1. i don't care which religion you giggle at. or don't. whatever.

2. I only get irritated when religious people talk shit about mormons.

3. i dont get irritated when people without religious affiliations talk shit about mormons.

4. i'm just glad to see farhad in this thread.

5. don't fuck with the jains. they're beautiful. their thousands of years old tenets also resemble some kind of primitive metaphor for what would become quantum mechanics. i love them more than life itself.

Those silly Jains, promoting celibacy and asceticism! What if their kids wanna party hard? Oh well, it's not like they can spank'em (...maybe that's why the celibacy)

>> ^TheGenk:

>> ^Ryjkyj:
Here at Videosift, we heavily criticize every religion.

What about Jainism?

@GenjiKilpatrick

Science is not a means of organizing people, motivating them, getting them to work towards a common goal, helping them think about how they want to live, supporting them in times of tragedy, inspiring them, or countless other features of religion that your definition failed to mention, so it doesn't really seem like it could be considered an upgrade. Science is science. Religion is religion. They can co-exist just fine, if people would only let them (unfortunately people on both sides of the debate don't).

Also, those things you mentioned (being against stem cell research, contraceptives, etc.)... aren't those features of right-wing fundamentalist Protestant Christianity? I would hardly consider those people to be representative of religion as a whole. What about the Amish, who just want to live in peace? Or the Jains? Or Tibetian Buddhists? There are quite literally millions of people out there who do not fit your definition of religion in any way, shape, or form. How do you account for that?

What I want to know is, how is what she did "wrong"?

I can't think of any moral reason why a girl, so young that she doesn't even conceive of death, holding a dead squirrel is wrong... unless you ascribe to the belief that all life is somehow sacred, in which case if you aren't a Jain or a vegan then you are a hypocrite.

There might be some cleanliness issues that might make you consider it "wrong" but she wasn't licking it or anything (not something I would be surprised about, considering her age) so if her parents clean her up she will likely be fine.

The people who clean up roadkill use a shovel to scrape a body off the road and into the back of a truck so it can be dumped in a hole in another location. Is what they do "wrong"?

I saw a girl, with no notion of death beyond a word her parents used, holding a squirrel she loved and wanted to keep so she could pet it and play with it. I don't see what's wrong with that.
>> ^schlub:

Yes, I do. And I wouldn't hesitate for a second to tell them what they are doing is wrong. You don't let kids do things simply because they like it. You have to draw a line somewhere.
>> ^bareboards2:
Do you have children?

>> ^MaxWilder:

Only if they show some sign they are trying to learn. Otherwise they deserve to be mocked.


@MaxWilder But when has mocking ever been a successful tool for social change? Take Sarah Palin as just one example. She's mocked publicly on pretty much a daily basis yet you don't see her changing her opinions, do you? What you do see is people rallying to defend her from the "lib-tard smear campaign." And from there it just degenerates into name-calling and and rhetoric and there's no real dialogue about any issue. I don't think mocking help matters at all and in most cases just makes it worse.

@AnimalsForCrackers

I'd ask kindly that you respond what I write and not whatever "hidden meaning" you think my message has--there is none. I write as clearly as possible but if there is some ambiguity about what I wrote, how about you just ask me my opinion rather than make off-the-wall accusations and assumptions? Also, I'll ask once again (you'll remember from the last thread we had a discussion in), could you put an @ in front of my name when you respond to my posts so I get an email that tells me you're commenting about me and I can reply (thanks for the heads-up @bmacs27)?

MLK never insulted or condescended towards those he opposed. He advocated dialogue to promote change, not name-calling. He inspired people to find their commonalities, not focus on their differences. He did organize people to change the status quo and he did it without the need to be "militaristic" in any sense of the word.

I agree with you that secularists would be a great replacement name for atheists who believe the things you talked about (people should be free to practice religion, but it shouldn't invade politics or religion). But that's not what Harris and the rest have been talking about recently--as I demonstrated by doing you the courtesy a less-than-5-minute Google search and finding those three quotes/talks and pointing out what Harris said in this video clip.

Given the ease with which I found those it should be no problem for you to do me the same courtesy and send me links showing the three gentlemen expressing the views you claim to be their true position (there is in fact one video here on the Sift from Dawkins giving an interview in the UK--sorry, can't seem to find it in the search at the moment--from about 4 years ago where he puts out such a stance, but more recent comments seem to indicate that he's moved away from tolerance and more towards open hostility).

On a side note, what exactly is "religion" doing to "your country" (I'm guessing the US)? Are the Jains destroying the separation of church and state? How about those Quakers, can you imagine the damage their doing? And let's not even get started talking about the Buddhists. You accused me of not using words accurately, but I get the sense you're not using the word "religion" accurately. I think (feel free to clarify) that when you say religion what you really mean is fundamentalist Christians who believe the US in a "Christian nation" are ruining the USA. And that's fine, if you believe that, but let's not confuse a very vocal minority of religious believers with "religion."

Why don't I rail against religion? Because my position is that religion is not the problem (as I think I've told you in other threads). I've said repeatedly that religion is a tool that can be used for good or for evil and that the challenge for religions in the 21st century is going to be to try to change themselves so that they maximize the good and minimize the potential for evil. Are bad things done in the name of religion? Yeah, all the time. That doesn't de facto make religion bad, though. But I will absolutely criticize specific actions which I think are wrong, like I did on this other vid--I'm an equal opportunity critic.

You perceive religion as a threat, apparently. I don't. That's the difference between us. I'm happy to hear your views on why you think it is a threat. I'd be even happier if you listened to mine on why I don't think it is without getting either hostile or emotional.

instant upvote anything to do with electric sheep comix! my favourites were the jain's death, overheard at the rave, and chrysalis colossus.

>> ^ShakaUVM:
Epic explanatory fail. Care to cite chapter and verse, or are you simply wrongly crediting the bible for the very moral evolution I am talking about
Jesus's core social message was that of Universal Charity. It seems passe to us now (since we're both presumably living in a country that has adopted Christian values, so you don't see it, like a fish in the ocean), but was quite revolutionary for the time. The doctrine of Universal Charity resulted in people's conception of how to act toward each other over time, resulting in the establishment of many of the things secular humanists call "social justice organizations" these days, not understanding that their beliefs stem from a two thousand year old Christian tradition.
I fully expect you to not believe this, since most people have never studied history, and to base their beliefs on what they've absorbed from their culture ("of course I know that"), in your case it seems a militant and atheistic ignorance and dislike toward religion, mixed with a healthy dose of moral relativism and social darwinism.
The emancipation of slavery was the result of Universal Charity being applied to the human condition of slaves. (Do you fail to understand that absolute morality and change over time in its application are perfectly compatible, I wonder?) But it's no wonder that it took so long - slavery has a long tradition in humanity, and it's hard for people to buck the status quo - most people follow the crowd and resist change. If, for example, it became, say, trendy to mock Christianity and embrace moral relativism, then you'd see, for example, such posts making up the majority of those on, say, Videosift.
It's no coincidence that it was the 1800s equivalent of fundamentalist Christians who led the emancipation movement - it was the flowering of a realization that Universal Charity should be applied in a new way.


Talk about fish in water.. You have obviously not read or understood anything about the evolution of morality. As others here have pointed out, he wasnt really a first in anything, which is fine, as he was pretty good for his time. But please dont flatter him as the inventor of "universal charity" It is bullshit, and I think you know it. Take a look a the teachings of Jainism, invented some 600 years before Jesus came along:

"Do not abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture or kill any creature or human being"

How's that for "Universal Charity", huh? in a single "commandment" the Jains outlawed slavery, torture, killing and oppression of all humans AND animals. Now, I'm not a Jain follower either, their extreme non-violence alone is too much for me (word is that its so "bad" that some of them wear masks to avoid accidentally swallowing innocent insects) But I refer to them simply to make a point: Jesus worshippers like you are suffering from a bad case of tunnel-vision. Morality, as I pointed out, evolves and changes over time, and yes, thinkers like Jesus have influenced and driven these changes all throughout history, but this before-and-after jesus view of morality is bullshit, and we all know how slave-holders used their bibles to justify their actions, and if Jesus had said something like the above Jain-quote, we could perhaps have avoided a few hundred years of slavery, by using scripture as leverage. But the fact is, there really is no such leverage in there.

>> ^jmzero:
I find it odd that they wonder at the origin of the taboo on criticizing religion. To me, it's clear where this came from: thousands of years of wars started by religions being unable to co-exist.

A couple points. First, there wouldn't be wars started by religion unless it was already taboo to criticize religion.

Second, it's not really true that there have been thousands of years of religious wars. The phenomenon of the holy war is really only found in monotheistic faiths. The Romans certainly didn't start wars with people because of religion (though they certainly found all sorts of other reasons). The Greeks didn't. Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains have peacefully coexisted for thousands of years. Buddhism spread peacefully into China, Japan, and Korea.

Monotheistic faiths haven't really had the political power to engage in religious wars until about 1500 years ago, when Christians really locked up rule of the dying Roman Empire--and they really started ratcheting up as the Catholic Church took political control of Europe and Islam unified the Middle East.

Those are things we all can agree on without inserting what you termed as the "religious dogma."

We can agree to them to a certain degree, but the punishment for all of these, including making love to another person, is death. I dont think Jesus agreed with that, but my point is this: You and I can, with a single sentence, easily surpass all the morality of the bible, Why? because we live in a world that has come a very long way the last 2000 years, specifically all the knowledge we have gained in all walks of life.

This is how you choose the bits from the bible that fall in line with reasonable thinking anno 2007. The fact that some of it, specially some of Jesus' thinking, is still relevant to this day is, as I said, a major achievement, considering the tribalized, ancient culture Jesus lived in. This is why I keep saying Jesus must be considered as one of the greatest moral thinkers of all time.

Consider the Jains "10 commandments": "Do not injure, abuse, torture, enslave,insult,torment or kill any creature or living being" These people are strict vegans, and wear facemask so they wont swallow and kill insects. The Inquisition, the Crusades, Islamic terrorism etc would be IMPOSSIBLE to justify or invent based on Jain thinking, but from a simple reading of the bible, it is not hard at all to see how these insane crimes can be committed, it has the recipe for most of them, and in some cases, outright executive orders from the creator of the universe himself.

And finally ,No, I dont repair bicycles :http://www.videosift.com/video/Monty-Python-Bicycle-Repair-Man