Are Organized Religions Good For Us?
- Thread starter Minor Axis
- Start date
1st Runner up
In close contention....
Peter Peter the pumpkin eater.
Peter, please come forward.
Peter, should Luc for some reason be not able to serve his reign, you will be required to take over the crown.
I find that they have renewed me completely, just as Jesus predicted:
If a man believes in Me, I will regenerate him from his fallen and depraved state (parafrase).
(Sigh) Jews are no more a race than Christians are. But regardless you do acknowledge the religious aspect of exterminating Jews in WWII. Actually it was the perceived religious/economic aspect.
And every group who invokes the name of God thinks God is on their side, no matter how bad they are. That's one of my favorite lines in The Longest Day- when Kurt Jergins says:
We are going to lose the war because our glorious Führer has taken a sleeping pill and is not to be awakened. Sometimes I wonder which side God is on. ...
Jim Jones may have also said something like that too, not that I'm comparing Jesus to him. My point is these type of quotes just don't mean much to independent thinkers.
They should, because when Jesus said that one has to be born again by God either He was telling the truth or He was lying. You have to make up your mind.
Actually I don't have to make up my mind when it comes to a paraphrased quote that has been filtered for thousands of years, through a variety of languages, through papal conferences, from groups with undetermined agendas. Even if I made up my mind, it would prove nothing.
Organized religion is not good because it's crazy nonsense, one cannot ignore reality and expect to be successful - much less happy - in life. The argument that some organized religions promote values that are good is beside the point since without a rational foundation for those values, they typically get abandoned while these insane, really sort of retarded ideas, are expanded and pounded into people in order to cause them to submit. It's nothing but a system of control which no rational, mentally healthy person could want to be a part of. And those who command these things, the priests and the like, are more often than not intolerant manipulators who use guilt, fear and social pressure to get people to support their otherwise useless and hateful lives.
The silliest claim I know is that religion instills morality, implying that without religion there is no morality.
There is no morality with religion. Moral injunctions divorced from an understanding of morality are simply arbitrary commandments, and are in fact antithetical to real morality since with the same 'logic' - or lack thereof - the most savage, bloody and immoral things can be, have been and continue to be 'justified' under the aegis of whatever nonsensical fairy tale happens to be in vogue with the local tribes. To hitch morality to irrationality is to leave morality defenseless in the face of insanity.
Wha? Spouting goobledegook does not help a discussion like this. "Insanity" does not belong in any rational discussion about morality. It's apples and oranges.
Then what would you classify the moral norms of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia as but 'insanity'. Indeed, most 'morality' can be classified as nothing but 'insanity' since it makes no sense, is obviously false and no one has any reason to believe it except that they have such emotional (and often social and economic) issues bound up in the question that it's impossible for them to accept a break with it.
Divorcing morality from rationality is one of the prime reasons that moral relatavism is so popular, because moral certainty is seen as being some sort of religious kookery. On the hand of the irrational pseudo-moral commandments, the lack of rational justification or standards means that any sort of crazy nonsense is just as acceptable as moral; this is why so many Christians are okay with bombing children to get those darn terrorists; their standards of morality have no basis or consistency in the first place so real moral facts get thrown out the window just as easily as their crazy bullshit about sex and family authoritarianism.
Actually morality is a standard, not based on any kind of logic other than being good, fair, and just to one another pays dividends to yourself by means of a more civilized environment where ideally humans live in social harmony. Yes, that is an idealized standard and it can be subverted, but it's still a standard worth striving for.
I understand the flow of your argument, but you'd be better served by simplifying the message.
As with pretty much all of her posts. People don't talk like that and therefore most are not going to bother to read/listen. IF you want to get your point across, speak the common language. Just trying to be helpful here.
Without a logical understanding of what morality is, 'good', 'fair' and 'just' are nonsensical terms. Your statement is begging the question and self-refuting. There is no understanding but rational understanding, if there is good it must be apprehensible by reason. The problem with this sort of vague relatavistic view of morality that you have is that it annihilates morality altogether by making it utter rubbish and nonsense. Which is precisely the point I was trying to make.
lol Exactly.
One of the best compliments I've had from one of my friends was when he said that I'm interesting and convincing because my rhetoric is smart but simple, and most importantly, full of life. Not like a robot.
I'm not making this up, someone said that!
"Good", "fair", and "just" make perfect sense as long as the standard is understood and acceptable to the group of people it effects and enforce it. Yes the terms are abstract, but they boil down to specifics like "do not murder", "do not steal", "do not eradicate jobs without regard to your workers".
The law and legal precedence sets specific standards about what is "fair" and "just". And they are subject to change which tells you nothing is set in concrete. Standards change over the years and I won't imply that the changes are always for the best.So if someone tells you to "be good", you have no idea what that means? Most people do. If they uphold the standard is a different issue. Maybe you'll care to explain exactly what your version of apprehensible reason-based morality is?
Those sorts of baseless assertions are not abstract or anything, they're arbitrary. The reason they often come up with murder, theft etc. is because those are prerequisites for a functional society (and, equally, moral since morality obviously conforms to reality). The problem with your position is that morality is arbitrary and indefensible and comes down to nothing but whatever most people believe (and thus has the most force behind it) is moral, thus the Inquisition was just as 'just' as theft and murder. I know what it means to be good, as do most people, because humans have an innate capacity to reason and function socially.
Essentially you do not believe in morality, so I can't debate with you on a non-principle.
Essentially you do not believe in morality, so I can't debate with you on a non-principle.
I asked for the specifics of your morality and you chose to ignore it? You just threw out generalizations about the sad state of human beings and basically the hopelessness of it all. You verbalize LOTS but I have yet to hear anything specific that would benefit society at large. I just don't think philosophically you're well suited to living in a society based on moral (society accepted) rules, rules set up so that most people can understand them and follow them.
We could take a poll today and I feel fairly comfortable that most people wold not vote for anarchy. Does that make you wrong? No, but it puts you on the fringe, which may be just fine by you.
Yes the human race has lousy standards, they subvert the standards, they change the standards to suit whoever is in power, and we are corrupt. But civilized society is worth the effort. I'm not saying we are there. Your attitude is either realist or defeatist and it sounds like your ready throw in the towel on being civilized and see who is left standing after the rumble. Do I have the wrong impression?
Just what are you standards? Is stealing wrong? Is assault wrong? Is infidelity wrong? Instead of spouting the hopelessness and corruption of mankind, you must have some specific feelings on good rules to live by?
Society- humans living in harmony under accepted rules, is mostly a myth, but the closer we get to it, the more it benefits us. I won't say your views are wrong, but I feel pretty confident, that most people would call things like society and morality a goal worth fighting for. And I'm not talking about your non-moral morality. I'm talking about a set of rules the majority can agree to live by.