutable. We notice that not long after religions have been firmly established in our societies, religious authorities were deified, and people began to associate their gods with their Earthly authorities. Many of those people did not understand why they were living the lives they did, yet few dared to suggest that this should change. It indeed was the case that such lifestyles were justified by authority of those who prescribed them and not through insight. They were imposed upon the people and not elected by them. Moreover, we notice that the religions of our ancestors have played a very significant role in shaping the culture of our present day. As we see that we could discover roots of many of our traditions in the practices of our ancestors. Those practices almost certainly were associated with what today we would be able to call religious practices.

This should serve as an example of how profound of an influence religion can have on our daily lives, and how significant of a factor it has been in shaping the world into what it is. For this reason, it would be a remiss for a philosopher to opt not to take religion in consideration in process of concocting his worldview. He can argue that religions are devoid of insight, as that he may have nothing to learn from them, however it would be foolish of him to ignore their importance in shaping the world into what it has become. If they do not merit intellectual respect, they certainly merit our consideration. For the sake of examination of religions, it would be sound for us to extricate the notion of religion from spirituality. Spirituality in itself is a very mystical notion that few have been able to define clearly; it almost always implies existence of another world.  We easily call worldviews that are difficult to see, spiritual, religious. As we have noted earlier, religions in history have been immensely influential, and it is quite clear that spirituality was not the reason why this was so; as renown of Marxism has evinced to us.  Upon further investigation into the social appraisal of religiosity we shall notice that spiritually did have an impact in regards to the public acceptance of religion, though it will become clear that many other factors were more salient.

One shall ask, what was the salient factor in crafting religions into what they are today and what accounts for their renown with the public? One could argue that men have a natural drive to obtain power and to maintain it. If we rewind to the time before civilization when men needed to fend for their own survival, power was a necessity; as only the most powerful would be able to ensure their own survival in the dog eat dog world. Thus, here we notice that one needs to establish an environment with a clearly established hierarchy (e.g. religions can offer a political leader an opportunity to accomplish such a task).  Later on, after having acquired enough power to survive, men derived a great deal of self-esteem by exercising their power over others. Now, in such a situation, they were interested in power, the purpose of which was no longer to ensure their own survival, but merely for the sake of self-appeasement.