Appealing To Moderate Believers for Compromise
Offline I have an idea to propose that I think would increase progress in the world from the religious moderates. To be fair my idea is inspired by Sam Harris whom I've been reading up on a bit lately. He points out, as many secularists would agree, that there is a danger to being moderately religious in a faith that still has clear notions of violence, genocide and hate in the very texts that they claim to live by as a means towards peace. My idea would be to ask for moderate believers in these religions to take responsibility for the violent statements made by their creeds and holy books by openly denouncing these aspects of their religions.
A starting point that I think would be most effective would be to ask them if they would be willing to cut out the passages of their holy books which at face value, no matter how much you read before and after the statement in question, you cannot get around the suggestion of the book to commit violent acts.
I tested this out with a really nice Christian neighbor of mine last night and of course her first response was that she would be offended of the idea of cutting out something like the laws in Leviticus that promote the stoning of people who violate them.
I then pointed out that there are many books which the Catholic Church in the beginning of the religion left out because they didn't think that they deserved to be a part of what everyone gets to know about the religion. She admitted that she already knew this and when I explained that leaving out these laws of Leviticus would be taking the same action, only that she a protestant, would be making her own decision as to what should be in or out of the Bible.
While she gave it some thought, but remained hesitant, I then pointed out to her that part of my motivation in this suggestion, to be fair, would be to ask the same sacrifice of moderate Muslims who would say that the Quran passage that reads "Death to all nonbelivers" (I paraphrase from something that was quoted in "The End of Faith"
is a statement taken out of context and that one would have to understand that at that time in history the only enemies were nonbelieving groups. A desperate excuse to be sure, but still, for the sake of compromise it would be a fair exchange and a clear representation of the principles of both parties, Moderate Christians and Moderate Muslims, to be willing to remove the statements of their holy books which too easily promote violence.
My neighbor told me that she really liked the way that this made her think and she gave me credit for an idea that is really worth considering. That's a new record of convincing religious people to be reasonable for me. While it wouldn't work with everyone, I say let's speculate these compromises a bit. See how many moderate believers would go so far as to publicly denounce things like Sharia Law or the inclusion of violent statements in their holy books. If it grew in popularity enough, just imagine if a large number of moderate believers would buy a new version of their holy books, crafted by secularist groups as something like "The Peaceful Version"
While I would agree with any of you who would say that this isn't enough to really take violence out of religion, I think it would be a good start. Consider how many people who are moderates, both in and out of the closet as it were with their religious community. I have understood that psychologically speaking, when violent believers of a faith feel that they are not in agreement with the majority of their group, they are less likely to commit acts of violence. This can only be made more clear by the fact that they will come across friends and family who openly denounce the violent inspirations of their holy book and carry a symbol of that perspective on their bookshelves and in their churches and mosques.
What's more, nonviolent believers would be less likely to raise their children or promote their converts towards violence since very few of them really care to be scholars and reach out to anything other than what their group puts right in front of them to believe from.
Many other compromises could also be won in this appeal to moderates for compromise. The demise of Sharia Law among nonradical Muslims. The reprimand of missionary groups in third world countries who preach against condom usage where AIDS is rampant. This reprimand would come from the very people who pay the tithes that support them. Cooperation in the separation of Church and State can also be won in many respects.
There will always be a place for open debate over the illegitimacy of these beliefs, but when they don't see what they believe to be anything more than an excuse to believe something about the unknown, we can still find places where they will remove themselves as people who are in part responsible for the violence that spreads in the name of their gods. Please let me know what you think about this idea.
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It would be awfully hard to remove the violence and immoral actions in the bible without removing the basic plot line (boy creates world and is a megalomaniac that makes no sense). I like the idea, it never hurts to have theists speak out against the worst parts of their religion. The good news is that there are some theists out there already speaking out against the things in religion we should ignore or discount. If you take this to it's logical end I believe all you need is a trimmed up/modernized version of Hammurabi's Code of Laws.
Great post, I was surprised it went several hours without a response. I tweeted it and posted it on facebook, hopefully some religious moderates will join the conversation. (they don't need to be a registered user to comment on this one)
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I read this before, and was hoping it would get more response because it is a well put together post.
I'm afraid I don't have much to say, though. It makes sense in a way- it could definitely be said to be for the greater good to make religions more moderate.
Of course, as most here know, I have enough trouble getting along with "agnostics" let along theists, so it's probably not for me, personally- though I encourage you to go for it if you can.
I have been known to encourage theists to adopt deism or less dangerous Eastern religions in the past, though. I would say that it's probably easier to change people to a less violent religion than to change a violent religion- there's a sense of "old = correct" that's hard to change. Completely starting over with a different canon seems more plausible.
The entire motife of the omni-max god claim is that he is the boss and no one crosses him without punishment. Even with all the watering down you suggest, you are still stuck with the God of Abraham that is nothing but a gang leader.
That is not to suggest that we ourselves can have a utopia world in reality any more than a believer should try to force their utopia on the world. All we can do is use our voices in reality to challenge these absurd claims.
Humanity has always had a history of people believing in absurdities, and I don't think that will change in the future. But we can seek to minimize the harm absurd beliefs can do when passed off as fact.
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It's funny, but at work the preacher's wife is our hostess. A thumper tried selling her is wears in the form of religious tracts. I walked up to the register in on their mid-way conversation and he was talking about "this verse and that verse" yadda yadda yadda.....
So I left it alone and walked away, and came up to her afterwords and said, "I bet you wish I would have stepped in", meaning she new I was an atheist. Oh the irony, a believer wishing an atheist would save them from another believer.
She reminds me of Reverend Lovejoy on the Simpsons when Ned called him on speed dial, "Ned, isn't there some other religion you could try?".
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Agreed... great post.
I have maintained that the most important element of emerging from "The Dark Ages", was Martin Luther's protest, and how it introduced the concepts of "Skeptisism"...and more importantly, "Metaphor" to people... Until then, it probably hadn't occurred to many people that their religious doctrine wasn't nessasarily litteral. ie: Perhaps the story of the great flood is, in fact, a story meant to teach a lesson, and a 140 year old man didn't actually build a giant arc, let alone capture of couple of copulating mosquitos....
The advantage of introducing metaphor with the Bible, is that the god in the new testament behaves decidedly differently than the god in the old testament.... Hence for Christians, its possible to maintain their faith and view the more violent parts of their doctrine as stories, rather than factual events....
The challenge you'll have is with the Koran.... Allah's consistant call to violence is replete throught, and as such, more of a challenge to interperet as Metaphore..... hence it is much more difficult to be a "casual" Muslim...which is why they tend to be more Devout than their Christian counterparts.... to my knowledge, there is no Islamic equivelent to the "Cafateria Catholic"....But I could definitely be wrong about that..... If there is, I would imagine that it would be important to identify how a casual Muslim arrives at his or perspective, and help that reasonablity spread....
My theory, is to show as many sexy, scantily clad liberal minded middle eastern women in media as possible, and take the approach of "See what you're missing?"
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The only difference between Christianity and Islam is the WAY it is practiced today and the fact that government has put a leash on the Christian theocracies of the past. But there was an age when Christianity was as bloody and tribal as what we see in the middle east today.
It is in spite of Christianity, not because of Christianity that the concept of secularism exists. If left to it's own devices, without government neutrality and demand of civility, Christianity would quickly backslide into it's bloody past.
It was only because of people like Jefferson and Paine that we enjoy freedom of religion in the west. So while rightfully condemning Islam I think it is always a mistake to take one's eye of of any attempt at a monopoly of power, be it political or religious, be it worship of the state or worship of a god.
Never take your eyes off the dog. It may be on a leash, but it can still bite if given the chance.
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Well I like the idea but I think that we need to go further, religion should be based on common sense, if it doesn't pass the common sense litmus test it should be tossed. That may be a bit extreme but this is just a train of thought. I think that all of the books have good points but also have a lot of bad. I am however under the assumption that most of the books whether it be the bible or koran or whatever have been created simply to control the masses. I think they, they being the people in power at the time, have taken great postulations from great people and put as we would say now a different public spin on them to get people to thinking the way they want them to. You see it a lot now. Does this mean that we should rewrite the books no but we have to take them with a grain of salt. We have free will and a brain, if it sounds like something that wouldn't apply in this day and time such as stoning somebody to death for adultry then it should be disregarded. I personally think that these books attempt to put God in a box and that is impossible. Your relationship with God is exactly that, YOUR relationship with God, not with a book. You have common sense and the BS in the book should not trump that in anyway. The issue is too many people take what they read or hear and think that is the way it is and refuse to question it, if they questioned everything the violence in the bible would never be committed because people would question it and see it is BS, just my opinion but please let me know what you think of this train of thought.
Reverend Willie G.
I am the God of where I stand
I first want to say that I'm really honored by your compliments on my idea/post. I have another group with my university that is also taking the suggestion well and I'm encouraged to keep pushing the idea for the future, or else at least to keep leading this train of thought towards solving the social problems that religions bring.
I debated directly with some close friends of mine and I got a first hand example of just how difficult it would be to convince Jewish people of this idea. My Jewish friends blatantly objected, "but if you cut out violence from the Torah there wont be anything left!"
To ReverendWillieg
In practice, I can take your advice wholeheartedly and say that I relate well to the concept of what you are saying about common sense. Unfortunately the only true litmus test for sense of any kind is logic and reason, and not all good sense is easily proven or even explained through those tools. Even though I and many others like myself can throw out anything which is self-contradictory as a matter of fact, human nature has yet to fully assimilate such a trait. Emotions take over everyones sense of logic from time to time to protect us from harm, and it's because of these emotions that your line of reasoning proves to be an ineffective approach to changing the behaviors of others.
Religious people feel like they have something to protect. If a peace loving moderate believer is asked how much they care about keeping a statement in their holy book about killing all nonbelievers, they will be much less likely to object than if you ask them to remove something that made them feel loved by their God. If you ask them to remove something that is neutral, like say "God likes the smell of meat" my assumption would be that they are likely to defend the removal of that passage almost as much as they would defend keeping the passage that made them feel loved by their God. When you ask them to do something arbitrary, they'll get defensive and wonder why you "need" them to remove it. But when you give them reasons which you know they already came to of their own accord you are much more likely to get them to take the next step and remove that which is damaging to everyone.
Besides, if people want to believe in nonsense which is actually harmless, Jainism for one example, I doubt any of us would be here objecting to what they believe in. I for one could care less.
Well you are correct, unfortunately people are very emotional. Possibly adding on to the common sense litmus test you could also put in the test of does it impose on anothers free will. Now I know somebody will come up and say what if what I want contradicts what somebody else wants. I will use the gay issue for instance some heterosexuals don't want their children seeing two homosexuals holding hands or kissing in public, now this will most definitely infringe on the homosexuals free will. Now the question is if it is infringing on the freewill of the childrens parents? I would say no and hence the debate that would ensue. The arguement also would commence about all of the statutes in the bible that denounce homosexuality and if they should be taken out, blah blah ad infinitum. It is truly a sticky mess but a good rule I think is simply do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If everybody lived by that simple rule most of this would be a non issue. I am hoping I caught the context of what you were talking about and helped on some points.
Reverend Willie G.
I am the God of where I stand
The better version of the 'Golden Rule' is "Do not do to others what you would not wish done to yourself" - the 'positive' version assumes too much that our wishes will be similar.
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I disagree that there is any such thing as a "nonviolent believer" or even nonviolent atheist. Everyone becomes violent when they feel backed into a corner. To survive on this planet, every creature must be violent or at least possess the threat. The ''violent'' Jihadists claim that Israel and the USA were responsible for starting the violence and they are only acting in self-defense.
Most Christians in America claim to be non-violent. But they largely supported the wars in Iraq and Afganistan as doing God's work to stop the evil Jihadists. But they're still violent, they just have professional surrogates(i.e the military) do the killing for them.
Violence and war are unavoidable with or without religion until hummanity comes up with rational ways to share the earth's resources and limit population growth. So I don't see how encouraging 'religious moderation' helps at all.
The applicaiton of science and reason is the only thing that can improve humanity's plight. I oppose anything that is against this principle.
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I think your use of the word 'violence' qualifies as an equally valid but different definition than mine or the average person's idea of what the word would mean in this context. Regardless, I'm not going to change my claim to specify "unnecessary violence" because doing so would be working against the purpose that I'm aiming for. The point is that these people who would be unnecessarily violent, as you would have me put it, are less likely to commit such violence when they are void of excuses to believe that others would agree. If in the heat of their personal rage, they convince themselves that their act of violence is necessary, then I've encouraged them by repeatedly emphasizing in every other statement that I've made in their presence that necessary violence exists in the same way that I am claiming that statements like "stone those who commit adultery" are condoning unnecessary violence even though it's moderate supporters would claim that it's taken out of context. Talks of when violence is necessary can be focused on by other groups who have a special interest in it, like the police or practitioners of martial arts.
First of all, I'm not encouraging religious moderation at all. I am suggesting that we appeal to people who are moderates, meaning "non-literalists of their holy books." Those same Christians who viewed themselves as moderates of a peace loving God allowed themselves to act out in support of violence after 9/11. Many of the same people who would say "turn the other cheek" in any occasion that did not concern them said in that moment "God's wrath will consume them all!" and supported the war foolishly. If in that time, those same moderates had either no recollection of "God's Wrath" to refer to or had just been involved in long term debates and discussions of how such passages take advantage of otherwise peaceful people, I would argue that the war wouldn't have had as many supporters as it did.
What's more, a major goal of this idea would be to separate peace loving moderates from violence condoning fundamentalists. What I have seen is often the case is that liberal and peace loving believers are daily giving money to religious organizations and leaders who don't have these same interests at heart. Without their knowledge this money is given to back door deals with conservative politicians to make laws like Don't Ask Don't Tell or The Defense of Marriage Act. Then there are many other programs which are made with that money to take even more money from taxpayers and support interests in Abstinence Only programs in schools, prayer replacing healthcare, religious conversion replacing psychological rehabilitation in prison, and a nationally funded prayer breakfast for our country's religious leaders to negotiate with foreign diplomats.
People who would never support such things are blindly giving their money away to fundamentalists who run their religion who in turn push these movements. Asking them to make such a huge yet rational step forward will prove to them where their loyalty has been misguided this whole time, because they will see their pastors and priests make these arguments of super holiness over wrongful statements. I think this will encourage them to reconsider who should be telling them what to think or believe when they see that for themselves.
We would be far more hard pressed to convince them to stop handing money over to these organizations while simultaneously deverting them. Ask for both and you'll get close to nothing. Ask for what's important and you'll get the most that could possibly get in full. There will still be the same if not an increased number of people deverting from these religions of their own accord as we talk to them. Discussion and Debate are both important to our cause and not everyone will listen to both. This idea of mine would be a point for discussion and rehumanization of all people in all of the groups concerned.
If you refuse the help of people that would change their negative group behavior from the inside out, then you are only able to change things from outside the group. If we are successful at promoting the holy books with violence omitted from them, then what stops us from later suggesting an updated edition that also removes the evolution conflicting parts of Genesis? Fewer would support such a thing, but if enough would then we have them arguing against two fronts on that issue.
Don't want to convert to a secular view? Ok, then why not at least convert to a humanist one? Keep your idea of Jesus, it's your nature to want it and not mine. To each their own. Science and reason can't have a clear effect on such people unless they make it their official identity to accept them both where it matters. Also unless you think that science and reason can never be accepted variably (i.e. a little reason is just as bad as no reason at all, to which I would suggest that you are being unreasonable) this idea should still qualify under your principle.
Your suggestion to remove the violence from holy books doesn't do anything to make them more consistent and logical- it does nothing to make them less wrong, just less violent.
In the context of the notion that absurdities of non-realistic, non-critical thinking are themselves to blame for the violent mindset rather than the violent content of the books, it wouldn't necessarily stave the violence.
And in the case that we realize that violence itself isn't necessarily the core problem (more a symptom which, though it may be suppressed, the disease still wreaks havoc on progressive thought), the change is even less useful.
When I encourage theists to evolve into deists (for example), I am advocating a system that contains no additional wrong axioms, but that contains fewer of them-- a system that is, by that virtue, less wrong. Whether more or less violent is irrelevant; it is a movement in the direction of reason.
I really like your idea. I had a similar idea myself at one point, basically to challenge so-called moderates to put their moderation where their mouth is, and to re-write their holy books without the nasty bits. But your phrasing and approach is much more convincing. I like the idea of playing each religion off the others, saying, "Hey, if you're willing to make the first move, maybe we can get the moderate Muslims to join in," and your lines of thinking along those directions. You seem to have put a good deal of thought into it.
I definitely support your idea. I'll definitely re-read this thread and try to use this in future interactions with so-called moderate theists.
Depending on your personal ability to motivate yourself and/or others, you may want to think about starting a serious campaign to popularize this idea. I'm thinking along the lines of the Blasphemy Challenge, Blasphemy Day, Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, and the Atheist Bus Campaign which was started by Ariane Sherine. I'd love to see this idea fleshed out, polished up, and made popular and widely known. Personally, I have difficulty with self-motivation and follow-through (due to ADHD), so I wouldn't be much help, but if I can offer feedback and ideas, I can offer that much at least.
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While I agree in principle, I disagree in practice. Although it would be ideal to convert theists to deists (on the way to atheism), that does not disqualify the effectiveness of *also* reducing many 'moderate' theists' tendency to shelter violent dogma. Both approaches can (and should) be promoted and supported simultaneously.
Think of it like the Smallpox vaccine. They actually infect you with a less virulent (less 'violent', so to speak) pox virus which, when you gain immunity to it, secondarily confers immunity to the Smallpox virus. The idea in the OP is similar to this. By removing some of the violent memes, and promoting versions of Christianity and Islam with these memes excised, the long-term effect would undoubtedly be less violent (less 'virulent', so to speak) versions of religion throughout society, reducing violence overall. The effect may actually be quite small to begin with, but has potential to grow and spread, with long-term benefits.
Less violence in the world is a worthy goal, and we can continue to pursue the also-worthy goal of more reason in the world at the same time.
Another lesson from the immune system is that many different approaches used simultaneously often has a much more powerful effect than the sum of each approach used exclusively. Religion, like viruses, falters and flounders when attacked from many different directions at once.
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I don't really buy that analogy, but I will note something- which sharply contests your suggestion: It can be said that the violence expressed in these religious books is a large part of what is generating the skepticism towards religion in the modern era and helping to drive people to science (which does much more than just contest that violence, it actually improves lives). By culling only the overt violence out, there may be lost a powerful force driving people to be more rational. One look at the woo-woo new age nuttery can express this quite clearly.
Without the more explicit and overt violence against humanity, people can feel free to reject science and embrace that passive harm to the human condition that these new-age ideas embody- conspiracy theories, anti-vaccination, spreading the plague in a new generation, opposition to genetic engineering and food technology to the potential effect of global famine. These nonsense beliefs are not harmless, and by making them *appear* to be harmless, they become all the more pervasive among the ignorant, and potentially much more harmful to the world at large than a few isolated instances of suicide bombing (which, in the grand perspective, kills far fewer people than magical new-age thinking).
You aren't necessarily advocating the lesser of two evils by advocating a less visibly violent religious practice- just a more legal and less detectable form of evil, which is all the more insidious for those qualities.
It's more a question of what you care about more:
A few rare and relatively isolated cases of random bystanders to religion dying gloriously and with fantastic media coverage...
or millions of people suffering and dying from the effects of superstition under the radar of the media, diseased by it from childhood indoctrination.
And are you willing to suffer a much longer and more wide-spread grip upon society from the latter for sake of the former being quelled?
I'm not saying I'm against stopping the beatings and the suicide attacks- that's all great- but it's profoundly trivial to any matter of life outside the media hype.
holy books that would be considered illegal under normal classification systems for all ordinary media should be applied. No hate crime murders, incite of hatred, slavery, no genetic fallacies, sexism, homophobia, racism, personal threats.
I tend to think many liberal christians make many of the concessions the OP is suggesting - in their daily lives if not when backed into an intellectual corner.
bear in mind boys and girls, if they (and we) are not evil, christians cannot be saved by the blood of the little lamb and go snivelling from the foot of the cross to the palace of a suddenly long suffering and oddly schizophrenic canaanite war god.
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This is a fundamental point where we disagree and I understand the evidence we have would be in favor of my argument. We have today a heavy population of Islamists who hate and kill nonbelievers. We also have a heavy population of Christians who hate all nonbelievers, and we have a small population of Jains who don't hate or wish the deaths of anyone. Look at the amount of violence that's condoned in their holy writings respectively and you will see that as there is less violence in their writings there is less violence in their day to day lives. While you might argue that correlation does not equal causation, the conclusion we can surmise is that the number of violent people in their groups is not the cause of how much violence is in their writings. It is also evident that there is a close relationship in this pattern. One might even try bringing up Jewish people as an exception, but as I've learned from one Jewish friend, there happen to be a few towns in Israel today where the people will throw rocks at any car that passes through their town on the sabbath that isn't police or an ambulance. I think they may not be as peaceful about their religion as they seem through our media.
I'm not saying that we make them appear to be harmless, I'm saying we omit violent statements and leave footnotes to explain that such passages were separated to prevent being interpreted in a way that condones violence. Believers who want to find reason and logic will see this, debate with atheists and secularists, they will have the history of why it was omitted and why it still serves as evidence of the biblical God's evil will, and such people will turn toward reason and let go of their faith completely just the same as they do now.
"God loves the smell of cooked meat" no matter how you spin it will never group people together to commit an act of violence. Even if they could get people together who dreamed of the biggest BBQ ever to honor their God in the end it would still amount to nothing more destructive than a typical BBQ. If I'm wrong, and some people really did decide to burn the majority of the world's cows as a means of reaching out to God, increasing pollution and world hunger in their wake, guess which part of their holy book is going to be asked to be taken out next. If all they have in the end is a one page book with the words "Jesus Loves Me" they'll be just as happy about it as they are with the current text, which they don't read because they don't really care. It's a culture identity to them and nothing more. So let's put an emphasis on the fact that it really should be nothing more.
Thanks. It's cool that you mention Blasphemy Challenge bc I was thinking that a good deal of this movement could be done in the same fashion. Getting moderates to publicly announce on youtube that they condemn the use of Sharia Law or violations of the separation of church and state and the like. At present I'm a college student, so I don't have much free time or funds to organize but I have managed to work with a secular student group on my campus and we've gone so far as to make our own podcast with about one episode per quarter. So, as long as i keep it in mind, it might be something I could bring to fruition in some more vital way.
Just talking about it with believers seems to be beneficial. I told my stubborn-as-a-mule Mom the idea today and of all things she actually called it censorship. This from a woman who refuses to let her kids watch the Simpsons because it's toilet humor to her. Still, she didn't seem offended that I asked. That's a big step forward to be sure.
Wrong on both!
I don't believe I said that I necessarily supported that notion- you could call me uncertain on it, pending actual evidence.
However, the evidence we have certainly doesn't support your interpretation.
1. You can't compare Abrahamic religion and Jainism. Seriously- no. Don't even try. If you did try, you'd realize it doesn't contradict the premise I presented- those belief systems in question being less absolutist (less wrong).
2. The visible discrepancies in per-capita degree of violence between Abrahamic religions is not correlated to the religions themselves as strongly as social encapsulation. When people of these religions are *surrounded* by others who agree with them, they become arrogant and violent. Muslims in the U.S.A. are less violent than the Christians. Christians in the middle East are less violent than the Muslims there- they get a dose of humility being the minority, and that's why you'll find that minority beliefs in any region tend to be less violent. Jews in some areas of Israel can be as bad as back-woods hicks in the states, or Islamic tribalists in Afghanistan. It's all about the positive reinforcement of a delusional world view.
This point (even disregarding the myriad reasons Jainism doesn't apply) is also why some of the other referenced religions come up on the radar as markedly less inclined to violence.
3.
Did you just say that the current membership of a particular religion who are inherently violent does not alter the space-time continuum to make the ancient scripture more violent retroactively? How is this a point in your favour? Or a point at all?
You mean like killing animals unnecessarily because that's what their deity wills them to do? Like creating an infrastructure of animal agriculture that is abusive, because animals don't have souls after all, and detrimental to the environment by way of agricultural runoff, waste of resources and farmland for animal feed (see trophic levels), and massive production of greenhouse gases?
News flash: It's already done that quite well.
The important point you seem to be missing is that violence upon our world and indirectly upon all inhabitants of it extends well beyond the superficial violence you imagine against people. Violence can be done against education and thought, forcing a population into a technological dark age, inhibiting advancement of life saving technology- and yet nobody mourns this when the evening news it all about the small handful of people who got blown up today while tens of thousands lie dying because of the crippling scourge that is religion upon education. Disease and famine just aren't as romantic as suicide bombing- they doesn't grab the ratings- but they are just as much the fault of religion to the very proportions that religion has stunted knowledge; a thing which is currently immeasurable, but undeniably profound.
You are very strong willed to make an argument so heavily for something that you don't necessarily agree with. I feel that you are contradicting earlier statements by suggesting that you are open to the possibility, but whatever, I'm not making points to make you look bad, or feel bad, or to put you on the defensive. I don't think that I could do much more than I have to communicate my point and I'm not finding an adequate counterpoint from you, I just see you dodging around the issue here.
Ok, you aren't convinced by the example of Jainism and you don't give a reason why. As the people on The Atheist Experience would often point out, you haven't shown me one reason to throw this out but you say there is "a myriad" of reasons out there. What's your best one?
I don't see how your examples here make your point about delusion vs violent dogma being the cause of violence. If anything the concept of better behavior of minorities follows with my point that people who would be violent are less violent when they are surrounded by opposition.
Here's one more counterpoint to the idea that delusions cause violence. The "we only use 10% of our brain" myth is a socially pushed delusion that science somehow ever supported the claim. As far as I understand no one has been shown to use this as a means towards violence, while constant bombings come from suicide bombers whose myth calls for martyrdom from it's people.
Understand, I'm not saying that this is proof one way or the other, but it is one of many examples of evidence that I know would suggest anything. It's ok that you disagree, but if you don't have a point of evidence to offer then we're just two differing opinions on a topic that I'm sure neither of us are strongly researching. From what I have, I could be cherry picking from my own memory banks for all I know. It's a new idea and it comes from claims made by Sam Harris, psychology coursework I've taken in college, and observations in the world events media that I'm aware of. That is nothing close to proof by my standards, it just gives me somewhere to lean and work on the matter.
It's deductive logic. I'm pointing out that while you try and say that what I think is not necessarily so, it's important to point out that other reasonable courses of thought for alternate possibilities have been considered and I still have yet to see another explanation that works out more rationally. Again, it's not proof, it's a justification of why I find it likely to be the case.
I concede, you make a good point here. And I would be splitting hairs to try and say that you are wrong just because in these cases the scripture also has priests eating the sacrificial meat in private, or that the scripture which suggest sacrifice are separate, or that animals are not suffering wrongfully from the act like humans would. Still, your point would also be splitting hairs if what you would suggest from this is that the statement "God loves the smell of meat" is just as damaging to society as "Kill all nonbelievers." Remove the latter from Islamic dogma and you will get a substantial change in people's immoral behavior. Remove the former from Judeo-Christianity and you'll get no change other than a very small number of people who barely get away with animal sacrifice today as it is stop wanting to do it. Regardless, removing one is always going to be better than removing none.
If you agree with nothing else about my idea, I find it difficult for you to believe that this reality of death and famine and world hunger is going to get a better concern from a religious audience when delivered with the opening statement "Religion is Murder!" than the opening statement "Lets do what we can to end violence." They already ignore their holy books wherever it's convenient. They might in some way feel that we are doing them a favor by removing the stuff they don't want to read. My idea is not going to harbor ignorance, it's going to expose people's ignorance without triggering their natural defense mechanisms that don't want to deal with what they perceive to be an oppressor of their right to their own opinion.
Could I get a response from you about my point that they would be happy if all the bible said was "Jesus Loves Me." Do you disagree with that factor of how their ignorance works? Would you really care to debate with Christians further if that were the case? Do you or any secularists care to debate with Jains any more than you would try to debate with youtube's Ted God, who has a classic case of schizophrenia?
I think in most human endevors, a little superstition and religious faith is just as bad as a lot. You can't build a safe airplane or a vaccine if the scientists are a little bit superstitious or religious, they must be rational 100% in all their work.
I don't think writings in religous books are the root causes of violence in the world. They make the problem of finding a antidote to the problem of violence much harder.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
EXC put it much more concisely than I did. That's really my point- it's that the greatest ills in the world are not deliberately caused, but that the solutions are impeded by irrationality and superstition (my point not just including outward violence- primarily caused by poverty- but other issues of disease and poor standards of living).
I was backing up EXC because I am inclined to agree with his point- he just might be a bit more convinced of it than I am. I only find it most probable- there could be an element of yours active as well, but I suspect EXC's point is by far the greatest matter. Where I am uncertain is with regards to how much we actually can spread rationality with how much effort.
Where your point has an advantage is that it's easier to impose- and may have more short term benefit. Like I said, your advocacy might even stop suicide bombings- I'm not really arguing against that- I'm arguing that those acts of violence are *trivial*.
My apologies to anybody who has had relatives die in such bombings, but they likely have less of a death toll than jaywalking.
I believe, as EXC, that the only substantial and long term benefit will come from helping to spread rationality- which will address the real problems the world faces. Suicide bombings and minor conflicts as they are, are the most visible top of the iceberg.
I'm not dodging anything- I don't have any particular interest in discussing Jainism here, but if you must know it has to do with the way the various religions approach knowledge (Jainism is "less wrong" ) - the issue here is, I believe, that you have missed my point.
I was showing you why your assertions were wrong.
That was not your point- that was my counter point.
Your point only related to opposition to the violence, which is irrelevant. I'm speaking of differing opinions which lead people to question the core of their beliefs and take a grain of humility and agnosticism.
A room full of non-violent theists of a type quickly breeds extremists at its core- it is being surrounded by the meme and self-congratulation itself that produces the self-righteousness.
That's not a counter-point. Do you really insist that myths like that do not inhibit human knowledge? That's not going to make it harder for us to cure mental illness?
My point was that just because *you* don't see how a lie is harmful, that doesn't mean it is harmless. Any inaccurate view of the world is inhibitory to actual learning and knowledge, which inhibits human progress and delays the solutions to the most serious problems of our day from being discovered and put into practice.
If there were a myth that did something as inane as confuse people about mathematical order of operation, I would be opposed to it.
Our geniuses and innovators come from our educated population; the larger that population is, the greater human progress we can make- the smaller it is, the more we're held back, and the longer the greater part of human suffering will continue indefinitely.
Religion, which prescribes a fideistic world view and grants people the unearned satisfaction of having their questions answered simply through faith is counter-productive to knowledge and human progress.
No, no it isn't deductive logic.
1. If that's your way of presenting another possibility, you failed at it- time machines aren't a possibility.
2. Presenting and ruling out another seeming possibility (if it was a seeming possibility, which yours was not) that has nothing to do with the argument being presented to you, I believe, is called a red herring. It doesn't address the argument EXC and I are making at all, and doesn't give your argument any more validity.
3. The only way to make an argument against other seeming possibilities support your argument is to argue against every other 'possibility' in a logically exhaustive way, and use the process of elimination. *That* would be deductive logic. That is not what you did there.
Eating it doesn't make it necessary. It is generally not necessary to eat animals- it's wasteful.
Right, because killing at different times it alright. So, the holocaust would have been A-O.K. by your standards if they brought in the victims one at a time and didn't tell the others they were about to die.
Ohhh, right, of course- because humans have magical souls that make them able to suffer while animals don't. How silly of my to have forgotten this- of course "God" only breathed a soul into humans, so all other creatures are mindless automatons, right?!
Or wait... is that not what you think? Because the way you say this, it sounds like it is.
That's what most theist think, and it's just another example of how these incorrect ideas are harmful.
I wouldn't be splitting any hairs in saying that, and it could very well be more damaging. It's easy enough for people to pretend to hold a belief on threat of death, and provided the god was kind enough to move out of the way of science, it might not have too drastic an effect. But loving the smell of meat? This is a personification and moral statement that have many cruel and destructive implications.
I suggest you open your mind a bit and consider implications beyond your own initial assumptions.
Instead of stating, on your personal faith, that "kill nonbelievers" is more harmful than a more generic "kill animals and burn them for me", try to think of some situations in which it wouldn't be.
Really? Did you do that? Did you give it a try in an alternate universe you have complete control over as a sandbox?
Because I'm a little skeptical that you did that- I don't think you really know what removing that would do. Personally, I don't think it would do very much at all.
Really? Because if we had removed that during the Victorian era, it could have meant that the wave of compassionate vegetarian philosophy that was growing there would have overcome religious objections and have been codified into law and culture, ultimately drastically reducing animal suffering over the past years, put a serious dent in global warming, prevented vast swaths of habitat destruction for pasture land, and any assortment of obesity and heart related deaths and illnesses.
I'm willing to bet human gluttony has harmed and killed more people than Muslims killing the occasional apostate.
This is the key point upon which I disagreed.
Note what EXC argues.
Consider the vastness of damage done by irrational thought even beyond poverty triggered violence.
Removing certain verses might- and I mean *might*- mitigate some rare trivial cases of religious violence. At the same time, though, those verses and the public violence they seem to cause (which is in practice trivial, but magnified by the media as free advertising against religion) helps trigger free thought in people, brought on by emotional revulsion- more people question religion and irrational thought in general when exposed to these things.
You're either missing how trivial this "directly caused" violence is, or how monumentous these indirect harm to humanity is.
If it takes a trivial amount of the former to wake people up, get them thinking, and reveal and solve the latter, it *could* be argued that it's worth it. It *could* be argued that the attempts to clean up these "holy books" would be bad for humanity in general, particularly in the long run.
I'm not necessarily saying that, or discounting it- I'm just saying it's something you should consider. There are precious few actions we can take without repercussions.
If you still don't understand, I can give you a similar example from another field of activism, but it will require that I go into some context.