My question is this: is there any good to religion? Why does Bill Maher attack it with his new movie, saying it has "harmed the human race"?
Schools are labour camps.
Pretty much, especially after he went on national TV and told the world he was a Libertarian.
http://archive.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2001/08/01/maher/index.html
Spideynw:As to your question, of course there is good to religion. But I think the bad outweighs the good.
JCFolsom:I don't see how you, or anyone else for that matter, could really know what life would have been like for early humans without religion, or if we even would have survived at all. As such, this sort of statement is mere bigotry.
Gee, you think you could address what was written, rather than getting all huffy because someone doesn't kowtow to your puerile belief system?
That verse was pretty eye-catching when I first read it as part of "Discovering Self-Government: A Bible-Based Study Guide." The entire 1st Samuel 8:4-20 seems to support full out anarchy, and also points out that as with ancient Israel, people want a government so they can be like all other nations. The desire for a state (according to that verse) also seems to suggest that people want a government "to judge them, to spout before them, & fight their battles." Sounds like the word of god is total anarcho-capitalism to me.
Looks like the only people God intended to rule over the Israelites were the Israelites themselves, not a government or any king or queen. Try telling that to your local preist.
JCFolsom: Spideynw:As to your question, of course there is good to religion. But I think the bad outweighs the good. I don't see how you, or anyone else for that matter, could really know what life would have been like for early humans without religion, or if we even would have survived at all. As such, this sort of statement is mere bigotry.
I don't see how you, or anyone else for that matter, could really know what life would have been like for early humans without religion, or if we even would have survived at all. As such, this sort of statement is mere bigotry.
This is like saying you do not know how humans could have survived without government as well. But humans do survive without religion just fine. Atheists/agnostics do not suddenly keel over without religion.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
Spideynw:This is like saying you do not know how humans could have survived without government as well. But humans do survive without religion just fine. Atheists/agnostics do not suddenly keel over without religion.
Well, I suppose that depends on your perspective. I would bet cash money that atheists have a far lower birth rate than religious people, and probably always have. After all, atheism is a religion of intellectuals. Back in the old days, when you could expect to lose half your kids before adulthood, that kind of thing mattered. That's just one example.
The world can be far more relentlessly, bitterly cruel than we in the affluent, modern Western world have ever experienced. Faith could keep people from despairing in lives that truly promised only bitter toil and an early death.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
JCFolsom:Well, I suppose that depends on your perspective. I would bet cash money that atheists have a far lower birth rate than religious people, and probably always have. After all, atheism is a religion of intellectuals. Back in the old days, when you could expect to lose half your kids before adulthood, that kind of thing mattered.
Yes, I would agree that agnostics/atheists probably tend to have fewer children than theists. However, children are just as necessary today as "back in the old days", if you have not read anything about Europe lately, and their current "baby crisis". The problem however has to do with the governments not allowing children to work, which means that children become a financial burden on parents rather than an extra income.
JCFolsom:The world can be far more relentlessly, bitterly cruel than we in the affluent, modern Western world have ever experienced. Faith could keep people from despairing in lives that truly promised only bitter toil and an early death.
This "faith" has also resulted in the worst crimes in human history. When was the last time an atheist killed their kids because god told them to? When was the last time an atheist declared war on another country because the other country was full of unclean heretics?
Spideynw:Yes, I would agree that agnostics/atheists probably tend to have fewer children than theists. However, children are just as necessary today as "back in the old days", if you have not read anything about Europe lately, and their current "baby crisis". The problem however has to do with the governments not allowing children to work, which means that children become a financial burden on parents rather than an extra income.
That doesn't follow. Do governments allow the children of religious parents to work, but not atheist ones?
Spideynw: JCFolsom:The world can be far more relentlessly, bitterly cruel than we in the affluent, modern Western world have ever experienced. Faith could keep people from despairing in lives that truly promised only bitter toil and an early death. This "faith" has also resulted in the worst crimes in human history. When was the last time an atheist killed their kids because god told them to? When was the last time an atheist declared war on another country because the other country was full of unclean heretics?
Actually, the worst crimes in human history were not motivated by religion, but rather politics (which asshole gets to rule over this or that patch of dirt, or which group can all the problems be blamed on). Of course atheists don't kill their kids because god told them to. They kill them because they cry too much, or because they are still in the womb and aren't considered human, or so on and so forth.
You wanna talk about evil? Eugenics was a very atheist/Darwinist programme. Everyone has things they believe in, and any one of them can be warped (or not) to justify violence. The reason why most people who have committed atrocities throughout history were religious is simply because most people throughout history were or at least paid lip service to religion.
I don't mind addressing it, but I'm not sure it will be of much use, as I am not a Catholic nor even a Christian, nor even a member of any Abrahamic faith, and I have no particular reason to defend the historical actions of the church. Nor do I deny that it has been responsible for, and contributed to, many horrors. My point is only that, human nature being what it is, I don't think there is any evidence that, if no one believed in anything supernatural, that there would have been less violence, and I think that arguments could be made that there would have been detrimental effects, at least prior to our new, technologically advanced age, for humans if there had not been religion.
This is Aquinas? He was an asshole who probably would have had me burned at the stake. Still, if you look at the reasoning, IF you believe in the immortality of the soul and IF you believe that doctrinal correctness is essential to your eternal fate than his statements are completely rational. Again, I never denied that religions, or at least religious authorities and institutions, have been responsible for atrocities. However, it does not follow from this that the world would have been or would be better without religion.
JCFolsom:That doesn't follow. Do governments allow the children of religious parents to work, but not atheist ones?
No, but you missed my point. I am saying the number of children people have is more of an economics question, not a religious one. I am also saying that having children in modern industrialized societies is still just as important as in the "old days". However, in the "old days" they had more children because governments let children work. Children were not an economic liability, like they are in today's industrialized nations, where child labor is illegal.
JCFolsom:Actually, the worst crimes in human history were not motivated by religion, but rather politics (
Well, I think you could say we are both right, given that it was not until fairly recent in history that politics and religion were mostly seperated.
However, it is the religious right in the U.S. that wants to stay in the Middle East. A religious president took us there in the first place. It was the Mormon church that helped make same-sex marriage illegal in California. It is mainly the religious that continue the war on drugs, prostitution, and gambling in the U.S. My guess is most atheists/agnostics are not opposed to these activities.
JCFolsom:They kill them because they cry too much, or because they are still in the womb and aren't considered human, or so on and so forth.
You do make a good point about abortion. That I do consider an atrocity, and my guess is most atheists/agnostics are OK with it.
I still think religion results in more bad than good, and that it was not necessary for early humans, just natural.
JCFolsom:My point is only that, human nature being what it is, I don't think there is any evidence that, if no one believed in anything supernatural, that there would have been less violence,
and I think that arguments could be made that there would have been detrimental effects, at least prior to our new, technologically advanced age, for humans if there had not been religion.
Still, if you look at the reasoning, IF you believe in the immortality of the soul and IF you believe that doctrinal correctness is essential to your eternal fate than his statements are completely rational.
Again, I never denied that religions, or at least religious authorities and institutions, have been responsible for atrocities. However, it does not follow from this that the world would have been or would be better without religion.
Is there any good in faith? No, but that doesn't make it evil either.
"The power of liberty going forward is in decentralization. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process." -- liberty student
JCFolsom:You wanna talk about evil? Eugenics was a very atheist/Darwinist programme.
No it wasn't. It's simply an extension of the collectivist mentality behind racism. And racism was around LONG before Darwin.