Mocking religion

Discussions about serious topics, for serious people
Post Reply
User avatar
Tessa K
Light of Blast
Posts: 4707
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 5:07 pm
Location: Closer than you'd like

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Tessa K » Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:08 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:05 pm


A counter argument is that members of Western societies, and especially people in the US (and UK) are profoundly psychologically different from the rest of humanity. However, in their blinkered fashion they assume that their weirdness is the natural state of all people.
Hhm, that sounds a bit dodgy, especially the bit where it says Americans use reason and logic more than Asians. What, all Asians? There may be some solid evidence for the claims but my spidey senses are tingling.

User avatar
Woodchopper
Princess POW
Posts: 7057
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:05 am

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Woodchopper » Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:10 pm

Tessa K wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:08 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:05 pm


A counter argument is that members of Western societies, and especially people in the US (and UK) are profoundly psychologically different from the rest of humanity. However, in their blinkered fashion they assume that their weirdness is the natural state of all people.
Hhm, that sounds a bit dodgy, especially the bit where it says Americans use reason and logic more than Asians. What, all Asians? There may be some solid evidence for the claims but my spidey senses are tingling.
I'm not an expert, but that is an article in Nature, and as far as I'm aware its widely accepted within psychology. It could wrong, but it ain't some fringe theory.

User avatar
Fishnut
After Pie
Posts: 2447
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:15 pm
Location: UK

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Fishnut » Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:12 pm

warumich wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:08 pm
But killing off your children when that means you can survive to breed many more in the future is perfectly adaptive behaviour, and I'm sure many animal species do that.
Loads of them do it. From this piece,
felines, canids, primates, and many species of rodents—from rats to prairie dogs—have all been seen killing and eating their young. Insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds also have been implicated in killing, and sometimes devouring, the young of their own kind.
it's okay to say "I don't know"

Allo V Psycho
Catbabel
Posts: 734
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 8:18 am

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Allo V Psycho » Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:18 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:05 pm
Allo V Psycho wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 2:38 pm
secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:46 am


It's interesting how people criticize the Christian church as being intrinsically evil on the basis of a moral standpoint that the Christian church basically invented in the West. Obviously the Church and individual Christians have historically often fallen pretty far short of their lofty ideals, but they are their ideals, and were originally revolutionary.
I have a notion that our social behaviours, including kindness and malice etc., are derived from our evolutionary history (that of hundreds of thousands of years ago) of surviving in small groups. That the moral standpoint for the positive aspects of human behaviour is basically derived from the Christian Church seems a bit implausible. I mean, the New Testament says some positive things, but there is also some really weird things, and some really mean things, in it too, and I just assumed that was all a reflection of our complex natures, existing long before any churches at all.

I don't credit or blame any religion for humans being loving, savage, honest, dishonest, generous or greedy, but I do think the nature of the religion can impact on the details of expression of these traits. What is it with the Judeo-Christian religions and sex, for instance? And the nature of the hypocrisy of religions is made particularly clear precisely because they themselves lay claim to a higher standard of behaviour, laid it in their own texts. 'Hypocritical' Christian is something I can readily conceptualise, but I don't really know what 'hypocritical atheist' would represent.

Spoiler:
A counter argument is that members of Western societies, and especially people in the US (and UK) are profoundly psychologically different from the rest of humanity. However, in their blinkered fashion they assume that their weirdness is the natural state of all people.

I haven't read the book but Joseph Henrich argues that this is due to the influence of the Christian church.
I don't perceive that as a counter-argument - it's rather what I mean about the particular kind of weirdness being influenced by the religious culture (e.g. Judeo-Christianity and sex, as opposed to some other religious approaches with a more positive approach to sex). So yes, other cultures are weird in their own particular ways, but I think the beneficent/maleficent divide runs through all our hearts equally, at a very basic social level. Nor do I think the West is dramatically worse than other cultures (I was quite struck by Buddhist rioters attacking Muslims), just differently weird because of their culture, But I also think that culture is very much more than religion, and particularly includes secular history.

User avatar
jimbob
Light of Blast
Posts: 5276
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 4:04 pm
Location: High Peak/Manchester

Re: Mocking religion

Post by jimbob » Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:20 pm

warumich wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 12:14 pm
secret squirrel wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:46 am
It's interesting how people criticize the Christian church as being intrinsically evil on the basis of a moral standpoint that the Christian church basically invented in the West. Obviously the Church and individual Christians have historically often fallen pretty far short of their lofty ideals, but they are their ideals, and were originally revolutionary.
Yes, nicely put. Thanks for the book recommendation fishnut, I may check that out
Is it aoral standpoint that the church invented, or is it a morality that more closely reflects some of the basic concepts of fairness that even monkeys have and the morality of the Romans was more of an aberration?
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

Tntp
Navel Tan
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 14, 2019 11:33 am

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Tntp » Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:52 pm

Going back to AR’s tweet, I think there is some context that has not been explored properly in this thread. Sure, some have said she is annoyed because her child(ren?) come home repeating religious stuff taught at school, but it is why this has happened that is interesting. She deliberately chose non-denominational schools for her child, but these were oversubscribed and the only local offers she got were from the preponderance of ‘faith’ schools around where she lives. On complaining about this on social media AR received a lot of snide comments from so-called Christians, e.g. calling her a hypocrite for sending her child to a ‘faith’ school and saying she should go private ‘as she can afford it’, or that she could exercise her right to withdraw the child from assemblies and RE (easier said than done, despite it being a legal right). Recent work by the NSS notes that more and more parents expressing a preference for non ‘faith’ schools are receiving offers solely from ‘faith’ schools. This is not surprising, given the increase since Blair in the number of ‘faith’ schools, contrasting starkly with the decline in religious belief among the population over the same period. This is clearly an unsustainable trend.

These schools also enjoy unique exemptions from employment and equalities legislation. ‘Faith’ schools can implement admissions and employment policies that are illegal in any other context. They also are allowed to depart from national sex education requirements and, albeit decreasingly, see their pupils benefitting from subsidised school transport to ‘faith’ schools in circumstances not available to anyone else. Yet when organisations like Humanists UK and the NSS campaign to remove these unjust religious privileges they are accused by the religious of discriminating(!) against catholics, anglicans etc. Religious exceptionalism pure and simple.

The following question is directed to the believers who have contributed above to the criticism of AR’s tweet. Do you think that the privileges enjoyed by religious organisations running a third of our state-funded schools should be removed? If you do not, how do you justify the status quo?

User avatar
Tessa K
Light of Blast
Posts: 4707
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 5:07 pm
Location: Closer than you'd like

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Tessa K » Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:32 pm

warumich wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:08 pm
Hacking the neighbouring small group to pieces and carrying off their women for forced labour and marriage is also perfectly adaptive behaviour.
Yes, there is always one set of rules for the In group and another for the Out group. It's common for females to leave their home group and join another as a way of maintaining genetic diversity (not consciously, of course). In some cases the females leave of their own volition, in others they are 'forcibly imported' from one group to another.

There's a big difference between killing offspring when resources are too scarce to support them and killing them because they've pissed you off and your god says it's OK though.

User avatar
warumich
Fuzzable
Posts: 282
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:49 pm

Re: Mocking religion

Post by warumich » Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:37 pm

Tntp wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:52 pm
Going back to AR’s tweet, I think there is some context that has not been explored properly in this thread. Sure, some have said she is annoyed because her child(ren?) come home repeating religious stuff taught at school, but it is why this has happened that is interesting. She deliberately chose non-denominational schools for her child, but these were oversubscribed and the only local offers she got were from the preponderance of ‘faith’ schools around where she lives. On complaining about this on social media AR received a lot of snide comments from so-called Christians, e.g. calling her a hypocrite for sending her child to a ‘faith’ school and saying she should go private ‘as she can afford it’, or that she could exercise her right to withdraw the child from assemblies and RE (easier said than done, despite it being a legal right). Recent work by the NSS notes that more and more parents expressing a preference for non ‘faith’ schools are receiving offers solely from ‘faith’ schools. This is not surprising, given the increase since Blair in the number of ‘faith’ schools, contrasting starkly with the decline in religious belief among the population over the same period. This is clearly an unsustainable trend.

These schools also enjoy unique exemptions from employment and equalities legislation. ‘Faith’ schools can implement admissions and employment policies that are illegal in any other context. They also are allowed to depart from national sex education requirements and, albeit decreasingly, see their pupils benefitting from subsidised school transport to ‘faith’ schools in circumstances not available to anyone else. Yet when organisations like Humanists UK and the NSS campaign to remove these unjust religious privileges they are accused by the religious of discriminating(!) against catholics, anglicans etc. Religious exceptionalism pure and simple.

The following question is directed to the believers who have contributed above to the criticism of AR’s tweet. Do you think that the privileges enjoyed by religious organisations running a third of our state-funded schools should be removed? If you do not, how do you justify the status quo?
Hi Tntp, thanks for the context; welcome and I hope that joining this bad-tempered thread won't stop you from hanging around!

In case the question was directed at me, I'm not a believer (at all!), despite trying to stick up for those that are here. My take on faith schools is that they are pretty much one of the best things you can do if you want to foster community division and conflict. Put different faiths into different communities, give them separate little identities just when kids are in their formative years. Hate them with a passion.

We've also made sure we send our kid to the non-faith primary in the area and I get upset that even there they are making him say prayers at times (I mean wtf).
I've never had a signature, and it never did me any harm

Allo V Psycho
Catbabel
Posts: 734
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 8:18 am

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Allo V Psycho » Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:39 pm

Tntp wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:52 pm
Going back to AR’s tweet, I think there is some context that has not been explored properly in this thread. Sure, some have said she is annoyed because her child(ren?) come home repeating religious stuff taught at school, but it is why this has happened that is interesting. She deliberately chose non-denominational schools for her child, but these were oversubscribed and the only local offers she got were from the preponderance of ‘faith’ schools around where she lives. On complaining about this on social media AR received a lot of snide comments from so-called Christians, e.g. calling her a hypocrite for sending her child to a ‘faith’ school and saying she should go private ‘as she can afford it’, or that she could exercise her right to withdraw the child from assemblies and RE (easier said than done, despite it being a legal right). Recent work by the NSS notes that more and more parents expressing a preference for non ‘faith’ schools are receiving offers solely from ‘faith’ schools. This is not surprising, given the increase since Blair in the number of ‘faith’ schools, contrasting starkly with the decline in religious belief among the population over the same period. This is clearly an unsustainable trend.

These schools also enjoy unique exemptions from employment and equalities legislation. ‘Faith’ schools can implement admissions and employment policies that are illegal in any other context. They also are allowed to depart from national sex education requirements and, albeit decreasingly, see their pupils benefitting from subsidised school transport to ‘faith’ schools in circumstances not available to anyone else. Yet when organisations like Humanists UK and the NSS campaign to remove these unjust religious privileges they are accused by the religious of discriminating(!) against catholics, anglicans etc. Religious exceptionalism pure and simple.

The following question is directed to the believers who have contributed above to the criticism of AR’s tweet. Do you think that the privileges enjoyed by religious organisations running a third of our state-funded schools should be removed? If you do not, how do you justify the status quo?
Welcome to posting!
fair points, too.

JellyandJackson
Fuzzable
Posts: 234
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 3:40 pm

Re: Mocking religion

Post by JellyandJackson » Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:25 pm

Tntp wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:52 pm
The following question is directed to the believers who have contributed above to the criticism of AR’s tweet. Do you think that the privileges enjoyed by religious organisations running a third of our state-funded schools should be removed? If you do not, how do you justify the status quo?
Hello Tntp, lovely to meet you.
I hope the following makes sense, I am post-gin. (Rose flavour, lovely).
I think faith schools are a terrible idea, and I’m sort of amazed that they’re still allowed. Especially when it comes to the exemptions from sex & relationships education, for example. No school should be allowed to do that. I would be really cheesed off if my kids only had the option of a faith school, and I’m a church person. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for someone in AR’s position.
A thousand strawberry lollies and the princess of Lichtenstein.

Millennie Al
After Pie
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:02 am

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Millennie Al » Sat Apr 10, 2021 12:16 am

warumich wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:46 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 1:39 am
Maybe we should look at history and how religions do it. That adds another couple of options:
  • Threaten to torture them to death unless they agree with you
  • Invade their lands, and indulge in plenty of vandalism, theft, rape, and murder
I know that it's tempting to look at history and see what has been done by religious people and conclude that the problem is religion. The problem is that in times when 99% of the population is religious, almost all crimes are committed by religious people. It's like noticing that almost all murderers in Mexican prisons speak Spanish and concluding that Speaking Spanish is a bad thing (I mean, I suspect most Mexican murderers will also be catholic, omg!). Correlation, as I'm sure I don't have to point out in a science forum, does not imply causation.
Religious people have done many bad things where their religion is irrelevant. That's not what I'm referring to. To take your analogy, if I found that Mexican murders were motivated by the fact that their victims didn't speak Spanish, then I would start to think that there was something wrong with speaking Spanish. The bad things that I blame religion for are those which were explicitly done in the name of religion. Many other bad things were done where religion played a minor supporting role, but it was not a motivating factor.
There are many religious beliefs that lead to bad things, such as whatever the inquisition had mobilized to torture and subjugate Mexicans, or the bible passages that were used to justify slavery. But it's the content of those beliefs that need to be challenged, not the fact that they are "religious" in nature (in scare quotes because what this is precisely anyway is a whole different can of worms). There are also many good religious beliefs, and likewise they are good because of their content, not because they are religious.
Religious principles are based on faith or feelings (e.g. someone having visions). Science is based on working things out for yourself. You are saying we should apply science to religion, which is correct, but that cannot be a defence of religion as it is based on the fundamental presumption of religions being wrong.
At the end everybody has some kind of belief about what the world is, how it works and what our place is within it. Some of these beliefs are true, some are not, some are justified, some are not, some are confidently and sincerely held, some allow for some doubt. Some are sh.t and violent, some are benevolent and gentle.
Yes, but the difference between science and religion is that science is based on the principle of being open to investigation, doubt, and change, while religion is not.
Christianity, though responsible for lots of bad sh.t, was also often in content not half as bad as some of the sh.t it replaced. The Aztecs practised human sacrifice, the Romans were cool with slavery.
The fact that other things were worse is not a defence. And I'd like to point out that while slavery may be wholly secular and based on economics, human sacrifice is a religious practice.

Millennie Al
After Pie
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:02 am

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Millennie Al » Sat Apr 10, 2021 12:24 am

warumich wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 2:28 pm
The story is not all too coherent with different places saying different things. Partly it's because the exact doctrine has never been overly important, the idea that a faith is defined by a series of set-in-stone propositions is a fairly recent (reformation) development.
You might say it's partly because of the importance of doctrine, but I'd say it was because the whole thing is fiction and some parts had not been invented while others were invented badly and gave rise to contracidtions.
Anyway, in Daniel, the procedure is that when you die you're dead and there is no afterlife until the day of the last judgement at which point the souls of the dead are resurrected and face their fate. So if you died before Jesus (well, Daniel was before Jesus anyway, but you see what I mean), subjectively the next thing you should notice is judgement day. In Revelation it's slightly more convoluted, but not really incompatible with that interpretation afaiu.
The Catholic chuch disagrees. It says that those who died before Jesus ended up in the waiting room until Jesus died, when he then went there himself, did a bit of preaching, and let them in to Heaven (this was the Harrowing of Hell tha someone has already mentioned, and the waiting room is called Limbo). Obviously, other Christian variants say different things.

Millennie Al
After Pie
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:02 am

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Millennie Al » Sat Apr 10, 2021 12:30 am

dyqik wrote:
Fri Apr 09, 2021 12:38 pm
I'd be interested to know whether and where things like the Golden Rule were around before Jesus preached it, and how many of the other moral ideas of Christianity were around well before even the OT/Jewish scriptures codified them in the form we know them.
The Golden Rule long predates the time of Jesus.

User avatar
Tessa K
Light of Blast
Posts: 4707
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 5:07 pm
Location: Closer than you'd like

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Tessa K » Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:18 am

Much as some believers would like to maintain that their religion doesn't change, that it is true for all time, religion clearly does evolve, albeit very slowly. Some aspects of doctrine and practice are quietly dropped, others changed. Most of these changes come about through shifts in public attitudes or science. For example, we now have women priests because of feminism. People are no longer fined for not attending church. Or burned for saying the sun doesn't go round the earth. Of course, some hardliners disapprove of changes and fight a rearguard action. In the CofE these are mostly older people who die off and allow changes to become more accepted in the church population. New variants emerge - Protestants, Pentecostals and Quakers in Christianity, the various strands of Islam, for example. While the basic tenets hold (God exists, Jesus died for all sinners etc) there's very little around the core that can't or hasn't changed. Believers also pick and mix which bits of the faith they accept.

So when religious people talk about their 'truth', it's not something immutable and eternal, it's just the current flavour. Science changes through experiments, discovery, updating information. Religion changes through social shifts, slow attrition and outside influence (philosophy, science, social attitudes etc). The Church of England is slowly becoming extinct because it can't or won't adapt fast enough to attract a younger conregation but, like some dinosaurs, it clings on to its territory while it can.

User avatar
shpalman
Princess POW
Posts: 8244
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:53 pm
Location: One step beyond
Contact:

Re: Mocking religion

Post by shpalman » Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:54 pm

having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
@shpalman@mastodon.me.uk

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7527
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: Mocking religion

Post by dyqik » Sat Apr 10, 2021 5:53 pm

Tessa K wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:18 am
Much as some believers would like to maintain that their religion doesn't change, that it is true for all time, religion clearly does evolve, albeit very slowly. Some aspects of doctrine and practice are quietly dropped, others changed. Most of these changes come about through shifts in public attitudes or science. For example, we now have women priests because of feminism. People are no longer fined for not attending church. Or burned for saying the sun doesn't go round the earth. Of course, some hardliners disapprove of changes and fight a rearguard action. In the CofE these are mostly older people who die off and allow changes to become more accepted in the church population. New variants emerge - Protestants, Pentecostals and Quakers in Christianity, the various strands of Islam, for example. While the basic tenets hold (God exists, Jesus died for all sinners etc) there's very little around the core that can't or hasn't changed. Believers also pick and mix which bits of the faith they accept.

So when religious people talk about their 'truth', it's not something immutable and eternal, it's just the current flavour. Science changes through experiments, discovery, updating information. Religion changes through social shifts, slow attrition and outside influence (philosophy, science, social attitudes etc). The Church of England is slowly becoming extinct because it can't or won't adapt fast enough to attract a younger conregation but, like some dinosaurs, it clings on to its territory while it can.
In the Catholic Church, Vatican II in 1965 made some pretty significant changes to the theology and philosophy, probably more than any other change since Thomas Aquinas.

User avatar
Sciolus
Dorkwood
Posts: 1314
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 6:42 pm

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Sciolus » Sat Apr 10, 2021 6:03 pm

warumich wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 9:40 am
In this case, stating that people don't come back from the dead is not a fact in the sense that it'll be new information to the addressed person, because they know that. The resurrection wouldn't be a miracle otherwise (five times, shpalman, five!). And that is a fact.
Sorry, W, but what you tell us five times isn't necessarily true. Case in point: on this evening's BBC news, 90% of the bulletin was dedicated to the shock news that a man who died is still dead.

User avatar
Gfamily
Light of Blast
Posts: 5180
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:00 pm
Location: NW England

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Gfamily » Sat Apr 10, 2021 6:20 pm

I'm reminded of discussions I've seen where people carefully explain why Einstein is wrong, because they know that velocities are additive. You can't argue with their logic because they know how things work and they don't see the gap in their understanding.
My avatar was a scientific result that was later found to be 'mistaken' - I rarely claim to be 100% correct
ETA 5/8/20: I've been advised that the result was correct, it was the initial interpretation that needed to be withdrawn
Meta? I'd say so!

User avatar
wilsontown
Clardic Fug
Posts: 208
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:51 am

Re: Mocking religion

Post by wilsontown » Sat Apr 10, 2021 6:32 pm

Sciolus wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 6:03 pm
warumich wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 9:40 am
In this case, stating that people don't come back from the dead is not a fact in the sense that it'll be new information to the addressed person, because they know that. The resurrection wouldn't be a miracle otherwise (five times, shpalman, five!). And that is a fact.
Sorry, W, but what you tell us five times isn't necessarily true. Case in point: on this evening's BBC news, 90% of the bulletin was dedicated to the shock news that a man who died is still dead.
More on this developing story as we get it...
"All models are wrong but some are useful" - George Box

User avatar
warumich
Fuzzable
Posts: 282
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:49 pm

Re: Mocking religion

Post by warumich » Mon Apr 12, 2021 10:45 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 12:16 am

Religious people have done many bad things where their religion is irrelevant. That's not what I'm referring to. To take your analogy, if I found that Mexican murders were motivated by the fact that their victims didn't speak Spanish, then I would start to think that there was something wrong with speaking Spanish. The bad things that I blame religion for are those which were explicitly done in the name of religion. Many other bad things were done where religion played a minor supporting role, but it was not a motivating factor.
Ok I'm a bit wary of opening up this thread again, but as you put some effort into replying I suppose so should I. I fear I may have expressed myself badly here, because I didn't mean to say that we shouldn't condemn any ideologies that lead people to do bad things. What I was objecting to was the idea that them being of religious nature is the bad thing - there are bad religions, good religions, and (mostly) religions that preach some good and some bad things. Focus on the content, not on things being religious or not. Because, and I have written this already, a belief in the resurrection of Jesus does not logically imply we must cover up for pedophile priests or whatever else usually gets brought up at this point (not that you'd really find any endorsement of this sort of thing in the scriptures either, it's rather the age-old problem of people being a..eholes and institutions closing ranks and trying to cover up their embarrassment. We don't have to dislike religion to be able to condemn this. But that's beside the point because even if this is endorsed by the faith, it doesn't follow that we should condemn innocent Siberian shamans just because they are also religious).
So when you say "The bad things that I blame religion for are those which were explicitly done in the name of religion", you'd have to say "the bad things that I blame that particular follower of that particular religion for..." because, again, religion and being religious per se is not the problem.

Actually, "if I found that Mexican murders were motivated by the fact that their victims didn't speak Spanish, then I would start to think that there was something wrong with speaking Spanish." doesn't sit right with me either. I think I remember a few years ago at the height of Brexit mania, some (coincidentally Spanish speaking) tourists were roughed up on the tube for not speaking English. Are you saying then that there is something wrong about speaking English????
I've never had a signature, and it never did me any harm

User avatar
warumich
Fuzzable
Posts: 282
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:49 pm

Re: Mocking religion

Post by warumich » Mon Apr 12, 2021 10:53 am

But maybe we should have a side discussion on what religion is in the first place, because if we're going to hand out blanket condemnations it might be a good idea to know
what exactly we're condemning here.
I've never had a signature, and it never did me any harm

User avatar
shpalman
Princess POW
Posts: 8244
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:53 pm
Location: One step beyond
Contact:

Re: Mocking religion

Post by shpalman » Mon Apr 12, 2021 10:59 am

Well good luck getting anyone (who self-certifies as) religious to explain what they actually believe.
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
@shpalman@mastodon.me.uk

User avatar
lpm
Junior Mod
Posts: 5944
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:05 pm

Re: Mocking religion

Post by lpm » Mon Apr 12, 2021 11:16 am

warumich wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 10:45 am
I fear I may have expressed myself badly here, because I didn't mean to say that we shouldn't condemn any ideologies that lead people to do bad things. What I was objecting to was the idea that them being of religious nature is the bad thing - there are bad religions, good religions, and (mostly) religions that preach some good and some bad things. Focus on the content, not on things being religious or not. Because, and I have written this already, a belief in the resurrection of Jesus does not logically imply we must cover up for pedophile priests or whatever else usually gets brought up at this point (not that you'd really find any endorsement of this sort of thing in the scriptures either, it's rather the age-old problem of people being a..eholes and institutions closing ranks and trying to cover up their embarrassment. We don't have to dislike religion to be able to condemn this. But that's beside the point because even if this is endorsed by the faith, it doesn't follow that we should condemn innocent Siberian shamans just because they are also religious).
So when you say "The bad things that I blame religion for are those which were explicitly done in the name of religion", you'd have to say "the bad things that I blame that particular follower of that particular religion for..." because, again, religion and being religious per se is not the problem.
That argument doesn't work because sexual weirdness is embedded in the western Christian church.

It's not some minor side show or add-on, a large segment is all about sexual sin, guilt, celibacy, control of sexual orientation and control of female sexuality. A major break from the Roman religions was the imposition of sexual "morality". Being a christian must surely mean acceptance of quite a lot of the basic philosophy, even if it doesn't mean acceptance of 100%, and that means acceptance of a lot of the sexual content.

We can totally condemn innocent church-goers for the actions of their church. You join any club and you are implicitly accepting a lot of its rules and principles and actions. If you join your university's Young Conservatives club for the social events, you don't need to agree with every single Tory policy but you are implicitly accepting the general philosophy. Anybody who is part of the Christian religion can opt out of minor side shows like eating fish on Fridays, but don't get to opt out of the bedrock beliefs about sexual sin and the right of their religion to control the sexuality of individuals.

It's not having the religious nature that's the bad thing - it's the signing up to content that is unequivocally bad by joining an institution built on prejudice, control and abuse. I don't personally care about people praying or dancing round Stonehenge or fasting for a month, good luck to them, but when they start giving money and support to these institutions... A belief in the resurrection of Jesus does not logically imply anything need follow, but it's remarkable how often what follows are beliefs that young women shouldn't sleep around or that gay men should pray extra hard, and the whole rest of the rotten philosophies built into Christianity from its earliest years.
⭐ Awarded gold star 4 November 2021

User avatar
warumich
Fuzzable
Posts: 282
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:49 pm

Re: Mocking religion

Post by warumich » Mon Apr 12, 2021 11:56 am

lpm wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 11:16 am
It's not having the religious nature that's the bad thing
That's been my point all along, I'm not entirely sure why you disagree with me so much.

Other maybe than the assertion that you sign up for a belief wholesale if you join a religion (which most people are born into rather than join anyway). I don't think that's ever been true, and one of the reasons why discussing theology is a thing, and a reason why church history is littered with reformers, prophets and the like.
I have no love for the "sexual weirdness" of western Christianity either. However the Lutheran church environment I grew up with was much more relaxed, showing that reform is possible, and it's maybe not a bedrock as much as you think. Catholicism is maybe rather different, but they have moved a lot over the centuries too. I feel we should support the sensible Catholics rather than mock them if we're interested in change.
I've never had a signature, and it never did me any harm

Lew Dolby
Catbabel
Posts: 652
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:59 pm
Location: Shropshire - Welsh Borders

Re: Mocking religion

Post by Lew Dolby » Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:31 pm

But sometimes we have to view things like (some) organised religions with a blanket view

for instance (and I'm sure this applies to others) the catholic church has said it doesn't see any onus on itself to hand over child-raping priests to the authorities or even to say which are and which aren't. imo the only safe assumption for the rest of us is that all RC priests are child-rapists.
WOULD CUSTOMERS PLEASE REFRAIN FROM SITTING ON THE COUNTER BY THE BACON SLICER - AS WE'RE GETTING A LITTLE BEHIND IN OUR ORDERS.

Post Reply