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Post by Kaneda on Jun 30, 2011 23:33:19 GMT -5
Ah, I see what you mean now, thank you for clarifying. Hmm.... I still think it comes down to the individual though, or perhaps how strongly they adhere to the faith in question? Although that would bring in questions of how strongly does one have to be for something in order to qualify for representing it. As long as they think they're right. That alone automatically excludes the possibility of others (not necessarily ALL others) who believe different things with an equivalent degree of justification from being right. You could say perhaps that the specific level of inherent narcissism does vary depending upon what they believe in and how strongly. Faith in the most basic concept of god could be considered less arrogant than faith in all of the bible, as the stripping down of the concept increases the probability of being correct. Someone who is open to the possibility of being wrong could probably be seen as possessing a less arrogant faith than a militant fundamentalist. However, each of us can only go with what feels best to ourselves. Being forced to adhere to something that you don't connect with, that never goes over well. So does that mean there's an inherent egoism involved? Maybe, but I still see it on the same lessened level of personal preference, like choosing one cereal over the other, except with incredibly higher stakes. edit: The influence of location and upbringing should be considered as well. Although now people have access to all of the world's religions, before it was just what was normal in your area plus whatever missionary groups found their way over. For a lot of people, I think there's a pressure to stick with what they currently have because that is what their family believed for generations. To turn against that is in a way to turn against what they all believed as well. But would that belief still be the same if they had been planted in a different part of the world centuries earlier? No way to tell, of course, but I'd be curious. What feels best to ourselves is the motivation for choosing a personal philosophy, not a system by which we think the universe works. To choose a faith based religion simply because it feels better strikes me as demanding of an astonishing level of disinterest in truth and knowledge. When someone becomes Christian, it doesn't just mean that they like the empathetic, pro-welfare, neighborly love moral guidelines, it means they believe in a tremendous amount of historical and scientific alterations for which "it feels good" seems like hardly sensible justification. And in regards to your second point, you raise a child to think something, they're more likely to think it. That's part of what faith is for many people. Things you accept as a given because you've always thought them. Religion benefits from having such a nice word always associated with goodness and positives to assign that cognitive phenomenon to. I said somewhat. And you really aren't getting my point. My point isn't that the unknown is whatever the hell we want it to be. It's that I don't think just laying back and saying "There's nothing to live for" really gets us anywhere. You're the one who decides to do that. I don't see what relevance your personal philosophical approach to a universe without an afterlife has to the merits or failings of atheism. Its one of the responsibilities of an atheist to come to terms with the absence of a nice little gift-wrapped universal meaning. I think it's a shame that so many religious people never have to go through with it, maybe they'd find something better suited towards themselves as individuals. If you think that "if there's nothing after death we may as well just die and get it over with", then I'm sorry that your life sucks. I said it was a secret candy island. It's entirely possible that it's also quite melancholy.
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Post by Consonant*** on Jul 1, 2011 0:07:12 GMT -5
The question that we need to ask ourselves is if it really matters. The fact of the matter is that scientists will remain atheist and devoted to their belief in science while the religious, at least for the near future, will remain religious. I'm fine with this dialogue existing, as healthy debate is always fun and enlightening, but I don't understand why all the massive antagonism between the two camps needs to exist.
Who cares if people that believe in God are wrong, they manifest their belief by being outstanding citizens, helping the homeless, reforming criminals, donating to or even running charities, doing missionary work. Not only that, but it gives people purpose and drive in their lives. Oh no, they come to your door and try to promote their church. Big deal, be like everyone else and say "no thank you" and shut the door. The fact is, any negative effect that the church has is completely insignificant in comparison to its benefits.
I know about all the crazy philoprogenitiveness in the Bible supporting the slaughter of gingers and the rape of freckled blonde women from Australia, but the fact is it's entirely irrelevant. The existence of over 9000 types of Christianity is proof that people believe what they want to believe, regardless of what the book actually says. I mean sure extreme belief in Christianity could result in bad things, but that is true of anything. Extreme nationalism, extreme loyalty, even extreme rationality can and have all lead to grievous human rights violations and mass murder. The fact of the matter is that human nature is human nature is human nature, and there will always be factions and arguments and faith and all of this stuff.
You could say my position on religion is entirely patronizing but that's because it is and I really do not care.
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Post by Kaneda on Jul 1, 2011 0:36:33 GMT -5
Who cares if people that believe in God are wrong, they manifest their belief by being outstanding citizens, helping the homeless, reforming criminals, donating to or even running charities, doing missionary work. Not only that, but it gives people purpose and drive in their lives. Oh no, they come to your door and try to promote their church. Big deal, be like everyone else and say "no thank you" and shut the door. The fact is, any negative effect that the church has is completely insignificant in comparison to its benefits. I know about all the crazy philoprogenitiveness in the Bible supporting the slaughter of gingers and the rape of freckled blonde women from Australia, but the fact is it's entirely irrelevant. The existence of over 9000 types of Christianity is proof that people believe what they want to believe, regardless of what the book actually says. I mean sure extreme belief in Christianity could result in bad things, but that is true of anything. Extreme nationalism, extreme loyalty, even extreme rationality can and have all lead to grievous human rights violations and mass murder. The fact of the matter is that human nature is human nature is human nature, and there will always be factions and arguments and faith and all of this stuff. I don't see why you should assign the violence, fear mongering, and human rights violations resulting from religion to a niche of human nature that would be filled regardless of impetus, and then say the positive effects are all just thanks to religion. The view expressed in your second paragraph also seems strongly Americentric, the negative societal effects of religion are much more limited here than in many poorer countries.
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Post by Consonant*** on Jul 1, 2011 4:58:41 GMT -5
I don't see why you should assign the violence, fear mongering, and human rights violations resulting from religion to a niche of human nature that would be filled regardless of impetus, and then say the positive effects are all just thanks to religion. The view expressed in your second paragraph also seems strongly Americentric, the negative societal effects of religion are much more limited here than in many poorer countries. I assigned the violence, fear mongering and human rights violations committed in the name of religion to a niche of human nature that would be filled regardless of impetus because they have been and will continue to be perpetrated regardless of religion. The Holocaust, the most grievous instance of violence, fear mongering and human rights violations in modern recorded history was perpetrated in the name of racism and nationalism, not religion. World War I was all loyalty and nationalism, not religion. The Civil War was all about political ideology and racism, not religion. I attributed the good aspects to religion because that is how Religion functions. The entire message of every legitimate religion is, in a nutshell, "be perfect individual, receive bacon". There wouldn't be over a billion Muslims in the world if Islam's message was taught as "Destroy the infidel", because that runs counter to how human society has developed over millennia. Not enough people would be interested in the message to keep the institution self-sustaining. I'm not saying that Religion is flawless or not at all involved in what happens in the Middle East, Africa or South America, that would be unrealistic. The Shia are taught that suicide is a sin and therefore Shia terrorists do not use suicide bombings in their arsenal; Suicide Bombings are a strictly Sunni phenomenon, showing that Religion does play a role in the strife in the Middle East. However, the point I'm making is that every single philosophy or point of view taken to the extreme can and will result in horrible consequences. Sure, they're fiction, but look at the Matrix, Terminator and I, Robot for consequences of hyper-logical, hyper-scientific thinking. Human existence logically runs counter to the safety and survival of the planet Earth, but it is because we have ethics to mitigate and regulate the scientific approach that we don't simply kill off every human being. I suppose science as an institution can be held responsible for the existence of eugenics? My second paragraph was Americentric because that is what I am intimately familiar with. No amount of academic research or news articles can serve as a replacement for growing up in and experiencing a culture and civilization as it treats all of its citizens. Nobody in this entire forum is qualified to comment on how Religion effects situations in the Middle East or Africa because we only get the surface appearances. Every single decision made by an individual is based on a lifetime's worth of experiences and cannot ever be simply attributed to one single cause.* The fact is, even if nobody even had the concept of God in them, the horrors of the world would still exist, it would simply take some other name. Look at the Tutsi and Hutu groups in Africa, perpetrating genocide upon one another for century after century for literally no reason other than their differing names. Competition is a natural part of the human condition, and when combined with thousands of other factors, competitiveness can lead to genocide. If not religion, then race. If not race, then class. If not class, then "ethnicity". If not ethnicity, then tribe. If not tribe, then place of origin. Hatred will always exist amongst humans, we cannot simply go around trying to eliminate all the nominal "causes". *But wait, you might say, aren't I attributing the good effects of religion to that one single cause? In a macro sense, yes, because the active message of these religions is one of peace to attain salvation, essentially being used to unlock the goodness that people naturally have in them. Violence-based messages are, in essence, a perversion of modern Religious teachings, and often take advantage of the victims of ethnic, economic or nationalistic oppression in order to serve the megalomaniacal tendencies of whoever happens to be in charge. Again I point the the Tutsi and Hutu who kill each other for no reason.
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