Re: War On Religion

Post #13,977 by gtall 10/18/01 1:01:49 PM Reply	Re: War On Religion I don't agree with most of what you wrote. I'm happy for you to be so moral and to claim it isn't the result of religion. But given the ubiquitous morals generated by religion, I very much doubt you were raised in a moral vacuum and somehow acquired your morals in isolation from the ambient religious background. If you think religion is parrotting what someone else tell you, you have a very narrow, myopic view of what a religion actually is. My point, rather, was that those who do parrot would be parrotting regardless of whether they were religious or not. Gerard Allwein
Post #13,988 by addison 10/18/01 1:46:25 PM Reply	Re: War On Religion I very much doubt you were raised in a moral vacuum and somehow acquired your morals in isolation from the ambient religious background. If you want to call me an idiot, then do it. Don't do it with an attempt at congratulating me. That is what you just said. ~"You're too stupid to realize..." I was raised around a lot of religion. I grew up in the Bible Belt. I do not believe that you would consider their morals to be "correct" in many ways. Sure, I saw that. And I learned to evaluate for myself. Moral vacuum? Nope. That's my parents for you, first, and my determination that I was going to be a person of my word, early on. Actually, the single biggest influence on my personality was science fiction. I'm happy for you to be so moral and to claim it isn't the result of religion. That's another insult. My morality - indeed, morality of everybody is divorced from their religion. Not intending to tell you you're wrong, in an insulting way, but morality is not the same as religion. In my opinion, beliving that they are linked is a massive failure in logic, and results in many of the atrocities that occur. Religion has been used to justify and condemn every atrocity that has occured that I can think of in the last couple of centuries, at least. Justify and condemn every political viewpoint and position. My "ambient religious background" was along the lines of that black Americans weren't as smart or as dedicated as us white folk, and that they were marked by God for their sins. The fact I reject that as utter bullshit ought to be enough to disprove your assertion that I don't know what I think. When you get into the various immoral (in my opinion, but I suppose incest and impregnating 12 year olds (seperate cases) and beating children, with the more minor issues of theft and various petty things, are subjective) actions that the various religious people, who claimed a moral directive from God that I've seen, that weren't that unusual in the area where I grew up, I'm damn sure that while I learned a helluva lot, I didn't get my morals via osmosis. My morals are ones I have considered, as much as possible. Is it completely uninfluenced by religion? Of course not. But it also as influenced by respect for other people, and issues that have nothing to do with religion. Believing that religion is the only basis for morality is not something I've only heard from you, but its certainly a unsustainable idea (Take the ancient Greeks and Romans, and their god's certainly didn't mandate a moral code, yet their codes are similar to what you see now, and certainly influenced and were integrated into your religion). The heathens, pagans, druids, et al that Christianity overran were not without morals, and those morals were not derived soley from a religion. My point, rather, was that those who do parrot would be parrotting regardless of whether they were religious or not. And I agreed with you. If you think religion is parrotting what someone else tell you, you have a very narrow, myopic view of what a religion actually is. I didn't say that that was a religion. I said morality via a religion was that. I'll stand by that. "Don't do this cause God says so". If you would like to disagree, please, without parroting, explain the morality set by any major religion. (yes, its a trick question). The morality. Shouldn't be any wiggle room or questions involved. But please don't insult me by patronizing me and presuming that I'm really religious, I just don't know it. That does irritate me quickly. Addison
Post #14,000 by Arkadiy 10/18/01 3:01:33 PM Reply	That's what I hoped to get from you... An explanation of how you came to be moral... >>>>>>>>>> My "ambient religious background" was along the lines of that black Americans weren't as smart or as dedicated as us white folk, and that they were marked by God for their sins. The fact I reject that as utter bullshit ought to be enough to disprove your assertion that I don't know what I think. <<<<<<<<<< What I am about to say may sound politically incorrect. I hope to God it does not make me sound like a racist. I don't see anything remotely morals-related in the above statement. It's a lot of awfully wrong sociology. Now, when someone implies it's ok to rob them and hurt them because they are "marked" - that's a next step, much closer. But even then the problem is not lack of "morals" per se. Morals are about dealing with _people_. If you are dumb enough to not include blacks in that cathegory - it's a different problem. It needs to be fixed by convincing the racist that blacks are indeed just like whites, people. Or, if that can't be done, lock up the bastard. But don't say he lacks moral values. He simply does not apply them to as wide a circle as you. Now, the circle to which morals are applied does vary with history (I am conceding a point here, in case you did not notice). But not the rules themselves. A simplest way to make a devil out of somebody is to teach him/her that others aren't people. I am not particularly happy with what I just said, but that's where logic takes me. I could try to introduce some sort of "meta-morals" which causes people whouse circle of moral application is larger to be considered better people by themselves and (amazing as it sounds) others. But I don't think I am good enough to prove it. >>>>>>>>>>> When you get into the various immoral (in my opinion, but I suppose incest and impregnating 12 year olds (seperate cases) and beating children, with the more minor issues of theft and various petty things, are subjective) actions that the various religious people, who claimed a moral directive from God that I've seen, that weren't that unusual in the area where I grew up, I'm damn sure that while I learned a helluva lot, I didn't get my morals via osmosis. <<<<<<<<<<< Did people around you say that it's a higly good thing to do all of the above? I can see how beating children may be called "moral" (another long discussion needed). But theft? incest? sex with kids? If the answer is "yes" to any of the above, pray tell, did you consider people who were approving of those acts to be good people at the time? You can learn from bad examples, too.
Post #14,011 by gtall 10/18/01 3:50:45 PM Reply	Re: War On Religion Well, consider yourself offended then. I don't believe you know what religion and morals actually are or where they come from. Growing in a racist society isn't what we'd consider gowing up in a moral society, now is it? Take yer basic 10 commandants and the two additional Christian ones, hard to argue with most of them, and you probably follow most yourself. But, they aren't religious morals for you, nope, you came to them all by yourself. If you are trying to argue that some racists took Judeo-Christian beliefs, perverted them, and passed them off as morals...uh...read my original note, that's what I said. Gerard Allwein
Post #14,022 by addison 10/18/01 4:20:41 PM 10/18/01 4:55:46 PM Reply	Never fear, I am. Offended that is. I did entertain the possibility that it was accidental, but apparently not. Luckily for you I believe in explaining myself, instead of just parrotting. I don't believe you know what religion and morals actually are or where they come from. It's America. (At least here it is). You're free to be as ignorant as you want to be. I've certainly expounded enough in this thread that I believe there's plenty of evidence that your statement is a snide insult as you refuse to address the possibility that it's the converse that's the truth. Growing in a racist society isn't what we'd consider gowing up in a moral society, now is it? I'll remind you that you patronized me and told me what I grew up in, and around, and absorbed. The proper response would be "I'm sorry, I was wrong". Or something to that effect. You were completely and utterly wrong then, and your attempt at defense is detrimental to you, and reinforced my theory who's actually done the thinking here. That "racist" society was the one you told me that I must have absorbed my morality from. And that was largely propagated via churches, and "moral lessons". Remember, it was your postulation that my morals came from that upbringing in that environment. Now, either stick to the subject (ie, refuting what I've said), or apologise. That's the "moral" thing to do here, and its less embarassing in the long run than continuing to try and defend an ignorant position. Take yer basic 10 commandants and the two additional Christian ones, hard to argue with most of them, and you probably follow most yourself. But, they aren't religious morals for you, nope, you came to them all by yourself. Additional two? Gee, I've not been to church in a while, when did they get added??? (Miss just one sermon.. ONE!!!) Further, you can take it and cram it. You owe me an apology, not more insults. Those "commandments" were largely in effect in the Aztec Empire. Who never heard of Jehovah. But then, that would require thought, not mere parroting of responses. Funny how you got bent out of shape about that, earlier. Perhaps too close to the mark. I. I Am The Lord Thy God; Thou Shalt have no other gods Before Me. Hrm. Doesn't seem to apply to me. II. Thou Shalt Not Take The Name Of The Lord, Thy God, In Vain. Nope. III. Remember The Sabbath Day, to Keep it Holy. Nope. IV. Thou shalt honor thy Father And Thy Mother, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. Have to ask about that, but this is something that I've come to on my own, yes, because of what I've learned growing up, not because someone told me I should. V. Thou Shalt Not Kill. Well, I'm in trouble, then. No kidding. (In other words, I've "Broken" that one) Aside from that I "agree" with it because its a Career Limiting Move. I have nothing against killing people who need it. Peter and I have had some interesting discussions on this topic on II. Its highly subjective. VI. Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. Depends what you call "Adultery". I don't have a problem with sex outside marriage, or divorce. I have a problem with someone in a relationship, (which isn't addressed here) - because again, of my experiences and what I've learned - and formulated on my own. VII. Thou Shalt Not Steal. Same reason I "follow" this as the others. But I'll note that almost all criminals claim Christianity when they're imprisoned as their religion. Nor does this stop various "charities" and "Christians" from collecting money for their own pockets. VIII. Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor. My agreement with this has nothing to do with the bible. IX Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's House. Ditto. X. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.. Seems interesting this topic keeps coming up. Must be that the religious have to be told time and time again. And I don't have a problem coveting things. I just don't take them. I've certainly drooled over several women who were other men's wives. I've looked admiringly at the cattle next to mine. Helped round them up and put them back on an occasion. So. Lets tabulate. 10 Commandments that you patronizely insist I believe in. 4 straight off are out. 8, 9, 10 I agree with, but hardly for the reasons that are listed, and in fact, they're rather dated and not appropriate - severe interpretation is required. Adultery - hugely contextual, and not really relevant in today's society, and far more complex today than the Commandment allows. That leaves us with Honoring Parents, which I've come to on my own (ask them about my teenage years, and maybe even still today), and killing, which I oppose premeditated murder, but its hardly as clear as the commandments make it. 2 for 10. 20%. And that's giving the BEST interpretation to them, and taking my "Agreement" and mangling it severely to fit. You've got better odds in Vegas. Who's thought this out and who hasn't? I left a challenge on the table last time, when I thought you might actually be thinking - I'll reexamine it, to see if I'm wrong, or you are just parrotting. gtall:If you think religion is parrotting what someone else tell you, you have a very narrow, myopic view of what a religion actually is. addison:*I didn't say that that was a religion. I said morality* via a religion was that. I'll stand by that. "Don't do this cause God says so".** If you would like to disagree, please, without parroting, explain the morality set by any major religion. (yes, its a trick question). The morality. Shouldn't be any wiggle room or questions involved. Even though its a trick question it is answerable, in some ways. I certainly can make a devil's advocate (no pun intended) run at it. But in reply to that - you parrotted at me that you were right, it had to be religion in my background. Despite the foregiven proof otherwise. Addison (edit to correct its to it's) Edited by addison Oct. 18, 2001, 04:55:46 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #14,042 by screamer 10/18/01 5:36:19 PM Reply	I think I caught your show a few months ago... From: [link\|http://www.yale.edu/record/weeklies/2001may7.html\|http://www.yale.edu...001may7.html] So you would call yourself an empiricist? You have to see evidence to believe something? Oh, of course. I understand belief and I understand its place. And I understand the need to control people by having these invisible authority figures. If you can get a person at seven years of age to believe that there?s an invisible man watching you, you can pretty much add almost anything you want after that point. So, I think it serves a great purpose. It?s a political act. I have a thing I?m doing in my show now about the Ten Commandments. I refer to it as a political document. I try to show how you don?t need ten. Ten is a marketing number. It?s a convenient number. If you said you there were eleven commandments, people would have told you to go get fucked. But ten commandments, like the top ten, the ten best dressed, the ten most wanted- it?s an important official sounding number so that people respect it. But I take them apart- I kind of analyze them and I show you how you can combine them. There?s duplication. Stealing and lying are both dishonesty. So all you need to say is ?Thou shalt not be dishonest.? Adultery and coveting the neighbor?s wife- relatively the same thing- fidelity, infidelity- and they are also dishonesty. Infidelity and dishonesty are really in the same family. So you know. So I think this all a game being perpetrated. And it?s very, very effective. Or from here:[link\|http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxxi/2001.02.16/ae/p14carlin.html\|http://www.yalehera...4carlin.html] Carlin explained that the Ten Commandments can really be reduced to two if you throw away the bullshit ones and condense the similar ones. "I don't think you should outlaw thinking about another guy's wife, or else what are you going to think about when you're jerking off?" he said. What Carlin left us with of the original 10 was simple: "Thou shalt always be honest and true to the source of thy nookie," and "Thou shalt try not to kill anyone...unless they deserve it. Really, Moses could have kept these in his pocket, and the Alabama courthouse could put them up with one other: `Thou shalt keep thy mother-fucking religion to thy mother-fucking self.'" ************************************************** Not saying that I necessarily agree, but found a few similarities with his schtick and yours... Just a few thoughts, Screamer The Other Man Who Knows Fucking Everything "God is dead" Nietzsche "Nietzsche is dead" God "Nietzsche has an S in it" Celina Jones "Proove to me that I X is"
Post #14,050 by Ashton 10/18/01 6:35:23 PM Reply	Thanks for link! Will pass it on to the other GC fans.. Thought this an unusually revealing gag-free presentation by George; clearly he has figured out a number of his own whys and.. mastered the homo-sap stimulus/response game rules, damn near cold. I found particularly refreshing that, in trashing our god-making hackwork - he gives no hints re what he does with biig Questions er, for himself.. (!) This may reflect humility? that he hasn't asked m(any) of those? or possibly that he even gets why you Can't! er pass on much more than hints (??) [no opinion here] Anyway - comforting to know that, despite the inanity of dumbed-down Corp-media pabulum / raunchy humor, and the generalized cultural impoverishment of Murica today: the spirit of Lenny Bruce and the great humorists of yore, have been er 'sampled live', and some of their essence distilled. Long may he unwave those flags! A.
Post #14,143 by gtall 10/19/01 8:24:13 AM Reply	Re: Never fear, I am. I apologize for offending you. I didn't mean to that, I was too glib by saying "consider yourself offended". I was responding to what I thought was a particularly short tripwire by you on the Offense-O-Meter. I'll remind you that you* patronized me and told me what I grew up in, and around, and absorbed. The proper response would be "I'm sorry, I was wrong". Or something to that effect.* You yourself mentioned what "morals" were around in the society you grew up in, I reinterpreted that to mean you thought you grew up in a racist society. I should have said that was how I interpreted you, not merely rephrase what I thought I read. And I was too fast on the draw using the 10 commandments. I could have used Buddhism for all it mattered. My point was that most of what you consider "good" morals were around long before you and most were originally codified in religions. Where you get them from is your business, but I think proper attribution is something not to danced around. Religions, I think, are moral webs. I don't think of them as somehow necessiting belief in a supreme being. Operationally, they are just that, moral webs, a system of interconnected strictures governing social and personal behavior. I don't think of morality via a religion is parroting. Some people do parrot morality that way, but I do not think it is intrinsic to a religion which has history of circumspection. Most theologians are cognizant of the difference between religion as belief in a supreme being and religion (operationally) as a set of social strictures, I was assuming we were talking about the latter and should have said so. Gerard Allwein
Post #14,364 by ben_tilly 10/20/01 11:35:21 PM Reply	I think there is an unwarranted assumption there What is your evidence that morality was originally codified in religions? We have morality handed down to the present from the earliest religious texts we have available. However early philosophical texts from people as far separated as Aristotle and Confucius present ethics as a subject that is independent of religion. I don't think there is a clear case in the historical record for saying that ethical systems come from religion, or that they don't. It is, of course, clear that religion has been used as a way to codify ethical systems and propagate them through the ages. This doesn't mean, though, that they come from religion. After all local political power has historically come from force of arms, but likewise political realities have tended to become intertwined with religion. But the basis of many of the basic foundations that you can point to behind Addison's sense of morality (and mine) may go back a lot farther. (Insert standard lecture on sociobiology and the potential evolutionary roots of our basic ethical imperatives.) Cheers, Ben
Post #14,418 by gtall 10/21/01 8:54:14 AM Reply	Re: I think there is an unwarranted assumption there I didn't mean ethical systems derive from religion, but rather that principles inherent in ethical systems are found in religion. My contention was that religion is very old and philosophies do owe a debt to those religions. You would argue (I think) that either the flow went in the opposite direction or that both developed simultaneously. But wherever we find human habitation, we find religious artifacts. In that sense, I find it difficult to believe that secular notions of morals or ethics were born in a religious vacuum. Gerard Allwein
Post #14,427 by boxley 10/21/01 10:21:27 AM Reply	ya also find beer containers ]:-> tshirt front "born to die before I get old" thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
Post #14,437 by ben_tilly 10/21/01 11:38:13 AM Reply	I think you missed the point I am not arguing that I really know which came first, ethical principles or religion. I am saying that your blanket statement that ethical principles were originally codified in religion is a claim which I don't think you have real support for. (FWIW I suspect that the answer to which came first may depend in the end on how broadly you define each of religion and ethics. Certainly if you define ethics broadly enough, you can find good evidence of ethical motivations in, for instance, chimpanzees.) First of all it is true that the earliest philosophical writings we have are predated by religion. I agree with that, and were it otherwise I would be saying something rather different. Secondly it is both true that in every human society we find both some sort of shared ethical system and religion. Given that, your comment about the distribution of religious artifacts is not evidence one way or another on which came first. It is an argument that religion is a universal tendancy. It doesn't indicate whether that universal tendancy predated the one to shared ethical systems. Cheers, Ben PS You may be asking why I care. It is simple. I am just tired of religious people telling atheists like myself that our morals come from religion, one way or another. They certainly don't directly, and I am not convinced they do ultimately either.
Post #14,030 by Ashton 10/18/01 4:56:17 PM Reply	C'mon Gerard Your syntax was offensive - and Addison ain't no sophomoric idiot as would miss the unsubtlety of the phrasing. And your non-apology underscores that the offense was meant. J'Accuse too, as your 'way of putting it' is one I too have encountered over a relatively long lifetime: it is the supercilious one of ~ I Know Truth and - you, poor bastard: are gonna rot in that fearful-man imagined slow-broiler which My Loving God\ufffd reserves for you heathens. Hee Hee - whilst I get to Watch from that seat right next to Her throne.. No, you likely wouldn't use Those words. But I have heard ~ Those Words spoken by so-called Christians over the years / ages? In fact you too can hear variations on them, spoken nightly - in SF Bay Area now: Channel 42 Tee Vee. Usually in the wee hours - some of these folk can dispense their folksy wisdom for hours non-stop -- telling the listener Exactly What God Meant / what kinda guy He is and, and how pissed-off he is with YOU [from execrable Sin-full birth and >>>> onwards] on and on and - (In fact recently I scribbled down what I was hearing! - as one of these minions of Light was giving advice to a caller-in. I mentioned that in a post, though no reason to suppose you caught that one; too lazy to look it up - have we a search engine yet?) 'Religion' in my vocabulary - always and everywhere connotes: an organization of Men (and damn Few women except as ancillaries, often trying really hard to Sound like the men, especially when discussing Divine Justice and the Delicious Punishments Awaiting). These Are Homo-saps Period. No metaphysical entity picked a language and writ in stone - that which is claimed by virtually all aforementioned religious organizations; nowadays: Corporations (the Vatican being merely the largest, richest). Now if what you were trying to get at was the concept of spirituality ? That's another concept never accessible to pure logic - just as the Ontological Proof of God: Isn't, either, if that is what you were implying in Your idea of religion (?) Well - we sure as hell aren't going to derive That umm from the axioms - G\ufffddel or no G\ufffddel - either! Sheesh - you really imagine that You Can Prove God IS ?? (even in Sanskrit, intended for that sort of discourse and free of most pedestrian language pollution) Sorry Gerard, but Logician, Heal Thyself.. I'd expected better from you - based on previous exchanges. Now you are expressing mere smug Certainty where.. no actual Certainty is accessibly by ANY form of human-invented 'logic'. And if you don't even realize Yet! that: you cannot pass-on! [whatever has been discerned internally via difficult, sustained labor?] - to others, and especially Not 'Truth' - then your logic exercises failed utterly to inform you of where logic ceases to apply. except via example, in a life lived, that is. Sanctimony is sanctimony; so is hubris hubris. Anyone selling Certainty in this world of mere appearances? Qualifies for both. IMhO. Ashton who 'believes' than man has a much better BS-detector built-in than, ever: a Truth-detector. But we so love to appear Right(eous).
Post #14,032 by pwhysall 10/18/01 4:59:41 PM Reply	One hell of a Freudian slip... Take yer basic 10 commandants That'd be the RIAA employees, come round to relieve you of your PC on the grounds that you might be considering using it to infringe their copyrights? :-) Peter Shill For Hire [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal]
Post #14,021 by marlowe 10/18/01 4:12:14 PM Reply	SIngle biggest influence was science fiction? So you're a scientologist? [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html] Sometimes "tolerance" is just a word for not dealing with things.
Post #14,023 by addison 10/18/01 4:22:23 PM Reply	Don't make me come over there. I said _Science Fiction_. Not Elron^H^H^H^H^Hcrap. Addison
Post #14,039 by Ashton 10/18/01 5:27:43 PM Reply	Find it also a rich vein If not quite the Mother Lode.. for exercising that part of mentation seeking new angles; that when it is simply, good fiction - the Sci- part is not to be confused with BEMs (!) er bug-eyed -- for the non-partakers. At best we get a view of, Homo-sap at work, lying to self - proudly! (to "make the illusion palatable" ? most often) As mentioned, I'm recently perusing a pithy anthology of 'dystopias' - ideas and categories of same. (Alas more and more I find: we've made our own impending dystopia! aided and abetted by hateful purveyors of individual brands of Righteousness.. natch.) {sheesh} forget Right; settle for - functional. Please. A. how do I get outta this chicken outfit, alive or dead? PS - Elron was about (in his own words) best way to make Big $ is to start your own religion. He got that right, obviously.

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