(Part 2) Best sociology & religion books according to redditors

As Ryan T. Cragun, the sociologist and statistician who was interviewed on Mormon stories points out in How to Defeat Religion in 10 Easy Steps: Toolkit for Secular Activists, if you are really serious about effectivley removing the social influence of religion from politics and public institutions on a massive scale then the only option you have in a liberal democracy is to support the development of a social democracy. The surest way to diminish the popular appeal of religion to the masses is not to preach logic and reason, which always has a tiny audience, but to provide the sufficiently generous minimum background of social security within which logic and reason are more likely to flourish, and, far more crucially, appeals to otherworldly insurances diminish. It's a 100% proven, consistent fact proven by every example which has ever existed. Otherwise you just end up with secularists and atheists being a perpetually tiny sliver of the population who amount to as socially disparaged hobby group.

Secondo me le risposte che stai cercando difficilmente te le potrà dare uno che vi è dentro. Potrà darti le sue motivazioni, ma saranno una visione molto parziale della questione.

Le domande che ti sei posto tu se le pone anche una disciplina che si chiama Sociologia delle religioni, che da almeno 200 anni studia la questione.

Ti consiglio un paio di letture:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Sociology-Religion-Contemporary-Perspectives/dp/0754656586

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199588961/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687782&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0754656586&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0WAQKSQYJ2W768KASAKA

Sam Harris wrote and spoke a lot on the scientific backing of morality, and the total lack of morality in religion. http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine/dp/1442300140

http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Natural-History-Karl-Shuker/dp/076074551X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451287287&sr=1-1&keywords=Dragons+A+natural+history Added the link as it is DIFFERENT from A Natural History of Dragons. This one contains accounts of dragons from history. I loved it and keep it as a reference.

In the beginning, bin Laden didn't even want to fight the US, but instead depose secular dictators in the Middle East because they were oppressive. Only later did he decide that the United States was the main enemy because of their support for the dictators. There's a good book that analyzed the bin Laden's audio tapes that were found in his compound.

> the left was tearing western society apart . . . That was what was causing the breakup of familys leading to the decay of moral values.

My fear is that you are basing your belief in this on evidence about the same quality as that found in Zeitgeist (terrible documentary debunked by atheists and the religious alike: See Reasonable Doubts podcast from a decade ago for an example http://podbay.fm/show/266671828/e/1267818099?autostart=1)

In fact, societies with the lowest rate of religiosity (also very left of center) are some of the most stable, happy, and flourishing in the world. This to me means that lack of religious faith and the sort of moral values that lead to stable families and flourishing societies are totally compatible.

See the book The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Society below for a good overview.

https://www.amazon.com/Nonreligious-Understanding-Secular-People-Societies/dp/0199924945

On a more personal level, I have been an atheist for about 15 years, am a happy father and husband, hold down a stable job that lets me contribute to charity each year, and although I may have moral disagreements with you, I'll bet that fundamentally we have many of the same aims. I hope to be an example of an "atheist lifestyle" with relatively high rates of happiness, flourishing, and compassion.

Do you think that my life is really a degenerate path into clown world? And would you consider that maybe you are wrong about some of your beliefs as you were in the Zeitgeist documentary?

Well, my OP was not about who anti-theists have beef with or who they ought to have beef with (not primarily anyway). It was more about how the framework in which they operate is very Christianity-centered and how other religions are seen through this framework, almost to the point that the less a religion is like Christianity, the more likely an anti-theist will say that religion is not actually a religion.

> Also, I'm interested in what social scientific research on religion you would recommend and why you think it might shape our opinions.

Good question. I think any research or scholarly book on religion you can get your hands on is good; it never hurts to try to get a better understanding of anything. If we go by anthropology, this anthology is an excellent introduction.

> top 3 religions

On a sidenote, Judaism only has 20 million followers at most, so I'm not sure if it is appropriate to classify it as a top 3 religion.

I've taken classes on religious conversion and it happens in a lot of ways. Some of it is enforced by higher levels of officials (government, church, etc.) some of it is violent, some of it is in exchange for what you need. It boils down to "I have something you want (food, not dying, not having higher taxes, fitting in with the larger community around you, being like the elites, etc.) and if you follow my thing, you can get it." Sometimes it really starts with "the royal people are really cool, so if they're doing it, we should too."

Here's a book about how it happened in much of Latin America.

There is something off with the article.

I googled the author's name and saw a review of his under a Sam Harris book where he wrote, "Faith ruins human reasoning". I will give him the benefit of the doubt and think that his reasons for writing such stuff is more nuanced.

​

>the Syro-Malabar church is in deep crisis, as its moral uprightness has become a black-hole......

I won't contest that. I think the same.

​

But the article meanders so much. He talks about the corruption and scandals of the Syro-Malabar church, worldwide catholic church, shares personal stories, looks at Jesus as humanist par excellence.

Maybe he's trying to compensate and repair the image of the church among the local Keralites through secular language ?

​

And the author putting all the blame on the church for Jolly's psychopathic behaviour is either missing the big picture, or has ulterior motives. I can't wholly trust him. A member of the church doing such terrible crimes is shameful obviously and the leaders of the Syro-Malabar church aren't beacons of christian ideals, but why can't the author try to see if there were factors to her behavior other than the church ?

​

And I'm a frustrated Syro-Malabar catholic myself and have been like that for years now. I agree with the issues of corruption and scandals, and I want answers too.

I hate the corruption, the cover-ups of church problems, lukewarm treatment of faith by higher-ups. And some of the overly latinized parts of the liturgy made me appreciate the Syro-Malankara rite mass(and Fr Daniel Poovannathil).

​

He highlighted the worldwide problems of the catholic church like pope benedict dismantling a congregation because of sex slavery of nuns, pope francis quotes.... and immediately goes on to plug his own novel which he says is on Amazon Kindle ?!

​

I really can't get the big picture he's trying to make. The catholic church doesn't have good priest/laity ? Syro-Malabar isn't upholding christian morality ? And all that automatically leads to people like Jolly who murders her own family members ?

Maybe she took inspiration from the hypocritical attitudes of her church authorities, still shouldn't the author be at least highlighting one or two instances of good members of the Syro-malabar church ?

​

Or maybe this article was written to focus wholly on the problems of the church. Maybe he wrote this for the church higher-ups to look at their own actions more critically. Alright.

Read anthropology, if that hasn't been part of your reading already. It's much more useful than a lot of the new age shit out there. Here are three great books about it.

• Portals: Opening Doorways to Other Realities Through the Senses by Lynne Hume
  
• Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession by I.M. Lewis
  
• The Shaman: Voyages of the Soul, Trance, Ecstasy and Healing from Siberia to the Amazon by Piers Vitebsky

Seriously?! Not one person mentioned Renato Rosaldo's Culture and Truth?! It was probably one of the most important books of the 20th century. Rosaldo and his late wife really changed the way ethnographic work was conducted and presented.

While I am a huge fan of Geertz, I recommend reading Victor Turner's The Ritual Process. I am currently re-reading it, and it is not hard to see how the books was truly ahead of its time. Turner may not be as seductive as a writer as Geertz, but his insights are just as amazing.

And for a pretty fun, but slightly out-dated, ethnography Anne Allison's Nightwork is a sick book. It is an ethnography about Japanese salarymen and hostesses.

There's a popular book called "Til Faith Do Us Part" that has a bibliography that would probably be useful to you: http://www.amazon.com/Til-Faith-Part-Interfaith-Transforming/dp/0199873747

http://www.amazon.com/Supernatural-Natural-Biocultural-Approach-Religion/dp/0131893033/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370596677&sr=8-1&keywords=supernatural+as+natural