I never said that you said this, i merely postulated that science was more valuable in the long run than religion, and if we had to do without one or the other, we would do better without religion. Speaking of quoting that which was never said, where in the hell did I ever make a statement even close to what you just said?
Ah, easier to find than I thought. Here’s a news story on the subject. Link
Who says there has to be any common ground? The “That” in “That which truly lets them accomplish great things” isn’t just one thing. There are about a billion different things that mirror a billion different people’s outlook. Some revolve around religion. Some don’t.
It seems to me, Czarcasm, that you’re taking all the problems humanity has struggled with over the past however many millenia and calling them “religion”. Then when someone calls you on it, you retreat back into your scientific fantasy world–and it is a fantasy world–and just stew at the rest of us trying to work things out in the actual real physical world we happen to find ourselves. This real world comes complete with a whole lot of people who are religious, who aren’t going anywhere, and who are actually pretty decent, once you get over yourself and start to accept them as something more than brainwashed idiots who aren’t quite at your level of enlightenment.
And in NK, and in China, where they don’t need gods to royally mess things up. I still can’t figure out how you can have a religion without a god.
Interesting link, and I’d like to read the research sometime. Unfortunately, all I’m seeing is a story in a popular English newspaper talking about how the U.S. might not be better than England (which might very well be true) and talking about a correlation (not necessarily a causal relationship) between the U.S. and societal ills. Hardly what I’d call definitive proof–and I’d actually quite interested to see how he lays STD’s at religion’s door. Suddenly I’m skeptical.
In any case, your article doesn’t go into the actual research. At all. So I guess we have to wait to see how right you are.
Linty Fresh, you won’t entertain the idea of my “fantasy world” as you call it, yet I have to live in a fantasy world of a thousand conflicting religions with a thousand conflicting gods and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of conflicting rules of conduct. I don’t mind the actual physical real world at all-in fact, I much prefer it to what is being offered in large parts of so-called civilised society.
Touche. I should have said “Without a notion of spirituality that transcends man and human nature.” Which communism definitely does not have.
If this isn’t the world you are imagining, then why remove religion from the picture? If people are going to be just as irrational and prone to evil without religion, why does it matter to you if it exists or not? Personally, I wouldn’t want science without religion, and I wouldn’t want religion without science. I don’t think EITHER would be better without the other.
Communism is a religion? That would come as a surprise to Karl Marx, what with all that “opiate of the people” ranting .
The difference being, of course, that the world of a thousand conflicting religions and gods actually exists, even if the gods in question don’t. I’m not sure what you’re calling the actual physical real world, but if it’s not chock-full with religious people, I don’t think anyone’s actually seen it.
Ohhh, I’m with you on that!
I’m confused then. Do you believe communism is a religion or not?
No, I don’t. I was responding to Der Trihs who maintained that communism was a religion in an earlier post. Sorry for the confusion.
Turn your own statement around, please. If people are going to be just as irrational and prone to evil with religion, why add it to the picture?
The actual physical world? That which exists whether you believe in gods or not. Trees, sunlight, gravity, the love I have for my extended family-all of these will exist no matter what I do or do not believe in.
The United States of America is not a theocracy. Therefore there is no religion in control of the country. You can pretend that it is all you want, but that’s all you’ll be doing: pretending.
Another thing: the United States of America is not a developing democracy. It’s already developed.
That’s an absolutely ludicrous example. Right off the bat, you’re talking about “great scientific works,” when I’d been specifically talking about artistic works. Second, you’re continuing in your idiotic dichotomy between science and religion, when no such dichotomy exsists, outside of your mind and that of the more rabid Young-Earth Creationists. Thirdly, your example doesn’t even make sense, as your talking about a debate about the impact of religion in a fantasy world where religion doesn’t exsist in the first place. And lastly, your analogy fails because I haven’t argued that science is pre-empting art in any fashion: I’m arguing that without religion, the vast majority of great works of art would not exsist. Where would the great art of the middle ages have come from, without the church to fund it? The great cathedrals and mosques would not exsist, and there would be no secular analogue for them, because there’s no secular reason to build a cathedral. Notre Dame would likely be a parking lot, the Haghia Sophia an office building. Tolkien would just be an obscure Oxford linguist. The net effect on the world of art would be a definite negative. And this would be a bad thing. It would not be as bad a thing as a world without science, but that’s entirely beside the point. You claimed that a world without religion would be no worse than the one we have now: I say this is not so.
A theocracy is a state in which religious rules are law, and are protected by the state. Clearly that’s not America.
But surely religion does have some control over the country? George Bush, as well as many other people holding governmental, commercial or cultural power, are religious, and most religions hold that you should live your life by religious rules, and that these rules are *the best * rules to live by. By exercising their power in accordance with those beliefs, religion has some control over America (and any other nation). Do you disagree?
No one’s brought up what you believe in. It’s what the theists believe in that we’re talking about. I’m happy that you have sunlight, love, and gravity. But you have to realize that sunlight, love, and gravity all exist in the real world together with those religious people. It’s not what exists that’s important to this debate, Czarcasm; it’s what doesn’t exist, namely the world with science but no religion that you seem to think will cure the world’s ills somehow.
The assertion made by Der Trihs is that the religioin is in control. It’s not. Whether religous beliefs motivate the majority of the population is irrelevant to that assertion for the simple reason that there is a vast array of religious beliefs in the United States.