Imagine

[fccool]

I have started writing a Screenplay in which a character wakes up in a parallel world totally void of any religious notion. So whatever religious beliefs that we hold today would not exist in such world. It is amazing how much of everyday life we connect to religious beliefs of people who came before us. The deeper I research it, the more complex it is to portray such a world and make it believable... hopefully to show that world without religious beliefs is not as nice and shiny as Lennon was singing it to be. Nevertheless, please help me out here. How would the world turn out to be totally void of any religious ideas... world where science and naturalism is the only way of explaining things. I've lived through Communism, yet in our everyday vocabulary we still used "thank God", and "don't you fear God", "church" and other religious expressions although all together very few believed that God exists.

As I've pointed out, there so many names/places/etc that carry some kind of a religious context that its mind boggling.

Week and Months names, holidays, economic terms (money), astronomy titles, notions such as marriage and family, morality, compassion etc... Please let me know if you think of other things. I'd like to imagine the world that Lennon was talking about and show that it's not that great of a world to live in.

If you think that some of the above described could well exist without any religious ideas, the please give your reasons too. I'd like to hear those also.

[D. Allan]

Wow! That is a huge project; but very interesting. So is it necessary to research how religions begin? There are so many other than Christianity. I looked at Lennon's lyrics:

Quote:

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

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

[color:#33CCFF] I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

and it is almost a religion itself he describes. At least isn't it the goal of many religions, (except with no god however)? Maybe if the world was like Lennon wished religion would be unnecessary. Morality, compassion would certainly exist in such a world where everyone lived in peace, where no one claimed exclusive right to possessions, where there was no greed... Ah, yes, John was a dreamer... "Imagine all the people sharing all the world..."

Can religion bring that about?

All i can do for the rest of the world is to take care that number 1 is living by those principles John wanted to see flourishing.

The blue line shows that John realized it can only happen one person at a time.

[fccool]

The world that Lennon was describing is based on the ideals of Thomas More and French fathers of reason, who were originals behind the commUnism... or socialism in its pure form, as Lennon held to socialist ideas.

The problem with socialism is the nature of men and that for it to work it has to be under dictatorship of policing force that would ensure that ideals are lived up to. Otherwise it falls apart. That's where we get Marx's and Lenin's version ... aka. Soviet Communism, which was their solution for the nature of man problem. It was an attempt for such society where through cultural brainwashing you COULD create some kind of social order of perfect people that would have morality which existed apart from belief in God and higher power. That would work together to bring about "progress" and "betterment" of human race. I still remember those huge communism slogans on buildings of our city everywhere.... "UNITY" "PROGRESS" "POWER TO WORKERS" "PROLETARIANS OF ALL NATIONS, UNITE!". We heard our anthem played virtually every step we went. We saw symbols and we were symbols.

And to a certain degree you could say that the system was "functional". As it did feed people and provide their basic needs, yet it created a nation of alcoholics as a result as it was void of any spiritual discussion and was simply a system of inbred reflexes that were followed without questions asked. A countrywide boot camp (literally as all men had to go through some kind of military duty). It was so bad that dry laws were passed into action at one point of time. People did not understand why they were doing things. They knew all the "answers", but they did not understand them. Everything revolved around inbred faith in uniform ideology, and suppression of individuals opposing it. Not that other countries do not do that, but it was in your face open suppression to the point of humiliating people in public.

So yes, I think that morality can exist apart from "religious belief" as that system demonstrated. But is HAS to be enforced. as history shown that there are always people who will seek to exploit the "naive", and once exploited the "naive" will taste the "fruit of good and evil" and seek their interests to be upheld as "defense". And round and round it goes.

So the society without religious belief would have to have Iron rule of law which would enforce morality for the sake of self preservation. It would have to be a society that would undergo extreme brainwashing to the point of "Clockwork Orange" type of reactions to wrongdoings. People who wake up listening universal broadcasts of "how we are to live to make sure that we benefit as society". Who would not have any desire to do anything "wrong" because they would not know any other way. The choice of wrong would have to be minimized or eliminated. The motives to do such things would have to be eliminated too. So universal possessions would certainly be an example of eliminating motive for stealing.

I though about it a lot. But I'd like to know what you guys think.

[Guest gem]

Nice one, D. Allan.

Wouldn't it be boring to live in a world with not much diversity?

There wouldn't be much action.

[fccool]

You would not know the difference . The notion of boring only exist if you have alternatives. With alternatives eliminated even minor variations would be exciting. That's why many Soviet Russians drank themselves to death IMO. + It's not to say that there would not be "bread and circuses" or propaganda via entertainment, which would be presented in such a way that would portray any alternatives as impossible.

And, trust me... I would create much conflict in a film . I would never write a boring one.

[Amelia]

What about the dead? what kind of services would a religious free world have?

Oh and just because there is no religion, does that mean no God? If you think about life in the garden if we hadn't been evicted; would there have been religion? I would think not. We would all have worshipped as one. And does worshipping connote religion?

[fccool]

Religion

a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

So because the world is totally void of even consideration of religious issues as all of the answers that has been brainwashed into the collective mind of the society... people don't question the status of dead and view them as "broken computers"... simply stopped functioning. No service needed as these are beyond repair. So, some justifications would have to be made as why not to grieve... the dead men were great tools for "progress", so we should be proud and follow their examples as they would be alive through us in ideology... and etc. That kind of things are actually happening today, so it's nothing new. I'm just taking it to extreme.

By definition of religion... yes, there would be religion in case of us not being evicted from the Garden. And ye,worshiping superhuman creator denotes religion. But this is not the case I'm trying to explore. I'm simply trying to show what the world without any religious notion of God would look like... The world that Lennon was singing about, and I'm trying to come up with a way of how such world would be even possible.

[D. Allan]

The world that Lennon was singing about, and I'm trying to come up with a way of how such world would be even possible.

[D. Allan]

Wouldn't it be boring to live in a world with not much diversity?

There wouldn't be much action.

Not at all, Pearl. Life and the world are full of the most beautiful and interesting objects and processes, animials and people. And the diversity might even be enhanced in such a world as John dreamed of. For instance the contents of ones mind. :)

[D. Allan]

Recently Charlie Rose, had as a guest a film-maker and artist who if I understood him, has made a film (name has escaped memory) all about the contents of the hero's mind. Have you heard of it? Must be rather dream-like.