Religion - Future discussion

[Daumantas]

Tickler 2001 is saying that "religion is usually what causes the wars"?

The 20th Century has claimed more human lives than any other due to bloodshed. The vast majority of those lives were claimed by two systems: 1) Communism, which is proudly atheist; and 2) Fascism, which is either indifferent to religion or sees it only as a tool for strengthening the "national will" (thus the Nazis' embrace of pre-Christian German paganism).

 

[Flatfoot]

Sorry to burst the bubble of those who would like to believe differently, but the Bible is crystal clear on the matter of faith and salvation.

Mark 16:16 (in the words of Jesus himself): "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned"
(This is in reference to the firm acceptance of the gospel of Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior of the World).

I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to disagree, here. The Bible has undergone SO many translations and butcherings that there has got to be numerous changes of text and word choice throughout the ages. I'm sure all of you have heard the standard rule of language and literature: Something is always lost in the translation.

First off, some languages do not have an equiavlent word in another language, or there may be a similar word, but when translated changes the meaning. Second, you have to consider the fact that in the old days, clergy were the only literate members of the general populace, and who's to say that Father Schmuckatelly or whoever didn't add his own perspective when translating from another language? I'm a confirmed Catholic, but how can I accept the word of a book that doesn't even say what it meant to say when it was written a few millenia ago? How can I accept the word of a book whose authors I know nothing of? Maybe I'm too military-minded, but I cannot believe that a book holds the word of God without his/her signature on it. It's simply a matter of faith. Rather than trust a book that's been as ghetto-rigged through the ages as a locally-generated Marine Corps SOP, I take the common sense approach. Trust what you know inside to be right, wrong, or neither, and go with it. I'll stop rambling, now.

 

[redway10]

Why speak out against religion?

I speak out against religion (especially organized religion) because I believe that it promotes ignorance and narrowmindedness, which are two of the greatest enemies to an "enlightened" and moral society.

I do not believe that the benefits of organized religion (charitable works, giving (false) hope to those who are unhappy with their lives) are even a tiny fraction of the drawbacks (Crusades, Inquistion, all kinds of mistrust and contempt, Middle East problems, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and on and on).

Also, allowing oneself to have a belief based on faith alone opens the door wide to all kinds of dubious beliefs like women, ethnic people, and/or homosexuals being inferior. If you can have your belief in a higher power and are allowed the luxury of not having it be subjected to the light of harsh scrutiny, why can't others have their racist/sexist beliefs without a shred of evidence?

I'll say it for the last time, the Bible states over and over again (many times!) that you must accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior to be Saved and not Damned. It is NOT a massive series of translation errors!

Organized religion is just another form of racism (religionism?), in which the adherents of each religion believes their religion to be "superior" to others, even if they SAY that isn't true. Otherwise, why be a member of any particular religion? Where are all the Christian-Muslim-Hindus?

Today's monotheistic religions may be "better" than yesterday's polytheistic religions, but not as good as tomorrow's atheism.

 

[Krokus]

LOL

"What has God ever done for you?"

Well Tickler2001, I myself am not a christian but I do believe that there is a higher power. I think that the bad things in life that happen happen for a reason. I know you dont want to believe that, but I think it is true. I think that you are just looking for someone to blame, and that is sad.

 

[Tickler2001]

Blame for what?

I don't have anything that I need to find someone to blame.
A couple of you are under the assumption that I had some kind of tramatic experience that led to the way I feel. Sorry to disappoint you, but I have a pretty good life and I'm not tramatized by anything.

Some of the stuff I threw out was to see what kind of reaction I would get.

Anything else I would say here would probably be repetitive so I will cut it short.

 

[quinn65]

Let's get metaphysical, metaphysical...

One way to look at religion is basically as a form of metaphysics. Is the true nature of reality unknowable because it's divine, or simply because we are limited by language and perception? Is there a substantive difference between those options? People can be "good" or "evil" regardless of their views on metaphysics. This is my point of separation, even as an athiest, with those who lay blame for mankind's problems at religion's doorstep. It's also my point of separation with those who claim we're all standing on the shoulders of religious ethics regardless of our professed views.

So, great. I'm about to square off with each diametrically opposed position in this debate. Time to start establishing a perimeter and hoarding food. 🙂

Regarding redway's religion as a scapegoat for mankind's ills, who is to say that without some basis in theism, we would not have found some other means of persecution? I argued earlier that religion is likely the thing that kept us from each other's throats (before the days of moderators, heh heh) and helped the human race get off the ground. Once in place, it became an irresistable draw for con men, whose agendas inevitably clashed, resulting in grave injustices. However, if it was successful in preserving the species, I'll take the brand of injustice it perpetrated over whatever else people might have conceived. Even if religion can't claim credit for getting us started, I still assert that without it, the con men would have found some other lever to pursue their agendas. This is all just a longer version of what I said before: religion doesn't cause injustice, people cause injustice.

Ok, now for Strelnikov's argument. The philosophy of every modern culture is influenced by its particular religious roots. However, to claim that as individuals we're bound by those roots from claiming a code of ethics not reliant on religion's basic assumptions says a number of things. First, it says we're stuck in a static world view. Certainly we're all on the shoulders of giants as we form our opinions, but those shoulders only represent a current snapshot (or film reel, if you prefer) of what has gone before. Nothing says that thinking people can't dynamically advance those earlier views, sometimes even by throwing out their base assumptions. Second, it discounts those among the crowd of giants who themselves questioned or even rejected religious beliefs ages ago. Disbelief has been around at least as long as belief, and certainly holds a place in our collective psyche right there alongside it. Many things "permeate our whole society," but we can certainly choose to accept them, reconsider them, or reject them entirely. Better yet, we can add new views to the mix and give our grandkids some shoulders to stand on.

Let the two-front battle begin. I'm going to have to quit my job, I can see it coming... 😉

 

[asutickler]

Re: Why speak out against religion?

Aw, yeah! More discussion! 😎

I do not believe that the benefits of organized religion (charitable works, giving (false) hope to those who are unhappy with their lives) are even a tiny fraction of the drawbacks (Crusades, Inquistion, all kinds of mistrust and contempt, Middle East problems, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and on and on).

I would daresay you are considerably underestimating the contributions of religion to society as a whole. First of all, there are FAR more good, decent, normal people within the ranks of almost any religion than there are mistrustful, grifting, spiteful people. Religious charities account for an absolutely enormous percentage of charitable contributions, both in America and abroad. Yes, religion has been misused far too often in the name of evil, yet it has been used far more often in the name of good. You just don't hear as much about it. When was the last time your local nightly news covered someone who was doing something positive for someone else, rather than robbing or killing them? Simply put, good deeds don't make good press. Good deeds also don't make good history books.

Religion gives comfort and hope to many of those who are in need of it. Perhaps you'd prefer that the people who choose to turn to religion in time of emotional or spiritual need instead just carry on in their despondence, (sp?) and convince themselves that there is no God, Gods, or higher meaning to life? Now who's pressing their beliefs upon whom?

Also, allowing oneself to have a belief based on faith alone opens the door wide to all kinds of dubious beliefs...

This is an example of the logical fallacy known as (I think) the "hasty generalization" or "converse accident." You state that because people believe something on faith alone, they will be naturally prone to accept virtually anything on faith alone. Do you have evidence to support this claim?

Additionally, your list of "dubious beliefs" includes "women, ethnic people, and/or homosexuals being inferior." While these are certainly all dubious beliefs, they can be empirically proven as false. Unless, of course, someone (as some highly ignorant folk do) states that these groups are all inferior "uh, just BECUZ'."

Furthermore, as I have stated (or droned on about, if you prefer) previously, the non-exsistence of a higher power can no more be proven than can the existence of a higher power. Therefore, religious people are not vesting their faith in something that is false, just in something that may be false.

Organized religion is just another form of racism (religionism?), in which the adherents of each religion believes their religion to be "superior" to others...

This statement is a gross generalization. Were you to attend a few services of virtually any mainstream religion, you would quickly realize that it is not some sort of "club" where the "members" sit around cursing or scoffing at non believers. The majority of people from the majority of religions are able to respect one another's choice of faith, even if they do not personally agree with it. If there was really such rampant inter-faith hostility, there would be considerably more religious-based violence in the world today than there already is.

Today's monotheistic religions may be "better" than yesterday's polytheistic religions, but not as good as tomorrow's atheism.

I'm sorry, but if I recall correctly, in this very same post you stated that religion "promotes ignorance and narrowmindedness," which leads to intolerance. What is the above statement if not intolerant? As for the "goodness" of atheism, might I bring up the persecution, torture, and execution of tens of millions of people at the hands of the athiest and "enlightened" (to their own minds) regimes of the USSR and The People's Republic of China? It seems that people actually can commit murder and start wars without benefit of religious influence.


🙂 Sorry if I ran a little long, but I've had a rough day, and arguing is cheaper than an exotic massage... If not quite as, um, "satisfying."


ASUTickler

P.S. Flatfoot- I agree completely with what you were saying about translation, and would just like to hypothesize that some of these "errors" may have been intentional, to better keep mideval peasants firmly within the "flock." 😉 Just a thought...

 

[asutickler]

Re: Let's get metaphysical, metaphysical...

So, great. I'm about to square off with each diametrically opposed position in this debate. Time to start establishing a perimeter and hoarding food. 🙂

Just remember: Frozen burritos beat canned junk, and they give you the ability to drive off your opponents with a foul-smelling toxic cloud. 😉

You must have been typing at the same time as me. I actually agree with most of what you said! Perhaps a mutual-assistence pact is in order? 😛


ASUTickler

 

[quinn65]

I got your back, mate. We're probably both gonna need all the help we can get. 🙂

 

[Strelnikov]

Arrogance, That's Me!

Re. monkey crap and similar substances - have you ever noticed that, when someone doesen't have a valid and well thought out response to an argument, he then resorts to ad-hominem attack and insult?

quinn, read your post and mine together. They aren't really contradictory. Your post is an elaboration of mine.

After 1600 years, Christian and secular Western assumptions are inextricably combined, because they developed and progressed together as parts of a single culture. Of course codes of ethics change over time - they should, because healthy societies aren't static. Certainly we can add new thoughts to the mix. However, I think that the history of the 20th Century shows that we throw out basic assumptions only at our peril.

Christianity teaches that individuals have dignity and worth, separate from utility or lack thereof. That led to the bedrock Western principles of constitutionalism, rule of law, representative government and individual liberty. These principles never arose spontaneously anywhere else - anything that other cultures know about such things, they learned from us. QED.

asu, I like your response to redway. I'll take it a step further: our culture IS superior to all others. The results speak for themselves. Here, most of us conduct our private lives pretty much as we please, even POOR people are fat, and babies not only live to grow up, they have life expectancies of 70+ years. No one emigrates from the USA to China or Iran.

And let's not hear any shit about Western cultural superiority being a racist notion. Colin Powell is as Western as George W. Bush.

Strelnikov

 

[quinn65]

And I'm not even pugnacious...

Ok Strel, then now I can say: "I don't need a god! I'm a good guy, and I did it all myself!"

Right? Nothing about drawing from a well containing Christian influences precludes this? Because if, by virture of being Western, we're incapable of rejecting Christian values in pursuit of goodness, the corollary would be that we're also incapable of rejecting non-Christian values. In fact, we're incapable of rejecting any values.

The view that hangs better with me is that a "good guy" could "do it all himself" through independent thought without cribbing from Christian tradition. Granted, not many do, but if you're willing to put forth the effort it's possible.

Don't make me do the desert island analogy... 😉

 

[qjakal]

Deserted Island?

Is that the one with you having Dawn Wells in the stocks, while you taunt her as you pluck palm fronds? Q

 

[quinn65]

No no no, you're thinking of the DESSERT island analogy, and it's not palm fronds, it's whipped cream. 😉

 

[Tickler2001]

Re: Arrogance, That's Me!

Re. monkey crap and similar substances - have you ever noticed that, when someone doesen't have a valid and well thought out response to an argument, he then resorts to ad-hominem attack and insult?

I felt my response was on the same intelligence level as your original post. 😛

 

[Strelnikov]

Quinn-

I never said that being Western precludes being able to reject Christian influences, even the basic ones. Many have done so. The Reds and Nazis are the most malevolent examples that occur to me offhand.

If it makes you happy to think that you derived a philosophy of life all by yourself, have at it. But as you pointed out yourself, you stood on the shoulders of giants. Like it or not, in this culture, most of those giants were Christians.

T2001-

Sorry, calling a thought "monkey crap" does not invalidate it. It just shows everyone else that you don't have a thoughtful response of your own. Log off and educate yourself. Come back when you have an argument worth posting.

Strelnikov

 

[quinn65]

Re: quinn

I never said that being Western precludes being able to reject Christian influences, even the basic ones. Many have done so.

I guess I misunderstood when you said...

The West has been Christian since the 4th Century AD. By now, there's no way to dissociate Christian thought from Western thought. It permeates our whole society.

Since one must dissociate or distinguish something before rejecting it, I guess we've come around from there. 😉

Just to be clear from your choice of Reds and Nazis as examples, are you implying that rejection of Christian influences always leads to immoral behavior? The whole idea of rejecting Christianity -- yet still "pursuing goodness" -- was pretty important to my original point.

If it makes you happy to think that you derived a philosophy of life all by yourself, have at it. But as you pointed out yourself, you stood on the shoulders of giants. Like it or not, in this culture, most of those giants were Christians.

I'd be proud to claim that, but unfortunately I can't. Those who did derive their own philosophies appear to have made it their life's work. It ain't as easy as straight borrowing. Ayn Rand comes to mind. Robert Pirsig gave it a good shot (just happen to be reading him now). I'm sure there are many others. I'm brighter than the average bear, but I'm in neither their league nor their profession when it comes to building world views. Maybe some day...

If I ever do get there, I'll be distinguishing among all those whose shoulders I stand on, accepting, adapting, and rejecting their views where appropriate. Some will be Christians, some won't. I hope I'll be smart enough to distinguish and build upon the work of the highest quality thinkers, their religious views notwithstanding.

 

[Daumantas]

I don't think Strel meant that discarding Christian influences leads automatically to immorality. I made a similar point above. There are some in this thread who are arguing that all cruelty and malevolence in human history are traceable to religion. The fact of the matter is that in the grisly roster of taking innocent human lives, the Communists and the Fascists leave all the rest of us in the dust, with more blood on their hands during the 20th Century than in all the rest of human history put together. (The Nazis alone directly or indirectly killed more people than were living in western Europe at the time the Inquisition was founded.) And neither of those two value systems relied on that supposedly horrible Christian intolerance that some people here are talking about to do their dirty work. Strel's other point is that much of what we value in our society is ultimately a value derived from the Christian aspect of our heritage. Subtract Judaism and Christianity from our cultural heritage, and you're back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who saw the universe and all in it as arbitrary and capricious, and without a sense of anything we would recognize as real justice.

 

[qjakal]

Defining religion....

Couldn't one make a case for communism and such to be considered "religions" disguised as forms of government? The similarities are both striking and frightening... Q

 

[LordProtector]

After reading all these posts, I can't see why people would even admit to belonging to a religious order. It is my experience that those god fearers among us are the most hypocritical lot of them all. I personally don't believe in God, but I respect the rights of others to indulge in their beliefs. But I think a lot of these people would do well to heed the teachings of their respective religions. Of course you can always use your get into Heaven free card when you're on your death bed.
I know the difference between right and wrong, and I have been on both sides. But I don't need to belong to a religion or to believe in a higher being to know the difference. I can live by my own morals and figure out how to live my life the best way I can.
Think for your self

 

[quinn65]

I didn't think so about Strel either, Daumantas, I was just checking to be sure.

Don't underestimate the influence of those ancient Greeks and Romans. Aristotle gave us our whole subject-object metaphysics, which is basically the highest-order distinction driving all Western thought. His ideas across the board probably permeate more Western human interaction than other religions combined. That's a broad statement . . . damn, I used to know this stuff better. Y'all are gonna get me digging through the old bookshelves. 🙂

You've got me thinking about religions disguised as government, Q. My kneejerk reaction as a hack philosopher is that religions have a lot more to do with metaphysics and ethics, where governments are clearly about politics. But those are all very interconnected, and if one set out to blur the lines, hmm...

Damn that Aristotle, now I have to go and start defining and categorizing terms, forming and testing hypotheses, blah blah blah... 🙂

 

[Strelnikov]

Thanks, Daumantas - that's exactly what I meant. I was struggling to find an adequate response to quinn, and here you've done it for me.

quinn, I wasn't talking about fiddling around at the fringes, which is something we do all the time. Look back at what I defined as bedrock assumptions. We tamper with such at our peril - it's analogous to pulling bricks out of the foundation of your house. It can be done safely, but you had better have an excellent grasp of structural engineering principles before you try it. No such expertise exists in the social sciences. That's why the house came tumbling down in 1917 Russia and 1932 Germany.

I'm not familiar with Pirsig - who is he, what's his claim to fame, what (in 25 words or less) is his philosophy?

I have read Rand. Her philosophy seemed attractive when I was 20 years old and single, but it doesen't wear well over time. Like it or not, we ARE our brother's keeper (there's that pesky Christianity again!) Daumantas and I disagree on the details of what that entails, but we agree that it's true.

(If you haven't figured it out by now, FYI Daumantas is the wild-eyed liberal of the forum, and I'm the curmudgeonly conservative.)

Strelnikov

 

[quinn65]

God I love this...

Just dragged out ol' Bertrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy" and blew the dust off the cover. You know you're on a good board when the discussion sends you off to the bookshelves... 😀

Strel, below is a link on Pirsig. You'll probably recognize his first book (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), and maybe his second (Lila). He basically tried to end-run the academic establishment and get his very radical ideas on philosophy into the mainstream through these books. His premise involves identifying a "Metaphysics of Quality" that contains and associates both subjects and objects from Aristotle's teachings. This has vast implications on Wetern thinking -- a little too much, apparently, for the academics to handle all at once. 😉

http://www.levity.com/corduroy/pirsig.htm

Also, excellent point about messing with the foundation. I'm with you. That's why I say going off on your own is a lot of hard work -- the equivalent of getting that degree in structural engineering, just to start. But it is possible.

Having first seen her stuff almost 20 years ago myself, Rand hangs together pretty well to me even as an older married guy with kids. Nothing in her work conflicts with being our brothers' keepers; she just turns the ethics around a bit: if we truly honor our brother, we help him for our own good, not out of pity or a sense of indebtedness. It's very much about human dignity and potential. I'm not with her completely down the line, but hers is the fullest picture I buy into.

Some of my best friends are wild-eyed liberals and curmudgeonly conservatives, pleased to meet you both. 🙂 As the laissez-faire capitalist, I'll probably agree with your economics and his social views. That's what we really need here -- a thread on government's role in society.

 

[qjakal]

One thread too many...

Okay, monitoring 2 threads about religion etc is one too many! I have only a few synapses that even fire on command anymore, and you guys expect me to try to cover this much ground...grrr. Please Myriad. O Newly Anointed God Of Nonconfusion (the vote was unanimous)....merge thy offending threads, and set me free!! Your vassal... Q

 

[Tickler2001]

Whatever

I don't need any proof to know that I am a good person by choice not because of any christian influence. The ridiculousness of your statement speaks for itself, it doesn't need to be disproved.

 

[quinn65]

Re: Whatever

I don't need any proof to know that I am a good person by choice not because of any christian influence. The ridiculousness of your statement speaks for itself, it doesn't need to be disproved.

Interesting. With a slight twist, I'd imagine, thus spake Torquemada to heretics on the rack.

(no pun intended 🙂 )