All of this christian bashing is so ignorant and stupid.

[chezlaw]

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Wait, wait, wait. We don't get to hold Christianity accountable when Christians do horrible things in the name of their religion, and we don't get to hold the religion accountable for what it says because no specific priests preach about those ideals? Talk about a slippery target.

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Umm, yeah. Basically. Unless you want to do away with democracy because democratic governments do horrible things in the name of protecting democratic freedom. I mean, you see how that argument doesn't really work, right?

I mean, by this logic if I do something evil in the name of X, then X is at fault and not me even if X doesn't really say to perform that evil act.

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No, by this logic, how many times would someone have to do something in the name of X before you would be forced to admit that maybe X really DID say to do those things?

And where is this logic when religious groups do good things? Where is this logic when people talk about all of the great things religion does, all of he charity work, etc.? How come no one ever says "Well, you can't say religion is responsible, its the people's fault for doing all those good things."

No. Religion only gets the benefits, none of the costs.

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Its not the fault of religon that religons try to take all credit and no blame, its the fault of the people in the religon.

peoples are like that.

chez

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I agree, except I'd place the fault with the people who ALLOW theists to get away with this absurd immunity, namely the culture of 'hands off religion' that we are arguing about in this thread.

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Absolutely. The war on terror should be funding crack satirists squads to pour ridicule and scorn on them fools.

Only reason they wont do it is friendly fire.

chez

[madnak]

Well, I haven't discussed those issues in this thread, because it seemed off-topic. Then again, the OP did quote me. I was indicting the character of the Christian God based on the plagues of Egypt. God devastated the Egyptian agriculture, set diseases on the Egyptian people, and killed the first-born son of every family in Egypt, ostensibly to convince the pharaoh to let Moses go. My contention was that God (as the character in the Bible, using this story as an example) is willing to torture many innocent people (mostly the lower classes whom the pharaoh wasn't concerned for) simply in order to convince one man (which was particularly nonsensical given the concept of current Christians that God is all-powerful, so why did he need permission?).

Obviously this particular case relates to all Abrahamic faiths, but the OP clearly didn't read all my posts thoroughly before starting this thread, because he came to the erroneous conclusion that I was referring to the Crusades. The plagues are only one of many events in the Old Testament which I consider to be atrocities perpetrated by God. It is particularly relevant for various reasons, but in particular our Bible Club is reading Exodus right now (okay, I'm reading Exodus right now - they read it two weeks ago, except vhawk who isn't using the forums until his exams are done [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

My opposition to Jesus himself is concerned primarily with his emphasis of the sinful nature of man (I believe mankind should be glorified, not demonized), his description of the harshness of God's judgment (including the idea of hell, which I find intolerably awful), his encouragement of blind obedience and conformity to the standards he described (I despise conformity and reasonless obedience), and his assertions that his goal was strife ("Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword"). Given that the New Testament of the Bible (and the apocrypha) is our only source of information about Jesus, I feel justified in using it as a source for the generation of conclusions about Christianity in general (although I'm ambivalent about the apocrypha - I don't know what to think about Gnosticism).

[Taraz]

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But when we blame the book for what it says, you say things like "Show me any preacher in the country who preaches something like THAT!" You made that exact same defense of something said earlier in this thread, or some other one. So, most people do not focus on (or even believe) most of the abhorrent things that their book says. And this absolves their religion of fault?

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This is a pretty good point in some ways. I think I also stated earlier that the difficulty is that so many people have so many different interpretations of the text. I just think it's dishonest to say that the entire religion is at fault when you point to a particular passage in a particular text. I mean, how can you call all of Christianity evil when the accepted interpretation of that passage is completely benign?

[Taraz]

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Taraz,

Do you understand that you are setting up a system where the ONLY time anyone is acting in accordance with whatever religious tenets they hold is when they are doing something that is unquestionably good? Any time anyone subjectively decides their actions are NOT good, you simply fall back upon one of the infinite number of interpretations that allows for the excuse that they aren't acting according to the religion.

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I don't really think that I am. I just think that you guys choose a lot of the wrong things to focus on. I think I said it in a post after this one, but I think Christianity can promote groupthink and an abandonment of reason. This is especially true in the current fundamentalist climate in the U.S.

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In this way, every religion is absolutely a perfect, flawless guide to living, acting and believing. If it isn't...you're reading it wrong.

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I wouldn't say that every religion is flawless, far from it. But I would say that every major religion can be used and is used for good far, far more often than it is used for evil. I really believe that you guys have more of a problem with fundamentalism than with anything else. I mean, it seems like you want to abolish the religion because a small minority of people are being ridiculous with it.

The unfortunate thing is that fundamentalist Christianity seems to have taken hold in the U.S. But I don't really think that fighting against Christianity, the religion, is going to solve the problem.

[madnak]

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I mean, how can you call all of Christianity evil when the accepted interpretation of that passage is completely benign?

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When Jesus says that he came to bring not peace but a sword, to set fire to the land, to pit mother against daughter and father against son... And the accepted interpretation of that is perfectly benign (even "peaceful"). Do you see where I have an issue with that?

But I agree that context is important. For example, when Jesus says "judge not" he explains that the reason is God is the one who ought to be judging, and that God will judge very harshly. When he says "love your neighbor," he makes it clear that this is secondary to loving God (the God of Abraham), and he says it to escape a semantic trap set for him by the Pharisees. Part of the reason we're doing an atheist Bible club is that context is important, but in my experience the full context only tends to worsen things. Moreover it seems to me that the "good stuff" is very rare, while the "bad stuff" is ubiquitous. Finally, it appears to me that peaceful interpretations of most passages involves stretching credibility to its limits - again, people are literally arguing that Jesus came to bring peace - despite the fact that he said, point blank, "I didn't come to bring peace, on the contrary."

I mean, I can write a story about a man who violently rapes hundreds of women. And then I can claim that it's not bad, rape is just a metaphor for spreading love and peace. But I sure couldn't blame an objective observer for concluding that my story is violent.

[Taraz]

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What about blaming Marx for what Marxists say?

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No. Not if the Marxist are advocating something that Marx never said. I mean, you can blame Marx for creating a system where Marxists can take things the wrong way and say bad things. But I wouldn't really blame Marx for what they actually do.

I guess that seems kind of weird. I'll try to explain it better later. I have some things I have to do today [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[John21]

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I'm all about debate, but I just think that we should be trying to change things. It seems like vilifying someone's beliefs won't make them very amenable to new/better ideas.

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It seems like the debate on this board is focused more around the idea that, yes, extremists are the problem, namely through their actions, but religion is the ultimate cause. With the exception of the occasional extremist who stumbles into this forum, I really doubt any of the regular anti-religion posters have a "personal" problem with any of the so-called believers.

On the issue of whether religion is the cause one camp says yes and the other obviously says no. "They" think it's the cause and while I'll grant it's an enabler, I don't think it's the real cause of extremism. Then the argument gets made that if it's causing any harm we should do away with it. A few posters made some interesting points about whether we could or should weigh the potential benefits that religion could provide to society against the harm it can cause. But the problem with that argument is "believers" feel there's not simply a societal benefit to religion but a personal and sometimes very deep personal benefit, that should be given weight in the argument. However, the "non-believers" think it's foolish, superstitious, illogical, etc… and don't want to allow the personal benefits to factor in, at least to the same degree as the "believer".

Personally, I don't feel religion is the cause of extremism, and I feel it has both societal and personal value that outweighs the admitted harm it can do. And at that point, I'm at an impasse with the anti-religion camp, and we'll argue the points back and forth. And considering the argument over whether God exists; what particular form He would take; and what it all means to us has been debated for millennia, I doubt we'll ever agree on this issue.

What my problem is that I can't either find a way to convey, or gain any consensus on, is that while we're all disagreeing and arguing about certain things, we're ignoring what we actually do agree on, namely, the negative societal impact of extremism. Personally, I believe extremism can take the form of political, national, racial, ideological and yes religious fanaticism, and I think history amply proves this point. But the issue as I see it is the zealot, not the particular form zealotry happens to be taking.

But since we're on the subject of religion, here's how I see religious extremism or as it's called Fundalmentalism:

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences funded a massive study on Fundamentalism called "the Fundamentalism Project," with scholars from all over the planet. It's 5 volumes and +7,000 pages of a scholarly look and analysis of the different causes and conditions of Fundamentalism. Here's the summary:

<font color="brown"> 1. religious idealism as basis for personal and communal identity;
2. fundamentalists understand truth to be revealed and unified;
3. it is intentionally scandalous, (similar to Lawrence's point about language -- outsiders cannot understand it);
4. fundamentalists envision themselves as part of a cosmic struggle;
5. they seize on historical moments and reinterpret them in light of this cosmic struggle;
6. they demonize their opposition and are reactionary;
7. fundamentalists are selective in what parts of their tradition and heritage they stress;
8. they are led by males;
9. they envy modernist cultural hegemony and try to overturn the distribution of power.

The Fundamentalism Project enumerates several more of these "family resemblances" but most are represented in this abbreviated list.

The last several chapters of the final volume, Fundamentalisms Comprehended, attempts to delineate several properties of Fundamentalism with the research of the previous 7,500 pages in mind. Appleby, Emmanuel Sivan, and Gabriel Almond list 5 ideological characteristics and 4 organizational characteristics of fundamentalism. The Five ideological characteristics are:
1. fundamentalists are concerned "first" with the erosion of religion and its proper role in society;
2. fundamentalism is selective of their tradition and what part of modernity they accept or choose to react against;
3. they embrace some form of Manicheanism (dualism);
4. fundamentalists stress absolutism and inerrancy in their sources of revelation; and
5. they opt for some form of Millennialism or Messianism.
The organizational characteristics include:
1. an elect or chosen membership;
2. sharp group boundaries;
3. charismatic authoritarian leaders; and
4. mandated behavioral requirements.</font>


Bruce Lawrence, in his book, "Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age," kind of sums up what Fundamentalism and a Fundamentalist is:

<font color="brown"> Lawrence defines fundamentalism as " the affirmation of religious authority as holistic and absolute, admitting of neither criticism nor reduction; it is expressed through the collective demand that specific creedal and ethical dictates derived from scripture be publicly recognized and legally enforced ."
Lawrence argues that fundamentalism is a specific kind of religious ideology. It is antimodern, but not antimodernist. In other words, it rejects the philosophical rationalism and individualism that accompany modernity, but it takes full advantage of certain technological advances that also characterize the modern age. The most consistent denominator is opposition to Enlightenment values. Lawrence believes that fundamentalism is a world-wide phenomena and that it must be compared in various contexts before it can be understood or explained with any clarity.
Lawrence ends his general discussion by listing five "family resemblances" common to fundamentalism. 1) Fundamentalists are advocates of a minority viewpoint. They see themselves as a righteous remnant. Even when they are numerically a majority, they perceive themselves as a minority. 2) They are oppositional and confrontational towards both secularists and "wayward" religious followers. 3) They are secondary level male elites led invariably by charismatic males. 4) Fundamentalists generate their own technical vocabulary. 5) Fundamentalism has historical antecedents, but no ideological precursor. </font>

The short of it is, that both Lawrence and the study I mentioned identify the mind-set of the zealot and how certain religious tenets and beliefs give the zealot a home. But those tenets and belief systems can and do take a whole host of forms, not necessarily religious. What the zealot is ultimately in search of is power; a sense of superiority; and a sense of righteousness. The attraction to religion is the heightened degree he can experience what he is in search of.

I would whole-heartily agree that the current climate in society gives a safe-haven and shelter for the zealot to dwell. But I would argue that the sheltering of the zealot, wherever he resides, is the problem, not his present locale -whether religious or ideological.

Maybe in an idealistic sense, I could understand the attempt to get rid of religion to solve the problem. But in a practical sense, I can't. Religion's not going away and neither is the bigotry of the zealot. However, I do feel we can limit the detrimental effects the extremists can have on society, but that would require people cooperating in the areas they agree, while ignoring the areas they disagree. Aside from coercion and force - that's how all earthly power is formed. And I believe it will take that deep power base and cooperation to untrench the zealots. It's not something I can see the atheist camp or the moderate religious camp doing alone.

[vhawk01]

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Wait, wait, wait. We don't get to hold Christianity accountable when Christians do horrible things in the name of their religion, and we don't get to hold the religion accountable for what it says because no specific priests preach about those ideals? Talk about a slippery target.

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Umm, yeah. Basically. Unless you want to do away with democracy because democratic governments do horrible things in the name of protecting democratic freedom. I mean, you see how that argument doesn't really work, right?

I mean, by this logic if I do something evil in the name of X, then X is at fault and not me even if X doesn't really say to perform that evil act.

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No, by this logic, how many times would someone have to do something in the name of X before you would be forced to admit that maybe X really DID say to do those things?

And where is this logic when religious groups do good things? Where is this logic when people talk about all of the great things religion does, all of he charity work, etc.? How come no one ever says "Well, you can't say religion is responsible, its the people's fault for doing all those good things."

No. Religion only gets the benefits, none of the costs.

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Its not the fault of religon that religons try to take all credit and no blame, its the fault of the people in the religon.

peoples are like that.

chez

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I agree, except I'd place the fault with the people who ALLOW theists to get away with this absurd immunity, namely the culture of 'hands off religion' that we are arguing about in this thread.

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Absolutely. The war on terror should be funding crack satirists squads to pour ridicule and scorn on them fools.

Only reason they wont do it is friendly fire.

chez

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I don't know if this was sarcastic or not, but pretending it was serious, I agree entirely.

[vhawk01]

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except vhawk who isn't using the forums until his exams are done [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).



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Its so hard to stay away. I am doing my best though, and I am pretty prepared for this first one, physiology.

[vhawk01]

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But when we blame the book for what it says, you say things like "Show me any preacher in the country who preaches something like THAT!" You made that exact same defense of something said earlier in this thread, or some other one. So, most people do not focus on (or even believe) most of the abhorrent things that their book says. And this absolves their religion of fault?

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This is a pretty good point in some ways. I think I also stated earlier that the difficulty is that so many people have so many different interpretations of the text. I just think it's dishonest to say that the entire religion is at fault when you point to a particular passage in a particular text. I mean, how can you call all of Christianity evil when the accepted interpretation of that passage is completely benign?

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A couple of problems. First, the only people who are allowed to make 'accepted interpretations' are Christians themselves, or at least they are the only ones who do so en masse. And secondly, it is only CURRENTLY the accepted interpretation, because it is currently unacceptable to interpret it literally. There was a very, very different 'accepted interpretation' back when social mores and norms allowed for a more violent, barbaric outlook on life. Mark it down as a near certainty: If Christianity is still around in 200 years, well over 90% of Christians will see no problem whatsoever with homosexuality. The accepted interpretation will be whatever social norms dictate.

Pardon me if I have little respect for the current 'accepted interpretation.'