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There’s no proof that religion has caused all the ills of society or that it would not go backwards if it was lost. One of the favorite arguments has been that religions are responsible for most of the deaths since its inception. This completely ignores the reality that chimpanzees also went to war and that their structures were heiarchial in nature. Chimpanzee tribes showed that they could be both ruthless and uncaring about their fellow chimps and that they could also strategize and collude to take out leadership or rivalry groups to gain power. There’s millions of years of proof for that. The proof that we have for religions is that they’ve mostly abolished those desires, although not completely, and opened up all people of a given tribe, at least with “Western” religions, and given them a voice and a choice between peace and war. Given the choice of a democratic society as they will most certainly choose peace over war until they no longer have a choice. That’s one of the things with struggle with in a society that has a written and recorded history. We must figure out quite hapahazardly over what the most likely outcome is of doing nothing when we’d rather just be “left alone” to mind to ourselves, our families and our communities.
Aside from the fact that, as others have mentioned, few if any are making such claims.
But as far as wars and violence go, let's look at the Western world. Europe. North America. Today versus hundreds of years ago. Well, there are wars but they're isolated. In medieval Europe, war was effectively perpetual. Kingdom versus adjacent kingdom. The sovereign versus vassals, some of which were always rebelling. One lord against another, wherein war wasn't primarily knight versus knight, but knights from one side slaughtering villagers and burning crops (so that the villagers that avoided slaughtering starved to death), then the other side conducting a similar raid in kind. Heretics being burned, Jews being slaughtered, witches being put to the rack to identify other witches (in agony, they eventually fingered anyone who came to mind, who was rounded up and similarly tortured).
And that bygone Western world was a lot more religious. Faith permeated every aspect of life. Yet it was far more violent and cruel than today's comparatively secular Western world. So we have a long-term declining level of religious faith with a rise in peace and civility.
For that matter, as I've noted elsewhere, a glance at the world today wherein one compares the peacefulness and civility of places that are more religious with those that are less religious, because last I checked relatively irreligious places such as Scandinavia and Canada and New England feature fewer per capita incidences of violence than relatively religious places such as southern Europe and the United States and the Bible Belt.
I agree that democratic societies foster this notion, but your conflation of democratic with religious is unfounded. And as noted, within the pantheon of democratic nations, some of the most peaceful are the most secular, whereas the more strife-ridden corners of the world tend to be far more religious.
Aside from the fact that, as others have mentioned, few if any are making such claims.
But as far as wars and violence go, let's look at the Western world. Europe. North America. Today versus hundreds of years ago. Well, there are wars but they're isolated. In medieval Europe, war was effectively perpetual. Kingdom versus adjacent kingdom. The sovereign versus vassals, some of which were always rebelling. One lord against another, wherein war wasn't primarily knight versus knight, but knights from one side slaughtering villagers and burning crops (so that the villagers that avoided slaughtering starved to death), then the other side conducting a similar raid in kind. Heretics being burned, Jews being slaughtered, witches being put to the rack to identify other witches (in agony, they eventually fingered anyone who came to mind, who was rounded up and similarly tortured).
And that bygone Western world was a lot more religious. Faith permeated every aspect of life. Yet it was far more violent and cruel than today's comparatively secular Western world. So we have a long-term declining level of religious faith with a rise in peace and civility.
For that matter, as I've noted elsewhere, a glance at the world today wherein one compares the peacefulness and civility of places that are more religious with those that are less religious, because last I checked relatively irreligious places such as Scandinavia and Canada and New England feature fewer per capita incidences of violence than relatively religious places such as southern Europe and the United States and the Bible Belt.
I agree that democratic societies foster this notion, but your conflation of democratic with religious is unfounded. And as noted, within the pantheon of democratic nations, some of the most peaceful are the most secular, whereas the more strife-ridden corners of the world tend to be far more religious.
I disagree that Scandanvia (who has state sponsored churches), Canada (who has a multitude of religious institutions and cultures), and New England (where the puritans first landed and ) are relatively irreligious. They are cold as crap though and “relatively” homogenous which is a much larger factor in criminal activity and political upheavals. Just a generalization of course and maybe you’re correct but from everything I can tell that’s not the reason why crime is greater in hot heterogenous states. Being hot l, as silly as that may sound, has some pretty detrimental effects on the human psyche.
My foundations for my theories, right or wrong, are based on Nietzsche’s revelations about the reverberation of what losing western religious based values would do to societies. After all, the anti-religious fervor of the Marxists that followed his revelations as well as the fascists, like Hitler (who by the way tried to use the Superman and the Will to Power) as a means to gain power of the state and control of the future resulted in 150 million casualties in man’a bloodiest century. A lot of it being the bloodiest century was from population growth due to industrialization and population growth along with technological advancements in warring abilities. And before anyone tries to invoke Hitler as some sort of religious figure one only need to look at Goebbels and Hitler’s writings to find out just how religious or piusthey were.
The loss of religious values is occurring over a relatively short time geologically speaking but a relatively long time for the human mind’s ability to remember such atrocities. Thankfully it’s a recorded history now so we can easily reference it when needed.
Disclaimer: Hopefully this is coherent as I’m eating dinner and replying from my phone. If not I can try to expound later.
Acknowledging a brilliant mind has nothing to do with accepting her misguided atheism. The utter failure of theists to ground their faith in reality instead of fables and myths is the reason atheists grow with every new finding of science. It is a travesty of human vanity and hubris that harms far more souls than any sins. The main message of Christ's Gospel has been buried beneath "precepts and doctrines of men" that religions use to further human desires for power and control over others while denying the central purpose of agape love for all. Shirina highlights the absurdity of the vanity and hubris that wreaks much damage on society and souls.Whatever you claim to believe or not believe, if you do NOT harbor love for God and each other every day and repent when you don't, you do NOT know God and are failing to mature your embryo Spirit toward rebirth as Spirit upon your death.
I adore your posts, Shirina. Your razor sharp mind is awesome. But the very attribute of human life that creates what you decry as a NEED to have a reason for everything is our consciousness. It is also the attribute that our best efforts fail to explain or incorporate into our models of reality using the most current science and mathematics. We cannot find a way to incorporate subjective perceptions into our equations rendering the reductionist materialism impotent as the default position on reality. Subjectivity itself is endemic to and inherent in the very basis of our reality. Since subjectivity is exclusively the attribute of consciousness that means that our reality itself must be consciousness - what we call the unified field. You weaponize your consciousness admirably in the defense of reason and rationality pointing out the absurd and dangerous memes that fuel religious fervor. Sadly you seem to think that renders God non-existent because of our flawed and ridiculous human explanations and conceptualizations. You indict God on the basis of human fallibility and absurdities. That is a non-sequitur.
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Originally Posted by Jerwade
Stunning to say the least.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Acknowledging a brilliant mind has nothing to do with accepting her misguided atheism. The utter failure of theists to ground their faith in reality instead of fables and myths is the reason atheists grow with every new finding of science. It is a travesty of human vanity and hubris that harms far more souls than any sins. The main message of Christ's Gospel has been buried beneath "precepts and doctrines of men" that religions use to further human desires for power and control over others while denying the central purpose of agape love for all. Shirina highlights the absurdity of the vanity and hubris that wreaks much damage on society and souls.Whatever you claim to believe or not believe, if you do NOT harbor love for God and each other every day and repent when you don't, you do NOT know God and are failing to mature your embryo Spirit toward rebirth as Spirit upon your death.
I believe she is the only one that has ever come close to answering this question:
How exactly does it happen that normal human beings, all endowed with that of a conscience, having an awareness of individual responsibility for their judgments and choices; manage to justify in their own eyes the most inhuman atrocities and acts of self-righteousness without running into intolerable cognitive dissonance within their own supreme values?
I believe she is the only one that has ever come close to answering this question:
How exactly does it happen that normal human beings, all endowed with that of a conscience, having an awareness of individual responsibility for their judgments and choices; manage to justify in their own eyes the most inhuman atrocities and acts of self-righteousness without running into intolerable cognitive dissonance within their own supreme values?
Speaking from personal experience, some encounter that dissonance, and repress or rationalize it. At least, until they can no longer do so.
I think the basic answer is that people aren't persuaded by facts, but cling to already-decided beliefs and give selective attention to out-of-context bits of info that support what they want to believe.
Why do you think that so frequently, fundamentalists carry on about the need for context? It is just projection. They think it is we who take Bible verses out of context, when actually, it is far more they who take reality out of context.
I believe she is the only one that has ever come close to answering this question:
How exactly does it happen that normal human beings, all endowed with that of a conscience, having an awareness of individual responsibility for their judgments and choices; manage to justify in their own eyes the most inhuman atrocities and acts of self-righteousness without running into intolerable cognitive dissonance within their own supreme values?
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Originally Posted by mordant
Speaking from personal experience, some encounter that dissonance, and repress or rationalize it. At least, until they can no longer do so.
I think the basic answer is that people aren't persuaded by facts, but cling to already-decided beliefs and give selective attention to out-of-context bits of info that support what they want to believe.
Why do you think that so frequently, fundamentalists carry on about the need for context? It is just projection. They think it is we who take Bible verses out of context, when actually, it is far more they who take reality out of context.
People will believe, what they believe; until they no longer believe it.
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