From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 9:25 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Atheist
On 17 Jul 2014, at 10:33, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2014 11:20 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Atheist
Salman Rushdie wrote:
> religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere
innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of
religion in the fashionable language of "respect". What is there to respect
in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily
around the world in religion's dreaded name?
It is the liberal consensus that we should always respect all religious
beliefs regardless of how stupid or cruel it is; for example tune into just
about any international news broadcast and you will probably see at least
one story about religious violence somewhere in the world, but the media
won't call it that, the media will call it "sectarian violence". As for me I
think there is a point beyond which a euphemism becomes a lie.
John K Clark
I would describe it as a societal paradigm. this unspoken rule that all
should respect religion. It dominates both the political right as well as
the left.
I think it is more the general and positive idea of respecting the others.
But sometimes people forget that this rule is limited to those who respect
you. If you respect those who does not respect you, you lose dignity and
eventually life.
Well sure. life is more pleasant when people have a live and let live
attitude. As you point out respect needs mutuality. Respecting an
institution that does not respect anyone that does not adopt their dogma is
a one way flow of respect that leads to a distorted situation. Religion -
for the most part - does not respect anything that is not in accordance with
its dogma, therefore it should not "expect" to be respected.
Religion is a useful tool to power structures (when it is not the power
structure itself);
I agree, alas. I would say that it is in the nature of religion to easily be
confused with the 3p structure which might try to represent it. That is why
the basic of the mystics is negative, they often say only: no it is not
this, nor that, neither this nor ...
Neoplatonist theologies reflects this in being "negative theologies".
But that's the fate of anything near a Protagorean virtue. Not just the
Churches, also the Trade Unions, for a different example. The very goal of
the Trade Unions is morally positive, as it defends the employees on
possible employer abuses. But an old Trade Union can become a machine
defending the interest of the Trade Unioners only, up to the point as being
a problem for both the employer and the employees.
The same for money. At first it makes it possible to share the products of
works, and speculate about the futures, but then it can be used for its own
sake, perverting its distribution and speculation role.
Fake or lies based powers quickly speculate only on how long they can lie.
In no case should we throw the baby with the bath water. All positive thing
which are related to a protagorean virtues are on the risk, when
implemented, to be perverted by its name or social representation.
I agree all human institutions become captured eventually by small classes
of people who rig the system - any system -- to favor their own. Once the
cockroaches manage to worm their way into power within any institution it is
almost impossible to rid the institution of their influence.
religion serves the interests of central authority. Emperor Constantine and
the Roman imperial elites of the time have as much (or more perhaps some
argue) than any mythical prophet, to do with the evolution of a loose set
of scattered stories into an organized imperial state religion united under
the crucifix (and conveniently the emperor as well).
When a religion is institutionalized at the level of the state; not only
politics will get inconsistent and authorianists, but the religion itself
will become a mockery of itself. Also, at such a level (an Empire), it can
take *many* centuries to recover.
All insitutions become means for enforcing an uneven playing field for the
benefit of a favored elite class.
You would probably describe me as being liberal, but I certainly do not
ascribe to any dictum that I respect the institution of or practice of
religion. Quite frankly I do not. Especially organized religion, which is a
lot like organized crime IMO, sharing with it many of the same
characteristics and practices.
I agree 100%. This makes me only anticlerical, though. Not against religion.
(Nor religious communities, nor even religious state/country, as religion
can be taught through example. But it cannot be installed by force, nor even
by votes. In fact religion like science can develop through practice,
research, and "exemplary behaviors" (yet never named as such).
Agreed. I am one whose life has been - at least in part - characterized by
my own spiritual quest, but I am fervently anti-clerical. my family has been
anti-clerical since the Napoleonic wars; I continue in this tradition.
A few examples of some shared characteristics: murdering (or shunning) those
who attempt to leave; murdering (or marginalizing) the competition (very mob
like behavior); demanding protection money from those under its control -
the tithes to the church are they really that different from protection
money to the local gang boss. I could go on, the ways in which religion and
organized crime operate is quite numerous.
Totally agree. But the culprit is not the religion, nor money, nor the trade
union, etc. the culprit is in the humans, who for special short term
interest pervert the original thing. A bit like in a cancer, the culprit is
not the blood cells which feed the tumor, but the cancerous cell which
"perverts" the sanguine system to feed the tumor.
I agree, but see any organized institution as being bound in the end to
become corrupt and controlled by the cancer or organized criminal syndicates
that later on transmute into established aristocracies.
Religion are very easily taken into hostage by bandits looking for power,
but children are easily taken into hostage by bandits too. That makes not
religion, nor the children, bad per se.
I differentiate between spiritual quests and religion for this very reason.
I see organized religion as primarily being a tool for the enforcement of
earthly power; as being something far differnet than spiritual awakening or
seeking.
Chris
OK?
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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