THIS AIN'T NO PLACE FOR A HERO
Posted on: April 27, 2013 - 8:21pm
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THIS AIN'T NO PLACE FOR A HERO
I'm bored...
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This has nothing to do with the topic but I just saw it and found it funny!
I think you would like it too!
He's not the best debater is he, the old Richard. Personally, I disagree with him on his central assertion the world would be a better place without any religion. I think religion as a receptacle for a group of ideas, could be more positive.
I think religious ideas should be judged on the basis of unbiased moral standards - say the UN's charter of human rights, or any quality constitution - and the ideas that are morally inconsistent should be removed from the texts.
The problem with this of course, is that the central ideas of monotheism are that all people who are born are guilty of original sin and deserve eternal torment, and that all who don't agree with this assertion will be eternally tormented.
The immorality of monotheism is bound into the 2 central and irrational ideas on which it is built - the ad hominem fallacy of original sin, and the fallacious appeal to force of eternal punishment.
Love me or be burned alive - that's the central message jesus and muhommad bring. Doctrinally, at any rate.
Something else Dawkins doesn't raise here is that religion is an expression of the selfish gene. It's a way to extend the in-group, to strengthen social bindings and it functions very successfully because of that.
Consider that you don't have to look far in any monotheism to see the infideliphobia at it's core - that's pure out-group oppression. Muslims for instance, are urged not to befriend infidels but to kill them.
I do not understand why there is not a religion in the world based purely on love and service, something without punishment and something without hope of reward. That really would be a faith deserving of respect.
Monotheism claims to be based on love - but despite the teachings of gentle men like Ibn Qayyim and Origen, the continued existence of bigotry, punishment and hate at the core of the doctrine poisons the well.
Interesting to see Richard put on the spot over child abuse. Personally I would have turned the question onto myself and pointed out my religious upbringing was the most damaging experience of my young life.
I would have pointed out that if some one taught a child of mine the doctrine of hell, I would consider they were being abused. I would have asked the rather good presenter from al jazeera if he thought it was abuse for his child to be taught the christian doctine that all muslims will go to hell.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
This is your only point which I'm not in complete agreement.
Confucianism, Buddhism, Baha'i Faith, Unitarian Universalism??
I have a tendency to conflate religion with monotheism. Guess I'm not so far removed from Mr Dawkins as I thought. While I've heard of those other faiths I'm quite unfamiliar with them. If they indeed operate in positive way then they are the religions that should be getting the tax deductions.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
i find no basic problem with religion as such, just the religious. then again, there is almost no system of thought on earth, including the physical sciences, that humans have not managed to fuck up in one way or another. the only reason science has a better track record of behavior than religion is because science is so elitist that the majority of humans cannot seriously participate in it, nor would they trust a scientist with a great deal of power (anti-intellectual solidarity).
i have a problem when the religious claim objective truth for everybody, when they encroach on the domains of science and (modern) philosophy, when they try to change the social order based solely on their religion's more irrational precepts, and when they are just pricks in general. the majority of religious people do not do these things, nor do i agree with dawkins that they "enable" the extremists--at least, to a greater degree than anyone else. if they "enable" extremists, they do it through apathy and/or ignorance, and since the majority of humans are apathetic and/or ignorant about most things, i hardly think extremism would vanish with religion (nor even decrease considerably). let us recall the turn of the century, when the word "terrorism" was coined and when it was used almost exclusively to denote political extremism (anarchist, fascist, communist, etc.). to quote voinovich, "the sum total of viciousness and stupidity in humanity neither increases nor decreases, but fortunately the times do not always deploy it in full."
i'm sorry to the idealistic old guard of "new atheism," but the disappearance of religion is a ridiculously quixotic goal to set. it ain't gonna happen. ironically enough, it's so quixotic, it represents such a fundamental change in basic human nature, that one might not be unjustified in calling it eschatological.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
In case you didn't know the presenter was Mehdi Hasan the political editor of the huffpost UK.
Oh, but Peggotty, you haven't given Mr. Barkis his proper answer, you know.
Charles Dickens
Couldn't believe it when he said he believed in the winged horse then appealed to ignorance over it - prove a winged horse didn't take Mo' to heaven. Snakes alive.
A good presenter who pressured Richard very skillfully, never too far, but completely deluded.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Good points. I agree religion can't be destroyed, shouldn't be destroyed. It's an opinion of mine that has changed over the past couple of years.
But I certainly would argue for a modification of the doctrine. Argument by threat should be entirely eliminated from monotheism. How this can be achieved I don't know but it should be.
It's impossible to understand why doctrines that breach dozens of the laws of my country are held up as the moral guide of humanity. Such doctrines are hate crimes that are not legal outside the bounds of religious dogma.
I comfort myself that human morality evolves and a monotheism locked into a particular date in the development of writing and storing information, say 400 AD, ensures monotheism will gradually become more and more odious to modern humans.
It's a bit challenging with Islam. It's not a tolerant belief system by any means, more a cult of outrage.
Still - there must be a confrontation with Islam and I wonder if Islamism isn't a reaction to sense of a loss of control among conservatives. There's a growing ex-muslim voice.
I've read that the loss of liberal thinkers from muslim countries is partly to blame for the loss of nuance back home but maybe we should send boats to the middle east, indonesia, malaysia fitted with loudspeakers that bellow:
"Give us your atheists your agnostics, your apostates. Give us your goths, your punks, your poor huddled feminists."
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
same here. i sort of see it as the ideological pendulum finally slowing down to a stop.
one of my points is that it's always being modified. it's just that, like any other organic process, it's usually too slow to detect. there is not a single comparatively ancient religion today that is not radically different from its origins (if those origins are even discernable), nor indeed radically different from the form it took just a couple centuries ago.
that's because it currently sees itself as being on the defensive. it's my firm belief that no religion is anything of necessity. we know islam was not always the way it is now, nor need it be in the future. it's a truism that islamic civilization, at its apogee, was vastly more tolerant than christian europe, but it's one that needs constant reminding.
of course. fundamentalism of any stripe is always a reaction. i once saw a very interesting interview with salman rushdie where he made a convincing argument that islamism is on the decline. he argued that, after 9/11, radicals like bin laden expected a worldwide muslim uprising. it didn't happen--indeed, he argued that many muslims registered their disgust, and i personally remember that. i remember, among other things, muslims as disparate as yusuf islam (cat stevens) and saddam hussein publicly condemning the attacks within hours or days. i also remember bin laden denied his involvement. all these things got quickly buried in the following weeks, and people like me were too nervous to remind people. i'll tell you this, muslim moderates were not the only moderates too afraid to speak up in that climate...
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson