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Oh come on Jim this old chestnut is as bad as Namstate's 'it's not the religion, it's the religious' adage. When you can demonstrate that Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot did what they did out of a disbelief in a deity, then maybe there's a case to start debating.
Of course it has, but this doesn't for one second negate the validity of any of the points raised against religion. I'd go further and say that if you want to commit horrific atrocities then there's not much better software to be running than Islam.
We need to get away from this idea that religion is inherently good and that there are just bad interpretations of it. Religion is bent-as-fuck, and as i stated earlier, you don't see people claiming that Kin jung-il is giving despotism a bad name.
Staying with Dawkings, in the God Delusion he tells a very interesting story that proves beyond any doubt how religion is directly responsible for sentiments of violence, hatred and prejudice. Two groups of Israeli schoolchildren were subjected to an experiment a few years ago. Two classes were told a story from the Old Testament in which some figure (can't remember who) invades a town, kills everyone in the most barbaric manner and claims the town as his own. One class was told the story as it features in the Old Testament (i.e. with the Jewish figure as the perpetrator of the atrocitiy), and the other class was told the same story but with the names and places changed to a Chinese warrior and China.
An incredible 90% of those children who heard the Old Testament story said they approved of the actions of the man- because it was all in the name of Judaism.
However only 20% of so of the children who were told the modified story involving Chinese characters instead thought the atrocity was acceptable.
In short: religion can and often does change your moral compass and sense of right and wrong, and can blind you to injustices and wrongdoing.
Why does it have to be about 'good' and 'bad'? Surely that dumbs down what could be an intelligent and constructive debate.
Religion is religion. It is a belief system, open to interpretation. It is not 'bent as fuck' because it requires people to exploit it.
Don't get me wrong, the religious texts were written relative to the prejudice of men at the time, but they are only texts, not physical acts.
Religion and its teachings provide the moral and constitutional guidelines to entire people, and people are psychologically coerced from birth into believing and adhering to its teachings.
Some of you have obviously not experienced this psychological coercion. You seem to take your freedom and freedom of thought for granted.
Sorry Aladdin, but I think anything can. People are brought up and conditioned by their own cultures, be it religion, gender roles, patriotism, ethnic identity or anything else which affects their 'moral compass'. It is a wealth of aspects all interdependent and (in my view) all to do with a certain elite keeping themselves in power.
And what exactly is 'religion' by your definition?
If all you have been exposed to is one set of beliefs, around whatever issue then you're likely to take them as reality. Just like once upon a time people just assumed black people and women to be inferior, like that was reality. Religion is (in my view) merely a set of beliefs, yet people talk about it as if it's a mind control device people cannot break free from. In the UK, we have the resources to do so, but in some countries they don't and in others they censor them because to do so would remove some power from the leaders.
But this is not because of religion, it is because of human actions.
As for the general population, Milgram has shown how people will be prepared to kill somebody, just because they appear to be in authority. Or look at the Stamford Prison Experiment... No religion there either.
The problem with blaming religion is that you risk putting the hatred of a few in the hands of all followers because in saying "this religion is bad" you are also saying those followers are bad. At the same time, we are mimicking the same "good vs evil" behaviour we accuse religion of having and becoming hypocrites. We are also then discrediting all the good done by people inspired by their religion.
Just because other things suck, doesn't detract from how much religion sucks.
"Pol Pot was a dick"
"Yeah, but so was Stalin"
"So!?"
EDIT: Also, all this religion is an innocuous abstract entity until you enact an interpretation of it is absolute poppy-cock. Fascism is only a idea until someone starts acting it out. It doesn't make it a good idea.
So it would be ok to punish one naughty kid in a class and ignore all the other little shits because just because they were doing it to, there was no reason for this one kid to be naughty?
In theory you may be right but in reality its called scapegoating if you just condemn one, yet overlook all the others that are just the same
What Namatate seems to be advocating is that because all the kids are naughty, you can't punish any of them.
All of the kids would get dealt with accordingly. Religion just happens to be one of the naughtiest kids in class, and the one that's acting up at the moment; this thread is about religious suck, so i'm condemning religion. If it were about labour/lib dem/tory suck then i'd be condemning that.
I've got plenty of condemnation to go around.
But is that just religion? Or will lots of people support atrocities if they have some sympathy for a cause.
You could try this as an experiment...
Go to Oxford and demand that the BNP be denied the right to speak as Nazism killed 6-8m in its camp. You'll hear a roar of support.
Then say that the communists should also be denied the right to speak as Stalin killed at least the same number and Mao killed even more. watch the shuffling of feet and excuses come out...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7121025.stm
Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot.
Marchers chanted "Shame, shame on the UK", "No tolerance - execution" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad".
I find that pretty disgusting.
No she isnt at all. Shes saying that its not Islam thats the problem or even religion itself, its Sudan and Sharia law specifically.
theyre fucking crazy.
It's patently obvious that things other than religion suck. I'm not sure how many times this can be stated. Other things sucking, however, isn't a defence of religion - it's a diversionary tactic.
Irrational religious belief isn't the only mental software that'll get you to commit atrocities, but it is really-fucking-good at it.
Where exactly do think Sharia law comes from? Islam by-the-book advocates all manner of immoral and barbarous acts, which is where Sharia Law comes from.
Aww fuck it, i'm not stating it over and over. You can read my points which rebuke the 'it's not religion, it's the religious' adage.
Possibly, though given that the enemies of religion are commenting on how religion makes you support atrocities it's definetly relevant to point out that religion is not alone in that and ask why its being singled out.
As a matter of interest how do you see things like Oxfam (started with Christian roots), Christian Aid etc, etc.
I read that and i dont see the problem with the adage its not religion its the religious. Surely thats true. The Muslims I know would never support what was happening to that woman
^ All of above mentioned things are un-Islamic.
I hope you see my point. You can't form an opinion of 'Islam' based on the 'Muslims you know'. You need to form an opinion based on the teachings of Islam, and those Muslims who adhere to the teachings of Islam the most.
Having said that, like I mentioned before there is NO justification, even Islamically, to punish this teacher.
It's not being singled out, it's topic of this thread.
I'm sure they do plenty of good work. However, they don't do anything that couldn't be - and isn't frequently - done by secular organisations, so you put no ticks in the religion column.
Or if the worse came to the worse you could pour the beer over someone
It's the curse of written communication
Sadly I'd sooner expect to see Elvis crash-landing a UFO on top of the head of the Lock Ness Monster than for that to happen.
I think children should be educated about the religions in the world. I think it's religious indoctrination that's the problem; stop getting them while they're Santa Clause susceptible. Can you imagine trying to sell religion to an adult who'd been brought up without knowing it? They'd think you were crackers.
I'll answer Namaste's points later, but I just had to answer this old chestnut. I don't know a great deal about Cambodian and Chinese history, but for a secular dictator, Stalin certainly was chummy with the Russian orthadox church. And for a dictator working in the name of secularism, that certainly a bit of an oversight to me. I highly doubt that Stalin was working in the name of atheism. I can't talk about the other two, but I imagine communism and national pride featured far more heavily in their propaganda and education.
But it's the usual replacement of religion with something equally illogical and irrational to demonstrate that religion isn't the only culprit (and is therefore, somehow justified). Well well done, you've proved that a system of government founded on illogical thought and irrationality is likely to be an oppressive one. Come on Jim, this is like the usual case of men coming onto a thread about oppression of women and feeling the need to spout all of the ways that men are discriminated against too. Well I don't think any of us who consider religion to be a negative influence should need to tell you that we would be equally opposed to any other form of irrational thinking in systems of government.
In no way was 'somehow justifiying' religious intolerance - that's a really fucking insulting view of what I said.
I have no issue with the idea that religion should play no part in society - but your living in a candy coated dreamworld if you think societies are automatically better because you remove religion. The 20th century provides no evidence of that.