the tyranny of religion within democracy

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Recent research has indicated that the human brain is not fully grown until the late teens. You cannot force children to be critical as they do not have the capacity. But being critical is, in general, a very good thing as it makes people analyze why they make their choices. Children are totally at their parents' mercies for all sorts of basic reasons and therefore totally vulnerable. Any sensible person does not base emotional comfort on unfounded authority but rather on an understanding of what makes knowledge valid. The world is a dangerous place and it is wise to be able to figure how to avoid real danger without cluttering up understanding with unfounded nonsense.

This isn't an argument about empirical data or anything like that. I think that all sides have recognized that children are not adults and that they lack full mental capabilities, however, that has very little to do with the opposing position. What is being rejected here is the capability of human beings to know things as much as you claim, and what is being counter-claimed is that world view is something that parents must teach and thus denying one world view is merely discrimination.

The issue of knowledge relates back to things that we cannot know, an example I have used is moral action. All beings must act with a sense of what they ought to do, but as Hume stated, there is nothing to determine ought from the nature of the world, therefore because real knowledge is impossible on that issue there must be an unfounded authority even if it is religion, egoism, humanism, etc. Not only that, but given the existence of very intelligent religious figures, and unknowability of many religious claims, it seems that there is no way to perfectly state that religion has been entirely discredited.

As well, the position on world view relates very strongly on the unknowability of morality but also of other suppositions. The world cannot be looked at with the blank slate, there must be a background to interpret the world and we find these backgrounds in our cultures, our beliefs, and all sorts of other things beyond rational derivation, some would even argue that the supposition of logic's perfection is a logical problem as one cannot meta-logic logic. The various inclusions necessary for a functioning human do include many emotional attachments given the inability of people to make purely logical decisions. Religion is not especially strange there, especially given that there is NO reason given that children shouldn't be exposed to it, as Hume stated, children may be incapable of certain thinking skills, but that is does not mean how we ought to react to it as there is only an assumption of evil by you but no proof.

buddhism and, i think, taoism are two of only a few religions that openly accept a free market of religious philosophies as a means of learning. the deity based religions and, more specficically, the judeo-christian religions discourage such exploration.

my attitude has little to do with an open mind and everything to do with experience, history and a simple observation on reality.





and it's been proven over and over again that christians on a whole aren't normally tolerant of others...especially when religion actually comes up in a discussion. i know in any discussions that i have with others, i basically have to put a nice spin on my views so that i don't alienate others. so tolerance? nope...none of that. especially not tolerance of other religions....can barely even tolerate between christians rather less real other religions.




of course. democracy isn't perfect and almost no system is perfect. i'd want them to know everything so as to not be lead down a path for the wrong reasons and think something is something that it isn't (like communism being a free path to utopia...or even democracy being a path to utopia).




that's where you're wrong. people do not have a right to be close-minded and vote. that's how democracy breaks down...because the free market of ideas breaks down into close-minded chest beating jerks....kinda like how the democrats and neo-cons currently are and are descending farther down into that mess. so yeah.....people don't have a right to be close-minded in a democracy...because that's how the system breaks down and crumbles apart...but if you had actually learned about governments, then maybe you'd know that.




i said fair light, not favorable. in fact, i'd dare say it would be better if the education were more critical of everything (including atheism and democracy) and encouraging the students to not make those same mistakes.



uh....no. if i just wanted to argue for atheism and agnosticism, i'd just sit here all day replying to the christians "prove it"....and i haven't done that in here yet...and actually haven't replied elsewhere yet because the overall discourse has been interesting so far. i'm looking for an actual fair answer to a serious problem that isn't a problem for those who buy into the party(this is reference to communism here...joining the party was a way to get favorable treatment within the system in russia).




cute little jab.





and your response is the typical redneck "KEEP YER GUBERMINT OUTTA MY RELIGION!! !" response that is elicited whenever someone dare challenge the role that the majority religion plays in government. quit implying i'm a fascist. i'm for more freedom than you'd ever dare think about giving people.

you have a very interesting point on this and i somewhat agree with it...my only problem is the few hundred years in between...which is why i'm leaning more towards preventative...i don't plan on living hundreds of years to the point where a state religion would start to bore people or whatever happens in the process. but you do have a very good point.....except in the instances of the theocracies in the middle east....though then again, iran was starting to struggle with keeping religion as relevant as they'd want. was....until we (the united states) started stirring up that nationalistic and religious pride by waging our "crusade."

Well, I would sooner deny people the right to vote than deny them the right to be closed minded. With one we speak of liberty and self-ownership, the other only speaks of a process. Frankly, I reject the idea of a fragile democracy that must be maintained by illiberal elements though, certainly some tolerance is necessary but not the rigidly enforced tolerance that you speak of, the media makes society look divided, America really tends to be purple more than anything else.



Well, the idea of Keeping the guberment outta my religion is a very valid claim. Rights are more important than democracy and parenting and religion relate back to rights. Democracy is our system because we believe it will protect these rights, rights are not the system to protect our democracy. Now, you may be for freedom, but frankly, as Witt and I both note, this is still the state forcing people to subordinate on a particular issue due to a dislike of a certain idea or other power. I disagree with the state's right to do such a thing, especially given that Christianity has not destroyed Western Civilization despite existing for 2 thousand or so years(well, they arguably destroyed the Romans, but still, my point basically stands). This really just seems to me like tyranny and a rather perverse form of moral oppression. Really, if your fear is the rise of government, I would sooner call for a great contraction to prevent it from ever reaching horrid power.

Christianity didn't destroy Rome. The barbarians destroyed Rome, and so did the corruption within Rome.

I personally think the Western World would better defeat the Muslims if we all became a Christian theocracy (shudder at the onslaught of rabid atheists)

The problems involved in the transfer of knowledge and values in the process of raising children are profound and involved in many basic biological, intellectual and cultural systems for dealing with the world.

Science assumes that nature is governed by rigid laws that control the relationships of matter and energy and that these laws are discernable and verifiable and communicable. Science has uniform procedures for discovering and verifying these laws and the validity of these discoveries depends upon no authority but the test of the laws in the context of general scientific understanding. If an event occurs that seems to violate the general matrix of scientific laws then the matrix must be modified to accommodate the new phenomena that can never be ignored.

Religion is a totally different beast. It involves not only a special concept as to the origins and relationships of everything in the universe but also attempts to fit humanity into these patterns in a way that almost always places humanity and human problems at the center of focus of the universe. Modern science has become aware that the universe is so immense that, for all practical purposes, humanity and the entire planet Earth and even our solar system is of such negligible size and importance to the universe that if we and our solar system ceased to exist it would make no discernable difference to the whole whatsoever.

In its historical attempt to comprehend our universe various religions have theorized how it came about and created explanations which, in the light of the many discoveries in the last couple of centuries, appear at minimum, rather naïve. This is not to denigrate the caliber of individuals involved in religion but to indicate that there is a very different mind set involved between science and religion.

Science can suggest that particular human activities will result in a set of consequences which may be negative or positive. It does not dictate these choices. This is one of its many profound differences with religion. Throughout its history religion in general has become an adjunct to government and, in some circumstances, government itself, and thereby acquired some of the characteristics and powers of government. Government is effective because it requires the obedience of its members and its rules and regulations must be obeyed or punishments will be evoked. Secular governments make no bones about obedience and do not require justifications for their demands beyond humanly constructed laws which can prescribe punishments for disobedience.

Although some theocracies exist the bulk of religions must appeal to powers other than secular to enforce their demands. Therefore they have posited a hyper governmental force dominated by super beings or a super being which are, not surprisingly, not too different from the patterns of secular governments but with paranormal powers of discernment of the behavior of adherents that are only now becoming possible amongst humans through human technology. Investigative science has yet to confirm or deny the existence of these religious hyper beings but rational analysis leans towards dismissing them as mere psychological inventions for theological control.

It is in the realm of control of people that religion differs totally from science. Social science, which is at best, quite imprecise, can make out some of the mechanics of social interaction and this has proved useful to politicians and advertising agencies but there is a wide difference between individuals and the knowledge is useful usually in dealing with large groups of people. Morality, which is much involved in religion, varies greatly from one culture to another and over time even within one culture.
Relations between the various colors of humanity have changed radically within the last few decades and wife beating and punishments for blasphemy and treatments of homosexuals have huge differences between different religions and different cultures. There are no inherent absolute standards amongst all humans.

Cultural standards can demand behavior of individuals which seem to contradict very basic biological laws and very frequently humans accept these behaviors and exult in performing them. In WWII the Japanese produced Baka bombs which were missiles guided by human pilots and the plague of suicide bombs in the Middle East betray the same extreme behavior. But even normally accepted prohibitions such as those around the eating of pork and shellfish and the rituals about milk and meat which have no biological foundation indicate the irrational decrees that litter religion yet are accepted by intelligent and otherwise rational people. These latter are more or less innocent but the Catholic demands about the use of condoms has resulted in much misery and death. Scientific understanding in this last case comes in direct conflict with religion.

But the upbringing of children is an inherent building block that each individual requires in reproducing him or her self and it is extremely unlikely that major interference by government in the process, even if it is for the benefit of the child, will ever be permitted in a free society.

Theres the rub.. some things just take a damn long time to sort out. Our great grandchildren may well live in a time of religious and political enlightenment. They might even get rocket cars and robot maids (like we were supopsed to have by now), but its unlikely anyone will actually get to see it. By its very nature religion is a monolithic beast, and takes a long time to change direction. It might not even go in the right direction, and then you have to wait a hundred years for it to go back again.

Middle Eastern theocratic issues are actually in the same boat as american ones. Islam is simply not that old, and if we assume that all religions go through a slow change process, they have a long time to wait before they have passed through the kind of changes christianity has, in much the same way that British politics and religion are based on a longer chain of events and situations than American ones, simply through duration. (In the sense of America as a seperate political entity.)

I sometimes wonder if it might be worth re-evaluating some of the Heresies that have occured in christianity, in a more enlightened fashion, with the benefit of modern knowledge, just to see if say.. the Cathars actually had a point. (Picking one at random.)

As to this ongoing argument about the indoctrination of children into religion.. I would be interested to know how many are speaking from experience as children, and how many speaking from the platform of having raised children?

My thought? Christianity at a juvenile level is quite a handy tool to teach children a reasonable moral code. I imagine the Quoran has a similarly clear moral code as well. After all, whats so very wrong about teaching kids not to kill? To be nice to people, to help people out?

As someone who was an atheist from birth with atheist parents and atheist children and grandchildren I cannot know if I am typical but a line of kindness and high regard for animals and other people runs strongly through all of us and I frankly resent the implication that a lack of religion turns us into vicious savages. If anything our morality seems much more kind (I dislike the word "tolerance" ) than some Christians who think nothing of murdering doctors and at least some Muslims who murder anyone who happens to be around and Jews who claim to have a mandate from God to mistreat Arabs. I admire and have good friends from all these religions but cannot see that their morality derives from their religion but rather from their intelligence and good character independent from their religions.

Yes, I am snipping away the rest of your post. I don't care about your long-winded analysis on the nature of religion, science and society. I know about all 3 subjects, what I care about is the fundamental reasons why your prescription is different than mine and conciseness and clarity are both more important for that matter. I am sorry if I sound callous in doing so, but I know what is, but we differ upon the oughts. I will agree with the end part that this debate is useless because nobody will ever take children away from parents, but that is not a stance but rather simply objective analysis.

I would estimate that many of the people arguing are young adults, there might be some younger than that, also some old farts are possible, but most internet forums have a strong young adult component.

The counterpoint is really being made towards religion by claiming it is so virulent that it must be protected from. What I resent though is that so few people fail to recognize the true nature of the beast we know as morality. Morality IS fundamentally religious, it is a belief taken without proof or ability to prove and based upon very shallow grounds. You may be more altruistic, but no authority has established that altruism means good which is part of my point. I may dislike those people who act in those manners, but I am not going to argue that they lack morality or have a weaker moral code. Frankly though, intelligence has NOTHING to do with morality except perhaps in complexity because there is no proper derivation for morality. Also, given that I am currently living in the bible belt, I find the claim of religious people claiming their morality as independent from their religion to be a very questionable claim for perhaps their religion. I tend to live around very conservative Christians though, I know a lot of very nice and smart ones, but they still see morality and God as being intrinsically linked and given my non-cognitivist tendencies in viewing morality I tend to agree with their criticism. Good and evil refer to outside, objective concepts that can be assigned truth values to such as X is good and Y is evil, and without a metaphysical world with morality and in some sense purpose, these truth values cannot be assigned, the idea of a world without morality doesn't seem so strange to me as it does to them.

I concur that my post was long winded and apologize but thought it useful to establish my attitude in the relationship between religion and science which I feel are basically incompatible.
I disagree that morality is totally separate from reason although much of the grotesque behavior sponsored by religion is labeled as morality. Morality, to my view is linked to sensible social behavior. There are certain social relationships that are required for a society that functions for the beneficent survival of its members and does not destroy itself or its environment and it seems to me that this is useful and does not require any supernatural supervision.

Sand wrote -

'As someone who was an atheist from birth with atheist parents and atheist children and grandchildren I cannot know if I am typical but a line of kindness and high regard for animals and other people runs strongly through all of us and I frankly resent the implication that a lack of religion turns us into vicious savages. If anything our morality seems much more kind (I dislike the word "tolerance" ) than some Christians who think nothing of murdering doctors and at least some Muslims who murder anyone who happens to be around and Jews who claim to have a mandate from God to mistreat Arabs. I admire and have good friends from all these religions but cannot see that their morality derives from their religion but rather from their intelligence and good character independent from their religions.'

Thankyou, well said, humane rational intelligence does exist!

The kindest most functional people I have ever known all came from the three 'A's, Agnostics, Atheists and Animists however I know fine examples of humanity that are Muslim, Christian and Jew.
I don't find it that hard to find positive benefits in most belief structures, it seems to come down to so many variables as to what will be raised up and what will be held in check.
peace j

Well, they are different and I am not disagreeing with that, however, the entire issue we have is one on philosophy and morality, nobody has brought up science at all. What defines sensible though? You are presuming good to prove morality and thus have assumed what you have intended to prove. Logically we need premises in order to find a solution, there is no such thing as empirical proof of morality because morality is not a physical trait of reality, therefore moral premises cannot be logically arrived at and therefore morality is not derived from reason. Utilitarianism is not a purely rational creation as there is no reason to posit the good of others as being important and thus relies upon premises that are not derived logically.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 04 Oct 2007, 8:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I didn't mean directly destroy Rome, but there is thought that Christianity corrupted Rome's values which weakened as a factor of its destruction

Ah,finally someone that had actually read Hume!
I strongly recommend reading of Hume's works,specially to self-righteous 'scientists' who believe that they finally discovered true order of things.




Problem is that most of people that started moderns science,logic and mathematics were either Christian monks,or deeply religious Christians.

Examples:

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



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



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



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



For more information,see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... iddle_Ages

And as you see,Christianity actually supported developments of science.




Most of Christian churches simply die of being 'politically correct',and almost everyday they apologize for misdeeds of Christianity in the past.
But I don't see any of such self-criticism from other religions.

I don't know behavior of American protestant sects,since I'm not an American.



I personally believe that Islam is far greater problem in modern world,then Christianity.
Christianity is already deconstructed to the level of non-existence.
What is point of further deconstruction?

It's also strange that most Atheists came from regions with Christian tradition,and this simple contradicts with Christian 'intolerance'.
Try to be Atheist in any of Islamic countries...



That's simply self-contradictory if you talk about tolerance.




But who is to say what is 'open minded' and what is not?



But what they need to prove in first place?

Can you prove atheism?
Or agnosticism?



Same arguments were used by Soviet NKVD when they executed 'social heretics',because they were against 'people's democracy'.
As a matter of fact North Korea has it's official name 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea'.

It's all depends how you interpret democracy.




That's incorrect opinion,since Germanic tribes that destroyed Rome were also Christians.How come that Christianity didn't "weakened" them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of ... man_Empire



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



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

My point on the logical underpinning of morality is based on the raw necessity of any society to behave in some restricted pattern to survive. The ecology always places severe demands upon any living organism to conform to some sort of logic or to cease to exist. And society is doubtless a living organism. Human capabilities of formulating behavior patterns and maintaining them even though they may not be optimum for survival have limited extensions as, sooner or later, the environment takes a harsh turn and society must adapt or die. The proposition that morality which is the engine for a good deal of social behavior has no reasonable basis seems to me highly unlikely as total randomness in the face of natural forces is insane and guarantees elimination. Good and bad, evil and beneficial, are human attributes formulated on the basis of goal attainment or frustration. They have no absolutes but only exist in relationship to end results on society. And there are strict survival demands for any long time behavior.