Culture War - Religious cannot win a debate so they start a war.

Great Debates
41

Sorta, yeah.

But I was thinking of this kind of situation: Let’s say there is a community that lives in a harsh enviornment. Food is scarce. The old (or ill) that cannot provide some service to the community are allowed (forced?) to starve.

To that community, that is the way it is, the nature of things. (And it makes sense, in a very Darwinian way of thinking.)

To me, that is harsh. My compassionate side says to care for the ill, the elderly.

Who is right? Neither? Both?

But more importantly, do I have the “right” to impose my moral sense of charity and compassion upon them?

Believe it or not, I think that we already have that system, more or less, in the US. We can negotiate the particulars as desired. The system is not designed to be static. It has built in methods of changing as we change over time.

We can work out the debate over stem cell research, abortion, and so on, without ruthlessly stomping on each others core beliefs, I think. At least, one can hope we can.

I am not Catholic. May I speculate? (I will, anyway. wiggles eyebrows)

The creation of life (and a new human soul) is a special event. One so special, that God takes a hand in it. “Works his will”, so to speak.

Therefore, sex is supposed to be a serious, special activity, one shared with that special life partner. It should not be seen as a casual, “hey, I’m bored. Wanna fuck?” type of activity. The casual approach may be seen as diminishing, or demeaning, to something that is considered special by God.

Condoms may be seen by some as an indication of this cavalier attitude toward sex, as well as possibly “interfering” with God’s plans for a new soul to be created.

I disagree with the policy. I think that the “show compassion and charity for the poor and ill” aspects of the church should override the anti-condom/casual sex attitudes, and the church should allow condom use to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

But that is what my “gut” tells me.

I dont have the power to force the Pope to see or do things my way. I would hesitate to use such power anyway, as there are ways to get condoms into the hands of those that need them without the church’s help. So, I don’t see it as an issue that needs war declared on the Vatican, or the very nature of faith itself.

42

And what is wrong with that?

We do not persecute people who may believe that the world would better with George Bush or all atheists killed. We prosecute people who attempt to kill presidents or atheists. Attacking people for their beliefs is just a fancy way to say that the 16th century Christians were correct to murder each other when their beliefs conflicted.

If you need to prevent a wrong, then you need to stop the action that leads to the wrong, not the collateral beliefs of people whom you believe are doing wrong. For example, you keep harping on the RCC opposition to condom use among AIDS users–clearly the position held by the Vatican. You persistently ignore the actual Catholics in the field (up to and including bishops) who have expressed their belief that the Vatican position is in error and are using their energies to distribute condoms and educate the people about safer sex practices. If you decide to eliminate all the people who share a belief in the Divine Presence in the Eucharist, you will eliminate many of the people who are actually doing what you would prefer to see done.

43

All of which seemed to be started by people looking to further thier own goals of personal (worldly) power. That is an abuse of religion, and not a true goal of religion, in my opinion.

The same, except that the Nazi’s also tried to mix in psuedo-science of racial/ethnic Darwinism, as well. They tried to cover all the bases (science and mysticism) to get people to allow the regime to do it’s nefarious deeds.

The Soviet style communism wanted to get rid of religion, and funnel every ounce of potential loyalty in a citizen into the idea of the communist state and society. (That is, the idea of a communal society of people all contributing towards the greater good.) They used science, as well, to try and justify their goals and methods, but even they could not completely eradicate the idea of religion.

Do we banish science because some nations or individuals misuse the knowledge or scientific methodology? Nope.

Therefore, we emphasise the good aspects, and discourage (or dissallow) the bad aspects of religion, as well as science. They are both expressions of our inner selves.

I am still puzzled by the level of hostility you wish to convey to the reader. It must be intentional. Are you hoping to get someone to launch into a foaming-at-the-mouth evangelical rant?

44

Could you elaborate, please? I was under the impression that Communism was atheistic.

45

Please tell what the difference is between the belief that table turns into bacon despite no evidence that it has (it still looks and feels like wood, it will still burn like wood) and the belief that a cracker turns into flesh (it looks and feels like a cracker, it still tastes like a cracker)?

Why is the person that holds one of these views so easily dismissed a nut and the other is not?
Keep in mind there is nothing symbolic about the change to Catholics. The cracker literally changes into flesh. Other religious have equally ridiculous claims.

We attack people for their beliefs all the time. Do you think we should say of someone who thinks 3 + 3 = 34 just has a different view of math? Or that someone who says the world is 6,000 years old doesn’t hold a bad belief?
I am talking about locking people up or killing them. But people need to be held to account for their beliefs. Part of the freedom of this country is that we have a market place of ideas. But if we don’t put all beliefs into this crucible we cannot move forward as society.
If someone is going to say that a cracker turns into flesh, or that Yahweh wrote this book, or that Jesus died on a cross for the sins of man they need to justify these beliefs with valid.
Religious beliefs should be held to the same standard as any other field. If someone told you have raising the minimum wage to $384.00 an hour would solve all the problems of the American economy you would expect this to be backed up with evidence.
This turning away from rational thinking has hurt our country. Everyone likes to laugh along with Stephen Colbert when he talks about truthiness, but truthiness has invaded so much of our public debate. And religious faith is truthiness deified.

46

The beliefs are not rationally based on evidence.

47

Much as yours?

All the people whom you have been excoriating have included the vast majority of people who created the laws under which the U.S. and other representative governments operate, the vast networks of transportation and communication that allow you to eat, clothe, and house yourself, and complain about their existence.

You have failed to provide any justification beyond your personal belief for us to take any drastic action against people for holding beliefs that are not directly causing us any problem.

48

No need to be insulting, even if Jesus is a Scandinavian blonde :wink:

49

I would, but I don’t have a car.

By the way, what does “cg” mean?

Really? I could’ve sworn that Communism (Marxism at least) was based on a review of historical trends, interpreting conflicts in the past to have been caused by class, belief in the labor theory of value, and the assertion that individuals have limited wants. From these bases, Marx extrapolated into the future about what the ideal political system would be.

Marx misinterpreted data. Doesn’t mean he was irrational. Just means he was wrong.

What if I were to say (or if someone were to prove) that religious feeling is hardwired into humanity through evolution? Would this change your argument? I’d guess not, because it’s still irrational and not explained through evidence.

Regardless, I’m not even talking about harmonious modes of action in a society. I’m asking the question whether murder can be proven to be wrong in the absolute, abstract sense, not whether murder is harmful to a society and therefore has been hardwired out of us through evolution.

Where’s the evidence that murder is wrong? If it hasn’t been (and cannot be) proven scientifically, it isn’t worth believing, is it?

As long as we’re being selective, the faith view also brought us:

The Declaration of Independence
Civil rights
The end of slavery
Countless charities across the globe
The downfall of Communism in Poland
Literacy across the Arab world

The rational view based on evidence brought us:

Weapons of mass destruction
Social darwinism
Global Communism
The arms trade

See how dumb my list is? In my opinion, it would be more helpful not to divide human achievements up by religious vs irreligious, but to divide them up between good and bad. You may think that religion has a bad track record in history, but there are lots of worse human characteristics that have, more reliably, turned out bad things. Greed, hate, intolerance, myopia, the lack of compassion, and other such things are much worse than religion ever could be.

50

Neither Communism nor social darwinism were rationally based on the evidence. Just because something pretends to be rationally based on evidence does not mean that it is. See all the pseudo-sciences in the world.

51

I would still like to hear why the person who believes that a cracker has become flesh is not crazy. We would surely call the person that thought the table had turned into bacon was.

52

I assume you are talking about taking the Communion, or Eucharist? I am gonna WAG this, but I don’t think that there are too many Catholics who claim that they think the cracker actually transforms into a hunk of meat (complete with little arm hairs attached) in their mouth…

I assume (and I am sure the Catholics among us will clarify) that the cracker gets infused with the power of God (or the Spirit of Christ) via the ceremony.

But even if they do, so what?

There are folks who believed in “Pyramid Power” and would buy little metal frames of pyramids and wear them as hats to rejuvenate the brain or mind.

Speak for yourself. I try to be a little more easy going.

You really haven’t yet embellished this part much, that I can remember.

How do you “hold someone to account”? Censorship? I wouldn’t support that.

Intellectual debate? I would like to think your having that now…

Do you feel that those who hold spiritual beliefs (which stems from the emotion based aspect of humanity) can be “made to see the error of their ways” with scientific reasoning (which is a logic based aspect of humanity)?

What do you do if your efforts fail? Public ridicule? Fines?

And yet “this society” (assuming you mean the Western European/American one) has been moving forward for quite some time. Admitedly, the process is not a well coordinated, smooth, and predicatable one.

Evolving too slow for ya?

Hmmm. Well, a lot of the North American colonies were founded by folks fleeing from religious persecution in Europe, among other things.

A hundred and seventy years later (1600 - 1770), this idea was still so powerfull that the framers of the US Constitution thought that religion (as well as political speech) should be protected within the document itself. Not too many other ideas were. Even slavery was not given a Constitutionally protected status, but left to the states to decide for themselves.

Why do you think religion was afforded that consideration?

(And before you reply that the framers of the document were religious hicks, you might want to double think that… )

I suggest that the framers realised that religion was such a fundamental make up of an individual and their world view. See my post #36 and #41.

53

I am not equating the Eucharist with Pyramid power, folks.

I am saying that even if you do, you should practice “live and let live”.

54

I must disagree with you.

Social darwinism was most assuredly based on evidence from the natural world. Those species that died out were ill-adapted to their environment, and those species that were most successful were best-adapted to their environment. By the same logic, those races that died out were ill-adapted to their environment, and those races that thrived were best-adapted.

There’s nothing a person can do about their genetic disposition, and therefore, the races were destined to be in the positions they ended up in. Whites on top, blacks on the bottom, and American Indians nearly wiped out.

Similarly, individuals are destined for their stations in life. The poor are evolutionarily best equipped to be poor, and the rich are best equipped and destined to be rich. And to try to order the world otherwise is to mess with the natural order.

The problem with this argument is not that it is irrational. The problem is that it’s wrong, and that it produces bad results.

Rational does not always mean good. Irrational does not always mean bad.

55

I’m not Catholic, so I’m not the person to defend transubstantiation, as I’m quite sure I’d get the doctrine wrong and defend it poorly.

56

So–you refuse to consider certain people as “serious.”

I’m fairly certain that others refuse to take you seriously.

57

You really do have a hang-up about the Eucharist, don’t you.

Perhaps if you took the time to discover what Catholics (and Anglicans and Orthodox and Lutherans) actually say on the subject instead of flinging off your “cracker to flesh” nonsense, you might be able to make your case better. (I am sure that you will still not find those religious beliefs credible and I do not say you should. However, since you clearly do not even understand what those beliefs are, your persistent display of ignorance is not doing much to encourage us to accept your flawed premise.)

You also appear to be too insecure in your own thesis to address the issue of why we need to make all these people give up their beliefs when those same people have actually created the majority of the things that you find good in this world. For example, while Darwin was not a believer, Wallace, who put forth the same concept of evolution in the same year, was. Following which, Darwin’s idea was still open to scientific objections until the works of the Catholic priest, Mendel, and the devout Orthodox scientist, Dobzhansky, provided the underlying framework of genetics on which Darwin’s theory could be established (and both Mendel and Dobzhansky were adherents of your “cracker to flesh” problem).

58

Any definition of “knowledge” would necessarily include “awareness.” It would be incoherent to assert otherwise. If a spider knows how to build a web, ipso facto, he must be aware that he is doing so. How else would he “know” when to stop?

Do humans build webs? Do worms? What are you saying here? Until you establish that worms are aware, this says nothing except that spiders are less aware than humans, which allows that they are not aware of their behavior at all.

Yet you assert that spiders know how to build a web. If not in their brains, where does this knowledge reside? What is your justification for this assertion?

Because of the meaning of the word “knowledge”, there is a huge qualitative diffence. Cite. I would go so far as to say that knowledge and stimulus/response are so different as to be unrelated, except that creatures capable of learning can use their experience of a stimulus/response to learn about how the world works. A balloon responds to the stimulus of a pinprick, but what has it learned? What does it know?

That is an interesting thought experiment, but I am not sure that it is germaine to the discussion. A spider brain is not the duplicate of another spider. A human brain is not the duplicate of another human. When you were born you knew nothing. What you have learned since then (and not forgotten) is the sum total of your knowledge.

This is a bit of question begging. You have yet to establish that a spider has a goal. An individual spider, when building a web, is engaging in instinctive behavior that, overall, is favorable for reproduction. The behavior is a result of evolution, which occurs when certain alleles of a gene are passed on to the next generation. Evolution has no goal. It is simply a process.

  1. Granted, for the sake of the discussion.

  2. Not sure what this means. The word “merely” raises a flag, as well as the phrase “specific structures that support this specific attribute.” The difference between consciousness and lack of consiousness is not mere, it is definitive.

  3. Let’s do another thought experiment. Take your web-building spider and erase from her brain the “knowledge” of how to build a web. Is this spider capable of learning web-building?

Knowledge is gained from experience. By definition. No creature is born knowing anything. Does an amoeba know how to get food? Does a bacterium know how to replicate?

59

I think what you are missing here is the ability of the religious to comparmentalize. A religious scientist uses totally different thought processes in the lab and in church. I suspect many convince themselves that their religious beliefs are rationally justified, but they were never hold up to peer review except as statements of opinion. There are plenty of instances of scientists rational in one area and irrational in others - Tesla is the most famous example.

The danger is when people assume rationality in one area transfers to others - a halo effect, as it were. In good science, the contribution of even the most famous gets reviewed in the same way as a new grad student - so this distinction is not used only in matters of faith.

60

Honest to Pete, this “cracker to flesh” thing is starting to sound like a bad Jack Chick tract.