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HappyHippo posted:You're falling into this trap where you look at "Christianity" as a whole, see that there are many different beliefs, and then try to say that therefore these specific beliefs are not religious in origin. The problem with that is that there are many varieties of Christians, and they can and do hold extremely different beliefs that nonetheless are still religious in origin. Trying to discern what's the "real" Christainity is a fool's errand. The bible is not the sole determinant of religious belief (indeed, in many cases it plays a minor role). If someone passes on to their child their belief homosexuality is sin against God that's a religious teaching whether it came from the bible or not. I'm not saying that "Christianity" makes people hate gays, I'm saying that certain varieties of it do. Even assuming this was true, what exactly is the solution? Get rid of Religion? There's this idea that if you were somehow to get rid of religion that the world would suddenly be perfect, that genocidal, homicidal nutjobs would suddenly realize that a veil was pulled from their eyes and they really don't want to kill people anymore, they had it all wrong. If you want to talk about loving delusional and psychotic beliefs that have no basis in observable reality, that's a pretty drat good one right there. How exactly do you explain the eugenics movement? What part did religion have there? The Stalinist purges? The Khmer Rouge, the Nazis, the armies of Genghis Khan etc.?
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Apr 11, 2016 20:37
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HappyHippo posted:Because it tells you nothing about where these beliefs come from, how they spread, or why they're so persistent. Belief in religion comes from a fear of death and pending oblivion. This is a curse of our self-awareness. They're spread because they offer answers to the questions of impending death, and the reason they're persistent is because we have no other options, yet. This is a different question as to why people are assholes. If you want to find the answer to that, our best bet would be neurology or other brain-related science, or perhaps sociology. I consider myself an agnostic. I don't particularly think about the existence of God or any sort of higher power in my day to day life because it doesn't really concern me. Humans are very, very good at excusing their excessive behaviour with various modes of thought, be they religious, political or otherwise. I do not readily accept the idea that if you were to get rid of one of these excuses, or even all of them, that people would stop being terrible to each other. That's absurd. What you do take away, though, is the comfort people feel when facing impending oblivion. Seeing as how I'm not (generally) an rear end in a top hat, I would not begrudge people that comfort at all, even if I don't feel the need for it myself.
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Apr 11, 2016 22:22
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I don't think Martyrdom is exclusive to religionquote:My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
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Apr 11, 2016 22:45
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Your argument is that, while you agree that there are religious people who are not closed minded bigots, there are those who are, who must be somehow more religious, or their religion must somehow be more conductive to that, even though within any given religion you can find many, many people who do not fit that mold at all. Are they bad at their religion? Did the Divine rear end in a top hat not properly enter into them? Are they fake religious people? How do you explain these discrepancies? It's almost as if there's something to it other than "Religion makes a person bad". Perhaps, as many people have pointed out, bad people use Religion to justify their awfulness, and if they didn't have Religion they'd have something else. Some possible examples include: Animal Rights, Veganism, Video Games, Tabletop Games, Food, Hair Colour, Politics, Gender
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Apr 12, 2016 01:56
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I find it hard to believe that any Christian, knowing what they know about God, would honestly believe that such an all-powerful being is A) Concerned with the human-created concept of a nation state and B) Invested enough in that concept that they would take the time to specifically punish that nation state for the sins of it and it alone. An all-powerful God would probably gently caress over all of humanity for the sins of a few, given that it would probably view humanity as an amorphous mass. You know, like they supposedly did with the Great Flood. My brother is a Khalsa Sikh, which means he's considered 'baptized' and has to honour all five tenets of the faith at all times as a sworn devotion, and even though he has a literal sword he carries around sometimes, he's probably the most progressive and inspiring person I know. Religion ultimately made him a better person, so I'm slightly biased in my belief that Religion is not the greatest evil that has befallen mankind.
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Apr 12, 2016 23:02
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