Religion is Potty Training

If you don’t teach a child how to use the toilet, then are you surprised by the results?

Next imagine a nation of millions of people who haven’t been potty trained. What will happen? The country will begin to stink, slowly at first, because a small mess is easy to clean up. But people aren’t being trained. So more messes occur, faster than they are cleaned up. Eventually the mess is created faster than its destroyed. And this mound of filth rises and rises. Because nobody is addressing the cause. People need the potty training. People need the religion. People need the spirituality.

Atheism has grown very powerful and popular in the u.s. People are now convinced that “you don’t need potty training”. You don’t need to teach potty training. People just do it automatically. Humans automatically know how to use the toilet. No, this is false. You need to teach children. The fallacy of atheism is that atheists pretend like potty training doesn’t exist, domestication. Atheists convinced themselves that they were never potty trained, as children, when they were. You were potty trained. You just forgot about it. And you forgot how important it was.

So atheists are missing the point. Domesticating young children is the point, of religion. If you don’t do this, teach children morality, then you shouldn’t be surprised by the result. Spree shootings. Loss of the free society. Excessive divorcing. Free sex. Corrupt government. You should have seen it all coming, but you weren’t paying attention. You forgot that children need potty training.

Atheism is becoming more radical. Not only did atheists forget about their potty training, when you remind them of it, they claim “ok ok, I admit it, but, it wasn’t that important”. They diminish its importance and necessity. They eventually must admit to it. So they attempt some damage control and backtracking. Yes, ok, atheists were potty trained, just like everybody else. You are not special, just because you are an atheist. You were potty trained. So you are no different than all the other belief systems or lack of belief. Atheists preach their “lack of potty training”, without realizing the depth of their domestication, the results of it.

Radical atheists will act more extreme. They will say “look, my children don’t need potty training, they can wear a diaper until they’re 7 years old, or 13, how dare you judge me as a parent or my children?!” How dare you??? Why can’t we poop and piss “freely”? Isn’t this a free society? This is how they rationalize their extreme ideology.

Religion is the potty training. You can’t escape it. You can’t deny it any longer. Atheists need it, most of all.

Insight,

Without commenting on your analogy, i have to say that you are not wrong.

That is precisely the issue.

Whether theological ontologies of the various religions are right or wrong, can be a matter of debate. But, that is not an important issue for the society.
The more important issue is whether it is helping in the betterment of the society or not?

If you follow religions blindly, you would end up in a stagnant society and left behind in many aspects of life; like in the case of east.
On the other hand, if you completely dismiss religions and follow liberty only, you would end up with a society like US.

The ultimate aim should be betterment of the society, neither religions nor freedom. East aimed for religions and thus paid the price. Now, the west has taken freedom as a goal and hence paying the price.

What is required is the right balance between these two verticals of life. Over dependence on anyone of them would not in the virtue in the long run for humanity. Both extremes are wrong.

with love,
sanjay

Radical fundamentalist religion is “never pissing or pooping, even if it harms your health to hold it in”, too much potty training.

Radical liberal atheism is “pissing or pooping whenever and wherever you want to”, not enough potty training.

If you mess yourself in public, then that is acceptable to atheists. But it is unacceptable to religionists. Your dignity is everything, in religion. You shouldn’t act like an animal. The more powerful atheism becomes, the more people will act like animals in public, blatantly, and the more tolerance is demanded of these “people”. But at a certain point, you need to ask, are these animals even “people” anymore? Are they still human? No, they lose their humanity, due to atheism.

I don’t buy your premise that atheism leads to social break down and free for all debauchery. As far as I can see atheists are potty trained too.

Also, it’s not poop I’m concerned about, with the potty training systems, it’s blood.

When did the country NOT stink?

Insight,

The real issue comes when a society decides its basic premise. All depends on that.
Actually, it is not the issue of theism or atheism, but of liberty and restrictions.
And, the third and most worthy option is welfare
.

Leaving few serious scholars behind, religions mean restrictions in the perception of the masses, more or less. Do this or do not do that. Or, this is good or this is bad. Atheism frees an individual from all these constraints. Do what you want to do unless your actions do not cause problems to others directly, though indirect harm is allowed.

On the other hand, theism or conservative society puts too many restrictions. And, ultimately tends to curb essential developments too. That is also an indirect harm.

Thus, the key is to keep in mind that the basic premise should be welfare only, neither theism nor atheism. Blind theism is also as bad as complete liberty. We have to follow the middle way, inclined slightly more towards theism (restrictions). But, do not stop liberty completely.

Extrems would be always troublesome and should not be followed.

with love,
sanjay

Atheists do not have to be utilitarians/consequentialists, though I would agree that they often are. But then religions often free people from constrictions - this can be limited to certain rituals or a regular part of the religion - certainly many pagan and shamanistic religion do this. The religions themselves allowing for release/exploration. But even more important, I Think, would be the fact that the simple laws and rules are often a rather shallow level of the religion. And given that religion and society were merged in the West and still are many other places, it is simply a fact of society - secular or religious - that rules and laws are put in Place. Secular society still has a lot of restrictions even where no harm can be shown - nudity, for example, is generally restricted to certain areas in secular society. But at a deeper level, the mystic level, where the practitioner is not just a Sunday worshipper, the religion often pushes the person past rules - this certainly is the case in Zen, Sufism, part of Hinduism, and even mystical Christianity. One is supposed to get to a Place where one no longer needs the rules because one is in some kind of union with the Buddha or God, and so one’s actions will lead to the good regardless.

I simply cannot connect with this. Atheists can have all sorts of temperments, but in my experience most atheists would be some of the last people to poop in public, either literally or metaphorically. They are heady very much in Control of themselves kinds of guys. And I am not saying that as a compliment (or insult). It just seems to me that they are more in Control. Compare them to pagans or goddess worshippers, bhakti devotees, shamans, flagellants, gospel Choirs, possession cults, snake handling Christians, those who speak in tongues, Hoodoo practioners…and so on…and you have people in much more Control.

Potty training, now thinking of it as a metaphor, is simply different. But I am pretty sure atheists would view religious people as pooping in public and being out of Control. I don’t Think this metaphor works.

Many atheists are religious.

Atheist like to claim that they don’t need potty training. They think they’re above it. And some atheists are potty trained so well, that they completely forget that potty training exists. That is the most effective form of potty training, to be potty trained, and not even know it.

Do you leave the seat up or down after taking a piss? How trained are you? I mean, how religious are you?

‘‘Atheists’’ have, on balance, caused far LESS problems for society than ‘‘theists’’ have.

with love,
sanjay

This is silly. You’re pulling our leg.

Extremists always cause problems whether theists or atheists.

Sometimes, because of our conditioning, we fail to see problems as problems.
If we do not see the divorce rate in the west as high as 50% as a problem, then not seeing this as a problem is certainly a problem.

Then perhaps, we would not consider it as a problem even if it reaches at 100%. And, would proudly claim how liberal we have become!

That is also a way of seeing things.

with love,
sanjay

I leave the toilet seat up, as a symbol of my resistance against society, resistance against my potty training.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0WRVjcHPZs
Alan Watts has used a similar analogy …

How do we work out the per person effects? Atheists, even now, are in a minority. Go back a Little in time and nearly everyone was a theist.

There are many religions that allow for doing and expressing things one could not in normal society. There can be Days or rituals, some of the latter can be quite regular. This is more true in pagan indigenous religions that the biggies, but even in the biggies you will have mystics/religious leaders who allow themselves to break societal rules. Many of the founders did this - and this got some of them in trouble, even fatal trouble. Zen, for example, also breaks one from cultural norms - or can, it has also been used to very harshly enforce them. But there is very much a portion of the mystical sides of all religions where later states of advancement allow one to break rules and have this be OK. The rules are now seen as guidelines for people who do not have the insight of the spiritually advanced person. There are many examples of how this has been abused, but also where it has been a good thing.

I am sure that many muslims see the sufis as extremists.

I wasn’t saying that everyone should follow the monk or sunyassins Schedule. We seem to be talking past each other here.

Well that adds a whole new meaning to the words anal and retentive doesn’t it. :wink: