Really!? Isn't it 2011? How can this nonsense still be going on?

[Kirth Gersen]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

Kirth Gersen wrote:

[ooc]P.P.S. Regarding the value being in the debate, at last it seems you actually do believe that part of what you're arguing -- constant willful misinterpretation, conflation of ideas, and shifting of goalposts on your part demonstrates that pretty clearly.

I have never, throughout this entire discussion, made this sort of ad hominem about you. I expect the same from you.

When I point out that you move goalposts, that's a comment on your style of debate. Likewise when you conflate ideas. If you then choose to view those as personal attacks, rather than direct observations based on your posts, so be it.

[Kirth Gersen]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

As for theories proven wrong in science (not just improved, but flat out proven wrong) we've got phrenology, Lamarckian evolution, race, the belief that no bacteria can survive in the stomach, the belief that acupuncture has no medical affects, etc. etc.

All of which are good examples of science being self-correcting -- one of the primary virtues of the method.

[Kirth Gersen]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

I wish we could all agree that the best tools should be used for whatever area of human knowledge is being studied. Rather than use a hammer for everything, a good carpenter realizes that there are other tools in his toolbox.

I would agree to that. What I do not agree with is the bald assertion that religion -- simply because it has traditionally been viewed as a moral area -- is automatically the best tool to develop morality. I strongly believe that it is not.

Rather, I would propose that game theory (a branch of mathematics, not science, btw), coupled with some of Hume's philosophy, presents a far stronger candidate. I also believe that, given the advances in understanding the role of brain function in what passes for "choice" in some cases, neurobiology will be a useful input into the process of evaluating morality (although it is not ideally part of that process itself).

[A Man In Black]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

You haven't been to Turkey lately, or Lebanon, where Creationism is taught in public school?

Huh. I wasn't aware of it, but it's essentially the American arguments against it imported wholesale. It's still an essentially American idea, not a quintessentially religious idea.

meatrace wrote:

That's why I said it's antithetical to reason and the way we understand the world empirically (meaning science).

YEC was an example, not the end of my argument. Talk to Kirth, I'm sure he knows more than I about wrong things being taught as fact than I. I do maintain this is pretty unique to religion, however. What is the point of the education system if it's going to be circumvented to indoctrinate people that the rest of the education they get is wrong or immoral?

I'd like to reiterate that I'm only talking about religion in a post-industrial sense. I'm well aware that the History of the West is replete with examples of good, intelligent, and diligent men who were also religious. I would say that in the last century no such forward thinkers who were religious didn't have some cognitive friction therein.

I have a horrendous amount of anecdotal evidence which unfortunately I can't present because of the nature of my job. But I often listen to people talk about how Pat Robertson is right and Obama is clearly the antichrist, or that "the gays" caused hurricane Katrina and 9/11 or something. You can say that speaks to a lack of religious education, but any thought based on false premises will inexorably lead to false conclusions given time.

Science is not the only source of understanding. You are doing the entirety of human art, literature, and philosophy a disservice, here! Hell, you're even using an (antiquated) philosophical approach to history: science, by design, isn't advanced by Great Men of the West and their Forward Thinking, but instead in tiny steps by many people working tirelessly to falsify incremental hypotheses. Today, in the modern world, right now, people seek different kinds of understanding from both science and religion, all the time. You just don't generally see scientists talking about their religious beliefs because it's neither their field of expertise nor any of your damn business.

You work with shockingly ignorant people, define their ignorance as their rejection of science and miss all of the other ignorance, and imagine religion made them so. They would be no less willfully ignorant if they were atheists; they'd simply have some other justification. Not only that, but how can you talk about reason and science when you confuse anecdotes for data?

[meatrace]

I don't confuse anecdotes for data. I work in a call center where I caption peoples calls. I specifically said it's only anecdotal. Nonetheless, I caption probably 100+ calls a day, averaging 4 days a week over the last, oh, 4 years.

Asserting that people who are ignorant because of their religion would still be ignorant if it weren't for their religion both adds nothing to the conversation and can't be proven. However, much in the same way that you believe ignorant people gon' be ignorant regardless of their religion, I feel that creative people are going to be creative regardless of their religion.

I said nothing of great men or anything. Stop putting words in my mouth.

I didn't say religion had nothing to say about art or literature. Stop putting words in my mouth.

Do you care to actually comment on the notion that many thousand year old stories are being uncritically taught as empirical fact throughout the world? Do you think this is even possibly a good thing? Do you think it does a disservice to those being "educated" and society as a whole, and do you, like me, think that is detrimental? If not, why not?

Just remember that I'm not someone who said religion is all bad or had no uses, I'm just violently opposed to it being conflated with empirical evidence. Which it is, constantly. The people who are able to balance their beliefs with actual facts and don't try to replace the latter with the former I have no real quibble with. I mean, we will disagree on things, but it's inconsequential.

[Kirth Gersen]

A Man In Black wrote:

I wasn't aware of it, but it's essentially the American arguments against it imported wholesale. It's still an essentially American idea, not a quintessentially religious idea.

What America and large swaths of the Middle East share is an intensity of fundamentalist religious fervor, which Europe generally lacks. When asked in polls why they reject evolution, geology, etc., the most common response from deniers is "because it conflicts with my faith."

Now, you can make the claim that they are misinterpreting their faith -- and I can totally understand the desire to do so -- but, really, they're the ones most intense about it, most literal in their reading of Scripture, most fervent in their acceptance of revelation as the only source of knowledge. In short, they're more religious than you seem to be.

[Darkwing Duck]

Paul Watson wrote:

Darkwing,

No one said you made personal comments.

I pointed out that I'd never made a personal attack to Kirth.

TheJeff replied that my posting style suggests otherwise (ie. that I had made personal attacks).

Now, you claim that noone has claimed that I've made personal attacks.

I'm not the one moving goal posts here.

[Darkwing Duck]

thejeff wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

thejeff wrote:

To apply the scientific method: If you can't experiment, how do you know which tool is best for any particular area?

More seriously, how do we know that religion is the best method to study morality?

How do we know that science is the best method for studying the physical world? I'm not asking whether science is useful (religion is also useful), but how do we know that science is the best method for studying the physical world?

It seems pretty obvious to me. Look at the explosion of knowledge the scientific method has led to over the last few centuries.

Do you have another candidate?

The same thing could be said about religion - look at the explosive expansion of human rights that has happened as a result of the debate going on in religion. Look at the huge debate regarding slavery, the huge debate regarding gay rights, the huge debate regarding the role of women, etc.

Now, some people will try to sweep such debate under the rug and focus only on those religious people who were pro-slavery, anti-gay rights, anti-women's equality, etc. But that's just being ignorant of religious history.

[Darkwing Duck]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

As for theories proven wrong in science (not just improved, but flat out proven wrong) we've got phrenology, Lamarckian evolution, race, the belief that no bacteria can survive in the stomach, the belief that acupuncture has no medical affects, etc. etc.

All of which are good examples of science being self-correcting -- one of the primary virtues of the method.

So, its okay with you if science is self-correcting, but its not okay with you if religion is?

That sounds like you are goal post shifting.

[Darkwing Duck]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Now, you can make the claim that they are misinterpreting their faith -- and I can totally understand the desire to do so -- but, really, they're the ones most intense about it, most literal in their reading of Scripture, most fervent in their acceptance of revelation as the only source of knowledge. In short, they're more religious than you seem to be.

The majority of people in the world have little more than a junior high level of science understanding. Should science be measured by what they know?

I'd say 'no'.
Why then is it okay to measure religion by what the "Gawd wrote it down 5000 years ago and that's that" crowd?

That sounds like you are goal post shifting.

[Kirth Gersen]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

That sounds like you are goal post shifting.

Your "discussion" has reached a level of outright misrepresentation at which it's a losing cause to continue.

[Darkwing Duck]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

That sounds like you are goal post shifting.

Your "discussion" has reached a level of outright misrepresentation at which it's a losing cause to continue.

I want to know how exactly its okay to judge religion based on what people who've never studied religion very deeply think, but its not okay to judge science by the same standards.

.

[thejeff]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

Paul Watson wrote:

Darkwing,

No one said you made personal comments.

I pointed out that I'd never made a personal attack to Kirth.

TheJeff replied that my posting style suggests otherwise (ie. that I had made personal attacks).

Now, you claim that noone has claimed that I've made personal attacks.

I'm not the one moving goal posts here.

The post in question:

Quote:

thejeff wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

Kirth Gersen wrote:

P.P.S. Regarding the value being in the debate, at last it seems you actually do believe that part of what you're arguing -- constant willful misinterpretation, conflation of ideas, and shifting of goalposts on your part demonstrates that pretty clearly. You don't seem interested in the basis of any point of view, but rather solely in prolonging the discussion by any means,...

I have never, throughout this entire discussion, made this sort of ad hominem about you. I expect the same from you.

You may wish to think about your debate style then. It's very hard to avoid reaching this conclusion from reading your posts.

What I intended to say, and what others seem to have understood is that I was referring to Kirth's description, not that you made ad hominem attacks.

To be absolutely clear, I will rephrase: Reading your posts leads me to the conclusion that "you actually do believe that part of what you're arguing -- constant willful misinterpretation, conflation of ideas, and shifting of goalposts on your part demonstrates that pretty clearly. You don't seem interested in the basis of any point of view, but rather solely in prolonging the discussion by any means"

I do not claim that you've made personal attacks.

[BigNorseWolf]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

I want to know how exactly its okay to judge religion based on what people who've never studied religion very deeply think, but its not okay to judge science by the same standards.

Because science approximates an objective reality that is external to he viewer. That comparison acts as an arbiter of what is or isn't right. If a Junior high-school drop out thinks the laws of aerodynamics means he can fly when he wears his cape and flaps his arms... well gravity is a harsh mistress.

If the same Junior high drop out thinks that god is a platypus there's only one way to show that he's wrong, and even that requires that god exists.

Science that doesn't aproximate reality isn't science. Religion would need something other than the religious persons mind to compare it to in order to avoid being defined as an idea soley in a persons head.

Holy texts like the bible and Qua'ran provide this... to some extent. The problem is that the interpretation process is so incredibly subjective that its very hard to say that something is objectively wrong short of dying, standing at the pearly gates and asking "Well how did i do?"

At which point Osiris breaks out the scale and pen knife to find out muaahahahaah...

Quote:

The same thing could be said about religion - look at the explosive expansion of human rights that has happened as a result of the debate going on in religion

I think you're taking that as too much of a given. What makes you think that the debate within religion is the driving force?

[thejeff]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

The same thing could be said about religion - look at the explosive expansion of human rights that has happened as a result of the debate going on in religion. Look at the huge debate regarding slavery, the huge debate regarding gay rights, the huge debate regarding the role of women, etc.

Now, some people will try to sweep such debate under the rug and focus only on those religious people who were pro-slavery, anti-gay rights, anti-women's equality, etc. But that's just being ignorant of religious history.

I would say that "the huge debate regarding gay rights" has been driven far more by the largely secular gay rights movement than by any religions. From Stonewall through Act Up and gay Pride, it has taken place in the public sphere, with demonstrations and legal actions. The single biggest driver has probably been the removal of legal restrictions allowing more gays to come out so more people actually know them, followed by greater open presence in the media.

I'm sure many in the movement were and are religious, but not religious leaders. Religion's negative influence is obvious, but it's positive role has largely been been a following one.

I focus on gay rights because it is the most modern of the three and thus the one that best fits my argument.

[A Man In Black]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

What America and large swaths of the Middle East share is an intensity of fundamentalist religious fervor, which Europe generally lacks. When asked in polls why they reject evolution, geology, etc., the most common response from deniers is "because it conflicts with my faith."

Now, you can make the claim that they are misinterpreting their faith -- and I can totally understand the desire to do so -- but, really, they're the ones most intense about it, most literal in their reading of Scripture, most fervent in their acceptance of revelation as the only source of knowledge. In short, they're more religious than you seem to be.

Emphasis on fundamentalist. You see extremely conservative people attacking anything that challenges their worldview, and forget that these fundamentalists are in the extreme minority of religious people around the world even when you take only religious people living today. Do you imagine irreligious conservatives would be somehow more open-minded? More reasonable? More tractable?

Fundamentalists are not more religious than other religious people. They are simply louder.

meatrace wrote:

Asserting that people who are ignorant because of their religion would still be ignorant if it weren't for their religion both adds nothing to the conversation and can't be proven. However, much in the same way that you believe ignorant people gon' be ignorant regardless of their religion, I feel that creative people are going to be creative regardless of their religion.

I didn't say religion had nothing to say about art or literature. Stop putting words in my mouth.

Do you care to actually comment on the notion that many thousand year old stories are being uncritically taught as empirical fact throughout the world? Do you think this is even possibly a good thing? Do you think it does a disservice to those being "educated" and society as a whole, and do you, like me, think that is detrimental? If not, why not?

Religion adds a great deal to any conversation about art or philosophy. Holy writings are themselves noteworthy works of art and influential philosophical works, and have influenced artists and philosophers throughout history. Religion is especially important in philosophy any time moral absolutes are discussed (so basically all of the time). You've been going on and on about reason and understanding this entire time, and science is hardly the only way that people apply reasoning or understand themselves or the world around them!

Just like Kirth, you hit on the problem without meaning to. Uncritically. The problem is that most people get a crap religious education, especially in the US. Teaching people religious stories by rote, uncritically, is only an elementary way to teach anything. It'd be a poor history education, a poor philosophy education, a poor music education. It's a start, but it's not enough to just say "This is the story" without at least starting people on the path of what it means. Religion can be a path to reasoning: you're angry that people aren't taught how, and deservingly so.

[Kirth Gersen]

A Man In Black wrote:

these fundamentalists are in the extreme minority of religious people around the world

I don't think this assertion is true. Fundamentalists are in an extreme minority of religious people in much of Europe, Canada, and Australia. They are the majority in the United States, in most of the Middle East (many nations there still stone women for adultery), in Africa (where "witches" are still burned in many parts, and where a number of countries treat homosexuality as a felony), etc. In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation (close to 240 million people), Islamic fundamentalists and their influence are rapidly gaining traction.

Your point becomes a lot stronger if you emphasize that most of India is nominally Hindu, and that many Chinese still adhere to some traditional Confucian cultural remnants, despite Mao's revolution. However, simply rewording that as "most Monotheists are in fact fundamentalists" puts us more or less back where we started.

Even moderate Christians and Muslims tend to be awfully quick to extend the mantle of protection over their more loony brethren: "Oh, those people aren't really Christians/Muslims, they're an extreme minority, don't pay attention to them, they're mostly harmless anyway," etc. -- anything to try and present religion as a whole as a moderate, enlightened phenomenon -- which, on the whole, it is in only a few places.

[Kirth Gersen]

A Man In Black wrote:

The problem is that most people get a crap religious education, especially in the US. Teaching people religious stories by rote, uncritically, is only an elementary way to teach anything.

Your definition of "crap" -- while one that I personally agree with -- is one that would get you thrown out of a Saudi madrassa. Again, you're presuming your personal brand of moderate religion is automatically representative of religion in general, and that any other model must therefore be a weird outlier of some kind. Worldwide, however, those other models aren't outliers -- they're a major proportion of religious people and groups.

If your assertions were correct, I believe the world would be a much better place for it, but I also like to look at things as much as possible how they are, vs. how I want them to be.

[jocundthejolly]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

As for theories proven wrong in science (not just improved, but flat out proven wrong) we've got phrenology, Lamarckian evolution, race, the belief that no bacteria can survive in the stomach, the belief that acupuncture has no medical affects, etc. etc.

In defense of Lamarck, he is usually caricatured as the silly guy who thought bodybuilders should have muscular kids, which is not fair to him. Also, over the last couple of decades advances in cellular biology microbiology have led us to reconsider some of his ideas, albeit in ways he probably couldn't have imagined. For example, classical or orthodox Darwinian thought concerns itself with vertical gene transfer (parents>offspring), but we are becoming increasingly aware that lateral or horizontal gene transfer is and has been enormously significant in the evolution of life on our planet.

[A Man In Black]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

I don't think this assertion is true. Fundamentalists are in an extreme minority of religious people in much of Europe, Canada, and Australia. They are the majority in the United States,

Citation needed!

It's going to be hard, because "fundamentalist" isn't a clearly defined term in this context. Plus, since you went and did a silly thing like claiming that most religious Americans were fundamentalists, you're going to have a pretty hard time proving that very nearly half of the population of the US is fundamentalist, because only 14% of Americans claimed to be irreligious in 2008.

So good luck with the extraordinary proof of your extraordinary claims.

Quote:

In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation (close to 240 million people), Islamic fundamentalists and their influence are rapidly gaining traction.

Meaning: it's newsworthy that a fundamentalist minority is causing problems, not that the country is under the influence of a fundamentalist theocratic government. There is a yawning gulf between moderate countries struggling with what role religion should play in their society, like Indonesia, and totalitarian theocracies, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. (Indonesia is surprisingly stable and resilient for a country which has, in the past decade and a half, seen its Dictator for Life resign, suffered an embarrassing loss in a civil war, and gone through two crushing economic crises!) In fact, of the ten countries with the highest Muslim populations, only two are not moderate democracies of some sort (Iran and arguably Egypt).

You skipped all of the important parts of my post, before, to make some essentially incorrect points about demographics.

So, again, emphasis on fundamentalist. You see extremely conservative people attacking anything that challenges their worldview. Do you imagine irreligious conservatives would be somehow more open-minded? More reasonable? More tractable? Do you imagine that religion put those conservatives there, or that were religion to cease to exist, that they, too, would cease to be conservative?

Quote:

Even moderate Christians and Muslims tend to be awfully quick to extend the mantle of protection over their more loony brethren: "Oh, those people aren't really Christians/Muslims, they're an extreme minority, don't pay attention to them, they're mostly harmless anyway," etc. -- anything to try and present religion as a whole as a moderate, enlightened phenomenon -- which, on the whole, it is in only a few places.

Fundamentalism is antithetical to reason, both in the scientific and philosophical sense. Nobody's saying they're harmless. They're loud and obnoxious and need to be told that they're wrong every time they come out and say silly things. But painting every religious person with that brush is counterproductive, partially because it's hypocritical to make irrational arguments when you yourself are trying to defend rationality, and partially because it's just flat out an obnoxious thing to do. Fundamentalism isn't an inherently religious concept and would not cease to exist if religion ceased to exist, so harassing religious people who aren't hurting anyone doesn't accomplish anything productive and just makes you an asshat.

Quote:

Your definition of "crap" -- while one that I personally agree with -- is one that would get you thrown out of a Saudi madrassa.

Well. It's not a moderate religious idea to teach people that religion is more than just a story about a thing that happened and a bunch of rules for what you're supposed to do. The idea that religion is a path to understanding or enlightenment is not an idea that is owned by reformers or eschewed by the orthodoxy. One does not have to be moderate to consider the ideas set forth by Aquinas or Averroes. Now, don't you go selectively quoting this paragraph, because I'm talking about conservative religion in the context of a society which is actually open. Saudi Arabia is not.

Again, you're harping on fundamentalists who aren't interested in what you're saying because you're an outsider that they hate. Religion is a tool in their toolbox to keep "theirs" away from "yours", but if they didn't have that, it'd be tribalism or nationalism or language or regionalism or race or ethnicity or a hundred other things. Fundamentalism is antithetical to reason, but fundamentalism is not intrinsically linked to—and does not even require—religion.

But before you go and stereotype Muslims as fundamentalists again, keep in mind that India's Muslim minority, which is largely moderate, outnumbers the entire population of the Middle East. Likewise Pakistan and Bangladesh and Indonesia, save in that their Muslim populations are the majority. So while most people in the Middle East are Muslims, most Muslims are not from or in the Middle East at all.

[meatrace]

I'll just leave this here for perusal.

[Darkwing Duck]

thejeff wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

The same thing could be said about religion - look at the explosive expansion of human rights that has happened as a result of the debate going on in religion. Look at the huge debate regarding slavery, the huge debate regarding gay rights, the huge debate regarding the role of women, etc.

Now, some people will try to sweep such debate under the rug and focus only on those religious people who were pro-slavery, anti-gay rights, anti-women's equality, etc. But that's just being ignorant of religious history.

I would say that "the huge debate regarding gay rights" has been driven far more by the largely secular gay rights movement than by any religions. From Stonewall through Act Up and gay Pride, it has taken place in the public sphere, with demonstrations and legal actions. The single biggest driver has probably been the removal of legal restrictions allowing more gays to come out so more people actually know them, followed by greater open presence in the media.

I'm sure many in the movement were and are religious, but not religious leaders. Religion's negative influence is obvious, but it's positive role has largely been been a following one.

I focus on gay rights because it is the most modern of the three and thus the one that best fits my argument.

And I would say that there have been just as many people arguing for and against gay rights outside of religion as inside. But, what religion does offer is a structured institution where the gains from such debate can be passed down.

[meatrace]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

And I would say that there have been just as many people arguing for and against gay rights outside of religion as inside.

What religion offers is a structure by which the decisions of those at the top of the hierarchy can be uncritically taught as fact, backed with the thread of eternal damnation for dissenters, to a new generation.

[thejeff]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

And I would say that there have been just as many people arguing for and against gay rights outside of religion as inside.

So you agree that the expansion of gay rights is not the result of a debate going on in religion.

Darkwing Duck wrote:

But, what religion does offer is a structured institution where the gains from such debate can be passed down.

Or where a viewpoint can be hardened and preserved long past it's time. Religion is very good at passing down traditions, whether needed or not.

Look at dietary laws, often considered to reflect foods that were dangerous at the time the laws were laid down, but still kept now when we understand food safety much better.

Throughout much of history, religion has been where the debates were held, because that's where the scholars were. That is no longer true.

That conflation makes it hard to see whether religion will be better at passing down such gains than a secular structure of laws and records.

Nor, of course, do all religions have such "structured institutions". Atheism, which you claim as a religion, has none, for example. Nor did Deism, outside the traditional churches of the day.

[Darkwing Duck]

meatrace wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

And I would say that there have been just as many people arguing for and against gay rights outside of religion as inside.

What religion offers is a structure by which the decisions of those at the top of the hierarchy can be uncritically taught as fact, backed with the thread of eternal damnation for dissenters, to a new generation.

You've had experience with remarkably few religions. I used to think the same thing you did. I grew up in a holy roller Apostolic speaking-in-tongues church where the Pastor was the unquestioned authority. I was every bit as biased as you are. But, I figured that if I kept that attitude, I'd be just as guilty as they were (as you are) of being hive minded.

That's a big reason why I got a degree in anthropology - so that I could do some grown up education on hive minded people.

What I discovered was that the hive mind you accuse religion of is actually true of only a small slice of religion (thesm, atheism, pantheism, it doesn't matter which religion) and that its just as true of people outside of religion.

Even Catholicism (which seems to be most widely identified in the Western world with the hive mind) is actually not as monolithic as outsiders often think it is.

[Darkwing Duck]

thejeff wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

And I would say that there have been just as many people arguing for and against gay rights outside of religion as inside.

So you agree that the expansion of gay rights is not the result of a debate going on in religion.

I don't agree that the expansion of gay rights is not the result of a debate going on in religion.

Religion has a very powerful affect on politics. I live in one of the most anti-gay areas in the US (Focus on the Family is headquartered here) and, yet, just a few miles away from here is a church which is one of the major funders for PFLAG, has openly gay church leaders, has been active in the Pride parade, etc. This church's actions are responsible for creating a huge push back against the actions of Focus on the Family. If this church didn't exist, Dobson's cult would probably overrun the area. And this church gets funding from all over the United States.

thejeff wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

But, what religion does offer is a structured institution where the gains from such debate can be passed down.

Or where a viewpoint can be hardened and preserved long past it's time. Religion is very good at passing down traditions, whether needed or not.

Look at dietary laws, often considered to reflect foods that were dangerous at the time the laws were laid down, but still kept now when we understand food safety much better.

Food safety is not the only reason dietary laws exist. Cultural identity has a lot to do with it, too.

thejeff wrote:

Throughout much of history, religion has been where the debates were held, because that's where the scholars were. That is no longer true.

That conflation makes it hard to see whether religion will be better at passing down such gains than a secular structure of laws and records.

Nor, of course, do all religions have such "structured institutions". Atheism, which you claim as a religion, has none, for example. Nor did Deism, outside the traditional churches of the day.

You seem to be putting the cart before the horse. Secular laws are passed due to political pressure which comes, in part, from places like church. Secular laws don't create morality. The moral impetus to create those laws has to exist first.

[meatrace]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

You've had experience with remarkably few religions.

Good thing you know more about me than I do.

As it happens I have pretty broad experience with religions, but you won't believe me because it doesn't help you to belittle my perspective.

You accuse me of having this narrow definition of religion but then you use that same definition when it suits you.

You're right, not all religions have a hive mind. You know what else? No one here is talking about them we are talking about the religions that are prevalent in American society and culture and which have an influence on the way we experience life day to day. Doctrinal and hierarchical religions. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and the fundamentalist exponents thereof. To say these don't make up a great majority of the religious thought in America is staggeringly disingenuous.

What the Trobrianders believe, for instance, has absolutely no bearing on gay rights in America. Stop pretending that they do.

The only "hive mind" I see present in irreligious people is where generally agreed upon facts are involved. You know, principles of physics, evolutionary biology, gravity, that the Internet is a good thing, etc. We believe these things, overwhelmingly, because we have studied them critically. Not because the pastor said so.

So, when you say your studies of religion have brought you to greater acceptance of them I don't disbelieve you. I can only offer to you that my own studies have brought me to the conclusion that they are an anachronism.

[Darkwing Duck]

meatrace wrote:

You know what else? No one here is talking about them

This is another example of you all moving goal posts.

"Religion is awful"

"Religion has done and continues to do a lot of good and here are examples.."

"We don't really mean 'religion', we mean monotheistic churches"

"But even in monotheism, there's been and continues to be a lot of good done"

"No, no, we actually mean monotheistic, monolithic churches - and stop shifting goal posts!"

*sigh* Then why didn't you say that instead of try to paint all of religion with one really, really wide brush of black? So far, you've been talking about "religion" and I can quote you in several places where you talk about -religion- without qualifying it.

[meatrace]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

You seem to be putting the cart before the horse. Secular laws are passed due to political pressure which comes, in part, from places like church. Secular laws don't create morality. The moral impetus to create those laws has to exist first.

That depends. The law banning marijuana, for example, was put in place originally as an excuse to detain or deport Mexican migrant workers. The desire to do so was driven by tribalism, if you will, a desire to impress the dominant cultural identity of a region in a legal way against a minority. To reinforce a hierarchy which was largely racially informed. Because any region's cultural identity is so enmeshed with religion you get afterwards great moralizing against the evils of marijuana.

In other words, the primary argument for the criminalization of possession of marijuana was not initiated by any morality, religious or otherwise. The idea of morality in this sense only later came about. You see this sort of thing all over the place historically.

[meatrace]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

meatrace wrote:

You know what else? No one here is talking about them

This is another example of you all moving goal posts.

"Religion is awful"

"Religion has done and continues to do a lot of good and here are examples.."

"We don't really mean 'religion', we mean monotheistic churches"

"But even in monotheism, there's been and continues to be a lot of good done"

"No, no, we actually mean monotheistic, monolithic churches - and stop shifting goal posts!"

*sigh* Then why didn't you say that instead of try to paint all of religion with one really, really wide brush of black? So far, you've been talking about "religion" and I can quote you in several places where you talk about -religion- without qualifying it.

AS DO YOU. That was the point of my post. You use the term religion to mean any of those things when it suits the argument of your particular post. And I didn't particularly care because I knew what you were talking about from context, as should you in return. But if you're going to make a stink about it what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

I'm trying to get YOU to understand that you and I are likely the only people who understand religion in an anthropological sense in this thread (I'm unsure about AMiB) so I'm using religion in my posts, largely, the same way the rest of the posters are. At this point, yes, it is shorthand for the precise type of religion I defined, like, 6 pages ago or something.

[Darkwing Duck]

meatrace wrote:

You use the term religion to mean any of those things when it suits the argument of your particular post.

You can't find a single place where I've changed the definition of religion in order to suit my argument.

[meatrace]

Found one for you.

Darkwing Duck wrote:

But, what religion does offer is a structured institution where the gains from such debate can be passed down.

Here you can ONLY be talking about doctrinal religions, or those with some sort of hierarchy. Not all religions are or have. So religion does not offer this, monolithic religions do.

[Darkwing Duck]

meatrace wrote:

Found one for you.

Darkwing Duck wrote:

But, what religion does offer is a structured institution where the gains from such debate can be passed down.

Here you can ONLY be talking about doctrinal religions, or those with some sort of hierarchy. Not all religions are or have. So religion does not offer this, monolithic religions do.

No, I'm NOT talking just about doctrinal religions or hierarchical religions here.

The exact same statement is true of (to pick an extreme example), an animist religion in the Amazon as it is of Southern Baptists.

[meatrace]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

The same thing could be said about religion - look at the explosive expansion of human rights that has happened as a result of the debate going on in religion.

If you look at all the religions of the world the majority of them aren't part of the industrialized world and the idea of human rights are foreign to them. Suggesting that that this debate is "going on in religion" is either silly or you are using the definition of religion the rest of the posters are, doctrinal, hierarchical religions in western, industrialized society.

[meatrace]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

meatrace wrote:

Found one for you.

Darkwing Duck wrote:

But, what religion does offer is a structured institution where the gains from such debate can be passed down.

Here you can ONLY be talking about doctrinal religions, or those with some sort of hierarchy. Not all religions are or have. So religion does not offer this, monolithic religions do.

No, I'm NOT talking just about doctrinal religions or hierarchical religions here.

The exact same statement is true of (to pick an extreme example), an animist religion in the Amazon as it is of Southern Baptists.

So if I can find a single example of a religion that does not or did not pass its beliefs down to the next generation, then I win. Right?

[Darkwing Duck]

meatrace wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

meatrace wrote:

Found one for you.

Darkwing Duck wrote:

But, what religion does offer is a structured institution where the gains from such debate can be passed down.

Here you can ONLY be talking about doctrinal religions, or those with some sort of hierarchy. Not all religions are or have. So religion does not offer this, monolithic religions do.

No, I'm NOT talking just about doctrinal religions or hierarchical religions here.

The exact same statement is true of (to pick an extreme example), an animist religion in the Amazon as it is of Southern Baptists.

So if I can find a single example of a religion that does not or did not pass its beliefs down to the next generation, then I win. Right?

What I wrote is

"where the gains from such debate can be passed down"

I never said that it had to be passed down to the next generation. Shakers, for example, practiced celibacy. Cults such as Jonestown weren't intended to self destruct as they did.

[thejeff]

meatrace wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

meatrace wrote:

Found one for you.

Darkwing Duck wrote:

But, what religion does offer is a structured institution where the gains from such debate can be passed down.

Here you can ONLY be talking about doctrinal religions, or those with some sort of hierarchy. Not all religions are or have. So religion does not offer this, monolithic religions do.

No, I'm NOT talking just about doctrinal religions or hierarchical religions here.

The exact same statement is true of (to pick an extreme example), an animist religion in the Amazon as it is of Southern Baptists.

So if I can find a single example of a religion that does not or did not pass its beliefs down to the next generation, then I win. Right?

No. More importantly and more easily, you just have to find a single example of a religion where a "structured institution" is not used to pass those gains down.

[DumberOx]

meatrace wrote:

The only "hive mind" I see present in irreligious people is where generally agreed upon facts are involved. You know, principles of physics, evolutionary biology, gravity, that the Internet is a good thing, etc. We believe these things, overwhelmingly, because we have studied them critically. Not because the pastor said so.

You kinda lost me with that first sentence there .... the "irreligious" have a tendency to hive mind about a lot of things ... all the time ... anyone who grew up from 1969 onward should know that. Pop culture has been a skipping record of hive mind mentality about a lot of things they thought or wished were facts.

As for the whole science vs religion debate I've been noticing through this entire thread I've quietly been following ... well anyone who believe thats the two are mutually exclusive and have nothing to do with one another and do not inform one another have no understanding of the history of science or religion. There's a reason theology was called the "Queen of the Sciences" historically. Judaism and Christianity have as a cornerstone that Reason is one of the great gifts we are endowed with. The discovery of the mysteries of the scientific world through Reason, for historical Christianity and Judaism, is a religous endeavor (spare me the Galileo story, as the popular story is not what actually happened and it had nothing to do with his scientific discoveries), as it is a way towards Truth (I'm talking objective Truth here, not subjective truth ... if you're someone who has a sort of post modern belief in no objective, only subjective truth I'm not even interested in a discussion ... we're not starting on even square one with each other).

In any case, it took only until page 2 for there to be an anti-Catholic, bigotted comment that no one called out ... so before anyone preaches "tolerance" take a closer look in the mirror. Compared to most threads related to any of these issues though y'all did pretty well ... so good for you.

[meatrace]

Darkwing Duck wrote:

What I wrote is
"where the gains from such debate can be passed down"

I never said that it had to be passed down to the next generation. Shakers, for example, practiced celibacy. Cults such as Jonestown weren't intended to self destruct as they did.

So how can you know that it's the structure of the religion that allows values to be passed down and not just the culture or tribe in which it exists? There is no clear defined boundary between religion and other ways that people define themselves as individuals or as a culture, religion in this sense is a web of ideas that touches on every other way people, collectively, identify themselves.

The example you give of Amazonian animism is what I'm talking about. Lots of cultures don't think of religion as being a separate part of their life and experience the way we do, so when what we categorize as religious ideas are passed down through generations it's not even taught as such, just the way things are.

Only in a doctrinal religion do you get the intellectual segregation of religious ideas and secular ideas so that you can differentiate whence comes what concepts and which ones are meant to be taken as divine facts and which are not.

I know it's pedantic but there it is.

[DumberOx]

meatrace wrote:

If you look at all the religions of the world the majority of them aren't part of the industrialized world and the idea of human rights are foreign to them. Suggesting that that this debate is "going on in religion" is either silly or you are using the definition of religion the rest of the posters are, doctrinal, hierarchical religions in western, industrialized society.

As some of the greatest campaigners for human rights in the modern world, there are a number of churches and religious institutions who would take issue with your comment.

[meatrace]

DumberOx wrote:

meatrace wrote:

The only "hive mind" I see present in irreligious people is where generally agreed upon facts are involved. You know, principles of physics, evolutionary biology, gravity, that the Internet is a good thing, etc. We believe these things, overwhelmingly, because we have studied them critically. Not because the pastor said so.

You kinda lost me with that first sentence there .... the "irreligious" have a tendency to hive mind about a lot of things ... all the time ... anyone who grew up from 1969 onward should know that. Pop culture has been a skipping record of hive mind mentality about a lot of things they thought or wished were facts.

I'm not sure pop culture differentiates whose minds it affects. To say that pop culture only affects the irreligious is...a confusing statement. I was talking about irreligious people. In what was are they all similar and believe things that is unique to them and not informed by generally agreed upon facts.

[meatrace]

DumberOx wrote:

meatrace wrote:

If you look at all the religions of the world the majority of them aren't part of the industrialized world and the idea of human rights are foreign to them. Suggesting that that this debate is "going on in religion" is either silly or you are using the definition of religion the rest of the posters are, doctrinal, hierarchical religions in western, industrialized society.

As some of the greatest campaigners for human rights in the modern world, there are a number of churches and religious institutions who would take issue with your comment.

If you think that then you didn't understand the comment.

[DumberOx]

meatrace wrote:

DumberOx wrote:

meatrace wrote:

The only "hive mind" I see present in irreligious people is where generally agreed upon facts are involved. You know, principles of physics, evolutionary biology, gravity, that the Internet is a good thing, etc. We believe these things, overwhelmingly, because we have studied them critically. Not because the pastor said so.

You kinda lost me with that first sentence there .... the "irreligious" have a tendency to hive mind about a lot of things ... all the time ... anyone who grew up from 1969 onward should know that. Pop culture has been a skipping record of hive mind mentality about a lot of things they thought or wished were facts.

I'm not sure pop culture differentiates whose minds it affects. To say that pop culture only affects the irreligious is...a confusing statement. I was talking about irreligious people. In what was are they all similar and believe things that is unique to them and not informed by generally agreed upon facts.

No ... but faithful and religious people tend to be more resistant to the trends of hive mind beliefs in pop culture ... and sorry ... but thank God for that.

When it comes to hive minding about agreed upon facts ... well that's an iffy one. Agreed upon facts ... like ... gravity, sure ... that's not hive minding though ... that's Fact. It doesn't matter what the hive mind thinks. Evolutionary biology .... hey also Fact (and you'll find the largest contingent of Christians in the world, Catholics, recognize the Fact by the way). The Internet is a good thing ... oookay ... sure I guess in that technological progress as a rule is a good thing for society, although that should never give a carte blanche to any technological advance. Global warming .... ooooo ... that one is a bit iffier ... definitely some hive minding going on there ... but still scientific hypothesis, not fact.

[DumberOx]

meatrace wrote:

DumberOx wrote:

meatrace wrote:

If you look at all the religions of the world the majority of them aren't part of the industrialized world and the idea of human rights are foreign to them. Suggesting that that this debate is "going on in religion" is either silly or you are using the definition of religion the rest of the posters are, doctrinal, hierarchical religions in western, industrialized society.

As some of the greatest campaigners for human rights in the modern world, there are a number of churches and religious institutions who would take issue with your comment.

If you think that then you didn't understand the comment.

This I admit was a misread on my part of your statement. In my head, it meant something different than what you were saying.

[Darkwing Duck]

meatrace wrote:

religion in this sense is a web of ideas that touches on every other way people, collectively, identify themselves.

You will almost certainly hear about the parable of the Good Samaritan as part of religion. You will almost certainly hear the lesson of turning the other cheek as part of religion. This list is quite long. And, even if you don't hear about these stories in association with religion, the thing that keeps them proliferated throughout culture is religion. Even when these kinds of lessons end up taking on a life of their own (such as 'the brotherhood of man'), they almost always originated in religion.

[Paul Watson]

DumberOx.
Actually global warming, or, to use the actual scientific phrase, climate change is a fact. How much is anthropogenic is still debated, but climate change itself? That's a fact.

Oh, and if you don't like people insulting Catholics, please don't insult us in the same wy by telling us we're weak-willed and part of a pop culture hivemind, whatever that is. Glass houses and all that.

[DumberOx]

Paul Watson wrote:

DumberOx.

Actually global warming, or, to use the actual scientific phrase, climate change is a fact. How much is anthropogenic is still debated, but climate change itself? That's a fact.

Oh, and if you don't like people insulting Catholics, please don't insult us in the same wy by telling us we're weak-willed and part of a pop culture hivemind, whatever that is. Glass houses and all that.

Climate change? Yeah no argument there ... seeing as the word climate means ... change ... climate changes ... its the nature of climate.

"Us"? I'm sorry which group of people was I insulting? I thought, from the tenor of the conversation there, that calling out bigotry where it happens was what I was supposed to do. And I'm pretty sure "weak-willed" and "hivemind" was pretty much what religious people were being described as ... so very sorry that got turned around on you ... or whoever.

[Kirth Gersen]

DumberOx wrote:

seeing as the word climate means ... change ...

... the same way that the word "zebra" means "pomegranate seed" ...

[Darkwing Duck]

While the following quote is more about spirituality rather than religion, its one of my favorite.

I can remember the night that I suddenly realized what it was like to be crazy, or nights when my feelings and perceptions were of a religious nature. I had a very accurate sense that these feelings and perceptions, written down casually, would not stand the usual critical scrutiny that is my stock in trade as a scientist. If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men, I may tend to disbelieve; but when I'm high I know about this disbelief. And so I have a tape in which I exhort myself to take such remarks seriously. I say "Listen closely, you sonofab@*@& of the morning! This stuff is real! -- Carl Sagan

[A Man In Black]

meatrace wrote:

I'll just leave this here for perusal.

This seems to confirm my point that religion—not even conservative religion—isn't antithetical to reason. Fundamentalism is, but fundamentalism just wears religion as a mask.