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the challenge of all religious views
- Thread starter oae
- Start date
Or Zoroastrians and Baha'is for that matter.
Unless there was a great Zoroastrian war or slaughter of a religious minority conducted by Baha'is that I don't know about.
morphesium
Active Member
Religion is business - it is all about power, politics, greed and money and it is dirty - very dirty. Hopefully more and more people are realizing this. That the gods they portray Is/are not the true god(s).
yes religion is business, but it doesn't mean you should stribe from educating the world instead of taking advantage of them. so let's leave the kids alone and let them grow up and find their ways. religion is already evil, but we can change it to make progress. if we have to capture evil to get things done that's fine but let them grow. Using what already exists to unite the world is priority. You cannot change the rich, the poor or anything, you have to live what is. To live with what is and find ways to deal with it, is priority. to find the exact thing that is right for people is hard but it also means we cannot make more suffering based on owning something. The only one you own is you. Read about how rich people do it, and do it. I'm sure that rich people has shared a lot of the information already. The reason people war is ruined lives or needing help from what is, cause the people need a save from what is. The rich that took advantage should be giving a helping hand to develop. Knowing history will save the world.
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Here's my view: People use a lot more than just religion to control things. Besides, it isn't the religions, it's the people who follow them: They use their faith as an excuse, if it wasn't religion, they'd use something else. Lastly, the majority of people who follow faiths are fine, it's the small minority of violent religious people that are giving all religions a bad name.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
Yeah, I suggest you look up Myanmar.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
While you are absolutely correct and are to be commended for making the point, I just don't agree with where you go with it. Yes, a lot of people use religion to control others, but if you moved them away from the inherently irrational views of religion toward something else that is rational, you could at least have a discussion and debate on the actual topic at hand. Blind faith would not be the call of the day. If they say they are doing something for some definable social reason, we can debate that reason. If someone says they are doing it because some imaginary god in the sky told them to, what can you debate? There's an accountability inherent in reality that simply doesn't exist with religion. I also don't agree that most people who follow faiths are fine. I think that said faith causes inherent problems with their thought processes that, while they may not lead to violent outcomes, certainly lead to irrational outcomes.
I was taught by my non-religious mother that each and every person is responsible for his or her own actions: I was taught this with my baby food on up. For 49 years I have lived by that teaching. It's my considered opinion that what we are taught as a child stays with us, in certain things.
The responsibility, the way I see it, belongs to the person doing the action.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
Which is great, but some people define "responsibility" very differently, there are lots of religious people who believe that they are "responsible" for converting the world and in the case of many radical Muslims, they are "responsible" for wiping anyone who doesn't follow their interpretation of the Qur'an off the face of the planet. I'm sure there are plenty of fundamentalist Christians who want the same thing, they're just reined in by the secular society under which they live. And yes, I agree, indoctrination sticks with people, that's why it's important what things get indoctrinated and which things do not. Hatred forced on children in early childhood tends to stick too.
There is a big difference between taking responsibility for your actions and feeling responsible for doing something, that's all I can say.
I agree with this.
But not with this. Religion undoubtedly motivates behavior. If you claim that it motivates good behavior, then it has capabilities to motivate bad behavior as well. I would also argue that religion is one of the more powerful motivators out there, because the stakes for the believers are so high-- immortality, their soul, etc.
Additionally, the beliefs of certain religions are (or can be considered) harmful in themselves. For instance, the Christian belief that homosexuality is immoral. I don't know if people would be so virulently anti-gay if they didn't have the religious teaching underpinning it.
I agree with this too, but with reservation. I think that the general moderate behavior of religious peoples is a relatively recent thing. It wasn't that long ago that the Aztecs were sacrificing people to appease their gods, or the Christians were burning innocent women to death for knowing how to use various herbs.
I think religion has a lot of power to influence the behavior of people-- for both good and bad. I do think that it's a minority of religious beliefs and people that can taint the whole well, so to speak.However, I don't think that it's necessarily incorrect to examine moderate religious beliefs in light of the extreme ones. Extremism is evidence of how religious belief can foment such strong passions and induce people to violence. I don't think it's bad for moderate people to examine their own beliefs, and the behaviors it inspires, to make sure that they too aren't falling into the same sort of traps.
dodecahedron
New Member
Also Bahai's. There they are sitting in Israel, of all places, busy not killing or hating anyone.
Are any pagans causing wars these days? Maybe Ragnar invading Wessex on Vikings, but that raiding stuff is so old school.
Servant_of_the_One1
Well-Known Member
I hope Buddhists stop their crusade against muslims in Burma and SriLanka.
Breathe
Hostis humani generis
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
I do too, the attacks on Muslims in Myanmar is horrific. However, given the reverse, there are plenty of Muslims who would be only too happy to attack Buddhists for exactly the same reasons. Religion sucks across the board.