In Iran, the religion couldn't get away with this without state complicity. If you read the article carefully, Iran is complaining not that the world is outraged over its exercising of the dominant religion, but that the criticism interferes with its sovereign rule.
It may seem a minor point to you, and I agree that this really is a case of religion being used as an excuse to commit barbaric acts, but this is really more a cautionary tale about religion and government being intertwined.
IMHO.
And yes, we've come far from this. But the greater tolerance in this country (and the West) doesn't mean we've arrived where we should be.
And for all that I'm glad we're not like Iran, I'm still not happy with how we treat homosexuals in this country.
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: There is a vast difference between religion and jerks-playing-God.
The sad part is the large minority of folks who claim to be religious, yet worship only jerks.
quote:Originally posted by romanylass: It really bothers me when one subset of Christians claim that another subset is not, in fact, Christains. That's one thing that really bugged me about these folks.
Substitute 'religious' for 'Christian' and it makes just as much sense. But of course, people who do evil things can't be Really Religious (tm). Now, if you admit personal spiritual experience as evidence, how can you say these people are wrong? For all you know, their God really has told them that gays are to be killed in unpleasant ways. After all, it's the liberal attitude that's historically unusual. Gods have told people to do this kind of thing throughout history; if anything, the burden of proof is on modern, Western Christianity to show that it is the real thing, and not Satan whispering.
As for state complicity, if you can't get the law on your side, there's always the lynch mob and the gay bash, as in modern America. Sure, a state church makes it a lot easier, but the real problem is the attitude, not the enforcement.
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I think people who say 'religion' always causes people to act morally are just as silly as those people who say that 'religion' always causes people to behave immorally. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:As for state complicity, if you can't get the law on your side, there's always the lynch mob and the gay bash, as in modern America. Sure, a state church makes it a lot easier, but the real problem is the attitude, not the enforcement.
The one obvious difference being that if you lynch a gay person in this country, the local law enforcement officers will haul you away, the judge will try your case, and, if found guilty, you'll be facing major prison time and possibly capital punishment.
edited:
KoM, I think your rhetoric runs to the extreme but really it just undermines your point, IMHO.
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If the murderers are caught, yes. And I agree things look reasonably good on this score now. But it's not so long ago that such a crime would have been winked at; there's a reason people weren't openly gay in the fifties, just as I think few would have chosen to be openly black if they could have avoided it.
(Actually, some Norwegian author, I don't offhand recall his name, wrote a short story on the subject. It was in the form of a letter to the editor, espousing skin transplants for blacks; the skins were to come from elderly people. "Of course, there might be minor problems with the smell and the appearance; but there should be some give on both sides. We have the right to expect a little compromise on the part of the Negro. Appearance is really his problem; ordinary hygiene should be sufficient. Extra deodorant, etc. (...) Now, the main objection to my solution is, perhaps, that the skinheads will be unable to tell the difference between a genuine, Norwegian pensioner, and a Negro with a transplant. I hear you say, "Would you expose our elderly to race hatred?" Of course not! The solution is simple. All that's required is to give each real Norwegian a small lapel badge, or similar, saying "I was never a nigger."")
Anyway, that's a digression. I would like to repeat my question. If once you admit personal, spiritual experience as valid evidence, then how can you condemn such acts? There are, after all, hundreds of otherwise sensible, kind-hearted people who believe these sentences justified.
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What do you mean by "valid evidence?" It seems to me that you mean that personal spiritual experience can't be part of a dialogue on any issue.
I don't hear a big hue & cry for religious "evidence" being called for in our courts, unless you mean when someone is prosecuted for behavior that they claim is part of their religion (like the guy in Florida who killed one of the last remaning wild Florida panthers).
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I was referring to the discussion I've had several times with Dagonee, where he will bring up his experiences (and those of others) as evidence for the existence of his god.
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You know, KoM, you don't really have to do this. Your position as Hatrack's Head Bigot is quite secure, I assure you. Posts: 609 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Well, I dunno. Maybe evidence that is, you know, testable and repeatable by other people? Like, what's the word - real evidence. The kind where you don't end up hanging people because some old whacko says "God wills it!"
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Well, that depends entirely on the god; many tribal religions have gods who can be forced to do stuff if you beat them, or don't give them food, or whatever. But that's not really the point; we were talking about what constitutes evidence. I ask again, if personal, spiritual experience is admissible as evidence, then how can you condemn such acts as these? Iranian revelation is just as good as Western, no?
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KoM, if evidence was limited to that which was repeatable and testable, there would be no need to ever use those words in front of "evidence." As it is, you know that there is evidence that is neither repeatable nor testable that gets used quite often. Say, eyewitness testimony in a court of law.
Once again, your scientific paradigm is perfectly fine when left to science. As you've stated so eloquently and often, God's existence isn't a matter for science.
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Well then, Dag, am I to conclude that you approve of these hangings, since they were clearly done in accordance with this kind of testimonial evidence? And dh, can I just point out that Jesus was in fact Middle Eastern, and drawing heavily on Persian mystery cults, at that? You might want to be careful with just what geographic regions you exclude from having genuine religious experience.
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quote:Well then, Dag, am I to conclude that you approve of these hangings, since they were clearly done in accordance with this kind of testimonial evidence?
No, you are not. If you can't see why, you're really not intelligent enough to bother with.
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Oooh, ad homs! Fortunately I never let insults from theists bother me. So let me ask again, just exactly what is the difference between your testimony and theirs?
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My statement wasn't an ad hominem attack so much as a plea for you to cut the shit. Has any theist on this board, ever, said that every single claimed revelation from God is correct? Has anyone argued in this thread that every thing done in accordance with testimonial evidence is something we approve of.
You can't be this dumb. I don't believe you are. I believe you are doing this on purpose, either because you're bored, you're drunk, or you just like being a jerk.
If you're going to drag me into discussions I'm not even part of, at least have the courtesy to act as intelligent as you pretend to be.
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I am asking you a very simple question, Dag. How can I, from the outside, tell the difference between a religious maniac and a genuine spiritual experience?Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Let's say for the sake of the argument that it is impossible to prove that God exists through subjective experience. Why does it matter to you how a person becomes good or bad?
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Storm, it matters to me because when religious people go bad, they tend to do so on the large atrocity scale.
Dag, I can't force you to think. But I wish you would do so, even if you don't tell me the results. How can you tell the difference between your own imagination, and the real thing?
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By the way, pardon if you've had this conversation before. I've not payed attention to a lot of them edit: that you've had on this board about religion, I mean. For some reason I'm in the mood tonight.
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Religious people : People who profess to follow a god, spiritual force, divinely inspired prophet, or other untestable outside force.
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KoM, it is the responsibility of each individual person to do what they believe is right whether they believe in God or not. We have discussed this thouroughly at Hatrack, but I do not think you were part of the discussions.
First, IMO, a belief in God does not give anyone liscence to ignore their conscience.
Second, my belief in God is seen through the lense of my conscience. If something appears to be from God but strikes my consceince as evil, I will be quite suspicious of it. This may not be the case with other religious people. But I cannot speak for them.
Third, people are going to disagree on what is right or wrong whether we bring God into the equation or not. Of course I will conclude that another person's evidence doesn't come from God if it seems evil to me. Just as they will do the same with me. I find that understandable and don't have a problem with it.
You believe that religious belief is more evil than good. I say that people do with religion according to the deepest desires of their heart. I think how people live their religion says more about them than about religion in general.
When religion goes really bad is when the leaders of that religion are evil or believe evil things and cause multitudes to follow them. Certainly there are examples of that.
But do you think that this evil in Iran is worse than the evil done in such atheist countries as China, Japan, and Korea?
You seem to want to pin evil on religion. You seem to want to say that if we got rid of religion everything would be hunky dory and all our problems would go away. You are deluding yourself. I don't know why you are doing it, or why you so vehemently hate religion, but your world-view looks pretty warped from where I'm looking. And I am using pure reason to come to that conclusion.
Why not pin evil on ignorance? If religion supports ignorance, I can understand you having a beef. I'd have a beef too. But lets be honest about the actual cause of the evil. Say it with me, nice and slow. I-G-N-O-R-A-N-C-E.
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quote: But do you think that this evil in Iran is worse than the evil done in such atheist countries as China, Japan, and Korea?
You know, if you asked me to name three atheist countries, these would not come up tops on my list. And if you asked me to name three areligious countries, they wouldn't even be in my top twenty.
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Yes, actually I do think the evils done in Iran are worse than those in China, a quick bullet to the back of the neck being a much preferable death to a slow choking. Also, the Chinese government is at least susceptible to ouside pressure, since they want trade with the rest of the world and are reasonably pragmatic; the mullahs, I suspect, are men of principle, willing not only to die for their beliefs but to endure sanctions and opprobrium for them. And as for Japan, I am not aware of any breaches of human rights by their government. (If you were referring to WWII, they were anything but atheists at the time.)
And religion does support ignorance; the creationist movement in the US is only the latest example. But what is worse, religion sets up the principle that there are some questions that cannot be asked, some propositions you are not allowed to test.
quote:First, IMO, a belief in God does not give anyone licence to ignore their conscience.
Well, that is very fine, of course, but the thing is, religious belief often seems to give people rather strange consciences. The inquisitors, for example, believed that they were doing their victims a favour by giving them a chance to recant. Indeed, wasn't it you who said, in a discussion the other month, that it was OK to introduce a plague that would kill 200 people, if one of them was thereby saved from Hell? The difference is only one of degree.
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quote: Religious people : People who profess to follow a god, spiritual force, divinely inspired prophet, or other untestable outside force.
So, to throw your question back at you,"How can I, from the outside, tell the difference between a non-religious maniac and a religious maniac?" If you say that the answer is that 'they say so', then why is this not the answer to your actual question?
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quote:And religion does support ignorance; the creationist movement in the US is only the latest example.
And that is why I think it is wrong. I am sad that religion tends to support ignorance. I would not have it be that way.
quote:Well, that is very fine, of course, but the thing is, religious belief often seems to give people rather strange consciences.
Which may be the case with the people in Iran. But again, the real evil is ignorance, misinformation. I choose to attack ignorance rather than religion because I think it is the real problem.
quote:Indeed, wasn't it you who said, in a discussion the other month, that it was OK to introduce a plague that would kill 200 people, if one of them was thereby saved from Hell?
No, you must be thinking of someone else.
I probably said something more to the fact that the two cultures were going to meet at some point, and that plague was going to be spread. It was inevitable. So the right thing to do is make it as painless as possible under the circumstances. Did they do that? If they did, then they did all they could, didn't they?
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I believe I asked the question more as a hypothetical, but maybe you didn't read it that way. So let me try it again : If there were an isolated tribe in the Amazon, and you knew you could bring the Gospel and smallpox to them at the same time, wiping out the tribe but saving one or two, or even half of them, from Hell; would you do so? For the purpose of this argument, we'll postulate that you and they are the last people on Earth, or that some other circumstance means they'll be left alone if you don't missionarise them.
quote:So, to throw your question back at you,"How can I, from the outside, tell the difference between a non-religious maniac and a religious maniac?" If you say that the answer is that 'they say so', then why is this not the answer to your actual question?
If you have a maniac in the first place, does it really matter whether they're religious or not? The point I'm making is that religion is very strongly correlated with mania, and a dangerous kind at that, because it tends to spread.
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I don't think it does, no, however you keep talking about this 'religious' thing. According to your own standards (empirically, objectively testable), we don't know what religion is yet, do we? How can you talk about something correlating to something if you don't know what it is?
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KoM, I would probably try to find a way round it. I'm smart enough, I'm pretty sure I could come up with something.
You have to understand, I believe that everyone will have a chance to hear the gospel after this life as well as in this life. I believe that it is better for them to learn of it and accept it in this life, but I don't think that it is important enough to outweigh death and suffering at the cause of it. Certainly wiping out some of the last people on earth is far more evil than having to wait till the next life to hear about the Gospel.
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I thought I gave a testable definition of religion : Professing to follow some un-verifiable force outside of humanity. This would seem to neatly include Christianity in all its variants, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Shinto. Ancestor worship, Buddhism, and Confucianism get a bit more diffuse, but I think they come inside the definition : Talking to dead people, I think, falls under 'outside humanity', and both Confucianism and Buddhism have a concept of heavenly powers. You might make an argument for Marxism and Nazism also, but while their prophets made claims of infallibility, they didn't claim to be non-human (though, y'know, if Hitler had won and his adherents had had a couple of generations to spin their propaganda...) and their works are testable.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote: I thought I gave a testable definition of religion : Professing to follow some un-verifiable force outside of humanity. This would seem to neatly include Christianity in all its variants, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Shinto. Ancestor worship, Buddhism, and Confucianism get a bit more diffuse, but I think they come inside the definition : Talking to dead people, I think, falls under 'outside humanity', and both Confucianism and Buddhism have a concept of heavenly powers. You might make an argument for Marxism and Nazism also, but while their prophets made claims of infallibility, they didn't claim to be non-human (though, y'know, if Hitler had won and his adherents had had a couple of generations to spin their propaganda...) and their works are testable.
Your test relies on extremely subjective criteria. It's not reproducible. Goodness is not a verifiable force. There is no instrument on this planet that can detect good, or love, or justice, etc. Even if we go with the fact that people are verifiable, you can't say that goodness is. So, anyone who says 'I am doing this to be a good person' or 'I am doing this to be a just person' would fall under your definition. Since this seems pretty obvious, I'll assume for the moment that you're cool with people emulating other behaviors people exhibit and calling it 'good' and that you don't believe those people are 'religious'. I'm guessing your problem is with people calling the behaviors of some imaginary being good and following that since you believe it's 'outside of humanity' since they say it is. Please correct me if I am wrong.
It seems obvious to me, though, that, objectively speaking, imagination isn't outside of humanity. If something doesn't exist, yet people speak of it, then it exists in their minds only, yes?
However, ideas and imagination are absolutely part of humanity. So, in actuality, religious people aren't following something outside of humanity, but an integral part of humanity. I think this is a stumbling block in your definition.
Further, the behaviors their imaginary god (assuming for the sake of argument it is) wants them to do, aren't imaginary and, in fact, are normally proved by what other people do, granted it is often by examples of imaginary people, yet it is often not. What you woulr probably call 'religious' people often can point to real world examples of real people doing 'good' things. So, it is reasonable to believe that real world people could do those things, too.
So, I think your definition has a few problems that lead me to reject it as a good way to test for religiosity.
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Zen doesn't involve talking to dead people, AFAIK. But it's a tough problem.
Certainly "religion" is a convenient term. It allows people who hate Christians and Jews to blame them for the actions of other people that hate Christians and Jews.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote: So, anyone who says 'I am doing this to be a good person' or 'I am doing this to be a just person' would fall under your definition.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
quote: However, ideas and imagination are absolutely part of humanity. So, in actuality, religious people aren't following something outside of humanity, but an integral part of humanity. I think this is a stumbling block in your definition.
Ooo! Spanked by a fellow atheist! Kind of a conundrum. If you are certain there is no God, then whatever people believe they are following is of no consequence. It's essesnce comes from within that person.
In otherwords, if God doesn't exist, then religion, as well as all other traits, is a manifestation of people's innate goodness or evil.
There are countless examples of evil people in authority coerceing people do evil things. No religion involved. It helps if they can use misinformation and ignorance. If religion helps them accomplish this, then they use it as a tool. But that doesn't make religion evil. It makes it a lever that can be manipulated, like need for food, pain, fear, oh a whole host of things. That it is a particularly poignant tool (because you can make people believe they are doing good when they are doing evil) doesn't make religion evil.
You see, just as religion is a poignant tool for evil it is also a poignant tool for good. It is a way to deeply convince people of goodness, to be passionate about it. It awakes people from apathy. If it is not used more in this way, that is a shame. Of course, the religion has to teach goodness, and the people leading must be good as well. And this *does* happen. More than you realize (obviously!) It just doesn't get near as much press.
Again, ignorance and evil leadership are the real enemies here, whether you believe in God or not. Fighting religion head on is a fruitless endeavor, IMO, since evil will exist with or without it. You remove a powerful tool for evil *and* for good.
Fighting ignorance and evil leadership removes evil without removing any good. Hey! What a grand idea! So the question remains, KoM, why do you chose *this* fight?
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I'm more agnostic then athiest though I do allow the possibility that God may or may not exist in some for (since science has not discovered the cause of everything... yet)
And wow, this is one of the mos tintense discussions I've ever seen.
Lemme try to sort this out:
the diff between a relgions wako and someone deeply devout i think is their willingness to spread such doctrine, if they are unwilling to spread it for fear of infringing on their own freedom (for example unwilling to put their converts to the torch), and also unwilling to lie etc just to gain converts would in my book make them devout.
Wako's are those who preech it to the choir and are willing to do all kinds of harm to force others to follow suit.
As for three athiest countries... I'm sorry but no country falls under that catagory China is pretty Buddhist, Japan Shinto, and which Korea? Both buddist taoism, cunfucian varient, though China falls under confucious pretty easily as well.
As for atrocities? Politics, no point complaining about a foreign country where they're are easily plenty of problems in your own country.
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*Pats Beverly on the back for offering such a wonderful, lucid post* *Goes back to lurking in this interesting thread*
Posts: 684 | Registered: Jun 2002
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I was just settling down into bed and thinking about this thread when I realized that I needed to clarify that I am not posting against KoM in the sense that I totally disagree with him. I think I share with him the belief that unquestioning obedience in some ideal or person or organization, where you will do anything, or almost anything, to attain that ideal, is, if not out and out bad, then extremely dangerous. This is why when I see posts along the lines of 'OMG! How can you be a part of that religion and you don't agree with everything they say?', I tend to jump in and say that people should question tenets in their religion. I believe that 'religions' that don't allow people to stay in that religion who question tenets of that religion are very dangerous.
Of course, if a person gets to full non-believer status, then I think it would be logical for them to leave.
There are shades of grey that I'm not getting into, but I just wanted to clarify before I went nappers.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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While I wouldn't exactly agree with KoM's post and his way of arguing the point, maybe what he means is to say is that "evil" is relative to the observer. While the act he links to in his initial post is considered as something with negative connotations by us, it might be considered an act of "good" by them.
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