The bible wasn't written as a book. It is a compilation of discrete articles, written at different times, in different places, by different authors, that are venerated by the church.

Importantly, as I explained above, the Orthodox church (the original church) and the Catholic church (the first schism) have a written and oral Tradition that outlines the meaning of everything (specifically to avoid this situation).

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.)

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Stalin would agree with you wholeheartedy Farhad ... onward to establish the worker's athiest utopia, comrade.

But seriously, if we're talking about secular societies, those two examples are about as secular as you can get. Secular != democratic. And if we're using the word "pernicious" I would say that Stalin's oppression of the Russian Orthodox Church was just that.

Also, I don't think I'd be breaking Godwin's law by citing Nazi Germany as another secular government that put science above all else in backing up its doctrines.

The absurd thing about people claiming that Christmas is "the reason for the season" and reminding us of the time of year's roots is that Christmas was in fact scheduled to correspond to previously existing Pagan festivals. No historical evidence demonstrates that Jesus was actually born in December, and this is apparent as well from a lack of consensus about the date (remember, Eastern Orthodox churches often celebrate Christmas in early January). Furthermore, there are even some Christian denominations who regard it as an invalid holiday (though, for the sake of full disclosure, these are the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Puritans.)

I also submit that saying "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas" is no different than saying "gesundheit" instead of "God bless you" when somebody sneezes. Is it really such a faux pas not to acknowledge someone's presumed religion with a common pleasantry that has nothing to do with it? No.