RicardoBlanco wrote:
topal63 wrote:
RicardoBlanco wrote:
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”
-Stephen Weinberg.
Eloquent and true. Discuss?
No it is not an insult (nor eloquent, nor intelligent in conception) - it is the human counterpart (& naturally occurring structures found in man) that creates the indignity.
And more aptly it requires childlike acceptance of an ideology (any, non-religious as well) and the natural tendency (or learned tendency) for aggression & violence.
Without religion people would still know what is right and wrong (unless they were amoral). If a man committed an evil acts he would be called evil, and rightly so. Why then is it only under the pretext of religion that a good man can commit an evil act?
An example would be, say, the church burning witches at the stake. Blatantly evil and yet, under the pretext of religion, good.
I have already tried to explain to you - any (human belief-system) ideology can lead to ignoble evil-acts (religion is not even necessary). And power seeks power - this also is human nature. Slavery requires no religious context for a belief of this nature to exist. Racially motivated violence does not require religion either. Social order and dominance often disregard the individual. In Stalin’s case mix paranoia with communism and you have a non-religious belief system capable of utter inhuman horror. In Nazi Germany add nationalism to ethnocentrism/racism conjure-up a demonized scapegoat (the Jews) turn a propaganda machine loose - when the non-religious beliefs sink in - let the human atrocities begin. What was religious about the US extermination of Native Americans? Nothing. What was the religious motivation behind Cortez’s destruction of the Aztec Civilization? There wasn’t one but there was gold to be had - all that was needed was ANY rationalization to justify the act.
Whenever anyone commits an act that we associate with evil (historically or recent) it is the disregard for the other (the other individual) that happens in the mind of a person (or within groupthink; society). All thoughtlessness is equal in this regard because the other (the individuals life) is disregarded in whole (the entirety of its life). When religious people commit evil acts we don’t have good people doing evil things - you have people doing evil (thoughtless) things - period.
It is just like non-religious people doing evil things (motivated by some internal belief that disregards the life of the other individual in its entirety).
KnowMeByTrailOfDead wrote:
Consider why religion came to be. The need for hope. Something to believe in. Religion provides hope that there is a bigger picture. That when we die there is something or nothing. It is a driving principle to most peoples existence. If there was no belief in the afterlife then what would be left but fear of death. Everyone would live in bubbles afraid to interact with the rest of man kind (probably not but you get the idea). Yes people could get buy without religion but without that hope I suspect life would be much worse. If this life was a one shot deal, no afterlife, no heaven, no hell, nothing, what would stem your greed to live it up? Just a thought.
I don't agree - with that. . . not by a long shot. Any single belief can be annihilated and anyone can make it through the so-called suffering that nihilism is - that itself is just another belief. There are a greater number of belief-constructs contained in religious scripture (text) that exists as control constructs - that prey upon that very “hope.”
But religion is not “hope.” That exists whether or not religion exists - it only takes a positive-mind to reflect upon the matter - until then none exists.
What religion is (IMO):
1.) The stirrings of curiosity in the cosmos in a pre-scientific age.
2.) Mythology (in an anthropomorphic projection form, maybe even as a necessity of form for those thoughts originating in antiquity) and this is the poetry of psychological imagery - as man reflects upon his relation to the cosmos.
3.) It represents the mystery of all being (one science cannot address, as infinities, infinite regressions, keep popping up, and will continue too - ad infinitum).
4.) Community and potential unity within it.
5.) Style and tradition (yes even style, as worship requires conformance to a form).
6.) Art, culture and human history (even if the only real history contained therein is: how we used to think & feel).
7.) Ritual (of course this relates to #5); rituals are symbolic enactments of myth that reinforce relationships. Not just human relationships but also an individual’s internal sense of unity/connectedness with his environment (community, country, institution, the universe, conscious being, etc).
8.) It is like a dance - it does not have to involve the grave nature of existence - but also the possible joy herein.
9.) It represents a linkage to the past (see # 6).
10.) Etc. . .
It is the blind-faith, the absurd-leap, the immoral verses, the unearned spirituality of simple acceptance, clear-contradictions, apologetic nonsense, bizarre and masochistic & ascetic theology that people of reason have problems with. But this is merely theological dogma & doctrine and there is no reason why it has to be interpreted by the individual (or even within the institution itself) in the form that has been. Fundamental militantism is a reaction. It is an irrational fear of change, nihilism and the very constructs (found within a belief-system that scream-out for conformance).
If one accepts and believes in an afterlife (or reincarnation) then condemning one to eternal damnation (bad karma, or reincarnation as a lower life form, etc) is a prey upon that very human ideal of “hope.” It is a vacuous threat; utterly empty of any actual deeper meaning. It is the emptiest form of spirituality when such constructs exist in any religion.
Last edited by topal63 (2006-06-12 16:09:43)