Aye, but to refer to such ideological systems of belief by simple names such as the ones you provide is rather insufficient. You expect the person to already be aware of these concepts, or to go in search of the knowledge themselves, which isn’t a bad thing and yet leaves something to be desired by anyone wishing to engage in the conversation right away. It was what I mentioned in passing in one of my previous posts in this thread; the fact that you don’t go into detail on your points by delving into the belief structures themselves. You might as well be someone who knows very little overall about these religions and have a broad-base coverage of knowledge of it only; not to say that such is a bad thing to do as certainly I am guilty of doing such myself on occasion. I can’t claim to know the exact teachings of any of these religions and in fact can only claim to know somewhat the teachings of Christianity and Mormonism for having read their mainstream belief books called ‘bibles’; however the inundation of cultural surroundings apart from the religions and systems of belief; cultural tie-downs that I do hold in higher esteem than the belief systems themselves; creates much of the background in transient knowledge as opposed to historical knowledge which transient knowledge also supplies in part in movies like 47 Ronin.
To touch solely on the merits that they have stories of people doing bad things, one needs merely remind that they only told of reality and history and truth as best they could. Why try to cover up a past that is only a section of the root that could bring out the worst in us again; to which I have stated that such would happen regardless according to human nature and the current state of the world; our immediate surroundings.
Whether you were specific in stating ‘relatively inferior’ or not, my points still stand as to state that one thing is relatively inferior is to state that the other is relatively superior and since you leave out the predicted outcome that what is relatively inferior in some aspects is still relatively superior in others, you can only conclude that such was by biased opinion and not grounded in actual fact or in a fact-finding pursuit but merely to state an opinion of reality and of peoples beliefs which by lack of counter-thesis and argument falls by the wayside in terms of actually delivering proof of the relative inferiority in the terms that you’ve described, bringing out only a partial perspective of yours that is garnered from a partial fragment of a history already changed too much in modern times throughout the ages since each were designed; in infinitesimal various ways that have gone unnoticed by large amounts of humanity which still cries foul at their perceptions of texts that may or may not still contain the original spirit that was intended and furthermore goes without real explanation of the verses by people who really care about deciphering just what it means without falling into repeated arguments of minor issues. Certainly the confusion still exists in your thesis because you do not go into detail of each of the belief systems to describe the inferiority of each and how it could be ascertained that ones outweighs the others.
You say religions are supposed to be peaceful and yet I have seen nothing but peaceful attitude on the parts of the religious, as if that was some part of the bargain of being religious instead of a simple lifestyle choice and you talk about the evil elements of their holy texts while a majority of the religious do their best to live by the words of wisdom inherent in the messages instead of by the stories of past men and women who lived in a different age and in spite of those within each religion which seek to only further their own gains or the gains of the religion beyond means that could be reasonably determined as wise; i.e. corruption, deceit; lies and slander.
You bring up the placebo effect and I might agree with you except that there is actually something to it that goes beyond imaginary effects. There is palpable energy in a good congregation and it’s not just feeling like you belong; you can actually feel the good emotional and energetic vibes coursing through the very atmosphere of the building in certain churches. The sheer good will toward each other and the excitement that can be had; you would be surprised at the pure healing nature of that energy and the sheer amount of miracles that could actually be performed by the power of prayer and good intentions. You can talk about love-bombs and I could agree all day that certainly religion is guilty of preying on the gullible and naive and yet that is still just a surface infraction against the abrahamic religions since so many people have done this to these religions and dragged them through the mud, so-to-speak and people still believe in what is taught by them which also speaks against what individuals within the churches; in power; choose to do or not do. It’s easy to say that these are pseudo and flimsy, but what evidence do you have other than that of your average cynic who has trouble accepting good and positive energy in their lives because it seems corny or stupid; the imaginations of child-minded people instead of the accepted reality of a large group of people who have already survived some pretty bad parts of life and consistently seek to make the quality of life better. Just the same as individuals in churches and religions go out of their way to do dirty deeds; others go out of their way to actually further the message of good will toward your fellow man.
You say that it is very obvious that humans are driven to live life and yet they aren’t; they aren’t driven to love life or to enjoy it; they aren’t even driven to derive happiness from it. They are simply driven to work and to create a life for themselves and left to their own devices. I find that people create their own drive based on their surroundings and what they’ve been through and what they hope to accomplish with their life after viewing enough of it to make a decision one way or the other and stick with it. I find that a good amount of people live average lives. A lot of people living in the world today couldn’t even truthfully call what they do living since we live in a giant game preserve for humanity. The existential dilemma doesn’t drive everyone; not everyone has existential moments as they either accept a way of living or create their own.
I would love to hear about how psychologists and psychiatrists are able to well-document or discuss in depth the existence of a percentile of humans who are prone to ‘evil’; I would love to hear how they measure this and how they’ve gone out and done actual studies on every man, woman and child who is alive in the world. I would love to see where you get the backing for this evidence you procure that states that ‘evil’ is an actual byproduct of religion instead of the way of living that those people endured to make them what they were; for you would hardly get a truthful story out of any of them let alone find much truth on the matter in terms of discussing it with their families or friends as they would find ways to make excuses or embellish or change what actually happened in subtle ways with each telling.
I would love to see where you gather proof that people kill based on their holy texts. Sure, it’s easy to say such and it’s easy for them to say such and yet even in our day to day lives, we know that killing is a far cry away from what is needed in a lot of cases and a reasonable person could still argue that it is needed in certain cases and win that argument. I would bet more often that these religious extremists are lead to believe such about their holy texts by very strong personalities that drive them forward, much like the branch davidians who committed mass suicide based on the direction given to them by their leader. It seems more likely that this is the case based also on a desire from the community driven by necessity to figure out when and when not it is okay to kill and it seems like they found their answer in terms of killing non-believers, but only on occasion. What lengths have you gone to look into the merits behind each killing they have done and why they’ve done it as you can’t just broadline a statement such as ‘because of their beliefs’; they have a reason every time; they’re not unreasonable people regardless of what they’re made out to be, just answering a call of nature as it demands them to have the answer that they have until they find something better in evolution of transient knowledge and necessity.
Please explain to me what fool-proof methods of dealing with existential dilemma that are in the works; discuss them with me, if you would. You think that people need to be weaned off religion like a baby is weaned off a bottle and yet religion isn’t the worst thing to hit life; the pollutants and drugs and everything else we’ve inundated our societies with as a cause of negativity and stress as a cause from trying to find an answer that IS AS SIMPLE AS ‘just live.’
All because people refuse to accept the answers given to them whether complex or simple and try to make life what they can in their vain struggle to beat self-fulfilling prophecy and the destruction predicted by some pretty fantastic and ahead-of-their-time thinkers that we deem prophets.
You say that a small percentage of people are born prone to evil and I say they are victims of their situation. I would rate it at about half since half of humanity looks at the other half and goes ‘those fools’ and both halves are guilty of such. There is a divide between the two facets of good and evil but not be religious design; it was what drove people to develop religions and their beliefs and to refine them enough to teach others how to overcome. There became fierce wars of the spirit fought over this divide in not just men, but all things. It is the balance spoken of in beliefs such as buddhism and taoism bring forth and the discipline they try to teach that is taught anyway as both ‘good’ and ‘evil’ learn the same things and exhibit what they learn in different mannerisms and there are varying stages of skill and talent throughout all that creates a reality-wide range of equality all because we fail to actually have equality on a life-form by life-form basis. We fail to go the extra mile, so far, in actually practicing what we preach, but we are getting better and it is largely because all of these systems of beliefs and philosophical remnants have survived and made their way down to us, so please be kind with what you say and remember that before you go slandering the beliefs of the abrahamic religions and other religions with misguided ideas of what is being said.
Do you think that there would be a biblical war between heaven and hell without more than a small percentage of sentient life forms being ‘prone’ to evil? There is a divine balance in each person that states that each person is prone to both and can be both and that people are driven one way or the other by the divide between the two that isn’t a divide at all, a fight that should never have been fought and yet was fought all the same and is still being fought to this day. That we are both prone to do good and to do evil based on our choices. Our choices define our actions regardless of perception, our own or others and to label any action as ‘evil’ or ‘good’ is to take it out of the context of which it is placed in. Our concepts of this dichotomy do little to allay the inbalance and do little to set our selves back afoot.
A lot of these so-called ‘evil’ people are simply looking for fairness from everyone around them and failing to see it, fail to see a reason why they should even try when so much of life itself is based on entertainment and popularity. Too late do people realize as they travel down their paths in life that they become the stereotype downfalls of their way of life or that they might actually succeed only to feel alone for all of the people they had to leave behind and part with to do so, even if they moved on to meet other people.
‘Evil’ isn’t a personality default, it stems from poor parenting, poor discipline and an unwillingness to straight up do whatever it takes to preserve life, even avoiding killing the worst offenders and proving dominance of a smother-effect called just-deal-with-it where ‘it’ is life and the fact that we would rather have peace than fighting and killing and crime in general. I find that the very nature of society around us speaks against the religions that exist just by having survival of the fittest within society, not enough jobs, a system of money where the necessities in life aren’t just given free; where good will still hasn’t had the profound effect that so many people have hoped for. You would have us believe that getting rid of these religions gradually over a period of time would solve the problem, but all it would do is cause more fighting in which people like you find a way to justify more killing, just like the extemists you mentioned who believe that their holy texts condone killing as you would condone killing for your beliefs just the same.
I love your plan of perpetual peace on Earth. It’s a good one, except it has never worked and will never work as it works under the notion that some people are inherently evil and should be treated differently based on that instead of actually dealing with the problems that might actually be there that spirituality in general may have gotten right; certain tenets like immortal spirits and reincarnation, etc.; which could cause the degradation of the spirit over time if it experiences several life times of viciousness or other traumatizing effects. To understand each person and work with them to integrate society into their life instead of trying to work to have society integrate each person into it, would create a much bigger difference. If we were to be able to bring about cultural awareness in people enough; which we are doing over a long-period of time with our pop-culture, etc.; we could theoretically bring about the next evolutionary leap and I think it’s the fact that such is happening naturally in spite of peoples best efforts to make it happen and to prevent it from happening that is deliciously ironic and fascinating; that it is simply what people choose to do to prepare a future world for their children and all the children after; to create a better world as so many people; even ‘evil’; fight for the same goals in many ways.
I mean, there is no preset for ‘evil’; it’s people who have been through the same things as so many others and just… didn’t rise above; they made a different choice because it seemed the best choice to make. To change that, you have to change the entire way people are living their lives and that is something that can not be controlled and can only be achieved by allowing life and reality and the idea of God; a universal consciousness; to have its due. To just not fight the fight anymore and to let it fight itself out through us and to let it have some damned closure once and for all. But, if you think for a second people are just going to discard any part of society that we have now, except the parts that we can actually agree on, prepare for a fight and prepare to kill for what you want based on your idea of who is ‘evil’ and who is not. We love our culture; we really do; and we hate whoever fucks with it without reason, so either make it better or just stop fighting what becomes so prominent in so many peoples lives.
The only way to suitably make this happen is for it all to happen and therein you must trust the concept of God; the universal consciousness; because the more any human or mortal seeks to, on their own, get this done; or even in a group against another group; it will not be done nor will it get done suitably to all to actually bring about the shift in awareness and consciousness needed for the ‘evil’ in men to be placated by proper balance between the extremes within each so that we don’t have extremists in singular individuals who feel driven by necessity to be something they can never be except by special circumstance; necessity.
I’m just saying, if you want to wage war on spirituality in any form, be prepared or just stay home, metaphorically and literally. I mean, come on: ‘To learn from history but focus on the future.’ So many people do this already that it’s not even funny. Here’s what I came up with: ‘live in the moment while learning from the past to prepare for a future filled with a myriad of possibilities in a constantly shifting mosaic of shit you can not and will not ever completely predict and could either get worse or get better.’ ‘Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best’ doesn’t quite cover it because then you have all of these security measures for insecurity against something that may or may not happen. So, really, the best advice you can give anyone is to just let go of seeking to control anything except your own reaction to life and your own perception and to just do what comes naturally; which you are while learning. Look at you think you know something. One day, those thoughts might graduate into actual theses beyond trying to manipulate humanity to do what you want it to do into actually accounting for enough possibilities to see what it may be trying to do enough to help it.
Which is the main and driving force behind every single belief structure of merit in the religious world from God to meditation and discipline; from ancient ages to current pages of philosophical discussion in modern day technological marvels that too many take for granted, myself included. And yet, Jesus or Buddha may have given their testicles for such an invention as the internet in which to discuss their thoughts with a multitude and to refine their thoughts through that multitude in varying stages to actually give to the world a better way than what it all became. And we live in this age; we lucky ones who sit here in our luxurious laziness and have the ability to affect so much of the reality around us just by discussion. Just by fucking discussion and debate. If all discussions were actually had publicly and openly concerning peoples plans for society and everything else, we’d be on much better ground and yet the paranoia and insanity of men; all of the planning put into acts of revolution or changing religions or any other structure of organization; gets in the way yet again and so I say there will be quite the bloody war in eventuality as discussions like these do little to actually soothe and put the matter to rest in a closure good enough for all. We will need a worldwide consensus that the majority of people no longer want to harm other people and no longer want to war and kill and the only way to actually hit that point is to have a worldwide war of sorts and the lucky part of it all is that nobody had to plan it and it happened in spite of all of the people who tried to plan it, because it won’t happen the way they have tried in the past to plan it and how people try to plan it now. It will simply evolve on its own and that is the most infuriating part to every person who tries to manipulate reality and the part which makes me laugh the most and breathe relieved at the same time knowing that reality and life itself will continue on regardless of the outcome of such a historical buildup of pressure; we might survive and ironically lose so much of history and everything else that it sets us back countless ages in brutality and everything else. But, we might also survive and hit our best societal success ever: a perfect utopia for imperfect creatures.