BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them

Subject: BS: How to rule by fear - Exceute them
From: Rasener
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:11 AM

Nice one Iran. NOT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8484478.stm

People who hide behind religion to justify their actions, make me sick

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Exceute them
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:23 AM

It's people who are the problem Les, not religion. They just use religion (or, rather, their perverse interpretation of religious writing and doctrines) as justification for their obscenities. A bit like the way thugs use football as a vehicle for their thuggery (witness the Utd/City match last night - and not all of the thugs were in the crowd).
IMHO.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Exceute them
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:23 AM

Convicted and executed for being an enemy of God. Not the regime, not Islam, but GOD. Wow.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Exceute them
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:24 AM

You are both correct sirs.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Exceute them
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:25 AM

Clickie:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8484478.stm

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Exceute them
From: Rasener
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:28 AM

Yep I agree BWM and yes Bonnie - its amazing.

Thanks Bonnie. Not like me to not do the clickie.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Exceute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 07:33 AM

Regimes will use anything they've got. Religion, political credo, laws, regulations, corrupt judges, corrup police, emergency decrees, whatever.

As Backwoodsman says, it's not religion itself that is the problem. After all, virtually all of our most positive ideas about good morality, kindness, mercy, and good conduct ALSO came from religions...it's power-hungry and fear-driven people of every sort who are the problem. Not sometimes. Always. A power-hungry and fear-driven person is a dangerous person, and one who will use ANY religion, ANY body of law, or ANY non-religious political theory to murder whom they please. Atheist regimes have happily murdered millions in the name of "freedom" or "order" or some other such term, just the same as religious regimes have done in the name of "God".

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Exceute them
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 08:47 AM

If they are "enemies of god" why not leave it to him to act.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Stu
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 09:22 AM

Any state-authorised killing is murder, regardless of which state authorises it and whatever means they seek to justify their acts. All such states that sanction murder in this way are essentially bereft of any moral authority.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 09:33 AM

When you've got nothing to lose, why should you give a shit? If they're going to execute you tomorrow, why not attack the guards today?

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 10:00 AM

Good point. However, some people will clinge to even two more minutes of life rather than risk losing it in the present moment. That's probably why the executed were sometimes given a chance to smoke a last cigarette...and took it.


"If they are "enemies of god" why not leave it to him to act."

That's a splendid idea, Wolfgang! ;-) But most religious authorities get around it quite easily by stating that "we" are here to do God's will and be God's "agents", so to speak, in seeing that God's will is done. It's a very handy way of getting to do exactly what YOU wanted to do anyway, but using God's authority to justify it. What hypocrisy!

Now, in a similar fashion people will quote the authority of state law, civil law, or the orders of a superior officer to justify committing similarly inhumane acts. It's these authority systems and people's blind obedience to them that are the problem as far as I can see. The state is a distant authority. God is a more distant (and hypothetical) authority. Priests and mullahs are a nearer authority. A superior officer of any kind is a nearer authority. A boss or gang leader is a nearer authority. The question is...why the hell should we obey ANY of them if it violates our own conscience???? And why do people do that?

Because of fear? Conformity? Evasion of personal responsibility? The chance for personal gain? Sheer stupidity?

All of those, I figure, but it's all really just fear in the final analysis. People do violence to other people because they are afraid of something. If they had no fear, they would not engage in violence but would choose to live in peace with one another.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 10:11 AM

Thos who rule Islam make me sick.

Those who worship the true Islam need to get their voices out..and shout "NOT IN OUR NAME!" from every mosque in the Middle East...

Until women are treated as equals and the old fuddyduddy nutcases have finally poppled their clogs, the Middle East ain't going too far ahead, I'm afraid...

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 10:24 AM

Part of the problem with Islam is that it's a rather young religion, relatively speaking, and younger religions tend to be more doctrinaire and stricter than older religions which have gone through lengthy periods of liberalization.

On the other hand, the Islamic fundamentalists themselves do NOT represent the genuine spirit of Islam at all...though they certainly think they do. They are just as wacky as the wackier Christian fundamentalists...maybe even moreso.

The trouble with one set of old fuddyduddy nutcases is....they are usually replaced by another set of the same right around the time they die off, and you can hardly tell the difference! ;-) Thus are the sins of the fathers passed on to the sons, yea, even unto the 7th generation.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 10:32 AM

"How to rule by fear"

Umm, create a bogeyman of course!
See the 'war on terror', the cold war, and McCarthyism etc. for further details.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 11:04 AM

It is aggravating, but not surprising, when the religious apologists chime in on cases like this with "it's not religion". Sorry, but it is. These people were not executed because of their perceived hostility to broccoli, or synchronised swimming, or the novels of Ernest Hemingway.

Religions are big, baggy discourses and they can be interpreted in many ways, and they often inspire people to do great things. They also, evidently, inspire people to do appalling things.

So, please face the facts, this IS about religion.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 11:05 AM

Exactly! ;-D Hermann Goering explained all that perfectly in his famous Nuremberg commetary about how no ordinary public ever wants to go to war...and how effectively their government can go about persuading them to by creating a bogeyman. Next step after that: accuse anyone who is opposed to the war of being "unpatriotic".

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 11:19 AM

That above post was a reply to Crow Sister.

It was only superficially about religion, Smedley....like Chinese executions of dissidents are superficially about Communism...like Texan executions of prisoners are superficially about "justice".

What all of them are really about is the determination of a stiff-necked bunch of authoritarian bastards in power somewhere to have it all THEIR way at someone else's expense by excercising their privilege to kill people who don't agree with them.

Religious people are not all like that. In fact, most religious people aren't like that. Most of them don't wish to kill anyone. But what about the leaders of cruel authority systems of every kind? What about them? They have a vested interest in killing people who dissent or who present an impediment to their authority.

I am not "apologizing" for religion!!! There's nothing there to apologize FOR. I am opposing knee-jerk bigotry against entire huge sections of humanity who freely choose to believe in something you don't believe in. (and I belong to NO religion) (NOR any political party) (NOR anything collective whatsoever) I belong to the human race, and that's it, period.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 01:24 PM

It is aggravating, but not surprising, when the religious apologists chime in on cases like this with "it's not religion". Sorry, but it is. These people were not executed because of their perceived hostility to broccoli, or synchronised swimming, or the novels of Ernest Hemingway.

They were not executed because of their perceived hostility to religion, either. They were executed because they were perceived to be a threat to the regime in power, who want to remain in power. Religion only provided the pretext. In the absence of having religion to use as a pretext, another pretext would be found.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 01:39 PM

And that is exactly my point. The problem in the world is and always has been...ruthless regimes of one type or another...whether or not they were outwardly "religious" regimes. The study of history reveals plainly to me that they are all religious about something, though, including diehard atheists like Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot or pragmatic imperialists like the British, the Americans, the Germans, etc. I'll tell you what they're truly religious about. They are religious about their own exclusive monopoly on power and privilege, that's what. That is the very prosiac and commonplace "god" which they all worship and serve.

The ceremonials vary from place to place...as do the "religious" icons and symbols. In the USA, for example, those icons are things like the flag, the American Eagle, the White House, the presidency, Congress, the Statue of Liberty, the Washington monument, Mount Rushmore, etc. If you don't think it's a religion, you're not really looking at it very carefully at all. You don't need a church or a deity to have a state religion. You just need centralized dogma, rigid belief in that dogma, a hierarchical authority structure to enforce the dogma, and lots of obedient followers.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 01:59 PM

"Any state-authorised killing is murder,"
Totally agree - which puts Texas somewhere in the top ten.
"Those who rule Islam make me sick."
Clerical child abusers and those who excuse it make me sick.
All those who kill others who don't share their religious or political beliefs make me sick.
Those who slaughter and torture for oil and and power and territory and influence and wealth make me sick.
Those who send our young people to fight and die for 'god and country' make me sick.
Those who terrorise and murder pregnant women and doctors in the name of 'life' make me sick.
In fact religion and nationalism in general make me a little queasy.
Why do 'glass houses' and 'stones' spring to mind?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:12 PM

"They were not executed because of their perceived hostility to religion, either. They were executed because they were perceived to be a threat to the regime in power, who want to remain in power. Religion only provided the pretext. In the absence of having religion to use as a pretext, another pretext would be found."

Precisely, Carol.

What makes me more than a litle queasy, Jim, is the kind of bigotry that drives someone to tar millions of decent, honest, hard-working people who happen to have faith with the same brush as the minority pieces of shit who rape children under their 'protection'.

As LH and CarolC (and I) have stated - religion is a bandwagon that people jump on in order to grant themselves authority to carry out their evil-doings. It's people who are the problem, not faith or even lack of it, these things would happen even if there were no religions, the bastards would merely latch on to some other bandwagon.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:18 PM

Like rape, "religious authority" is about power.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:40 PM

All authority is about power.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:42 PM

Yup. That's why I tend to have a problem with most forms of authority. I don't enjoy being powerless. I don't think anyone does.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:52 PM

Here in the US you don't get the trial... Just the sentence...

BTW, I heard that the guy who shot the abortion doctor may just be convicted of volutary manslaughter which is about as harsh as a parking ticket...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:57 PM

Boy, they must have some damn severe parking tickets down there... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 04:01 PM

The guy who shot the abortion doctor was allowed to make a plea of voluntary manslaughter, but he can't get convicted of it under the laws in the state where the shooting took place. There is too much evidence of pre-meditation.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 04:09 PM

Than again, many of us who say that we have faith, have no faith whatsoever in authority. We don't see "authority" or "obedience" as aspects of faith at all.

It seems to me that there are two radically different types of religion. One claims to have possession of the Answers, or Truth; and also claims the authority to enforce that Truth, whatever it is. The other type of religion explores the Questions of this life, and sees Truth as something beyond us that is constantly sought and explored, but never completely found.

These two types of "religion" coexist (uneasily) within almost every religious denomination. I suppose you may wonder why denominations don't split, so there are separate churches for the "Seekers" and the "Authoritarians." Well, the Christian churches have split many times - and each new branch develops its own new Seeker and Authoritarian divisions. So, we seekers continue to hope that our Authoritarian counterparts will sometime see the light and come to understand our big Question Mark in the Sky. And the Authoritarians (Absolutists?) continue to hope that they will some day be able to bring us heretics into submission.

And the beat goes on.....


But despite the fact that I am embarrassed by the Authoritarians within my denomination, I find broad statements like "Religion makes me sick" to be profoundly offensive. I thought tolerance was supposed to be an important aspect of liberalism, but that doesn't seem to be the case here at Mudcat. Iran is a good example of religion gone haywire, but it is NOT an example of the essence of religious faith.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 05:14 PM

Joe, only I have the Truth, and that's that any human who says they have the Truth is lying.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 05:58 PM

Agreed, Rapaire.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 06:19 PM

Well, yeah, Joe...

Right here in the good ol' US of A we have both sides within the so-called Christain religion... We have alot of fundamentalists who claim to acdept Jesus as their Savior who never quite get around to, ahhhhh, the New Testament??? Like what is that all about??? They also have this view that God causes and controls everything???

Then we have folks who seem to have more interest in the New Testamant and less in the Old Testament who believe that God is all loving and not to be feared and is out to try to make stuff work out for the good in our lives.... These folks love to quote the New Testament and talk about the teachings of Jesus...

Seems that the folks who are so into going off to invade and kill people in other countries are the fundamentalists and the peacefull people are the ones who are into the New Testament...

Maybe a little over-simplified but, hey, that's the way I see it...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 06:30 PM

I doubt that 'TRUTH' is the possession of any one religion. Few religions can claim to be clean of murder/mayhem/nastiness/idolatry/wars of empire--read minds and souls. Interpretations of 'holy books' have caused many to die unnecessarily. It is not the domain of any single faith. OR all the members OF that faith.

'God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son."
Abe said "Man, you must be puttin' me on!"
God said, "Whoa." Abe said "What?"
God said "You can do anything you want,
But the next time you see me comin' you better run."
Abe says "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."'

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 07:27 PM

I don't know about the "new religion" excuse for Islam -- Islam went through long spells, over 500 and maybe as long as 1000 -- where it was the sole religion in charge of a good chunk of the middle east, and it was open and expansive, and invited innovations and science and math and the arts. The real ugliness didn't start until the Ottoman Empire fell at the end of the First World War. The openness and expansiveness came to a juddering halt and the teeth came out and the claws from the velvet. I don't know why that should be; but it's not because the religion suddenly got "young" again.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 08:05 PM

I must agree wholeheartedly with what Joe says just above. And I, too, find that those who say things like "religion makes me sick" or want to blame all the world's problems on religion to be offensive in their willingness, sometimes eagerness, to be offensive. That viewpoint is extremely narrow-minded, and springs from emotional reactions rather than any (as they always claim) really well thought out rational base.

The church I frequently attend (Seattle's Central Lutheran Church) has been fortunate in the pastors it has had over the decades. I have never met one who was of an authoritative nature. In fact, our current pastor (who is resigning to leave with her new husband for a post back East—and I sincerely hope we can get a new one who is as good) once held up a copy of the Bible and said firmly, "This is not the Boy Scout Manual. It is not full of answers. It is full of questions!"

Those who try to base their power and authority on religion more than amply demonstrate that they really haven't a clue as to what real religious belief is all about.

And that especially includes our better known "electric" preachers like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, et al.

I have talked to Muslims who despair over the way the media talks only about the wild-eyed fanatics of their religion, giving a grossly distorted idea of what the belief is all about. And I can most certainly empathize with that despair.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 08:18 PM

My dictionary (Merriam Webster) gives this as one of the definitions of prejudice:

An irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics.

Generally, when you take an entire class of people and ascribe the actions of a few members to the entire group, that's prejudice. It seems that sort of prejudice is the "religion" of several people here at Mudcat. They're just as self-righteous about their prejudice, as the worst of the religious people they condemn.

You want a list of prejudiced statements, just from this thread? Here are a few:

• Religion makes me sick (later changed at the poster's request to: People who hide behind religion to justify their actions, make me sick)
  
• It is aggravating, but not surprising, when the religious apologists chime in on cases like this with "it's not religion". Sorry, but it is. These people were not executed because of their perceived hostility to broccoli, or synchronised swimming, or the novels of Ernest Hemingway.
     Yeah, OK, it's about religion - but what we object to, is the implication that it's about ALL religion. We are religious people, and believe it or not, we're not like that at all.
  
• Those who rule Islam make me sick.
  Those who worship the true Islam need to get their voices out..and shout "NOT IN OUR NAME!" from every mosque in the Middle East...
     Fact of the matter is, many Muslim leaders and many Muslims have made all sorts of efforts to do just this - check out Websites like http://islam101.net/

Those of us at Mudcat who are religious, have made no attempt to deny the wrongdoing of religious groups, including our own. What we object to, are the wide-sweeping generalizations that condemn all religion so frequently here. There is prejudice here at Mudcat - lots of it - and it disgusts me.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:45 AM

The real ugliness didn't start until the Ottoman Empire fell at the end of the First World War. The openness and expansiveness came to a juddering halt and the teeth came out and the claws from the velvet. I don't know why that should be; but it's not because the religion suddenly got "young" again.

One word for you, Mousethief - oil.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:49 AM

The Ottoman Turks were relatively benign landlords over their Arab territories. After the end of the Ottoman Empire, "enlightened" Europeans took over, and they had no understanding of Arab religion, thinking, and culture. And they wanted Arab oil.
No wonder there were problems.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:51 AM

OK I will hold my hands up and admit to making an on the spur comment that if I was able to edit my post would have been edited as soon as I realised what I had typed.

On reflection the comment was meant to be

"People who hide behind religion to justify their actions, makes me sick"

So sincere apologies to anybody who was offended by my original statement.

Backwoodsman wrote
Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Exceute them
From: Backwoodsman - PM
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:23 AM

It's people who are the problem Les, not religion. They just use religion (or, rather, their perverse interpretation of religious writing and doctrines) as justification for their obscenities. A bit like the way thugs use football as a vehicle for their thuggery (witness the Utd/City match last night - and not all of the thugs were in the crowd).
IMHO.

And I responded with
Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Exceute them
From: The Villan - PM
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 03:28 AM

Yep I agree BWM and yes Bonnie - its amazing.

Thanks Bonnie. Not like me to not do the clickie.

In hindsight, I should have posted with a correction to my original statement. I didn't, so very sorry.

Sincerly Les Worrall

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:54 AM

Ah I see Joe has responded to my request to alter my comment in the first post.
Many thanks Joe

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:11 AM

Not only did the "enlightened" Europeans not have any understanding of Arab religion, thinking, and culture - they were too racist to care.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:29 AM

Now, if you'd like a more positive view of Islam, take a listen to some of the lectures of Imam M. A. Azeez of Sacramento. He's funny, wise, and very interesting - and when you meet him in person, you're immediately impressed by his honesty and lack of pretentiousness.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:34 AM

Because I said this:

"It is aggravating, but not surprising, when the religious apologists chime in on cases like this with "it's not religion". Sorry, but it is. These people were not executed because of their perceived hostility to broccoli, or synchronised swimming, or the novels of Ernest Hemingway."

Joe O lumps me in with the more virulent anti-religious poosters, and replies with this:
   
"Yeah, OK, it's about religion - but what we object to, is the implication that it's about ALL religion. We are religious people, and believe it or not, we're not like that at all."


But in my post, I *also* said this:

"Religions are big, baggy discourses and they can be interpreted in many ways, and they often inspire people to do great things. They also, evidently, inspire people to do appalling things."

So I'd prefer not to be tarnished by selective quotation (although selective quotation from religious texts is a frequent device beloved by hard-core zealots - a category to which Joe does not belong, but you get my point, I hope).

The point I war aiming to make was those the in relgious lobby (or lobbies) can't have it both ways. You can't say religion causes great good, but when it leads to great harm, it's only a 'pretext' or some such phrase. If it's just a pretext in the bad cass, it's just a pretext in the good cases.

My favourite painter ever is El Greco, and I don't doubt for one second that the driving force of his astonishing art was a profound and sincere religious faith.

At the same time in the same place (17th century Spain), the Inquisition were torturing, mutilating and slaughtering their victims, motivated by the self-same intensely-held faith.

You just can't play the 'it's a prextext if we don't like the outcome' card. It just shows, as I said in my first post, that religious faith drives people in both hugely laudable and utterly despicable directions (stopping offand of course at various along the spectrum in between).

So I suggest to those of you 'with faith' that you don't pick fights which those of us who are contented non-believers, but with those who (in your eyes) mangle and misinterpret and discredit your system of belief.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:38 AM

Lots of typos in that post - sorry ! It's 7.30 AM here & I've just got up!!

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 04:54 AM

Sorry, Smedley, but you're still wrong. Yeah, you put a weakly mitigating statement later in your post, but your criticism of "religious apologists" here was just wrong.

The "religious apologists" were rightly reacting against a statement in the first post, "Religion makes me sick." The original poster retracted his statement and apologized, but the "religious apologists" were certainly right to object. Nobody here supports the execution of the dissidents, and nobody denies that the tyrannical leaders of Iran are also religious leaders - but we certainly do object to putting blame on "religion" in general.

Our complaint is about putting the blame on an entire class of people, rather than on the individuals who were actually responsible.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:33 AM

I know what your complaint is, but you're still lumping me in with the 'religion makes me sick' posse. And that is simply not what I said. So I'd appreciate it if you weren't so sweeping in your grouping together of people's opinions - isn't that kind of what you're complaining about the 'opposition' doing ?

If my more qualified and measured points seem to you to operate 'weakly', then we will obviously have to agree to disagree.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 08:39 AM

Rapaire - (28 Jan 10 - 09:33 AM)

When you've got nothing to lose, why should you give a shit? If they're going to execute you tomorrow, why not attack the guards today?


Well this guy seems to have had the answer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Godwin_RNVR

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 07:02 PM

"The point I war aiming to make was those the in relgious lobby (or lobbies) can't have it both ways. You can't say religion causes great good, but when it leads to great harm, it's only a 'pretext' or some such phrase. If it's just a pretext in the bad cass, it's just a pretext in the good cases."

Smedley, maybe you'd better take another look at that. I presume that, since I spoke out against the original anti-religious statement, you consider me to be in the "religious lobby." But once again, you are lumping all those who ascribe to a religious belief as being of one mind. And, believe me, if you really know anything about the history of Christianity—or just about any other religion—you would know that is not the case at all.

Not all Catholics agree. Nor to all Lutherans, or Methodists, or Episcopalians, or (name a religion). Why do you think there are so many different Christian denominations? Disagreements over any of a number of things, leading to schisms.

At one time, very early on (around halfway through the second century), before the Catholic church really took shape as an entity (doing its darnedest to be monolithic, but never quite making it, not even now), there were some eighty-two "bishops," each claiming to be descended from one of the original twelve Apostles, rarely agreeing with each other on much of anything, and "excommunication" each other right, left, and center! It wasn't until the Emperor Constantine and the conference that produced the Nicene Creed that there was anything resembling cohesion in the Christian church. And that didn't last long!!!

I've forgotten the exact number, but there are currently something like 150 different denominations, all of whom consider themselves to be Christians and most of them have some mutually contradictory beliefs. They range from so liberal that some say "It's hardly worth belonging to a church at all!" to extremely rigid and fundamentalist, trying to dominate every aspect of their parishioners' lives, and, frankly, wanting to take over the government as well (thank God for the First Amendment!!)!

And the same holds true for Muslims. Why do you think there are Shi-ites, Sunnis, Taliban, etc? Differences of opinion leading to schisms. Breaking off and gathering around a different emphasis or interpretation of belief.

Some just leave you along and welcome you to their churches and mosques if you feel so inclined. Others want to kill you if you don't believe as they do.

Don't try to cram everyone into the same pigeonhole. In addition to it being unjust, it's unrealistic.

Don Firth

P. S. For comparisons, let me refer you to the threads having to do with Uganda's death penalties for homosexuals and the gay marriage debate on the Prop. 8 thread, and the many statements of some, saying or implying "All gays are—(fill in your own negative)."

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 07:25 PM

To imagine that someone who objects to knee-jerk expressions of anti-religious bigotry is part of some "religious lobby" is ridiculous. You don't have to belong to ANY religion or religious lobby to have an objection to people expressing rank bigotry against other people merely because they belong to some religion.

I object to bigotry against atheists. I object to bigotry against people of faith. They both have a right to their own beliefs and ideas. I object to bigotry, period. Does that make it clear? Bigotry is simply extreme intolerance. It is the automatic assumption that "I am better than them. My way is right. Theirs is wrong!"

Your way is right for you...for the time being. Their way is right for them...for the time being. When conditions change, you may change. They may change. And the world will always be that way. It will always be filled with a variety of dramatically different ways and ideas. You won't get to make it all YOUR way, and thank something (God or at least good fortune) for that.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 01:31 AM

I think I'd say that religion is ethically neutral. It's people who do good deeds, and it's people to who commit atrocities. But to indicate that religious people are either likely or unlikely to commit misdeeds because of their religion, is just wrong. If they don't use religion as their excuse for doing right or wrong, they'll invent another reason. But the real reason is that they've chosen to do what they've done, by free choice (albeit under the influence of myriad factors).

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Abdul The Bul Bul
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:00 AM

How about this one?
Dubai

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:35 AM

Abdul, I don't see how that relates to the opening post.

I would think that the rape and murder of a four-year-old should carry the maximum penalty the law allows. And if that's capital punishment in Dubai, well. . . .

I am opposed to capital punishment in general, but I think that the perpetrator of such a heinous crime has, essentially, resigned from the human race and should, at the very least, be isolated and restrained. Life in prision at minimum.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:49 AM

People seem very keen to jump on my phrasing but ignore what I'm saying. So you don't like the my phrase 'religious lobby' ? Then look at the oarenthesis immediately after it: '(or lobbies)'. I am not lumping together all people who display religious faith.

I am not unaware of doctrinal differences (and it is, quite frankly, insultingly patronising to suggest I am). I'm British, I grew up seeing people in Northern Ireland kill each other on the grounds of (among other things) SECTarian (emphasis intentional) differences. I watch the News, I;ve seen the results of religious conflicts in the Middle East. I know that Faction X in the Anglican chuch is fighting Faction Y over women bishops and homosexual rights. Religious people seem almost addicted to combating the views of other religious people. Looking in from outside, it seems to come with the territory.

As for saying it's 'people' that do things - well no kidding. And from my atheist standpoint, religions are also made by people. To imagine that religions exist outside of their practitioners and consumers and enthusiasts seems very bizarre to me.

And how on earth can religion be "ethically neutral" when religions are so centrally concerned with providing ethical frameworks for their followers (less kind version: telling people how to live). Was the sermon on the mount ethically neutral????? How about all that 'thou shalt not...." stuff ? And the Koran ? 'Ethically neutral' would not be the first description to leap to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Uncle Rumpo
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:52 AM

I'm not a religious person.
I could take an appallingly bad persons life away from them
if it was a last resort solution to prevent them
committing further worse anti social crimes.


Not a difficult conclusion to come to.


really that simple.

I'd prefere not to.

But if I had to I could.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 11:33 AM

There are certain religious lobbies and religious fanatics, Smedley, and some of them do much harm. Granted. If that's what you're saying, then I have no problem with it.

There are also industrial, political, and financial lobbies of a non-religious nature which do much harm, needless to say.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 12:18 PM

"Our complaint is about putting the blame on an entire class of people,"
Religion isn't a 'class' Joe - it's a group of people within a society who adhere to a doctrine of superstion or other non-rational belief.
"industrial, political, and financial lobbies...."
All of which are tangible and opposable - religion messes with your mind and uses spiritual blackmail to do so.
Christianity has been responsible for many horrific crimes, from child rape (quite recently on a huge scale) to mass murder - don't make this just a Muslim thing.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 12:32 PM

Religion messes with your mind and uses spiritual blackmail to do so - or so says Jim Carroll.
Jim, do you have any rational proof of the universality of this statement?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 12:53 PM

Religion messes with SOME minds of people in all religion. We saw that with Moonies, Pat Robertson's followers (hell, Pat Robertson himself)! For some folks it doesn't take brainwashing--a light rinse would do.

But to suggest or state that religion messes up the minds of all people involved in religion is a foolish statement, and a moment's reflection would demonstrate that clearly.

It is disappointing to see usually erudite and logical thinkers descend to that depth. It ain't the "Limbo Rock"--it ain't about "how low can you go" IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 01:43 PM

It's called 'bigotry'.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:12 PM

"Jim, do you have any rational proof of the universality of this statement?"
You mean apart from a church that can promote abstinence and produce one of the largest and most organised paedophile rings?
Or an organisation which can boast "Give me a child of five and I will give you a catholic for life."
(Christian Brothers)
Sounds like brainwashing to me.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 04:29 PM

There is some brainwashing in most large religious organizations, most governments, most corporate businesses, most schools and most large organizations of all kinds.

If that's the only part you can focus on, though, Jim, it seems to me you're determined to see only the bad part in things. It's the "glass is totally empty" point of view you appear to be espousing when it comes to religion.

Have you ever studied the positive philosophical concepts which are the driving force and main origin of all the great religions? Concepts such as...

- moderation in most things is a healthy practice
- non-violence improves human relations
- generosity is more beneficial than greed
- love casts out fear
- truthfullness is more beneficial than lying
- you should not take things that don't belong to you
- you should share with others
- best to respect others and then they will probably respect you
- anger consumes the vessel that contains it
- bitterness is an unproductive emotion
- your addictions lead you further into alienation
- peace is found within rather than by accumulating possessions
- you should treat others with kindness, not cruelty or disregard
- you can't judge anyone until you have experienced what he has
- all people have intrinsic worth, even if they're different from you
- we are all of one human family
- all life is sacred in its own way

Etc...

You should try studying those things. Study yoga or Buddhism or Taoism...(there's no God being in those at all). Focus on something good for a change rather than just on the various bad things that have been done here and there by various people because they chose to misuse a religion for their own immediate gain.

Let's see if you are capable of singing a tune which has more in it than only a single note...

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 05:35 PM

Jim, there's no doubt that such things happen in churches - and in just about every organization you can think of. And those things are wrong - no question there, either. I do my best to make sure those things don't happen within my sphere of influence, which is quite strong within one parish and fair to moderate within one diocese (because I join with like-minded people in the diocese to ensure that problems are controlled). And within my parish and my diocese, things are generally pretty good.

Some people are sheep - maybe it's better to say that many people are sheep. And where there are sheep, there will most always be a wolf waiting to take advantage of them. If it isn't somebody in a church, it will be a Murdoch publication or FoxNews or the like - or maybe even a Mudcat troll.

Shit happens, Jim. If you take away the place where it happens, it will happen somewhere else. You need to target the people who are actually causing the wrongdoing. You're right in saying that bad things happen in churches - but good things happen in churches, too. The institution of "church," as I said before, is ethically neutral. It's people who do bad and good things.

So, I must conclude that you have failed to prove either the universality or the rationality of your statement, "Religion messes with your mind and uses spiritual blackmail to do so". Sorry, but I've been a church member all my life, and have experienced little or no mind-messing or blackmail. I've seen it happen, but not very often.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 05:43 PM

Well said, Little Hawk!!

####

Smedley, referring to your post of 30 Jan 10 - 02:49 a.m., please forgive me if I assumed you were not fully cognizant of the history of religions or of the extent of doctrinal decisions. What you posted—very similar in tone to the previous knee-jerk anti-religion posts—led me to believe that was the case.

On the one hand, many people seem to assume that "religion" is a monolithic body of belief and summarily dismiss all of it. Oddly enough, the very same people will point to religious people with contempt and say, "See? They can't agree about anything!" Well—you can't have it both ways.

In the meantime, there is a large number of churches—of a number of different denominations—who set their differences aside and cooperate ecumenically and do a tremendous about of good in the world, more often than not filling in holes in what might be called the "social safety net."

At least, that's the case in the United States.

Several of the churches (not all the same denomination) in my neighborhood cooperate to make sure that the unemployed and homeless in the area have somewhere to go to get a good, nutritious meal every day (usually within a church's facilities and manned by volunteers from the congregation—and no, they do not have to pay for the meal by listening to a sermon!), and the church to which I belong, in addition to participating in this program, is deeply involved in finding low-cost housing for low income people or temporary no-cost housing for people who would otherwise have to sleep on the streets. And that's only a part of what they do.

When aspects of religion make the news media, it's usually to report something highly outrageous (and patently un-Christian) such as pompous pronouncements by self-ordained demagogues like Pat Roberson or Jerry Falwell. Such as Robertson's recent remark about how the Haitian earthquake was God's punishment visited on Haitians because they practice voodoo!!!

Idiot!!

Nevertheless, this is the kind of stuff that makes the news. And an amazingly large number of people who have no religious affiliation assume that this sort of mean-spirited stupidity reflects the beliefs of all Christians (I would question whether people like Robertson can honestly call themselves "Christian" at all). The same way so many people seem to assume that every Muslim is automatically a terrorist. I know a fair number of Muslims (a fellow named Moustafa lives in the same building I do)—peaceful, kind-hearted people, like most of the Christians I know—and they despair over the negative beliefs that so many people have about them.

Due to ignorance.

So please forgive me if I have knee-jerk reactions of my own from time to time. But most of the time, my "knee-jerk reaction" happens to be highly appropriate to what I am reacting to.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 01:03 AM

That should read ". . . the extent of doctrinal devisions," not "decisions."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: wysiwyg
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 01:36 AM

I find I must, again, offer an alternative view. Springs from Anglicanism, about authority.

In the original languages, what MOST people object to in the Bible about "authority" are very different concepts from what we, now-so-PC, understand under several LATER languages (and cultures) as "Bad Authority."

To simplify (which is very NON-Anglican and for which I will take a lotta heat in various quarters):

"GOOD Authority" is authority ceded by free (non-coerced) choice, by a strong person, within a concept called "right relationship," to a power the person acknowledges to be a higher power. Not necessarily "higher" in terms of more-power, but power of a higher SORT than that power which the person has for one's own.

Like a 220 line is a higher-order power than 110, OK, that is higher in more-power terms, and is sorta going to seem to behave in a different way than 110 the minute you put it to work. But more importantly, electric power is a different SORT of power than human-muscle power, and you want to be in right relationship to both 110 AND 220: a mistake with one will get you a strong tingle, but a mistake with other will get you t'rowed across the room.

"Power" and "Authority" are not at ALL the same things, and they can be Good, or Bad or-- even-- [gasp] BENIGN!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 01:56 AM

"Christianity has been responsible for many horrific crimes, from child rape (quite recently on a huge scale) to mass murder - don't make this just a Muslim thing"

And what about the many horrific crimes committed by Aetheist regimes? We all read Sozhenitsyn et al back in the 70's, remember the Gulags and the hundreds of thousands who never came back, or the thousands upon thousands of slaves who died building The Road Of Bones and still lie beneath it?

Don't make this just a Christian and Muslim thing.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:05 AM

That point is often made, but those awful regimes never did what they did **in the name of** atheism. They used the excuse of particular ideological expediencies.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Neil D
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:11 AM

I think I'd say that religion is ethically neutral. It's people who do good deeds, and it's people to who commit atrocities. But to indicate that religious people are either likely or unlikely to commit misdeeds because of their religion, is just wrong. If they don't use religion as their excuse for doing right or wrong, they'll invent another reason. But the real reason is that they've chosen to do what they've done, by free choice (albeit under the influence of myriad factors).

-Joe-

    I respectfully disagree. People like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Major Malik Nadal Hasan probably do fit that pattern, alienated misfits who have been seduced by cycnical ideologues into using religion as a rationalization for their desperate actions. On the other hand I have no doubt that the men who flew planes into buildings did so purely out of the awesome strength of their faith and would never have done such for any other reason. I'm NOT laying this on the head of all Islam or attacking religion in general. I feel that the good and ill done in the name of religion are in near equal proportion, close enough for argument sake to being impact, if not ethically, neutral. But surely, those 19 men DID commit misdeeds because of their religion. Great faith untempered by liberality scares the hell out of me.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:49 AM

"That point is often made, but those awful regimes never did what they did **in the name of** atheism. They used the excuse of particular ideological expediencies"

They (the 'leaders' within those regimes) did what they did by the abuse of the power and authority which their positions within those ideologies bestowed upon them. No more, no less. The communist ideology is ostensibly and of itself a fair and just system. But it ignores the effect of human nature - that there are individuals who will always seek to achieve their own personal ends irrespective of any negative effect that has on others. That's the point. And those kinds of individuals exist within pretty much all ideologies and philosophical groupings.

It's not the philosophies or ideologies that are at fault, it's the minority of utter bastards who use those frameworks to achieve their own ends, whether it be controlling millions of people to the point of virtual slavery, or bumming choirboys.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:57 AM

Well, Neil-
I'd say that many (probably most) suicide bombers fit into the "sheep" category - in thrall of an ideology. That ideology may be religious or non-religious, it really doesn't matter. And still, it comes down to people - those who give the orders, and those who obey.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 03:46 AM

Spot on Joe.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 04:26 AM

"Don't make this just a Christian and Muslim thing."
I don't, I hate and fear all murderous fanatics, whether they do it for politics, oil or their particular make of god.
"never did what they did **in the name of** atheism."
Exactly right.
"Shit happens, Jim."
It doesn't JUST happen Joe; it happens because intolerance creats the circumstances for it to be allowed to happen, and the church - any church, should never be allowed to say that it was nothing to do with them. There are already far too many tangibles; money, power, territory.... which cause suffering and killing without throwing ghosts and bogies into the argument to confuse things even more.
Clerical child abuse happened because the church heirarchy either participated or looked the other way. Now an unrepentant and unapologetic church is fighting to be left in control of schools so they can continue to manipulate the minds of the very children they abused.
This argument is about religion - pure and simple; how did it go "Let he who is without sin.....!".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Pastinaken
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 06:34 AM

The bottom line is that All religions consider that believing in things - Gods, angels, miracles, reincarnation - without empirical evidence is a good thing - they call it faith and generally prize it as a high virtue, if not THE highest virtue.

One could hardly ask for a better recipe for trouble.

This is why it is reasonable and unbigoted to say 'religion makes me sick' as long is is made quite clear that not all religious believers make one sick! That would be bigotry.

The only reason that Christianity isn't as dangerous as Islam - and a brief look at America's record in the Middle East makes one wonder about that - is that secularism has largely drawn its teeth - not from any intrinsic virtue in Christianity itself. Islam lacks an Enlightenment.

I must say that I am amused and a little irritated by those on this thread who take the virtues common to all humankind and decide that they are 'religious' virtues. They are not. They are the evolved survival strategies of a social species that inevitably embed themselves - alas all to imperfectly - into the human artefact that is religion.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:14 AM

That's an exceedingly crisp and pertient post, Pastinaken. it will be interesting to see how the [please insert collective term for people with significant adherences to a religion, as when I try to do this succinctly I get clobbered] respond to your points.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:35 AM

Agreed, Smedley. I think the term you seek is simply "The Faithful" {note quotes & caps} — a designation to which I can't see they themselves could take any exception, while signalling to the rest of us the precise form of the irrationality with which we are required to deal.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:44 AM

"That's an exceedingly crisp and pertient post, Pastinaken."
Seconded
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:45 AM

It's turning out to be a good day for smart and snappy scepticism!

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 12:07 PM

The main and most important theme of all great religions, my friends, is not believing in something for which there is no physical evidence....but putting together a positive and rational philosophy for dealing effectively with human life, oneself, the world, and other people and lifeforms. It's about being in relationship and governing your own consciousness...2 things which are absolutely real and which we all experience. It's about handling one's relationships and one's consciousness in the most postive, harmonious, and beneficial ways one can. That is the crux of religion.

That is what interests me about all religions, and that's why I've studied them...not to worship a "God", but to learn more about myself and about life. The other stuff which can't be proved "empirically" (because it isn't physical...such as gods, angles, reincarnation, etc) is interesting in its own right, but it's a side issue to the main issue which is learning how to live a good and happy live as a human being.

The stuff which isn't physical cannot be proven or disproven...it can only be personally experienced....same as your own thoughts, dreams, and feelings can only be personally experienced. That doesn't mean your own thoughts, dreams, and feelings aren't real. You know they're real, because you experience them intimately. No one else can quantify them or subject them to empirical analysis, but they are of direct interest to you. And that's as it should be.

The reasons for your hostility to religion are obvious, and quite understandable, but I think you're focusing on a side issue...not on the main ground of religion.

You're fixating on a specific belief someone else has which you don't have, and objecting to it. That's a waste of time. Everyone in the world believes some things you don't believe. That's life. Just focus on what you believe, enjoy it, make good use of it, and accept that other people are different from you...and that's okay.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 12:32 PM

Pardon the typos. Should have been "angels" not "angles", and there were a couple of others too.

You know, guys, it looks to me like you're proceeding from a negative viewpoint, and that just doesn't lead to any kind of good place. You seem to want to have an "enemy" to hurl invective at...that enemy being "religion". This doesn't strike me as any more helpful than some wacky evangelist raving on about how everyone who doesn't belong to his form of belief is going to go to hell.

The same impulse drives all people who look for enemies, in my opinion, and it's not a nice impulse. It's based on some kind of fear...or some kind of desire to dominate others. It's a dangerous impulse in both the overtly religious (some of them) and the overtly atheistic or non-religious (some of them).

Why not look into the positive aspects of other people's beliefs instead? There are both good and bad aspects to most religions, good and bad practices, and that depends on how the people in those religions decide to apply them. And that is all there is to it. I could say exactly the same thing about politics, science, technology, banking, industrialization or any other large realm of human thought and activity.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 12:47 PM

A couple more thoughts here. People thirst for meaning. Everyone does. From the time you are born you begin to search for meaning in your life. At first it is found in a very small radius...mostly relating to your mother, father, and your family surrounding. From those you derive a sense of meaning that is absolutely precious and vital to your sense of yourself.

Later it starts spreading out to a wider radius. You being to find meaning in neighbours, friends, people you meet at school, and so on. It's mostly a case of relationship on one level or another.

You begin to wonder what your life is about? What is its purpose? You have to find a purpose of some kind in order to have some sense of direction. Some people just settle for satisfying immediate appetites...as an animal would. But for many people, that's not enough. They look further. They look into greater ethical questions and more extended forms of relationship...with other people, with nature, with animals, with society, with the planet.

It is primarily out of people's burning need to find meaning and purpose in their lives...and an explanation OF their lives...that all the great religions and rational philosophies have arisen, as have our various ideas about basic ethics. That search is what has ennobled people, raised them above mere brute survival, and created great art and culture and magnificent creativity of every kind.

Why not focus on that instead? Focus on the positives instead of bitching about the fact that some people believe in angels or in a "god" or in reincarnation, and you don't? ;-) No one said you had to! (At least I sure didn't.)

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: wysiwyg
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 12:50 PM

Well, I think the lack of response to my earlier post indicates that either people read it and agree with me, and thus drop out of the thread, or else they disregard it for whatever reason and then keep shooting arrows around it for whatever reason. It was positive, it gave a starting point for commonality, and it offered non-spirituality-type language to grab hold of huger concepts that often run off the shared-language track.

Or it could just be that this thread is mostly a place for men to hold a perpetual pissing contest.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 03:45 PM

You know, I thump on Little Hawk's head on some of the political-type threads for what I would consider a kind of debilitating cynicism about who controls what and what can be done about it, but on THIS matter, he is spot on! As is (not surprising, considering who she is in real life) Susan.

There is a lot of evil done in the world in the name of religion. Which is to say that the evil-doers need an excuse for their skullduggery, so they fasten onto some "higher authority" in order to absolve themselves from the evil they do. Very often, that "higher authority" is religion.

But—examine the core religious doctrines themselves. In Christianity, that would be what Jesus said, which you can easily find in a good red-letter edition of the Bible, NOT what Pat Robertson says He said! Nor, for that matter, what Paul said He said.

Paul was a stiff-lipped and humorless bloke at the best of times, and my personal opinion is that all too many of the more fundamentalist Christian churches tend to emphasize Paul's writings over what Jesus taught. Obviously, I don't consider everything in the Bible to be "the infallible Word of God," and I'm willing to debate that with anyone any day of the week!

And the same holds true in the Muslim world. I am not all that familiar with the Koran, but I have had Muslim friends tell me that, although there are definite differences between Islam and Christianity, the core beliefs are very similar. In modern times, the controversial concept of Jihad is primarily based on wanting to drive colonialists out of historical Islamic lands rather than to wage wars of aggression (i.e., not really into "turn the other cheek."). Although some Muslims have construed it otherwise.

Maybe someone can explain the moral differences between a "Jihad" and a "Crusade." If any.

As to the matter of "All religions consider that believing in things - Gods, angels, miracles, reincarnation - without empirical evidence is a good thing," this is an oversimplified idea of what's really going on. Granted, there are those who believe in an actual, physical, anthropomorphic God—a fearsome father-figure with a full beard and dressed in something like a toga, who lives on Arturus 12, who keeps precise ledgers of everyone's sins, marks the fall of every sparrow, and hurls lightning bolts at anyone who pisses Him off. Or in beings with wings and halos called "angels."

When I was a wee sprat (maybe eight years old), I asked my mother about angels. What are they, really? I think she gave me an excellent answer. She said, "Angels are good thoughts. When you get a really good idea, or suddenly think of something nice that you can do for someone, that's an angel. We think of them as having wings because they can fly in at any time and we don't know where they come from."

That gave me a clue to work on. Later on, that was solidly delineated by the writings of people such as Joseph Campbell (The Masks of God, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, others, in addition to the excellent PBS series, "The Power of Myth," with Bill Moyers).

As Campbell explains, it is a mistake to believe that because something is a myth, it is, therefore, false. A myth may not be literally true. But it often is true in a much broader, metaphorical sense.

Campbell said that where religious folks often go off the rails is when they believe—and insist that others believe—that a metaphor is an actual, historical fact.

Without going into a Masters' Thesis dissertation on the subject, there may not be physical entities such as gods, angels, and devils, nor geographical locations (Terra Incognita. Here be Dragons!) such as Heaven and Hell, but they do exist as concepts. At one point, Jesus says that those who treat others badly or who ignore the needs of others may just as well be relegated to "Gehennah," which was an actual location to the southwest of Jerusalem. It was a garbage dump, and also where what sewers Jerusalem did have at the time emptied. In other words, Jesus wasn't saying that they would burn in Hell for eternity, He was saying that such people were—essentially—a waste. No good to themselves or anyone else.

A bit harsh, perhaps, but not everything that the gentle Jesus said was full of sweetness and light.

As to Heaven and Hell:   What have you done in your life that, after you have fallen off the twig, will be remembered by others? Or what kind of legacy have you left in terms of being a benevolent influence on others—or the world in general? What have you done in your life that will live on after you, rippling into the future, even when your name is forgotten?

Isn't that a kind of "afterlife?" And wouldn't the way in which you are remembered, for good or ill, be a sort of heaven or hell?

Metaphor!

'Nuff said!

Thus endeth the sermon for today.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Pastinaken
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 11:29 PM

I must say what Little Hawk considers 'religion' is very benign and harmless - I've no problem with it at all.

However he must admit that most mainstream religious believers across the board would consider him eccentric (at best) for considering that faith in supernatural beings is not central to religion!

Would that his gentle viewpoint was truly typical of religion. But it isn't, and I respectfully think that it should more properly be filed under 'philosophy of life' - and a very good one at that.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Neil D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 12:04 AM

But to indicate that religious people are either likely or unlikely to commit misdeeds because of their religion, is just wrong.

I'd say that many (probably most) suicide bombers fit into the "sheep" category - in thrall of an ideology.

   
    It seems to me that these are contradictory statements, unless you don't think religion is an ideology.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 01:32 AM

Well, here's the definition of ideology from the Random House Dictionary:

1. the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.
2. such a body of doctrine, myth, etc., with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation.
3. Philosophy.
a. the study of the nature and origin of ideas.
b. a system that derives ideas exclusively from sensation.
4. theorizing of a visionary or impractical nature.

I would say that in common usage, "ideology" usually has a more negative implication. If you take this definition, then it would seem that almost everyone has some sort of ideology.
Whatever the case, the "sheep" are the ones likely to be in thrall of an ideology [religious or nonreligious], while more independent thinkers tend to pick and choose - and there are plenty of independent thinkers in religious denominations.
Yeah, I accept (generally) the body of doctrine of my Catholic Church, including the Scripture stories (liberally) - Catholic teaching is a rich part of my life. However, I don't think it has motivated me to do anything bad - I go in for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and stuff. Not as dramatic as suicide bombing, and hardly something anyone would consider offensive. Actually, I live in serious right-wing territory, and we DO get strong objections to our attempts to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. If my efforts are offensive, I offer no apology.
I believe in God, and I make no apology for that, either. I wouldn't define God, though. I think I like the practice of Orthodox Christianity, of using contradictions to define God. But for me, God is somehow wound up with all goodness and love and peace, and the innate unity and interdependence of all that exists. I can't really say I have much faith in absolutes - my beliefs in social justice and love and peace are about the closest I come to absolutes.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 11:23 AM

Hi, Pastinaken.

I'll comment some on your last post.

However he must admit that most mainstream religious believers across the board would consider him eccentric (at best) for considering that faith in supernatural beings is not central to religion!

Perhaps. Most religious AND non-religious people might think me "eccentric" in some sense or another, because I am kind of a nonconformist to a lot of common approaches in people's ideologies. As Joe mentioned, virtually everyone has an ideology. That is, they have some kind of philosophy, some set of assumptions they're acquired from the human culture around them, and their thoughts and actions are based on their ideology. Most people's ideologies are, in my opinion, silly and unrealistic in some areas...but then, they might think the same about me. ;-) That's the way it goes. I tend to question almost everything, take another look at it, and see if I think it's valid. Many people never question their basic ideological assumptions, because it would scare them to do that. Fanatics, whether they are religious or political fanatics, are people who absolutely refuse to even consider questioning the basic points of their ideology. They think they KNOW. That's a dangerous attitude, and it leads to extremism and intolerance.

I don't think anyone is in a position to say they KNOW something for an absolute certainty unless they have experienced it in the most direct way. Then they have something to go on. If they haven't experience it directly, then they are just making an assumption based on what they heard someone else say. Thus the "sheep" are led down the garden path by political and scientific and religious authorities. Those authorities might be right in what they say. They might be wrong. They might be partly right and partly wrong. But the "sheep" are the people who always assume that the authorities are entirely correct in what they're saying. I assume no such thing.

I consider each idea on a scale of probability...but keep in mind that I don't know for sure until I've experienced it directly. Some things are far more likely than others.

Would that his gentle viewpoint was truly typical of religion. But it isn't, and I respectfully think that it should more properly be filed under 'philosophy of life' - and a very good one at that.

I find the idea of "God" interesting. You can look at it on so many levels...as to just what "God" means. The notion of a "God" who is like some kind of super-powerful old guy in a robe who sits on some kind of heavenly throne and judges...well, that seems tremendously unlikely to me. On the other hand, there are ideas of God as a form of innate presence (in all things) that are much more subtle. Some people find something within themselves that they term as "God". What they are finding may be the higher aspect of their own personality...that is, the side of them from which comes love, truth, conscience, kindness, clarity, etc. It may be entirely their own or it may be something they share with all living beings. Who am I to say? If they find comfort in it and gain strength from it, who am I to object?

There are literally millions of ways of looking at it.

Now, there are also a number of really significant spiritual or religious paths that have nothign to do with a deity, but rather with governing one's own consciousness and one's own behaviour in the most natural and effective way. Among those would be yoga, Taoism, Buddhism, and various other Asian approaches to self-discipline and achieving enlightenment. Those ways aren't about worshipping a deity, they're about gaining better mastery of your own consciousness and behaviour.

In some of those disciplines there is a general belief in reincarnation (as something that can happen...doesn't mean it HAS to happen). Is reincarnation a valid concept? Perhaps. I find it reasonably likely, based on some of my personal experiences and some recorded incidents I've read about (a great many, actually), mostly where young children had very clear memories of an earlier life and those memories were checked against various recorded information and found to be very accurate...and there was no other very likely explanation than that the child had lived an earlier life as another person.

But I can't say for sure. I just consider it likely, that's all.

Now, here's a wonderful statement from Robert A. Wilson about belief:

"Don't believe anything. Regard things on a scale of probabilities.
The things that seem most absurd, put under 'Low Probability', and
the things that seem most plausible, you put under 'High
Probability'. Never believe anything. Once you believe anything, you
stop thinking about it. The more things you believe, the less mental
activity. If you believe something, and have an opinion on every
subject, then your brain activity stops entirely, which is clinically
considered a sign of death, nowadays in medical practice. So put
things on a scale or probability, and never believe or disbelieve
anything entirely.

-Robert A. Wilson (interview with "innerview")


I love that. I think he's nailed it. "Sheep" are people who believe utterly in their chosen set of assumptions and their usual habits and they will kill on account of it. A suicide bomber is one such. A man who pilots an American plane at 20,000 feet and follows the order given him to drop some hideously destructive bomb on a city full of people may be another...because he's not thinking for himself. He's letting his commanders do the thinking.

Thus is most of the evil in the world perpetrated, by many "sheep" following the orders of their commanders, and fully believing that they are doing the right thing, because it either never occurred to them to question it...or they just didn't dare to break ranks and face the consequences.

I am reluctant to be part of any power structure or chain of command. I wish to think for myself. The fact that I do consider reincarnation to be quite likely, for example, arises entirely from my own observations and my own thinking on the matter. I didn't get it by belonging to any religion or following any religious leader's instructions as to what I should or should not believe. It's not up to anyone else what I should or should not believe. I decide what makes sense to me. They don't.

Many people are so afraid of feeling uncertainty that they erect a wall of rigid "beliefs" around themselves like a fortress, and they spend the rest of their lives defending it...and attacking other walls of belief that are different from theirs. Pointless conflict driven by deep insecurity is what that is.

If they would not be afraid to just admit that they don't know for sure and just to work on a basis of probabilities, as Robert A. Wilson suggest, then they'd be a lot more open-minded and tolerant of others, and a lot easier on themselves.

I don't KNOW if there is a God. But there may be (in some sense). I don't KNOW if there is reincarnation. But there may be. I don't KNOW if human beings are really contributing to Global Warming in any significant way...or if there's in truth some much larger interplanetary cause for it that is way beyond anything we can do or affect. Either case may be true, and I don't KNOW. I don't KNOW if Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and killed Kennedy. Maybe. I fairly much doubt it, but maybe. And so on...

If people would just have enough humility to admit that they don't KNOW 100% about most of the stuff they purport to "believe"...well, maybe they wouldn't be so damned hard on each other over their differences of opinon, eh? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 12:07 PM

The argument that it is the people not the religion is the same one that it is people that kill people not guns. Religion is a weapon in the hands of many because it is a kind of a gun.
It blows people's ideas out of the water that don't agree with it.

Stringsinger

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 12:40 PM

"A bit harsh, perhaps, but not everything that the gentle Jesus said was full of sweetness and light."

Don, if you read the bible you can observe Jesus saying to people that don't believe in him that they will "wither and die" like leaves on a vine. Quite a dictator.

Stringsinger

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 01:34 PM

In the case of guns...guns are a neutral item. They are just a tool that can be turned to either a good or an evil purpose. A hunter-gatherer who uses a gun to provide himself with food is not doing an evil thing anymore than a hawk is doing an evil thing when he catches a rabbit.

A forest ranger who uses a gun to prevent a bear attack is not doing an evil thing.

A policeman who uses a gun to prevent a bank robbery is not doing an evil thing.

A soldier who uses a gun to defend his country against invasion is not doing an evil thing.

But the person who wantonly kills animals merely for sport is doing an evil thing (in my opinion), the bank robber who uses a gun to shoot a cop or a civilian is doing an evil thing, and the soldier who uses a gun to invade someone else's country without any real reason or necessity is assisting his high command in doing an evil thing.

So guns, like religion, are neither good nor evil in themselves. They just are. How you choose to put them to use is the crucial matter.

I've never used a gun on someone, and I've never used any kind of spiritual idea to hurt someone either. You cannot define religion as "bad" because some people choose to use it badly.

You also can't necessarily believe that everything it says that Jesus said in the Bible is 100% accurate and true. The Bible was written by a large number of different men, at different times, some of them long before Jesus, others quite some time after Jesus, and they all wrote down various things that suited their own viewpoint, the political mood of the time, what they'd heard from somebody else, what people wanted to hear, and what they wanted to believe...but not what was guaranteed to be accurate or true.

It's absolutely naive to imagine that everything said in the Bible about Jesus is accurate. When people have a point to make, either for or against Jesus, they will just cherry pick something out of the Bible and use it to justify their point. This tells one very little about Jesus...but it tells much about the person making the point. ;-)

If you want to get some idea of what Jesus is about, you have to read the entire Bible...plus a lot of other material (there are many alternative views about Jesus from different traditions outside the Christain mainstream)...think about ALL of it...and then come to your own best guess about what Jesus may have said and what he may have been like.

If you weren't there, you don't KNOW. Nobody KNOWS. We're all just guessing or repeating things we've heard or read somewhere...and we don't KNOW if they're true. You can only make your own best guess as to what is most probable and what is less probable.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 01:42 PM

Here's another thing about life. It's complex. You can't make up a set of "rules" that will neatly cover and solve every situation.

You have to deal with EACH situation as a unique case and use your own intelligence to decide what to do, not fall back on some damn "rule" you heard somewhere.

If you live by rules, you're just a robot. You're someone who reacts, but doesn't really think.

So if you make up a rule in your mind that guns are "bad" or that guns are "good", and base your decisions on theat rule, you've stopped thinking and you've just turned into a robot.

Same deal if you make up a rule in your mind that religion is "bad" or that religion is "good".

...or that women are "bad" or "good".

...or that money is "bad" or "good".

Stop living by these mental rules you made up and start thinking creatively instead. Become a man, not a machine.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 02:43 PM

I have been musing on whether to bother getting into this particular thread.
Some of you know my basic views from years of reading them, and they are often a winding path between some of the other views here...both positive and negative.
From my viewpoint, (which is the result of being raised a Methodist, then entering a full college course of Philosophy and gradually becoming non-religious,) there are so many addenda and sub-topics needed here to explore the issues and opinions raised, that I am at a loss how to start.

WYSIWYG commented that her post had gone without reply, so I will use it to show why I say there are so many other points to be raised.

(note: WYSI & I have compared ideas on these things for several years, and we mostly respect each other's attitude and opinions)

"GOOD Authority" is authority ceded by free (non-coerced) choice, by a strong person, within a concept called "right relationship," to a power the person acknowledges to be a higher power. Not necessarily "higher" in terms of more-power, but power of a higher SORT than that power which the person has for one's own.

She has made a clear, informative and internally consistent definition......with the relevant term to 'me' being 'internally consistent'. The problem is, for that definition to be useful, a person must already be within a system, i.e., religion, that acknowledges that there IS such a thing as a 'higher power'.
This is the situation with many of the concepts & beliefs that get tossed about when religion is discussed, and it is why I never seem to be able to totally agree with either of the more extreme views.
It is, simply, not a trivial point to recognize that the reason the word 'belief' is used for certain human ideas, from religion to other arcane & metaphysical concepts, is that that they ARE ...ummmm... beliefs, and not 'facts'. I cannot emphasize enough how non-trivial this point is.
   When anyone makes a statement asserting something about religion, either positive or negative, they are usually assuming some unstated premises that are often not obvious, even to the assertor. The result of this is that so many of these discussions/debates get hung up on just a clash of contrary beliefs, with no one trying to see the other side's perspective.

Why do I keep harping on the non-triviality of my point? Because there is often a practical, operant difference in the way folks of opposing views make decisions and view others in society.
It is not 'just' whether one believes in a 'higher power' or not: it is what one 'believes' that higher power wants done and what the consequences of NOT doing it are. I am not familiar with the details of what Islam requires of its faithful (and I suspect there is not universal agreement within Islam)....but I KNOW that some Christian groups expect (require?) that its members try to recruit non-believers and also 'witness' their beliefs by publicly attempting to have their beliefs accepted into secular areas. Other groups do not emphasize this as much.
You see where this is going? There is no one, simple, clearly defined set of beliefs....nor is there any simple, clear, unambiguous form of rejection of religious ideas. The result is that daily practical conflicts arise as both sides attempt to justify and argue their behavior, voting patterns, food choices, dress patterns....and posts on Mudcat.. *wry smile*.
   Seldom does anyone explicitly acknowledge their rock-bottom assumptions in religious discussions..pro or con.... even though arguments go on tediously based ON those assumptions, with neither side quite realizing exactly what they disagree about...or why!(Little Hawk does explain himself pretty well and often, but I keep telling him that his are SO general that they are like cotton-candy... he, naturally, disagrees ☺.)

So... Joe Offer and others suggest that religion as religion is "ethically neutral", and I see the point they are trying to make. But it is also the case that--- ☛the very existence of a set of concepts that cannot be demonstrated and which are variably but seriously interpreted all over the world becomes a practically NON-neutral topic by default.

**We cannot treat something AS neutral which, by its very nature, requires behavior that comes into conflict with those who do not accept its premises**

We can, with effort and tolerance, mitigate that conflict and 'get along', but the basic conceptual differences permeate life in ways we don't always realize.

It ain't easy, folks....and the only ways to make it easy would not be acceptable to either side. This is what being human and being able to 'reason' means.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Pastinaken
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 02:44 PM

Little Hawk, I still find everything you have written most interesting and reasonable. But may I point out that it all pertains to Little Hawk's view and experience of religion, not religion as it is generally understood by either the leaders and holy texts of the various faiths or by the vast majority of religious believers.

I therefore think that the comments I made in my original post still stand.

I could scarcely agree more with your final comment, 'become a man not a machine.' - that is, think creatively and assesss each idea you experience on its own merits.

Could I politely point out that this is not what most religions want a person to do? They all have quite rigid rules and a way of viewing the world that believers MUST (or at least should)hold.

The freedom we have in western countries to adopt only the parts of faiths that we like while abandoning others, or to adopt a syncretic approach to parts of different religions we admire, or to hold a mixture of religious/secular ideas about life (which seems to be your approach) is a freedom won FROM religion, in the Enlightenment -not a freedom granted BY religion.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 04:15 PM

Well, fortunately the spiritual material that I study does encourage me to think for myself, and does not lay down rules and restrictions.

I am just as disinclined as you are to let others do my thinking for me, and I have no interest in joining any formalized religious sect with any formalized set of rules.

Neither, however, do I believe that there is no basis for a spiritual viewpoint on life, and that seems to be the extreme that others wish to go to when they deny all forms of spirituality. They act like religious fundamentalists themselves, only from the exact opposite direction. They insist that others are "wrong" not to believe as they do. They insist that things other people believe can't have any basis. This is just as dogmatic and fanatical as insisting on a literal belief IN an organized religion's tenets, I think.

I see remarkably rigid intolerance and remarkably rigid forms of faith being practiced on both sides of that divide, and I don't care for it. They both pretend to have a certainty, but their certainty is based on faith, emotional preference, customary habits, and a set of rigid assumptions which they take for granted.

They appear to deserve one another! ;-) (I mean, the dogmatic religionist and the dogmatic anti-religionist.)

I agree about all the errors in thinking you point out in religions. Fine. I see similar errors in thinking amongst those who make hating and critizing religion their pet hobby. I think such people are psychologically ill, frankly, but it's a pretty common illness...just like unreasoning patriotism and other emotional obsessions.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 04:29 PM

GUEST, there is an aspect about the Bible—which includes what Jesus allegedly said—that is more than just a little "iffy." Which is why I do not regard it as "the inerrant Word of God," contrary to the beliefs of our fundamentalist confreres.

First of all, although I don't regard myself as a Bible scholar, I have done something that most people who use the Bible as a sort of "Boy Scout Manual" rarely do. And that is, I have actually read it. Not a verse here and verse there, but in large chunks, as if it were an anthology of novellas, short-stories, and poetry.

In college, I took a class in the English Lit department called "The Bible as Literature." It was made abundantly clear at the beginning of the class that we would not be discussing religion, we would be discussing literature, and reading the Bible as a literary work. Any attempts by anyone to veer into realms of religious discussion would be shortstopped.

In addition to the literary aspects of the Bible, the prof went into a bit of history about the book. It started as a disconnected accumulation of manuscripts and scrolls, which, over a period of time various religious councils argued and discussed which were "valid theologically" and which were not, rejected many, and assembled the ones they selected into a single anthology which we now call "The Bible" (which simple means "book" or "papyrus"). These manuscripts and scrolls were translated from Hebrew, Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke, incidentally), Greek, and a few other Near Eastern and Eastern European languages into Latin. Without printing presses, the only method of reproducing the book was to have it done by copyists. And these were usually young monks in monasteries.

Not all Bibles came out the same. Because, all too often, the head honcho in any given monastery, or someone else, like the local bishop, priest, or, for that matter, even the copyist himself (and a lot of them did this!) would edit certain passages to reflect their own beliefs or prejudices!

And that included some of the alleged quotations of Jesus!

Then, of course, there were the politicized bits of "editorializing." For example, in the Lord's Prayer, in which, initially (as far as anyone knows) the phrase was "forgive us our debts," the translators who produced the King James version (standard for many churches) changed it to read, "forgive us our trespasses." Why? Because of a plague of trespassers and poachers on the lands of the local lord or landowner. The intent was to convey the idea that such trespassing was a sin!

So—is it any wonder I don't take the Bible literally? And look askance at those who insist that "The Bible is the Inerrant Word of God?"

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not the only Gospels. And there are a number of groups of theologians who are combing through the four Gospels, plus other gospels (one of which is presumably written by James, Jesus' brother) in and effort to find out what Jesus actually said. This includes graded lists of quotations, with such divisions as "Probably did say," through a spectrum of potential authenticity to "Definitely did NOT say!" based on such things as:   inner consistency with other things Jesus is presumed to have said, and how many times had this particular gospel or presumed statement been "folk processed" before it was writen down by this particular scribe?

So—even a "red-letter" edition of the Bible should be taken with a grain of salt!

Little Hawk has written some very good stuff above.

There is no one on this earth more dangerous than the ideologue who is absolutely certain that he or she is right.

Don Firth

P. S. "Could I politely point out that this is not what most religions want a person to do? They all have quite rigid rules and a way of viewing the world that believers MUST (or at least should)hold."

Sorry, GUEST,Pastinaken, but not "all." I remember the pastor at the local Lutheran church holding up a copy of the Bible and saying, "This is not the Boy Scout Manual. It does not contain answers. It contains questions!"

Statements like "all religious" do this, that, or something else all too often say more about the prejudices of those who make the statements than it does about the religion.

P. P. S. One of the local evening news television weathermen (now retired) always closed his weather reports with the same statement—which ought to apply to all questions of religion as well.

"When in doubt, do the friendliest thing."

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 05:26 PM

How long ago was all this, Don? There's a lot of questionable material in there.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 05:48 PM

It goes back considerably farther than the Christian era. Many of the most central ideas in the gospels about Jesus, such as the "virgin birth" are found in much earlier civilizations going all the way back to Egypt and Sumeria. They were recycled religious ideas, brought into the time shortly following Jesus' death in order to more effectively market a new faith and make conversions. They would have been concepts much more familiar to the people of the time, and thus much more acceptable, than to a modern audience.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 06:09 PM

What material is 'questionable'? Most of that Don notes is similar to what *I* learned in history & philosophy classes ... and what I have read recently also.
I'm sure that some of it (as in stuff about 'other gospels') would be objected to by certain groups, but the scrolls are there and there is good evidence that they deserve as much credence as the usual ones.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 06:36 PM

Intentional errors in the Latin texts -- never met any such things in my studies of both Christian and non-Christian sources. Besides most of the literate people in Latin didn't read the Bible at all but read commentaries on it like Lombard's Sentences. Once translations into   common tongues began to be made, they went back to the original languages, the manuscripts of which were amazingly free of error, as comparisons among themselves as well as against new manuscripts discovered in the Elizabethan era and more recently have shown.

"Trespasses" -- First off the Lord's Prayer occurs in two forms, one in Matthew with "debts" and one in Luke with "sins/trespasses". It is not "as far as anybody knew" always "debts" -- in the original Greek there are two different words being translated, one meaning "debts" and one meaning "sins". There was no crossover between the two. So that whole "as far as anybody knew" thing is utter fabrication.

Second, the "trespasses" translation goes back to 1526 with Tyndale, a full 29 years before "trespass" was first recorded to mean "go illegally on someone else's land" -- before that it was simply a synonym for "sin" (as far back as the 13th century).

And so on, and so on.

And before you come down on me as a fundamentalist, spare your breath. I consider the Judeao-Christian Scriptures the record of the attempts of a line of people to come to grips with their experiences of (as they thought) God. I'm far, far from a fundamentalist.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:00 PM

I'm not assuming anything about your personal beliefs or affiliation...(I do seem to remember you as being Christian/religious)

I don't have any personal opinions about "Intentional errors in the Latin texts ", but I have seen documented and explained many confusions, errors and omissions in various translations & versions....from the Aramaic to the dockyards Greek used when the scriptures were brought to Rome.

(I was raised saying 'trespasses', and had to work to change it when someone decided that was confusing.)

I do remember reading about various Gospels that were 'left out' for various reasons; the most famous being Thomas, Barnabus, Nicodemus and several others. Many scholars seem to think they were relevant, but despaired of getting them included after centuries of a Bible where even translation revisions brought complaints and cries of 'sacrilege!".

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:16 PM

"Left out" is a loaded term. As if the Church had no right to decide which books IT wanted to use, and should have been forced to use whatever was extant at the time. It's ridiculous. There were thousands of books around at the time, some of which purported to be Christian. Why the church shouldn't have been allowed to pick out the ones it wanted to treat as "Scripture" and leave the rest, I'll never understand. Let alone why they should be "included" nowadays. Anybody can put a manuscript or translation of an apocryphal book into print if they can find somebody to print it (or do it via vanity press if they so choose). Elaine Pagels has done a bunch. It's not incumbent upon the church, or upon present-day bible presses, to do it for you.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:26 PM

Granted, mousethief, I was a bit fuzzy around the edges on the "trespasses" issue, but that word was something of a bone of contention in the putting together of the King James translation (various "Authorized Editions" put out from the early to mid-1600s—the very first in 1611). I'll try to find an authoritative source for that.

Brief overview of the King James Version.

The weatherman, by the way, was Ray Ramsey of KOMO-TV (CH 4). During the Sixties and into the Seventies as I recall.

I took the "Bible as Literature" class in the very early Fifties at the University of Washington. The teacher was Prof. Paul Trueblood. When Dr. Trueblood retired, the class was taken over by Prof. David C. Fowler, from whom I also took classes, particularly "The Popular Ballad" (the Child Ballads). I talked with Dr. Fowler some about his approach to the Bible class and it seemed to be essentially the same as Dr. Trueblood's.

But not all of my info about the Bible came from this source. At the church my wife and I attend (Central Lutheran Church on Capitol Hill in Seattle—CLICKY—where Pastor Shannon Anderson commented that the Bible contained, not answers, but questions), the adult forums have spent quite a bit of time on the early history and "genesis" (if you will) of the Bible, with considerable delving into, and discussion of, such things as the Q Gospel. Most fascinating!

And I have read rather widely of authors such as Karen Armstrong, Elaine Pagels, Barbara R. Rossing, Bishop John Shelby Spong, and others.

An interesting overview of the history of the Christian church can be found in The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, by Charles Freeman. I am quite sure that much of it would get up the noses of a lot of religious folks, but Freeman is a very thorough historian and one would have great difficulty in attempting to fault his scholarship.

All of this may seem as if I am contradicting my stance in defending the Christian religion and religions in general from those who are hostile to religion and feel the world would be better off without it, but that simply isn't the case. My particular credo could not be adequately explained in the confines of these threads, but I am most definitely not opposed to Christianity or to religion in general.

But there are a number of "Christians," and adherents to other beliefs, that I think could use a good swift kick in the backside. Largely because of the pronouncements they insist on making, their hypocrisy, their lack of humility, and their refusal to acknowledge that the major component of religion—any religion—is mystery. Not the certainty of which they claim they are in sole possession.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:28 PM

Hosanna! That was 100, by the way!

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:44 PM

Congrats on your reading -- sincerely. Unfortunately there are few truly-read people these days. Mine has mostly been in history and geography rather than theology. Rossing I've not heard of; the rest of your list is -- forgive me -- very left. And of course Spong is off the charts. The book by Freeman sounds very intriguing. The title, certainly, appeals to me. Although I think you could argue that "reason" as such never had much of a hold to begin with, the Enlightenment notwithstanding. I'll see if I can find the Freeman book in the library.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:48 PM

But there are a number of "Christians," and adherents to other beliefs, that I think could use a good swift kick in the backside. Largely because of the pronouncements they insist on making, their hypocrisy, their lack of humility, and their refusal to acknowledge that the major component of religion—any religion—is mystery. Not the certainty of which they claim they are in sole possession.

No argument. Especially ones that disagree with ME ;)

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:50 PM

"Why the church shouldn't have been allowed ..."

Ummm..which church? There never was "the" church. **zzzzaaaappp** (me, dodging the lightning bolt from somewhere above)

Obviously, any group can choose, print, read, 'leave out'...etc, anything they wish...and therein lies fodder for a million opinions, studies, arguments, critiques and PHD theses.
Some groups have 'their' text, and assure each other that IT was 'inspired by God' - as is, with literal meanings and no tolerance for deviation. *shrug*... other groups look at them and shake their heads at the rigidity, preferring to learn and grow as they take in some essential truths, with no need for literal 'fact'.

The very fact that there IS such enormous range of opinion and belief is important, and one can approach this situation with many different attitudes...one being..."Hmmmmm...which one IS right?", while another is "Hmmm... are ANY of them right?"....and of course, "Hmmmm... maybe they are all a bit right".

Me? more like "Hmmm... how interesting. What is going on here?"

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:56 PM

I don't know of any body of people which calls itself Christian which has any other New Testament books than the ones you'll find at your local Bible & Book or Zondervan's or SPCK or whatever store.

The "literal fact" thing is a red herring.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 08:05 PM

What is The Book of Mormon considered? (I would have to research to find whether any 'current' folks use additional texts, but throughout history there sure were some.) The Gnostics made a big thing of it.

'red herring'?? It's quite an issue with some.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 08:09 PM

(I also have a copy of "The Book of Oahspe" and have perused "The Urantia Book" and a couple others which were/are taken quite seriously at times.)
It's fascinating to see how many directions the religious impulse has gone.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 08:12 PM

Red herring is a relative not absolute term; X is a red herring to discussion / talking point Y. For this discussion, based on the post of Don's that I was responding to, it's a red herring. Those "some" -- unless you're including yourself -- aren't here.

But even so, the "some groups have 'their' text" is a independent question from whether or not those groups think 'their' text is 'literal fact'. You can have your text an think it's literal fact. You can have your text and think it's not literal fact. You can not have your text. Therefore thinking your text is 'literal truth' is a red herring in the discussion about having or not having your text -- which is what this line of conversation was about.

I'd say the Book of Mormon is definitely gnostic. But you're right, I was careless. I meant of books extant at the time the NT canon was open. Such as the books that Don was talking about. I thought it was clear from the conversation so far that that was what we were talking about.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 08:21 PM

Ok...as a 'philosopher', I tend to follow interesting ideas that seem to be implied by the discussion, rather than following rigid protocol...and this IS Mudcat... *grin*

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 08:32 PM

Mousethief, I know that Bishop Spong's writings get up the noses of a lot of folks, what with titles like Saving the Bible from the Fundamentalists, but what do you mean by "very left?" I think I have an idea, but I just want to be sure.

If it's what I think it is, then I would say that Barbara Rossing would be "very left" as well. One of her books is entitled, The Rapture Exposed. Not too popular with Tim LeHaye and his fans……

By the way, I am a voracious reader in a number of areas, and high on my current list are authors such as Michio Kaku (Hyperspace, Parallel Worlds, Physics of the Impossible), John Gribbin (The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry, and the Theory of Everythingý), and the vast array of non-fiction science books and articles by the late Isaac Asimov (although some of these have been superceded by later writers).

I do not see this as science versus religion. In fact, I find that studying science (cosmology, astronomy, and, yes, evolution) does not contradict religion, it shows us how God did it.

My response to those who try to tell me that the earth and all of this is only 6,000 years old, that Darwin was a fraud or worse, and that there was a literal Adam and Eve is, "You worship a very small God."

I recall Carl Sagan saying that the emergence of life in the universe may very well be the universe learning to know itself. "It may be," said Sagan, "that as life emerges, God is being born!"

Wonder. Mystery. "What is it all about?" is what it's all about!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 08:47 PM

I'll let you off this time, Bill. ;)

It's not so much that Spong gets up my nose as a Christian -- it's that he's not even on the radar. He has defined himself off the map. There is nothing he believes that is distinctively Christian at all. That's okay for him, and people who want to believe along with him, but for people who really do see something unique in this Jesus of Nazareth guy, and think a religion centered around him is not such a bad idea, it has nothing to say, or at least nothing more than Buddhism or Taoism or Pastafarianism.

"Very left" -- well if you take Christian theologians generally and line them up from left (fewer truth claims, looser view of scripture) to right (absolute truth claims, very tight view of scripture), these people fall way left.

I don't know what exactly Rossing says about the Apocalypse -- but disagreeing with Tim LaHaye, and denying the Rapture as a separate event from the paraousia, are not terribly left, and one could hold those tenets and still be close to the center (depending on one's other beliefs of course). There's a danger of saying "the far right would hate this therefore it's far left" -- a lot of the spectrum lies to the left of the far right that is nevertheless not all that left.

Cool science books. I would say I have very similar views as yours regarding science. Although the Sagan thing just sounds like gobbledygook, if it's not simply process theology or ill-described pantheism. Neither of which is evil in itself, although I do happen to disagree with them.

At which point I've probably run my mouth far enough.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 10:10 PM

Okay I have placed a hold on The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason at the local library. It better be good, Firth! :D

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Pastinaken
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 03:02 PM

It isn't good, Mousetheif, it's great! Worth re-reading several times. I hope you enjoy it.

Little Hawk, you seem to fall for the old trap of thinking (1) that to ask for some evidence for the often very odd things people believe in is somehow an equivalent to religious fundamentalism (!)and (2)that 'spiritual' and 'religious' are neccessarily the same things. They are not. I am a deeply spiritual atheist - you should see the tears drip off the end of my nose when I listen to certain pieces of music! I know an awful lot of materialistic, hard-faced religious believers I can tell you.

You do not seem to think criticising religion is legitimate - to do so more than a few times makes it a 'pet hobby' and is to you evidence of psychological illness. When religion informs discrimination against women and the demonisation of homosexuals, campaigns against condom use in AIDS stricken Africa, campaigns agaist the rights of terminally ill people to die with dignity instead of in terrible pain - etc, etc, etc - to criticise religion is not a 'pet hobby' but a moral duty.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 04:11 PM

Ah! But once again, GUEST,Pastinaken, you fall into the error of assuming that all religions are monolithic in their beliefs.

They are not!

Yes, I think it IS legitimate to criticize particular religions for their particular beliefs and their particular actions. But you, like many, "infidels" (used in its literal and non-pejorative sense:   "unbeliever."), condemn all religions for the beliefs and actions of only some.

Now, I jump on Pat Robertson's case for his asinine remark that the Haitian earthquake was God's punishment because they practice voodoo as ignorant, stupid, mean-spirited, and very un-Christian. But to condemn all Christians—or all religions—because to the emissions of one horse's ass is neither accurate nor just.

And your litany of offenses:   ". . . discrimination against women and the demonisation of homosexuals, campaigns against condom use in AIDS stricken Africa, campaigns agaist the rights of terminally ill people to die with dignity instead of in terrible pain - etc, etc, etc. . . ."   Not all religions are guilty of these things. In fact, not that many churches are! In fact, there is a substantial number who advocate none of the things you condemn and speak out against them themselves.

The matter merits a bit of re-thinking.

Educate yourself and—    Be fair!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 05:12 PM

Don...it's not always about 'condemning' religions for anything, but just a problem with the unwarranted influence of religious doctrines on public policy or cultural norms.
Remember when it came out about:" First Lady Nancy Reagan's reliance on a San Francisco astrologer to determine the timing of the President's every public move. "?

"Wow", said a lot of people, "not a good idea to allow such a set of unfounded beliefs be the deciding factor in serious matters!"

Hard to control, but easy to understand the concerns.

But when it comes to religion, we are often expected to ignore certain ideas and practices because they come from a person's 'sacred beliefs'?

There are all sorts of things that 'some' people really 'believe' that most of the others would be shocked to hear was affecting their lives directly. (phrenology, Tarot, crystal balls, I Ching, reincarnation...etc.)

The point is that *IF* someone makes decisions about anything with a set of premises that are either false or cannot be tested, *then* they can construct almost any conclusions from them. I have posted this basic principle of logic several times.

From false premises, anything follows!

This is not some silly arcane slogan logicians invented to tease folks with...it has deep implications.


Now...before I get the usual complaints, let me reassure everyone... I KNOW that we cannot prove religion to BE false, (or any of those other beliefs), but **religiosity**, as a guiding principle, is used daily to justify things that are obviously against sane thinking. (Pat Robertson's stupid remarks are just some of the more egregious...they get public notice) There is not some clear line drawn where stuff on one side is 'ok' and across the line is 'dumb'. The line is a continuum with degrees of concern, value judgment, and public approval or disapproval.
   The Salem witch trials were 'really bad', as was 'burning at the stake' and other grotesque distortions of what religion is supposed to be about. How about church sanctioned exorcism? Borderline, huh? Self-flagellation? Matter of personal choice, but not exactly promoted, I gather. Snake handling? Basically rejected, but tolerated in some areas and considered 'quaint' when TV producers get to film it. Reciting public prayers before a meeting or sports event? Kinda depends on where you are and who complains!
Eventually, we get to religious beliefs and practices that are widely 'approved' simply because they are 1)accepted by a majority, 2)not terribly intrusive or dangerous ...like taking communion or fasting on certain days.

The only difference in the stuff in the list is degree of 'approval', not logic or science.

It is NOT right to condemn "a religion" for obvious stupid excesses and distortions by individuals...or even to try to deny the basis on which people believe what they believe; but it is relevant to be aware that 'religiosity' can be a matter of concern when it is used to explain, justify, promote, control... and otherwise affect human interactions.

"Separation of church & state" is not supposed to be just a slogan, it's supposed to be a fair guiding principle of THIS country's progress.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 06:15 PM

Bill, I'm not blanketly excusing religion (or religionS in general), what I am saying is that it is both untrue and unjust to blanketly condemn religion outright, for the actions of some religious people or institutions as many on this web site are wont to do.

There were such things as the Inquisition and the Salem witch trials and the Church's demanding that Galileo "recant" for speaking about what he actually saw through his telescope—all kinds of things like that—and on into religious organizations like "The Family" feeding the Ugandan anti-homosexual campaign, and, for that matter, wanting to take over the United States government.

But—neither is it just to condemn all religion, religious belief, and religious activity because of these things. These are the actions of specific individuals or specific religious institutions—not of religion in general.

I have personal experience with the immense amount of good that religious institutions do with the social programs that a number of churches are involved in in my area—and I know of similar programs of the churches in other areas. I could go into specifics (rather than all churches condemning homosexuality, for example, I know of several within a couple of miles of where I live who will perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples, whether the law recognizes the union or not), but there are large areas of activity such as providing food and housing for poor and homeless to less widespread things such as visiting shut-ins and people in nursing homes and hospitals, not with the idea of "evangelizing" them, but in the spirit of, "Is there anything you need?" These folks do one helluva lot of good that simply would not get done otherwise.

And the churches encourage the members of their congregations to do this sort of thing. And the pastors and ministers themselves consider this to be one of the major duties of their job (Matthew 25:35-40).

Frankly, when I see this sort of thing going on, and then I hear or read someone rattling on about how evil and rotten "religion" is, my response to this is a simple and direct, "You don't know what you are talking about!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 06:39 PM

Don...I basically agree with almost everything you've said about irresponsible condemnations. I DO know, myself, of many, many good, kind and valuable contributions made to special causes...and to society as a whole by, and in the name of, various religious entities.
I was awed as I grew up by the way the local Mennonite communities would 'arrive' after some disaster, such as a tornado, and simply work and help until things were better...then quietly go home. Their 'beliefs' told them that such giving was a good thing.
I attended the major local Unitarian 'church' for several years, and personally participated in some programs for and about the community. (I was even introduced as a Unitarian minister during the Civil Rights marches in Mississippi...and I didn't try to correct the introduction, because what we were doing was seen by many locals as a religious commitment.)

But in this case, I was threading a slightly different needle, and it is hard to clearly state the point I was making without it sounding like veiled criticism.

I can only hope that I can convey some sense of the conundrum we face in both practicing freedom OF religion and and assuring freedom FROM religion for those who wish it.

Mutual respect of the good points of each other's values is always a valuable, but awkward to reach, goal.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 09:55 PM

True, indeed, Bill. I think we're on the same page.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 10:34 PM

God, that was beautiful.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 10:12 AM

And we in the West will continue to wring our hands and debate morality whilst the Medieval idiots in Tehran carry on.

Or at least, until the oil runs out.........

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 01:05 PM

Then it really gets ugly.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Pastinaken
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 02:44 PM

Don Firth, Bill D has neatly put his finger on the problem. No one is pretending that all religions are equally to blame for various religion-inspired abuses - any more than all religions can take the credit for various religion-inspired kindnesses. Though religious apologists make the latter mistake remarkably often!

The problem is that the motives for each are not based on any kind of hard evidence, and this is a worry. If one thinks that God wants you to quietly help help hurricane victims, one does so. If one thinks God wants you to murder abortion doctors,one does so. One points to 'faith' as a motive in each case.

This is why I condemn religious thinking in general, except for the rare occasions when it stays harmlessly between the thinker's ears and does not influence action.

It is unevidenced and thus simply too open to abuse.

Things are made worse by the general feeling - ably articulated on this thread by Little Hawk - that religion should somehow be out of bounds to criticism. If an individual, corporation, government or dictatorial regime behaves badly one may criticise. But if one criticises a religion, or (more importantly) the archaic mindset that underpins all faith-based religion, one can (in general, not from Little Hawk) expect personal atacks and accusations of bigotry.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 03:38 PM

Yup! Where it gets ugly is when folks assume that all the population of Teheran and environs are medieval idiots. Not so.

Although it doesn't get much press here, it does get some. Against a fairly cranky government, there are what is more-or-less the equivalent of the kind of student protests that took place here in the U. S. in the 1960s. Traveler's in Iran say that most Iranians like and are friendly toward American tourists—and toward America in general—perhaps a bit more friendly that their government would like them to be.

The way to defuse the situation is not to try to order the Iranian government around and impose boycotts and sanctions, but to—as Ray Ramsey, the weatherman said—do the friendliest thing:   talk, discuss, negotiate, maintain lines of communication.

After all, and like a lot of Christians who don't really know a helluva lot about the teachings of Jesus, a lot of Muslims don't really know all that much about what Mohamed said.

And one of the things Mohamed said was, "If you kill one human being, it is as if you have killed the whole world." In other words, don't!

So those fanatics who talk young folks into turning themselves into bombs are, in a word, disobeying the commandments of the Prophet.

Lest we forget, there are some darn good reasons for a lot of Middle Easterners to be a bit crabby toward Europeans and Americans. Nearly a thousand years ago, a bunch of goons wearing tin suits went over there to beat the crap out of them for no particular reason, and ever since then, we've been ordering them around, telling them how to run their affairs, and plundering their natural resources. And we're still at it!

I think I'd get a bit sore, too!

####

And GUEST,Pastinaken:

More than one deranged serial killer, when caught, has said, "I killed them because God told me to!"

I don't think one can fairly blame God for that!

There are lots of insane ideas floating around out there, based on personal interpretations of all kinds of sources, from trying to read things into the Mayan calendar that aren't really there, to reading a scientific article and misunderstanding much of it, to skipping around in the Bible and cherry-picking particular verses, taking them out of context, and putting them together in ways that make them sound as if they mean something entirely different.

I don't think one can fairly blame the Mayans, the scientist who wrote the article, or the Bible for the dark spiders that crawl around inside some peoples' heads.

If there were a commandment in the Bible that said, "Thou shalt go forth at night and slay young women with a knife," then I would say that David Berkowitz, better known as "the Son of Sam" serial killer in New York in the 1970s could honestly say that what he was doing was his religious duty.

But there is no such commandment.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Pastinaken
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 04:55 PM

You seem to be making my point for me, Don!

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 08:08 PM

So I guess we are also on the same page.

As long as a particular belief does not condone mayhem, one cannot justly condemn the belief if one of its avowed adherents commits an act of said mayhem. Even if he claims that he was following his beliefs.

Quakers are reknown for their pacifism, so if a Quaker were to run amok, it's hardly fair to blame all Quakers for the actions of that one person.

I can say for a fact that exceedingly few Christians agree with Pat Robertson's remark about the Haitian earthquake being "God's punishment" for anything! Christianity (presumably based on the teachings of Jesus) simply doesn't work that way.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 08:32 PM

I think I will toss in here...because Don's point about "the teachings of Jesus" gives me an opening, the point that many philosophers, most notably Kant, argued that doing good and moral principles did not require religious prophets to explain it, to lead them by the nose, or to threaten them with eternal punishment in order to establish sane, reasonable behavior.

from that link.."Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that moral requirements are based on a standard of rationality he dubbed the "Categorical Imperative" (CI). Immorality thus involves a violation of the CI and is thereby irrational. Other philosophers, such as Locke and Hobbes, had also argued that moral requirements are based on standards of rationality. However, these standards were either desire-based instrumental principles of rationality or based on sui generis rational intuitions. Kant agreed with many of his predecessors that an analysis of practical reason will reveal only the requirement that rational agents must conform to instrumental principles. Yet he argued that conformity to the CI (a non-instrumental principle) and hence to moral requirements themselves, can nevertheless be shown to be essential to rational agency."

Now, obviously, the details of Kant's arguments are beyond many of the folks who need guidance, but IF those who can see the point were to work to make it available in non-philosophical language, we might get by with a LOT less confusing disputes about interpretation of various religious moral Gerrymandering. Ideally, at least for me, preachers would be telling their congregations that Jesus exemplified really good logic & reason.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Pastinaken
Date: 04 Feb 10 - 05:51 AM

Don Firth: 'As long as a particular belief does not condone mayhem...'

Sadly that rules out Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism... all of 'em quite keen on mayhem in various circumstances.

I think you took me the wrong way when I said that you seem to be making my point for me. I meant that that the loony who charges around with a knife killing for God is not really that much more crazy than someone who has decided to live his life by a set of rules devised by a supernatural being who does not exist. As I said in my first post, the habit of believing in things without evidence is a recipe for trouble.

As for not blaming God for the deranged person - I don't blame God for anything because he isn't real.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Feb 10 - 06:16 AM

"I don't blame God for anything because he isn't real."
More good sense.
"And we in the West will continue to wring our hands and debate morality"
I'm afraid we in the West do a little more than hand-wringing or talking, and are quite capable of commiting the most horrendous of atrocities in the name of our beliefs and interests
Jim Carroll (Ireland)

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Feb 10 - 03:18 PM

Bill D. is right on the money!!

GUEST,Pastinaken, There is a lot more out there being called Christianity than Jesus would have approved of. And there are lots of people who consider themselves Christians who are really NOT, if you compare what they believe, say, and do with what Jesus taught.

By the way (and this is a very important point, as I see it), much of what Jesus taught does not really depend on a belief in God. You don't have to believe in a supernatural being to "Love one another" and take care of those in need.

If Jesus had worn a toga and taught in the agora in Athens, with no more religious overtones than Socrates, he would have been considered a very important ethicist.

His presumed divinity does not alter much of his teaching one way or the other. That's part of the mythology (see comments above about Joseph Campbell).

You can hardly call yourself a Keynesian economist if you generally ignore the economic principles of John Maynard Keynes. But all too many of those who call themselves Christians talk and act as if they had never read a word that Jesus is presumed to have said.

I don't think you can blame Jesus for that.

Don Firth