Yes of course - and by whatever label; it is our (basest) nature to behave like 2-year olds; with experience comes mere and more virtuosity in mangling language to justify -- that behavior.

I asserted ~ that Organized Religions (many now huge Corporations, both in capital and in structure) are the very seat of the teaching of intolerance - not merely of Other Corps but even within, of various sub-sects. This process is for many, the earliest experience of 'adult reasoning' a child encounters (and for some, particularly of late: the ONLY experience of 'reasoning' a child ever encounters).

Never mind what the unIncorporated Others do - in service of themselves. One does not imply the Other as 'opposite'. I referred only to the common denominator of all these orgs: Ours is Truth / Theirs is Lies. That is and has been - their message from the first.

(Once you have dehumanized any/all Others as Liars or worse - no problem killing them off as sub-humans. And: they do (or at least try) with extreme regularity.)

Do you deny this history and these precepts?


Ashton

J'accuse not the 'existence' of all matters as might be labelled metaphysical (!) - as if my 'opinion' on a matter of the very definition of Scale itself! mattered in the slightest..

I accept Certainty as a near-enough tarball for the root of the misbehavior of the practitioners of rote-inculcation. I believe that process is indeed common to most-all of the 'Organized Religions'. (I don't think Buddhism, to name just one conundrum - is 'organized' nor perhaps a 'religion' either. Another thread - and too lengthy a digression)

I will also second your (our) vanity, Of which, I, as an evangelical agnostic, am also guilty. I know that I'm right in knowing that those who think they know are deluded. :-\ufffd

That is, I too believe that I have experienced sufficient of the depths of my ignorance of er 'Reality' - to be by now almost too-Certain of the truth within the esoteric bit of doggerel,

Those who know don't say.
Those who say don't know.

(Can't quite use the agnostic label; fuzzy as it is, it still connotes "being asea" and all illegible. Not my locale.)

{sigh}

I'll have to stick with the assertion that - whatever we call those methods of Organized Religious Corporations - their habits have nothing much to do with the idea of religion itself, for they regularly (one might fairly say, inexorably) catalyze every next war.



Pace pace O mio Dio

Thought it might be a good one to add to list sometime. This one seemed worth saving, and he writes without apparent wholesale misuse of 'blab'words. That's always a good start -

There is a flow to history and
culture. This flow is rooted and
has its wellspring in the thoughts
of people. People are unique in
the inner life of the mind-what
they are in their thought world
determines how they act. This is
true of their value systems and it
is true of their creativity. It is true
of their corporate actions, such as
political decisions, and it is true of
their personal lives. The results of
their thought world flow through
their fingers or from their tongues
into the external world. This is
true of Michelangelo's chisel, and
it is true of a dictator's sword.

People have presuppositions, and
they will live more consistently on
the basis of these presuppositions
than even they themselves may
realize. By presuppositions we
mean the basic way an
individual looks at life, thier
basic world view, the grid through
which he sees the world.
Presuppositions rest upon that
which a person considers to be the
truth of what exists. People's
presuppositions lay a grid for all
they bring forth into the external
world. Their presuppositions also
provide the basis for their values
and therefore the basis for their
decisions.

\ufffdAs a man thinks, so is he,\ufffd is
really most profound. An
individual is not just the
product of the forces around
him. He has a mind, an inner
world. Then, having thought, a
person can bring forth actions into
the external world and thus
influence it. People are apt to look
at the outer theater of action,
forgetting the actor who "lives in
the mind" and who therefore is
the true actor in the external
world. The inner thought world
determines the outward action.

This appears to be more about human psych than about metaphysical conundrums, still - a good starting point, and related to how it may be that - religious Large Organizations have so little to do with religion (?!)

But I believe that the question follows from any 'serious' examination of, well - everything one has been taught + experienced. Doesn't each one of us answer it daily (however unaware of 'asking ourselves' - usually)? The intellectual 'brain' is much slower than the emotional - which is also much slower than the instinctive: Watch out for that brick!

By now I've formed my own take on the 'religion, morality, ethics' triumvirate. Basic to that take or any other (for me) is the Suart Chase blab test: ~ "where.. what.. is the referent for ___[this] word or phrase?" William James's 1902 The Varieties of Religious Experience may well have preempted many subsequent works..

[link|http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/james/toc.htm|If you see what I mean]

This early virus-check has caused me to (saved me from?) omit reading a lot of sententious sonnets though, admittedly even the most turgid (yet serious) screed has something to teach. Any way you slice it - the above triumvirate is bound to catalyze one hell of a lot of fuzzy referents; especially if it's writen for academic consideration, or in that style. Y'know?

Me? I try to eschew obfuscation. English is rich! in words with pretty useful nuance.. alas, vocabularies are shrinking. No answer to That one. (I trust that, by now you recognize that my quarrel is not with 'the idea of religion' but with the man-made bogus simulations of that which could only ever be about, the fruits of intense personal 'Work'. ie EZ-McEnlightenment: memorize what I Say; here's some Free Truth! yada yada. 'God' has nothing to do with ass-hole human behavior and screwed-up ideas about 'God'.


Cheers,

Ashton

this colloquy back from algorithmic prestidigitations to the sense of my assertion: organized religions have proven to foster in their adherents - that attitude which regularly precedes war.

As Mike appends: yes it* is a lot about Certainty, and the both incompetent and duplicitious parent --> child misrepresentation of what such an idea might mean, if examined carefully.

* (it) = this process of raising little hooligans to become big hooligans: possessed of this (Certainty of) being Righteous; then compounded by the corollary: if.. I/we be Right, then assuredly the others are Wrong. Much follows from this process of inculcation of the false, especially the Certainty that the false is True.

(And to regress to the infrastructure level: ALL above assertions which are inculcated, suffer from at very least - the fallacy of Anonymous Authority. Calling that God, merely forces recognition of the metaphysical as being a process which derives solely from individual growth towards 'wisdom' (and more language problems) - something which no one can 'give' to another. No child could possibly comprehend an iota of what any of this might mean. Merely memorize and regurgitate. As I said.)

ie. My statement is no 'slam' at religion / metaphysics - more the opposite! There is nothing metaphysically insightful in regurgitating rote doggerel, then later justifying the extermination of those uttering different-doggerel - in the name of (being) Right(eousness).

Need I explicitly state (?) there is also nothing about, say "identifying a one's belief-system as [fill in religious label]" - which I label (or libel) as odious, in the above. Calumny I reserve for the practitioners of rote-inculcation of ideas too large for unformed minds, and for asserting that this memorization confers upon the victim: a Righteousness; and especially - one unique to [that group].

HTH - or we can go to Pidgin and dialect.


Ashton