What is your problem?
- Thread starter superluminal
- Start date
C
charles cure
Guest
Lerxst said:
im not saying religion is a root cause, its a prime motivator. nationalism and religion are crucially linked. most national or ethnic identity is formed around specific ideas of culture informed to at least some extent by prevailing religious ideology. for example, find me a rabid nationalist of any stripe that doesnt believe the people of his nation are "god's people" or that god is on their side somehow. there are even american "patriots" that believe the same thing. remember manifest destiny? nationalism taken to any kind of extreme is as irrational as belief in religion and almost always involves some undemonstrable belief that the people occupying a particular geographic area are superior to other just by virtue of their birth in that particular place. sounds a lot like how the jews believe that they are god's chosen people doesnt it?
i think youre doing some serious oversimplification of the holocaust to say that religion had nothing to do with it. hitlers rheoric was nearly always religious in nature, and HE TARGETED JEWS, blaming them for the death of christ among other things and levelling at them an ancient christian prdjudice - that jews are usurers and therefore contribute to the poverty and economic downfall of others in society. there could have been no holocaust at all without pre-existing religio-ethnic animus for hitler to exploit. hitler believed fanatically in the christian religion, especially its legendary apocrypha, considering that he sent expeditions to search for everything from the holy grail to the ark of the covenant to the spear of destiny.
Religion can be used to support and "excuse" the wars, sure. Just as nationalism. And racism. And xenophobia. And pandering to people basic fears. And economics. I don't disagree that it has played this supporting role for the majority of clashes through history. But that's just it - it is a supporting role. It doesn't make us warlike, it just gives us more rationalizations for the wars. Without God, we'd still find an excuse, because the basic biological motivators are there independently of religion.
The only thing that is going to stop it is for us to all come to accept a between-group kind of amity, an altruism that extends to all peoples, not just the ones in our local group. And as this happens, if it happens, religion will change along with it. I don't think that it is going to work the other way around, that if we can change or eliminate religion that everyone is going to get peaceful as a result. Organized religion and it's built-in excuses for pillaging the enemies cities a la the Old Testament was created to help excuse and justify our innate bloodlust - we get it backwards when we think the appearance of the Mosaic religion caused us to be warlike.
The only thing that is going to stop it is for us to all come to accept a between-group kind of amity, an altruism that extends to all peoples, not just the ones in our local group. And as this happens, if it happens, religion will change along with it. I don't think that it is going to work the other way around, that if we can change or eliminate religion that everyone is going to get peaceful as a result. Organized religion and it's built-in excuses for pillaging the enemies cities a la the Old Testament was created to help excuse and justify our innate bloodlust - we get it backwards when we think the appearance of the Mosaic religion caused us to be warlike.
C
charles cure
Guest
Lerxst said:
as a corrolary to my other response, i also take issue with what you are characterizing as within group amity and between group enmity. there is no within group amity in nature, there is only established hierarchy based on physical dominance. a chimpanzee that perceives another chimpanzee from within his own group to be a threat to his alpha dominance over the group, or believes that he will lose his mate, or has a piece of food stolen from him will attack and often kill the other chimpanzee in order to assert his dominance and prevent future challenges to it. religion has nothing to do with that at all, and humans exhibit some of the same behavior, albeit manifested in a less and less physical way over time. that kind of behavior is a vestigial tie between humanity and the rest of the natural world. however, as far as between group enmity is concerned, i dont think that the causes of conflict between chimps and conflict between humans is the same. animals have an instinctual drive to protect their own territory and do not strike out in search of territory to take over. when the chimpanzee population grows too large to occupy the confines of their original habitat, then "wars" for territory may ensue with neighboring groups, but the overpopulated chimpanzees will not be the aggressors, they will only seek to defend themselves from attacks made on them by the groups they are unwittingly encroaching on. they are not particularly conscious of the limited nature of land or resources, but are driven by instinctual directives that do not require any questioning or rationalizing on their part. the human animal is much different in this regard. its ability to reason puts it on a different plane than the chimpanzee. humanity has established rules of conduct in order to preserve and advance the structure of its own particular society and culture, and seeks to deliberately expand it into areas where it is not currently extant. religion is a major factor in the formation of this kind of cultural identity, in fact i can think of only one other factor that is as important - geography. religion allows for group acceptance of an idea that would otherwise be laughable, through manipulation of fear of the unknown, and the imposition of morals derived from an ultimate authority, the nature and capabilites of which are unknown - and therefore in the mind's of both the sinner and the warrior - infinite. where you have it wrong is that religion is the key ingredient in culture and ethnicity and ALSO the place where justification for conflict between these cultures is most often derived. greed, limited resources, personal vendettas...etc are singularly human pursuits that lie in the middle somewhere and are only allowed to grow to the scale of war when accompanied by the other two religious motivators. imagine a king and his nobles attempting to raise an army if their stated reason was "to satiate my personal greed" or "to gain territory that you, my servants, will receive less than no material benefit from" it would be impossible. widespread rebellion would result if the king tried to force people into conscription for those reasons. however, if you bring out the "we must convert these heathens in the name of god" then its a whole different scenario, and people are far more willing to march to their death or the death of their "enemies".
charles cure said:
I don't have time at the moment to respond to the rest of your post - although I agree with much of it.
But for the above statement of yours I disagree with - altruistic behavior is seen in other species - even something as far removed from humans as vampire bats - where successful individuals will share with a partner that has not been successful in finding food.
This all raises an interesting question. Lerxst suggested earlier that getting rid of religion would not make everyone all of a sudden lovey-dovey. I've heard other people say the same thing. If not religion, then some other "cause" would readily take its place in the excuse department for practicing group exclusion and other fun stuff.
I agree that the key is understanding our evolutionary history. It dictates much, if not all, of our basic behavior.
My new problem is that I see no end of humans-at-large engaging in the most ancient ritualistic behaviors. Dominance, submission, superstition, bowing to authority without reason... Group dynamics are still those of our tribal ancestors. What to do?
I agree that the key is understanding our evolutionary history. It dictates much, if not all, of our basic behavior.
My new problem is that I see no end of humans-at-large engaging in the most ancient ritualistic behaviors. Dominance, submission, superstition, bowing to authority without reason... Group dynamics are still those of our tribal ancestors. What to do?
Evolve. It's time.
Cottontop3000 said:
I like your way of thinking Cotton. I'm thinking forced radiation treatments and genetic culling. We should go for increased sexual organ performance first!
:m:I like the way you think Super. :m:
Cottontop3000 said:
We are taking evolution to the next step.
We are now engineering ourselves.
Increasing lifespan is a key indicator.
We are also engineering our environment to the degree that we might just extinctificate ourselves in a myriad of different ways.
Hard to say what happens at the singularity.
The singularity is appealing, for just that reason. I hope I see it.
charles cure said:
How did the North Korean gov't motivate it's troops in 1950? How did the Soviet leaders motivate their troops to invade Afghanistan? It wasn't God.
And additionally, how would you raise an army for some nefarious purpose if your citizens were primarily Quakers?
Last edited:
superluminal said:
Right. And it is not going to change a whole lot in our lifetimes.
Speaking in general terms, it seems that all of us that oppose religious extremism would do better to somehow work together than to argue among ourselves. Just looking in the landscape of American politcs alone, I think the groups that seem to do the best job are ones like American United for Separation of Church and State, which involves a number of the liberal Christian sects, as well as atheists and agnostics, as opposed to more bellicose groups like American Atheists. But that is just me, I'm in favor of diplomacy.
Baby steps. I think the key will be letting folks have theior religion but it needs to become something more private.
C
charles cure
Guest
Lerxst said:
well, in north korea and russia's case it was a redirection of religious fervor. those two states were communist and (at least officially) atheistic states that harnessed religious sentiment to the benefit of a system of government/social structure that took the place of god. communism was not a just an economic thoery, it was an entire life philosophy that altered the culture of the places in which it was implemented as well as people's worldview. it was much like religion, and as we have seen demonstrated in the past few decades, just as unlikely to succeed in the long term. although, i will concede that point , it was not a religious belief in actuality, however i think it has many of the same characteristics.
on to the Quakers. first of all, they represent the minority in the extreme of how religious sects normally behave. secondly, the belief in pacifism at any cost is just as dangerous to its followers as a belief that the faith needs to be spread through conquest. imagine if someone were to attempt a hostile takeover of a quaker community, or that they were the last holdout in a seige by foreign invaders, they would consign themselves to death and their beliefs along with them or be forced to alter their perspective and violate a crucial tenet of their religion in order to survive. thats a bad position to be in and consequently why quakers and their ilk will always constitute a tiny minority.
charles cure said:
I agree - it does have many of the same features, the underlying psychological motivations are similar. One can replace "God" with "the State" or "the Fatherland" and still whip up fervor (though maybe not with the same deadly efficacy - it would be interesting if such things could be quantified).
I chose them because they were a well known and extreme case of pacifism, and I agree with your remarks that such a stance isn't very bright on their part, if they wish to preserve their ideas indefintely.
But given the extremity of Quaker pacifism on the one hand and fundamentist extremism on the other, I'd still suggest there is collection of points in the interval between them that include believers that are not violence-prone maniacs nor unthinking dolts that would be easily led to slaughter. Sure, they are a minority, I know. I'm thinking of the typical American mindset prior to our involvement in WWII. I'm sure a few Americans saw some religious motivation for entering the war, but I think overwhelmingly it was percieved as simply a matter of self-defense plus the desire to help a sizeable portion of Europe that had been unjustly attacked. Did the American forces need significant religious motivation? What is interesting about the question to me is that Americans represent a wide spectrum of religious beliefs - but I doubt that most of them would need a religious excuse for this war.
Of course, this is an example where we are not talking about the aggressors, we are talking about what was a fully justified cause for self-defense. In which case it shouldn't be too hard to motivate your citizens to fight. But that has been my point all along - under the right conditions, people can have moderate/liberal types of religion without it being utilized for violent idiocy.
C
charles cure
Guest
Lerxst said:
i do agree with you to some extent here. however, i guess this even goes further back to my statement about within group amity and between group enmity. i said then that i thought that a hierarchy of physcial dominance was the key dynamic in within group relations among animals, i didnt mean that that heirarchy pre-empted any altruistic action on the part of any of those animals. in fact i think that due to that structure, selfless acts can reinforce a particular individuals dominance in the group.
i think similarly about your wwii statement here. the war itself was not begun by america, but by germany and its ignition was facilitated by religio-ethnic predjudice. just because the underlying purpose of the aggressions begun by Germany were motivated in large part by religiously based ideas of supremacy, nationalism, and ethnic hatred, doesnt mean that the rest of the world must have also had the same motivations for entering the war. self defense is another primary motivator in terms of conflict, but it is not activated until an aggressor makes the first move. what i am saying is that the motivation for the actions that initiated the conflict was largely religious in nature, everyone else was motivated by an outside threat to their own safety, and those two motivating forces should not be seen as mutually exclusive.
wesmorris said:
Yes the world always copies what God is doing.
Christ is raising up a whole generation "taught of God" to live supernaturally with eternal, and immortal life.
The imitation the world has to offer is genetic engineering..
"TeloVector" is a patented process by which a harmless virus engineered to contain a telomere enzyme that coats the ends of the DNA strands that normally degrade and loose information at celular division, and keeps them from doing so.
This extends the human lifespan to 200 or 300 years, at least probably depending on when the gene therapy is started.
It's already been around for 5 years......hasn't anybody told you.
It's probably by "invitaion only".
Society couldn't handle this kind of change right now without total colapse, Social Security...Pensions...Interest Rates.
It won't work without someone "doing" the work at the bottom of the rung on the ladder.
Everybody can't sit at the top....sucking up all the money.
But why do you have a problem with that?superluminal said:
I mean you personally.
God is a very original concept, people have a right to believe in Him.
You have gone so far from them so that you no longer understand them. Therefor the alienation.
We all live on the same place, now respect one another.
Also, people aren't so easily lead, those that want to believe in God has the option of doing so (with good arguments for their sake).
You have thought about your problem, now think about ours. How would you feel to have faith and love in someone that is attacked from all sides?
You would REACH for Him!
It isn't too much. We aren't giving all we got and it still wouldn't be too much.