Is religion fear based? (hell, Mormons, church, atheist)
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Another fallacy I would like to secure naming rights on is the 'dam-buster fallacy' (1) based on a TV episode where one of the living dam -buster raiders was vehemently rejecting the claims that it did no good and caused a lot of harm. 'I was there and those people weren't' was the basis of his argument. The TV programme took him along (to his credit, he was willing to go - the theist prefers to stick their defiant fingers in their ears) and see what it achieved and what harm it caused. And he had to admit in the end that the propaganda value of the raid was far more than any actual damage caused - expect to the people that got flooded.
The fact was that the people who were researching the matter understood it better than the one who was there, and being a participant didn't make them an expert, but rather a partial supporter of their own view of it.
(1) though in the US it's called the 'Were you there?' fallacy..ah sorry..the 'You weren't there - you don't know what it was like!' fallacy. The 'were you there?' fallacy is totally a different one.
Your footnotes are funny. I looked up 'dam-buster' and noticed that they are being recognized positively.
I was thinking that if it was greater than slight, there wouldn't be so much sinning. So slight might be a good word choice.
That's the odd thing. So much belief, but so much sin. On the one hand, there is this fear that they are never good enough, and every thought is enough to get them slated for toast. On the other hand, there seems this idea that sin is irrelevant as they are forgiven. I can only watch the comments and try to get a clue as to what goes on in their heads, but as a lifetime disbeliever, it fogs me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rstevens62
Reminds me of what that Pope from many years ago supposedly said, "this myth of God has been good to us".
Its very obvious, religion in general lends to a more civil and orderly society. people behave themselves because they fear a judgement of all their earthly actions, even thoughts!
There a discussion on this remark a long time ago. The remark is of course from a line in a play or masque produced by a Elizabethan writer, guying Catholicism. That said, something along those lines is supposed to have been said by the Pope and was recorded in a Life by one of his assistants. I couldn't track down where this 'Life' was let alone get a look at it, but the remark, admittedly in a paraphrase, can't be dismissed as pure invention.
The only reason why you *might* have a more civil and orderly society within religious civilizations is because religion is inherently fascistic, authoritarian, and anti-freedom. When everyone conforms due to the threat of persecution, arrest, imprisonment, or other punishment for daring to question the faith will ultimately lead to a more orderly society - but it will be one based on fear. Do as your told ... or else.
Now, if you enjoy having religion dictate your every move and have often arbitrary rules handed to you from "on high" that you must obey on pain of punishment, then a religious society is for you. But I can tell you in no uncertain terms that there has never been - ever - a free, egalitarian, democratic, peaceful, and tolerant civilization where religion was in control.
Each and every time religion was allowed to make the rules, the result was a society based almost completely on fear. In the end, these theocratic societies were also autocratic - oppressive, intolerant, sexist and misogynistic, bigoted, benighted, backward places that no one in their right mind would want to live unless they were a 'true believer,' a fanatic like the rest of society. There is no room for things like the freedom of expression, no room to question authority, no room for protest, no room to be at all different from the herd.
Freedom can be a burden for some folks - for those people, they might thrive in such a nightmarish place. But for most of us, we would rather carry the burden of responsibility for our own choices than to have those choices made for us.
In the context of your OP, to grow up Mormon is, for most kids, great. We attend family worship services with our parents and then go to children's classroom study where we learn that we have a Father in Heaven who loves us more than we can even begin to imagine. We learned that our Father's Son, Jesus Christ, came to earth to show us how to live as caring brothers and sisters which we believe all of us are. We learned that, through Jesus' sacrifice for us, each of us will live again after our death and be reunited with our loved ones. We are taught how to pray, how the repentance process works and we're told that our Father in Heaven will never, ever, ever give us on us as long as we are trying to be obedient. Bottom line... we are never ever told that if we don't believe [such and such] or do [such and such], we will end up being cast into a fiery pit to suffer forever. That's what it's like to be a child growing up Mormon -- or at least for the vast majority of us. I'm sure you don't want to know about every aspect of my life as a Mormon woman, so I'll leave it at that.
In the context of your OP, to grow up Mormon is, for most kids, great. We attend family worship services with our parents and then go to children's classroom study where we learn that we have a Father in Heaven who loves us more than we can even begin to imagine. We learned that our Father's Son, Jesus Christ, came to earth to show us how to live as caring brothers and sisters which we believe all of us are. We learned that, through Jesus' sacrifice for us, each of us will live again after our death and be reunited with our loved ones. We are taught how to pray, how the repentance process works and we're told that our Father in Heaven will never, ever, ever give us on us as long as we are trying to be obedient. Bottom line... we are never ever told that if we don't believe [such and such] or do [such and such], we will end up being cast into a fiery pit to suffer forever. That's what it's like to be a child growing up Mormon -- or at least for the vast majority of us. I'm sure you don't want to know about every aspect of my life as a Mormon woman, so I'll leave it at that.
So basically employing a bunch of ‘white lies’ to protect people from uncomfortable realities and unnecessary harm. One of the greatest problems with religion is that it is built, to a remarkable degree, upon lies. Mommy claims to know that Granny went straight to heaven after she died. But Mommy doesn’t actually know this. The truth is that, while Mommy may be rigorously honest on any other subject, in this instance she doesn’t want to distinguish between what she really knows (i.e. what she has good reasons to believe) and 1) what she wants to be true, or 2) what will keep her children from grieving too much in Granny’s absence. She is lying—either to herself or to her children—but we’ve all agreed not talk about it. Rather than teach our children to grieve, we teach them to lie to themselves.
"Religion is based primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing – fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things."- Bertrand
It can be fear based for some and perhaps health based for others, as religions usually follow an algorithm.
There are several near death experiences on you tube you might take a look.
So if these people all go toward the white light during their NDE's what's there to fear?
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There a discussion on this remark a long time ago. The remark is of course from a line in a play or masque produced by a Elizabethan writer, guying Catholicism. That said, something along those lines is supposed to have been said by the Pope and was recorded in a Life by one of his assistants. I couldn't track down where this 'Life' was let alone get a look at it, but the remark, admittedly in a paraphrase, can't be dismissed as pure invention.
