And the truly sad part is that it not only continues today, it is oppressing entire continents, and teaching hate to an entirely new generation.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Perhaps an uncomfortable truth, but a truth nonetheless.
And the truly sad part is that it not only continues today, it is oppressing entire continents, and teaching hate to an entirely new generation.
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Actually, Gryphen, I personally believe that the SADDEST part of this truth is the almost worldwide failure (or refusal) to SEE this!
ReplyDeleteI love Douglas Adams! Everyone should go out and buy a copy of the Hitchikers Guide to the Universe.
ReplyDeleteAnd Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.
DeleteLMAO!
I'm not a proponent of religion. But I think its foolish to say that without it there would be no war and hatred. There is PLENTY of deadly aggression without religion. It's spelled T-E-S-T-O-S-T-E-R-O-N-E.
ReplyDeleteDid this guy never hear of - or forget about - the godless commies, for example? Men don't need religion as an excuse to destroy. They are also quite well known for destroying for other reasons, such as power, greed, and arrogance.
Quakers, OTOH, are members of a religion who happen to be conscientious objectors.
I can agree with you to a certain extent, especially about the idea that there would be no war. But the point I believe he is trying to make - and there are countless people who agree with this - is that religion is the cause of MOST of the wars and hatred on this ball of mud.
Delete"You don't believe the way I do? Off with your head." Mankind is great at sophistry. He can convince himself of anything as long as it agrees with his base ideas.
But religion just makes it easier because it is created along the thought processes of those in the area from which it comes or the so-called mores of those at the time it was started and then passed on - including all the hatred for the groups threatening that particular group. It's a tribal thing.
Having said that, I would prefer to add something. The overwhelming majority of the religious violence in history has come from the middle-eastern monotheistic religions. The BIG THREE so to speak.
A tremendous number of us are firmly convinced of this and actually try to live by peaceful ideas and guidelines - without the god aspect, since that is used as an excuse by organized religion. "God made me do it!" or "The Devil made me do it." HOG WASH!. Man's NATURE made them do it.
So while there may still be wars and hatred, we probably wouldn't have had as much of a violent history due to our root hatreds. And we may even have developed far enough along that there might NOT have been as many wars. We certainly would have been considerably further along in our science - assuming we didn't kill ourselves off with better weapons.
Man is a predatory species. The sooner we recognize that and start to ACT like we actually want to change, the better. Removing one of the excuses we use for that violence is the best place to start.
As for your argument that there are other reasons such as power greed or arrogance, you need to look a little more deeply into organized religion and the desire for control and the greed and the arrogance. A tremendous amount of it is right there in the frameworks of organized religions. Just as ONE example, take a real in-depth study of the Catholic Church. There are millions of dead just from it alone! They have even signed international political agreements that caused millions of deaths - or, at the very least, turned the other cheek about them. I do not believe Jesus meant to turn the other cheek to keep from seeing the murders!
Are there examples of destruction NOT caused by organized religion? Certainly. But even there if you look closely enough you will see the religious THOUGHT PROCESS at work - and in some cases, just a different word than religion in the home language.
Oh. And just because the LEADERS of the Russian Communist government was anti-religion, doesn't mean the PEOPLE were. The Russia orthodox Church was ALWAYS there, just underground.
Where did I say religion didn't ALSO cause war and hatred? Nowhere. I'm just saying it hardly has an exclusive monopoly on it.
DeleteI think you are really stretching the argument to try to prove your point. Sure, religion is responsible for countless atrocities, and as I said, I am no proponent of religion -- I think it's all a crock at best and evil at worst; I'm totally religion free and don't believe Jesus Christ ever even existed -- but there is plenty that's not religion's fault.
IMO, you negated your own argument with that last paragraph, 6:02. When the godless commies were brought down, it wasn't because of the Russian orthodox church.
I never even IMPLIED the Russian Orthodox church was responsible for the downfall of the USSR. I was stating that it wasn't the PEOPLE who were "godless commies" as you so nicely put it, it was those in power. (I won't even TRY to get into Stalin's psyche here.)
DeleteYou and I shall never completely agree on this. My main point (and I believe, his) is that religion is almost always at the heart of the wars or suffering or death we have for whatever reason. It is either directly involved in causing it or pushing from behind the scenes by preaching in favor of what the government is trying to do or is the root cause of why the people AGREE with the war or conflict merely because it is a great institution for brainwashing people into believing their side is right. And if it isn't, then it is being USED for such.
Do you really think there isn't any religion at the heart of the conflicts currently happening in Africa? Or in Syria? Or Iran. Or Israel? Or The West Bank? Or any of the other conflicts currently happening?
Religion's dirty little hands are in almost every dangerous situation. It may not be the MAIN driver, but it is in there somewhere.
Yes. I have to agree that Mankind doesn't NEED a REASON for conflict. It just so happens that religion is USUALLY a major part of the problems.
And as Adams says, we probably would be a lot further along in our development had it never gotten its rotten little hands into Mankind.
Stalin said there was no god, then set himself up to be one.
DeleteThat comment I made about not wanting to try to get into Stalin's psyche? your comment 9:39 is precisely what I would have said!
DeleteAnd that brings it back to religion again.
Religion AND nationalism.
ReplyDeleteReligion, nationalism, and greed.
ReplyDeleteMore Douglas Adams, please!
ReplyDeleteDamn, I was thinking the same thing as I drove in to work except I was thinking greed and power were the root cause of our stagnate nature at this point and time.
ReplyDeletePrimogen1
There is alot to agree/disagree with here. The human species has free will and the capacity of critical thinking. It is obvious the arguments of heredity vs environment have been studied for years and the idea we are leaders or followers also plays a role. Religion is the easy way out, it solves all the problems for the lazy thinker and replaces the questioning of why. I have been exposed to enough organized religion to know I don't believe in any of them...but bits and pieces make sense. You just have to open your eyes and see the world, the diversity of cultures, animals, trees & flowers...the incredible beauty of the ocean, forests, the sky, how can one not recognize these as gifts? There is truly more love in this world than hate..it just doesn't have the same volume, it is more quiet and requires the search. Religion may not be the only reason for hate/war, but it sure divides our hearts and minds with judgement.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, open and free -- well, except for the assumed right for us to continue to "colonize" - after all, what are we (the 'enlightened' ones) to do but fulfill our destiny to usurp and take over other places as our (ahem) god or universe bestowed manifest destiny.
ReplyDeleteDid no one else catch this?
Reminds me of my girlfriend's favorite bumper sticker:
DeleteEARTH FIRST: WE'LL STRIP MINE THE OTHER PLANETS LATER!
Space colonization is a pretty well-known phrase meaning finding other planets on which humans can live.
DeleteI suppose we could just stay here and hope for the best.
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ReplyDeleteMr. Adams' statement begs the question- what is religion?
ReplyDeleteIf by religion one refers to the commonly reported actions of those claiming to be Christian, Islamic, Jewish or Buddhist (to name a few) Mr. Adams, in my view, has some basis for his opinion. I'd counter that many of the actions Mr. Adams finds objectionable, while claimed by the perpetrators as divinely inspired, are not sanctioned by the teachings thereof.
As Gryphen often, and correctly, in my view, notes, (picking one of many possible examples) bombing an abortion clinic to sanctify the "life begins at conception" view is absurd within the context of Christian teaching.
Returning to the original question, the meaning of religion, might be helpful.
In Sarah Hoyt's The Etymology of Religion, the word is defined as follows:
Religious means originally observant, conscientious, strict. "Relegere" [Latin] is opposed to "neglegere" [Latin], which means, not observe, not heed, not attend to, be remiss in attention or duty toward a thing. Religion is akin to diligence, and opposed to negligence.
Some people work out "religiously" not to appease any God but simply because they desire the results.
In my view, the owner of this blog "religiously" updates it with thought provoking material in large part, I assume, because he feels it is the right thing to do. Gryphen, in that context, isn't irreligious at all. Part of his religion is exposing the hypocrisy of those claiming divine sanction, and I applaud him for it. Like George Carlin, Gryphen seems to me to be saying, if your God is telling you to kill, maim, lie, cheat and steal I want no part of that God- a most religious perspective indeed.
As George Santayana wrote: Even the heretics and atheists, if they have had profundity, turn out after a while to be forerunners of some new orthodoxy. What they rebel against is a religion alien to their nature; they are atheists only by accident, and relatively to a convention which inwardly offends them, but they yearn mightily in their own souls after the religious acceptance of a world interpreted in their own fashion.
Anonymous9:35 AM said "Space colonization is a pretty well-known phrase meaning finding other planets on which humans can live. "
ReplyDeleteUnderstood. But the history of what happens when we 'find other places to live' has been anything but enlightened, open and free - particularly for whatever human, animal, or vegetative species currently exist in the space we have decided we need.
Unfortunately, the truth much closer to the bumper sticker noted by Leland. "Earth First: We'll strip mine the other planets later!"
Additional thought to above - my point was that even when religion is removed from the equation, we still have a sense of entitlement to the space that we want to take, use, or colonize without any consideration for our impact on what already exists.
ReplyDelete10:10, you betcha! We are that species that moves into an area that doesn't have any natural predators in existence and simply takes over - totally destroying anything that gets in our way.
DeleteBut we still find a way to justify it in our large organized religions. Witness Genesis. "And god gave Man dominion over the earth and all it contains."
So god GAVE us the right to destroy anything in our way. Ain't it grand? (SNARK!)