Religion Must Be Actively Opposed and Ultimately Eradicated

[Bane]

@felix dakat

Many of the colonists came to America to get away from religious persecution so I guess we’ve come full circle.

It is rather childish to actually believe in the motivations we are told the colonists had. If we actually look at the history, we see that religious freedom wasn’t necessarily as important to them as we traditionally have been told. You know that.

I have been thinking a lot about the separation of church and state. Why did the founding fathers want a complete separation of church and state? It wasn’t about each of us having our own religious freedoms as much as it was about people literally being freed from religions persecution! They were trying to free FROM religion but coined the term freedom OF religion.

[felix_dakat]

@Bane

@felix dakat

Many of the colonists came to America to get away from religious persecution so I guess we’ve come full circle.

It is rather childish to actually believe in the motivations we are told the colonists had. If we actually look at the history, we see that religious freedom wasn’t necessarily as important to them as we traditionally have been told. You know that.

I have been thinking a lot about the separation of church and state. Why did the founding fathers want a complete separation of church and state? It wasn’t about each of us having our own religious freedoms as much as it was about people literally being freed from religions persecution! They were trying to free FROM religion but coined the term freedom OF religion.

I didn’t state that religious freedom was the only motivation for coming to America. Please educate me as to what the colonists’ “actual” motivations were.

[xzc]

What makes a religion?

[Gaiaguerrilla]

This is a good idea because my god hates religious people.

[felix_dakat]

@Erlir

What makes a religion?

I have no idea. I may be even more socratically ignorant than you.

[Murex]

@Erlir

What makes a religion?

A gang of idiots.

[Bane]

@felix dakat

@Bane

@felix dakat

Many of the colonists came to America to get away from religious persecution so I guess we’ve come full circle.

It is rather childish to actually believe in the motivations we are told the colonists had. If we actually look at the history, we see that religious freedom wasn’t necessarily as important to them as we traditionally have been told. You know that.

I have been thinking a lot about the separation of church and state. Why did the founding fathers want a complete separation of church and state? It wasn’t about each of us having our own religious freedoms as much as it was about people literally being freed from religions persecution! They were trying to free FROM religion but coined the term freedom OF religion.

I didn’t state that religious freedom was the only motivation for coming to America. Please educate me as to what the colonists’ “actual” motivations were.

There were many. I suppose I could say Will to Power in its many manifestations, but obviously there were many.

I was just stating the difference in motivation of freedom OF religion as opposed to freedom FROM religion. They ultimately result in the same thing, and yet they are different.

[Bob]

Hi JT,

Yes. Intolerence. And that is the over-arching problem. Culturally, I see no way to separate religion from all of the other social influences. Religion uses and is used by every other form of social control. Again, I don’t think that religion has to be eradicated as some sort of “movement” against. What I see is a social institution that is rapidly losing credibility as it is tarred by it’s extremists. In it’s inability to reform itself, it is marginalizing it’s own foundations. Nothing need be done to eradicate religion, we just stand back and watch it destroy itself.

To a degree I believe you are right – as we have agreed in the past - I believe that religion, or in my case Christianity, has tried to take a place in society that it doesn’t need. Consequently it becomes something people desire. People like to think of themselves as being religious, devoted or pious, but it is the imagination that is most powerful here and those watching know it better than the religious themselves. Having said that, each individual has his own illusions, which become apparent the more awake we are.

Religion that is worn around the neck, or like a brooch on the lapel of a coat is not what it seems. Religion is a soul thing and it needs to return there in order that it keeps its own quality, otherwise we are only talking about mass-produced imitations which are meant to feel good or right. Many people have not come to the uneasy part of recognising their own self, consequently religion isn’t religion in many places. That is something you can stand back and watch destroy itself.

Is religion being used as the scapegoat for all other cultural and political ills? Yes, to a large extent. But religion has worn the cultural and political cloak for so long that it has become part of the institution. Like a matasticized cancer, there seems to be no way to surgically separate the bad from the good. Of course this is true of all social institutions as well. The world is ripe for revolution. The old ways simply aren’t working. It may be that religion is becoming the poster child for all that is “wrong” with our societies, and that it is unjustifiably paying the price for other problems, but perception is always the working reality.

I too think that much is going wrong in our societies and we are constricting the room we have to answer those problems by recreating slums and ghettos. However, I think that religion’s part in this is marginal but that it has become the “pet-hate” of some prominent people. The part that many religious people are taking is more that of onlookers rather than those actively making things worse. Prominent people use the criticism of religion to further their own interests much like people use to slag the Jews before the last world war. Say something long enough and you will find you have enough supporters soon enough.

In a sense, religion is rapidly becoming the symbol of the “schoolyard bully”. That there is confrontation is to be expected. Challenging the beliefs of a suicide bomber is pretty obvious. Being intolerant of a religious belief that the use of condoms to prevent AIDS is a “sin” is just as obvious. These are perhaps the extreme examples, but such on-the-ground actions aren’t the product of other social pressures. They are policies that come straight from the root of religion, and that is where the intolerance of religion creates the intolerance of the secular mind.

The problem with the Pope (whatever his name may be) is that he makes things a global religious issue when really talking to a smaller part of the population who are able to practice the kind of moral ideas he has. He forgets that there are innumerable Catholics who are in dire straits – the more so the more children they have to feed. I think the Pope is the one reason I’m not catholic. Moslem’s will tell you that the suicide bombers are not acting in the faith. Of course you will also find groups who will back them up, but you really have to ask yourself what this has to do with the kind of awareness we have discussed and which I believe is what religion is really about.

The kind of awareness that Christ introduced is intolerant to the secular mind because the secular mind doesn’t understand it. In fact, it is often opposed to awareness because it is telling him to wake up. It is telling him that he is making his happiness dependent upon material gain and recognition of his peers, which are both ephemeral and illusions. I think that this is where the biggest problem lies. The reasons for the actions or reactions of people lie often so far back in the past, hardly anybody knows really why they are supposed to be doing these things. They assume therefore, that it is acceptable to do them for modern reasons, consequently loosing the connection and loosing what religion actually is. They say that the situation “then” is like the one “now” but there is one great difference – people are poorer for the emergence of technology and are less able to differentiate between clever and wise. They may be clever, but they are not wise enough to avoid illusions.

This applies to the religious and the non-religious, all are in one boat, all are projecting their own weaknesses on their assumed opposites, all are contributing to the ills of the world, no-one is able to stand outside and say “I wasn’t involved”, everyone is involved in the string of events, provoking and reacting. To stand up and condemn religion reveals the short-sightedness of people, and the fact that they seem to have no spiritual “mirror” in which they can see their own mendacity.

Shalom

[DrMoose]

Oh, there is so much to do with this!
First of all, what do we mean by “religion”? I am getting the impression that we are talking about those who hate and murder in the name of one religion or another. Fair enough. Along that line, we have the Spanish inquisition and conquistadors who raped Latin American in the name of (often as not) the “Blessed Virgin”, and the puritanical types who burned “witches” at the stake and executed men and women for adultery in colonial America. We have the IRA, which has long been associated with the Catholic church and has an equally long history of hating and killing Englishmen. And of course let us not forget the various Catholic clergy that have been guilty of the sexual abuse of children. Most recently, we have the Islamic extremists who see jihad as a religious duty, to conquer the world for Allah, and regard “infidels” as sub-human. However, it can be demonstrated that the hatred, violence, intolerance are antithetical to the religion and were projected upon it contrary to it’s guiding principles. I know that I can demonstrate this for Christianity to be sure. I am less certain about Islam, knowing far too much of it’s history and doctrine to be able to call Islam a religion of peace with a straight face and a clear conscience. But I’ll deal with Islam later.

Christianity is based upon a couple of very simple and clear principles. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” “Do unto others as you have them do unto you.” “Judge ye not, lest ye be judged also, because as ye judge, so shall ye be judged.”

In all of Christianity’s core doctrines, those things which are actually written in the Bible, there is little of intolerance. Certainly, one can find condemnation of sin, but we are not told to go out and attack it. Indeed, we are told to love and to forgive our enemies. Without a doubt, those who use religion as an excuse and a license will receive the greater condemnation.

It is worth pointing out that religion does serve at least one greater purpose in the sociological context.
Very often, we humans will chose what we want over what we know is right (and we can argue how we can know exactly what is right and wrong later), and without the absolute standard which religion does provide, it’s pretty easy to rationalize that what we want is okay, no matter how wrong we know it is. Without that standard, who decides what is right and what is wrong? I can take a stab at it, but I am certainly as fallible as anyone else, and just as susceptible to rationalizing what I want over what is actually right.

Now, I will concede that radical Islam is pretty scary. We see the reigning thinkers of Islam teaching that death for Allah is the greatest of all possible fates, that all men of this faith are soldiers of Islam and that there is a great duty to conquer the entire world for Allah, that jihad is a holy obligation. I could go on and on, but the evidence is right there for all to see. Radical Islam has openly declared war on the west, on Israel, the US, Great Britain, Christianity, anything and everything not Islam.

Of course we of the west tend to forget this, overlook it, try anything at all to avoid acknowledging it, lest we have to do something about it. One is reminded of the Nazis in the late 1930s, and the way that everyone but Churchill did there best to portray Hitler in the best possible light, thinking that if they gave him whatever he wanted he would back off as soon as he was satisfied. And we all know what happened with that.

The point is that Radical Islam is a rather different proposition than Christianity, and that Christianity is at it’s core a force of good in the modern world.

[felix_dakat]

@Bane

@felix dakat

@Bane

@felix dakat

Many of the colonists came to America to get away from religious persecution so I guess we’ve come full circle.

It is rather childish to actually believe in the motivations we are told the colonists had. If we actually look at the history, we see that religious freedom wasn’t necessarily as important to them as we traditionally have been told. You know that.

I have been thinking a lot about the separation of church and state. Why did the founding fathers want a complete separation of church and state? It wasn’t about each of us having our own religious freedoms as much as it was about people literally being freed from religions persecution! They were trying to free FROM religion but coined the term freedom OF religion.

I didn’t state that religious freedom was the only motivation for coming to America. Please educate me as to what the colonists’ “actual” motivations were.

There were many. I suppose I could say Will to Power in its many manifestations, but obviously there were many.

I was just stating the difference in motivation of freedom OF religion as opposed to freedom FROM religion. They ultimately result in the same thing, and yet they are different.

In the U.S. atheism and agnosticism are constitutionally protected religious positions. That’s an example of freedom of religion. In this sense religion is universal, freedom from it is only relative.

[Bob]

Hi Dr Moose,

First of all, what do we mean by “religion”? I am getting the impression that we are talking about those who hate and murder in the name of one religion or another. Fair enough. Along that line, we have the Spanish inquisition and conquistadors who raped Latin American in the name of (often as not) the “Blessed Virgin”, and the puritanical types who burned “witches” at the stake and executed men and women for adultery in colonial America. We have the IRA, which has long been associated with the Catholic church and has an equally long history of hating and killing Englishmen. And of course let us not forget the various Catholic clergy that have been guilty of the sexual abuse of children. Most recently, we have the Islamic extremists who see jihad as a religious duty, to conquer the world for Allah, and regard “infidels” as sub-human.

And that is what gets everybody, including me, angry. What has it got to do with religion other than using religion as a label or even as an excuse?

[Origin: 1150–1200; ME religioun (< OF religion) < L religiōn- (s. of religiō) conscientiousness, piety, equiv. to relig(āre) to tie, fasten (re- re- + ligāre to bind, tie; cf. ligament) + -iōn- -ion; cf. rely]

What you have listed here is a witness to the ability of human beings to classify other human beings as “sub-human” or even “non-human” which has in no way been reduced to religion. I get the feeling that people use scripture a bit like a lexicon because they don’t know better. They use it to define things in their interest and suddenly the book is at fault. It is a bit like saying “the gun went off in my hand”, or “it was the knife that stabbed the victim”. However, if, as mentioned above, religion is a form of alertness, attention, circumspection or concentration, as a thesaurus would tell us that conscientiousness points to, then not only are those criminals misguided, but so is our society which is foolish enough to believe their supposed motivation.

I have exchanged a few words with another member of the forum about this thread and must say I find the quality of comments proof that true religion is really something for a few, and something which completely baffles the masses. But not only that, the comments here are expressions of an ignorance that reflects the mentality of a mob who has chosen to lynch the lady around the corner because she goes to the same church as a mass-murderer. It is so frustratingly idiotic that I am amazed at myself for answering in the thread. I am thankful for this statement:

However, it can be demonstrated that the hatred, violence, intolerance are antithetical to the religion and were projected upon it contrary to it’s guiding principles.

It only takes a deeper look into religious teaching to recognise this, but as long as people are willing to entertain themselves with superficial babblings and give up their natural ability to differentiate, not much can come of such a discussion.

Shalom

[Reality_Check]

@DrMoose

Christianity is based upon a couple of very simple and clear principles. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” “Do unto others as you have them do unto you.” “Judge ye not, lest ye be judged also, because as ye judge, so shall ye be judged.”

I disagree. Much of all religious and even secular moral teachings, as far as that goes, espouses the tenets you list. There is nothing particularly “Christian” about any of that.

Christianity is based on the belief that a God exists in external reality whose son (himself alleged to be a god) was executed while living on earth as a man and was then resurrected from the dead.

Let’s try to be clear about what we are debating here.

I do agree, however, that the attempt to demonize the other side (either Christian or non-Christian) is not helpful in resolving the issue.

Theists are not devils and neither are atheists but one side is mistaken about their belief.

[Murex]

@Reality Check

Theists are not devils and neither are atheists but one side is mistaken about their belief.

Well, since athiesm is the absense of a belief, I guess that narrows it down.

[Bob]

Theists are not devils and neither are atheists but one side is mistaken about their belief.

Thank you, but do enough people understand enough to be able to decide whether someone else is “mistaken”?

Shalom

[Rhinoboy]

@LexDemian

The central tenet of every religious tradition is that all others are repositories of error. Intolerance is thus intrinsic to every creed. Of course, criticizing a person’s faith is considered taboo. But in our world, technology has a way of making fresh moral imperatives. Our technical advances in the art of war have rendered our religious beliefs inimical to our survival. We can not ignore the fact that people believe in martyrdom, or the truth of the book of Revelation, when they are armed with weapons of mass destruction. Faith-based religion must go the way of bad ideas like alchemy, which fascinated people for over a thousand years but has no longer any purchase.

From geocentrism to creationism reliously sponsored falsehoods held sway and were ultimately consigned to ash heap of ideas, and ultimately the entire religious enterprise must be discarded.

Very small minded view, by trying to eradicate religion you become no better than the zelots that propose that they are right. You also share the same trait as them by grouping all people from a cirtain belife system and saying that their belifes are leading the world into darkness, when in reality it is a very small few that are causing the problems. Taking out religion will solve nothing, it may cause more problems but it will cirtainly solve nothing. Wars are not started beacause of a belife. They are started because of greed in one form or another, religion is just used as a scapegoat, something to rally the troops. There will always be something to replace religion in this way.

[Aidan_Mclaren]

@Murex

@Erlir

What makes a religion?

A gang of idiots.

A gang of scared idiots.

[Bane]

@felix dakat

@Bane

I was just stating the difference in motivation of freedom OF religion as opposed to freedom FROM religion. They ultimately result in the same thing, and yet they are different.

In the U.S. atheism and agnosticism are constitutionally protected religious positions. That’s an example of freedom of religion. In this sense religion is universal, freedom from it is only relative.

Atheism and agnosticism are not religion in anyway. They are the absence of it. As far as freedom from religion, the state is supposed to be free of it.

[felix_dakat]

@Bane

@felix dakat

@Bane

I was just stating the difference in motivation of freedom OF religion as opposed to freedom FROM religion. They ultimately result in the same thing, and yet they are different.

In the U.S. atheism and agnosticism are constitutionally protected religious positions. That’s an example of freedom of religion. In this sense religion is universal, freedom from it is only relative.

Atheism and agnosticism are not religion in anyway. They are the absence of it. As far as freedom from religion, the state is supposed to be free of it.

Religion is the set of all possible beliefs relative to what is ultimate. Atheism and agnosticism are beliefs about the nature of the ultimate. Therefore, they are categorically religious positions.

[Chato]

@felix dakat

@Bane

@felix dakat

@Bane

I was just stating the difference in motivation of freedom OF religion as opposed to freedom FROM religion. They ultimately result in the same thing, and yet they are different.

In the U.S. atheism and agnosticism are constitutionally protected religious positions. That’s an example of freedom of religion. In this sense religion is universal, freedom from it is only relative.

Atheism and agnosticism are not religion in anyway. They are the absence of it. As far as freedom from religion, the state is supposed to be free of it.

Religion is the set of all possible beliefs relative to what is ultimate. Atheism and agnosticism are beliefs about the nature of the ultimate. Therefore, they are categorically religious positions.

Atheism makes no claims about the ultimate. It does not “worship” anything.

You are making a great leap of “faith,” including making up words as you go along…

atheism [(ay-thee-iz-uhm)]

Denial that there is a God. (Compare agnosticism.)

Atheism is a “belief,” only in the sense that you cannot prove a negative. I cannot “prove” there is no God. But that’s not an opening for you to say that it’s simply another form of “religion.”

Dave

[Reality_Check]

@Chato

@felix dakat

@Bane

@felix dakat

@Bane

I was just stating the difference in motivation of freedom OF religion as opposed to freedom FROM religion. They ultimately result in the same thing, and yet they are different.

In the U.S. atheism and agnosticism are constitutionally protected religious positions. That’s an example of freedom of religion. In this sense religion is universal, freedom from it is only relative.

Atheism and agnosticism are not religion in anyway. They are the absence of it. As far as freedom from religion, the state is supposed to be free of it.

Religion is the set of all possible beliefs relative to what is ultimate. Atheism and agnosticism are beliefs about the nature of the ultimate. Therefore, they are categorically religious positions.

Atheism makes no claims about the ultimate. It does not “worship” anything.

You are making a great leap of “faith,” including making up words as you go along…

atheism [(ay-thee-iz-uhm)]

Denial that there is a God. (Compare agnosticism.)

Atheism is a “belief,” only in the sense that you cannot prove a negative. I cannot “prove” there is no God. But that’s not an opening for you to say that it’s simply another form of “religion.”

Dave

Right, Dave. Atheism is a belief about the nature of the ultimate like not believing in the existence of Santa Claus is a belief about how Christmas presents get underneath a Christmas tree. IOW, it is not such a belief.

Disbelieving that Santa puts presents under trees does NOT entail the positive belief that parents put presents under trees. In fact, disbelieving that Santa puts presents under trees does not say anything about how presents get under xmas trees.

Maybe xmas trees themselves produce the presents like they produce fruits. Maybe aliens put the presents there. Maybe parents do. Who knows? But by simply asserting that “I don’t believe that Santa Claus really exists,” I am not asserting anything about how presents get under xmas trees other than that I see no good reason to believe that it is caused by some putative being called “Santa.”

Disbelieving in the existences of gods does not say anything about what an atheist believes about ultimate reality other than that the atheist sees no good reason to believe that some putative being called a “god” has anything to do with it.

Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), some agnostics have perhaps the poorest understanding of this concept because they have the poorest understanding of what ‘atheism’ means.