>> ^quantumushroom:
Most people wish to see good deeds and work rewarded and bad deeds and evil punished. That's how we roll on earth. I find it amusing that you wouldn't care about rewards versus punishment for MT and Hitler, yet you find the 'golden parachute' concept upsetting.

---
They're dead, so their eternal suffering, joy or nothingness affects only them. As far as our need to see rewards and punishments: I do not believe eternal suffering, nor eternal reward to be an aspect of justice, for it serves only the purpose of satisfying a lust, not a function. If their postmortem reward or punishment (not the idea of it, but the truthful existence of it) affected us in a positive, progressive way, only then would it be a worthwhile system of dealing with what we consider injustice. However, because it is uncertain that there is a force which doles out afterlife justice, we have no business worrying about it. We can appreciate what dead people did while they were alive, or be glad they're dead because they were a hinderance to the progress of life.

I don't disagree (ha!) with the idea of religion; I believe it serves a function, especially at our point in evolution, where we are only beginning to come to terms with these absract concepts. But religion all too often is a closed system, causing divides that need not exist. Yes, religion has done good -- let's keep that aspect; but it needs to be fluid. All philospohy of worth should be as an ocean, whether it be concerned with possible existence/nonexistence of gods or scientific understanding of our universe.
---

Yes, for most people, God serves in part as a kind of Keeper of Scorecards, but rewards and punishment may be only one aspect of an "afterlife" which technically is consciousness after this life.

You're perhaps assuming that the endgame of religion is to
follow rules now to live in a Heaven forever, which would mean
some sort of consciousness apart from a Creator. That may not
be it at all. Buddha described Nirvana as 'the end of
suffering' and left it at that. Buddhism is atheistic.

---
I'm assuming that the interpretation of the majority of mainstream religions are to live in a Heaven forever, because that is how I have encountered them with almost everyone I've ever known or known about. I'm not opposed to the idea of an afterlife, I simply find it a moot point. As the living, we should be concerned with life, not death.
---

You claim moral relativism exists, but for the atheist, does evil exist?

Which way of living demands more responsibility, the
religious person trying to follow moral precepts or someone who
doesn't necessarily care what happens because nothing finally
matters; death is the End? I don't want to live in a society
where everyone makes their own rules up as they go along; few
atheists would either.

Since for the atheist there is no Prime Mover behind what
society commonly defines as "goodness", why would an atheist
seek to enforce any kind of (self) responsibility at all? If
you felt bad about hurting someone because you didn't treat
them according to the Golden Rule, why not just kill them? If
there was no afterlife they would simply cease to exist along
with their pain and the question of right or wrong would be moot.

Yes, I'm being a tad silly, but hopefully I've made some half-assed point that, "Morality has to come from somewhere."

---
Your points are not silly at all, merely common interpretations -- and I don't mean that pejoratively. I do not believe in evil in such a rigid, unrealistic way. Evil could be considered any action which seeks or causes an end to life. But evil is not necessarily bad. Cancer kills, human dies, human returns to earth, new life begins. From "evil" comes "good". A supernova could be considered evil, but it also gives birth to new life, which is good. I believe our existence within a realm of constant destruction dictates to us the sanctity of life, and thus morality. Life is the underdog in this universe, which will become apparent (to whatever exists in this solar system) when our sun decides to stop behaving as it is now. It's not always a struggle for power, but a struggle for life itself. Yes, in a relative universe you may decide to kill your fellow man, but on a macro level you become in conflict with life, in favor of destruction. Just as truth is valued over the lie, life is favored over death for very practical, and often poetic reasons that need not stem from God.

Concepts such as "morality" exist on the human level to illustrate and teach. Ideas and concepts are not so rigid as to dictate what is always right and wrong, nor should they ever be used to represent an absolute; espcially one as silly as "evil".
---

You are perhaps basing your argument against either the
existence of God or belief in God on the idea that since
religions provide conflicting statements, all of them must therefore be
false.

Religions are not God. Religion is a human endeavor and
therefore flawed, whereas the nature (or concept) of God is
perfection.

---
God as perfection is an assumption lacking observation. The nature of God (assuming it exists) cannot possibly be determined; though I'm not in opposition to the idea of that possible explanaion, let's not kid ourselves that the idea is anything but assumed. (Assumption not necessarily being a bad thing, but also not something to base your existence on.)
---

If I say, "We are breathing air" in English and you say it in
French, is one of us 'lying?'

Also, to many atheists why is 'lying' only a feature of religion? You mean atheists never tell lies--even little ones--when it suits them?

---
Lies are available for all to use. I wouldn't dream say otherwise.
---

Faith is not logical and much of religion isn't either, but to dismiss them all out of hand seems rather absolute, in a world where "there are no absolutes".

We can all agree when out brains die, if there is nothing, we will "experience" nothing forever. If there is an afterparty, atheist and believer alike will go "somewhere" even if it's only within their own consciousness.

---
On the contrary, faith is perfectly logical. I have faith in my senses enough to walk outside on a cool, winter day and not expect to walk into lava. Unless I smell sulfur... then I'd become suspicous, maybe I'd notice the increase in heat, and my faith will change. No longer can I have complete faith that outside is a good place to go. Just as my faith in Santa Claus went to zero, and my faith in God went to near zero, based upon observation and learning.

As humanbeings, we do not have the capacity to say anything with 100% certainty, so we must be careful to organize our minds into tiers of belief/faith. (Forgive my semantics; tier is perhaps not the best word, but I'm tired right now) Your immediate senses being on the top tier, followed by recognized patterns from experience, down to intellectual knowledge from schooling, on down to some philosophical interpretations, religion, God or gods, etc. (The existence of smurfs being, obviously far down at the bottom -- much farther than God even.)

Humans are unique in that we are deeply affected by ideas; but ideas have no corporeal nature that we are aware of (yet), so we cannot let any one idea rule our lives, but rather let us rule them. We are the makers of dreams, and need not suffer otherwise -- unless Kai'ckul visits my dreams and says otherwise.

I don't disagree with the intention of your words, but I
have a few problems:

Why would it matter whether Hitler or Mother Teresa go to
heaven or hell, or anywhere in between? I've never understood
the significance of an afterlife. In my opinion, the idea of
an afterlife is gluttonous. Why are we so obsessed with living
forever?

Most people wish to see good deeds and work rewarded and bad
deeds and evil punished. That's how we roll on earth. I find it amusing that you wouldn't care about rewards versus punishment for MT and Hitler, yet you find the 'golden parachute' concept upsetting.

Yes, for most people, God serves in part as a kind of Keeper of Scorecards, but rewards and punishment may be only one aspect of an "afterlife" which technically is consciousness after this life.

You're perhaps assuming that the endgame of religion is to
follow rules now to live in a Heaven forever, which would mean
some sort of consciousness apart from a Creator. That may not
be it at all. Buddha described Nirvana as 'the end of
suffering' and left it at that. Buddhism is atheistic.

Also, moral relativism exists whether you choose to believe
so or not. If it didn't, we wouldn't need police, jail and
prison systems, mental health facilities, military or
psychiatrists. The fact is, people can and will do what they
want (or what the voices in their head want) when they want.
Whether or not a god or gods exist has no bearing on this
reality. Even if you believe it does, your belief does not
change the fact that murder, rape, disease, supernovas and
golden parachutes happen. It's our responsibility to prevent
these things from happening, not a gods.

You claim moral relativism exists, but for the atheist, does evil exist?

Which way of living demands more responsibility, the
religious person trying to follow moral precepts or someone who
doesn't necessarily care what happens because nothing finally
matters; death is the End? I don't want to live in a society
where everyone makes their own rules up as they go along; few
atheists would either.

Since for the atheist there is no Prime Mover behind what
society commonly defines as "goodness", why would an atheist
seek to enforce any kind of (self) responsibility at all? If
you felt bad about hurting someone because you didn't treat
them according to the Golden Rule, why not just kill them? If
there was no afterlife they would simply cease to exist along
with their pain and the question of right or wrong would be moot.

Yes, I'm being a tad silly, but hopefully I've made some half-assed point that, "Morality has to come from somewhere."


Now, if you're thinking the way I think you're thinking,
which is that religion provides us with absolutes, the problem
becomes thus: Which god or gods, tenet, belief system do I
believe in? There really is no absolute answer, and if there
is, only a handful of people in the world (universe?) will
ever know. There's this thing called truth (which even itself
is somewhat difficult determine) -- does truth matter or is it
merely the idea that matters? If it's only the idea of
religion that matters, you haven't solved the so-called
problem of moral relativism, you've only hidden the truth from
the believer so that they do the "right" thing. So in other
words, you're lying. Is lying bad? Yes.

You are perhaps basing your argument against either the
existence of God or belief in God on the idea that since
religions provide conflicting statements, all of them must therefore be
false.

Religions are not God. Religion is a human endeavor and
therefore flawed, whereas the nature (or concept) of God is
perfection.

If I say, "We are breathing air" in English and you say it in
French, is one of us 'lying?'

Also, to many atheists why is 'lying' only a feature of religion? You mean atheists never tell lies--even little ones--when it suits them?

Faith is not logical and much of religion isn't either, but to dismiss them all out of hand seems rather absolute, in a world where "there are no absolutes".

We can all agree when out brains die, if there is nothing, we will "experience" nothing forever. If there is an afterparty, atheist and believer alike will go "somewhere" even if it's only within their own consciousness.

I hardly think this qualifies as "pressing beliefs on others". It's simply presenting another point of view which people can take or leave.

We see religious versions of this constantly - they don't offend me, nor do they convince.

What I find interesting is the suggestion that people "choose" their religion.

I actually didn't choose to be an atheist - it simply bears the mark of truth (however tentatively) for me. I find it amusing the implication that these christians (an assumption on my part), in turn, have "chosen" to be so. It could have just as easily been buddhism or scientology or islam - whatever. They all are equally close (or far) from reality for them.

Just seems so arbitrary.

>> ^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.

>> ^mizila:
^ Totally agree. They should have a religions class, where they teach Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, yes even Ancient Egyptian Religion and paganism.


They do. It's called Philosophy 101. At least my philosophy class covered all this back in 1992, when I took it. It was really a great class; we went into everything...even touched on Zoroastrianism. That's where I found out I was a naturalistic Pantheist, whose second tenet rings true to what was said in the video: Toleration of all worships and creeds.

Look, if you want to smear yourself with peanut butter, go light a fire out in the woods and dance till 4 in the morning, good for you! Rock on, buddy. Whatever floats your boat. If everyone adopted this attitude, can you imagine how simple the world would be? I'll never understand the human condition which causes others to force their beliefs onto people, without giving more critical thought onto what it is that they believe in in the first place. You realize the average person takes more time to think through the decision to buy a new car, than they apply to their own paradigms?

Ok, I'm getting told to get off the soapbox. Cheers!

^ Totally agree. They should have a religions class, where they teach Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, yes even Ancient Egyptian Religion and paganism. You should be taught the HISTORY of religion, not that it's some alternative to science.

For the record I'm agnostic. Some say the cheap way out, but remember: "If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice." -Freewill, Rush

Nothing has convinced me there is a god, but nothing has convinced me that there isn't, either. "Wisest is he who knows he knows not." -Socrates

I know not.

Comparative religion tends to support atheism/agnosticism. The way to create fanatics is to teach only one religion.
The one class that can have the most benefit towards avoiding raising kids with Palin's worldview is to teach them comparative religion -- as many different kinds of religion as possible, and the different dogmas they have. Teach them about Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Several varieties of Christianity (Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant), ancient Egyptian religion, ancient Greek religion, Scientology, and all kinds of other BS that people have at times (or still do) believe, then they might think of a few things:

* These different religions make contradictory claims that cannot all be correct simultaneously
* How easy must it be for false prophets or rumors to fool people and start/modify a religion?
* If I had been born in a different sect, would I be just as convinced of the truth of that sect?

But for fuck's sake keep it out of the SCIENCE class -- it belongs in the Social Studies / History class.

Warning: This video contains normal people PWNing a bunch of crazy bigots.

If our presidential nominee was a Japanese/American, there would be people out there calling Japanese un-American because of Pearl Harbor, claiming Shinto and Buddhism teaches hate.

Makes you sick, doesn't it?

To buttress my point, here's a list of holy wars divided between monotheists and non-monotheists.


Caused by monotheists:

• Crusades in the Holy Land.



• Crusades in France (aka Albigensian Crusades)



• Northern Crusades against Baltic pagans.
  
  
• 16th century French Wars of Religion.



• Taiping Rebellion.



• 2nd Century battles for the Holy Land.



• Muslim Conquests of Arabia.



• Muslim Conquests of Asia Minor



• Muslim Conquests of Northern Africa.



• Muslim Conquest of Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal)



• The Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula.



• The 30 Years War.



• Saxon Wars of the 9th century.



• Conflicts of Bosnia and Kosovo. (The media didn't really report it, but the wars were as much about Christianity versus Islam as anything else.)



• Protestant-Catholic conflict in Northern Ireland

Caused by non-monotheists:

• The Second Sino-Japanese War.
  

The video mentions the Kalinga War started by Ashoka, ruler of the Mauryan empire, as a war caused by religion, but there's absolutely no evidence that this is the case. Everything points to it having been instigated purely for the sake of imperial expansion.

In fact, Ashoka suffered crushing guilt when he saw the horrors his war had brought about. He then converted to Buddhism and renounced war, committing himself to the promulgation of Buddhism and the prosperity and well-being of his people.


So, I've got a list of 14 wars waged in the name of monotheistic religions, and just one war waged in the name of a non-monotheistic religion. (And if you look at the history, it was only labeled a religious war well after it had begun to curry popular support; it wasn't started religion, though it probably would have ended sooner without it.)

Consider that for most of the world's history, most people weren't monotheists. Monotheism didn't really grab a significant chunk of the world's population until the 8th century or so. Even today, almost half of the world's population believes either in no God or in more than one god. Were non-monotheistic religions, to generalize, disposed to holy wars and religious conflicts, the numbers would bear that out. But they don't.

Heck, let's look at religious conflicts going on right now. There are 24 listed conflicts, and only 2 of them were instigated by non-monotheists.

The facts are pretty clear. Non-monotheistic religions, on the whole, don't really cause holy wars. Almost every monotheistic religion, on the other hand, does cause holy wars. The only exception that comes to mind is Mormonism, which hasn't had a chance yet.

Atheists, please restrict your ire appropriately.

What? This is just wrong. There have been several scientific advances which goes very much against the bible and religious thought. Evolution is the easy one to point at; Carbon dating, geology and stem cell research. I may misunderstand what you mean by "ideological tolerance", however, so please elaborate.

What I meant was that science only seems to progress in places where there is substantial freedom of thought, both for religion and for science. While it's true that there have been substantial scientific advances which go against the theological attitudes of certain (occasionally substantial) elements of the Christian church, these scientific advances only occurred in areas where neither "scientific" nor "religious" reasoning was given primacy or control.

Darwin is an excellent example. (Though it should be understood that evolutionary theory was already more or less accepted by biologists at the time; the main questions were what the mechanism of evolution might be. So-called theistic evolution was the predominant viewpoint.) In England at that time, Catholics and Protestants were both allowed to worship freely. Atheists were beginning to be open about their lack of faith. The term "agnostic" was coined around that time. An increase in ideological tolerance was the predominant trend.

The jump from orthodoxy and orthopraxy is a small one. Orthodoxy concerns your thoughts and beliefs while orthopraxy is focused on actions. The law is still laid down by the religion. And to set my sights again, the "big three" have both elements in them.

The jump from orthodoxy to orthopraxy is very easy, to be sure. One need only look to the Catholic and Orthodox church or Sunni Islam to see that to be the case. The reverse is not true. Predominantly orthopraxic religions have a very difficult time implementing orthodoxy. Specific schools or branches might have their own teachings, but do not condemn competing branches as "going to hell" or anything like that.


Well, how can you believe in a religion with supernatural elements then? Supernatural elements do not exist in our natural reality and thus cannot be disproved or proved. There is no discernible reason why one belief in a supernatural being is right and any other is wrong. There is plenty of corroborating evidence towards there NOT existing any supernatural beings. Every evidence ever properly studied shows no traces of the supernatural.

I dislike the term "supernatural." In its most literal sense of referring to things that are "above nature," it applies mainly to monotheistic ideas about the world. In the Big Three, God is "above nature" as its inscrutable, unlimited Creator. Thus, anything God does is by definition "supernatural." In religions which do not have this stark distinction between nature and the divine, it is not clear exactly what one means in referring to a belief or even as "supernatural."

Until someone has hashed out what it means to say that something is "supernatural," the term is almost useless, especially when talking about religion in general.

Though it should be pointed out that, from the Christian point of view, one would not expect to find scientific evidence of the supernatural. Science makes use of methodological naturalism, so science cannot study the supernatural. The disagreement is about faith, knowledge, and the ethics of belief, and not about science.


Government and religion have also had overlaps - in the olden times religion acted as a secondary government that collected its own tax. But the difference is that we choose our government and we change the people in the government on a regular basis. I would argue that religion is not been an agent of change as such, because it has just been fragments of bigger religions that rebelled against "big brother". People have been agents of change, not their faith.

A couple of points need to be looked at.

First, religion and government did not merely overlap in the past, but were almost inseparable. Each city had its own patron deity, the worship of which was the civic duty of every member. (Again, this was because of a combination of the necessity of joining together with the ease of using the shared ideologies of religion to make that happen.)

Second, saying "people have been agents of change, and not their faith," makes a distinction that would more or less collapse your entire argument against religion. It is no more true that the rebels were religiously motivated than it is that the oppressors were. To say that the rebels were acting as individuals and not as religionists, is to imply that the oppression was instigated by individuals, and not by their religion. In both cases, it was individuals performing the actions, but religion certainly helped.

Our current situation of "separation of church and state" is something we can thank the Christian tradition for. Christianity started out as a relatively non-political religion--though many of its doctrines made it easy to turn it to that cause. After the collapse of Rome and the spread of Christianity, the feudal system was the means by which the state ruled. The Church had relatively little control, so the ideological dispute over the proper relationship between the two continued for some time. Eventually, the state won. (With spectacularly beneficial results for just about everyone.)

Applying separation of church and state can be difficult depending on the religion; the distinction between government and religion is not always so clear. Hinduism made the transition just fine. Islam may eventually learn to make the transition, though it will only be with serious difficulty. Christianity is no longer a significant political force in most of Europe.

In any case, I think we can more or less agree that the Big Three have some seriously problematic tendencies toward authoritarianism. This is unfortunately true of almost every form of monotheism. I do not believe that eliminating them is even close to feasible, however. Any kind of solution for this problem is going to have to involve understanding of why these religions tend toward authoritarianism, along with collaboration and dialogue, especially with the anti-authoritarian elements within these groups.

Pantheistic and polytheistic religions have much less of a problem with authoritarianism, for the most part. (Though I wouldn't refer to them as "small," necessarily. Buddhism and Hinduism make up a fifth of the world's population between them.)

Yet another incarnation of the New Atheist movement.

I have to say, these guys annoy me sometimes. The "hostility to science and secularism" they're talking about is coming from more or less two areas: the more conservative sectors of the Christian faith, and a good chunk of Muslims. Similarities between the two abound, chiefly dependence on a single book or set of books which clearly define the boundaries of appropriate religious belief.

The religions of the Book do not encompass the whole of religious experience, and yet these people talk about religion as if they do, almost completely ignoring Buddhism, Shinto, Hinduism, and other Eastern faiths. The view of ancient paganism (and, by extension, modern revivals of paganism--of which there are probably at least a million followers in the US alone) is obviously mediated through Christian viewpoint.

The view of the New Atheists is that the polytheistic Rome and Greece were backwards, irrational places dominated by sloppy reasoning and superstition. This is the Christian viewpoint. It boggles the mind that these thinkers, so antagonistic to Christian thought, would uncritically accept the Christian view of ancient religion. An analysis of their views of religion reveals that this is not the only thing that they uncritically accept from the Christian viewpoint. Their view of the categories of religion and of religious experience is drawn straight from Christian ideas, with seemingly little awareness of the diversity and variety of religious experience outside the Christian viewpoint.

The claim that all religion inevitably leads to intolerance and superstition is just ignorant, even if it's true about Christianity.

I believe I clarified that Einstein's belief was of a deity, not of a structured religion. The same goes for Greene. I made no claim as to the validity of string theory, which I hold as highly suspect. It requires as much faith as any religion.

I realized the mistake on Buddhism, but was too lazy to go back and strike it out. But, good of you to refute it, as it needed refuting.

To describe faith as a vulnerability is sad in my opinion. I have faith in a great many things. I have faith in the innate goodness of man, despite so much evidence to the contrary. And why are we so moved by acts of kindness, generosity, and sacrifice? It is rather peculiar to our species, although most, I guess, would argue it evolved to further the species. Intelligence provides us that luxury. Molecules communicating complex abstract thought to other molecules until the molecules have enough collective knowledge to send some molecules to the moon. It is miraculous, regardless of your personal belief system.

Thomas Jefferson, who would have abhorred being called a "Christian" and certainly had no belief in the "supernatural" called Christian philosophy "the greatest ever devised by man." We all know he clipped the actual words, ascribed to Jesus, from the bible, deleted all reference to the supernatural and published his "Jeffersonian Bible." It is possible to separate the philosophy from the "religion" as he did and I think many moderates probably approach that.

Personally, I don't believe in divine intervention and I know that flies in the face of mainstream religion, whatever the brand. I also believe in evolution. But, I still marvel at that first replication. It's divine enough for me.

>> ^snoozedoctor:
I'm impressed by the amount of vitriol against religion on the Sift. I guess many of you haven't had the good fortune to be involved in moderate, religious activism.

Actually, I was raised in a rather moderate/liberal branch of UCC.

People here act as if the two are mutually exclusive, whereas they most certainly are not, Einstein being a notable example (not necessarily ascribing to an organized faith, but rather belief in a supreme diety.)

Read the first chapter of the God Delusion. Einstein did not beleive in a personal god. Maybe you could describe his beliefs as pantheism, which definitely does not include the idea of prayer. As Carl Sagan said, it makes no sense to pray to the law of gravity.


Same with Brian Greene of string theory.

String Theory should be regarded as a pseudoscience until such time as it actually makes a testable prediction that differs from the standard model. String Theory reminds me of taking a beautiful formula and splitting it up into a fourier series.

Greene is a demagogue, getting so enthusiastic about popularizing an idea before there's actually any evidence for it.

The people I worship with wear blue jeans, we play loud rock and roll music and we actively provide charity to Rwanda.

I'll bet that a lot of members of the Flat Earth Society do too. If a larger percentage of Flat Earth Society members help Rwanda than the general public, does that justify promoting the belief that the Earth is flat? No. You have to distinguish between the sugar-coating and the bullshit at the core.

When you lump Christians, Muslims, Buddists, etc. into the same mold you display all the prejudice you rail against. Sorry, but true.

Buddhism is an agnostic philosophy, not really a religion.

The core problem that all religions posess is a reliance on faith, which is an epistemological vulnerability.

The core teachings of Buddhism recognize (even exaggerate) tentativeness of all knowledge, unlike the dogmas of almost every other religion.

Great comment. Thank you for the link; I will watch it later. History is full of examples of people in power using scapegoats, events, or creating events in order to sway the public toward an action they want. I look at the PR campaign leading up to the Iraq war. Anyone who spent anytime researching the claims would have either dismissed the reasons and/or brought up serious objections. Or recognized the very coordinated effort by officials to imply nuclear threat against the US, but then later deny that they is what they meant. The American public was treated as a dupe and responded as one (as a whole.)

I don't agree with the assumption that we must commit evil to end evil. That is the difference between justice and revenge. We both know that Iraq was an unprovoked attack that had nothing to do with justice.

"The Sutras of Abu Ghraib" is a story of an American soldier who finds his belief in Buddhism strengthen over time to where he applies (and eventually gets) a conscientious objector discharge. The author does a good job of showing people, good people, bowing and giving up their morals in the face of group pressure and the stresses of occupying a hostile country. You will find the same type of behavior in this war (with racial slurs, etc.) Could this be a self defense mechanism by the soldier? Dehumanize the country's inhabitants because they can't tell which are hostile and which just trying to live their lives? It seems logical that this psychological defense would arise when you may hurt someone who is just trying to live their life. Winning and losing have little meaning when you lose yourself.

You've got to recognise the 'world system' that interprets money and wealth as things of value as a separate entity. Yes, we have created it, but now we are entirely reliant upon it and we slave everyday toward its maintenance.

When people turn to find meaning and spirituality they turn to other entities within this system, namely catholicism, mormonism, scientology and all the rest. They never ever leave the system and therefore never touch upon the things that really make us human.

If you really want to attack scientology, if you really want to turn people against it, you must show them that there are no answers, meaning or spirituality present in any of the major world religions. With the possible exception of Buddhism they are all hierarchical monetary based systems.

Somebody called Jesus once pointed out the exact same thing about the Roman church.