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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
 Posted - 10/25/2009 : 20:07:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Yes, I get that. I'm not saying that religion adds anything to morality. I'm saying I'm not convinced that religion adds anything to wickedness. There are plenty of secular reasons to wage wars, exterminate whole groups of people, beat, rape, and murder women, etc. Religious insanity doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are other sociological factors at play which explain why Islam today is far more radicalized than it has been in the past, and Christianity is far more progressive than it has been in the past. |
And I know that. I'm saying that if we eliminate religion as a issue, we can more-easily examine the "other sociological factors."| I don't think having to dig for the real reasons is the problem. |
Of course it's not the problem, forcryingoutloud. It's a confounding factor which makes finding the true reason for the "wickedness" more difficult.| Going after religion in general instead of the wickedness directly is what really slows things down. |
Religion is in the way, especially when the Catholic Church covers up pedophilia (for just one example). I'm not saying that Catholicism is the cause of the pedophilia, I'm saying that if the Holy Roman Church hadn't existed to systematically hide the pedophiles and allow them to escape punishment, perhaps the priests could have gotten the treatment they need sooner, and fewer kids would have been hurt. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2009 : 20:28:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
He was asked about whether most religion was benign in nature, and in his response he referred to wicked acts done "because of religion." He is clearly pointing to religion as the cause of much wickedness, as if religion functioned within a vacuum. He's basically arguing that Muslim suicide bombers kill themselves and others because of their irrational beliefs, not because of sociological factors surrounding their situation which in other times and places have caused other individuals to do similar acts. He's basically arguing that fundamentalist Christians subjugate their wives because their scripture tells them to, not because of sociological factors surrounding their situation which in other time and places have caused other individuals to subjugate women.
I understand what Hitchens is saying, and I thoroughly disagree with him. When we see the same sort of wicked acts being committed by people in similar circumstances but motivated by completely different beliefs, I think it is safe to assume that despite what the individual claims, they are really motivated by circumstances, not beliefs. |
Good grief, marf. You make it sound like religion is not a "sociological factor" and so should be held completely blameless.
Bad people do bad things, yes. Religion allows them to justify wicked acts within their sociological millieu, and turn at least some of them into virtues.
When Christian fundamentalist women say that it is right for them to subjugate themselves to their husbands, because that's what Jesus says, they need to be directed towards competent therapists for what may be bloodless battered-wife syndrome. Instead, their communities praise them for their piousness.
Without religion in the picture, how would that happen? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2009 : 07:07:32 [Permalink]
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Wow,
Before the debate, for the motion: 678. Against: 1102. Don’t know: 346. This is how it changed after the debate: For: 268. Against: 1,876. Don’t know: 34. In other words, after hearing the speakers, the number of people in the audience who opposed the motion increased by 774. My friend Simon said it was the most decisive swing against a motion that he could remember |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2009 : 07:09:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Okay, it looks like when the transcript and video make it to online, they will be posted over here first.
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This was at that link:
The Catholic church is a force for good in the world
Autumn 2009 Series
Intelligence˛ audience confirms 1862 to 268 votes against the motion.
Ummm....I think they got that backwards.
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I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2009 : 08:20:37 [Permalink]
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Originally quoted by astropin
This is how it changed after the debate: For: 268. Against: 1,876. Don’t know: 34. |
And:| Intelligence˛ audience confirms 1862 to 268 votes against the motion. |
But then:Originally posted by astropin
Ummm....I think they got that backwards. |
Looks the same to me in both places. 1,800-plus people thought that the proposition that "The Catholic church is a force for good in the world" is false. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2009 : 11:02:34 [Permalink]
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Kil wrote: | I dunno, Marf. Don't you think the promise of martyrdom and a whole bunch of virgins in the afterlife, might make it easier for a suicide bomber to off himself? |
No, I don't. Different ideas and emotions will convince different people.
| Don't you? And before you think that I'm picking on Islamic extremists, I would say that anyone convinced that they will never die, will die more willingly. Just a hunch. |
That sounds like it should be true, but faith isn't rational. People who honestly believe they are destined for heaven still fear death and experience no less suffering when those they love die (even when they are convinced those loved-ones are in heaven.) And I have yet to see any evidence that people who believe in a nice afterlife fear death less or are more reckless with their life than atheists.
| I'll agree with you that circumstances also plays a heavy roll. But adding the certainty of living forever to the bad circumstances can't be a good thing, if you want to convince someone to die for both. |
The circumstances give them the real motivation to commit suicide. The religious crap provides a mental framework through which they can romanticize and rationalize going through with it. Again, different frameworks will work for different people, but the framework itself doesn't make much of difference as far as I can tell. There are people who develop a (totally secular) mental framework to convince themselves that there is something wonderful about driving a motorcycle recklessly, and that dying while doing so is noble and preferable to living a long, natural life. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 10/26/2009 11:04:03 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2009 : 11:13:29 [Permalink]
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Dave wrote: | Of course it's not the problem, forcryingoutloud. It's a confounding factor which makes finding the true reason for the "wickedness" more difficult. |
True, but going after faith in general when the real goal is to eliminate something wicked creates other problems which make it more difficult to achieve that goal.
| Religion is in the way, especially when the Catholic Church covers up pedophilia (for just one example). |
You have just given an example of an institution which was deliberately doing a coverup of violent crime. And that institution and those in it who contributed to the coverup should be held accountable in the exact same way as any secular would be. I'm not arguing that religious institutions should get special privileges. I'm saying that I don't think Hitchens has made a convincing argument that religious faith adds to wicked behavior.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 10/26/2009 11:13:54 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2009 : 13:11:35 [Permalink]
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marfknox said:
And I have yet to see any evidence that people who believe in a nice afterlife fear death less or are more reckless with their life than atheists.
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So atheists are just as likely to be suicide bombers as fundamentalist muslims?
Can you name ONE atheist suicide bomber?
I'm not saying religion is the only thing that can make people do these things, the Japanese used their religion and ultra nationalism in WW2 to get their kamikaze pilots...
But I don't think you can name one documented case of a known atheist strapping on some TNT and detonating themselves at a shopping mall (or whatever).
I think there is a clear connection between muslim religious beliefs and our current suicide bombers. Which is not to say they are all crazy (you can't be mentally unstable and plan/carry out the 9/11 attack), just that their religion is the driving force that lets them actually carry out the deed. The promise of reward in the afterlife.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2009 : 17:07:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
True, but going after faith in general when the real goal is to eliminate something wicked creates other problems which make it more difficult to achieve that goal. |
Do you have some evidence to support that particular assertion? It cannot be the case that some people "go after" the faith which clouds the picture, while other people "go after" the wickedness itself, and form a two-pronged attack?| You have just given an example of an institution which was deliberately doing a coverup of violent crime. |
Yes, a religious institution which wouldn't exist if religion did not exist. Are you telling me that some other secular institution of comparable size regularly covers up and excuses its pedophilic middle managers by mandate from its highest levels?| And that institution and those in it who contributed to the coverup should be held accountable in the exact same way as any secular would be. I'm not arguing that religious institutions should get special privileges. |
Unfortunately, the religious do get special privileges, and the religious are not held accountable for all of their moral failures.| I'm saying that I don't think Hitchens has made a convincing argument that religious faith adds to wicked behavior. |
I don't see how it cannot add to wicked behavior when it's quite obvious that some people point to the Bible (or the Koran or whatever other religious authority you'd care to name) and say, "this tells me that what you see as unethical or evil is actually a virtue." I think that if we went through a list of virtues and sins in the Bible, we'd find a lot more of what we would agree is immoral behavior described as virtuous than we'd find virtuous behavior described as sinful. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2009 : 19:47:42 [Permalink]
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I just thought I would throw this in here because, why not?
Faith No More: What I've learned from debating religious people around the world. By Christopher Hitchens
This week sees the opening on various cinema marquees of the film Collision: a buddy-and-road movie featuring last year's debates between Pastor Douglas Wilson, who is a senior fellow at New St. Andrew's College, and your humble servant. (If I may be forgiven, it's also available on DVD, and you can buy our little book of exchanges, Is Christianity Good for the World?)
Newsweek's reviewer beseeches you not to go and see the film, largely on the grounds that it features two middle-aged white men trying to establish which one is the dominant male. I would have thought that this would be reason enough to buy a ticket, but perhaps she would have preferred the debate held in London last week featuring me and Stephen Fry (two magnificent specimens of white mammalhood) versus a female member of Parliament who is a Tory Catholic convert and the Roman Catholic archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria. It filled one of the largest halls in the city, and many people had to be turned away. For a combination of reasons, the subject of religion is back where it always ought to be—at the very center of any argument about the clash of world views… |
I am looking forward to seeing the movie, and oh how I love the way Hitchens writes.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2009 : 15:52:39 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
From Dave's link:
| He runs a private school in Idaho that celebrates Robert E. Lee's birthday; |
That struck me as a bit odd. Is that really a negative thing? He was a great general, one of America's finest. We don't really hold racism against people during those times, why should it be held against him?
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I don't think it's a matter of racism so much, Ricky, as it is that he led an army against the United States government. Most people tend not to celebrate the birthdays of traitors to their country.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/28/2009 : 23:11:20 [Permalink]
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The whole confederate flag thing is a giant bit of irony. Celebrating Robert E. Lee's birthday is no different.
The confederate flag is the symbol of an unlawful rebellion against the United States. As the next person you see carrying one of they consider themselves loyal to the USA and patriotic. The answer is going to be a yes. Then ask them why they are carrying a flag that represents an illegal rebellion against this nation and it's constitution.
There will be a moment of confusion, then a bit of anger, and then some bullshit spiel about "southern heritage".
Anyone who celebrates Robert E. Lee (outside of his clear military genius, which is well worth studying for history and military education) is celebrating a traitor.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Has the Catholic Church been a force for good?
