the tyranny of religion within democracy

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Awesomelyglorious
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09 Oct 2007, 5:40 pm

Angelus-Mortis wrote:

I think the way these parents are seeing it is that they've been spoonfed the same things by their parents, and their parent's parents, and so on. So they think the same and think that other religions are "blasphemous" (particularly where Christianity is involved). I agree that there's nothing wrong with teaching your children what religions exist and allowing them to choose. But society and tradition don't allow this to happen. It is simply too irrational. In theory, I would like that people, particularly when they are young are allowed to choose which religion occurs. But with society and tradition being so irrational at this day and age in reality, it simply doesn't happen. But if there were a solution for that, I'm all for it.

I disagree. Here are my premises: world views are not rationally derived, parents need to provide moral instruction(which is based upon the world view), people cannot provide moral instructions on moralities different than their own, therefore, the most rational system would be to standardize the world views between parent and child so that sufficient moral instruction can be provided for a functional child..... and this is assuming the meta-rational goal of welfare as being desirable, which is not a necessary assumption, but I am merely going along with what I assume is your assumption. Really, I don't think that society is as comparatively irrational as you claim though: the reason for saying that is that you carry with your analysis a number of implicit premises that are never explicitly acknowledged and as such are treated as fact. You never resolved the nature of moral valuation, which is important for the matter of optimal action, you never proved a more rational position, you merely identified your stronger than normal logical faculties as being reasonably pure rationality.

Angelus-Mortis
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09 Oct 2007, 5:55 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Angelus-Mortis wrote:

I argue that it's irrational in the sense that if you wish to be more open minded, and to be more accepting of other people that believe in other things, that can possibly prevent catastrophes like war from happening, then you should try to accept other people's religions, and possibly learn about them, not so that you can believe in them, but so that you can understand them and how they think. To do otherwise would be irrational, and you would only be shutting yourself in to believe that your religion is right, and everyone else is wrong.

I do define "rationalitty" in terms of logic, possibly related to math. But it's the only kind of logic I see that makes sense. If there is another kind that works and is consistent, I'd like to hear about it.

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Awesomelyglorious
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09 Oct 2007, 6:09 pm

Angelus-Mortis wrote:

But who said open-mindedness was good? Why would accepting the fact that some people believe different things necessarily prevent war, accepting the existence of other ideas doesn't negate violence as an idea. Rationality still cannot be defined without premises to follow, really, in economics there is a concept that ignorance can be the most rational action because one's purposes do not require knowledge on a topic. Not all people act based upon premises and for purposes where knowledge of other religions is required, for them ignorance is rational as the costs of learning this particular knowledge outweigh the benefits. One still cannot speak of rationality without looking to premises, this means that absolutely rational actions do not exist.

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I do define "rationalitty" in terms of logic, possibly related to math. But it's the only kind of logic I see that makes sense. If there is another kind that works and is consistent, I'd like to hear about it.

Well, I define rationality in terms of logic as well, and a logic that is related to logic. I merely mean that logic fails because logically the basic premises are not derivable, which is why we have weird philosophical movements such as existentialism, and why subjectivity(rather than objective traits) is the basis of economic valuation.

Angelus-Mortis
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09 Oct 2007, 6:28 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Angelus-Mortis wrote:

Well, it works for some things. Like Christians not accepting of other religions. There were all sorts of wars because of that. If people could learn to accept differences in other religions, then they might not have happened. Although that might be all together a lost cause, considering Christians are specifically told not to accept other religions. And war can be bred from ignorance.

Awesomelyglorious
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09 Oct 2007, 6:38 pm

Angelus-Mortis wrote:

And there are all sorts of problems with separating the issues tied to religion and the issues related to earthly power structures. Christians are told specifically that other religions are incorrect, and frankly, all other religions are going to by nature have to reject Christianity because of the nature of the claims made. Christians are not told to go kill people of different religions though, and that is the issue, in fact, I would argue that Christians are even advised by their Bible not to go around killing people of different religions, and because of that I would blame power structures for many of these problems. One of the biggest causes of war is a desire for war.

Angelus-Mortis
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09 Oct 2007, 6:41 pm

You mean it's not written in the bible to go kill people who don't believe in Christianity? I swear I saw a verse on that...

Awesomelyglorious
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09 Oct 2007, 6:47 pm

Angelus-Mortis wrote:

You mean it's not written in the bible to go kill people who don't believe in Christianity? I swear I saw a verse on that...

I don't remember reading a verse on that. It might have been Old Testament in a specific case such as a war or a punishment in the Old Testament, however, Christians are typically told to proselyte, not to kill, and this bears out in their typical actions and in the well known(well, well known in Christian groups, I live in the Bible Belt so I know a reasonable amount about Christianity) "Great Commission" that many conservative groups speak of. I dunno, you might want to show the verse as many cases they are taken out of context, really though, given that Christian pacifists exist, I have a hard time really seeing the divine command to kill.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 09 Oct 2007, 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Angelus-Mortis
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09 Oct 2007, 6:52 pm

Well, this certainly explains why I remembered that verse. There were actually several of them.

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You must kill those who worship another god. Exodus 22:20

Kill any friends or family that worship a god that is different than your own. Deuteronomy 13:6-10

Kill all the inhabitants of any city where you find people that worship differently than you. Deuteronomy 13:12-16

Kill everyone who has religious views that are different than your own. Deuteronomy 17:2-7

Kill anyone who refuses to listen to a priest. Deuteronomy 17:12-13

Kill any false prophets. Deuteronomy 18:20

Any city that doesn’t receive the followers of Jesus will be destroyed in a manner even more savage than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Mark 6:11

Jude reminds us that God destroys those who don’t believe in him. Jude 5

Awesomelyglorious
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09 Oct 2007, 6:56 pm

Angelus-Mortis wrote:

Well, this certainly explains why I remembered that verse. There were actually several of them.

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It looks like multiple verses, I will have to find out the context for all of them. That God destroys those who don't believe in him is noted so the Mark and Jude passages are really not discussion worthy as we speak of Christians going to violence, not God. As well, in the Old Testament, I will have to investigate some of those issues as some of these dictums will be referring to the Jewish nation and specific situations. Modern Christianity is not a nation though, and it is well noted that Jesus lived around unbelievers and the NT is not filled with terroristic acts by Jesus.

I really tend to think that most of these passages you cite really speak of old jewish law used for instructing the people who are under God's covenant how to live. Not things that are instructed to do to other people, I already looked up all of the OT passages and that is what they were. They were not commands for how the people of God should act to those who are not under his rule, but rather they are laws to handle disputes within the people. The people in this case were usually supposed to have sworn themselves to God already, and thus their faithlessness is sort of a breach of contract. Like I said, a lot of this is stuff taken out of context, in this case it is the context of law.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 09 Oct 2007, 7:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Angelus-Mortis
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09 Oct 2007, 6:59 pm

It goes to show though, that God destroys unbelievers, is, in my opinion, some form of intolerance, to which I abhor. That's one of the reasons I've never really liked Christianity.

Awesomelyglorious
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09 Oct 2007, 7:05 pm

Angelus-Mortis wrote:

It goes to show though, that God destroys unbelievers, is, in my opinion, some form of intolerance, to which I abhor. That's one of the reasons I've never really liked Christianity.

So, God destroys unbelievers. That is his nature and his right according to the system they believe in. God doesn't have to tolerate evil and he doesn't tolerate evil or rebellion. You may dislike Christianity for that reason, but if Christianity is true then you are the one rebelling and refusing all kindnesses given, as are the other people not tolerated. If it is false then it is just an odd belief system really.

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09 Oct 2007, 7:16 pm

You could say that. But since the Earth is not 6000 years old, nor is it flat, and a global flood is impossible, I have difficulty treating the bible and hence, Christianity seriously.

Awesomelyglorious
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09 Oct 2007, 7:26 pm

Angelus-Mortis wrote:

You could say that. But since the Earth is not 6000 years old, nor is it flat, and a global flood is impossible, I have difficulty treating the bible and hence, Christianity seriously.

But, you technically cannot prove your points. A hypothesis made by philosopher Bertrand Russell is that if the world were just created 5 minutes ago we could not know the difference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_minute_hypothesis What prevents a deity from making the world 6000 years ago? The Christian idea then becomes difficult to disprove, especially given that many Christians would put God's word(the bible) above most other sources of information. That might be something that you dislike, but that is only because of information source preferences.

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09 Oct 2007, 9:10 pm

It's perfectly true that a God in total control of time and space could have created the universe ten minutes ago with all the phony evidence that the light from stars billions of light years away that needed billions of years to reach us is all fake and that all those dinosaur bones that science indicates are millions of years old have been faked. But then again a Bible that says that the world is 6000 years old could just as easily be fake and it is a hell of a lot easier for me to believe that the Bible is nonsense than all the science is a fake. Admittedly I could be wrong but it is a matter of choice. If you feel that no physical evidence can be believed then you have to accept that your head could explode for no reason or that you could, in a flash, turn into a horsefly or that you are a total idiot. It's a matter of personal choice. I have made mine.

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09 Oct 2007, 9:24 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

That is his nature

for it to have a gender, it would have to exist first. not to mention for it to have any kind of demeanor, it would have to exist first.

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09 Oct 2007, 11:00 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Angelus-Mortis wrote:

You could say that. But since the Earth is not 6000 years old, nor is it flat, and a global flood is impossible, I have difficulty treating the bible and hence, Christianity seriously.

Christians are always right because God is ommipotent so they can spout any old bollocks they feel like? Thats a load of shite and you know it. Its certainly a cheap way to get out of an argument.

I could say "christianity is not the oldest religion, so surely zeus or odin were more correct", and you can say "god made them up 5 minutes back because he could" ?

OF COURSE the christian idea becomes difficult to disprove if christians can resort to that sort of thing. Thing is, just about every other religion will say exactly the same thing, if they think it will win the fight.

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