Even if you removed Islam, Judaism, and Christianity you'd still have fanaticism

[Epic Beard Man]

Reading an article and in the comments one read: "If they got rid of the brainwashing that is called Islam...."

Brainwashing....?

It got me thinking of all the terrorist that exist that are not Muslim I began to think that aside from the subject of so-called "Islamic terrorism," even if there were no member of the Abrahamic religion, human beings would find someone way to disagree violently. I say this because often times terrorism is allocated to Islam and there have been comments stating that getting rid of a belief system means to get rid of the terroristic mindset along with it. But the thing is, getting rid of an ideology does not necessarily mean getting rid of fanaticism. Recently there are news reports that there are people in Haiti rioting due to high gas prices. Human beings regardless of belief system will always terrorize each other over something.

 

[Sunstone]

True about humans. If you got rid the Abrahamic religions you wouldn't get rid of terrorism. But I do believe that the Abrahamics lend themselves to rationalizing such things somewhat more than most other religions. You really can't hold them up Buddhism or Taoism, although both religions have their militants.

 

[Dawnofhope]

Reading an article and in the comments one read: "If they got rid of the brainwashing that is called Islam...."

Brainwashing....?

It got me thinking of all the terrorist that exist that are not Muslim I began to think that aside from the subject of so-called "Islamic terrorism," even if there were no member of the Abrahamic religion, human beings would find someone way to disagree violently. I say this because often times terrorism is allocated to Islam and there have been comments stating that getting rid of a belief system means to get rid of the terroristic mindset along with it. But the thing is, getting rid of an ideology does not necessarily mean getting rid of fanaticism. Recently there are news reports that there are people in Haiti rioting due to high gas prices. Human beings regardless of belief system will always terrorize each other over something.

One of religion’s main purposes is to create justice and love between peoples whether Abrahamic or Dharmic. When religion fails to fulfil its purpose then it is an empty shell of its former self. Worse still is when men use religion to control and manipulate, to hate and kill. Then that religion is no religion at all. To leave such a religion would be a truly religious act.

When religion grows old it’s capacity to assist us transcend the human condition wanes. Because many of us don’t understand how religion can lose its vitality then we imagine it was no good in the first place.

 

[Mox]

All false narratives are potentially harmful and should be deleted.

Religions (all of them) are certainly not the only false narratives that can be used to brainwash people and control them.

Look no further than the Fox news network or 1940s Nazi propaganda for classic non religious examples.

 

[joe1776]

When religion grows old it’s capacity to assist us transcend the human condition wanes. Because many of us don’t understand how religion can lose its vitality then we imagine it was no good in the first place.

We agree on most things, Adrian, but not on this.

There is no historical evidence that any religion was at one time a morally progressive force in our lives. For example, the men who wrote the Bible obviously lived in morally immature times. They wrote of slavery as an acceptable practice and of women as property. And the best they could manage in moral advice was that slaves and women should not be mistreated.

I don't think there's evidence to support the notion that religion had any effect at all, positive or negative, on humanity's morality grade.

 

[Augustus]

Reading an article and in the comments one read: "If they got rid of the brainwashing that is called Islam...."

It's part of the liberal myth of progress based on a teleological view of history, which ironically, developed from Christian thought via Enlightenment philosophy, Comte, Hegel, Marx, etc.

Humanity 'outgrows' religion as it progresses to the next stage of social evolution.

There is always an assumption among many people that if you got rid of religion then that's 'one less thing' to fight over, but a religious ideology is not removed, but replaced by a different ideology. Even with those who accept tis, there is a common assumption that religion must be replaced by 'something better', although 20th C history shows this is far from the case.

Violent ideologies have been ubiquitous throughout human history and are prone to developing and/or becoming popular in certain social conditions. Violence is part of human nature, and there is no reason to believe that will ever change.

There is also a tendency to overstate the historical effects of religion on violence. One of the main reason for this is comparing religious violence to a baseline of zero, so religious war X killed 100,000 people is compared to an assumption of zero deaths otherwise. Counterfactual histories would certainly not be peaceful though, and we can't know what would otherwise have happened.

While it is clear that some ideologies, religious or otherwise, are better for justifying violence than others removing religion X wouldn't remove the underlying causes of violence and fanaticism. It is also unknowable whether or not the various replacement ideologies adopted would prove to be better overall, and potentially could even be worse.

 

[Augustus]

All false narratives are potentially harmful and should be deleted.

The problem is that most narratives are false. They are convenient fictions we use to make sense of the world and underpin our preferred system of values.

Something like human rights are obviously completely made up, yet they are beneficial so we accept them as being true.

What would you see as a clearly true narrative?

 

[Dawnofhope]

We agree on most things, Adrian, but not on this.

There is no historical evidence that any religion was at one time a morally progressive force in our lives. For example, the men who wrote the Bible obviously lived in morally immature times. They wrote of slavery as an acceptable practice and of women as property. And the best they could manage in moral advice was that slaves and women should not be mistreated.

I don't think there's evidence to support the notion that religion had any effect at all, positive or negative, on humanity's morality grade.

Hi Joe,

I think we are agreed on many things too. I appreciate it’s hard to see religion as a constructive force for society as there is so much that appears destructive and in conflict with modernity. It is my belief in Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith that gives me renewed hope in religion. Further, I see religion as the most potent vehicle for lasting social change. The Baha’i Faith provides a framework for humanity to meet the challenges of the modern world that the religions of old don’t. Do investigate it if you have the inclination.

I agree that humanity was immature at the time of Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Christ, and Muhammad. I believe the messages they provided were in accordance with their audiences capacity for the age they lived. Christianity did not abolish slavery or bring about the equality of men and women, but it could be argued humanity was not ready for those changes. They are of course absolute prerequisites to attain world peace if you believe that’s a goal worth aspiring to and attainable. I do. We have a few other challenges to get past first and the problem isn’t religion but humans and their lack of vision as well as clinging to outdated beliefs and customs that have long outlived their usefulness.

In regards evidence, many of the truly great thinkers, innovators, and scientists have been moral people as well. That inspiration has come from their faith. The history of humanity, advancement of civilisation, and religion have all been intimately interwoven. How we can deny this?

I can’t think of any civilisation that has abandoned religion and flourished. Can you?

 

[David T]

We agree on most things, Adrian, but not on this.

There is no historical evidence that any religion was at one time a morally progressive force in our lives. For example, the men who wrote the Bible obviously lived in morally immature times. They wrote of slavery as an acceptable practice and of women as property. And the best they could manage in moral advice was that slaves and women should not be mistreated.

I don't think there's evidence to support the notion that religion had any effect at all, positive or negative, on humanity's morality grade.

I see this a lot here. EVOLUTION is a big giant invisible elephant in the room. There is no separation or magic gap of sudden magically we became rational. This is itself a philosophical hold over from pre Darwin thinking even. The gap is tremendous between on the one hand "evolution" is fact from modern science and we are totally rationally separate from history. It's creationism gap in reverse is all.

 

[joe1776]

Hi Joe,

I think we are agreed on many things too. I appreciate it’s hard to see religion as a constructive force for society as there is so much that appears destructive and in conflict with modernity. It is my belief in Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith that gives me renewed hope in religion. Further, I see religion as the most potent vehicle for lasting social change. The Baha’i Faith provides a framework for humanity to meet the challenges of the modern world that the religions of old don’t. Do investigate it if you have the inclination.

I agree that humanity was immature at the time of Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Christ, and Muhammad. I believe the messages they provided were in accordance with their audiences capacity for the age they lived. Christianity did not abolish slavery or bring about the equality of men and women, but it could be argued humanity was not ready for those changes. They are of course absolute prerequisites to attain world peace if you believe that’s a goal worth aspiring to and attainable. I do. We have a few other challenges to get past first and the problem isn’t religion but humans and their lack of vision as well as clinging to outdated beliefs and customs that have long outlived their usefulness.

In regards evidence, many of the truly great thinkers, innovators, and scientists have been moral people as well. That inspiration has come from their faith. The history of humanity, advancement of civilisation, and religion have all been intimately interwoven. How we can deny this?

I think we humans have a universal conscience. By that I mean that if we could take the facts of specific moral situation XYZ and present it to a jury of unbiased minds in any society in the world, they would reach the same verdict. The difficulty in proving that is that it's hard to find an unbiased jury on many questions. I also think that one potent source of biases is religion.

For example, let's say that situation XYZ presents the facts that to the consciences of most people represents a justifiable killing in a clear case of self-defense. But Christians who interpret the Bible's sixth commandment to mean that killing is always a sin would be biased by that interpretation and disagree. They follow their reasoning mind and ignore their conscience.

I think that, if a Creator exists, and if it wanted us to have free will along with moral guidance, a universal conscience, a simple cross-cultural system that doesn't rely on language or interpretation, is precisely the way it would be done.

When it doesn't conflict with conscience, the moral guidance offered by religion is useless but it does no harm. When it conflicts, it's a potential bias.

I can’t think of any civilisation that has abandoned religion and flourished. Can you?

I can't think of a civilization in which the people have abandoned religion or one that I would describe as flourishing.

 

[shunyadragon]

Reading an article and in the comments one read: "If they got rid of the brainwashing that is called Islam...."

Brainwashing....?

It got me thinking of all the terrorist that exist that are not Muslim I began to think that aside from the subject of so-called "Islamic terrorism," even if there were no member of the Abrahamic religion, human beings would find someone way to disagree violently. I say this because often times terrorism is allocated to Islam and there have been comments stating that getting rid of a belief system means to get rid of the terroristic mindset along with it. But the thing is, getting rid of an ideology does not necessarily mean getting rid of fanaticism. Recently there are news reports that there are people in Haiti rioting due to high gas prices. Human beings regardless of belief system will always terrorize each other over something.

True, but ancient religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam grounded in Tribalism contribute significantly to the conflict, divisions and violence in the world.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

There is no historical evidence that any religion was at one time a morally progressive force in our lives. For example, the men who wrote the Bible obviously lived in morally immature times. They wrote of slavery as an acceptable practice and of women as property. And the best they could manage in moral advice was that slaves and women should not be mistreated.

Well, if that's all it accomplished then the hell with it!

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Reading an article and in the comments one read: "If they got rid of the brainwashing that is called Islam...."

Brainwashing....?

It got me thinking of all the terrorist that exist that are not Muslim I began to think that aside from the subject of so-called "Islamic terrorism," even if there were no member of the Abrahamic religion, human beings would find someone way to disagree violently. I say this because often times terrorism is allocated to Islam and there have been comments stating that getting rid of a belief system means to get rid of the terroristic mindset along with it. But the thing is, getting rid of an ideology does not necessarily mean getting rid of fanaticism. Recently there are news reports that there are people in Haiti rioting due to high gas prices. Human beings regardless of belief system will always terrorize each other over something.

There have been atheist terrorists. Communists for the most part, but various others as well. Fanaticism isn't limited tobthe religious, and certainly not limited to any one religion. For various reasons, though, religion is the cause or given reason for much fanaticism. Of course, like most extreme events, the truth tends to be more complex and nuanced.

 

[joe1776]

Well if a culture stone women To death for getting pregnant, and a religion has as part of its tradition not to stone women To death for getting pregnant and eventually that becomes the cultural norm the individual born in that period would have zero idea that religion was responsible for their perception, its bad to stone women to death for getting pregnant.

To my knowledge, there's no evidence of anything like that ever happening. There is historical evidence, in the abolition of legal slavery and the current trend to treat women as equal in spirit to men, that religion couldn't promote these moral advances nor could it retard them.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

True, but ancient religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam grounded in Tribalism contribute significantly to the conflict, divisions and violence in the world.

Correoation does not eq7al causation. Are religions responsible for those issues, or were short sighted, venal humans going to create those situations anyway, and religion is just the easiest ad hoc rationalisation for why they occur?

As noted elsewhere, atheists are just as capable of getting involved in such issues.

 

[Rival]

Correoation does not eq7al causation.

We'll give you another shot at that if you'd like. Lol.

 

[joe1776]

Well, if that's all it accomplished then the hell with it!

Aren't you jumping to a conclusion? Or is there evidence that the advice accomplished something?

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

To my knowledge, there's no evidence of anything like that ever happening. There is historical evidence, in the abolition of legal slavery and the current trend to treat women as equal in spirit to men, that religion couldn't promote these moral advances nor could it retard them.

Well actually... you would do well to remember world history does not start and end in the US. Slavery was banned in the British Empire long before the US, because of primarily Christian arguments and activism. There's also a large technological component to social progress, as well as ideological. Some argue that social progress is only a facet of economic and technological advance, that social progress will never happen without an underlying change of the sirt. It's certainky a historical fact that social progress and technological progress séem to occur together, although at some level it becones a chicken/egg argument.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

We'll give you another shot at that if you'd like. Lol.

On my phone. I don't make fun of your small screen typos.

 

[Rival]

On my phone. I don't make fun of your small screen typos.

Cool your beans I was having joke lol.