turn me off to Buddhism

[Halo299]

Painfully simple.

Abdicating a "reality based" view of things in the real world, in favor of a fantasy, and basing your actions in the real world, in whole or in part, upon the mandates and circumstances of that fantasy is so very obviously dangerous and irresponsible that the mere need for discussion as to why it's dangerous and irresponsible beggars the imagination.

i like the way you put that.

-halo

[Boring 7]

Communist Russia was ostensibly atheist, are *they* kicking ass and taking names in the socio-economic rat race? Is it perhaps oppression, religious or otherwise, that needs to be fought?

Also, comparing religion to an abusive husband is still fallacious because you are disregarding the scale. Most all of the horrific atrocities committed on the Earth were committed by humans*. So clearly anyone defending mankind as a worthy species is just a "battered wife" saying nice things about those dirty humans. Clearly humanity is evil and must be destroyed.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, like the humans that created it, religion is just a bit more complicated than "all good" or "all evil".

*Except for the rape and torture of 50 Gornaks by their Krebulon "allies"-turned-betrayers, but that was technically just in Earth orbit anyway**
**If we cannot still get a laugh out of this thread then I am very sad...and vulnerable.

[Halo299]

I am very sad...and vulnerable.[/size]

just like i like'em

-halo

[Honor]

Communist Russia was ostensibly atheist, are *they* kicking ass and taking names in the socio-economic rat race? Is it perhaps oppression, religious or otherwise, that needs to be fought?

I don't recall saying "Atheists are home free!! Anyone without religion will -automatically- prosper!!" Not believing in the fucking boogy-man seems to be only one part of an overall successful socio-economic recipe. Go figure.

As to fighting oppression... Sure. Sounds great. But fighting ignorance and superstition is good for it's own sake, too. Education is a pretty important and powerful component in that fight against oppression... While I'm not saying I do or don't agree, a lot of folks have suggested it's the -most- important... Educate them, and they'll fight the oppression themselves, they say.

Also, comparing religion to an abusive husband is still fallacious because you are disregarding the scale. Most all of the horrific atrocities committed on the Earth were committed by humans*. So clearly anyone defending mankind as a worthy species is just a "battered wife" saying nice things about those dirty humans. Clearly humanity is evil and must be destroyed.

Maybe it's the word-concept of "fallacy" that's giving you trouble. In order for the argument to be fallacious, it has to at least be an argument, and not just an analogy or illustration. Religious faith is not bad because battered wives defend their husbands, nor is religious faith proven to be bad by this analogy... The analogy merely illustrates the tendency to ignore or forgive the bad by heralding the good, and states that such a tendency is unfavorable or invalid behavior.

An illustration is not required to be of equal scale to be valid... This, we can say "the world is like a drop of seawater" and be both valid and accurate, as far as the limited illustration goes.

Further, your argument that it's out of scale is incorrect... We might agree that most husbands are not abusive... But we can't argue that most religions aren't abusive. Almost all of them have this history of abuse. So we're left to argue that most days they don't engage in abusive behavior... Again, I don't think this is true. Most religions commit an atrocity every day. So we have to go to the idea that most individual practitioners or adherents are not personally involved in such atrocities on a daily basis... I just don't think that's good enough. They are the ones supporting and perpetuating it. They feed it and nurture it and make it grow.

Nor is an illustration required to invalidate all other possible illustrations in order to be valid. The fact that you can, quite rightly, use a similar analogy to condemn humanity does not invalidate the illustration... It merely points out that humans have done some bad things. If you were to seriously argue that humanity should be extinguished for that, you wouldn't be the first...

But, in this particular case, you are getting into the area of fallacy... The argument is that, because this one thing is also bad, and we're not condemning it, then we shouldn't condemn this other thing that's bad.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, like the humans that created it, religion is just a bit more complicated than "all good" or "all evil".

Of course it is. I haven't said it's "all evil". I've (quite clearly) said its evil outweighs its good and we'd be better off without it.

*Except for the rape and torture of 50 Gornaks by their Krebulon "allies"-turned-betrayers, but that was technically just in Earth orbit anyway**
**If we cannot still get a laugh out of this thread then I am very sad...and vulnerable.

Vulnerable? *perks* As in... You can be taken advantage of...?

[Boring 7]

probably.

Also a question of efficiency: "Is it not better to play nice with the good-natured True Believers and thus use them against the fundies?"

To do so requires "Catching more flies with honey than with vinegar" as it were. . .

[Honor]

probably.

Also a question of efficiency: "Is it not better to play nice with the good-natured True Believers and thus use them against the fundies?"

To do so requires "Catching more flies with honey than with vinegar" as it were. . .

I don't think so... We had this discussion a little while ago, but, I think, shortly before you started posting... So I don't know if it was in your lurk-range.

See... My problem is that you need "normal" religious folk in order for there to be "ebil fundies". It's tempting to say ebil fundies come from religious liberals, but the truth is the opposite... Both of our violent religions started out pretty well radical and intolerant, then more progressive whiners shifted them a bit, presumably because they wanted the Happy Jesus Fun Time reward (or local variant thereof) but weren't really keen on all the fun stuff being a sin... So they start picking and choosing and forming new off-shoots of the base religions.

Then someone comes along and proves the danger of a life-central belief system based on superstition and fear... "Things are going badly, so it must be because the Sky Genie is annoyed with us! It's time for a return to Old Time Religion! Time to return to our original values... Fire, brimstone, intolerance, hatred, and fear!"

Basically, the way I put it before is thus:

If we admit the fantasy that there's a Giant Invisible Dude who wants us to do something, then, since the Giant Invisible Dude obviously isn't going to tell us himself what that something is, then anyone who claims to have a direct line is equally valid... When someone says "The Invisible Sky Dude told me he wants us to kill the homos and heretics!" the only argument left is "No, no, no... That's not what he wants us to do at all! He told me he wants peace love and cookies..."

I think "You childish, criminally insane jackass, there is no invisible sky dude. STFU." is a much, much better argument.

[Boring 7]

That only works if the childish criminally insane jackasses can handle reality as it comes without their invisible sky-father.

In my experience, the answer for a lot of folks in this world is still; "no".

[Ce6]

Okay, I'm not gonna jump headlong into this melee (IMO we shouldn't need religion, but since the vast majority of humanity has difficulty taking full responsibility for our own actions it's too useful of a tool to get everyone to give up at this point in history).
But I do have some more suggested reading:
'Orphans of the Sky' by Robert A. Heinlein. One of his early works, but does a good job on showing the dangers of the 'religion vs. science' debate.

[Boring 7]

That would be my position as well ce6. The bone of contention I foolishly continue picking at is two-fold:

First, I *do* think religion has done more good than evil because it has done a lot of little goods. The guilt-fueled donations to charities that would have otherwise failed, the saving of pathetic people from their own weak personalities (and chemical dependencies, and etc.), and so many other things. It has a long, long rap sheet of crimes, but an equally long list of successes and acts of good.

Second, in a conversation with a theist, as with any person, you have the carrot of kind words and the stick of insults. The many, many treatises on "how to win friends and influence people" (like, say, influence them to be less retarded for the Invisible Pink Unicorn) is to be NICE. Use the light touch of a civil and silvered tongue of honeyed words rather than the whip of agonizing and severe tongue-lashings.

And I've just made us all think about oral sex. . .completely derailing my own post.

...

Yet I am still pleased with the result of this post.

[Sonofzeal]

See... My problem is that you need "normal" religious folk in order for there to be "ebil fundies". It's tempting to say ebil fundies come from religious liberals, but the truth is the opposite... Both of our violent religions started out pretty well radical and intolerant, then more progressive whiners shifted them a bit, presumably because they wanted the Happy Jesus Fun Time reward (or local variant thereof) but weren't really keen on all the fun stuff being a sin... So they start picking and choosing and forming new off-shoots of the base religions.

I've read the history of Muhammed, and I'll grant that Islam pretty much started out radical and intolerant. But Christianity started out one heck of a lot better until it got coopted by Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus. I mean... love your enemy? Turn the other cheek? Reattaching an enemy soldier's ear? "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"? Radical maybe, but I'd say in a good way.

The problem, IMO, is that with Constantine the Great it became institutionalized, and as a human institution it pretty much went the way of all human institutions - the more power it accumulated, the more intolerant and corrupt it became. The humans involved became more concerned with preserving and expanding their power than they did with the actual teachings of the faith. IMO, the problem was never religion, the problem was humans. I mean, heck, look at the intolerance that happened under institutionalized atheism in the USSR.

It's so convenient to point to a group you disagree with and blame them for all the horrible things that have happened in the past thousand years, and convince yourself that you'd be completely incapable of it because you're not one of them. The fact is, we're all more or less greedy, petty, shortsighted, and selfish. Religion is not some soul-crushing force that makes us into monsters - we already are those monsters.

[Honor]

I've read the history of Muhammed, and I'll grant that Islam pretty much started out radical and intolerant. But Christianity started out one heck of a lot better until it got coopted by Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus. I mean... love your enemy? Turn the other cheek? Reattaching an enemy soldier's ear? "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"? Radical maybe, but I'd say in a good way.

Problem here is that you seem to be confusing "Christ" and "Christianity". The teachings of Christ (which were also contradictory and more than a little intolerant... Merely choosing to repeat the nice bits doesn't do away with the not-so-nice bits) began to be corrupted as soon as he was dead, and the make-believe of the resurrection was co-opted from Mary's object lesson / morality tale / euphemistic illustration to Peter's "Ya Rly! He literally rose from teh deadzors!!"

It's so convenient to point to a group you disagree with and blame them for all the horrible things that have happened in the past thousand years, and convince yourself that you'd be completely incapable of it because you're not one of them. The fact is, we're all more or less greedy, petty, shortsighted, and selfish. Religion is not some soul-crushing force that makes us into monsters - we already are those monsters.

Um... Bullshit. We can add to this boring7's "First, I *do* think religion has done more good than evil because it has done a lot of little goods."

My problem here is that I've once again been drawn into a debate about the atrocities of religion, to the extent where you're even attributing me with statements I haven't come close to... That "I'd never do something awful because I'm not religious." Nonsense. People are greedy, avaricious, nasty, intolerant, etc, etc. While I think it's demonstrable that - whatever the motivations of the architects of these great atrocities - the majority of the "footsoldiers in the field" have always been motivated, at least in part by religious howling, I'm certainly not saying that no atrocities would happen without it.

But that's not the point.

Let me very clear. The primary "atrocity" I am charging religion with is that they base important decisions on capricious assumptions about the wishes of an imaginary authority.


I disagree entirely that "the masses" simply couldn't deal with reality without it. I've met plenty of atheists who weren't brilliant. Any "masses" who would be lost without religion would only be so because they're already indoctrinated. Without that, we can't say they'd be lost.

It's like looking at a population of heroine addicts and saying that the majority of mankind could not face reality without heroine. Well, they sure as hell could - the vast majority of them - if they hadn't been forcibly addicted to heroine in the first place.


Second, as to the "small goods" that wouldn't have ever been done without religion, this one is also false, and much more evidently so than the first. There are plenty of non-religious charities, and there is plenty of data about the rates of secular "giving" compared to religious giving... But, even outside that, your premise is flawed. You'd be just as correct to say that an advanced monetary system is the root of all charity, since most modern charity is given in the form of money. We're social animals. We'd have just as much charity without religion as we do with... And perhaps more, since religious similarity and proselytization would not be a motivating factor, as they so often are now.

[Sonofzeal]

Problem here is that you seem to be confusing "Christ" and "Christianity". The teachings of Christ (which were also contradictory and more than a little intolerant... Merely choosing to repeat the nice bits doesn't do away with the not-so-nice bits) began to be corrupted as soon as he was dead, and the make-believe of the resurrection was co-opted from Mary's object lesson / morality tale / euphemistic illustration to Peter's "Ya Rly! He literally rose from teh deadzors!!"

You know, I'd really like to see evidence of this. I mean, yes, I'll agree that as soon as anything starts passing through the filter of human minds it starts to change subtly, and that the Christianity found two or three generations after Christ was slightly different that what he taught. I'll grant that Paul was intollerant towards homosexuality (but his "anti-woman" teachings are generally misunderstandings, as we know he worked closely and well with female spiritual leaders). Still, the crimes that Christianity is guilty of seem to me to be post-Constantine issues. If you've got problems with the pre-Constantine church as compared to the rest of society at the time, please share.

Let me very clear. The primary "atrocity" I am charging religion with is that they base important decisions on capricious assumptions about the wishes of an imaginary authority.

See, I (obviously) aproach this from a different angle. From my point of view, the choice is to either base important decisions on the capricious wishes of human authority, or base important decisions on some sort of idealized form of what authority should be. Because, let's face it, most people are not going to take the time and effort to decide these things entirely on their own. I, personally, would rather a codified metric (say, a regilious/philosophical text) that laid out reasonable ethical guiding principals, than any human authority. As a mathematician, I believe in having a set of first principals/axioms and working from them, rather than hoping someone else will guide me selflessly and accurately. I happen to call that set of first principals "religion". You may call it something different.

I disagree entirely that "the masses" simply couldn't deal with reality without it. I've met plenty of atheists who weren't brilliant. Any "masses" who would be lost without religion would only be so because they're already indoctrinated. Without that, we can't say they'd be lost.

It's like looking at a population of heroine addicts and saying that the majority of mankind could not face reality without heroine. Well, they sure as hell could - the vast majority of them - if they hadn't been forcibly addicted to heroine in the first place.

I never said people couldn't get by without religion (or that you thought humans were nice and fluffy before religion came along), and I'm sorry if it came across that way.

Second, as to the "small goods" that wouldn't have ever been done without religion, this one is also false, and much more evidently so than the first. There are plenty of non-religious charities, and there is plenty of data about the rates of secular "giving" compared to religious giving... But, even outside that, your premise is flawed. You'd be just as correct to say that an advanced monetary system is the root of all charity, since most modern charity is given in the form of money. We're social animals. We'd have just as much charity without religion as we do with... And perhaps more, since religious similarity and proselytization would not be a motivating factor, as they so often are now.

...Except that the data you refered to shows that faith-based charities are, on average, significantly more effective at getting the money to where it belongs than secular ones. And a number of the more effective secular charities were founded and run by Christians - Habitat For Humanity would be a good example of this, but it's by far not the only one.

[Error of Logic]

We're social animals. We'd have just as much charity without religion as we do with... And perhaps more, since religious similarity and proselytization would not be a motivating factor, as they so often are now.

Oh, please. -_- Charity is hardly the ground state of humanity. Yes, we are capable of lending help, goods et cetera to other humans, but the primary instinct is to do that within our own groups. A simple experiment: someone you never met comes up to you and says his wallet was stolen, but he has an important job interview in the next town. Will you please lend him a hundred bucks or more so he can go there, eat and get back home? Now say someone you do know comes to you and asks for the same thing.
Social creatures, we may be, but we still need motivation - or a good kick in the rear - to share outside our own circles.

As for non-religious charity being inheretly and completely better than the religious kind, think again. There's usually an angle somewhere down the line and not all proselytizing has to be religious in nature. Charity can just as easily be used to force economic and political conformity, obliging trade agreements and political support.

[Swordsman3003]

People go to war all the time, trying to rape and pillage and steal or whatever.

Humans have an instinct to take from others; that's why rules and laws against theft are necessary.

The reason why the claim that "religions cause" violence is valid: Magical beliefs make people go to war for things that don't exist.

[Error of Logic]

People go to war all the time, trying to rape and pillage and steal or whatever.
Humans have an instinct to take from others; that's why rules and laws against theft are necessary.
The reason why the claim that "religions cause" violence is valid: Magical beliefs make people go to war for things that don't exist.

And where do you think the rules against violence came from? Where the laws that structurize societies originated? The major civilizations arose because religions united people.

[Indigo Violent]

People go to war all the time, trying to rape and pillage and steal or whatever.
Humans have an instinct to take from others; that's why rules and laws against theft are necessary.
The reason why the claim that "religions cause" violence is valid: Magical beliefs make people go to war for things that don't exist.

And where do you think the rules against violence came from? Where the laws that structurize societies originated? The major civilizations arose because religions united people.

Uh...do you have any evidence at all for this? Our closest relatives in the ape world don't seem to have any religion, and they are definitely social animals.

[Sonofzeal]

Uh...do you have any evidence at all for this? Our closest relatives in the ape world don't seem to have any religion, and they are definitely social animals.

Apes are social, but never developed "civilization" in any sense, so that's not exactly a rebuttal. I wouldn't go quite as far as Error, but I wouldn't underestimate the importance of religion to the development of civilization, and especially to the development of science and mathematics.

As for religion being the origional basis for morality, I think that's almost inarguable. I would never claim that an athiest or non-religious person is in any way less capable of leading a moral life, but I don't think a non-religious caveman would ever come up with the concept of morality by him/herself. Even Nietzsche recognized this, as his concepts of religion and "slave morality" (ie, morality designed to protect the weak from the exploitation and predation of the strong) are inexorably linked.

[Boring 7]

Let me very clear. The primary "atrocity" I am charging religion with is that they base important decisions on capricious assumptions about the wishes of an imaginary authority.

Okay. So those that base their primary decisions on science and technology and continue to practice religion to "answer the unanswerables" (like "Why are we here, Where do we come from, What caused the Big Bang, and Why did I think this shade of green was good?") and find spiritual fulfillment are. . .? Your current rhetoric implies you do not differentiate. Is this wrong? Do you choose to differentiate?

I disagree entirely that "the masses" simply couldn't deal with reality without it. I've met plenty of atheists who weren't brilliant. Any "masses" who would be lost without religion would only be so because they're already indoctrinated. Without that, we can't say they'd be lost.

It's like looking at a population of heroine addicts and saying that the majority of mankind could not face reality without heroine. Well, they sure as hell could - the vast majority of them - if they hadn't been forcibly addicted to heroine in the first place.

Even today (or perhaps, especially today) many individuals do not get indoctrinated into religion and later, much later in life, after being hedonistic, immoral, and self-destructive "find Jesus" and are "saved." They are quite popular amongst the indoctrinated as affirming examples that Jesus conquers all. Secularism is much more common in this day and age, and some of the most secular groups seem to have the highest rates of depression and suicide. This implies a fundamental weakness or necessity.

The reason why the claim that "religions cause" violence is valid: Magical beliefs make people go to war for things that don't exist.

Every example of religious violence has a tale behind it of folks "using religion as an excuse" to kill, conquer, and above all pillage. Same with most examples of "scientific" atrocities.

Which is why I say, "that is hardly fair" to attribute a product of human nature to a religion. Religion itself is a product of human thought, and as such merely a reflection of its creators.

[Indigo Violent]

As for religion being the origional basis for morality, I think that's almost inarguable.

Well, hate to burst your bubble, but I personally am confident that religion has very little to do with the formulation of morality. I think the fact that nearly all human societies and civilisations everywhere have both moral codes and some form of religion speaks to the idea that both are products of our evolutionary history. I don't know if you've ever read Hobbes, but he puts the problem very neatly in Leviathan: life sucks when we can't all get along (or, if you're a traditionalist, "the natural state of man is poor, nasty, solitary, brutish and short.") People who are constantly suspicious of one another and don't cooperate are in danger from one another. If they manage to from a group, however, they can probably gather more food, protect each other from predators, rear more young, and be generally better off.

So if you get a group of individuals whose psychology is more inclined to follow group rules and have some kind of instinctive revulsion of breaking them, that group is going to succeed better than a crew of psychopaths ready to slit one another's throats if there's an advantage to be gained. Mind you, no evolutionary adaptation is perfect; that's why we still have people who break "the rules", whatever those rules may be.

As for religion, I think it's a complex matter, but that a lot of factors come together to make human beings susceptible to it. We have the aforementioned "follow the rules" mentality; we like to solve problems (such as "where does thunder come from?" and "who made this planet anyway?"); it adds to our sense of community; and, like most animals, we're afraid to die. I think that really pretty much sums it up.

[Swordsman3003]

The reason why the claim that "religions cause" violence is valid: Magical beliefs make people go to war for things that don't exist.

Every example of religious violence has a tale behind it of folks "using religion as an excuse" to kill, conquer, and above all pillage.

What a bunch of utter horseshit.

You have just said that no religious beliefs, throughout history, ever convinced anybody, anywhere in the world, to do violence.

I'm not saying that all violence causes religion, or that all religions cause violence. I'm saying that some religious beliefs have caused somepeople to kill each other because they fought over something that did not exist.

Let me provide a lucid and recent example: the 9/11 hijackers.

The acutual hijackers themselves believed beyond any doubt that their wanton destruction and murder assured them a place in heaven.

You've said that religion is an "excuse." Did those hijackers decide to commit suicide, and in the process kill thousands of people, and then go find a religious belief to support it??? I think your understanding of cause and effect is completely asinine.

Certainly, some higher-ups of religious orders have told their followers to do their bidding for personal gain, and then convinced them with religion. But the fact remains that some people are convinced to commit atrocities because they accept magical worldviews.

Same with most examples of "scientific" atrocities.

Thank you for at least putting scientific in quotes, but the way you are trying to use that analogy does not apply to this situation.

Science does not teach what people "should" do, it tells them what "is."

Many religious simply try to inform people! Most religious beliefs are of that nature.

Other teachings try to tell people what they should do. Often times, they are good teachings, like the Golden Rule.

But many religions, such as the beliefs of Al-Qaeda or Aum Shinryoko or the Catholic Inquisition, teach their followers to kill and torture people.

The Inquisition was not an "excuse" to torture people! The prevailing beliefs are what caused people to think that torture was a legitimate!

If a general orders his soldiers to march around the block 2 times, is it not his responsibility? Or did the soldiers just use his orders as an "excuse?" Why do you allow religious beliefs to abdicate from the responsiblity of the actions they have ordered?

Science cannot ever be blamed for the actions that some takes because science cannot tell them what to do.

Which is why I say, "that is hardly fair" to attribute a product of human nature to a religion. Religion itself is a product of human thought, and as such merely a reflection of its creators.

Maybe humans do have an innate desire to commit murder. But it usually takes somebody telling them "it's ok to kill people" before they do it. Whether that's your Sgt, your Priest, or whatever.


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