quote:To me, there's something wrong with the idea of a being who will exert himself to make sure that one team or another wins a meaningless professional sports championship but sits by while a tsumani decimates whole countries and leaves the survivors in sufferign and squalor.
quote: Is it good or bad for a society to adopt a set of shared moral ideals to govern their expectations of one another? Ideals like "it is wrong to exploit someone else for your exclusive benefit" or "harming another person is wrong" or "emotional abuse that goes beyond THIS limit should be punished"? Or even values as simple as "avoiding the deaths of many humans is a good thing" or "our way of life should be continued into the next generation". Are these important for us to establish as standards for society that people are held to?
I'll bite. Yes, I do think it's good for a society to agree on such a thing. However, I don't think religion helps with this much. Why? Because since nearly everything is based on the interpretation of archaic texts (the Bible, for example) or the interpretation of the words of a leader (Jesus, for example) or tradition or feelings, rather than on reason, two people can look at the same sources and come to completely opposite conclusions.
Consider slavery in America. Christians on the one side argued that Jesus said that slaves should be subject to their masters. The other side took the same Bible "Love your neighbor as yourself" and argued that the slaves ought to be freed.
But because everything in the Bible is by default true, it all comes down to interpretation.
If you're making your arguments by logic, when you have good facts, you'll come to good conclusions. If you just accept a priori what people said a long time ago, you'll stop looking for facts, and who knows what your conclusions will be.
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
porter, The point I was making was that in many cases the apparent "reward" for people's praying was the power to torture and kill others or have God do it for them. That's one of the main themes of Old Testament. You know, God using his divine power against the innocent.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Dean, you make an excellent case for not relying exclusively on the interpretation of ancient texts for establishing shared moral values. I agree with you, absolutely, for many of the same reasons. My church is actually founded, in part, on the idea that religion should be alive and responsive to new situations, and not dependent on words written centuries ago.
So you don't really say anything that shows that religion and spirituality, in general, are incapable of providing useful moral standards. Just that certain religions with ineffective strategies have run into problems doing so.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
By the way, all this citing of specific cases in which religious people did bad things in history is not useful.
Take the Spanish Inquisition. They did terrible things, and they were Catholic. They were also RENAISSANCE SPANIARDS. Which of these do you think contributed more to their brutality? The fact that they believed in Jesus, or the fact that they lived in barely-post-medieval Europe? The latter seems far more likely to me.
Citing even a WHOLE BUNCH of correlation doesn't in any way imply causation. Throughout most of history, the vast majority of people, in general, were religious. So what do you know, a lot of horrible things were done by religious people in those days. Gosh, what a surprise.
Then, finally, ONE time in history, a major society emerged who claimed atheism as their universal religion — the Soviets and other Communists. Did they suddenly cease the brutality? NO, it went on, just as horribly as before, if not moreso. If this were a laboratory experiment, it would appear to be early proof that removing religion from the equation does not make people less fanatical, violent, or brutal, and that therefore, religion is not the cause of human violence and brutality.
And yet the same old arguments get rehashed, decade after decade. I'd really appreciate it if people who apparently value logic and scientific inquiry so highly would apply its principles universally when they deal with other people, and not just when it benefits them in an argument.
I suspend my skepticism about my own personal religious experiences because of subjective observations I have made that I cannot transmit to other people. But I don't use my own implicit faith in the "rightness" of my argument as an excuse to use inflammatory and obnoxious tactics against my opponents in a debate. If you can't defend your position through reasonable and fairminded means, you should be reexamining it yourself.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:God has ignored my prayers a thousand times. My step-brother got better, but my mother died, at 47, of the exact same thing.
You speak in willfull ignorance when you say that religious people are those who have not suffered and had their prayers go unanswered. I have been blessed in many ways, but I have also been NOT blessed in many ways, and I didn't get to pick which prayers were answered the way I wanted them to be.
In reading Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things, we come across a demonstration of psychicness. You've seen those TV shows where the one person looks at a card and the other people try to guess which card it is? Well, they were doing this as a group of people, and they got a whole range of correct answers. Some people got eight or nine right. Some got six or seven right. Some got five or six right. Some got less. However, the person doing the demonstration explained the results this way: If you got a high score then that means that you're psychic and you've got some good experience using your skills. If you got a medium score, then you're psychic, but you could do with some more practice. If you got very few correct ones, then you're psychic (probably very psychic), but you've blocked off your ability to recieve.
The whole prayers-answered thing seems the same way to me.
If you pray and your prayers are answered, good. Prayer works!
If you pray and your prayers are not answered, then god is testing you or giving you greater opportunities for growth or comforting you. Good. Prayer works!
If (as is most likely) you pray for a lot of things and some of them come true and some don't, well, you don't understand it yet. Perhaps this thing wasn't the right thing for you to recieve or you needed something else. Good. Prayer works!
If you assume the result, then whatever happens seems to prove that it's accurate. Everyone does it, of course, but that doesn't really make it a useful way of finding out information.
When I was religious, I prayed for a lot of things, most of them not all that unlikely. Like once I got transferred out of the class my best friend was in, and I prayed and prayed and prayed about for like three weeks, and at the end of the three weeks, I had made some new friends in my class and had found ways of seeing my old friend outside of class, so I counted that as a prayer answered. But it was fairly unlikely that they would transfer my friend, but it was fairly likely that I'd make new friends, so does this really count? Or was this something I did on my own and would've done anyway whether I'd prayed or not?
It's kind of like when I worked in a bookstore and I would go to all this extra effort to figure out which books classes were reading, order plenty to go around, and when the last minute parents would come in and ask for it, and I pulled it off the shelf from where I'd put it for just this eventuality, they'd say, "Praise Jesus!" as though Jesus were the one ordering books for them and not me right in front of them.
People mostly pray for fairly likely things, and whether or not they get these things, they seemed reasonably satisfied. This seems to me to say more about human psychology than about the efficacy of prayer.
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I've found prayer much more useful as a source of spiritual guidance than as a source of everyday miracles. I do believe in miracles, very strongly, but they are very rare, and I have little to no expectation that I will be the recipient of one. It's not a lack of faith, it's just a realistic extrapolation from the evidence I've seen. So I don't expect God to make my life easier. I only ask Him to help me learn from it.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Soviet Russia was indeed brutal, Puppy. However, what did they replace religion with? Did they replace it with reason and science? Enlightenment-like philosophy? Value of the individual? Well, no. Did they replace it with an almost-religious cult of the leader? Um, yeah.
Perhaps this is because they declared the end of religion abruptly without changing the minds or thought-patterns of the people-- or of the rulers. Perhaps it's because they declared that religion was bad without offering something else (such as reason and rationality) to replace it.
I don't want to brainwash people that religion is bad or to outlaw it. I just think that people ought to try to root out irrationalities within themselves, and people who are unaware of their irrationality ought to have it pointed out to them.
Religion is an irrationality. It doesn't always even pretend to rationality. (For example "God won't show himself to people who don't already believe in him.") It seems to me that the good things that religion offers can be offered by things that are not religions, and religions lead too often to how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin-type arguments and anti-science, stem-cell-research-is-bad type attitudes and policies.
Catholics, for example, spend billions on some cathedrals and do relatively little to help the poor. Catholic doctrine (such as the rules against birth control and STD control) actively seem designed to further oppress the poor, which we know runs contrary to the opinions of its alleged founder.
If religion could be purged of such misguided ideas, I would have less against it, and might even approve of it as a social club. However, as it stands, nothing it does seems to redeem it from basically encouraging people to waste time and money on non-factually-based solutions for their problems while ignoring reality.
Some people find their religions so valuable that while they know that their religions are historically completely inaccurate and not good predictors of things to come or even of right behavior, they still follow them. Other people don't know or care in what ways their religions are historically completely inaccurate, have incorrectly predicted the future or how often they've changed their minds about the morally correct thing to do. For me, having found all of that out about three or four different religions was what ended my ability to accept it.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, but that doesn't mean you need to strap one on your arm.
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Geoff, I'm not sure if that way aimed at me, but under the assumption that it was, I don't think you're reading me correctly. In this thread, or where I talk about the Enlightenment, or in the Happy Athiest's Day thread, I am talking about logical systematic reasons why I have problems with some aspects of many religions. It bothers me when people, whether pro or con, take "religion" as a unitive concept as opposed to made up of systems, concepts, and structures. Religion as an applied but general term is meaningless. However, there are poeple who have problems with many incarnations of religion (and who find many of the same elements in the "atheist" counter-examples people bring up) not because they hate religion or like to feel superior to those poor deluded fools, but because we have problems with many of the things, independent of where they express themselves, and find that many religions contain these things.
If you were just talking about KOM, then, you know, as someone who all that previous is true for, I wish he were not on a side that could be seen to coincide with my own.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Heh heh It was a general, disfocused rant, but it was mostly triggered by KoM.
I personally think the problem in most of these cases is FANATICISM, which is a phenomenon that occurs in, but is definitely not restricted to, religion.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't think it's anywhere near as simple as that (I'm getting into it in some depth in the Jay's stupid Atheist's Day thread). But then again, figuring it out is what I do with my life, so I'd be out of a job if it was.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Nothing is simple, of course, but I had to decide between writing a single sentence or writing a huge post, and the sentence seemed like a better choice Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Catholics, for example, spend billions on some cathedrals and do relatively little to help the poor.
You know this? You have numbers (real ones)? Or are you saying this because if it were true, it would support your beliefs?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I honestly think that KoM and I would agree about this if he recognized that I'm actually opposed to fanatical behavior and fortress mentalities even within my own religion, and that these kinds of attitudes and behaviors are the real culprit. They afflict many religions, but they also afflict just as many political parties, advocacy groups, and nationalist cultures. If he could quit blaming the actions of fanatics on religion in general, and if he could quit lumping me in with the crazies, we could actually work on the same side.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Critically comparing a religion's expenditures on worship sites to their contributions to charity presupposes that the worship and other experiences that take place at those sites have no value. And incorrectly so. Religions EXIST, in part, because people need or desire those experiences. For a religion NOT to provide them would be a serious dereliction of duty.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Complaining about it is like saying the states are wasting our education dollars building schools.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ahhh, but there are buildings and then there are buildings. Consider St. Peter's, the church that lost Germany for the Catholic Church.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
You're obfuscating the point - any complaints about the way churches spend money on buildings ignores the value of the buildings.
I am uncomfortable with singling out the Catholic church, especially there are many faithful Catholics on Hatrack. I am surprised you are not.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Errr...no I'm not. I'm putting it into a wider context. One of the major influences of Martin Luther's reformationist breaks with the Catholic Church was the issues surrounding the building of St. Peter's. It's a truely awe-insipring building, but there was some pretty bad stuff that went along with building it, edit: not the least of which was it's tremendous cost.
I find your assertion that I'm singling out Catholics by mentioning the one of the most famous historical disputes over the bulding a religious building somewhat bizarre. Could you explain your logic?
quote:but there are buildings and then there are buildings. Consider St. Peter's, the church that lost Germany for the Catholic Church.
It's hard to figure out what meaning you'll claim when the original sentence "there are buildings, and then there are buildings", but it looks like you think some buildings are okay, but others are not. Then you gave an example of one that is not.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Were the words I used too big for you? It's bad enough getting religion in general denigrated - try not to do it to specific faiths.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
In this case he's mentioning a very specific, historically well-known incident (well, series of incidents centered around a particular building).
Is it now denigrating of a religion to mention the fact that something happened which relates to that religion?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Complaining about it is like saying the states are wasting our education dollars building schools.
Yes, the money is going to where the people who gave it wanted it to go. That does not mean that it's the best place for the money to be spent or that there are not far better uses for it.
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't see why religion should be above being criticized especially since it doesn't behave in a fashion that is above reproach.
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Incidentally, I was looking for a discussion of theodicy to refer to and darn if wikipedia's entry wasn't the best I found. They even mention Holocaust Theology. Just thought I'd mention it if people want to look at an external reference and to tell twinky, if he's around, "Wikipedia Rulez!"
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Yes, the money is going to where the people who gave it wanted it to go. That does not mean that it's the best place for the money to be spent or that there are not far better uses for it.
I doubt you can take a single dollar and put it toward a single cause and reach universal agreement that there isn't a better place for that money to go.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:I don't see why religion should be above being criticized especially since it doesn't behave in a fashion that is above reproach.
Good point dean. The only person whose reproach theoretically matters to me would be God. If I feel like we are pleasing him, then I shouldn't be too worried about what the detractors think.
Is there a term yet for comparing your own point to Abraham Lincoln? I was going to say "Even Abraham Lincoln had his detractors" He still has a few. Though I think they are real weasel-gnats. Anyway, I'm sure God is flattered by the comparison Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
There is a section of the user agreement you accepted to not bash other people's religions. In other words, religion is a special area because you agreed that it would be.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:There is a section of the user agreement you accepted to not bash other people's religions.
No there isn't. There's a section that says that attacking someone else's religious beliefs is not allowed, but there's nothing that says you can't say that there are problems with a religion.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
We're halfway down the next page ... now King of Men will never find the gigantic-arse post I wrote Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I had been taught that the reformationist break was over indulgences and the related issue of faith vs. works.
Anyway, I know our church winds up spending a lot more money than they need to not to satisfy their vanity, but to comply with ridiculous historical restoration guidelines. I'm sure this wasn't relevant to the building of St. Peters. They spent as much restoring a congregational chapel near us as it cost them to build a brand new temple of the smaller variety- about $3 mill. I guess they could have torn down the old chapel and put up one of those new ones. I support the general idea of historical restoration in the intangible benefits it gives to a community. But in order for a building to satisfy them and the modern earthquake/fire codes gets very expensive.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ok, ok. It's just barely conceivable that I gave my inner snark a freer rein than was really 100% optimal. I apologise. Once more, with objectivity. The purpose being to show why I think churches are bad at the list of good things you mentioned.
Spiritual enlightenment
I very much doubt you can define this so as to make it measurable; hence I do not think you are particulary justified in claiming churches do it well. How do you know? And if you're just using it in the usual meaning of 'gaining knowledge of truth', why then I stand by my statement that churches do this very badly, since they teach untrue things.
quote:For what greater purpose are individual human beings ever going to choose a necessary sacrifice over an immediate gain?
How about the second world war? You can hardly claim that all those who fought in that were religious, particularly in the self-examining sense you seem to be speaking of here. I think there are few 20-year-olds with that kind of self-insight, religious or none. Then, how about going to college? That's an immediate monetary sacrifice for a long-term gain. Or perhaps you were referring to sex? I grant you that the way America does this is not the healthiest, but heathen Norway has considerably fewer teen pregnancies, as I recall, and certainly fewer STDs.
Community building
I do not see where a religious community is to be preferred over your average football club. While churches are perhaps no worse than other organising principles, they are no better, either. Hence this cannot be counted as a positive good in favour of churches.
Subjective self-understanding and growth
How can you judge the subjective self-understanding of anyone but yourself? And hence, how can you claim faith promotes this? As for growth, I stand by my 'imaginary friend' comment. How is it growth to rely on forces outside not only the self, but all of humanity? Even assuming the existence of a god, worship does not seem particularly designed to aid human growth, with the possible exception of the IPU (BBHHH).
Moral agreement and moral teaching
Right, let me try that without the inflammatory rhetoric. To the extent that churches teach morals I agree with, said morals were invented by atheists or at most deists, to wit, the Greek philosophers. (Also separately by Confucius and the Buddha, but neither were very religious as we understand the concept in the West.) To the extent that morals I abhor are taught today, they are almost exclusively taught by churches. So I very much disagree that churches do a good job of moral teaching.
As for agreement, I do not consider this a good thing; morals should be probed for value like any other concept. If you believe something is good because the church says so, you are not being moral.
The propagation of culture
Which culture are we speaking of, here? I'll grant you monasteries as repositories of knowledge during the Dark Ages, but in all honesty, I think we would have done just as well without the COuncil of Nicea, or even Aristotle. (Who wasn't preserved by monasteries anyway, but by reasonably secular Arabic scholars.) Culture as theatre, music, and literature? All have been opposed or even suppressed by churches at one time or another, and many sects remain opposed to secular literature. Culture in the broader sense of science and knowledge? Libraries do a much better job, and aren't prone to suppressing knowledge they disagree with, like heliocentric thought, anaesthetics for childbirth, and evolution. Culture as national identity? Only to the extent that they betray their own ideal of the brotherhood of all men. Have I missed any senses of the word culture?
quote:The fact that you apparently only recognize or value the kind of intelligence that is measured by aptitude tests is strange and telling ...
I don't see how you get this from "can't watch them solve problems." When talking to someone, you can see the mental process by which they arrive at their solution, and even be part of that process. The ability to do that is extremely strongly reduced when discussing a problem over a message board.
quote:I mean, you've seen Hatrackers solve problems every second you've been here — but they've all been social, political, and philosophical problems, which apparently ... don't count?
I disagree. I've seen Hatrackers give their opinions on problems of various kinds. I have yet to see anyone convinced by an argument here. I conclude that, if problems are being solved, they're not being solved very convincingly. (Including by myself, obviously.) Or perhaps you were referring to the personal problems that are occasionally brought up? Again, not having the opportunity to see either the thought process or the effect of the solution chosen, I cannot use this to judge intelligence. It is for precisely such reasons I disclaimed my ability to judge Hatrackers' intelligence, and instead pointed to grades and the studies I linked as a reasonably objective backup to my subjective impression.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: I am uncomfortable with singling out the Catholic church, especially there are many faithful Catholics on Hatrack. I am surprised you are not.
kat, you always go for this offended victimology silliness. It's very annoying. Squicky isn't 'bashing', he's making a point about religion using a particular religion as an example, which is perfectly o.k., just as it is perfectly o.k. to respectfully point out problems with any other group and back up what you are saying with examples. In a discussion about the usefulness of 'religion', it's kind of impossible for the side that doesn't value religion very much to not use examples using a particular religion.
I do not see where a religious community is to be preferred over your average football club. While churches are perhaps no worse than other organising principles, they are no better, either. Hence this cannot be counted as a positive good in favour of churches.
Well, by this reasoning, if it ain't a good, it ain't a bad, either. So you can't use it as a knock against religion, either.
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
No, that's what I'm conceding. The point is, Puppy is trying to say that the good outweighs the bad. The only good I'm seeing, is done just as well by other organisations, which don't have the bad. So as a defense for religion, this fails.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
While not an indictment against religion in general, here is an interesting article (and close to the home of our dear host and hostess) that points out why a separation of church and state is not such a bad thing:
Why swear on a Bible and not a Quran? As an agnostic with no particular spiritual bent at this time, why is my oath on the Bible (that I enjoy for its historical perspective and clever wordplay) any more worthy than an oath on, oh, the book "A People's History of the United States" (which I enjoy for its historical perspective and clever wordplay).
One thing I think this thread is mixing is the terms "Religion" and "Spirituality." The two can be fairly exclusive as you can easily have one without the other. One wouldn't expect that but to not see that it is in fact the case is missing a big piece of the puzzle in this discussion.
Posts: 896 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
The Federal Rules of Evidence hava much better rule on oath/affirmation:
quote:Rule 603. Oath or Affirmation
Before testifying, every witness shall be required to declare that the witness will testify truthfully, by oath or affirmation administered in a form calculated to awaken the witness' conscience and impress the witness' mind with the duty to do so.
The bolded part is the part I think is best. This was adopted specifically to make it clear that atheists are not prevented from testifying due to inability to meaningfully take the oath.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think I've said it before : There is no obligation to respect beliefs that are patently silly; or perhaps you respect the Aztec religion for its high-minded attempt to keep the universe running? There is only an obligation to respect the right to have a silly belief.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
>>I've found prayer much more useful as a source of spiritual guidance than as a source of everyday miracles. I do believe in miracles, very strongly, but they are very rare, and I have little to no expectation that I will be the recipient of one. It's not a lack of faith, it's just a realistic extrapolation from the evidence I've seen. So I don't expect God to make my life easier. I only ask Him to help me learn from it.<<
Ratty Puppy: You made me think of why I dislike the plaque on our bishop's desk: 'Expect the miracle.'
And also, this:
quote: Helaman 10:5: I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will.
Thanks, Puppy Rat!
kat- Was that snarky to Rivka? You be careful. . . you'll awaken my apathy and I'll get. . .(shudder). . . blasé.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
It was a general, disfocused rant, but it was mostly triggered by KoM.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
