http://www.sundayherald.com/50943
Read the article, come back, and yep, discuss.
Honestly, I’m all for the destruction of all religion, but that won’t happen unless, of course, we actually destroy the religious symbols, and since destroying a whole CITY where PEOPLE live is kinda, well, murder…
I was expecting something silly or idiotic when clicking on this thread, instead I find a highly rational, logical and intelligent article. I’m highly inclined to agree with this guy, sadly I don’t think we’ll see a day where religion and state are seperate for a long time.
/cheer
Right. Religion is the root of all evil. And the Holocaust and Communist Russia were all based on religion, as was, for example, Saddam Hussein’s gassing of tens of thousands of Kurds, or the genocide in Rwanda. People going around killing and maiming and murdering and stealing are all doing it in the name of religion. Nah-ah. I’ve heard this before and it’s rot. Just because he doesn’t agree that there’s a God doesn’t give him the right to trample over everyone else’s beliefs.
Good article.
And Cid, maybe saying the root of ALL evil is going a bit far, but for the past five years, at least, conflicting religions have been the source of our problems. Of course, we could just say that in all cases where religion is given as a reason for conflict it’s really just an excuse for less uncomplicated motives, but if we remove religion from the equation we are at least one step closer to understanding those motives.
Its human nature to destroy ourselves. We don’t need religion to do it.
Good article. I don’t agree with most of it (religion CAN be a good thing if people would just stop taking it so extremely), but the article is still well-written.
Well, he (or she, looking at the name) did advocate a policy that “defends the individual’s right to follow whatever ideology he or she wishes within the law.” The author also appears to be attacking the specific practice of funding religious schools with taxpayer money.
People will kill each other. Religion is a handy excuse. If we remove it, we’ll go back to killing based on skin colour, hair colour, or come up with some new divisor to kill by.
Well, he (or she, looking at the name) did advocate a policy that “defends the individual’s right to follow whatever ideology he or she wishes within the law.”
And at the same time saying that religions shouldn’t be respected, and that religious leaders shouldn’t have any right to speak above that of regular people despite the fact that hundreds or thousands of people depend on their views. Besides that, he simply used language trashing the opposite viewpoint (saying it deserves “contempt”, consists of “delusion”, and is only kept alive to serve things like violence and agression). He obviously has an axe to grind, which considerably dilutes his argument, what little there is of it.
I don’t think it’s religion so much as when people take religion (or anything else for that matter) WAY too seriously. We’d all be better off if people were apathetic. That’s just my two cents. 
Believe it or not, I quite agree with you. In fact, the author is wrong on the two central aspects of his or her argument.
First of all, he or she takes the view that the sole cause of suicide bombing is religious fanaticism, which is then claimed to be the natural consequence of religion itself. We can leave the second part of this argument aside altogether, because the first part is already false. Essentially, this view is similar to the neoconservative view expressed by Bush, a view that holds that suicide terrorists are solely motivated by an unreasoning hatred of freedom, “intellect, tolerance, democracy,” and so forth, and that this hatred is the sole product of religious extremism. But suicide terrorism is commonly practiced by, say, secular extremists in Sri Lanka; Iran, however, currently produces no suicide terrorists, though religious fundamentalism is widespread there. Political motivation plays at least as great a role in suicide terrorism as does religious motivation.
Secondly, by casting the situation in terms of a conflict between “fascist philosophy” motivated by religion and “intellect, tolerance, democracy, reason and enlightenment,” the author essentially denies that aggression could be committed by secular democracies. Nothing could be further from the truth. The author appears to oppose Bush’s actions in Iraq, but his or her interpretation of Bush’s motivation is to once again merely reduce it to “fundamentalist Christian insanity,” which misses the point. It is true that Bush’s actions have widespread support from fundamentalist Christians. However, most of the neoconservative ideologues in the Bush administration itself are not fundamentalist Christians, and their militant ideology is secular in nature. By means of perpetual war, by establishing a dominant military presence on every continent, they really, genuinely believe that they can advance such causes as “freedom,” “democracy” and “human rights,” all things that the author of the article upholds. Bill Clinton’s war in the Balkans certainly had no religious motivation; neither does the European Union’s continued push to increase its influence eastward. One wonders whether the author of the article would likewise oppose such forms of aggression committed in the name of his or her preferred secular causes, or whether he or she only opposes those aggressive acts that have some religious basis.
Ok. So who is gonna quote Marx now?
“I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.” - Groucho Marx
Very Smart Thread, I think the idea of religion itself is ridiculous (no offense to anyone), it is starting to become decadent. Caused wars, hate, racism and all that crap and even Hitler tried to manipulate people through church, now hate among Islam and Catholics, religion is the cause of many wars…where are they going with that hate?
Again: Religion is an excuse for wars and hate. It does not cause the hate. Again: Most of the largest wars in the last few centuries had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with politics, racism, etc.
The irrationality of modern religion is, oddly enough, due to the separation of church and state that we thought would fix it. Before religion became an off-limits topic outside of Theology schools, scholars actually subjected religious beliefs to the test of reason. If they were inconsistent, or had no basis, they were dismissed. As a result, two schools of thought emerged. One held that organized religion and spirituality were nonsense altogether. The other agreed about organized religion, but salvaged spirituality from the wreck; a sort of spiritualization of nature. It’s debatable whether there was anything to it, but it was certainly harmless.
Part of our problem is the anti-intellectualism that’s developed over the last 150 years. Someone says, “I can prove your religion wrong by this inherent contradiction,” and someone replies, “No, religion is beyond human understanding.” How do you respond to an attack on reason itself? What’s academia’s reply to <i>that</i>? “Separation of church and state. We can’t talk about it.” Meanwhile, fundamentalism, the very opposite of harmless spirituality, has been growing since the early 20th century. So, we play this ludicrous game of inoffensiveness, unable or unwilling to discuss the issues that most need discussing.
I was under the impression that separation of church and state had to do with laws, not with dialogue.
Anyway, I’m not sure where you’re getting this information. Judaism at least has always been subject to arguments and dialogue within itself, and from what I understand of Islam, it also has (although obviously there are fundamentalist sects who refuse to countenance anything other than their ideas). And even if scholars have “rejected” religions, it’s not like it had any effect on the religions. No Pope woke up and said, “Man, that whole Sunday mass thing? Makes no sense! Let’s scrap it!”.
It’s also not a crazy idea to say that religion is beyond human comprehension. If the entire basis of it is that it was given by God, then the reasons behind it can indeed be beyond human comprehension. Maybe you don’t like the idea, but you can’t say it has no merit.
Perhaps originally, but how much religious dialogue do we allow now at a public high school? Virtually none, in the classroom. Consider that, during the Renaissance, high school equivalent students would have been trained to argue for and against Christianity and atheism better than most graduate theology students would now. (Don’t believe me? Look up what young students were required to do back then.) Even in our public universities, we’re not allowed to argue about modern religions, except possibly in philosophy class, and then only very inoffensively.
Our approach is to bury the problem. We say, “We may disagree, but that’s okay. We’ll talk about other things, and act like they’re the real problems.” We pretend that religion can’t possibly make a person bad – out of fear of being labeled hateful! – when we know that the morality instilled during childhood typically lasts for life.
Anyway, I’m not sure where you’re getting this information. Judaism at least has always been subject to arguments and dialogue within itself etc.
I was speaking of Christianity, since that’s what would have been discussed and reformed at European universities. I don’t know the history of Judaism, but I imagine it’s been less affected by the intellectual trends of the Western world.
And even if scholars have “rejected” religions, it’s not like it had any effect on the religions. No Pope woke up and said, “Man, that whole Sunday mass thing? Makes no sense! Let’s scrap it!”.
But it did have a huge effect. Catholic theology, for instance, has been vastly influenced by Protestantism and its iconoclastic spirit. Sunday mass wasn’t scrapped, but having mass <i>every day</i> was. (Formerly, many Catholics went to church daily.) Silly, idolatrous laws like, “You’ll go to hell for eating meat on a Friday during Lent,” have been scrapped. The old teaching that you go to heaven strictly by obeying Catholic law has been scrapped. Catholicism is particularly conservative, so it’s been influenced less by scholarly theology, but compare it to medieval Catholicism and you’ll see the huge difference.
It’s also not a crazy idea to say that religion is beyond human comprehension. If the entire basis of it is that it was given by God, then the reasons behind it can indeed be beyond human comprehension. Maybe you don’t like the idea, but you can’t say it has no merit.
It’s not that it’s impossible. It’s just like saying, “Everything you’ve ever seen has been an illusion from your mind.” It’s not <i>useful</i>, it’s not <i>practical</i>, and offers nothing to justify itself versus any other belief. One of the great insights of philosophy is that our belief structures are not based on Truth – who knows where the Truth is? – but rather on <i>utility</i>. We believe things because they seem to work, not by some special knowledge, and we change what we believe when it no longer works.
Perhaps originally, but how much religious dialogue do we allow now at a public high school?
I think you’re confusing separation of church and state with political correctness. The first has to do with laws, the second is a social change which has unfortunately permeated everywhere, making any mention of religion or race, in any context, subject to intense scrutiny.
It’s not that it’s impossible. It’s just like saying, “Everything you’ve ever seen has been an illusion from your mind.” It’s not useful, it’s not practical, and offers nothing to justify itself versus any other belief. One of the great insights of philosophy is that our belief structures are not based on Truth – who knows where the Truth is? – but rather on utility. We believe things because they seem to work, not by some special knowledge, and we change what we believe when it no longer works.
Sure, that makes sense from a philosophical point of view, but religion and philosophy do not necessarily go together. The whole point of religion is that you don’t change what you believe just because certain things on earth have changed. Religion is supposed to be God’s word - which is exactly Truth. Just because we can’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s any less true to its adherents.
Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make religion more accessible to people. Nor am I saying that every religious person believes it. But it’s a valid point of view.
As for religion making a person “bad”… I don’t believe that either. Morality and religion aren’t quite synonymous. There are plenty of deeply religious people who are nevertheless very amoral, and conversely plenty of very moral people who are atheists and agnostics. Your general upbringing and your own emotional makeup bring much more to the table than whether or not you’re religious.