Can the Pope really enforce that?
This one is a little iffy, considering the rolls religion played on both sides of each example.
Music, art and counseling. Yeah, priests do other things as well, but a lot of the services they provide to their community would be called counseling if it was anybody else doing it.
I’m not sure if it’s even an official RC doctrine.
Religion can mark people as worthy of damnation. However, it can also expand people’s moral imaginations so that they can conceive of adversaries who are not enemies. Over time, in my humble opinion, the second trait is stronger.
The development of a Just War ethic, and conceptions of things like non-combatant immunity, is an example of what I’m talking about and owes a lot to religion.
Not at all. Given that religions all claim to be providing enlightenment, that they contradict each other wildly, and that they have no actual evidence for the reality of their claims that’s a very good indication that none of them have a clue what they are talking about. And it’s a fairly commonly used argument against religion.
But my main point was to point out how baseless the claim was that Eastern religions like Buddhism opened the mind while Western religions closed them. To put in perspective, if someone claimed that Buddhism closed minds and Christianity opened them, could you demonstrate that statement to be any more or less valid than the pro-Buddhism one?
I guess the difference for me is I havent already had tons and tons and tons of situations where I was expected to sit there and understand a major current political figure without criticising.
The idea that anyone disagreeing with religion doing it from an uninformed position in most of our societies, let alone because they havent ‘made a real effort’ to understand the other perspective is one I find quite baffling. You generally have to actively resist being put in positions where you’re being asked to sit down and ‘give it a fair chance’ on a regular basis, even as an adult.
Otara
Well, there would be very few horror movies.
And if you like the violent films, Passion Of the Christ is considered THE MOST violent film in history.
Wow, never thought about how horror genre often plays off religious themes. An interesting “good” that shows the cultural literacy aspect of religion.
Speaking of literacy, religious institutions have at times had policies that promoted literacy. Religious desires have also motivated individuals to learn to read so they could peruse sacred texts for themselves.
So does a prison cell. So does… pretty much every social institution in existence.
I’ve read this eight times and I still have no idea what it means. When you say “Not at all”, do you mean that some religions offer more enlightenment than others, or that it’s ignorant to say that none do.
Let me ask you this: Do you believe that enlightenment is possible? That’s a simple yes or no question.
And to answer your question about Buddhism closing minds an Christianity opening them, that couldn’t have come at a better time. A close friend told her born-again sister about what I’m doing with my life. The sister accused me (not to my face) of being a Satan-worshipper. Coming from someone like that, I’m more assured that I’m on the right path.
You tell us what ‘enlightenment’ is, and we’ll tell you if we think it’s possible.
If you think it means, “coming to a new understanding”, then yes, it is possible. That’s not to say the understanding is correct, however.
If you think it means, “coming to a more correct understanding”, then yes, it is also possible. That’s not to say that religion, eastern or western, leads to such an outcome, or even makes it more likely.
Oh boy, we’re not really going to play this game, are we?
OK, my definition of enlightenment: Coming to a fuller understanding of yourself, finding sustainable happiness, and being at peace and stillness.
Most religions have been seeking this for thousands of years. Is it your assertion that not even one of them has gotten even a single thing right about it?
I was saying “not at all” to your claim that it’s ignorant to say that the fact that the various religions all offer various contradictory claims of enlightenment is evidence that none do. It is evidence that no religion offers enlightenment; quite good evidence.
Certainly; through science and reason, most prominently. We’re certainly more enlightened than the people of the past; but not because of religion. Religion is intellectually sterile at best because it is based on falsehoods; it is unlikely to enlighten anyone since it lacks the basis in reality needed to do so except by sheer luck.
Happiness and “stillness” has nothing to do with enlightenment. Religion clouds the understanding of oneself and others, it doesn’t help it. And only a subset of religion values any of those things.
Your logic here is faulty. Barack Obama claims to be the POTUS. Carrot Top claims to be the POTUS. They contradict each other. Does that mean that both are false?
Please enumerate the falsehoods of Buddhism. Where does it lack a basis in reality?
For that matter, what is the falsehood in “Thou shalt not steal”?
I guess we have different meanings of enlightenment. I much prefer mine.
There is tons of evidence that Obama is the Prez.
Can you provide solid evidence that any one religion is more enlightening than the others?
If not, your analogy is extremely faulty.
That analogy doesn’t work because there’s plenty of evidence besides what they say as to who is President. With religion on the other hand, there’s no evidence at all beyond their unsupported word as to which religion is the “true way” and which is false. If I claim to be the one true god there’s just as much evidence for that as for any other religion.
In all of the supernatural claims it makes.
That’s not a religious claim of fact, that’s a common social rule.
Obviously you don’t, or you’d be sitting in a corner somewhere out of your mind on heroin or something similar. Your definition of “enlightened” sounds an awful lot like “high on opiates”.
Carrot Top also claims to be a comedian, which is absurd, and should lead you to pay less attention to any other claim he puts forth.
My analogy is quite apt. Der Trihs’s claim is that when things contradict each other, then none can be true. That’s clearly a false claim.