imagine

The other day I was listening to music on Pandora (you should try it--it's really cool. You type in names of artists/groups you like and then it plays them and similar ones for you like a radio station, only you can say if you don't like a certain song and it goes to the next one, and you learn about all sorts of new artists...anyway...), while I was reading Durkheim, and John Lennon's "Imagine" came on.

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man [er, humanity, if he was born 20 years later...]
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

This seems like it's kind of Durkheim's vision, too: imagine if there was a world where we realized that the only "god" was society, and where we did what was right for each other and gave up on all the religion junk, because all that does is get us mad at each other and make it easy for someone to come and manipulate us using religious language so we're willing to kill each other.

These are good points, not easy to refute, because a lot of horrible stuff has happened in the name of religion. We can go back to the Crusades or further, back to God telling Israel to wipe out every living being in certain cities they took over, but we don't even have to go back in time. The same thing is happening as you read this. Our troops are in Iraq defending the cause of "freedom" for those like us, at the expense of the freedom of those not like us (the Iraqis).

And I'm all for a world with no religions, meaning no one has to perform specific ritual acts to get into heaven (or whatever it is they believe), there's no legalism, there's no hierarchy that people have to have their salvation mediated through. That would be a great improvement over what is currently practiced.

But I don't agree that if we just got rid of this silly God concept, then everyone would get a long because there'd be "nothing to kill or die for." Here are two reasons (and I'm sure there are more):

1. People are always going to form some sort of groups, because we are inherently social beings. We can't survive without other people--literally at least when we're babies--and when we make groups there are unfortunately alliances and bonds that encourage people to think about "our" people as more important than "their" people, our needs trumping their needs, and since there's not enough to go around we'll fight for what there is. (Note: I don't think there's not enough to go around, but that's the mentality of most groups, for some reason.)

2. If there's nothing worth dying for, is there anything worth living for? It seems like as humans, we have an innate need to be part of something larger than ourselves. This "something else" is worth so much that our own lives are worth little to us in comparison. This is what gives life meaning. Unfortunately, this is twisted and manipulated by so many cultures and religions that people think, "What's worth dying for is worth killing for," which is a perversion of this first feeling.

I think this sense of "something greater" that we all want to be part of points to the existence of God. Durkheim thinks although we call it God it's actually just society, but I'm unconvinced. If so, how could we all (from various times and cultures) have the same vision Lennon describes in "Imagine"? How could we all yearn for that ideal world of morality and wholeness? Where would we get the idea that this world wasn't whole, and where would our morals come from? Durkheim gives answers, but they are snatching at straws, in my opinion, that don't really explain the depth of the fact that all cultures yearn for this other world, this ideal life, and their myth structures form around that basic desire.

I know, maybe all our morals and such arise out of what's good for our species in order for it to perpetuate itself, so they're just evolutionary constructs. But that is unconvincing to me, because it seems like they're so much deeper than just utilitarian acts.

Although I could keep talking about this, that's all I have time for! So feel free to post your own thoughts in your comments!