Erm, Thunder
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the laundries were places of imprisonment for women;
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for information on orphanages, perhaps you should consult the Boston diocese?
Again, what’s your point? Those places are by no means representative of church-established orphanages in general… and unless you can show that they are, there’s no substantive reason to bring them up.
Again, what’s your point? They overwhelming majority of church-established orphanages are NOT situated in the Boston area, and they most certainly were NOT established by the Catholic Boston diocese.
Look, I just pointed out that churches have historically been instrumental in establishing hospitals, soup kitches, homeless shelters and orphanages, among other things. For some bizarre reason, you chose to bring up the abuses in the Magdalen laundries – a decidedly atypical scenario – as though this somehow refutes that point. Obviously, it does not, and it’s intellectually dishonest to insinuate that it does.
**Smiling Bandit ** yes I am familiar with the teachings of those people, I particularly like the way at least one guy on your list views women as incomplete men.
** Spazcat ** Know Thyself is inscribed on the temple at Delphi, it means (in the loosest possible sense) nobody can escape from their destiny okay? Your post seemed to me to indicate that you felt it was something different.
Some posts have indicated Christians question God. Surely that takes it out of the realm of religion and into Philosophy? Doesn’t religion demand faith? By its nature you cannot question faith.
For those wondering how I can believe God or Logos exists but not worship, I have to ask, do you worship the postman? (Yes I realising I am paraphrasing Terry Pratchett who remains IMHO one of the greatest modern philosophers of our time.)
I think ** buttonjockey308** makes an excellent point about the Christianity being a loaded gun on the floor of a psyche ward.
Christians believe Jesus died for our sins so we could begin again with a clean slate as it were, yes? Ever has it been religion demands sacrifice. If you want something, you must give something up, in the old days this was a price paid in blood i.e. Aztecs ripping the still beating heart of a sacrifice out for the sun… Christianity is a new way of doing old things.
In history it ever was that a point was reached where interests clashed and Christianity divided. For instance Henry VIII decided he didn’t like being preached to by a dude far away so decided he was God’s representative on earth.
Wars come, blood is spilled and so it is not so different anymore, Jesus dies so the sacrifices could stop but they continue and will evermore.
I sometimes feel that God is a child emperor who pulls the wings off flies. So much power channelled into nothing but hate and violence and disappointment. Only apathy is a true state of perfection. I fear the power you believe you have.
I know exactly what know thyself means. I have also been to Delphi. I did not see anything inscribed on the temple. Have a look: Apollo, Athena. If you want to know yourself, really know yourself, then be prepared for a few shocks as you find out what kind of person you really are. Or, if you are just spouting it off to sound important and “better” than people who have faith in their deities, carry on but be prepared to be called on it.
Here ends this unscheduled hijack. As you were (wo)men.
Your counter-atttack is worthless. You did not address the point I was making. I absolutely refuted the view that Christians do not include great thinkers and philosophers. That some of them made mistakes from our point of view is irrelevant.
ROFLMAO! Pretentiousness, Isle 3 please? Whence do you get to decide who and what I believe in?
Anything worth believing in can be a danger to yourself or others. Religion may neither the exception nor the fulfillment. In any event, the insane are usually peacful and quite nice people.
Terry Pratchet isn’t a philosopher. He is a regurgitator of other’s ideas in that regard.
Erm, Thunder (on whom sarcasm is obviously wasted)
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the laundries were not orphanages, they were places of imprisonment for women;
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we only have your word for atypicality; anybody who puts the words like ‘catholic church’ and ‘abuse’ can discover a whole long history of physical and sexual abuse of children both in care and in education; the point about Boston is that they seem to have had a fair share of childcare ‘experts’;
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you chose to laud them, I chose to point out an aspect of the nature of ‘Christian Love’ in this context.
I do love it when you posture, portentously!
candida, nobody denies that abuse has occured in the name of the church. Not a single person here, religious or non-religious denies that.
Kalt’s claim was that
I pointed out that this is NOT true – that many church-based organizations have, for centuries, been feeding the homeless, caring for the parentless and otherwise serving the severely needy. You may point out instances where abuse has occured, but this does NOT disprove the point which I’m making.
It’s a bizarre sort of logic which pretends that citing instances of abuse somehow refutes the historicity of these centuries of sacrificial, charitable work.
Thunder
Certainly, there were aspects of charitable work but you neglect things like the fact that in very many places, the Church was a very major landowner and part of the problem of which ‘charity’ was a partial solution.
Hey but I’m not a Christian, nor does Christianity run in the family, so why should I worry about Christian abuse of Christians?
Well, I don’t think anyone is arguing here that Christianity has only been a force for good, or that through its history, the Christian churches have never done anything wrong, and you’re right, the Magdaline laundries and sexual abuse in orphanages, and the economic abuse of peasants in the middle ages were bad things done in Christianity’s name. However, this doesn’t mean that everything Christianity has done is wrong or that it has contributed nothing positive to society.
Kelsonk said:
Well, I saw first hand and up close the horrors of religion. I particpated in them. My break with the faith began when I told my friend on the playground in 4th grade that she was going to hell because she was a Presbyterian and not Church of Christ. She said something like “So that means everybody’s going to hell but you? What about the people who were around before the Church of Christ?” It got me to thinking, that. And the more and longer I thought about and examined the bible and the stories therein, the less I believed. I am not ignorant of the scriptures–I went to 18 years of bible school three times a week. I read the whole goddamned thing. The bible is not the “inspired word of God.” It’s a collection of myths that were written by HUMAN BEINGS. There are many great truths in these myths, but they are HUMAN truthes which came from HUMAN experiences. You don’t have to have to use God to explain where these truths came from any more than you have to use aliens to explain where the Pyramids came from. You’re just not giving people enough credit.
I never saw anyone killed for religion, but I saw plenty of religious persecution and hatred in the name of “Christian love.” So yes, to answer the OP, I do think Christianity is dangerous.
You’re right! No matter how much they want God to exist, he still doesn’t.
Ideology can be, and often is, dangerous.
On the other hand, all ideologies can be dangerous, not just a specific religious one. Political ideologies, social ideologies, scientific ideologies, other ones – all potentially dangerous.
And a particular set of beliefs is not necessarily an ideology.
The ideology that a particular religion (or religion in general) is evil, or a loaded gun on the floor of the psych ward, or any of the other positions I’ve seen frequently espoused – that ideology is just as dangerous and just as much a loaded gun as any manifestation of fundie-loon Christianity.
I fear the effects of brain-washing. I fear the mindless acceptance of ancient mythology. I fear the herd mentality all too often involved. I was an atheist in high school. I went to a school (and lived) in the heart of the bible belt for a couple of years. I ended up in many conversations about belief. I found most of the people in the town to have accepted the existence of a certain god because their parents believed it, their neighbors believed it, their grand-parents believed it and so on. Very few of the folks I talked to would ever consider the possibility that no god exists. Nor would they consider perhaps a god exists that is nothing like the one in the Bible.
I spent alot of time thinking about these things. I have learned of the human capacity to lie and decieve for profit and power. I have learned of the endless number of scams people try to pull on one another. So when someone tells me they know for sure what seems unknowable based on the writings of thousands of year old nomadic writings, I am highly skeptical. But this attitude was not met with reasonable debate. It wasn’t met with “I never thought about that possibility.” No. Instead it was met with hatred and disgust. “You don’t believe in God? You’re crazy! You’ll burn!”. I got called a wierdo. I got called a satanist. I got called evil. I got whispers when I walked down the halls. I got people hoping that their god would teach me a lesson with a lighting bolt.
Basically, I experienced prejudice. In most of my dealings with religious people (until I came here), I found them to be judgemental, condescending, and rude concerning my lack of belief. None of this was based on any real evidence or thought on their part. They simply believed what their parents told them was true. Just as the gay person fears judgement and persecution so must the atheist in many parts of this country. It is a behaivior that I hate, and those who act in such a manner have taught me of the dangers of blind faith.
To be fair, I have discovered many thoughtful religious people as I have grown older, but they are the minority in my experience. Tolerance and openness is not the norm. Conceit (I know what God is), cruelty (You are going to burn), and circular reasoning (God is real cause of the Bible and the Bible is real cause God wrote it) are MUCH more common.
I am no longer an atheist, I am an agnostic. I one day realized that I simply do not know if there is a god or not. To say that you don’t know is a very powerful position. In my opinion people who claim to know for sure that there is or is not a god are just kidding themselves. Humans do not have the tools nor the scope to determine the nature of reality as best as I can tell.
There are billions of unanswered questions. Trillions. But we can tackle them one at a time, test reality, and learn. When one decides that they already know everything about reality, they may just miss discovering that which they don’t know. How can you fill yourself up with truth if you have already decided that you cannot be wrong no matter what you may see or hear? I haven’t met a human yet incapable of making a mistake. I see faith as a weakness. A failure to accept ones own limited scope. A resignation to stop asking questions because you think you already know all the answers.
Religion has impeded progress, resulted in violent conflict, and often causes irrational confidence in one’s own knowledge. It is far too often used as a tool to express what people hate in others. This behavior is what I fear. And while I will not say that all religious people are like this, I have to say that most of the ones I’ve met fit the description to a T.
I watch GW Bush and I hear him referencing god all of the time and talking about crusades and evil and faith-based organizations and I feel persecuted. I feel that the governments unofficial position is that god exists and to feel otherwise is un-american. It’s not clearly stated, but it aint hard to read between the lines. I fear that faith is ignorance dressed up, and to have ignorance as a guiding force in national policy scares the shit out of me. I fear dogmatic behaivior in all forms, and feel the best path to enlightenment is to accept that there are some things we just do not know. To try to enjoy life as often as I can while keeping an open mind and helping people when I can is the path I choose. If there is a god who hates me for that, then quite frankly, fuck him, he is evil in my book.
DaLovin’ Dj
Exactly right. Moreover, the “church” that candida is indicting is specifically the Roman Catholic Church. The RCC does not represent Christendom in general, and it most certainly does not represent religion in general.
Unfortunately, it’s fashionable for critics to seize on these excesses and pretend that they’re indictments of religion as a whole. As I said, it’s not an intellectually honest approach.
I refuse to quote dalovindj’s extended post above just to do a “me too” post, but as a Christian who believes in Jesus’s message as one focusing on love and acceptance combined with a call to be ethically all that you individually can be, I must agree with 95% of what he had to say – the “atheist > agnostic” self-identifier omitted, of course!
Those are just examples of religion taking advantage of poor/vulnerable people in order to spread the religion. Sure we’ll give you soup, but come pray with me and let me tell you about jesus. It’s no different than Nike donating money to a “nice” cause and telling the world about it. Good publicity, and a de facto, red herring defense against any wrongdoing. Sure the catholic church is responsible for sexual abuse of children, but they run hundreds of soup kitchens for the homeless (where they proselytize).
I stand by my statement.
Frankly, I also have a fear. The fear that anti God based groups such as the ACLU will continue to push and push untill it’s illegal to even acknowledge God in a public forum. Some people’s desire is to keep the mention of God behind closed doors and out of the public. Make it illegal to pray in public, because after all it might offend someone. Tell people when and where they can and can’t pray or give acknowledgment to God. Some people aren’t even allowed to say Merry Christmas anymore. I’ts getting ridiculous.
I’m very happy and grateful to have a President who prays and who’s not ashamed to say the name of God. I thank God for a President like that. This country was founded by people who wanted freedom of religion, not freedom from it. They wanted to worship and believe as they saw fit. Our country was founded on Christian prinicples based on the teachings of the Bible, like it or not.
Those who don’t like our Christian heritage, such as foreigners coming here trying to tell us we have to change our culture to suit them because it offends them, are free to leave as far as I’m concerned. Many of us worhip and believe in the God of the Bible in this country, and if they don’t like it, they can go back where they came from. Quit trying to tell us what we can and can’t do.
Same to atheists and agnostics or whatever. Just because you don’t believe, doens’t mean you have the right to tell the rest of us we have to be quiet about it, including the President. He’s in office because the majority of people in this country voted for him.
I’ll stop now. Guess you hit a nerve or something.
This is pathetic. May I remind everyone that if you assume that another person is always acting in self-interest, then you can always find such an answer? Its not intellectually honest, period.
Moreover, since these orphanages were largely sdet up in lands where Christiantity had already taken hold (because otherwise they couldn’t afford the cost of large facilities), and so conversion is not an applicable answer.
people hurt people.
On the way to the gas chamber…
“Rabbi, in the midst of all this, how can still you believe in God?”
“In the midst of all this, how can you still believe in Humanity?”
No he’s not.
An intellectually honest approach?
Well, Thunder, there’s a real problem I’m afraid and it’s one of perspective. For some people, throughout long periods of history, the experience of Christianity has been wholly malign and that is something you have to come to understand.
Does it mean, in saying that, that one is saying that all Christians are malign? No it doesn’t, I don’t believe that or argue that but, when somebody parades a list of virtuous endeavors, the cynic is allowed a certain level of sarcasm, which is what you got.