sigh

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

I can easily discuss topics that I have absolutely no interest in.
But I rapidly lose interest in the topic as I see that there is no long term benefit (no pay off).

Let us transport into a hypothetical world where religion has been eradicated from human culture.
There is no longer even the slightest remembrance of religion.

:romance-grouphug:

Is this group hug of humanity a realistic perspective?

Will wars cease and will then only guilty children be made to suffer?
[tab][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQj1S0lcP64[/youtube][/tab]

From my perspective there appears to be an elephant in the room causing destruction.
But everyone is too busy noticing that a monk, priest, and rabbi walk into the room (like some cute joke).
Convinced that (through baby Albert style conditioned responses) the destruction is linked to the presence of the monk, priest and rabbi.
Let us ignore the the underlying behaviours of humans and blame something else.
Let us ignore our primary drive of empathy and enter into a hate war.

I performed research recently and it took me several years (a heavy, but I was compelled to complete it).
A statistical metaanalysis revealed that all the wars, molestations, rapes, murders, and badness in the world was performed by humans who have arms and legs. Hard to believe I know, but there is no disputing this fact of reality - all evils are performed by armed and legged humans.

Hello, there is an elephant in the room… hello… hello, it is not connected to religion, gays, blacks, science, race, or the colors of the rainbow.

Hello… elephant in the room.
To lay blame is convenient - makes us feel warm and fuzzy… superior.

We claim to be rational thinkers who search for a vague concept of truth.
And what is the truth that is searched? Why and for what purpose?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g[/youtube]

World views change, without a doubt, but if we look hard enough no thing is ever out dated.
We can choose to claim Newtonian motion is the source of all evil in the world because relativity proved it was false.
Actually, Newtonian motion is not false - it was the closest approximation of truth at the time.
Newtonian motion is just as valid today as it was 300 years ago.
The interesting notion of successive approximations, rejecting the first implies no basis for the last.

To reject human history is to reject what it means to be human.

Most people are not interested in rising above the swamp and walking erect.
Most people (on this forum) are interested in wallowing in the muddy swamps.

We as humans, are in the best era of human history.
Choose to deny what has made you human or choose to embrace it.
Empathize with humanity or hate humanity.

Where have I come from, where am I now, where am I going, why?
Four of the most important questions an individual can ever ask themselevs.
Soon — we will not be able to ask those questions. :character-oldtimer: :confusion-waiting:

To embrace and to accept does not imply to adopt the views of the past.
It means to acknowlegde ones existence and ones own journey and the journey of others.
It means to rise above blame and to finally work towards positive change.

Such intellignece and knowledge being pissed up against the wall… :obscene-moneypiss: :techie-computer:

Hello, elephant… :violence-smack: in :violence-smack: the :violence-smack: room

2

An amusing post, but a thought-provoking one too - humans will always breed contempt, which would put paid to any hopes of a more Utopian society - take siblings for example: they can be all so different, with obligatory ‘black sheep’ in their midst, and a town or city with a black sheep or two per family and you’ve got many elephants roaming around town.

Humans are far from ready to take that leap to be more humane, and those that are are too few to infuence humanity in that direction.

3

I am applauding you right now. I agree. There are many militant atheist that pick a fight with Christianity or Islam as if that is all that is wrong with the world today. We look for easy solutions. When all you have is a hammer (or a Nietzsche book) then everything looks like a nail (or a version of Christianity). But we switch the horse and the carriage, reinterpret an effect as a cause.

Again, bravo.

4

Great, you trully are enlightened and lucky.

Most of the other humans live short, shitty lives. And the short shittyness of their lives is directly related to the monk, the priest and the rabbi.

You can choose to ignore what you are being used for, but one can only live in Disneyworld for so long…

5

What is shitty about your life that can be traced directly to a monk, priest or rabbi? What happened to you?

6

Starvation, war, disease, genocide…

I know I left some things out, but this is just a rought outline.

7

All that happened to you? Where did you grow up? Africa?

8

…and I applaud you for posting a thought-provoking OP - surely it isn’t religion that is responsible for attrocities FS, but those that carry out those attrocities in the name of religion?

9

Not personally, but my family came from that region.

Me, I grew up in Venezuela.

But wait a minute, I digress…

The real point here is that you are suggesting that, since nobody ever comitted genocide to me personally, then I shouldn’t sweat it.

10

Not at all Snob.
You should care about war, starvation, disease…but you cannot blame your priest for diseases, war or famines. Can you blame the religion? Only if you feel that that is it’s ideal; that is, that it is in war, starvation and famine that you find the religion’s ultimate goals. Just because Pope so and so orders such and such pogrom does not mean that that is what X religion is about. Christianity says that the children shall inherit the kingdom of God…not that priest shall inherit the children’s pants. It says feed the poor, it says to turn the other check…and it also says, very importantly, that many will say “Lord, Lord” on the last day of judgment, even though they never knew anything about God.

So differentiate. I can masturbate in the name of religion, or call it my religious duty…doesn’t mean that that is what the religion itself says. You may have suffered, but at the hands of men, at the hands of those that USED religion for irreligious acts. Just like a plane can be highjack, so too can a religion.

11

Historical context prior to COPEI. If we choose to ignore some history then we must ignore all of history.
Selective memory is the realm of Big Brother Politics.

The good old days of Venezuelan politics …(wikipedia)

Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez (Michelena, Táchira, April 25, 1914 – Alcobendas, Spain, September 20, 2001) was a Venezuelan military and general officer of the Army of Venezuela, engineer and politician.

His period in charge of the country is characterized by a marked improvement and development, with the rise of oil prices due to conflicts like the Korean War, its ambitious policy of public works and building could be executed to perfection. Also achieved an imminent development of industries such as hydropower, mining, steel, real estate sector and of course the building itself, all these bases, the high level of economic prosperity that is lived in the country.

Not go unnoticed, the progress in the military, which included the final professionalization of the armed forces, and increased sophistication of equipment, raising the level of armaments, and in general, the modernized undertaken in the area, while in with regard to domestic policy, the country experienced a state of order, high safety standards, but the negative side, said highly repressive character, with the National Security (Seguridad Nacional, secret police), as the spearhead and the almost complete concentration of power in his hands, turning his presidency into a dictatorial regime.

This period of dominance ended January 23, 1958, time that is deposed by a coup perpetrated by disgruntled sectors within the Armed Forces of Venezuela, which resulted in leaving the country en route to Dominican Republic, after which he settled in Spain under the Franco regime protection, meaning its end, the beginning of the democratic era in the country.

Then with the right-wing party National Civic Crusade was elected Senator in 1968 which was disabled by following the first amendment carried out to the Venezuelan Constitution of 1961 by the Democratic Action and COPEI parties, after which life definitely withdrawn national policy.

The period of Pérez Jiménez in power, is remembered historically as a government of nationalist roots, based on an ideological pragmatism that identified the essence of his government, as well as stating the Doctrine of National Well, that expressed in the New National Ideal would be the philosophical beacon to guide the actions of his government.

Promoted the immigration of foreign capital and people, mainly European communities such as Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. He also pushed a vast and ambitious infrastructure program, based on the policy of reinforced concrete, with the construction of buildings, large and modern highways linking and renewed ties between states and cities, bridges and other major works with the that modernized the country, under a harsh military dictatorship.

12

A little bit of history we seem to ignore… something about a Cold War

(wikipedia)…

Stalin followed the position adopted by Lenin that religion was an opiate that needed to be removed in order to construct the ideal communist society. His government promoted atheism through special atheistic education in schools, anti-religious propaganda, the antireligious work of public institutions (Society of the Godless), discriminatory laws, and a terror campaign against religious believers. By the late 1930s it had become dangerous to be publicly associated with religion.

Stalin’s role in the fortunes of the Russian Orthodox Church is complex. Continuous persecution in the 1930s resulted in its near-extinction as a public institution: by 1939, active parishes numbered in the low hundreds (down from 54,000 in 1917), many churches had been leveled, and tens of thousands of priests, monks and nuns were persecuted and killed. Over 100,000 were shot during the purges of 1937–1938. During World War II, the Church was allowed a revival as a patriotic organization, and thousands of parishes were reactivated until a further round of suppression during Khrushchev’s rule. The Russian Orthodox Church Synod’s recognition of the Soviet government and of Stalin personally led to a schism with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

Just days before Stalin’s death, certain religious sects were outlawed and persecuted. Many religions popular in the ethnic regions of the Soviet Union including the Roman Catholic Church (including the Eastern Catholic Churches), Baptists, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, etc. underwent ordeals similar to the Orthodox churches in other parts: thousands of monks were persecuted, and hundreds of churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, sacred monuments, monasteries and other religious buildings were razed. Stalin had a different policy outside the Soviet Union, he supported the Communist Uyghur Muslim separatists under Ehmetjan Qasim in the Ili Rebellion against the Anti Communist Republic of China regime. He supplied weapons to the Uyghur Ili army and Red Army support against Chinese forces, and helped them establish the Second East Turkestan Republic of which Islam was the official state religion.

13

Want a Holiday in Cambodia…

(wikipedia)

The Cambodian Civil War was a conflict that pitted the forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (known as the Khmer Rouge) and their allies the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Viet Cong against the government forces of Cambodia (after October 1970, the Khmer Republic), which were supported by the United States (U.S.) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).

The struggle was exacerbated by the influence and actions of the allies of the two warring sides. People’s Army of Vietnam (North Vietnamese Army) involvement was designed to protect its Base Areas and sanctuaries in eastern Cambodia, without which the prosecution of its military effort in South Vietnam would have been more difficult. Then following the Cambodian coup of 1970, the North Vietnamese Army’s attempt to overrun the entire country in March–April 1970 plunged Cambodia into civil war.[4] The U.S. was motivated by the need to buy time for its withdrawal from Southeast Asia and to protect its ally, the South Vietnamese regime. American and both South and North Vietnamese forces directly participated (at one time or another) in the fighting. The central government was mainly assisted by the application of massive U.S. aerial bombing campaigns and direct material and financial aid.

After five years of savage fighting that brought about massive casualties, the destruction of the economy, the starvation of the population, and grievous atrocities, the Republican government was defeated on 17 April 1975 when the victorious Khmer Rouge proclaimed the establishment of Democratic Kampuchea. Thus, it has been argued that the US intervention in Cambodia contributed to the eventual seizure of power by the Khmer Rouge, that grew from 14,000 in number in 1970 to 70,000 in 1975.[5] This view has been disputed,[6][7][8] with author John M. Del Vecchio asserting that over 100,000 Communist troops had overrun two-thirds of the country prior to any American bombing, and with documents uncovered from the Soviet archives revealing that the North Vietnamese invasion of 1970 was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge following negotiations with Nuon Chea.[9]

The conflict, although an indigenous civil war, was considered to be part of the larger Vietnam War (1959–1975) that also consumed the neighboring Kingdom of Laos, South Vietnam, and North Vietnam. This civil war led to the Cambodian Genocide, one of the bloodiest in history.

14

And from the Vietnam war… (the image may distress and so I have Tabbed it).
[tab][/tab]

15

We look for a distinguishing feature … something we can isolate.

And then… we assassinate that person and their character.

It has no basis in fact or reality.

All extremists focus on one thing and one thing only… to the exclusion of everything else.

Ask an extremist feminist “what is the cause of the worlds problems ?” Do you think she/he would say religion?
In many ways I tend to agree with the extremist feminists… it is chop chop time so that we can solve the worlds problems.

But it does make a good race… doesn’t it?

Pissing your intelligence up against a wall… :obscene-moneypiss: :techie-computer: