The War Against Christianity

biomorph said:
Lonewulf said:
In this case, yes, I'll agree.

If religion is something that shouldn't be criticized because it has some hidden benefit, I would like to know what exactly that benefit is.
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Me too, thank you lonewulf, i guess i've stirred up a hornets nest here, i'd like to back peddle like crazy, but my brain will not let me do that easily.
i have not been in the thick of one of these discussions here much, so i'm sorta outa breath. (puff, puff).

Not to mention out of time, i have to go. Things outside of here are happening......
I'd like to thanK you all so far for an amazing debate which no doubt i'll be partaking of again sometime. Breathtaking, and thanks for all the fish
you guys are cool.
Happy New year and i'll be back.....xxxx
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Lemme just say that I will never say that religion shouldn't be criticized. I just don't think it should be unjustly bashed. Yes there are religious asshats, but I think that they'd be atheistic asshats, given the chance.

Remember, religion is a human construct. It's got all the foibles that come from being one.

One thing that I know that I have to remember is that I need my more militant atheist brethren and sistren to help keep me honest. I hope that you can use me in a similar manner. Don't let your dislike of the piss poor actions of certain theists make you totally negate the role of religion in humanity. I hope, too, that it eventually collapses under its own weight, but humans have shown a certain resilience against violent change. I think the Canadian ideal of "evolution, not revolution" is the name of the game here. Yeah, it takes longer, but the universe has time.
 
kmortis said:
I'm not talking about pattern recognition. I'm talking about the part of the frontal lobe that creates a transcendent feeling. Look at the 47:00 mark to see what I'm talking about. V.S. Ramachandran talks about temporal lobe seizures. THAT'S the section I'm talking about.
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Okay. It need not necessarily be a useful thing to survive through evolution. As long as not having transcendent feelings doesn't increase the odds of survival, it's not likely to be a characteristic for natural selection to act on. At the end of his presentation (around 55:00), Ramachandran gives two possible hypotheses why this behavior is present in some people. One is that the religious structure and hierarchy is beneficial to society. The other is that it is a byproduct of some other function of the brain. In other words, the reason it is there is not necessarily that it is useful to our survival.
 
tsg said:
Okay. It need not necessarily be a useful thing to survive through evolution. As long as not having transcendent feelings doesn't increase the odds of survival, it's not likely to be a characteristic for natural selection to act on. At the end of his presentation (around 55:00), Ramachandran gives two possible hypotheses why this behavior is present in some people. One is that the religious structure and hierarchy is beneficial to society. The other is that it is a byproduct of some other function of the brain. In other words, the reason it is there is not necessarily that it is useful to our survival.
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True, but that means that it cannot be totally ruled out as an evolutionary force either. It needs more research.

In any case, it did get you to watch V.S. and that's never a bad thing. :D
 
kmortis said:
True, but that means that it cannot be totally ruled out as an evolutionary force either. It needs more research.
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I don't disagree. Maybe I misunderstood, but I took your comment to mean "it's survived evolution, therefore there must be a beneficial reason for religious thinking."

In any case, it did get you to watch V.S. and that's never a bad thing. :D
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I'll have to sit down and watch the whole thing when I have time. Very interesting stuff.
 
tsg said:
I don't disagree. Maybe I misunderstood, but I took your comment to mean "it's survived evolution, therefore there must be a beneficial reason for religious thinking."
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If I gave that impression, I apologize. My point is that since it has survived, we cannot rule out that there may be, or may have been, a environmental stress that it was addressing. I'm hoping that it's either a neutral (as you indicated) or a past stressor and it's in process of being eliminated. In either case, I'm not saying that it's right and correct (that would be the naturalistic fallacy), but that maybe we should understand why it's there and address that, rather than making other humans lives miserable by taking away their security blankets just because we don't need them (or we use something else).

tsg said:
I'll have to sit down and watch the whole thing when I have time. Very interesting stuff.
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If you want to watch all the sessions (and they're worth it), the general list is here.
 
thaiboxerken said:
Can you give examples of "unjust bashing" of religion?
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Yes, using logical fallacies to create the attacks. Vis:
  • All religions are evil
  • All religions are usless
  • All religious practices are child abuse

Making a general out of a specific is bad form. If you want to talk about specific practices that are harmful, be my guest. Waging what amounts to an ad hom argument writ large against this mythical beast called "religion" is just silly.
 
But people hear "all religions" even if you just mean religion in general. To repeat what I said over here:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102219&page=2

When you say elephants are gray, it is understood that it means "elephants in general"--not all elephants... the same goes for religions... a statement about generalities is not made false by specific contradictory examples. When we say "smoking causes cancer"... an example of all the people who didn't get cancer who smoked does not invalidate the statement.

Sure, you can say, that "smoking increases a persons risk for cancer--specifically lung cancer..." but it would be tedious... generalities should be understood--and it seems that when religion is used as a generality, it often is a an excuse to derail a thread and beat up the person that dared to say something bad about "religion in general" because not all religions are bad.

But that's what is meant by this whole thread... THAT is how religions get special treatment... people do have a meme to defend them... even if they are atheists... it's this idea that there is something sacred or noble or good about faith, I think. It feels like you cannot even note that faith is a bad way to find truth without the faithful feeling personally attacked for whatever faith they have.
 
kmortis said:
All religions are evil
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Is an opinion. I happen to agree with this opinion. Can you name a religion that is not evil?

ll religions are usless
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Oh, I think people agree that religions are useful for controlling masses of people and elevating the status of a few as well as making those few wealthy.

All religious practices are child abuse
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This sounds like pure straw man to me.
 
articulett said:
But people hear "all religions" even if you just mean religion in general. To repeat what I said over here:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102219&page=2

When you say elephants are gray, it is understood that it means "elephants in general"--not all elephants... the same goes for religions... a statement about generalities is not made false by specific contradictory examples. When we say "smoking causes cancer"... an example of all the people who didn't get cancer who smoked does not invalidate the statement.

Sure, you can say, that "smoking increases a persons risk for cancer--specifically lung cancer..." but it would be tedious... generalities should be understood--and it seems that when religion is used as a generality, it often is a an excuse to derail a thread and beat up the person that dared to say something bad about "religion in general" because not all religions are bad.

But that's what is meant by this whole thread... THAT is how religions get special treatment... people do have a meme to defend them... even if they are atheists... it's this idea that there is something sacred or noble or good about faith, I think. It feels like you cannot even note that faith is a bad way to find truth without the faithful feeling personally attacked for whatever faith they have.
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What? You can't hear what is going on inside my head?

I guess I should have been more specific. In my list, I was referring to a logical "all", rather than a more colloquial "all". It should be compared to a logical "some" or "no"/"none".

No matter, I take you point, and to an extent, I agree with you. In general usage, it would be very tedious to have to qualify everything you say. However, I'm an engineer by trade, so I'm used to that mode of speech. ;)

Re-read what I say, though. I'm not saying that religion is sacred (excuse the pun) and cannot be questioned. Question away, please. There's much of it that needs to be gotten rid of. I will maintain that for a vast population of this world, they are better off with their religion. They practice the local equivalent of the Golden rule, they use the religion to impart some form of meaning on their lives, the couch their celebrations of joy in its terms, and find solace in it as well. They are not trying to take over anyone. They're just trying to live their lives.

Are there jerks trying to couch their own personal psychosis in terms of their religion? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Should they be fought? At every turn. I maintain that they are not the majority. I doubt they're even a plurality. but, with there being nigh 5 billion religious (assuming 6 billion total population, and 90% having some form of faith, just rough numbers mind you) if even 1% are those kinds of jerks that still leaves 50 million, aka a buttload, twice the population of Tokyo.
 
QBinBee said:
True, but the Mormons and Catholics have the money!
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I think the Catholics might even have the numbers considering immigrants and the general propensity of Catholics to spawn... Evangelicals are louder--but the Catholics have the Supreme Court and the Pope and that Donohue guy... My bet is on the Catholics...

But I do encourage them to figure out the one true brand of religion and then we'll let them sit at the grown ups table for discussion.
 
articulett said:
I think the Catholics might even have the numbers considering immigrants and the general propensity of Catholics to spawn... Evangelicals are louder--but the Catholics have the Supreme Court and the Pope and that Donohue guy... My bet is on the Catholics...
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You forgot the Spanish Inquisition. The one no one ever expects! :D
 
kmortis, a claim I often make that has yet to be truly contested is this:

The more power religion has -- over the state, or the mind -- the worse off it tends to be.

Something that is personal and does not affect someone's actual reasoning ability, is a much more harmless version of, say... the way most religion is handled in any country (even Buddhism or Hinduism, just that their injustices aren't quite as commonly touted).

Even then, I have seen no benefit of religion at all, even from an evolutionary viewpoint. If you can point out one, I'd like to see it.

"It helped make sense of the world once upon a time" counts about as much as liberals or conservatives are part of religion IMO.

This "religion trigger" I'd like to see more evidence for.
 
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biomorph said:
If you'd like to know what (not neccessarily possible!) steps i'd personally like to see employed against all religion, i'd start with a list like below;

1/Heavy taxation
2/Classifiy places of worship as business.
3/Make new church buildings subject to strict planning controls, and difficult to build through red tape.
4/Make public advertising or cold calling recruitment illegal. Remove all media presence, leafletting and the like.
5/ Remove all state funding.
6/ Remove all religious education, especially in church schools whether they get funded by the govt or not.
7/ Make Religious representatives and organistatons liable for their actions and words. If they say god caused a flood, then sue the church.
8/ Encourage public/media debate which involve showing the fallacy of religion.
9/Make it illegal to convert under 21's. Especially by the parents.
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The only ideas of yours that I disagree with are the ones that would violate the First Amendment. In order for skeptics and atheists to keep our right to say what we wish about religion, we have to let them spew whatever crap they want to as well. Ideally in a free society, the way you counter objectionable speech is with more speech of your own, not by censorship.

Consider as well that when religious representatives get up in public and say stupid things, it exposes them for the nutjobs that they are. If you don't like what they've said, then fire your own speech right back at them. If they're going to put themselves in that position, then they're just asking for mockery, because that's all they really deserve.

In other words, you had the right idea when you said this:
biomorph said:
The weapons of my choice are the Dawkins, Hitchins et al of the world.
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Lonewulf brings up a point. If religions are good then why is it that when religions gain more power, they do more evil deeds? Are there examples of theocracies that weren't bad?
 
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