Balerion,
You're all over the place here. In one breath you say that religion was invented to explain lightening and stuff, now you harping on about ''religious ideologies''
Isn't the ideology about knowing what lightening is?
Obviously religion isn't only about where lightning comes from. There are certain corollaries that follow when one posits a divine creator, such as "the creator must be appeased," and "this is how to appease it." You'll notice even Christianity encourages blood sacrifice.
In other words, if you insist upon an intervening god, you can't avoid the creation of ethical codes in that god's name.
Some people, maybe, but not everyone. So your hypothesis is incorrect as in some people aren't at all likely to vote that way.
It doesn't have to be true of everyone to be true. If
anyone votes based on party lines and defends actions they would condemn from other politicians, then it is a true statement.
Again, it doesn't work like that.
It kind of clear to see how you come to the goo to man idea, even acting as though you know it's true, but really, it isn't.
Of course it works like that. Think of the "small government" crusaders in the GOP who attack Obama for every government program created or expanded, yet didn't bat an eyelash when GWB did the same thing. And they literally idolize Reagan, who probably increased the size and scope of government more than anyone who followed him. And the "anti-war" pacifists who wanted Bush impeached for going into Iraq and Afghanistan are startlingly silent when Obama promises more troops to Afghanistan and shows his inability to get out of Iraq.
So it's got nothing to do with knowing what lightening is anymore?
Why wouldn't it? Are you saying religion can't address more than one thing? I mean, have you ever read a holy text? They explain the origin of the universe and predict its end, dictate what you can and can't eat, under what circumstances and in what positions sex is acceptable, even mandate a dress code. Religion doesn't only serve to explain where lightning comes from, it also attempts (or at least many of them do) to lay out specific guidelines for living.
So that means everything you've just sprouted, is nonsense, because you haven't taken this into account, and try to understand how this is so, especially as it actually goes against your understanding.
Well, I haven't "
sprouted" anything. But of course I took into account the fact that no truth is universal. But it doesn't have to be. If 90% of devout Christians didn't kill in the name of their faith, but 10% did, then Christianity would still be dangerous. It doesn't have to be true for everyone to be true. Much in the same way you can be a good person without
always being a good person. You can grasp this concept, no?
I see how this goo to man is so confidently prominent, despite not having a shred of evidence to back this confidence. It's like the financial system, there's no actual, real, money, but we're spending it anyway.
Of course there's evidence. You know where to find it, it's there for you to see.
First off. Religion is an action, not just belief.
No, religion is not an action. The
exercising of religion is an action, but religion itself is not an action.
One can believe something for which there is evidence. I think you're mixing ''belief'' with ''faith''.
Yes, one can believe in something with evidence, but I was using "belief" in the context of religious beliefs. But okay, let's call it faith. Fair enough.
If the person believes in God, then yes it has theistic connotations, but ''religion'' is a lot more than that. All you're doing is emphasising you're not theistic, therefore I'm not religious. But you're wrong.
There are a few non-theistic religions, but you aren't talking about those. You're trying to posit that "religion" is just another word for political thought or theory, which is incorrect.
Religion can't be dangerous, people are dangerous. That's a fact.
Saying "That's a fact" doesn't make it a fact, Jan. You have to support your claim. You have to do that. Meanwhile, I can point to scripture that has inspired people to do horrible things, or to religious leaders who use the trust and authority afforded them by their position to exploit people. Religion is without question dangerous.
Nonsense. I have to be predisposed to it, to accept, because there's otherwise nothing there. It is actualisation of ''The Emperors New Clothes'', that simply fills the void, which is why Dawkins said darwinism creates intellectual fulfilment for the atheist.
Nope. It's entirely empirical, no faith needed. All you have to do is look at the evidence. It is true regardless of what you believe. The best example of this is Darwin himself, who found the concept of evolution unsettling. He was the last guy who would have expected or wanted such a thing to be true, but the evidence was such that he could not ignore it.
That's your understanding of religion, and it's still apparent in what you say.
To me, there's a difference between the institute of religion, and religion, but you don't understand that, and you never did, which is
why you came out of one institute and went into another, because there was no fulfilment in the former. Were you a part of a religious institute?
That's my understanding of religion because
that's what religion is. I mean, you say it isn't, but you haven't offered an alternative explanation. What are you waiting for?
As for whether or not I was a part of a religious institute, my mother is Catholic and my father is a lapsed Greek Orthodox. We didn't go to church or say prayers at dinner, I was never indoctrinated to believe--which is probably why I recognized my unbelief so early in life--but I did attend Catholic school in 4th and 5th grades, and again for 9th and 10th. But by then I already knew I didn't believe in it.
It had nothing to do with fulfillment. I was too young to understand such a concept. It was simply about me seeing through the BS.
You say that, but you don't understand the fullness of it.
You overstate its fullness. And your failure to elaborate suggests you're disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing, and know nothing of this alleged "fullness" yourself.
You see scriptures as some kind of document that contains information about the material world, but that's not what it is.
Of course it is. You can't tell me that a book explaining how the world came to be isn't making some very large statements about that world.
It would probably make you do it, because that's how you see it, but your character cannot grasp the idea
that people different, and see things differently. No different to any other empire/utopian ideologist. They just think that's right, this is wrong, end of.
As I said, I was never indoctrinated, so I don't know how I'd react if I grew up enduring Hell Houses or having to constantly hear how evil homosexuality is. I can't even imagine what I'd think if I were born to a Taliban family. I'd probably believe that killing women who show their faces in public is a righteous act. It would be easier to rebel against such an idea if it were just authority figures making the claim, but there are mandates for such acts in the texts, which are themselves supposedly handed down from on high. Imagine the influence such a claim would have on me had I been born into it.
What were these people doing before why simply beating your wife is the best option. Not every scripture condones that kind of action.
So what is it about these particular people? And who does it now, and who doesn't do it? If it was a religious injunction, then every practising Muslim man would beat his wife, in the same way they pray five times a day.
That isn't true. Some Muslims, thanks to Western pressures, have abandoned such practices, but this just means that they've abandoned one aspect of their faith. It doesn't mean that the faith is any different.
And what do you mean not every scripture condones it? The only scripture that even addresses it in the Quran condones it. Doesn't just condone it--
mandates it.
Apart from that, what about the secular world? Don't wife beating a serious problem among other heinous kinds of acts? What makes that a religious injunction, in your mind?
I'm sorry, what? I can't make sense of this.
