I’ve always been concerned with the Catholic view of God. If God is the creator of all men, and he has given us rules to live by, then how come we see people throughout the world praying to all sorts of different Gods, with different expectations of His people according to those different religions?
For example, Muslim extremists seem to think that they should kill the infidels, along with themselves, and that this will bring them a number of virgins in the afterlife. Hardcore catholics seem to be very calm and patient people who believe in helping fellow men. I realize this comparison may not be fair, that there are muslims other than terrorists who do not believe in killing people. I just want to point out the huge difference in interpretations and beliefs.
If God is the creator of all people in the world, according to catholicism, then don’t these believers of other religions fall into that category? Would a god, if He existed, hold these believers of other religions accountable for their beliefs in anything other than catholicism? And if not, wouldn’t that mean that we don’t even have to believe in any religion, just as long as we believe there is a God, we would get into heaven, if there is actually such a place?
Judaism and Zoroastrianism and other eastern religions are fundamentally prejudiced. The religions mentioned state that only its members are truly moral people. The Zoroastrians are born into their religion and no one else can join. The Jews were close if not identical to that belief a long time ago. Then, Jesus, or whomever made the story up, stated that other types of people can be moral and good. That notion seriously confronted the validity of existing bigoted religions. Also, it created a mandate to spread the word to other potentially good people. Perhaps this was too hard to do, and Islam developed another prophet extending and attempting to trump Judaism, and so a new yet very similar to type religion was born.
I know you mean well, but your post, in no way, attempts to answer my question. It does however add to my argument, so I thank you for that.
The thing is when you write posts like that and don’t mention in the beginning that what you are intending to do is add to my argument, then people respond to the accuracy of your post, and my original post is forgotten. This kind of thing frusterates me beyond belief, so could you either edit your post to mention this, or could you, in my future posts, please stick to the question.
I have had it with your crap. If you respond to my post, then be clear. Would any great philosopher present an argument, and when faced with an uncertain audience, simply switch the question to ‘what do you think i mean?’ Give me a break. They would defend their position in the clearest, most effective manner. Philosophy is about being precise in what you are arguing. What you do is not philosophy. You simply respond with some sort of garbage and when opposed you turn around and wander away with your tail between your legs. Coward. Your posts no longer deserve my attention.
Does anybody know if there is a way to make another member’s posts invisible?
What is written here that doesn’t fit your starting post perfectly?
What I don’t understand, Willian, is what kind of posts deserve your attention…this is free forum. If someone finds he has a good argument to add to your post, then he will do that.
And this topic seems to fit the “Religion” forum. There are some members who post mainly there and that could adress your questions perfectly.
I know religions always appear to be in conflict with one another but the truth of the matter is that it is peoples beliefs and values. We like to be able to catagorize people by the religions that they identify with, but a religion always comes down to dogma, it is a book full of words sitting in a church, temple or mosque. Then someone comes along and reads it, someone who has a mind molded by culture and experience who then takes any verses that meld with his beliefs and then preaches that said holy book bears his beliefs. Religions will always be in termoil as long as you have people with minds of their own.
Having said the above, I think that William Webber is putting the emphasis on the wrong part of ‘Muslim extremists’ as the fact that they want to kill infidels is not that they are Muslim but because they are extremists. All religions have a healthy minority section full of nutjobs, not because of the religion itself, but because religions are made up of people. Statistically, any large group of people, religious or not, can’t help but have a healthy minority of nutjobs present. That’s just how the world works.
(The only exception to this is scientology who screen their applicants to make sure they have mental problems to begin with. )
If you are correct in saying that human nature is such that we’re generally incapable of religious tolerance then such behavior would simply become the norm for humanity. In such case, it could only be seen to be a “perverse aspect of human nature” if viewed from a decidedly non-human vantagepoint. If human nature did imply intolerance then it’s your characterization of intolerance as a perversity that would be the perversion. Analogously, it could only come from a non-wolf vantagepoint (what Thomas Nagel aptly terms, “the view from nowhere”) that a wolf could characterize the killing of sheep as a perverse aspect of wolf nature.
The fact that some humans are tolerant of other religious beliefs is already enough to dispell the notion that intolerance is an aspect of human nature. Forgive me for repeating in this forum for the umpteenth time: we are not fallen angels, we are pond-scum risen. There was no perversity until something stood-up on its hind legs to decry an act as perverse. Morality is a novel idea that we have introduced into this, otherwise, amoral (not immoral) world.
Consider the fact that certain species of spiders attack and kill each other on sight. Even the necessity of mating almost invariably results in the death of the male spider. Do these spiders live in an immoral society? Not at all. They live in an amoral society. Murder is an unknown concept to them, just as it once was unknown to early humanoids. Routine killing became murder once humans invented and applied the concept. If all of humanity should tomorrow forget the concept of murder (the result of a mind-altering drug sprayed into the atmosphere, for example) fratricide might again be as common as shaking hands, and yet there would be no such thing as murder.
Civilization is a thing hard won and easily lost. It takes no more than a corrupt political opportunist (of which G.W. Bush will here be my example) to convince us that the fratricide of 30 to 100 thousand men, women and children entailed no act of murder whatsoeever. And those who believe that wanton murder on such a vast scale could only be answered by lightning bolts and floods delivered as punishment by their gods; they have looked about them to find the birds still singing in the trees. And having received no outward sign of dismay from their gods they’ve unknit their brows and go now about their business as though their complicity in stoppering the mouths of tens of thousands of their brothers and sisters with a handful of clay were as morally significant as the reaping of a field of wheat.
The distinction between moral and immoral acts exist nowhere save inside our (figurative) hearts. The expectation of divine reward and retribution for our behavior is the product of a cheesy fairytale; what Richard Dawkins has termed, “a cultural virus”. “Cease to gnaw that crust!” Thoreau would say. There is no need for bushes to burn and clouds to part that we should learn where our moral compass ought to point. We only need consult our innate sense of compassion in order to properly calibrate it. And only once this moral compass has been calibrated ought we heft the tool of reason. Reason is a powerful tool that must constantly be checked against our moral compass. Otherwise, we are lost. Reason alone can scarcely discern atrocity from altruism.
We all find out about god from the dumbasses that live around us and came before us. I have been brought up christian and i see children that cant walk or talk in strolers being draged to church and having this beleif force upon them. I would bet that if you went out onto the street and asked people to name 5 different gods they could not do it let alone describe their beleifs. Our ancestors have lied to us. Even if there was a god that relayed his existance to the first man a log time ago then that message is distorted now.
i agree with you that there are way too many religions out there. They cant all be right. None of them are right in my opinion.
in my education at NYIT at old westbury NY i went to a seminar organized by the chair of philosophy in which he brought out a nun a rabai and a muslim student. the whole point was to present that the 3 are very similar and the 3 authorities(hahahahha) even said that they beleive that they are worshiping the same god. the whole thing was short and pointless in my opinion. buy they did not consider all the other religions that people beleive in and once beleived in.
william,i’m not sure if you are still looking at this thread,or if you still have that question but if you do,please respond to this post.i feel i have a very good answer(s).
but i feel it would be impersonal if i blurt it all out then leave…
The problem is man exhibits two contradictory traits, both genetically selected for survival value…cooperation and competition. Often these traits manifest in the following way:
*Co-operation with the in group
*competition with the out group
That’s what gets us into such diabolical situations and why things like religious tolerance dont necessarily come naturally to us. Without reason to guide our moral compass it could easily spin in the wrong direction.
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