I'm happy to call the guy in the middle, Ralph Abraham, my friend. A truly brilliant and kind man and scholar.

This is a very interesting question that I've thought quite a lot about during my life (to myself, not in any sort of professional capacity).

The conclusions that I have come to (so far) are:
I think that, yes, religion in general terms IS a significant (but it is a stretch to say the ONLY) restraint on a pretty large number of people. Which is a prospect that I personally have a negative and pessimistic reaction to, similar to what it sounds like you do.

However, I think that there are lots of mitigating circumstances. First, many different religions currently provide that restraint to people. And in the past, many many more religions provided it to even more people. Many of those different religions have been very very different. Some have been near polar opposites. That proves that if your goal is restraining people from being utterly evil, and someone suggests that religion has made or is making a noble effort towards that (like your uncle), the positive aspects they are cheering for are not unique to any single religion, or dogma, or whatever.

If one accepts that many many diverse and completely different religions can potentially have the positive effects that we're looking for, then the actual source of those effects can not be something specific to any one religion. Instead, it has to be something that is held in common by all such religions.

Religions are so diverse and different, it might be hard to imagine something that they have in common. No specific god is held in common, even though all the Abrahamic religions might arguably share that aspect. Not even the simple idea of a god or gods or creator is far from universal; Buddhists revere no god.

Yet I believe that there is one easily overlooked thing that all religions DO have in common. Humanity. They all come from flawed but usually well-meaning people.

However, atheists hold that humanity in common with religions as well. And that makes me believe that if we understand humanity better, either through psychology, or empathy, or whatever, we can achieve the positive effects of religions without the religions themselves. Certainly without the stone-age dogmatic nonsense -- which tends to have arguably as many if not more BAD effects as good. This actually gives me great hope for humanity; rather the opposite to the conclusion that I came to originally when pondering the question.

There may always be people who have no empathy, and for whom nothing would serve to restrain them from what humanity at large would easily identify as great evil. No religion will handle such individuals any better than no religion ... so I guess I don't lose any sleep over that.

Your video, Child Prodigy Tanishq Abraham's Hilarious Science Jokes, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Sounds like a lie to me....to paraphrase how I see it going.....

God -Abraham, I now require you to sacrifice your son to me if you are to be granted my favor and receive salvation.
Abraham -Weren't my servants, and flocks, and crops enough, Damn it?
God -You dare question my wishes, do as I say or be damned for eternity.
Abraham -OK, fine...I'll do it.
God -Just kidding, it was only a test and you passed. Sorry for the whole 'destroying your entire life' thing.
Abraham -Great. Thanks loads, god. You're a true friend for not making me destroy the single last thing you had left me in life and only making me believe I had to.

Since he did not HAVE to sacrifice his son, god lied to him, tricked him, and ultimately totally fucked him. When ever I discuss this with religious people, they insist you not look at it from Abraham's viewpoint, and ignore the apparent hatred and distain god showed this pious man. I refuse.

Hey Newtboy,

God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Issac; later, when it was clear that Abraham would obey Him, He rescinded the command. I don't know if you've ever read about this, but God was revealing a deeper truth here as to what He would do when He sent Jesus to the cross to die for our sins. Often in the Old Testament you can find what are called "types". There is a whole study of the scripture called "typeology", where certain events happened in the Old Testament which were foreshadowing events in the New Testament.

Issac then, in this context, is a type of Jesus. Issac, like Jesus, voluntarily submitted himself to be sacrificed. He was a young man whereas Abraham was close to 100 years old; he could have easily overpowered Abraham. This is a picture of Jesus voluntarily going to the cross by His own volition. There is also a similarity in that Issac, like Jesus, carried the wood for his own sacrifice. The biggest difference is, God the Father didn't ask Abraham to do what He ultimately would do, which is to give His only begotten Son as a sacrifice for sins. Here is some more information about typeology:

https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/larkin/dt/28.cfm

Hi Shiny,
I'm obviously not a biblical scholar, but didn't God lie to Abraham when he said it was a requirement that he sacrifice his son?
I'm fairly certain that's not the only reference to God lying to or misleading (same thing) people, lies of omission are still lies.

DOOOOD...he's lover of life and a philosopher's friend....Peter J's in another realm of his own fucking mind-Never said you were stupid, on the contrary-Yer smarter than the average bear here on VS, and twice as goddamn fun-School was a shit-storm of disinformation for ya?? Welcome to world of the real



There's no debate here abnout htis recent news for a single reason-Most fucks here could give a rats-ass about anything that isn't coated with the indoctroeducation they all had to suffer....


and Abraham Lincoln had a batshit insane wife just like his crazy fucin' asss

Freed the slaves MY ASS!

You know, we thought there was nothing left to say when 2 Live Crew rapped "Abraham Lincoln was a good ol man, jumped out the window with his dick in his hand -- said excuse me lady, this is my duty, so pull down your pants and gimme some booty."

Next thing you know he's fighting vampires and Lil Wayne intoxicates an Asian man to smash his cock through the roof of an apartment building.

I fail to see ANYTHING new, just higher production value.

And Just to be perfectly clear, secession predated the Lincoln administration! To ask, why didn't he do this or that is to ignore the situation he faced before he was even sworn in.

"On December 20, 1860, shortly after Abraham Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860, South Carolina adopted an ordinance declaring its secession from the United States of America."

War to preserve the Union, not a Lincoln crusade to end slavery. Get it?

This is what happens when you get your history from political pundits like Thomas Wood Jr.

Try reading a real historical text on the period.

I recommend "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James McPherson.

Hey look, I guess I'm a free university!

you can make a non-tea party case for fiscal conservatism.

but you really can't make a huge case these days for social conservatism and that's where they really lose. You can't tell gays to go back into the closet, you can't tell minorities to be quiet, you can't tell women to accept lower pay and forfeit reproductive rights and health. You can't tell poor people to fuck off and die in an alley.

I don't know this guy, so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he might even agree with all these things. This illustrates the problem with using vague binary terms like liberal and conservative to describe political views. Depending on the person "conservative" can mean completely different things.

This is the problem with the two party system. You can't sum up nuanced , complex political views into two parties. It's stupid.

Republicans have a huge perception problem they need to solve. Many people view them as old, white, racist, plutocrats. I know for a fact that they are not all this way. But the problem is, there are plenty of people who identify as Republican who DO fall completely into that view.

Fortunately, old people do have a habit of dying. so that solves part of the problem. But some people have to be dragged into the future kicking and screaming the entire way. If the Republican party wishes to survive, they need to decide pretty quick how they're going to deal with that.

I think there are too many people who identify as Republican for romantic reasons only. They're obsessed with the idea that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican even though the Republican party of then is completely different from the way it is now and it is due largely to racism. (google Southern Strategy)

As i've said before. All parties and lobbying need to be abolished. You can't stop people from assembling into voting blocs, but at the very least we can refuse to officially acknowledge them and do away with the RNC and DNC and remove money from our elections and force the person, not the party to run for office.

Here is my friend Ralph Abraham article regarding fractals. He worked with Mandelbrot in the 1980s.

I'm secretly hoping this is all some big post-modern slight of hand and the movie will end up really being about deeply questioning the idea that the Abraham god is in fact the benevolent being he and his followers claim. (I mean seriously this is essentially about God's genocide of basically the entire human race)

I do however expect to find this hope to be entirely unfulfilled, but such is life

I broadly agree with what he's saying but he's wrong about Africa. Africa is different because the west's supply chains and the gimping of local resistance to this is already very strong and much more well established (also Somalia was in Africa last time I checked Wes).

The global supply of Gold, Diamonds, Cocoa and Coltan (used to make micro electronics) amongst others are all heavily based in African countries.
Were their supply to be jeopardised (especially Coltan) by local politics you can be assured that the relevant African country would swiftly become a scorching political hot potato.
Unfortunately such a good job as been done over the last 100 or so years of suppressing African development that such problems (with a little encouragement) tend to take care of themselves before they become a big deal. Then western interests can just back whichever co-operative warlord/corrupt regime comes out on top, quietly and without fuss.

The spice must flow!

Simply put, Africa has been beaten around by the west for that bit longer and harder than the middle east. The exploitation of Africa goes back 100's of years and around 100 years ago when western powers began to cede their direct control they made sure to fuck up the local cultural politics so badly that most countries have still yet to recover from the fallout.

The middle east only became a candy store about 60-100 years ago with the oil boom. Before that western attempts to control the middle east were largely religious in nature (though no less brutal I suppose).

I assume the "powers that shouldn't be" are well aware of this and as such the plan to which Mr. Clarke is referring represents a scheme to try and break the back of the middle east financially, politically and culturally while they still can.

That said old ideologies die hard and I suspect the old western religious motivation is still not to be downplayed. The Christian ideologues and Jewish Zionists may not use words like "Kafir" but in some way their beliefs demand that they think of outsiders in the same way.

If the God of Abraham does really exist I'm sure he finds this whole arrangement greatly amusing (I imagine nothing pleases an ego maniac more than watching sycophants fighting and killing each other for your affection).

God must die. God must remain dead. And we must kill him.

@Sniper007 Fine if you weren't being literal, but framing candy as a vice seems a bit of a big moral statement; I'm not a fan of classifying things that way.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.
- Samuel Butler

He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
- Winston Churchill

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
-Abraham Lincoln

More of a misunderstanding then, it could have been worded better but I suspect you were in rant mode at the time, and there's plenty to rant about there.
I do agree that historical accuracy is always preferable to fabrication, as long as it serves the story and fits with the theme of the film, the presence of dragons would not have served the movie Lincoln in any way, and therefore, do not belong. The very title of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter however pretty much tells us all we need to know about this film and it's treatment of history. So to me I guess, complaining about the historical accuracy of a film like 300 or Abraham Lincoln: Vampire hunter is a bit like going to a French film festival and then complaining that all the movies are in French.
I like history and learning more about history and having more historically accurate films would never be a bad thing in my book, but they do tend to be a harder sell.
Also there should be no shame in going to see Pacific Rim, write it off as a guilty pleasure if it helps.(sorta like coke and whores on my taxes