 |
|
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
|
| Post subject: |  |
|
| Mugwump wrote: | | Science has its place, but science does not tell us the good, it only tells us the true, and these are not the same thing. |
This is as opposed to religion, is it? Religion does not tell us the good, it only tells us the false and mythical. What good is that?
Religion doesn't "tell us the good". Of course it doesn't. It tells us what it thinks is good, and if there is one thing religions are spectacularly bad at, it is thinking. For every example of something good that religion has brought into the world, it is trivially easy to find something bad. Let's stop pretending that religions do good. They don't. Not compared to the harm they bring.
You are, of course, perfectly correct to be alarmed about the lack of moral and ethical substance in modern life. It worries me too. Pretending that the now-dying Western religions brought more good than harm, however, is not sensible or helpful.
Yet some people still do it, even with the live example of Islam before us, and the truly terrible history of Christianity behind us. It is utterly irrational. But then, so is all religion.
(PS: I don't mind irrational. Nothing wrong with irrational at all. Some of our best and most memorable achievements are irrational. Being irrational is like sleeping: it's something we all need to do from time to time to keep us human. But pretending that making important decisions on the basis of irrationality is in any way sensible is just dumb. You might as well sleepwalk and drive.)
_________________
�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
|
|
|
 |
Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Of course it tells us what it thinks is good. What else could an ethics be ? but a religious ethic's appeal is that it stands outside rationalization, and if you believe, as I do, that reason can and does serve all kinds of horrible ends, then this is its appeal, if what the religion prescribes and demands of you is truly good. And, though I cannot really believe the God stuff, I can think of little in Christ's words that does not ask us to be better than we are.
I also think that, in its accent on forgiveness, redemption and sacrifice, it gets near to the core of life. So I am pro-Christian without being quite able to buy into the objective metaphysics of it.
Finally, religions are certainly bad at thinking. But so are humans. Terribly bad at it. Look at all of the intelligent people who have convinced themselves of all kinds of abominations and errors. We cannot see into the future, we cannot untangle motives from outcomes, cannot see another's thoughts. As this forum often proves, we often cannot show that one narrative is truer than another covering the same events (this is why one should try to understand Wittgenstein, though few do). Religion is bad at thinking, but at least it does not pretend to be a rational system. It is more like poetry, or culture, than a syllogism - but it might lead us to live better, and have a better society than rationality alone.
_________________
Two more flags before I die! |
|
|
|
|
Pa Marmo
Side by Side
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Location: Nicks BB member #617
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Romans 1:22 
_________________
Genesis 1:1 |
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| Mugwump wrote: | And, though I cannot really believe the God stuff, I can think of little in Christ's words that does not ask us to be better than we are.
I also think that, in its accent on forgiveness, redemption and sacrifice, it gets near to the core of life. So I am pro-Christian without being quite able to buy into the objective metaphysics of it. |
The Gospels also include *major* kingdom, messianic, apocalypse and judgement traditions, as well as a significant strand of radical ascetic-cum-socialist doctrine, also attributed to this "Christ" (AKA "the Jesus figure" to those outside the fold).
Not to mention that the diversity of Christians accept a whole bunch of other books you presumably find kooky, from the Pauline Epistles to Revelation to random parts of the Hebrew Bible when it suits. Then, there are the cultural views on topics such as abortion and contraception which are wrangled from the holy books, a stack of bolt-on traditions, and that whole metaphysics that most Christians buy into which you aren't keen on.
The point being, it seems odd to be "pro" some religion based on an appreciation of such a small portion of it. I too appreciate strands of the Jesus tradition, and I defend religion generally as a mundane psychosocial phenomenon, but I am not "pro" any specific religion.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| Pa Marmo wrote: | | Romans 1:22 |
Collingwood: 2010
_________________
“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
|
|
|
|
stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| watt price tully wrote: | | Pa Marmo wrote: | | Romans 1:22 |
Collingwood: 2010 |
Austin 3:16
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Erdogan
...Turkey announced a new school curriculum on Tuesday that excluded Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, feeding opposition fears President Tayyip Erdogan is subverting the republic's secular foundations...
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4991221,00.html[/b]
Religious fundamentalism....mixed with Islam, mixed state theocracy & the way he has managed to make himself the Sultan of Turkey.
_________________
“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
|
|
|
|
stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
|
| Post subject: | |
|
I can't access the link, but from your description that won't end well.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Erdogan's well and truly joined the ranks of leaders like Putin, Duterte and Trump: which is to say, if you hear in the news that they've done something, everything's just gotten significantly worse.
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
|
|
|
|
watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| stui magpie wrote: | | I can't access the link, but from your description that won't end well. |
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4991221,00.html
Hopefully that's better
_________________
“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
|
|
|
|
HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| Does that remind you of it? ? |
|
|
|
|
Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
|
| Post subject: | |
|
This is fairly awful, of course, but it doesn't really rate in the top 50 really awful things he's done in Turkey in the last 12 months. |
|
|
|
|
watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| Pies4shaw wrote: |
This is fairly awful, of course, but it doesn't really rate in the top 50 really awful things he's done in Turkey in the last 12 months. |
There's something about 51 that I wanted to share.
_________________
“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
|
|
|
|
stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Ta for the new link. fairly poor. Indoctrinate all children with religious beliefs at school then only maybe expose them at uni level to alternatives.
Thats how religions accumulated so much power in the past, it's shocking and sad to see it happening in this day and age.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
sixpoints
Joined: 27 Sep 2010
Location: Lulie Street
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| stui magpie wrote: | Ta for the new link. fairly poor. Indoctrinate all children with religious beliefs at school then only maybe expose them at uni level to alternatives.
Thats how religions accumulated so much power in the past, it's shocking and sad to see it happening in this day and age. |
The situation in Turkey is terrible. There the government is altering the state curriculum based upon religious grounds. We are not at that level of State supported religious interference in the curriculum here in Australia, but we have inched towards it in the past few decades.
The Howard Federal Government massively increased funding to Private Schools (most of whom are religious based). Since then the numbers of private schools and their enrolments have markedly increased.
Australia more than ever before has Baptist kids in Baptist schools, Catholics in Catholic schools, Jews in Jewish schools, Muslims in Muslim schools, Anglicans in Anglican schools, Presbyterians in Presbyterian schools, Ultra Conservative Christians in Ultra Conservative Christian schools, etc etc. All of which are supported by an increasing allocation of Federal Government funding.
Is this increasing separation of children by religious affiliation propped up by Federal funding really what we want as a society? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum
|
|
The Rules
FAQ
Usergroups
Calendar
Search
Log in
Register
