Which is it?
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Blame the people following it - not the book.... It comes down to people - not religion itself.
You can choose to follow a religion you know is backwards and morally wrong - or you can change and evolve it. (If you must keep religion).
That split happening in the Methodist church right now for example. Half are great with the gays - half aren't. I know which half are evolving. SMH
RavenCT
Level 9
Jan 16, 2020
2
Yes!
It sounds good, I suppose, but... you seem to disregard indoctrination. Indoctrination is where a lot of the bad behavior is either learned or encouraged. As long as some religious leader says it's okay, then it's okay. Or even just the religious texts. There's too often no thought given as to the behavior's essence; whether it's good or bad. The religion says it's allowed, so... it's okay.
bingst
Level 8
Jan 16, 2020
1
I don’t really buy the indoctrination theory. At least not as a fault of religion, as if religion is an independent entity that has power to control people for generations without their ability to resist.
The point of my post is that whatever power religion has is power that we have given it voluntarily, because of our nature. Take religion away and people would find another method of indoctrination.
It’s natural to want to teach the youth whatever you believe is true and useful. Calling it indoctrination makes it sound like an evil conspiracy, when it’s really just human nature. Legal conspiracies do happen in limited settings, but one that spans the whole globe for millennia? Prolly not.
@skado And when it's cooked into the recipe? Like Catholicism? Indoctrination was very intentionally included. And I'm fairly certain when all that was decided it was done intentionally in such a way to keep the congregants in line, and keep them paying. Going all the way back to the early days. It's a perpetuating system. Kids don't give power to religion voluntarily.
@skado Indoctrination isn't just simply passing on knowledge and traditions. Note the first synonym: [lexico.com] .
Religion is not any one thing, but thousands of different things which often disagree with one another, though all do certainly contain some good and some bad.
So that it is impossible to generalize about religion in any way. Save only in two things, the first of which is that all religion claims some contact with the supernatural. (Some don't but they don't fall within most peoples definition of religion, nor do most 'nones' have a problem with them.)
The second is, that since it is impossible to make any provable or disprovable statement about the supernatural, by definition, since if it is provable/not provable it is natural. Therefore all religions must hang on faith. And since secular philosophy ( including science,) exists, then to claim that supernatural authority is needed for philosophy is inherently dishonest. Which means that, at least since the age of Aristotle, all religion has been a form of dishonesty, and is all therefore tainted, remaining only the resort of the criminally corrupt alone.
This is why, while perhaps useful in the past, it serves today, only to poison and corrupt everything it touches.
Fernapple
Level 9
Jan 16, 2020
2
Get the straitjacket. This is nonsense:
"So did religion make us or did we make religion? Neither. Homo sapiens and religion coevolved. Nature made us both. We are reflections of each other. Religion neither dictates men’s treatment of women nor establishes our moral values. It can’t be blamed or praised for our behavior. It just exists alongside us, mirroring our conflicted nature back to us."
LiterateHiker
Level 9
Jan 16, 2020
3
It's beyond nonsense, it's plain old horseshit.
1of5:
@Sgt_Spanky horeshit has more uses than plain 'ol nonsense, so I typically reverse your order.
Agreed. It's drivel, bunk, bullshit, crap, rubbish and gibberish.
Hmmmm. Why is it nonsense? I think it is stating something simple in an overly complicated way, by assuming that "religion" is some independent entity whose connection to human affairs is not obvious.
Religion is a part of our cultural and social make-up. I am not one of those who say that religion is an integral part of "human nature," whatever that means. But religions evolved along with our society and culture. The idea of "morality" also evolved, and religions often reflected that morality back to us, but both morality and religion are man-made.
It's almost (not quite, but almost) like asking when I brushed teeth this morning, was it me who cleaned my teeth or was it the toothbrush. The answer, of course, is that I cleaned it using my toothbrush. It would be a weird thing to say that as a result that somehow toothbrush and I are reflections of each other in the matter of cleaning my teeth.
Religion can be blamed for the bad, but religion is something that we made up, and so ultimately we are to blame. But that doesn't mean that we should not let those who push religion off scott free. They are responsible for pushing a harmful thing.
Why this idea should be expressed in some metaphysical terms, I don't know.
Religion is the tool that's used to control the masses. Religion is the opiate of the masses and has little to do with a god. This packaged system of beliefs has been well marketed and has controlled people for centuries because the very nature of it feeds on control.
"Hell" was invented by the Catholic church to control people with fear, a retired priest said.
[churchandstate.org.uk]
American Bishop explains how religion was "made up" and used to control people.
[collective-evolution.com]
The man and story behind Jesus Christ was a Roman hoax designed to control the people, a scholar has sensationally claimed. Christianity is a baseless religion that was designed by the Roman empire to justify slavery and pacify the citizens, according to controversial Biblical scholar Joseph Atwill.
[express.co.uk]
@LiterateHiker I don't think we disagree at all. Not sure if we disagree with @skado in a significant way.
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