Originally Posted By ecdc <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/11/29/sudan.bears/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/ africa/11/29/sudan.bears/index.html</a> Reading stories like this, it's hard not to think Christopher Hichins and Richard Dawkins are dead right.
Originally Posted By jonvn What do Christopher Hichins and Richard Dawkins have to say that they are right about?
Originally Posted By ecdc >>What do Christopher Hichins and Richard Dawkins have to say that they are right about?<< They've both written books that are part of the Atheist treatise movement. They both just conclude that religion does more harm than good. I'm genuinely not trying to pick on all religions or all religious people with this thread. But I think it's worthwhile to acknowledge how poisonous religion can be rather than just saying we have to respect all religion, which seems to be the current mantra. Whether it's the inequality gays face in our country, or this story, it's important to point out when religion harms so we can try and prevent it.
Originally Posted By jonvn "They both just conclude that religion does more harm than good." Pretty much how I feel.
Originally Posted By jonvn And before anyone jumps on me for being nasty about christians, or any other dumb thing, it goes for all religions, christians, moslems, jews, taoists, whatever.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Yes (sarcasm to follow) Let's close all of the Seminaries and churches in America and the world. Let's send the Methodist, Baptsits, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian Ministers home and bring the thousands upon thousands of missionaries back from..... where-eva' and any hunger, and relief that is being done around the world in the name of Christianity alone, let's shut all that down too. Let's close the Cathloic Church and divide any money in the Vatican Bank among who eva'... Heck, if religion is a problem then government HAS to be worse! Let's close all government offices and send all elected officials home as well. Why stop there? Let's close the schools too. Education is as bad as religion any day. I say in fact, we turn in mass from all civility and take on a world of total anarchy and survival of the fittest. The problem is not with religion. The problem is with extremism. The extremists get cha every time. They are in religious organizations, they are in government institutions, they are everywhere. You can't throw the baby out with the bath water. A blanket statement like, "Religion does more harm than good" is fundamentally flawed. First of all one would have to define "harm" and "good" which right there is impossible. Someone thinks throwing this poor woman in jail is "good." It's kind of like the statement, "Never speak in absolutes." Well that very statement uses an absolute. "eligion does more harm than good." According to whom? I don't think it's true at all.
Originally Posted By jonvn "Let's close all of the Seminaries and churches in America and the world." Fine by me. "any hunger, and relief that is being done around the world in the name of Christianity alone, let's shut all that down too." How about simply doing it because it's a good thing to do? "Let's close the Cathloic Church and divide any money in the Vatican Bank among who eva'... " You can distribute their money to the children that they systematically raped. Which is slowly happening in this country anyway. "The problem is not with religion." The problem is with a belief in something irrational that simply is not true, and basing your behavior upon a system of beliefs that are false. "Someone thinks throwing this poor woman in jail is "good." " Yes, and that is why religion is harmful.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Yes, and that is why religion is harmful." Wrong. DVC Dad got it right. It's the extremists. By your reasoning, all food is bad because too much of it makes one obese.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>The problem is not with religion. The problem is with extremism. The extremists get cha every time. They are in religious organizations, they are in government institutions, they are everywhere. You can't throw the baby out with the bath water.<< Except sometimes, the baby is the extremism. At some point DVC, you have to step back and look at the entire picture. You can't just go with the old standby that "it's just a small group of extremists" and be done with it. There's whole governments jailing people like this woman or a Saudi rape victim in the name of religion. Entire nations and regions approve of what's going on. Barbara Walters went to Egypt after 9/11 to Cairo University. Keeping in mind Egypt's supposedly secular and a Democracy and our ally, the students she interviewed all insisted 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy. As for Christians, they're typically better, but not by much. Their anti-gay rhetoric is absurd. Go see Jesus Camp or the power of mega-churches. At some point, one has to look at the power these people wield and the influence they have and not conclude they're just a bunch of crazies in the Michigan militia. This is on a large-scale perspective. On a smaller scale - we can observe the poison of religion in numerous family and personal relationships. I know I sure have. As for claims of humanitarian work, it's a fallacy to assume that this is due to religion or couldn't take place without it.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Wrong. DVC Dad got it right. It's the extremists.<< But again, what happens when the extremists are in charge?
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Some valid points indeed, but still, religion isn't the problem. Of course, it certainly isn't the solution.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>As for claims of humanitarian work, it's a fallacy to assume that this is due to religion or couldn't take place without it.<< Of course it could. However, you can't simply dismiss people trying to follow their religion that tells them to do good works, or say their religion is superfluous in their lives. Martin Luther King could probably have done much of what he did with no reference to God, but it's clear he drew strength and resolve from his faith in spite of the hatred sent his way and so did people who marched with him. There are extremist nuts who want to kill someone over a political cartoon or come unglued about the naming of a teddy bear. Then there are people a little more secure in their faith that can turn the other cheek. The line between hysterical nut and someone practicing their faith without that sort of stuff is sometimes thin, but the line is there nonetheless.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan In other words, if you can credit religion for the evil things people do in its name, you have to also give credit to religion for the good works it inspires.
Originally Posted By jonvn "By your reasoning, all food is bad because too much of it makes one obese." I'd say I was making an analogy more towards it being poison, and not food. It's not the extremists. It's all of it. There are varying degrees of bad. It's not just an on/off switch.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>There are varying degrees of bad.<< LOL! So it starts off with bad and gets worse. I guess Martin Luther King, for example, would probably be ranked bad on your measuring stick, being the least bad of the bad? Then it advances down to someone who hijacks a plane to crash it in the name of their religion and so forth. Interesting that you have no measure whatsoever for actual "good" because there is no way, on your scale, that anything attached to religion could ever be good.
Originally Posted By jonvn "if you can credit religion for the evil things people do in its name, you have to also give credit to religion for the good works it inspires." People would do both regardless. Makes it rather meaningless to me.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan People can get from New York to Chicago without a plane. Doesn't make the plane irrelevant.
Originally Posted By jonvn "So it starts off with bad and gets worse." I'd say it starts out as basically useless and of no real worth. Then goes to bad. "I guess Martin Luther King, for example, would probably be ranked bad on your measuring stick, being the least bad of the bad?" I think that his religious affiliation had nothing to do with what he was trying to accomplish.
