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.

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

No, it is true. All religion leads you down a path of ignorance, apathy, and malice. It's what religion is: faith, surrendering yourself to God's will, and converting people to your flock.

>> ^gwiz665: No, it is true. All religion leads you down a path of ignorance, apathy, and malice. It's what religion is: faith, surrendering yourself to God's will, and converting people to your flock.


No, it's not. That's what Christianity and Islam are about.

"Faith" is essential to religions that are about orthdoxy, or having the right beliefs. Some religions are defined not by having particular beliefs, but by orthopraxy, performing the right practices and rituals. All you have to do to be a member of a heavily orthopraxic religion is take part in the rituals and ceremonies, and keep to the ethical maxims. To be Wiccan, all you need to do is keep your actions closely in line with the Wiccan Rede ("harm none," roughly) and take part in properly administered initiation ceremonies. To be Confucian, all you need to do is practice filial piety and perform the rituals honoring the ancestors.

"Surrendering" oneself to the Divine will is not a part of many religions. In Roman religion, it was quite common for people to attempt just the opposite--try to persuade a god or goddess to follow their own will. The ritual sacrifices were seen as a sort of economic exchange, regular offerings in exchange for helping protect the state. In many forms of Hinduism, "God" is an impersonal force of which all reality is a manifestation. Literally nothing can happen contrary to God's will, so "surrender to God's will" is a meaningless phrase. The existence or lack of existence of any gods is irrelevant to the teachings of Buddha, and calling meditation to seek enlightenment "surrender" is highly misleading.

Converting people to the flock, too, is not a goal of many religions. On religioustolerance.org's list of 12 "world religions," I counted 6 that have never put an emphasis on converting people, and at least 2 that once did, but no longer make it a priority.

Well, my grief with religions only cover religions with a supernatural element to them. Or in other words, if a belief system does not contain a super natural element, I don't really consider it a religion.

The super natural element demands your faith (unquestioning belief) or the religion makes no sense. You can worship the sun all you want, but that won't make it shine or not. This is the path to ignorance. I would argue that all the "world religions" has these elements, some more pronounced than others.

Surrendering to divine will (submission) is mostly a monotheistic thing, I'll grant you that. My wording of what I wanted to say was probably not right - my point was that God makes the law, judges you, tells you what to do, think eat and so on. This means you give up your own free will and submits to your religions creeds (I would say god's will, but as there is no such thing, I would just be speaking nonsense if I did).

I was trying to find examples of direct malice in religions and the first that popped into my head when I wrote the above comment was conversion. I agree that some religions are quite more peaceful than others and that some don't convert people actively. Religion to me, seems to be a system of control over individuals way of life, their income and their thoughts. It was most likely useful to human kind when we were younger, to evolve our culture and to control the masses such that we could develop our thinking. I mean, the dark ages was basically just a huge Christian mass murder. You can look at countless* evil acts that have been done in the name of different religions, but very few, if any, have been done in spite of religion - always religions fighting each other.

(*this is my cop-out way of saying, I don't want to do the research right now..

I think the whole religion concept should just be thrown out of the window and looked on as the relic of the past that it ought to be.

It sounds to me, gwiz665, as if your beef is not really with religion, but with malignant ideological authoritarianism. But this isn't a problem merely in religion. Communist China and the Russia are/were both atheist, and are both committed to the veracity of science, and yet their subjection to ideological authoritarianism has seriously set back scientific progress in both countries. Russia failed to study statistics after WWII, for instance, because it was perceived to be out of line with party ideology.

It has only been in areas of ideological tolerance--for both religious and scientific thought--that any major scientific advances have occurred in the last two hundred years. I believe your animus toward religion is misplaced. While religion has frequently been a transmitter of malignant authoritarianism, I would submit that this is not because of irrational elements within religion, but because of the widespread acceptance of religious thought. It was easier for authoritarian attitudes and ideas to spread through this medium as a result. If some other ideology becomes widespread, then it acts as the vector by which authoritarianism is spread. Communism acted as such a vector, as I noted, (Communism does not, in itself, mandate authoritarianism) as has nationalism in causing World Wars I and II.

Denouncing religion in favor of science will only render science itself subject to the same social and historical forces, thus perverting it and rendering far less effective.

In addition, your understanding of religion is, as I noted, extremely flawed. You do not seem to grasp the implication of "orthodoxy" versus "orthopraxy." Here it is: Primarily orthopraxic religions do not have creeds. Thus, there are no creeds to submit to. Only a general sense of what moral principles to act on, and the performance of a few ritual acts. This leads to vast diversity in all areas of thought, including the ethical. (Compare Stoicism to Epicureanism to Cynicism sometime. Then remember that they arose from the same culture with the same religion.)

"Supernatural" elements do not always require faith. "Faith" does not always mean "unquestioning belief."

During the Dark Ages--classified by historians as the first half of the medieval period, roughly 476 to 1000--there was relatively little religiously motivated violence. There was plenty of violence of other kinds, but Christianity was used as a tool to abate it to some extent. (There are exceptions, of course. There was the beheading of remnants of paganism in the Eastern Roman Empire, the bloody persecution by Charlemagne of pagans in the Saxon Wars, and the persecution of Norwegian heathens by King Olaf I. Without these three elements, there's a substantial chance some pagan religions might have survived.)

In the second half of the medieval period, the Crusades were not motivated merely, or even mainly, by Christianity. The Western Crusaders marching on Jerusalem murdered Christians just as readily as they murdered Muslims and Jews. They killed because they had been trained for war since childhood. Though there was a rise in violence caused by religion as evidenced by the Albigensian Crusades, which were religiously motivated, and the Inquisition.

I think it's obvious to some extent that aspects of most religions are in there to control the populace. But the same can be said of government. Government is far more explicitly "control over individuals way of life, their income, and their thoughts." Religion, in contrast, has far more often been an agent of change and rebellion in various cultures. That's how Christianity and Islam started--though there were elements of authoritarianism from the beginning. From a less authoritarian perspective, one also has Protestant Christianity, Sikhism, Mormonism, the Quakers, the Shakers, modern pagan revivalism, the Nation of Islam, Rastafarianism, Druze, and many more. Each of these religions was created explicitly to rebel against the authority structure of the day.

You really don't seem to have studied "religion" very much, Gwiz, and yet you're awfully quick to condemn it. I would recommend a great deal more study before consigning such an integral aspect of human experience to the great dustbin of history.

(First off, great discussion. Thank you!)

"It sounds to me, gwiz665, as if your beef is not really with religion, but with malignant ideological authoritarianism."

Agreed. But (and I will avoid the grand sweep of saying "all") the big monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) are malignant ideological authoritarianisms. I have no problems with the personal religions that keep to themselves and do no real harm (see wicca). I think it is a shame that they include supernatural elements, because they are false, but as long as this isn't used as an excuse to do harm, my problems are limited to an intellectual debate about truth vs. falsity.

"It has only been in areas of ideological tolerance--for both religious and scientific thought--that any major scientific advances have occurred in the last two hundred years."

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.

"Orthopraxy vs. orthodoxy"
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.

""Supernatural" elements do not always require faith. "Faith" does not always mean "unquestioning belief.""
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.

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.

I accept that my condemnation of "all religions" is a bit harsh, because I know little about all the tiny denominations and smaller religions. My main attack goes toward the big three religions, who I think we could do without. The smaller religions have elements that I don't agree with, but as long as their thoughts don't bleed into politics and what the rest of us must do, they can do whatever they want.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Thursday, September 18th, 2008 9:15pm PDT - promote requested by gwiz665.

While I consider myself an atheist, I think that I will have to agree with HadouKen here. There is way too much focus on Christianity and its faults which is then generalized, through a logical fallacy, to represent all religions and religious peoples. I believe it was Gandhi, in his time, who said the West possesses science without wisdom and the East wisdom without science (not that this is necessarily true now - but did you see a non-Western face anywhere in this video?). Additionally, Chomsky said "As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss."

The point here is that neither trumps the other. There is a place for religion and a place for science (but not in the same classroom). Yes, there is a problem with religions which represent ideological authoritarianism, but there is not necessarily a conflict between science and spirituality.

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.)

My head hurts from reading.

I don't think religion, even the really bad ones, should be eradicated and forgotten, but rather studied as social constructs rather than believed.

The supernatural is of course a definition which in itself destroys God if he is deemed supernatural. But suppose he was not supernatural, that he really existed somehow, where is the evidence? Or where is the evidence of potential evidence. Nothing points in that direction. (http://www.videosift.com/video/Behold-the-Atheists-Nightmare-the-banana-has-a-point-at-the-top-for-easy-entry is NOT evidence! )

When I attack "Religion" I don't really mean the pantheistian or polytheistic, basically because I don't know them as well or see them as equally relevant (because I'm from Europe and don't feel it on my own body). This is my fault. I say they are small, but really they are huge. My issue with them is more benign in that it's more of a debate, where me vs. the big three is a fistfight.

I knew I was a shaky ground when saying people did it, not religion. My point was and still is, that religion can be a tool (for the higher-ups) to control and direct the populace (it follows from this argument that those that use the tool could be atheists in reality, and I think they might be). It may point them in better directions (see your own examples, denominations of Christianity) but it is still a tool for the people with direct access to GOD (priests) to tell those without what must be done. When people wholeheartedly believe in what a preacher spouts I am not angry with them, I'm angry with the preacher and the underlying ideas.

The supernatural is of course a definition which in itself destroys God if he is deemed supernatural.

Not really. Philosophers have been discussing this issue for thousands of years. As far as I know, the only major philosophical movement which categorically rejects the idea of the supernatural is logical positivism, which is no longer considered by most philosophers to be a sound system of thought.


I knew I was a shaky ground when saying people did it, not religion. My point was and still is, that religion can be a tool (for the higher-ups) to control and direct the populace (it follows from this argument that those that use the tool could be atheists in reality, and I think they might be). It may point them in better directions (see your own examples, denominations of Christianity) but it is still a tool for the people with direct access to GOD (priests) to tell those without what must be done. When people wholeheartedly believe in what a preacher spouts I am not angry with them, I'm angry with the preacher and the underlying ideas.

I've known several pastors, a couple of them quite well. (I'm not Christian, but the rest of my family is.) The thing to keep in mind is that these people really are sincere. Only once have I run into the kind of sociopathic control freak who intentionally uses religion as a tool of control.

Except for a few cases, pastors and other religious leaders really do believe what they teach. Which is how religion works as a form of control. The problems arise when doctrinal or structural problems cause condemnation of certain sectors of the world's population.

Too much reading, I'm gonna go over to the YouTube comments...


...not really

A mighty tower of text we have created, indeed.

Well, some religions were created as tools of control, which later have an inherent control element to them (Big 3). When people honestly and really believe that apostasy must be answered with stoning (for instance), we have a problem.