Religion - the good, the bad and the ugly

faetal on 26/1/2015 at 07:31

Without getting into the whole "who shot first" rhetoric which tends to be the focus of discussion over recent flare-ups, the less emotionally charged and opinion-focussed matter for is the breaching of the 4th Geneva convention by Israel by their creating permanent civilian settlements on Palestinian territory. Israel's repeated justification for this being essentially "Palestine doesn't exist". That's the part which made me think of the similarity anyway.

octavian on 26/1/2015 at 15:53

You have to be very clear what you mean when you say "religion". Do you mean "Christianity", "Islam", "Hinduism" etc.? Or do you mean something broader. Pinning religions to human behavior is absurd. You cannot effectively predict human behavior based on what religion they follow so it's wrong to assume that religion plays a significant role in human behavior.

Life abounds with religious behavior, that's different, you will display religious behavior today. If you consider belief as a sine qua non condition for religion, religion is belief in something in spite of something else, usually, objective evidence to the contrary, but not always. You are on average overwhelmingly likely to look for something you lost in the same place more than once, even though you already know it's not there. That's basic, typical human irrational religious behavior, as per the definition above of believing something in spite of "knowing better".

Hip hop will always promote violence when somebody who listens to hip hop does something violent. But always after the event, never before. Nobody was able to predict that "this guy specifically" will do such and such because he listens to hip hop. Not to mention the fact that most hip hop fans are peaceful suburban white kids living outside the United States. And let me tell you, over here in Europe our streets went "blap blap blap", without guns, before the internet and before your raps. The actual problem is daunting; violence, poverty, race, education, it's exceptionally hard to untangle, if at all possible. So you don't. You blame something as long as it's one (1) thing. Religion can serve this purpose, just like anything else.

Like somebody that drives a certain way "because he's an idiot" which is a statement that implodes the moment you approach it, from whatever direction. In reality it's obviously way more complicated than that, but our mind doesn't like thinking any other way than abstract. It's not even a disadvantage, I would say it's an obvious advantage; we have evolved a vicious power to abstract, from mathematics to our love life. Empty descriptors that help you, specifically you, to make sense of the world around you and, ultimately, not die yet. Perhaps that guy had a heart attack, his foot down on the gas, and you're some time away from finding out that no, actually, he had a heart attack. If you will find out. If you don't, he's just some random guy crashing and dying because "he's an idiot". Or maybe he just really is an idiot. You have no way of knowing. All you know, all that matters, is that "he's an idiot", I'm gonna slow down, put some distance between me and that car because I have shit to do, I have kids, a wife and so on.

And speaking of United States, I would say it's one of the biggest religions out there. Nobody wants to be Ukraine, so we here around Ukraine have the utmost belief in the God that is USA. Sure, we sent some dudes to Iraq and Afghanistan, in our shitty "armored" cars and with our shitty AKs and with sub-par training and sure some of them died but many died from many countries. Because it's not just us that sent troops, obviously a lot of countries did. Lives as tithes. That's all it is. What difference did we make in those wars? None. But we went there and showed our allegiance. And we have faith that if Russia gets any ideas America would say, nah bro, they cool, you ain't goin' there.

The parents know Santa doesn't exist, and the kids too know he doesn't exist, or at least know something's up when they see 10 Santas at the mall. And of course, maybe the real real Santa was in a hurry and he left the presents to the parents, so it's them that actually, physically give the presents, but, rest assured legit Santa was in the neighborhood. That's a religion too. Nobody actually literally believes in Santa, but an overwhelming number of people act like it "exists", so it exists. Santa is a thing.

Same with USA/NATO, our favorite Santa. If Putin believes in Santa too, we can do our training flights in peace. In those second hand, flying coffins shaped like F-16s, America, God bless, is selling us for half a billion dollars. We saved them from retirement in some Nevada desert. That's a lot of money for a shitty country like ours. Hey, Washington, here's half a billion dollars, have fun!

So it doesn't even matter they don't even have laser targeting. If it comes to it we'll use your raps beats to time dropping bombs. Heck, we'll fly them into their tanks or something. That's if they actually have the chance to get airborne in a real war. With Russia. Yeah, good luck with that. But we'll deck out the cockpits with solid gold iPhones and make whoever you want platinum before release, like Samsung did Jay Z. I hope we cool America, we devout. And I hope we'll never find out if this Santa's real real for real or just a dude with a pillow tummy and a fake ass beard.

And I suspect it's not just us shitty little countries that have to believe in America. The American kids that go to war have to believe in America too. How is that different from religion? Because it sounds off to use the word religion? Religion is belief in spite of something. Belief that you're not going to be maimed or killed, in spite of the fact that soldiers have been maimed or killed, for example. Sure, you can believe in God, whatever your God is, but you also have to believe in your country. That there is infrastructure in place to keep you alive. Your training. Your buddies. Your superiors.

Religion and religious behavior are two different things. Sometimes the distinction between the two is not made.

faetal on 26/1/2015 at 17:08

Ok - let me summarise it: having a belief in a supernatural or higher power having consciously created the universe and life within it. Or more specifically, tying those supernatural beliefs to one or more folk tales or syntheses originating from folk tales either old or contemporary (had to tack the "contemporary" bit on because of Scientology, UFO cults etc...).

Having said that, the "religious part of the brain" idea seems to stretch beyond just religion and into marketing iconography too, since Apple users reading Apple catalogues show (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gadgets/05/19/apple.religion/) similar brain activity to religious persons reading scripture.

octavian on 26/1/2015 at 22:04

Quote Posted by faetal

That's all well and good but the actual tie in with a story is not a logical consequence of believing a thing created the Universe. And I don’t know of any religion that has creation or life as a main focus. How many words does the Bible have on the creation of the Universe and life? How many does it have on everything else?

From the standpoint of your definition, that tie with a story makes all religions horribly bloated. Not only does it give you creation and life, it also gives countless other things. There is creation of time and space and life; and the son of God has to die on the cross too. You can’t have one without the other from Christianity’s point of view. And that’s true for all religions. You always get more.

If people want to know how the universe and life came into existence and don’t like or believe the answers science can give today they would limit themselves to a religion that explains just that. Just be agnostic or deist or believe in some kind of prime mover, whatever. But they don’t, they buy into the story; because they want what the story promises them. You’re headed for something good if you do what we tell you. At the end of time, when we open the books, you’re going to Heaven. If you don’t do what we tell you, you’re going to Hell. Forever.

Religion deals with what you have to do to have a good life, here and/or in the afterlife. And who doesn’t want to live a good life? It’s not about how the universe and life came into existence. People are not religious to have an answer of what happened between 0 and 10^−43 seconds in the life of the Universe. From then on, we get it. You may not understand it, or believe in it, but then again you may be a layman, ignorant, or, if you prefer, God really is secretly turning the cogs. That just means we know what cogs he’s turning and how He’s turning them. If that were true, we’re not that bad, we’re pretty smart, figuring out God’s cogs like that. But we’re made in His image so that wouldn’t be that surprising right?

Nature is Nature whether you believe in it or not, the Earth was round before people believed it was. Heck, it was round before people, how about that. Earth does not need anyone to believe it’s round for it to be round. It just is. Religion needs people to believe in it. Just look at Osiris, he went from a god to the sole of a pair of shoes in a few thousand years.

And with the people questioning the origin of life, again, it's sitting in the armchair and talking not to fall asleep. Evolution. Don't believe that? Fine. God, aliens planted us here? Fine. It has no bearing whatsoever on your life unless you need it to work it in what you believe.

Aliens planted us on Earth. Ok. And? Aliens exist. I get it. And? What now? How does that help me beyond having a topic of discussion? Evolution gave us elementary things which work and which we use, right now, every day, like selective breeding. That dog breed you love so much, that’s right, we did that. Cows bred for milk, others for meat, we do that too, basic things that make our life easier.

Some of us may be wrong, maybe aliens did plant us here and we’re growing like silly radishes. So? Just stand in awe or what? Should I get in my spaceship and engage to find them? To thank them, obviously. Give them some red vines and porn.

Look what we did alien bros., do you like it? Thanks for, uhm, you know, making us, more or less. Oh and the pyramids, dude I went to see those it was cool man. Wanna’ see Alien or something?

If you come up with a theory that by definition cannot be proven wrong at this time, or ever, aliens, God, whatever, I don’t see the point in it being either true or false because it means it has no bearing on my life whatsoever.

God exists. Fine. The touchscreen on my phone works too. That’s quantum tunneling. So Schrödinger’s equation still works. I don’t fly out of my chair so gravity still works too. Nuclear forces are go. My protons and neutrons are like BFFs and don’t intend to separate any time soon. So physics hasn’t broken down yet. MRI machines still work. Internet works. Kids still love spaghetti.

I’d say we’re pretty good as is. If we’re cool we may even give a treat to our cat and rub her belly, save some endangered species, plant a tree, land a probe on an asteroid, invest the equivalent of a small space program into dildo research. You know, be productive. I don’t get what I’m supposed to do confronted with the existence of aliens or God or the possibility of X-Files being taken up again.

If you need religion to explain creation, feel God through the love between people and give you peace of mind and resolution in the face of loss, disease and death, that’s fine. If you believe the religious stories to be literally true, that’s fine too. Nobody will ever have a problem with that unless they’re an idiot. But you’re never religious just for that. You want to get in Heaven. That’s an ongoing, lifelong activity.

And some just want to get in Heaven at the expense of others.

Then it’s not about religion anymore. At all. It’s about taking for yourself what you don’t own or for which “owning” cannot even be an issue, a life or a person. If some dude gets through my locked front door, what difference does it make if it’s because of religion, drugs, race, just because he wants my shit, or my wife? It makes no difference.

TL;DR:

I think religion is a false subject. As an average man or woman living in 2015 you don't need God to explain anything. Having said that, you can believe whatever you want but you'd better keep your religion to yourself. Because the moment you stop doing that somebody somewhere will have a problem with it. And if it's not your religion, it's that Dell laptop you skipped lunch for five years to get. Because Dell is shit. And if not that it's your shitty PC verus a Mac or the other way around. Or your purple dildo. Purple is just a bad life choice man. People are like that, it's not a big secret, everybody knows this.

When you go to somebody's house you don't tell them their carpets are shit, even if they are. You don't need religion to tell you that, it's just common sense. You don't tell them that because they may not have the common sense to not to kill you for it. And if you have friends you can tell that to and laugh, cherish them and look after them. Make spaghetti, have a beer, play a board game. Tell them Dell is the best. Get one too. They're fine. You don't need religion for that either. It's not that hard.

Whenever religion is pointed at or used as justification for violence, terrorism and so on, it’s blatantly obvious that if it weren’t for religion it would be something else. Race. Money. Politics. Coincidence. The dog that ate a homework across the world because reasons.

DDL on 27/1/2015 at 10:41

I keep thinking octavian's posts should be set to music, a la Baz Luhrmann's Sunscreen.

When you go to somebody's house/
you don't tell them their carpets are shit/
even if they are.

But ultimately your argument boils down to "it's basically irrelevant for your average white westerner, so why bother arguing", which seems a little dismissive. It probably feels pretty relevant to those blowing themselves up for their faith, and for those being blown up for their faith.

I'd imagine it's pretty hard to convince healthy young people to blow themselves up WITHOUT some kind of promissory afterlife.

"Dude, dude: wear this and blow yourself up!"

"Why?"

"Uh..because hashtag YOLO"

Le MAlin 76 on 27/1/2015 at 13:11

Quote Posted by Azaran

The problem is most Christian "charities" (those operating in the third world especially), are not doing charity work but converting others - by(http://www.christianaggression.org/tactics.php) any means possible.
The charity aspect of it is just a ploy to attract converts and destroy local cultures. And the saddest part is a lot of well meaning Christians in the west give money to these vultures, thinking they're supporting a good cause.
One of the worst I've heard about is "(http://www.crusadewatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=21&id=120&Itemid=99999999/) Jesus wells": they build a well in a non-Christian village which lacks access to water, but put it right next to whatever church they build. Then when locals come to get water, the pastor tells them they can't have any unless they convert. Of course those "charities" won't tell you that (because that might put a dent in the donations they get)

Heee wtf ?

I am work with other students catholics in an chaplaincy of students in a alimentary help. We call us "Alimentary Help of Students" and we do not publicity about our religious opinions, we make just distributions with very low cost (2 euros for food for 2 weeks, it's cost because we must have a funding, with in other part the official membership of association of chaplaincy because of laws of France is costing too). We help many poors without ethnicity or religious criterions. So the charity is not exhange with a request of conversion.

Le MAlin 76 on 27/1/2015 at 13:38

Quote Posted by Azaran

I'm not sure it can all be reduced to economic factors. The deranged obsession of European colonialists with converting natives and destroying their cultures, while it may have been a means of facilitating their exploitation, was motivated purely by religion. And in fact, if they had been smart, they could have better gained the native's cooperation by showing respect for their cultures. I think we can best reach a point of agreement if we posit a mix of economic and religious factors in these crimes.

A good example of this is the Evangelical\Calvinist (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/may/05/evangelical-christian-environmentalism-green-dragon) hatred of the environment, which is motivated by Genesis (where mankind is given dominion by God over the planet to exploit it as they please), as well as the economic principles of western capitalism (where these religious movements arose). And this is a dangerous mix for the planet. There's a lot of disturbing examples of this historically. When Protestant missionaries converted large parts of Northeast India (whose people used to be animists with a deep reverence for nature), they followed it up by (http://www.conservationandsociety.org/article.asp?issn=0972-4923%3Byear%3D2013%3Bvolume%3D11%3Bissue%3D2%3Bspage%3D187%3Bepage%3D197%3Baulast%3DOrmsby) destroying local forests which were considered sacred by the locals:

A resident of the town of Mawkyrwat recounted that, "after conversion [to Christianity], the old belief was not effective anymore. Therefore, in the 1960s, they destroyed all of the forest... An auction was declared. All the villagers went into the forest and chose the trees they wanted to buy."

Economic exploitation and a (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2014/07/the-breaking-of-images/) malicious desire to destroy, typical of Calvinism (and Wahhabism, its Islamic equivalent), which unlike traditional religions, has no respect or tolerance for nature, cultures, or anything for that matter. And even if they had no economic motivations, their religious mandates would still lead them to commit the same crimes, just like IS is doing in the Middle East. The evangelicals who go into the 3rd world to plant churches often have no economic motivation: their objective is to carpet bomb non-Christian societies with churches, convert locals, and destroy the local traditions

It would be interesting to check on how the whole thing started. I read the other day about Islamists infiltrating the country from Bangladesh, raping Buddhist women and sowing terror in certain areas (they're doing it in many places), the whole campaign could be a violent reaction against it. And it's innocent people who are paying the price.

The calvinism is other kind of context. I talked about catholic system. The calvins and catholics have two Fundamentals cultural difference with catholics. One is because the first calvinist were a majority of merchants, and the protestants have in general not a positive opinion of the money. It's not religious but cultural, because the Bible say that money is not very good, but Jesus said that if we use that to make the good, it's so not bad. While catholic have in generaly negative opinion (i say generaly, so you can find exceptions). I think that Weber (if i remember well, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism)caricatured whith that " catholics gave birth to communist / protestants gave birth to communism".

The second point is link to one of dogmatic difference. The protestants believe to the predestination: One part of humanity is determined to be saved by God, other part must burn in evil. Catholics think that all people can be saved by the good actions. But the slavery system is complex. I have read most books other that, and a number of authors think that is an economic pragamactic action most than an ideologic system in begining; it will be ideologic in XVIIe century. But the system have not the favors of all. In France, the slavery was forgiven in the Royal Domain (in all the European territories of France), and the french settlers and colonial merchants are see like sinners by the French who not lived in Colonies. So there is in reality great a ambiguity of religious speech (one they that is bad, other says that the Africans are soons of cursed Ham so there is permission to enslaving only them... there are many controversies), political action (officialy it's forbiden, but the King didnt't annex colonies to Royal Domain to create a exception, and the societies was divided between men who are for and other who are against). I know more slavery in catholic system (i read about french colonies), few for English system. I know that the protestant system of dutch was especialy hard system.

For Islamism, I think there is an error to considere that is only religious ideology, because there political and cultural standards are very differences from Westen standards.

faetal on 27/1/2015 at 17:55

I don't care what anyone's personal reality filters are, so long as they keep to themselves those parts which rely solely on faith.

Le MAlin 76 on 27/1/2015 at 21:27

Quote Posted by Pyrian

Frankly, I'm simply not impressed with religion's ability to affect behavior at all. Humans are champion rationalizers. Religions primarily advocate virtuous behavior, but that seems to get routinely swept under the rug in favor of finding loopholes for asinine behavior. I'm almost always wishing that the various fanatics would actually pay attention to their own dang religion for a change.

Religion don't have very great influence = if religions and politics were perfects it will be parardise on earth.

Yakoob on 30/1/2015 at 07:09

Quote Posted by DDL

I keep thinking octavian's posts should be set to music, a la Baz Luhrmann's Sunscreen.

I was thinking the same. Seriously, Octavian, please go write a book so I can read it already. I find your writing style utterly alluring :)

Quote Posted by octavian

Then it’s not about religion anymore. At all. It’s about taking for yourself what you don’t own or for which “owning” cannot even be an issue, a life or a person. If some dude gets through my locked front door, what difference does it make if it’s because of religion, drugs, race, just because he wants my shit, or my wife? It makes no difference.

I think the big counter argument is that it does make a difference - if you can find the "cause" you can learn to prevent it. However, I do agree with you that religion, politcis, money aren't really the cause, but more of an excuse or a logical framework. With my brief stint in studying ethnic conflict and just watching what goes on in the world, I really the real reasons are greed, ignorance or violence inherent in many ways to our specie. Sadly, they are not really easy to get rid off, and in some cases can be understandable, if not even justified.

Quote Posted by faetal

I don't care what anyone's personal reality filters are, so long as they keep to themselves those parts which rely solely on faith.

Same here. As long as it doesn't hurt me or others, do whatever you want.