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God
May 9, 2006 3:48:25 GMT -4
Post by gwiz on May 9, 2006 3:48:25 GMT -4
I still don't think the value of a religion rises and falls with its leaders, however. Certainly they can contribute or detract from a religion's success, but I think a religion's true value is to be determined in its philosophical principles and the value its practicioners perceive in them. But it's the leaders who control the philosophical principles. They are the ones who decide whether now's the time to admit women priests or rather go for witch-burning.
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God
May 9, 2006 7:53:12 GMT -4
Post by 3onthetree on May 9, 2006 7:53:12 GMT -4
I don't have a religious bone in my body unfortunately but even I can see that power corrupts. When religions had power they attracted bad bastards, if scientific leaders ever get any power they will become bad bastards.
Best to elect our bad bastards and threaten them with opinion polls. ;D
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Jason
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God
May 9, 2006 12:07:02 GMT -4
Post by Jason on May 9, 2006 12:07:02 GMT -4
I don't think the leaders do control the philosophical principles if we're talking about religions in the most general sense - Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. On that scale tradition and centuries of writings have a huge influence on what is considered a part of the religion. If we talk about religions in the sense of individual denominations then I think you can indeed make the argument that the leaders have a great deal of influence on what is taught. This raises another question in my mind, however, do you judge a religion as being harmful if it has a doctrine (perhaps only one) that you do not agree with, such as not allowing female clergy? Or should you still consider it in agregate, with the good possibly outweighing the bad? And what's this unhealthy fascination you have with burning people (witches, heretics, etc.)?
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God
May 9, 2006 12:43:43 GMT -4
Post by gwiz on May 9, 2006 12:43:43 GMT -4
do you judge a religion as being harmful if it has a doctrine (perhaps only one) that you do not agree with, such as not allowing female clergy? Or should you still consider it in agregate, with the good possibly outweighing the bad? And what's this unhealthy fascination you have with burning people (witches, heretics, etc.)? It can indeed only take one doctrine to do an awful lot of harm, for instance having an objection to the easiest way of preventing the spread of AIDS. You'll need an army of saints doing good works to outweigh that one. And the mentions of burning are just my way of reminding you of my original point that religion can lead to the sanctioning of some pretty evil acts. I could mention holy wars instead if you prefer.
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Jason
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God
May 9, 2006 13:04:14 GMT -4
Post by Jason on May 9, 2006 13:04:14 GMT -4
It can indeed only take one doctrine to do an awful lot of harm, for instance having an objection to the easiest way of preventing the spread of AIDS. Wouldn't that be abstinence outside of marriage? Most religions are rather in favor of that particular doctrine. In any case, judging a religion on the basis of one doctrine alone might work for me, as long as it is a doctrine that does more harm than any good doctrines the religion also professes. Well, I could constantly mention all of the various deplorable acts of communist governments and the French revolution as arguments against atheism with about the same relevence.
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God
May 9, 2006 13:46:00 GMT -4
Post by gwiz on May 9, 2006 13:46:00 GMT -4
It can indeed only take one doctrine to do an awful lot of harm, for instance having an objection to the easiest way of preventing the spread of AIDS. Wouldn't that be abstinence outside of marriage? Most religions are rather in favor of that particular doctrine. It wasn't the one I was intending, but it seems that promoting it instead of teaching use of condoms has little effect in preventing the spread of STD. I wasn't making any claims for atheism. You were the one who said that religion promoted moral behaviour. Counter examples are hardly irrelevant to the discussion.
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Jason
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God
May 9, 2006 14:50:34 GMT -4
Post by Jason on May 9, 2006 14:50:34 GMT -4
I wasn't making any claims for atheism. You were the one who said that religion promoted moral behaviour. Counter examples are hardly irrelevant to the discussion. Lack of relevence is my point. When it comes to things like burning witches and heretics or starting wars I feel religion has been an excuse far more often then it has been an actual motivation. Recall my earlier mention of Stalin. He was not motivated by the principles of Marxist-Leninist Communism, as he claimed. Communism cannot really be blamed for his actions because it was merely a prop for Stalin - an excuse to do what he already wanted to do. My opinion is that for the vast majority of people both living today and in history religion has been a positive force that does promote moral behavior. Whatever your feelings on the actual effectiveness of promoting abstinance outside of marriage, if it were practiced then AIDS and other STDs would not be the problem they are. Behavior that would be beneficial is being encouraged by religion in this case.
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God
May 9, 2006 19:30:27 GMT -4
Post by Halcyon Dayz, FCD on May 9, 2006 19:30:27 GMT -4
My opinion is that for the vast majority of people both living today and in history religion has been a positive force that does promote moral behaviour. I'm sure Torquemada thought his behaviour was moral. And according to the moral code disseminated by his religion at the time, it was. The question is, what moral code, and is it worth deceiving yourself for.
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God
May 10, 2006 3:35:02 GMT -4
Post by gwiz on May 10, 2006 3:35:02 GMT -4
Thanks for the moral support, Dayz.
To try to clarify and expand the argument:
There appears to me to be a generally acceptable moral code that applies across human societies, basically that it is right to respect the lives, liberties and property of other people. Whether this is the last six of the Ten Commandments or the UN Declaration of Human Rights, there is a consensus.
Jason claims religion promotes a superiority in moral behaviour. I object that there are examples where religion had instead promoted grossly immoral behaviour while claiming it was in fact moral. I am not claiming that lack of religion promotes moral behaviour, so Stalin is irrelevant. I might think that political movements sometimes can also persuade their followers that immoral behaviour is moral, but this is also irrelevant.
Jason says witch-hunts and holy wars use religion as an excuse, I think religion is at the core of both. A witch is a servant of the enemy of god, a religious concept that makes her seem deserving of the harshest treatment. A holy war is not fought for material gain, but to subdue the heretics. Possession of Palestine was of no material benefit to Christendom, rather the reverse, but the crusades went ahead anyway.
We agree that while it is very difficult to do an accurate moral accounting, some religions seem more beneficial to humanity than others. I put this down to the influence of the leaders, Jason seems to favour the founding philosophy.
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Jason
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God
May 10, 2006 12:58:48 GMT -4
Post by Jason on May 10, 2006 12:58:48 GMT -4
There appears to me to be a generally acceptable moral code that applies across human societies, basically that it is right to respect the lives, liberties and property of other people. Whether this is the last six of the Ten Commandments or the UN Declaration of Human Rights, there is a consensus. I agree. Even if humanity as a whole cannot agree on an absolute moral code in all particulars, there does seem to be a general consensus on many issues as to what is moral and what is immoral behavior, with even most rogue nations attempting to find justifications the other states will find moral for their actions. My purpose in bringing up Stalin in the first place was not to make an argument that an atheistic attitude is detrimental to moral behavior. Rather it was to point out that people who carry out immoral actions often borrow ideological trappings to justify their actions to the others, and that their actions should not therefore impinge on the value of the philosophical system they are borrowing from, since they in fact have no serious belief in the system themselves. Stalin was my example because his actual objectives were nothing like the stated objectives of Communism which he was using to justify his actions. My point is that Leaders who make claims that their religion justifies their immoral actions when in fact they have no serious commitment to the religion in question and/or their actions are contrary to its doctrines should not encumber one's judgement of the religion. The case of Osama bin Laden engineering an attack that kills thousands of innocent people in the name of Islam should not force me to judge Islam as immoral until I understand ObL's connection to Islam and whether he is a fair representative of that faith. Although no doubt there were some people who honestly believed that witches (in the sense of people who had made a compact with Satan) really did exist, did the accusers who began the whole mess of the Salem Witch trials really believe this, or did they see a convenient excuse to get rid of some of their more unpleasant neighbors? When heretics were burned, was it really because the religious rulers of the day objected to them on theological gorunds, or was it because they were threats to their own popularity and positions of control and the religious argument was a convenient excuse? The Crusades are not something I have done in-depth studies on (sadly), but the impression I get is that plunder was certainly the major motivation for many of the Crusaders, and that many European leaders may have seen the Crusades as a convenient place to send armed and restless men who might otherwise be fighting wars in Europe. I agree that both philosophy and leaders are factors. Our disagreement is primarily in how much weight should be given to each. Of course, we haven't been speaking of any specific cases up to this point, so it's difficult to get too specific.
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God
May 11, 2006 3:36:32 GMT -4
Post by gwiz on May 11, 2006 3:36:32 GMT -4
Although no doubt there were some people who honestly believed that witches (in the sense of people who had made a compact with Satan) really did exist, did the accusers who began the whole mess of the Salem Witch trials really believe this, or did they see a convenient excuse to get rid of some of their more unpleasant neighbors? Dunno about Salem, but in Europe there were witchfinders who went around selecting the witches from every town they visited, people they'd never met before. My impression is that a lot of the victims were fairly low down on the social scale. They didn't just burn the leading heretics who might be seen as threats. While there was certainly a lot of plundering, mostly of the Byzantine empire rather than Palestine, this was hardly the motivation of the clerics like Peter the Hermit who set the whole thing in motion. At the start, at least, the crusaders themselves wouldn't have had much idea whether they were going to a rich or a poor land. This is probably another area where convincing evidence would be hard to get.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
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God
May 11, 2006 7:41:18 GMT -4
Post by Al Johnston on May 11, 2006 7:41:18 GMT -4
Another point that maybe worth considering is the motivation of the men who actually lit the fires: it wasn't the person who ordered the witches or heretics burned who did the actual dirty work. Were they "only following orders" or was the perception that they were about God's work a comfort to them?
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Jason
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God
May 11, 2006 11:18:03 GMT -4
Post by Jason on May 11, 2006 11:18:03 GMT -4
Dunno about Salem, but in Europe there were witchfinders who went around selecting the witches from every town they visited, people they'd never met before. "Look how powerful and pious I am! I can find a 'witch' in any village I go to, and I'm so magnificently impressive to the locals that I can order their neighbors to burn them and they'll do it!" The motivation there could easily be pride, not religion. So, a possible hypothesis is that the first Crusade was motivated by some who honestly felt they would like to free the Holy land from the infidels and lots of leaders of small European countries went along because it's was a good place to send their restless armed nobles who could otherwise be trouble. Then when the word of plunder and the success of the first one reached Europe again more and more leaders decided it was a worthwhile idea and sent their men too. I really need to find a good history of the Crusades to read up on. I'm not saying that no one ever is motivated to immoral actions out of sincere belief in their religion, just that I think it's much more common for someone to engage in immoral behavior for reasons entirely unrelated to their religion and then use religion as their excuse.
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God
May 11, 2006 12:41:40 GMT -4
Post by gwiz on May 11, 2006 12:41:40 GMT -4
"Look how powerful and pious I am! I can find a 'witch' in any village I go to, and I'm so magnificently impressive to the locals that I can order their neighbors to burn them and they'll do it!" The motivation there could easily be pride, not religion. And as Al says above, would the witchfinder have had any success without helpers who believed they were doing god's work? Again, the first crusade involved a lot of ordinary people going of their own volition because they believed in the cause. After the first crusade captured Jerusalem, there was little non-Christian plunder left for latecomers. The second crusade was about fifty years later and prompted by the turks recapturing one of the first crusaders captured cities.
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Jason
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God
May 11, 2006 13:01:38 GMT -4
Post by Jason on May 11, 2006 13:01:38 GMT -4
"Look how powerful and pious I am! I can find a 'witch' in any village I go to, and I'm so magnificently impressive to the locals that I can order their neighbors to burn them and they'll do it!" The motivation there could easily be pride, not religion. And as Al says above, would the witchfinder have had any success without helpers who believed they were doing god's work? Certainly he could have gotten far. Fear is an excellent motivator. "If I don't do what he says and help burn my neighbor then he'll accuse me and I'll be next."
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