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12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Mon Jan 26 20:25:02 2015

fiogf49gjkf0d
12 Worst Ideas Religion Has Unleashed on the World
These dubious concepts advocate conflict, cruelty and suffering.

By Valerie Tarico / AlterNet

Some of humanity’s technological innovations are things we would have been better off without: the medieval rack, the atomic bomb and powdered lead potions come to mind. Religions tend to invent ideas or concepts rather than technologies, but like every other creative human enterprise, they produce some really bad ones along with the good.

I've previously highlighted some of humanity’s best moral and spiritual concepts, our shared moral core. Here, by way of contrast, are some of the worst. These twelve dubious concepts promote conflict, cruelty, suffering and death rather than love and peace. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, they belong in the dustbin of history just as soon as we can get them there.

Chosen People –

The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept. The New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones. Calvinists talk about “God’s elect,” believing that they themselves are the special few who were chosen before the beginning of time. Jehovah’s witnesses believe that 144,000 souls will get a special place in the afterlife. In many cultures certain privileged and powerful bloodlines were thought to be descended directly from gods (in contrast to everyone else).


Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer. “Gang symbols” like special haircuts, attire, hand signals and jargon differentiate insiders from outsiders and subtly (or not so subtly) convey to both that insiders are inherently superior.

Heretics –

Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human. In the Torah, slaves taken from among outsiders don’t merit the same protections as Hebrew slaves. Those who don’t believe in a god are corrupt, doers of abominable deeds. “There is none [among them] who does good,” says the Psalmist.

Islam teaches the concept of “dhimmitude” and provides special rules for the subjugation of religious minorities, with monotheists getting better treatment than polytheists. Christianity blurs together the concepts of unbeliever and evildoer. Ultimately, heretics are a threat that needs to be neutralized by conversion, conquest, isolation, domination, or—in worst cases—mass murder.

Holy War –

If war can be holy, anything goes. The medieval Roman Catholic Church conducted a twenty year campaign of extermination against heretical Cathar Christians in the south of France, promising their land and possessions to real Christians who signed on as crusaders. Sunni and Shia Muslims have slaughtered each other for centuries. The Hebrew scriptures recount battle after battle in which their war God, Yahweh, helps them to not only defeat but also exterminate the shepherding cultures that occupy their “Promised Land.” As in later holy wars, like the modern rise of ISIS, divine sanction let them kill the elderly and children, burn orchards, and take virgin females as sexual slaves—all while retaining a sense of moral superiority.

Blasphemy –

Blasphemy is the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even question. By definition, criticism of these ideas is an outrage, and it is precisely this emotion–outrage–that the crime of blasphemy evokes in believers. The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers; the Quran does not, but death-to-blasphemers became part of Shariah during medieval times.

The idea that blasphemy must be prevented or avenged has caused millions of murders over the centuries and countless other horrors. As I write, blogger Raif Badawi awaits round after round of flogging in Saudi Arabia—1000 lashes in batches of 50—while his wife and children plead from Canada for the international community to do something.

Glorified suffering –

Picture secret societies of monks flogging their own backs. The image that comes to mind is probably from Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, but the idea isn’t one he made up. A core premise of Christianity is that righteous torture—if it’s just intense and prolonged enough–can somehow fix the damage done by evil, sinful behavior. Millions of crucifixes litter the world as testaments to this belief. Shia Muslims beat themselves with lashes and chains during Aashura, a form of sanctified suffering called Matam that commemorates the death of the martyr Hussein. Self-denial in the form of asceticism and fasting is a part of both Eastern and Western religions, not only because deprivation induces altered states but also because people believe suffering somehow brings us closer to divinity.

Our ancestors lived in a world in which pain came unbidden, and people had very little power to control it. An aspirin or heating pad would have been a miracle to the writers of the Bible, Quran, or Gita. Faced with uncontrollable suffering, the best advice religion could offer was to lean in or make meaning of it. The problem, of course is that glorifying suffering—turning it into a spiritual good—has made people more willing to inflict it on not only themselves and their enemies but also those who are helpless, including the ill or dying (as in the case of Mother Teresa and the American Bishops) and children (as in the child beating Patriarchy movement).

Genital mutilation –

Primitive people have used scarification and other body modifications to define tribal membership for as long as history records. But genital mutilation allowed our ancestors several additional perks—if you want to call them that. Infant circumcision in Judaism serves as a sign of tribal membership, but circumcision also serves to test the commitment of adult converts. In one Bible story, a chieftain agrees to convert and submit his clan to the procedure as a show of commitment to a peace treaty. (While the men lie incapacitated, the whole town is then slain by the Israelites.)

In Islam, painful male circumcision serves as a rite of passage into manhood, initiation into a powerful club. By contrast, in some Muslim cultures cutting away or burning the female clitoris and labia ritually establishes the submission of women by reducing sexual arousal and agency. An estimated 2 million girls annually are subjected to the procedure, with consequences including hemorrhage, infection, painful urination and death.


Blood sacrifice –

In the list of religion’s worst ideas, this is the only one that appears to be in its final stages. Hindus are one of the few religions that continue to ritually hack and slaughter sacrificial animals on a mass scale.

When our ancient ancestors slit the throats of humans and animals or cut out their hearts or sent the smoke of sacrifices heavenward, many believed they were literally feeding supernatural beings. In time, in most religions, the rationale changed—the gods didn’t need feeding so much as signs of devotion and penance. The residual child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible (yes, it is there) typically has this function. Christianity’s persistent focus on blood atonement—the notion of Jesus as the be-all-end-all lamb without blemish, the final “propitiation” for human sin—is hopefully the last iteration of humanity’s long fascination with blood sacrifice.

Hell –

Whether we are talking about Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, an afterlife filled with demons, monsters, and eternal torture was the worst suffering the Iron Age minds could conceive and medieval minds could elaborate. Invented, perhaps, as a means to satisfy the human desire for justice, the concept of Hell quickly devolved into a tool for coercing behavior and belief.

Most Buddhists see hell as a metaphor, a journey into the evil inside the self, but the descriptions of torturing monsters and levels of hell can be quite explicit. Likewise, many Muslims and Christians hasten to assure that it is a real place, full of fire and the anguish of non-believers. Some Christians have gone so far as to insist that the screams of the damned can be heard from the center of the Earth or that observing their anguish from afar will be one of the pleasures of paradise.

Karma –

Like hell, the concept of karma offers a selfish incentive for good behavior—it’ll come back at you later—but it has enormous costs. Chief among these is a tremendous weight of cultural passivity in the face of harm and suffering. Secondarily, the idea of karmasanctifies the broad human practice of blaming the victim. If what goes around comes around, then the disabled child or cancer patient or untouchable poor (or the hungry rabbit or mangy dog) must have done something in either this life or a past one to bring their position on themselves.

Eternal Life –

To our weary and unwashed ancestors, the idea of gem encrusted walls, streets of gold, the fountain of youth, or an eternity of angelic chorus (or sex with virgins) may have seemed like sheer bliss. But it doesn’t take much analysis to realize how quickly eternal paradise would become hellish—an endless repetition of never changing groundhog days (because how could they change if they were perfect).

The real reason that the notion of eternal life is such a bad invention, though, is the degree to which it diminishes and degrades existence on this earthly plane. With eyes lifted heavenward, we can’t see the intricate beauty beneath our feet. Devout believers put their spiritual energy into preparing for a world to come rather than cherishing and stewarding the one wild and precious world we have been given.

Male Ownership of Female Fertility –

The notion of women as brood mares or children as assets likely didn’t originate with religion, but the idea that women were created for this purpose, that if a woman should die of childbearing “she was made to do it,” most certainly did. Traditional religions variously assert that men have a god-ordained right to give women in marriage, take them in war, exclude them from heaven, and kill them if the origins of their offspring can’t be assured. Hence Catholicism’s maniacal obsession with the virginity of Mary and female martyrs.

As we approach the limits of our planetary life support system and stare dystopia in the face, defining women as breeders and children as assets becomes ever more costly. We now know that resource scarcity is a conflict trigger and that demand for water and arable land is growing even as both resources decline. And yet, a pope who claims to care about the desperate poor lectures them against contraceptionwhile Muslim leaders ban vasectomies in a drive to outbreed their enemies.

Bibliolatry (aka Book Worship) –

Preliterate people handed down their best guesses about gods and goodness by way of oral tradition, and they made objects of stone and wood, idols, to channel their devotion. Their notions of what was good and what was Real and how to live in moral community with each other were free to evolve as culture and technology changed. But the advent of the written word changed that. As our Iron Age ancestors recorded and compiled their ideas into sacred texts, these texts allowed their understanding of gods and goodness to become static. The sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam forbid idol worship, but over time the texts themselves became idols, and many modern believers practice—essentially—book worship, also known as bibliolatry.


“Because the faith of Islam is perfect, it does not allow for any innovations to the religion,” says one young Muslim explaining his faith online. His statement betrays a naďve lack of information about the origins of his own dogmas. But more broadly, it sums up the challenge all religions face moving forward. Imagine if a physicist said, “Because our understanding of physics is perfect, it does not allow for any innovations to the field.”

Adherents who think their faith is perfect, are not just naďve or ill informed. They are developmentally arrested, and in the case of the world’s major religions, they are anchored to the Iron Age, a time of violence, slavery, desperation and early death.

Ironically, the mindset that our sacred texts are perfect betrays the very quest that drove our ancestors to write those texts. Each of the men who wrote part of the Bible, Quran, or Gita took his received tradition, revised it, and offered his own best articulation of what is good and real. We can honor the quest of our spiritual ancestors, or we can honor their answers, but we cannot do both.

Religious apologists often try to deny, minimize, or explain away the sins of scripture and the evils of religious history. “It wasn’t really slavery.” “That’s just the Old Testament.” “He didn’t mean it that way.” “You have to understand how bad their enemies were.” “Those people who did harm in the name of God weren’t real [Christians/Jews/Muslims].” Such platitudes may offer comfort, but denying problems doesn’t solve them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Change comes with introspection and insight, a willingness to acknowledge our faults and flaws while still embracing our strengths and potential for growth.

In a world that is teeming with humanity, armed with pipe bombs and machine guns and nuclear weapons and drones, we don’t need defenders of religion’s status quo—we need real reformation, as radical as that of the 16th Century and much, much broader. It is only by acknowledging religion’s worst ideas that we have any hope of embracing the best.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?

Posted by Olog-hai on Tue Jan 27 01:37:51 2015, in response to 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Mon Jan 26 20:25:02 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
AlterNet

Don't post that shit here.

Chosen People (worst idea?)

Don't post that antisemitic shit here.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 01:43:35 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?, posted by Olog-hai on Tue Jan 27 01:37:51 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Don't post that shit here.

12 Worst Ideas Religion Has Unleashed on the World
These dubious concepts advocate conflict, cruelty and suffering.

By Valerie Tarico / AlterNet

Some of humanity’s technological innovations are things we would have been better off without: the medieval rack, the atomic bomb and powdered lead potions come to mind. Religions tend to invent ideas or concepts rather than technologies, but like every other creative human enterprise, they produce some really bad ones along with the good.

I've previously highlighted some of humanity’s best moral and spiritual concepts, our shared moral core. Here, by way of contrast, are some of the worst. These twelve dubious concepts promote conflict, cruelty, suffering and death rather than love and peace. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, they belong in the dustbin of history just as soon as we can get them there.

Chosen People –

The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept. The New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones. Calvinists talk about “God’s elect,” believing that they themselves are the special few who were chosen before the beginning of time. Jehovah’s witnesses believe that 144,000 souls will get a special place in the afterlife. In many cultures certain privileged and powerful bloodlines were thought to be descended directly from gods (in contrast to everyone else).


Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer. “Gang symbols” like special haircuts, attire, hand signals and jargon differentiate insiders from outsiders and subtly (or not so subtly) convey to both that insiders are inherently superior.

Heretics –

Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human. In the Torah, slaves taken from among outsiders don’t merit the same protections as Hebrew slaves. Those who don’t believe in a god are corrupt, doers of abominable deeds. “There is none [among them] who does good,” says the Psalmist.

Islam teaches the concept of “dhimmitude” and provides special rules for the subjugation of religious minorities, with monotheists getting better treatment than polytheists. Christianity blurs together the concepts of unbeliever and evildoer. Ultimately, heretics are a threat that needs to be neutralized by conversion, conquest, isolation, domination, or—in worst cases—mass murder.

Holy War –

If war can be holy, anything goes. The medieval Roman Catholic Church conducted a twenty year campaign of extermination against heretical Cathar Christians in the south of France, promising their land and possessions to real Christians who signed on as crusaders. Sunni and Shia Muslims have slaughtered each other for centuries. The Hebrew scriptures recount battle after battle in which their war God, Yahweh, helps them to not only defeat but also exterminate the shepherding cultures that occupy their “Promised Land.” As in later holy wars, like the modern rise of ISIS, divine sanction let them kill the elderly and children, burn orchards, and take virgin females as sexual slaves—all while retaining a sense of moral superiority.

Blasphemy –

Blasphemy is the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even question. By definition, criticism of these ideas is an outrage, and it is precisely this emotion–outrage–that the crime of blasphemy evokes in believers. The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers; the Quran does not, but death-to-blasphemers became part of Shariah during medieval times.

The idea that blasphemy must be prevented or avenged has caused millions of murders over the centuries and countless other horrors. As I write, blogger Raif Badawi awaits round after round of flogging in Saudi Arabia—1000 lashes in batches of 50—while his wife and children plead from Canada for the international community to do something.

Glorified suffering –

Picture secret societies of monks flogging their own backs. The image that comes to mind is probably from Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, but the idea isn’t one he made up. A core premise of Christianity is that righteous torture—if it’s just intense and prolonged enough–can somehow fix the damage done by evil, sinful behavior. Millions of crucifixes litter the world as testaments to this belief. Shia Muslims beat themselves with lashes and chains during Aashura, a form of sanctified suffering called Matam that commemorates the death of the martyr Hussein. Self-denial in the form of asceticism and fasting is a part of both Eastern and Western religions, not only because deprivation induces altered states but also because people believe suffering somehow brings us closer to divinity.

Our ancestors lived in a world in which pain came unbidden, and people had very little power to control it. An aspirin or heating pad would have been a miracle to the writers of the Bible, Quran, or Gita. Faced with uncontrollable suffering, the best advice religion could offer was to lean in or make meaning of it. The problem, of course is that glorifying suffering—turning it into a spiritual good—has made people more willing to inflict it on not only themselves and their enemies but also those who are helpless, including the ill or dying (as in the case of Mother Teresa and the American Bishops) and children (as in the child beating Patriarchy movement).

Genital mutilation –

Primitive people have used scarification and other body modifications to define tribal membership for as long as history records. But genital mutilation allowed our ancestors several additional perks—if you want to call them that. Infant circumcision in Judaism serves as a sign of tribal membership, but circumcision also serves to test the commitment of adult converts. In one Bible story, a chieftain agrees to convert and submit his clan to the procedure as a show of commitment to a peace treaty. (While the men lie incapacitated, the whole town is then slain by the Israelites.)

In Islam, painful male circumcision serves as a rite of passage into manhood, initiation into a powerful club. By contrast, in some Muslim cultures cutting away or burning the female clitoris and labia ritually establishes the submission of women by reducing sexual arousal and agency. An estimated 2 million girls annually are subjected to the procedure, with consequences including hemorrhage, infection, painful urination and death.


Blood sacrifice –

In the list of religion’s worst ideas, this is the only one that appears to be in its final stages. Hindus are one of the few religions that continue to ritually hack and slaughter sacrificial animals on a mass scale.

When our ancient ancestors slit the throats of humans and animals or cut out their hearts or sent the smoke of sacrifices heavenward, many believed they were literally feeding supernatural beings. In time, in most religions, the rationale changed—the gods didn’t need feeding so much as signs of devotion and penance. The residual child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible (yes, it is there) typically has this function. Christianity’s persistent focus on blood atonement—the notion of Jesus as the be-all-end-all lamb without blemish, the final “propitiation” for human sin—is hopefully the last iteration of humanity’s long fascination with blood sacrifice.

Hell –

Whether we are talking about Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, an afterlife filled with demons, monsters, and eternal torture was the worst suffering the Iron Age minds could conceive and medieval minds could elaborate. Invented, perhaps, as a means to satisfy the human desire for justice, the concept of Hell quickly devolved into a tool for coercing behavior and belief.

Most Buddhists see hell as a metaphor, a journey into the evil inside the self, but the descriptions of torturing monsters and levels of hell can be quite explicit. Likewise, many Muslims and Christians hasten to assure that it is a real place, full of fire and the anguish of non-believers. Some Christians have gone so far as to insist that the screams of the damned can be heard from the center of the Earth or that observing their anguish from afar will be one of the pleasures of paradise.

Karma –

Like hell, the concept of karma offers a selfish incentive for good behavior—it’ll come back at you later—but it has enormous costs. Chief among these is a tremendous weight of cultural passivity in the face of harm and suffering. Secondarily, the idea of karmasanctifies the broad human practice of blaming the victim. If what goes around comes around, then the disabled child or cancer patient or untouchable poor (or the hungry rabbit or mangy dog) must have done something in either this life or a past one to bring their position on themselves.

Eternal Life –

To our weary and unwashed ancestors, the idea of gem encrusted walls, streets of gold, the fountain of youth, or an eternity of angelic chorus (or sex with virgins) may have seemed like sheer bliss. But it doesn’t take much analysis to realize how quickly eternal paradise would become hellish—an endless repetition of never changing groundhog days (because how could they change if they were perfect).

The real reason that the notion of eternal life is such a bad invention, though, is the degree to which it diminishes and degrades existence on this earthly plane. With eyes lifted heavenward, we can’t see the intricate beauty beneath our feet. Devout believers put their spiritual energy into preparing for a world to come rather than cherishing and stewarding the one wild and precious world we have been given.

Male Ownership of Female Fertility –

The notion of women as brood mares or children as assets likely didn’t originate with religion, but the idea that women were created for this purpose, that if a woman should die of childbearing “she was made to do it,” most certainly did. Traditional religions variously assert that men have a god-ordained right to give women in marriage, take them in war, exclude them from heaven, and kill them if the origins of their offspring can’t be assured. Hence Catholicism’s maniacal obsession with the virginity of Mary and female martyrs.

As we approach the limits of our planetary life support system and stare dystopia in the face, defining women as breeders and children as assets becomes ever more costly. We now know that resource scarcity is a conflict trigger and that demand for water and arable land is growing even as both resources decline. And yet, a pope who claims to care about the desperate poor lectures them against contraceptionwhile Muslim leaders ban vasectomies in a drive to outbreed their enemies.

Bibliolatry (aka Book Worship) –

Preliterate people handed down their best guesses about gods and goodness by way of oral tradition, and they made objects of stone and wood, idols, to channel their devotion. Their notions of what was good and what was Real and how to live in moral community with each other were free to evolve as culture and technology changed. But the advent of the written word changed that. As our Iron Age ancestors recorded and compiled their ideas into sacred texts, these texts allowed their understanding of gods and goodness to become static. The sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam forbid idol worship, but over time the texts themselves became idols, and many modern believers practice—essentially—book worship, also known as bibliolatry.


“Because the faith of Islam is perfect, it does not allow for any innovations to the religion,” says one young Muslim explaining his faith online. His statement betrays a naďve lack of information about the origins of his own dogmas. But more broadly, it sums up the challenge all religions face moving forward. Imagine if a physicist said, “Because our understanding of physics is perfect, it does not allow for any innovations to the field.”

Adherents who think their faith is perfect, are not just naďve or ill informed. They are developmentally arrested, and in the case of the world’s major religions, they are anchored to the Iron Age, a time of violence, slavery, desperation and early death.

Ironically, the mindset that our sacred texts are perfect betrays the very quest that drove our ancestors to write those texts. Each of the men who wrote part of the Bible, Quran, or Gita took his received tradition, revised it, and offered his own best articulation of what is good and real. We can honor the quest of our spiritual ancestors, or we can honor their answers, but we cannot do both.

Religious apologists often try to deny, minimize, or explain away the sins of scripture and the evils of religious history. “It wasn’t really slavery.” “That’s just the Old Testament.” “He didn’t mean it that way.” “You have to understand how bad their enemies were.” “Those people who did harm in the name of God weren’t real [Christians/Jews/Muslims].” Such platitudes may offer comfort, but denying problems doesn’t solve them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Change comes with introspection and insight, a willingness to acknowledge our faults and flaws while still embracing our strengths and potential for growth.

In a world that is teeming with humanity, armed with pipe bombs and machine guns and nuclear weapons and drones, we don’t need defenders of religion’s status quo—we need real reformation, as radical as that of the 16th Century and much, much broader. It is only by acknowledging religion’s worst ideas that we have any hope of embracing the best.



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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by Spider-Pig on Tue Jan 27 08:53:30 2015, in response to 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Mon Jan 26 20:25:02 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
BULLSHIT!

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SLRT on Tue Jan 27 09:05:51 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by Spider-Pig on Tue Jan 27 08:53:30 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Iawtp.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by Fred G on Tue Jan 27 11:42:46 2015, in response to 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Mon Jan 26 20:25:02 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
+12

your pal,
Fred

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 11:58:14 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by Spider-Pig on Tue Jan 27 08:53:30 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
which part?

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SLRT on Tue Jan 27 11:59:11 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 11:58:14 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
The bullshit part, of course.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 12:08:25 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SLRT on Tue Jan 27 11:59:11 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
which part/s are bullshit?

There are 12 points made by the author (not from Charlie Hebdo AFAIK).

Are they all bullshit? Perhaps some of them? You believe in them all? Or are you offended by this "blasphemy"?

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?

Posted by JayZeeBMT on Tue Jan 27 12:57:25 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?, posted by Olog-hai on Tue Jan 27 01:37:51 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Who are you to dictate what anyone may post here?

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 13:00:58 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 12:08:25 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
It's funny that the worse thing they can find about the Jews being the chosen people is that in some story, thousands of years ago, they kicked some people out of a country via some wars. Is that the best they've got? Can we then assume that everything else about the Jews being the chosen people is totally awesome and positive and makes the world a MUCH better place?????

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by AlM on Tue Jan 27 13:10:27 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 13:00:58 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Well, if the State of Israel were to use this attribute of Jews as a justification for expelling all non-Jews from Israel and the West Bank, that would be a bad application of religious thought too.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 13:11:44 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by AlM on Tue Jan 27 13:10:27 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
They wouldn't, because there's no law that says non-Jews can't be there.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 13:38:32 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 13:00:58 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
The author's criticism of the concept of "chosen people" extends to the New Testament which proclaims that the Chosen People are the Jesus Believers and that only they can achieve salvation and Eternal Life.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 13:48:56 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 13:11:44 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
It's true that that are not a whole lotta bad things that can be said about Judaism, its practices or its relations with other people and faiths.

I think its genius is that its leading thinkers, have over time, generally moved away from certain literal interpretations that continue to plague the most fundamentalist elements of Christianity and Islam.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SLRT on Tue Jan 27 13:50:12 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 12:08:25 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Any story that starts with the premise: X is responsible for Y terrible things is bullshit-bait. Do you think the concept of blasphemy troubles my soul?

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 13:52:57 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 13:38:32 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Doesn't matter. The author included the Jews and he only gave one example of why it is bad that the Jews are the chosen people and it was a LAME ASS REASON.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 13:53:28 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SLRT on Tue Jan 27 13:50:12 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
So you don't think that some of those ideas have caused unspeakable misery to innocent people and done terrible damage to the world?

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 13:53:41 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 13:48:56 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d


I think its genius is that its leading thinkers, have over time, generally moved away from certain literal interpretations that continue to plague the most fundamentalist elements of Christianity and Islam.
Such as?

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 14:01:18 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 13:53:41 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
The harsh penalties for breaking Mosaic Law.

I've never known any Jewish person who believes that stoning a person for blasphemy or for seeking omens would be a good thing even though that's what Leviticus says.

Contrast that to Sharia-practicing Islamists.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 14:08:45 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 13:48:56 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Lol....I love how you have to try to equate fundamentalist Christians to those of the real current problem in the world today, fundamentalist Islam. Lol.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by kew gardens teleport on Tue Jan 27 14:10:06 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 13:48:56 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
think its genius is that its leading thinkers, have over time, generally moved away from certain literal interpretations that continue to plague the most fundamentalist elements of Christianity and Islam.

When did a fundamentalist Christian last hijack an aircraft and fly it into a skyscraper?

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by kew gardens teleport on Tue Jan 27 14:13:47 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 13:00:58 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
It's funny that the worse thing they can find about the Jews being the chosen people is that in some story, thousands of years ago, they kicked some people out of a country via some wars.

It's tribal religion. Other religions of the same period did the same thing. What the Jewish people then did was canonize the Prophets, who subverted tribal nastiness into saying something meaningful about the lovingkindness of God. But that doesn't fit into a "let's laugh at religion" piece.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SLRT on Tue Jan 27 14:13:50 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 13:53:28 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
What is bullshit is not whether the things are bad or not; What's bullshit is forcing the reader to accept the writer's core premises on each of her points without establishing them in advance. This is called "begging the question."

For example: Are all these isuues unique to religions? Do they predate religion? Do secular ideologies promote these. What is religion, anyway? Do you take any practice of a social or ethnic group, big or small and label it religion?

This is pop religion and is dependable as pop psychology or pop history. The writer also has the gall to asign the motives for a particular practice; for example, male circumcision. He finds difference between Muslims and Jews. Why? They come from the same core scripture. And why is the Muslim practice called "painful."

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by kew gardens teleport on Tue Jan 27 14:14:29 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by Spider-Pig on Tue Jan 27 08:53:30 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Correct. There are much worse ideas than those.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 14:16:51 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by kew gardens teleport on Tue Jan 27 14:10:06 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Exactly.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by JayZeeBMT on Tue Jan 27 14:19:47 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by kew gardens teleport on Tue Jan 27 14:10:06 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Fundamentalist Christians haven't hijacked airplanes, but they have carried out their share of terrorist acts, such as blowing up abortion clinics.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 14:27:28 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SLRT on Tue Jan 27 14:13:50 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
What's bullshit is forcing the reader to accept the writer's core premises on each of her points without establishing them in advance.

Nobody is being forced to accept those premises. It is just one writer's opinion. I happen to agree with most of them.

Of course a Bibliolater will disagree with just about all of those points since his/her faith hinges on what has been Written but that's why we are a free country, isn't it?

As for me, I think that male circumcision is a good thing for health and hygiene reasons.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 14:29:20 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by kew gardens teleport on Tue Jan 27 14:14:29 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Correct. There are much worse ideas than those.


Lets's hear 'em.

20 Worst Ideas is better than 12.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by AlM on Tue Jan 27 14:30:00 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 14:08:45 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Check out Uganda and the Central African Republic. Only the quantity of atrocities is less.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 14:30:03 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SLRT on Tue Jan 27 14:13:50 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Granted the end result may be the same with regard to male circumcision. But In the case of Jews it's done on the 8th day of life, while still without the consent of the owner of the penis in question.....the procedure is not as invasive or involved as doing it on that of an adolescent or adult, where it's done with Islam.....where they really do do it for the pain it causes and "becoming a man". It's sick actually.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 14:43:00 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 14:27:28 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
As for me, I think that male circumcision is a good thing for health and hygiene reasons.

Religious reasons aside, what other body parts are cut off instead of normal washing in the daily shower? This isn't the stone ages when people didn't have access to running water. As for "health".. Since when do we cut off normal body parts because "someone" one day may have some issue? For example, cut off 1000 foreskins from a baby because 3 May have a uti? So 997 had to do without because 3 May get it?
It's been an operation looking for a reason for 100 years.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?

Posted by Elkeeper on Tue Jan 27 14:43:34 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Tue Jan 27 12:57:25 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
If you don't like it, ignore it! The more responders, the longer the thread lasts. Ya know, like 76th Street!

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 14:43:57 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 14:30:03 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
where it's done with Islam.....where they really do do it for the pain it causes and "becoming a man". It's sick actually.

So you agree that points 1 (chosen people), 5 (glorified suffering) and 6 (genital mutilation) are bad things?

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 14:48:45 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 14:43:00 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Daily showers are not an option if someone must spend 30 straight days in the Vietnam jungle looking for Charlie or a month in an abandoned home in Shitstan with no running water while looking for enemy activity.

There is no harm in male circumcision. Only upside.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by AlM on Tue Jan 27 14:50:41 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 14:43:00 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
This isn't the stone ages when people didn't have access to running water.

Looks like the going estimate is that all but 750 million people have access to clean water,

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?

Posted by Olog-hai on Tue Jan 27 14:58:46 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 14:43:00 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
This isn't the stone ages when people didn't have access to running water

What are streams and rivers?

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?

Posted by Olog-hai on Tue Jan 27 15:00:44 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by kew gardens teleport on Tue Jan 27 14:14:29 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Such as the subject of this book.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?

Posted by Olog-hai on Tue Jan 27 15:05:51 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 01:43:35 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Take a hike, antisemite.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?

Posted by Olog-hai on Tue Jan 27 15:06:51 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Tue Jan 27 12:57:25 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
You complain about hate speech all the time. Don't be a hypocrite.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 15:07:01 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 14:01:18 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
The fact that Jews don't stone people has nothing to do with the leaders backing away from the literal interpretations! We still believe 100% that stoning is the punishment. But because we don't have the Temple and because we are not at a high spiritual level anymore and we don't have the Sanhedrin, we don't do many of those things anymore.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?

Posted by Fred G on Tue Jan 27 15:07:06 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?, posted by Olog-hai on Tue Jan 27 14:58:46 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
I thought they wandered the desert.

your pal,
Fred

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World?

Posted by Olog-hai on Tue Jan 27 15:08:33 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by Fred G on Tue Jan 27 11:42:46 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Whose death toll is indescribably higher?

Oh yeah; the atheists.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 15:08:50 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by JayZeeBMT on Tue Jan 27 14:19:47 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
Would blowing up an abortion clinic be ok if no one was inside and no one at all got hurt?

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 15:09:32 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by kew gardens teleport on Tue Jan 27 14:13:47 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
k

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by JayZeeBMT on Tue Jan 27 15:29:38 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by TerrapiN StatioN on Tue Jan 27 15:08:50 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
No.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 16:04:12 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 14:43:57 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
You'll never get any praise or defense from me on religion.....though I admit I didn't read the original post, simply because bait like that doesn't interest me, right or wrong.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by LuchAAA on Tue Jan 27 16:13:29 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by JayZeeBMT on Tue Jan 27 14:19:47 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d

Considering Roe v. Wade just celebrated another anniversary, one can look back at the number of people killed or seriously injured in abortion clinic attacks in 41 years, and come to the conclusion that there is no dysfunction within Christianity. Problems are isolated incidents. THIW.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 16:14:04 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by SMAZ on Tue Jan 27 14:48:45 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
That is not true, there's plenty of negative. The female vagina needs way more hygiene than an uncircumcised male needs, yet it's rightfully illegal to cut the genitals of baby girls for "hygiene" reasons....
And there doesn't seem to be a problem with every other Western country where they don't circumcise newborn males for cosmetic reasons. They don't have some high rate of STD's, etc (in fact they are actually lower than the U.S.).
And even if what you say is remotely true about, "the jungle" so we routinely cut the genitals of a high percentage of newborn baby males (I think the national US average is down to somewhere around 60% now although as low as 35% on the west coast) because some very small percentage of them "may wind up in the jungle of Vietnam" one day? Lol.

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Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World

Posted by gp38/r42 CHRIS on Tue Jan 27 16:19:06 2015, in response to Re: 12 Worst Ideas that Religion Has Unleashed on the World, posted by AlM on Tue Jan 27 14:50:41 2015.

fiogf49gjkf0d
???????????????

In the United States? We are talking about the United States which has the highest non-religious rate of newborn circumcision. Around the world it's almost only Muslim countries or Israel because it's Jewish that routinely circumcise (with the exception of a few countries like South Korea). So again, what does that have to do with what I said?

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