Sign me up. Since I won’t have to worry about shooting my god gun, I can drink plenty of beer without concern.
Religions often have contradictory moral characters. Especially old and big ones. Their moral character is usually a function of the moral views of the leaders and sometimes the followers.
If religions really had moral character, they wouldn’t change over time. Catholicism used to be very suspicious of some science, now it supports it.
Anyhow, religions claim to get their moral values from God. Contradictory ones. Which is right? God ain’t talking.
Is the bolded part true under US law? I thought corporations were people, thus they must have moral character, right? Isn’t that what Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. taught us? Otherwise, what was the case about?
Corporations can have religion. Corporations can’t have moral character.
Therefore religions can’t have moral character?
…I donno about that…
Suppose you have a band of illiterates who come across some religious scriptures and eventually puzzle out their meanings as they become literate. The scripture is filled with admonitions to torture and mutilate your enemies. This band grows into a mighty civilization that terrorizes its neighbors for millennia.
And suppose in a different timeline, the same band of illiterates comes across a different set of religious scriptures and eventually puzzles out their meaning as they become literate. The scripture is filled with admonitions to respect life and increase happiness. This band grows into a mighty civilization that terrorizes its neighbors for millennia.
But throughout that terrible history (because all history is terrible), there is always a group of folks inside the second civilization who advocate more mercy, more kindness, more love, based on their readings of the scripture. Eventually these people win major reforms based on the strength of their arguments. In this timeline, the people become closer to what we would consider civilized somewhat more quickly than in the other timeline.
Ideas have power. They can twist human minds in better or worse directions, and I don’t think it’s unfair to have a discussion about that possibility.
It’s a pretty big s’pose but I’ll do it.
[QUOTE=Hellestal]
The scripture is filled with admonitions to torture and mutilate your enemies. This band grows into a mighty civilization that terrorizes its neighbors for millennia.
[/quote]
The “scripture” is not a religion. The “band” you’re talking about may have a religion of its own that’s closely related to the “scripture” in various ways, but the religion isn’t the product of the scripture.
There’s no such thing as Religion-In-A-Box where a prepackaged set of precepts and beliefs can just be inserted into an existing culture with its essential “true character” remaining the same.
[QUOTE=Hellestal]
And suppose in a different timeline, […] the scripture is filled with admonitions to respect life and increase happiness. This band grows into a mighty civilization that terrorizes its neighbors for millennia.
[/quote]
Once again, the scripture is not a religion.
[QUOTE=Hellestal]
But throughout that terrible history (because all history is terrible), there is always a group of folks inside the second civilization who advocate more mercy, more kindness, more love, based on their readings of the scripture. Eventually these people win major reforms based on the strength of their arguments. In this timeline, the people become closer to what we would consider civilized somewhat more quickly than in the other timeline.
[/quote]
Or in the other timeline, there might have been a group of folks who interpreted the exhortations to “torture and mutilate your enemies” as a metaphorical duty to crush and overcome one’s own evil impulses. They constantly advocate more resistance to anger and hatred, more rejection of cruelty and selfishness, based on their readings of the scripture. Eventually these people win major reforms based on the strength of their arguments.
Meanwhile, in the “respect life and increase happiness” scriptures timeline, the dominant group of people reads those exhortations as endorsing a self-centered approach to being overwhelmingly concerned with respect and happiness for oneself (something like the “prosperity gospel” interpretations in some modern Christian sects). They become “closer to what we would consider civilized” much more slowly than the society focused on “torturing enemies” in the sense of “fighting and subduing one’s own temptations to wrongdoing”.
You can’t naively assume any kind of uniform translation of “what a scripture says” into a particular set of beliefs or practices independent of the society that’s engaging with the scripture.
[QUOTE=Hellestal]
Ideas have power.
[/quote]
Yes, but ideas have no intrinsic character separate from the human societies they exist in. There’s no such thing as Religion-In-A-Box.
Religion-In-A-Box strikes me as a primitive way to approach this.
Two different seeds get planted in identical soil. Two different plants emerge. Is that really so impossible?
Or to put it another way: You’re ignoring the potential probabilities.
If we ran a thousand universes, half with one seed and half with the other, what would the average result for each group be?
Obviously this experiment is somewhat impracticable in real life. We’d never have enough data from our own n=1 history to make any fair judgments. But there is at least, in theory, a reason to believe that some seeds tend to sprout better plants.
BTW, Here’s the link for the above “this”, maybe mine is the only browser that didn’t resolve it correctly.
The religion itself defines the true character of itself, as well as it’s morality. Do you want us to compare the various human religions with the example given? I’m not aware of any Central American monkey population slaughtering off their left-handed females … so monkeys are morally superior … unless you’re morals allow for such slaughter. Amoeba don’t have hands, so their religion doesn’t allow for this either.
Interesting the OP brings up homosexuality and the variety of Biblical passages prohibiting it. There’s actually an amazing long list of holes a man’s not supposed to stick his ding-a-ling into, and yes, another man’s asshole is one of them. We’re not supposed to stick it into holes in the ground, holes in trees, either hole of your 8-year-old sister, maggot ridden dead things have lots of holes man isn’t supposed to screw … but if you insist, please give my regards to your ewe …
All I know for sure is that if you believe exactly like i do … you’re fucking wrong, buck-o.
It’s impossible to predict. Some groups would just ignore the “scripture” entirely, and some would read it in an entirely different way from what you naively imagine the “essential nature” of the “seed” implies.
You simply can’t reduce the complexities of human societies to a mere potting-soil mix for incubating a textual “seed” whose intrinsic “moral DNA”, so to speak, is capable of predictably influencing the outcome.
You say it’s impossible to predict, and then you make a prediction.
Your belief that the results would essentially be random (some ignore it, some read it contrary to expectation) is itself a prediction. You might even be right with your prediction. It’s very easy to believe that all the other factors in the universe would drown out this one difference. If I had to put a dollar down, I might just put it in the same place you do.
The appeal to complexity is a powerful argument.
But you’re imagining that this is the case, without any kind of argument beyond the appeal to complexity. You’re simply asserting your prediction. Maybe that’s enough given how far out this topic us. But… when the ISIS loons blow up tombs, they’re doing it because of a literal reading that other Islamic cultures have chosen to ignore. Metaphor can go a thousand directions, but the literal can act as a single anchor point that draws people back. This isn’t a great argument because these sorts of “literal” readings manifest differently in different cultures – even given an undisputed literal meaning, it’s still a cultural choice about which places to read literally and which not. It’s never 100%.
But it’s still there. The literal still anchors certain minds. I wouldn’t want to be naive enough to believe that a different seed is absolutely certain to have a non-random effect. But I also wouldn’t want to be so naive as to summarily dismiss the possibility as thoroughly as you have done.
But what percentage of Christian churches have no interest at all in converting others? It’s still a double standard.
No, I’m pointing out some of the possibilities. It’s impossible to predict whether or in what circumstances a particular possibility would occur.
[QUOTE=Hellestal]
Your belief that the results would essentially be random (some ignore it, some read it contrary to expectation) is itself a prediction.
[/quote]
No, I certainly do not believe that the results would be “random”, if by that you mean some kind of uniform probability distribution where the different outcomes all occur about equally often but in a random sequence because they’re all equally likely.
I don’t believe it’s even possible to determine what the probability of any such outcome is.
[QUOTE=Hellestal]
But you’re imagining that this is the case, without any kind of argument beyond the appeal to complexity. You’re simply asserting your prediction.
[/quote]
You keep on mischaracterizing what I said as a “prediction”. I hope I’ve cleared that up for you now.
[QUOTE=Hellestal]
But… when the ISIS loons blow up tombs, they’re doing it because of a literal reading that other Islamic cultures have chosen to ignore.
[/quote]
You are the one who’s arbitrarily decided that what you call a “literal reading” is the key factor in what ISIS loons choose to do. But that’s incredibly naive. Just because people like to justify their chosen actions by pointing to some alleged authority doesn’t mean that they actually chose the action because of the authority.
You are projecting your own imagination of a certain “literal reading” into the heads of a bunch of violent criminals that you really know very little about, and imagining that it somehow gives you a key to understanding their actions.
I’m not a lawyer, but I think the holding there was that because Hobby Lobby was a closely-held corporation, the owners’ religious beliefs could be asserted as being those of the corporate “person”.
Ideas have power, sure…but there are no “evil” ideas. I don’t object to discussing the influence ideas can have on behavior, as I said in post #8. But, only human behavior can be morally right or wrong. Someone else’s written ideas are just one of countless possible influences on that behavior. A religious text is no more good or evil than a sword, or a thunderstorm.
I’d also note that your example rings false, at least to me. Religions were made by humans to serve human needs. The ones that served their society’s needs survived, and the ones that didn’t…didn’t. If the band took the exhortations to torture & mutilate to heart, it means they were already prone to such behavior.
Fair enough.
I’m not sure I agree in abstract potential, haven’t given it enough thought, but I see what you’re saying.
Well, as I said above, I’m not convinced by it myself.
But supposing it were true, I’d have to at least consider the notion that some ideas are morally better than others. But if you draw a line on that, that’s interesting. That’s exactly what I was wondering when I asked my question. Thanks for answering in the same spirit in which the question was asked.
…If I run the magical regression with the 500 “good” seeds and the 500 “bad” seeds to see their influence on some broad cultural characteristics that we look on as representing a proper moral civilization, then will the coefficient for good be indistinguishable from zero or not? Does “good seed” have an observably non-zero effect on “civilization”? That’s what I’m pondering here.
You are very strongly giving the impression that the coefficient would be basically zero, that both good and bad seeds would end up all over the place, with no observable beneficial effect from the good seed. If I’m reading that right – that history’s pinball machine would bounce results every which way – then that is itself a prediction. It is a prediction that good seeds would have a coefficient of zero, and thus wouldn’t make any observable positive difference. I’m reasonably confident I’m reading that right but you can clarify.
Do you think the coefficient would be close to zero? (A prediction.)
Or are you refraining from any prediction by being open to the possibility that the coefficient could be significantly non-zero? And if you are open that possibility… then what is all this about? What’s the point of all this?
I did not say that. I did not say anything like that.
To point out one factor is not to say that it is a hugely important factor, let alone “the key factor”. Key is your word, not mine.
What I’ve been asking is: would there be a theoretically noticeable difference? I haven’t even answered that in the affirmative. I pointed out that I might just bet the other way if I was forced to put a dollar down. I just think there is a certain plausibility there.
To outright deny that possibility is to make a much stronger prediction than any I’ve made in this thread. It sure looks like you’re making that particular denial, which is a prediction about what would happen to the coefficient in that magic experiment. But if you’re not making that prediction, then that’s fine.
Absolutely true. Their reasons will be deep and multifaceted.
You keep on mischaracterizing what I’ve said as some “key”. I hope I’ve cleared that up for you now.
ISIS goons claim to be following literalism. I’m not giving any credence to their sincerity about their motives. My point is otherwise. They are a large group and like any large group benefit from some focus point with which to coordinate their tribal signals. The scripture itself acts as a sort of Schelling point and influences, to some small extent, the ways in which some of their depravities manifest. Which is to say: If the Koran didn’t have specific words about tomb worship then the chances that ISIS goons would be blowing up so many graves – specifically and deliberately graves – would be significantly lower. Their motivations are complex, but the scripture offers an authoritative guide to coordinate their behavior in this small way.
But this doesn’t “unlock” their entire psychology with some magic key and I’ve never said anything of that sort. This is merely something tangible to notice. It’s a little thing to take into account. Without that specific quote from their book, their offenses would still exist but they would in all likelihood take a somewhat different form with respect to this one issue. And if one small change is possible in this one case with respect to this one tangible detail, then might other small changes build up over time?
I don’t know. I kinda doubt it, actually. But I’m not going to summarily dismiss that idea. To make a strong, swift, and confident judgment of that sort would be, in my view, ignorant and naive.
I’ve seen an example of the non-observance of 3) in a number of posts made some observant Jews on this board. They would mention that a death sentence mandated by scripture can’t be passed nowadays (for lack of a proper court) and/or that Sanhedrims of the antiquity would almost never return a death sentence (a statement I’m dubious of). But what they don’t state is that people shouldn’t be stoned for a variety of offenses against God’s laws.
It bothered me greatly every time. Especially since we’re talking about intelligent, educated, and otherwise open-minded people raised in a modern western culture. Still, they’re Ok with the murder of left-handed women on Wednesday. They might not like it, but they believe that when all is said and done, it should be implemented. It just so happens that it’s not practical at the moment.
That definitely makes the religion wrong in my book. So, I agree with the OP that scriptures is what matters when judging the religion itself.
Broke? I have faith, but this thread I’d like to see. Call me Thomas.
Wow…first of all, this board is a hell of a lot busier than I’m used to! I’ve no time to post a proper response today but I just wanted to ask Kimstu one question.
Theoretically, what evidence would you need to see to be satisfied that the perpetrator of a terrorist attack was motivated by his religious beliefs?
I’d argue that this is roughly what happened with Christianity. There’s a difference between civilizations that pay lip service to compassion, and those that simply laugh at the concept. You can read Aesop’s Fables for insight into the sort of casual brutality that preceded Christianity. A study of the Vikings could show a similar pattern. The idea that dying with a sword in your hand is the one and only route to Valhalla isn’t an ideology likely to advance peace and love. (Man. :D) (Admittedly my knowledge of the Vikings is pretty sketchy.)
Note that I’m not making vast claims in this post: lots of religions have this sort of edge over pre-Axial age religions.