Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Your objections are pedantic and can be disregarded then. You spoke about how religion did not do anything or make claims, people do so instead. Practically speaking though, we do not tend to make such nuanced differentiation in everyday speech. Whether religion is directly responsible for something, or influences people who are then responsible, makes no significant difference.
Of course it makes a difference - and is far beyond a nuance. People are accountable for their actions, choices and behavior (their ‘reason’ isn’t). It doesn’t matter whether religion, the devil, alcohol, or drugs ‘influenced’ someone to commit a crime ‘in their mind’, they are still responsible for said crime - not religion, the devil, drugs, or alcohol.
Last edited by CorporateCowboy; 03-22-2019 at 05:10 PM..
Of course it makes a difference - and is far beyond a nuance. People are accountable for their actions, choices and behavior (their ‘reason’ isn’t). It doesn’t matter whether religion, the devil, alcohol, or drugs ‘influenced’ someone to commit a crime ‘in their mind’, they are still responsible for said crime - not religion, the devil, drugs, or alcohol.
religion is a boogeymen under the bed. And its real to anybody that can't think past it.
One big reason might be that the religion I used to belong to would teach me that religion was bad and they weren't a religion, they were a relationship with Jesus Christ. They were actually a religion though (if they weren't they would be taxed for collecting money). They were just a religion a bit more self-deluded then the ones that accept and confess that they are religions.
The religious factionists have often taught that all other religions are bad. It just takes one to realize that their's is just as bad to see them all as bad.
See the world is also ruled by unseen wicked angels and demonic spirits who can live inside people through the unseen spirit which are alien to the living God , and there is wicked angels who have seven heads ten horns and ten crown, and this beast is the liberal spirit for the world who hates the living God , and this beast makes up false religions to fight God and His plan for the earth............. See the spirit of the world inside man makes religion look bad, as this spirits that manipulates man ..... There is also a spirit of Jesus Christ who can rip these wicked spirits out of man and set Him free , so people who ignore having faith in this spirit of Jesus Christ will be ruled over by these wicked spirits by default , and there is nothing that people can do to stop this ..............
This...in 2019. And people who believe things like this. vote on our futures.
See the world is also ruled by unseen wicked angels and demonic spirits who can live inside people through the unseen spirit which are alien to the living God , and there is wicked angels who have seven heads ten horns and ten crown, and this beast is the liberal spirit for the world who hates the living God , and this beast makes up false religions to fight God and His plan for the earth............. See the spirit of the world inside man makes religion look bad, as this spirits that manipulates man ..... There is also a spirit of Jesus Christ who can rip these wicked spirits out of man and set Him free , so people who ignore having faith in this spirit of Jesus Christ will be ruled over by these wicked spirits by default , and there is nothing that people can do to stop this ..............
Aaaaaand ... this is why religion is a negative influence.
Religion is a ‘thing’; in and of itself, it does neither harm nor good. People do harm - in the name of ‘fill in the blank’. People who are angry, people who feel justified, people who are mentally ill, people who want to impose their opinions on others, and so forth. It’s all in the application.
No, that is completely wrong.
For instance - when you pick up a hammer and pound a nail, does it fundamentally change who you are, does it change your worldview, does it change your actions and behaviors so that you suddenly doubt reality in favor of superstition and faith?
How about any other tool? Does anything profound happen to you by picking up a fork? A pen? A pair of pliars? How about when you drive a car? Use a computer? Etc. etc.
All of those things are tools.
But religion *does* change who you are and everything about you. Religion is not just a tool, it is a way of life, a complete package belief system that has caused people - especially as a collective - to justify some of the most heinous atrocities in history, not to mention individual acts of bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, prejudice, hate crimes, racism, misogyny, and all the rest of it.
I can't recall too many hammer factories listed as official hate groups - but I can list a dozen religious groups, all of which have the word "family" in their names.
I understand where you're trying to go with your argument, but it's still an example of the "false equivalency" fallacy.
Religion is not a tool - like a hammer, pliars, computer, or duct tape. Not at all. While yes, religion *is* frequently used as a tool, that use can only come from the fact that religion is a state of being, a worldview, a lifestyle - even a cultural trait.
Military leaders right up until today have used religion to fire up the common foot soldier to do his leader's bidding. Back when soldiers had more freedom to choose whether or not to fight, kings, dukes, emperors, and hundreds of petty noble lords looking to expand their fiefdom have often told their soldiers, "The enemy has forsaken God and deserve to die," or something similar.
After all, soldiers of the day are not going to fight and die just to put more gold in the pockets of the aristocracy or so that he can win all the glory for taking over a neighboring fiefdom. But what *would* get the common soldier excited and motivated to fight is to defend their god and their religion.
Today, with the advant of professional armies that are paid to fight, armies that have no choice but to kill the enemy, leaders *still* use religion to excite the soldiers to barely contained levels of bloodlust. For instance, in WWII there was a famous propaganda poster showing Hitler's hand plunging a dagger into a Bible, an rather unsubtle way of saying Hitler was out to eradicate Christianity. Never mind there was no truth to that - Hitler even abolished the German Free Thinkers' League, the only atheist group in Nazi Germany - and replaced it with a Christian outreach center. Never mind the loose alliance between the Nazis and the Catholic Church.
Right now, it's the same nonsense. Until it was exposed during Operation Desert Freedom, soldiers of the US Army and Marines were almost stampeded with Christian pastors and ministers of every description in order to convert as many as they could to the faith - and those who refused to convert were often ostracized by fellow soldiers, passed up for promotion, and arbitrarily punished.
Because the religious right tried to turn the world's most lethal military machine into an Army of God to hurl at the Islamic world - a battle between civilizations in no uncertain terms.
Yet, though religion is used *like* a tool, that doesn't mean it *is* a tool. Because it's not.
Religion is akin to a loaded gun - dangerous, deadly, and uncaring who it shoots. But it's worse than that, though not by much, given that America's gun culture is as close to a religion as one can get without actually *being* a religion. Put those two things together - which they often are on the right side of the political aisle - and religion becomes much more than just a tool.
As I said, it becomes a way of life so dear to the believers that they can no longer separate themselves from the religion. These believers have been subsumed by their beliefs so completely that insulting the belief is identical to insulting the believer - which is why you hear so much crying and moaning about persecution. Moreover, they can no longer tell the difference between dogma and deity, thus they worship their holy book at least as much as they worship their god.
At the end of the day, it means one has a vast swathe of the American population who are nothing less than armed zealots ready to do battle in order to impose their religion onto the rest of society - never mind at all about the Constitution or other people's freedoms. This is why you hear people repeating the very wrong and misguided argument, "We only have freedom OF religion - we don't have freedom FROM religion."
They say that dumb argument as if having freedom from religion doesn't protect them, too. They would understand it if, say, the Mormons began making public policy that went against fundamentalist Christianity. Those radicals are *not* in the majority so they stand as much risk of being forced to obey dogma they don't agree with as much as atheists are.
In my opinion, morality is a different subject entirely. Just as religion shouldn’t be seen as universally negative, it can’t be seen as universally positive either. It relinquishes the power of our own minds - to interpret, think, and apply (or reject) principles of our own choosing.
The point is that I don't combine them. Religious people do and I get what you are saying. They "shouldn't". However, we don't live in world of shouldn'ts. Yes, religion shouldn't be isolated, treated as a single factor as the problems in the world because then the claim becomes "the world is in bad shape because of religion".
My view is that religion is part of a culture where culture is made up of many parts. If the religion is being applied in a way that harms the citizens, then the culture needs to be looked at. I no longer make strong opinions about culture or religion for a very specific reason. It had to do with helping my daughter with reading comprehension which she struggled with, specifically literature. After figuring out why she was unable to identify the problem in the story, it opened my eyes to the culture I brought into my home. A culture I thought I freed myself from because I was focusing only on the religious aspect of it, when I should have tackled the culture that permeated every part of my life.
The point is that I don't combine them. Religious people do and I get what you are saying. They "shouldn't". However, we don't live in world of shouldn'ts. Yes, religion shouldn't be isolated, treated as a single factor as the problems in the world because then the claim becomes "the world is in bad shape because of religion".
My view is that religion is part of a culture where culture is made up of many parts. If the religion is being applied in a way that harms the citizens, then the culture needs to be looked at. I no longer make strong opinions about culture or religion for a very specific reason. It had to do with helping my daughter with reading comprehension which she struggled with, specifically literature. After figuring out why she was unable to identify the problem in the story, it opened my eyes to the culture I brought into my home. A culture I thought I freed myself from, which was the Christianity I was raised with.
yup ... "I hate injustice". I focus on the injustice and the people involved. When we do that we address the problem itself and tends to lead in to a certain amount of justice while maintain the focal point of liberty for all people. If i focus on the hate it leads to an representational that may, ot may not, address the problem itself.
"I hate religion" has two problems associated with it. One the "hate". and the second "religion". when we focus on "religious", it tends to be focusing on something other than the problem itself. Kind of like only addressing the blood with a serous wound. We keep cleaning up the blood and screaming at the blood like its the problem. get it, blood of christ.
"I hate religion", is just a soupy base and and leads us right into what we see here on CD. We have to outlaw, shun, minimize, and personally attack the more valid approaches to analyzing the situation so that a less valid point of view can be push on people.
They say that dumb argument as if having freedom from religion doesn't protect them, too. They would understand it if, say, the Mormons began making public policy that went against fundamentalist Christianity. Those radicals are *not* in the majority so they stand as much risk of being forced to obey dogma they don't agree with as much as atheists are.
But - I digress. But only a little.
Good stuff. religion is as dangerous fire, guns, nuc's, and cars. I would toss in alcohol after reading your speech. I have to rethink how I use the term "religion is just a tool". I mean you are right, its not a hammer. But it is still not the cause?
you gave a great lesson on how I may have the weights wrong. But the fundamental issue is that "religion" is not the root cause.
so I can weight it properly, if not a hammer, then what would you compare it to?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
