Ambiguity, lack of certainty, a feeling of love without specifics, a high purpose (again without specifics), a feeling of belonging in a meaningful system, a belief that life isn't meaningless or final, the promotion of selflessness, all have good side effects.

Whether they're ultimately net good or bad in the big picture is beyond me to answer, but sometimes (often) life doesn't fit with what we emotionally and philosophically need to function and thrive as humans or as groups of humans, so believing things that aren't true - or at least giving weight to their possibility - can help.

In the modern worlds with our comforts and safeties and predictabilities, the need for a lot of these false beliefs is diminished. We've managed through technology to make life fit better with our emotional/spiritual needs.

This claim is dubious.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/0...ect-happiness/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-...b_1723625.html

Technology certainly has benefits, but it's not clear that one of those benefits is happiness.

Bertrand Russell was a brilliant logician and mathematician but was raised by parents who were avowed atheists and whose mother was openly having an affair with Bertrand's tutor as a child with approval by her husband, Bertrand's father. In adulthood, he himself was married and divorced several times. With this background, it would have been difficult for him to ever accept Christianity. As far as not accepting something that is not true, Bertrand could never be sure that theism was not true. In the video he recommends to reserve judgement in cases of doubt. Late in life he famously said "I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong".

none of this is justification for god, or belief in god

Um, he didn't say it was.

Just commenting on Bertrand Russell's video was all I was doing. Btw, the interviewer was trying to get at something that Russell just skipped over.

We humans have to make moral decisions and life decisions based on something. We don't have the luxury of waiting for some empirical scientific method to analyze it all. So each person tends to pick some principles, secular or religious, to provide some guidance on how to live and plan their life. For secular people it might be socialism, or materialism, or fascism, or hedonism, or egoism, or some version of humanism, or some hodgepodge. Some religious people choose a specific type of monotheism and interpretations of certain ancient texts to live by and it works out pretty well for them. Is it always perfect? No, but which system of beliefs is?

I thought this too- at the point where she asks about the potential for an inspirational benefit from religion.

Just one thing- I pay you the privilege in assuming you're a good person with decent morals. Do you think you would be less so in the absence of religion?

I'm unfamiliar with the topic of morality and ethics so my understanding is narrow but I always thought, and i could be wrong, that:

"we are born with a moral grounding as a result of evolution by natural selection." (Richard Dawkins, succinctly paraphrased)

Imo I would be less moral without having been exposed to some religious training. Surely Dawkins doesn't believe that the education or training of young people in morals and values is unnecessary. That is pretty extreme imo.

My comment was directed to the OP, not to anything Bertrand Russell said. IF people are going to believe in a religion, true or not, it seems to me the belief in reincarnation would be useful in the sense that it might give people incentive to make this world a better place, knowing (or believing) that they will return in a future life.

I think the concept of Brahman can be used to support the idea of "we are all connected (as humans)" or "we are all one" which lends itself to good morality. This is still a (religious) belief rather than strictly proven facts, but maybe preferable to teaching that a man was born from a virgin, walked on water, resurrected etc. (imo Brahman doesn't require belief in Hindu mythology like Krishna and Shiva etc.)

so my answer would be a secular-ish Hinduism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman

Buddhism, just for the meditation. I meditate every day and I can say that there hasn't been anything else I've ever done for myself that has had a bigger impact on my life than meditation. It takes a while to notice the benefits, but when you do, you realize how incredibly valuable the skills meditation teaches are.

For example, I am basically unaffected by anger anymore. There is a buffer period for me now when something happens that has the potential to make me angry. That time allows me to make a conscious decision whether or not to get angry. And most of the time there is no logical reason to get angry, so anger has very little control over me now.

Also, my concentration has increased significantly. I can much easier pay attention to boring lectures or books. I can learn much quicker.

Meditation also give me power over my other emotions. If I feel depressed, I can get into a meditative state and just let the feelings pass by without identifying with them.

I really can't recommend meditation enough.

A tally so far

Liberal Christianity - 3
Mormonism - 1
Judaism - 1
Liberal Judaism - 1
Buddhism - 3
Taoism - 1
Secular Hinduism - 1
Scientology - 1
Unitarian Universalism - 3
Humanism - 3
No religion - 3

You could arrive at some flavor of Advaita Vedanta this way. I would probably pick something somewhat similar, mostly for aesthetic reasons.

Panikkar is metaphorically contrasting the pantheistic idea of Brahman (symbolized as Dawn), experienced non-dualistically, and classical transcendent monotheistic ideas of God, symbolized as the Sun.

You forgot:

Zenoism 1.5*

*BTM2 is the 0.5

Baha'i should be put out there. I'm not knowledgeable or an advocate myself, but it comes up occasionally among science and engineering students. As does Wicca--but I think Baha'i is more seriously organized.

But what if your true nature is to be a stupid jerk?

(sorry for the lack of snappiness in my comeback)

Also, a song (which I hope makes up my temporal insufficiencies):

Study all religions.. see the truth in the overlap
Study all science... see the truth in the overlap

Question everything.. especially the atheist indoctrination in the school system.

Not everything taught in school is fact .. not everything is bad.

Have an open and critical mind.

You should read Zen at War and some other criticisms.

I strongly doubt this is true. And I would discuss it with any philosopher. And if I would lose I would give up believing. I would openly say Religions are bullsh.
Mr. Skalnsky, just get me someone here in the forum who understands philosophy and logic.

IF i had trusted the man/woman who questioned me like that, i would recommend to trust Jesus, Gods Word, instead of man like me.

◄ Matthew 6:26 ►
25Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns — and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his lifespan?…

Rereading what I wrote back then, I realize I wasn't clear. I didn't mean to say that non belief in religion was logical. I meant to say that non belief in any particular religion was logical. In other words you take religion x and I take atheism plus all other religions combined.

So Mr. Sklansky still doesn't believe in teh jewish Jesus. Tell me David, if the odds were 1,000,000,000 to 1 that Jesus didn't die for your sins and rise again, would you really take that risk versus the infinity in hell?

What are the odds on all the other possible Gods who will get pissed off and put me in their hells if i accept Jesus? Think you need to put the odds on the punishments for worshiping false prophets in there somewhere too.

Given that "all the other possible Gods who will get pissed off and put me in their hells" is pretty much an undefined statement, I would say that the probability is -17.

Ah. But the odds on Jesus are well defined which is why you quoted the response instead of making your point with the poster who started the odds making up game.

If he is making up odds he needs to put more into it then one God and there punishments to be fair.