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TNZ asks:
"What do we do for such people if religion is discarded?"

The question is not one of "do something for such people" or "burn them at the stake." If we didn't do so much the screw people up in the first place they might not need so much help.

Our societies invest substantial effort in personal destruction. We do it in the form of alcohol and drugs, we do it in the form of tolerating repeat criminal offenders, we do it in the form of giving lip service to the invisible purple rhinos, etc. And who the ... gives a rip whether Brit and Paris and the rest of the bimboettes get up tomorrow morning and yet we poison the minds of young people by pretending they matter.

I give no quarter to anyone selling stuff door to door. Not vacuum cleaners and not god. If these people have time to donate to the community then let them pick up trash, feed the homeless, and protest against war.


DA Morgan
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Redewenur wrote:
"Recent posts (elsewhere) have drawn my attention to the likelihood that I lack sensitivity to personal feelings in the matter. Maybe it's impossible to criticise beliefs without implying criticism of the person who holds them."

I resemble that.

I am stuck between holding these people to be victims of brain washing and contempt for not willing to invest effort in using their brains.

Thousands of years of wars and destruction almost all of it caused by mental laziness.


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DA wrote:

"If we didn't do so much the screw people up in the first place they might not need so much help."

The point is, Dan, they are already screwed up. It's too late to alter that fact. I've seen several people gain comfort from their belief in God. Perhaps that change comes from their change of friends of course. They no longer associate with the crims they used to hang out with. Religion does act as a sort of safety net for some people. I agree they could easily find something better to do but as we decided earlier on this thread (ha ha) people are a product of their genes and their upbringing.

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TNZ wrote:
"I've seen several people gain comfort from their belief in God."

I have too. But I'm not sure that comfort is what they need. I've seen a lot of people get better after competent treatment by psychotherapists with antidepressants and antianxiety drugs.

My guess is that if you stacked all of the DD degrees against the MD degrees you'd find an unequivocal evidence that professional treatment produces better results.

Sure we are already screwed up. Thousands of years doing the same thing over-and-over-and-over-and-over again should have taught us something. IT ISN'T WORKING. Time we tried something else.


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Comfort? Maybe. Uncertainty also. So many seem to spend their lives trying to justify their beliefs to themselves and to others. Scientists do the the same; the difference is, scientists know that they're uncertain.


"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler
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Originally Posted By: redewenur
the difference is, scientists know that they're uncertain.


Show me a religious person who is certain and I'll show you an unthinking fundamentalist whacko.

Every discerning religious person has crises of faith. I'm quite sure that even the Pope, when he is alone in the dark after a long day of visiting the victims of tragedy, sometimes entertains the possibility that it's all for naught. It is from this that we can grow, though. It is as critical as finding ever more accurate ways to test accepted scientific theory.

There have been times in history where various religions have been corrupted by their leaders. Today we have militaristic fundamentalist Islam, propagated by fundies carrying around bastardized translations of the Qur'an. During the Crusades we had corrupt leaders in the Catholic church, selling indulgences and abusing their position to gain political power and to kill their detractors.

People sin. Power corrupts. We are human, and subject to human weaknesses. This in no way indicates that the messages of these religions are not important. That people can co-opt them and abuse them and use them to their advantage is a measure of the baseness of man, not of the religion.

Great works have been done in the name of religion. Amazing acts of compassion. People don't remember those. They prefer to think of the times that people have abused the institutions and used them for their own purposes. I suppose that's part of the human condition, though: Recalling the bad more clearly than the good.

w

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Am I wrong in thinking that you look to science to try to resolve theological uncertainties? - My questions are serious, not to be misconstrued as a means of raising your blood pressure. As I've indicated elsewhere, I don't share your religious perspective but some of your ideas are not alien to my way of thinking.


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Wayne wrote:
"even the Pope, when he is alone in the dark after a long day of visiting the victims of tragedy, sometimes entertains the possibility that it's all for naught."

While Jesus never actually said it your bible puts the following words into his mouth:
"My God, My God, why hath thou forsaken Me?"
The ultimate act of hypocrisy but clearly indicative of reality.

Wayne wrote:
"There have been times in history where various religions have been corrupted by their leaders."

Let me turn that on its head if I may ... Can you name a time in history when religions have NOT been corrupted by their leaders? I can't. Trying to find times in the last 1,500 years when Christianity was not killing its own in a power struggle will leave you with days not months or years when it wasn't spilling blood.

Wayne wrote:
"People sin. Power corrupts. We are human, and subject to human weaknesses. This in no way indicates that the messages of these religions are not important."

But it may be an indication they are irrelevant. An intelligent and objective being might surmise they are as much a part of the problem as part of the solution and that so far show no evidence of being part of the solution.

People do not sin. Religion defines what people do as sin.

We are definitely human. But any set of rules and regulations that refuses to accept that humanity is doomed to failure no matter how well meaning.

We have been trying to manage human behavior with religion for more than 10,000 years. I see little evidence that it has been effective. I can show you a lot of evidence that indicates that education and elimination of poverty are.

Wayne wrote:
"Great works have been done in the name of religion. Amazing acts of compassion. People don't remember those."

Nonsense. We all can quote chapter and verse of Bach and Michaelangelo, etc. No one has forgotten any of it. But some of us also remember great acts of murder, terrorism, and destruction and integrity demands you acknowledge both.

My take is that those "amazing acts of compassion" happen between people without regard to religion and that many were forced upon us by the cruel and hypocritical acts of the very same religions and people acting in the name of religions.

Remember every king that ever separated a head from a body in Europe ... did so in the name of God and King. Every bloody one.


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Originally Posted By: DA Morgan
We have been trying to manage human behavior ... I can show you a lot of evidence that indicates that education and elimination of poverty are.


There's a lot to pick at there. But just this one sentence for starters.

Britain is the most educated it has ever been. More people go onto university than ever. There is less real poverty than there has ever been. Poverty is now having to be defined as 'Relative Poverty' and being in poverty means you can't afford a DVD.

Crime is rampant. People recking their bodies with alcohol is endemic. Teenage pregnacy is fashionable. Drug use amongst children of 8 years upwards is rife. UNICEF reports show that it is the worst place in the developed world to be a child.

England is well educated. England has the fifth strongest economy in the world. England is well-off. England is CRAPPY.

What is your evidence that Education and lack of Poverty helps to manage human behaviour?

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Hi Dan,

This is Blacknad's wife. In my view, education does help in eliminating poverty, but what education does not do is eliminate corruption. Basically, sometimes, educating the minority (in poor countries) goes side by side with corruption leading to more poverty. Ironic!!!

Bye for now.

Whitenad.

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Blacknad asks:
"What is your evidence that Education and lack of Poverty helps to manage human behaviour?"

Well until Tony got you into Iraq you'd gone the longest in your history without spilling blood for the Empire. I think that is something to be proud of.

And I think you will find that if you look at where that crime and bad behaviour is occurring it is in those parts of your society that are least educated and have the least in the way of relative prosperity.

Note that I said "relative prosperity." The measure bankers love is not relevant. It is not the number of shekels in your pocket but rather the disparity between the richest and the poorest. And those who are poor in the UK would need a telescope to see the amount of money Beckham has.


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I am honoured. Again an opportunity for pleasant discourse with England's finest.

I would argue with you were it not that you are correct. One can not separate ethical and civil standards from education.

Allow me, if I may, to refer you to the words of Thomas Jefferson:

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society
but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened
enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the
remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820.

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the
people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them
to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and
they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of
education to convince them of this. They are the only sure
reliance for the preservation of our liberty." --Thomas Jefferson
to James Madison, 1787.

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with
their own government." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789.

"Whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, the
people, if well informed, may be relied on to set them to rights."
--Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789.

"A system of general instruction, which shall reach every
description of our citizens from the richest to the poorest, as
it was the earliest, so will it be the latest of all the public
concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest."
--Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1818.

"The tax which will be paid for [the] purpose [of education] is
not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings,
priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the
people in ignorance." --Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 1786.

"It becomes expedient for promoting the public happiness that
those persons, whom nature has endowed with genius and virtue,
should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and
able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of
their fellow citizens; and that they should be called to that
charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental
condition or circumstance." --Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of
Knowledge Bill, 1779.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of
civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
--Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816.

"No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of
freedom and happiness... Preach a crusade against ignorance;
establish and improve the law for educating the common people.
Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us
against the evils [of misgovernment]." --Thomas Jefferson to
George Wythe, 1786.

Warmest regards.


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I'm not talkin' Michaelangelo. I'm talkin' here and now.

In 2000, more than 5.9 million people received emergency services such as cash assistance, clothing, help with utility bills, temporary shelter, and food through soup kitchens and food banks.

In 2000, more than 4 million people received social services including adoption, family support, help for at-risk children, housing assistance, job training, respite care, home care, parenting education, pregnancy counseling, prison ministry, refugee and immigration assistance, and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse.

And that's just from one single organization run by the Catholic Church, called "Catholic Charities", and is just one typical year.

That doesn't even take into account the excellent schools provided not just by Catholics but by a lot of other religions as well. People complain about public schools being so terrible - and they are - but don't realize that the vast majority of private schools (most of which are FAR better than most public schools) are provided by religious organizations.

How about all the hospitals provided by various religious organizations?

How about the health care and education opportunities being provided to children and families in third world countries all of the planet?

How about the incredible strides the Catholic church has made in securing women's rights and equality? (So they can't be priests - they still run most of the biggest organizations within the church.)

These are just a small sample of what religious organizations do each and every day to help reduce suffering in the world.

The International Red Cross Organization is the only secular organization to even be comparable in the amount of help given to ease suffering in the world. But Red Cross has a narrower scope. As much good as they have done (and I'm not belittling it - I'm a big Red Cross supporter and I donate platelets every two weeks to the Red Cross), it doesn't hold a candle to the good works by the religious organizations that you so easily dismiss.

If education and the elimination of poverty are what you want, then you should take a closer look at what the Catholic church does, because those are two of its biggest focuses.


Quote:
While Jesus never actually said it your bible puts the following words into his mouth:
"My God, My God, why hath thou forsaken Me?"
The ultimate act of hypocrisy but clearly indicative of reality.


I don't see any hypocrisy there at all. How could he NOT feel forsaken for a while there? Christ didn't say, "God must not be real, or else I wouldn't suffer so." He wasn't talking to the people around him telling them that he was abandoning God. He was pleading TO God, in desperate pain and suffering. It wouldn't make sense for him to be addressing God if, as you say, he was hypocritical and didn't believe his own teachings. Remember that while Christ and God are two aspects of the same being, his incarnation here on Earth was as a mortal man. He had the same temptations, the same desires, the same motivations as any other man. That he was able to live without giving into sin was only due to his divine nature. So when he hung dying from the cross, of COURSE he felt forsaken. That it was in fulfillment of prophesy and must happen in order to form his kingdom would be of little comfort to a man with spikes driven through his wrists and ankles.


I respect your beliefs, Dan. You have every right to deny God. That's fine with me. But I would ask that you stop behaving as though the religious organizations have done nothing good for the world. You know better. Whether their foundations are based on truth or fiction, there are millions and millions (perhaps billions) of people in the world who have received direct help from one or more religious organizations that wouldn't exist at all if not for faith in God.

w



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Wayne wrote:
"In 2000, more than 5.9 million people received emergency services such as cash assistance, clothing, help with utility bills, temporary shelter, and food through soup kitchens and food banks."

I am too. But peel back the onion a few layers and what do you find? A religious establishment that is wealthy in treasure reaped for years on the backs of the poor. And why do those people require help with their utility bills? Why do they need food banks? I think an objective look (not in 2007 but historical) will show culpability on behalf of those wishing to be credited with helping those who suffer.

And where are those very same churches when we ask for condoms to prevent disease and birth control to stem the flow of children who are destined for poverty?

Wayne asks:
"I don't see any hypocrisy there at all. How could he NOT feel forsaken for a while there?"

How could he possibly? Wasn't he part of the trinity? Wasn't he in on the plan? Do we have a case of schizophrenia going on here where 2/3 of the trinity are pulling the strings and 1/3 is clueless?

This is part of my personal problem with much religious discourse. It asks us to not think too hard about what is behind the curtain.

If your father is President of the United States I can understand asking the "forsaken" question. But if you, personally, are a manifestation of a god then the question is preposterous.

Please don't be offended Wayne. I've no problem with many religious organizations and some of what they are doing in 2007. But it is disingenuous to say "look at us today" and not realize that the "us" of today is the direct product of thousands of years of horrors. Some so recent that they happened within my lifetime.

I applaud the PM of Japan reversing himself on whether an apology was due for the "comfort girls" of WWII. That took courage and honor. Something far more important in Asian than Occidental culture. I am waiting for Western religions to demonstrate that they have learned the concept of shame.


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Oh, come off it.

The Pope could call you on the phone and apologize personally and it wouldn't be enough for you.

You've said you are waiting for an apology for Pius XII looking the other way during the Shoah. That apology was made by Pope John Paul II, but was ignored by people like yourself too eager to show their moral superiority over the greatest force of good to exist today on this planet.

The church has made mistakes. I'm willing to bet you have too. The difference is that the church is willing to forgive. You prefer to hold a grudge.

I tell you that the Cathlic church and other religious institutions existing today help more people than all the secular organizations combined, and you sidestep it and point at what happened during its more corrupt periods.

You pretend to be trying to show your unbiased interpretation of fact, when you actually just continually dismiss anything good so that you can keep pointing at the past.

Quote:
And where are those very same churches when we ask for condoms to prevent disease and birth control to stem the flow of children who are destined for poverty?


An organization as big as the Roman Catholic church can't spin on a dime. Benedict is working towards reversing the ban on condoms even as we speak. But if he just comes out and reverses the church's teachings on birth control he risks splintering the church. That would do more harm than good. Instead, he must take small steps, one at a time, and show his followers who currently are against condom use that he is examining the issue closely. So he has ordered a study to be done to show the effectiveness of condom use in stopping the spread of diseases. Do you think he just did this so that he could slap the researchers in the face when they come back and tell him that they work? No! He did it so that he could begin to institute a much needed reform without looking like he's doing it on a whim.

Quote:
How could he possibly? Wasn't he part of the trinity? Wasn't he in on the plan? Do we have a case of schizophrenia going on here where 2/3 of the trinity are pulling the strings and 1/3 is clueless?


As much as Christ is God, when he was here on Earth it was as a man. After his resurrection he performed miracles in his own name. During his life before his crucifixion, he asked God to perform them for him or asked God to grant him the ability to perform them. He prayed constantly. Do you think he was talking to himself? No.


Quote:
This is part of my personal problem with much religious discourse. It asks us to not think too hard about what is behind the curtain.

You should think harder about what is behind the curtain. I do. An unexamined faith is useless faith. Faith should not be based on na?vety.

Remember Dan: Blind denial is as easy as blind faith and operates at the same level of validity. If you think you can get mad enough at God to make him cease to exist, then you should maybe go talk to an intelligent priest - preferably one better-versed in the field of Christian Apologetics than I - who can rebut your arguments with better expertise than my own.

w



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Wayne wrote:
"The Pope could call you on the phone and apologize personally and it wouldn't be enough for you."

You are right of course. I would ask him to sell off the Vatican's art treasures and give the money to Bill Gates to support the fight against malaria.

No one need apologize to me and I am not looking for one. I am not among those harmed and in fact live a reasonably charmed life. But given the choice between dynamiting the Sistine Chapel or curing malaria ... I'd be asking for the blasting cord.

Wayne wrote:
"As much as Christ is God, when he was here on Earth it was as a man."

Of course I read the story. But as a man who did not know the truth?

History is full of people who went to their death willingly because of their faith in nation or religion. I've personally watched someone throw themselves on top of instant and guaranteed death. Are we to believe that the son of god had a lesser commitment?

I am quite familiar with Apologetics. My education is substantially greater than imagine. But then I am also familiar with the fact that there are three different Biblical stories and only one of them has Jesus uttering those words and displaying human emotions. The other two do not support this version. Would you be willing to say the other two are incorrect?


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Wayne wrote:

"Great works have been done in the name of religion."

Dan sort of commented on this aspect but the great works certainly include art of all kinds. The most amazing music, sculpture and painting have been, and still are, done with the inspiration of religion. Secular art is usually far inferior. I'd be very hesitant to ban religions. Of course the fact religion has been recently used to justify an unjustified invasion and destruction of Mesopotamia influences our attitude.

Dan your quotes from Jefferson were interesting. This bit is alarming though:

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the
people alone."

I understand that the USA has possibly the lowest participation in elections than any other democratic country. Perhaps it is because the following has been made impossible:

"It becomes expedient for promoting the public happiness that
those persons, whom nature has endowed with genius and virtue,
should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and
able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of
their fellow citizens; and that they should be called to that
charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental
condition or circumstance."

As Bob Dylan sang, "Money doesn't talk, it swears".

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TNZ wrote:
"I'd be very hesitant to ban religions."

I will oppose anyone wishing to ban religion. Just as I would oppose anyone wishing to ban any other form of free speech or free expression. The danger is far greater from the ban than from what is being banned.

That said ... I think religions should be seen for what they are. Free associations of individuals no different from any other and they should be subject to the same taxes and laws.


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Da wrote;

"I think religions should be seen for what they are. Free associations of individuals no different from any other".

Agreed.

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The last couple of evenings I watched:
[url=HTTP://WWW.TVO.ORG]HTTP://WWW.TVO.ORG[/url]
ONTARIO's public TV is currently featuring ?Five Days of Faith?. The program is The Agenda, with Steve Paikin, Airing on TVO at 8 pm March 26 through 30, 2007

To believe or not to believe: what are the questions?

Day One: Monday March 26
The Phenomenon of Religion
Has there been a resurgence of religion, or did it never die? Would we invent religion if it didn?t already exist?

Day Two: Tuesday March 27
Science vs. Religion
Can one be a scientist and still believe in God or the Bible? Are science and the scientific method compatible with religious faith?
======================================
It was indeed a pleasant experience to see a variety of scholars--Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Budhists, and others the nature and function and value of all the great religions, with any personal attacks.

This evening the focus was on science and religion. There were atheists, Christians, Jews, agnostics, evangelicals, liberals, philosophers.

One theologian, Dennis Lamoreaux, was also a Ph.D in bilogy who accepts the theory of evolution. He identified himself as an evangelical and an evolutionist.

Even one of the atheists, Dr. Jerry Coyne, biologist,
http://pondside.uchicago.edu/ecol-evol/faculty/coyne_j.html
accepted that spiritual component in nature--what one of the panel called a natural theology.

Despite the controversial topics, it was such a pleasant experience to hear this kind of gracious conversation.




G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org
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