Religious Reasons for Evil

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
As for the human sacrifice thing, you’re really a few hundred years late, aren’t you? Who’s still doing human sacrifice?
[/QUOTE]

2003: “After a rash of similar killings in the area — according to an unofficial tally in the English language-language Hindustan Times, there have been 25 human sacrifices in western Uttar Pradesh in the last six months alone — police have cracked down against tantriks, jailing four and forcing scores of others to close their businesses and pull their ads from newspapers and television stations. The killings and the stern official response have focused renewed attention on tantrism, an amalgam of mysticism practices that grew out of Hinduism.”

2006: “According to an unofficial tally by the local newspaper, there have been 28 human sacrifices in western Uttar Pradesh in the last four months. Four tantrik priests have been jailed and scores of others forced to flee.”

You can, if you wish, also count *sati *which is a practice that still occurs sometimes although outlawed but based on religious reasons: “It was lauded by them as required conduct in righteous women, and it was explained that this was considered not to be suicide (suicide was otherwise variously banned or discouraged in the scriptures). It was deemed an act of peerless piety, and was said to purge the couple of all accumulated sin, guarantee their salvation and ensure their reunion in the afterlife.”

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"Bad example. If you take the story at face value (and if you don’t, why not dismiss it completely), Abraham was prepared to kill his son, not because of his religious belief, but because God told him to. Well, yeah, you could say he did it because of his beliefs, in the same sense that, if your doctor told you you had to have an operation and you believed him, we could say you were having the operation because of your beliefs."

Killing because you believe god told you to do it strikes me as well within the scope of a religious belief. It is, in fact, precisely what I mean.

To listen to your doctor presumes that you believe in your doctor’s existence and his expertise at medicine which would also be a concept that you believe in. His expertise may be questioned, but your doctor’s **existence **doesn’t require a leap of faith.

Belief in god and divine mission, however, is not universally accepted and does require religious belief; those driven to action based upon it I’d say are operating on religious belief.

43

Hitchens/Sharpton debate on this OP (related):

44

[QUOTE=9thFloor]
To listen to your doctor presumes that you believe in your doctor’s existence and his expertise at medicine which would also be a concept that you believe in. His expertise may be questioned, but your doctor’s **existence **doesn’t require a leap of faith.

Belief in god and divine mission, however, is not universally accepted and does require religious belief; those driven to action based upon it I’d say are operating on religious belief.
[/QUOTE]
No, you’re missing my point. Within the context of the Biblical account, God was as real to Abraham as your doctor is to you. As I interpret the story, the kind of faith required by Abraham is precisely the same kind required of you in relation to your doctor.

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I think the argument behind this thread—that religion cannot motivate people to do good things that they could not have been motivated to do otherwise, but that it can motivate people to do bad things that they could not have been motivated to do otherwise—rests on an unstated assumption. Without that premise, the assertion makes no sense. I think what 9thFloor really wants to argue is this:

Premise #1: All religious beliefs are false.

Premise #2: No good action can be motivated by a false belief, that could not also be motivated by a true one, but a bad action might be.

His assertion (“There are some good acts (i.e. saving a life) that could conceivably be done for religious reasons or for secular reasons, but there are some bad acts (human sacrifice) that could only be conceivably done for religious reasons.”) then follows as a conclusion from these premises.

Premise #2 at least sounds plausible. I’m not sure whether it’s true or not. It might be interesting to debate it in its own right. But for now I’m willing to conditionally accept it.

Premise #1 is problematic, and, depending on how one defines “religious belief,” may be untenable. Change it to “Many religious beliefs are false” and I’d be in full agreement. Even if there is one religion that is completely true in all respects, there are many other religions out there that are false insofar as they disagree with the one true religion.

But to start from the assumption that all religious beliefs are false means that you have already left behind all the people who hold religious beliefs—they don’t accept your first premise, so you’ve lost them right away.

And, what is a “religious” belief? Can you even say which actions are good and which bad without invoking religion, in a sense?

If people are motivated by their religious beliefs to do a bad action, isn’t that because those beliefs include the belief that that action is good? If a person is motivated by religion to perform human sacrifice, doesn’t that mean that “Human sacrifice, under these conditions, is a good thing to do” is a religious belief? But if so, isn’t the OP’s belief, that “Human sacrifice is a bad thing to do” also a religious belief?

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[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
I think the argument behind this thread—that religion cannot motivate people to do good things that they could not have been motivated to do otherwise, but that it can motivate people to do bad things that they could not have been motivated to do otherwise—rests on an unstated assumption. Without that premise, the assertion makes no sense. I think what 9thFloor really wants to argue is this:

Premise #1: All religious beliefs are false.

Premise #2: No good action can be motivated by a false belief, that could not also be motivated by a true one, but a bad action might be.

His assertion (“There are some good acts (i.e. saving a life) that could conceivably be done for religious reasons or for secular reasons, but there are some bad acts (human sacrifice) that could only be conceivably done for religious reasons.”) then follows as a conclusion from these premises.

Premise #2 at least sounds plausible. I’m not sure whether it’s true or not. It might be interesting to debate it in its own right. But for now I’m willing to conditionally accept it.

Premise #1 is problematic, and, depending on how one defines “religious belief,” may be untenable. Change it to “Many religious beliefs are false” and I’d be in full agreement. Even if there is one religion that is completely true in all respects, there are many other religions out there that are false insofar as they disagree with the one true religion.

But to start from the assumption that all religious beliefs are false means that you have already left behind all the people who hold religious beliefs—they don’t accept your first premise, so you’ve lost them right away.
[/QUOTE]

Thank you for a well-expressed and thoughtful assessment.

In regards to the #1 premise you’ve noted, I’m not wanting to state that all religious belief is false. It may be true for all I know. I’m simply asserting that it can lead to secular evil in a way nothing else can but not to secular good in a way that other things couldn’t. To be clear, for example, human sacrifice may be based on a ‘true’ premise; take god telling abraham to kill his son for example. Putting aside the imputation of secular motives to a religious act (which is an entirely other discussion that I noticed you didn’t get detracted into, and I appreciate that) killing his son (had he done it, and he was prepared to do so) may very well have been a truth and not a false premise. God may have wanted him to kill his son. So he does. And that may have been perfectly moral in the religious sense of the word and he would’ve gone to heaven or been blessed, whatever. But it would still be a secular evil. In other words, as far as I know, religion could be true and god could be literally real in the traditional xian sense and his commands to do things like kill my own son might be ‘good’ in the afterworld sense or in some other way that I don’t have the ability to understand. I’m not asserting that it’s necessarily a false premise, just that it leads to secular evil. And I’m going with secular.

This might clarify where I’m coming from (or not LOL): when I was a xian, I was very devout. In fact, I’d assert that I was among the most devout of any of my fellow xians that I saw at church every week. I carried a bible with me at all times (literally), and felt that I literally ‘saw’ jesus at times and felt divinely inspired to certain beliefs. These were my sincerely held convictions.

When I left xianity, I did so while still within its belief system. That is, I didn’t say to myself “Man, this is all bullshit, I’m outta here…” (I came to that conclusion much later). What I said to myself was, “If this is all true and leaving this true religion will cause me to go to hell, then I’d rather go to hell. Let’s go to hell.” In other words, I left xianity while still believing in its creed.

I decided that to me the religious morality of the bible and xianity is contemptible and even if it is THE TRUTH and there is something beyond that I don’t understand and god knows better than me and therefore I should just follow his commands even if they make no sense to me in the moment (like abraham would have felt about killing his son if not for his belief in god), I’m just not doing it. Fuck god.

In that sense, my leaving religion was done from what would be understood within xian thinking from more of a satanic perspective (satan believes in the existence of god but still dismisses his morality as inferior and invalid, not fair, etc.)

So, that’s a long way around to basically clarify that I’m not trying to proceed on the premise that religious belief is false. It may be the truth that, for example, human sacrifice is ultimately for the good in some otherworldly way. I reject doing so, even if the belief is true, because I’m choosing secular morality and in my definition of secular morality killing another person is not a good thing no matter what god tells me to do. (And, for the sake of discussion again, I’m excluding the notion that god isn’t “really” telling me to do that and I’m just delusional, etc. which is, once again, an entirely other discussion.)

**And, what is a “religious” belief? Can you even say which actions are good and which bad without invoking religion, in a sense?

If people are motivated by their religious beliefs to do a bad action, isn’t that because those beliefs include the belief that that action is good? If a person is motivated by religion to perform human sacrifice, doesn’t that mean that “Human sacrifice, under these conditions, is a good thing to do” is a religious belief? But if so, isn’t the OP’s belief, that “Human sacrifice is a bad thing to do” also a religious belief?**

I like these points a lot, they’re helpful in clarifying what I’m saying. The first statement, in my view, really cuts to the heart of the matter: “Can you even say which actions are good and which bad without invoking religion, in a sense?”

That’s something that came up in another thread about the notion that there are people that believe morality can’t be known without religion and that religion is absolutely necessary for knowing what’s right and wrong. An assertion was made that no reasonable people hold that belief. But that’s not true, people – millions of people – hold that belief that religion is necessary for knowing morality.

It’s my assertion that no, you don’t need religion to know right from wrong.

The second paragraph above, “If people are motivated by their religious beliefs to do a bad action, isn’t that because those beliefs include the belief that that action is good?” is absolutely true and it does a great job of encapsulating my assertion.

I believe religious people do bad actions that their religion tells them is good; the problem, to me, is that their religion doesn’t define ‘good’ as strictly secular and non-afterworld-based.

So, a person can blow up a building, sacrifice a human, and do all types of other horrible things and do so because they believe that it’s a good thing to do.

This is what I mean by religious evil.

Now, to the more semantic and technical – albeit valid – point of definitions: if you define “knowing what’s right and wrong” as "religion’ then in that case yes my belief that human sacrifice is wrong could correctly be defined as a religious belief. However, I’m speaking specifically of religion as a set of beliefs that includes afterworld considerations in its valuations and judgments or morality. If left unmolested by bullshit about the next life, I think humans would otherwise be left with their other, remaining reasons for killing each other but with one less reason – and, at the very least, a reason that doesn’t fly in the face of what a person might otherwise feel is wrong (like abraham wincing, hesitating, etc. about killing his own son – I’d say abraham’s instinct not to kill his son was the ‘secularly moral’ one and god’s command was immoral. If that was god’s test of morality then in my view the correct response by abraham to adhere to morality – not defined as whatever god says but by an innate secular sensibility of right and wrong – would have been to tell god to go fuck himself instead of beginning to comply. “No, I won’t kill my son because that is wrong.” and then god could pat him on the back or whatever for doing/saying the moral thing. Instead, abraham only gets props from god when he’s shown himself willing to kill his son (secular bad act, in my view) because god told him to do something immoral. Classic, sick religion.)

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[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
No, you’re missing my point. Within the context of the Biblical account, God was as real to Abraham as your doctor is to you. As I interpret the story, the kind of faith required by Abraham is precisely the same kind required of you in relation to your doctor.
[/QUOTE]

Okay, duly noted.

It seems to me that without defining religion as “doing whatever god says and this is what I will take as my religion,” Abraham wouldn’t have had any religion at all. In other words, IMO, religious belief = doing what god says (to Abraham).

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[QUOTE=9thFloor]
In regards to the #1 premise you’ve noted, I’m not wanting to state that all religious belief is false. It may be true for all I know. I’m simply asserting that it can lead to secular evil in a way nothing else can but not to secular good in a way that other things couldn’t. To be clear, for example, human sacrifice may be based on a ‘true’ premise; take god telling abraham to kill his son for example. Putting aside the imputation of secular motives to a religious act (which is an entirely other discussion that I noticed you didn’t get detracted into, and I appreciate that) killing his son (had he done it, and he was prepared to do so) may very well have been a truth and not a false premise. God may have wanted him to kill his son. So he does. And that may have been perfectly moral in the religious sense of the word and he would’ve gone to heaven or been blessed, whatever. But it would still be a secular evil. In other words, as far as I know, religion could be true and god could be literally real in the traditional xian sense and his commands to do things like kill my own son might be ‘good’ in the afterworld sense or in some other way that I don’t have the ability to understand. I’m not asserting that it’s necessarily a false premise, just that it leads to secular evil. And I’m going with secular.

…

I believe religious people do bad actions that their religion tells them is good; the problem, to me, is that their religion doesn’t define ‘good’ as strictly secular and non-afterworld-based.

So, a person can blow up a building, sacrifice a human, and do all types of other horrible things and do so because they believe that it’s a good thing to do.

This is what I mean by religious evil.

[/QUOTE]
After reading this, and re-reading the OP, and thinking about it, I thnk I understand your position better.

I originally wasn’t sure whether you had arrived at your assertion inductively or deductively. If inductively, you hadn’t produced much in the way of evidence, and I was doubtful that you could. If deductively, I was trying to understand what premises led you to that conclusion, and to state what I thought your reasoning was.

Now I think I understand you better, and that your reasoning is based on the difference between religious and secular good/evil: “secular” referring to the action’s importance and effects in this world and this life, without reference to anything we can’t know without religious revelation, and “religious” referring to supernatural or extra-worldly effects, like pleasing God or producing beneficial results in an afterlife or a subsequent reincarnation.

If I understand your argument, you’re saying that certain actions can be (or, more importantly, be believed to be) a religious good while being a secular evil. Thus, a person can be motivated by religion to do acts which are (secular) evil because they believe that, with religious factors thrown in, those actions are actually good.

However, any (secular) good act that is done for religious reasons might still be done without those religious reasons, because, being (secular) good, there are secular reasons to do it.

Put this way, I think your argument may indeed be valid (with one or two quibbles that I’ll mention later), but it may not be much more than a tautology. That is, when you say that religious belief can’t lead to secular good in a way that other things couldn’t, you’re just saying that anything that can be judged to be good for non-religious reasons, can be done for non-religious reasons.

For what it’s worth, there are two people you reminded me of in these paragraphs.

One of them is Huckleberry Finn, who (in the book named after him) wrestles with his conscience and finally decides to do the “wrong” thing: i.e., to help the runaway slave Jim escape to freedom, even though he “knows” that this is the wrong, sinful, immoral thing to do. (What we readers are supposed to see, though Huck himself doesn’t, is that he is doing what is truly right, which is at odds with the morality he has been taught be the society he lives in.)

The other person is Saul/Paul who, before his Damascus Road experience, was as religious and pious and God-fearing as anybody, and who thought it was his religious duty to persecute the Christians, but who later repudiated this point of view. Now there’s an example of doing evil from religious motives!

You are one of several people here on the Dope (not to mention elsewhere) to claim that Christian morality is contemptible—i.e. that there is a true morality, an actual difference between right and wrong, and that what is taught by Christianity is in certain ways in opposition to this. I do not agree. I do agree that what is taught by some churches or people in the name of Chirstianity is actually immoral, but that true Christian morality is true morality. But, that’s another debate.

I agree with this, but I do think one’s beliefs about what is good or bad, right or wrong, are informed by one’s beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality, i.e., one’s religious beliefs. Some beliefs about what’s good or evil flow naturally from certain religious beliefs; others are incompatible with them. For example, a nihilistic belief that everything is random and purposeless and that it’s meaningless to call anything “good” or “evil” is compatible with atheism but not with certain religions. Or, the notion that killing people is evil in a way that killing flies is not depends on the distinction between people and flies, which may well be a religious distinction—e.g., that people are made in the image of God, or that they matter to God, or that the are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”

But not all religions do include such “afterworld considerations.” Notions of an afterworld are mostly absent from Old Testament Judaism, especially in terms of reward or punishment for earthly behavior. And, while the New Testament does have something to say about otherworldly reward and punishment, most of the moral teachings of Jesus, Paul, et al., are not backed up by “do this so you’ll go to heaven rather than hell” kinds of motivations (e.g. Paul’s insistance that it is by faith, not works, that we are saved).

For what it’s worth, my own belief is that God never rewards secular evil—that if something is truly and unquestionably evil from a secular viewpoint, there’s no religious angle that could make it good. God hasn’t set the universe up that way. But that’s my religious belief.

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[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
After reading this, and re-reading the OP, and thinking about it, I thnk I understand your position better.

I originally wasn’t sure whether you had arrived at your assertion inductively or deductively. If inductively, you hadn’t produced much in the way of evidence, and I was doubtful that you could. If deductively, I was trying to understand what premises led you to that conclusion, and to state what I thought your reasoning was.

Now I think I understand you better, and that your reasoning is based on the difference between religious and secular good/evil: “secular” referring to the action’s importance and effects in this world and this life, without reference to anything we can’t know without religious revelation, and “religious” referring to supernatural or extra-worldly effects, like pleasing God or producing beneficial results in an afterlife or a subsequent reincarnation.

If I understand your argument, you’re saying that certain actions can be (or, more importantly, be believed to be) a religious good while being a secular evil. Thus, a person can be motivated by religion to do acts which are (secular) evil because they believe that, with religious factors thrown in, those actions are actually good.

However, any (secular) good act that is done for religious reasons might still be done without those religious reasons, because, being (secular) good, there are secular reasons to do it.

Put this way, I think your argument may indeed be valid (with one or two quibbles that I’ll mention later), but it may not be much more than a tautology. That is, when you say that religious belief can’t lead to secular good in a way that other things couldn’t, you’re just saying that anything that can be judged to be good for non-religious reasons, can be done for non-religious reasons.

For what it’s worth, there are two people you reminded me of in these paragraphs.

One of them is Huckleberry Finn, who (in the book named after him) wrestles with his conscience and finally decides to do the “wrong” thing: i.e., to help the runaway slave Jim escape to freedom, even though he “knows” that this is the wrong, sinful, immoral thing to do. (What we readers are supposed to see, though Huck himself doesn’t, is that he is doing what is truly right, which is at odds with the morality he has been taught be the society he lives in.)

The other person is Saul/Paul who, before his Damascus Road experience, was as religious and pious and God-fearing as anybody, and who thought it was his religious duty to persecute the Christians, but who later repudiated this point of view. Now there’s an example of doing evil from religious motives!

You are one of several people here on the Dope (not to mention elsewhere) to claim that Christian morality is contemptible—i.e. that there is a true morality, an actual difference between right and wrong, and that what is taught by Christianity is in certain ways in opposition to this. I do not agree. I do agree that what is taught by some churches or people in the name of Chirstianity is actually immoral, but that true Christian morality is true morality. But, that’s another debate.

I agree with this, but I do think one’s beliefs about what is good or bad, right or wrong, are informed by one’s beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality, i.e., one’s religious beliefs. Some beliefs about what’s good or evil flow naturally from certain religious beliefs; others are incompatible with them. For example, a nihilistic belief that everything is random and purposeless and that it’s meaningless to call anything “good” or “evil” is compatible with atheism but not with certain religions. Or, the notion that killing people is evil in a way that killing flies is not depends on the distinction between people and flies, which may well be a religious distinction—e.g., that people are made in the image of God, or that they matter to God, or that the are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
But not all religions do include such “afterworld considerations.” Notions of an afterworld are mostly absent from Old Testament Judaism, especially in terms of reward or punishment for earthly behavior. And, while the New Testament does have something to say about otherworldly reward and punishment, most of the moral teachings of Jesus, Paul, et al., are not backed up by “do this so you’ll go to heaven rather than hell” kinds of motivations (e.g. Paul’s insistance that it is by faith, not works, that we are saved).

For what it’s worth, my own belief is that God never rewards secular evil—that if something is truly and unquestionably evil from a secular viewpoint, there’s no religious angle that could make it good. God hasn’t set the universe up that way. But that’s my religious belief.
[/QUOTE]

Wow, an articulate believer that isn’t polemic and bitter. I’m loving it. :wink:

Yes, you got it that’s what I’m saying/asserting/wondering. And it’s true, I’m defining religion for the purpose of discussion as beliefs that necessitate and include afterworld beliefs. Nonmystical Judaism, as you observed, doesn’t fit there and wouldn’t be a religion for the purpose of what I’m looking at. Same with secular political ideologies, practices, etc. I think the afterworld considerations are what contributes to the versions of religion that, as Hitchens puts it, “poisons everything” where reasonable people might otherwise be able to reach some compromise (like Israel/Palestinians) if it wasn’t for religious considerations that insert a secularly unprovable ‘guy in the sky’ element that’s absurd from a non-religious point of view. “God said this land must be ours.” Great. Some chance the UN stands against that. That would be like me trying to talk Abraham out of killing his son before god called it off. No dice, I’d say. It’s troubling.

Oh, and on the contemptible morality of xianity, yes I’d say a lot of it is but I’m not focused on xianity per se; my objection is more global to all religions that take into account afterworld considerations. Ken Wilber quotes a distinction in terms of religious and ideological perspectives as either ‘ascendant’ or ‘descendant’ in nature. Nonmystical Judaism would be ‘descendant’ in that it looks for answers by looking back into human nature and in that sense is almost humanistic. Mystical beliefs, like xianity, hinduism, etc. are more ‘ascendant’ in that they look ‘up and away’ for answers and won’t be theologically restricted to earthbound reasons alone. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn’t a xian as far as I’m concerned insofar as this assessment goes; that would be a moral person that can’t let go of the faith they were raised in and just move on.

In my experience, (defensive) xians tend to point to the misuse of religion and to the fact that earthbound considerations can be taken into account as well. And, of course, that’s often true. But the rub is those cases where it can’t, of course. Just because a given system can co-exist with another (ascendant religion with secular humanism) doesn’t mean that there aren’t parts of the ascendant religion that are intractably at odds with the other. From Jehovah’s Witnesses refusing blood for their dying kid, the Mormon that arranged for the marriage of that underage girl recently, to Falwell stating verbatim that 9/11 was god’s punishment for tolerating homosexuality and abortions, to Phelps stating that “god loves dead soldiers” because it’s punishment for the country’s spiritual waywardness, there are endless examples of where “reasonable” (in the secular meaning of the word) discussion becomes moot. When you hit a wall where the other side says “yes, that makes no sense to you but it’s not meant to be understood, god works in mysterious ways so we’ll just do what we believe god said even though we have no idea why he said it and who are we to question god” so we’re doing it anyway, it’s time to condemn religion as a secular problem which, of course, is just what secular laws do – the simply superimpose on top of religion and pretty much say, “yes, that’s nice that you believe that but we call it murder so off to jail you go…” which is fine but of course doesn’t address the underlying issue if the person killed is still dead – or, in the case of 9/11, thousands upon thousands are.

I recall a bumper sticker, “God said it. That settles it.”

Those that don’t really act on their religious convictions, use religion as a pretext, or are insane are beyond my discussion. They are certainly around.

But I also know for a fact that there is such a thing as acting on truthful religious conviction in ways that are secularly absurd, morally questionable, or evil.

As to whether the assertion that secular good can be done without religion is a tautology, it may be; but what I wonder/am asserting is the notion that on the other side of the coin there are evils that seem to require religion which gives religion a net negative in terms of its contribution to secular morality in my view. Someone brought up the question of comparing the value of moral acts such as killing vs. lying, etc. but that also goes beyond what I’m saying. I’m just saying that for any given moral/immoral act – the same exact act – there seems to be religious reasons for doing it that could be substituted for secular ones but not vice versa in terms of secular immoral acts.

Obviously, that’s not a slamdunk conclusion but it certainly has been understood to at least seem to be the case for quite a while as someone pointed out the quote about how you can get a bad man to do evil but to get a truly good man to do evil, all you need is religion (ascendant, afterworld-consideration-based religion).

Okay, I’m out of breath…LOL

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[QUOTE=9thFloor]
Obviously, that’s not a slamdunk conclusion but it certainly has been understood to at least seem to be the case for quite a while as someone pointed out the quote about how you can get a bad man to do evil but to get a truly good man to do evil, all you need is religion (ascendant, afterworld-consideration-based religion).
[/QUOTE]
Ah, but how do you get a bad man to do good?

It occurred to me after my last post that there are some people who could be motivated by religious belief to do good (or avoid evil) that they could not be motivated to otherwise: those who are completely selfish and live by a “What’s in it for me?” mentality.

Why, they might ask, should I ever give anything to charity (at least if no one will ever find out that I gave)? Sure, the people I give to might be helped, but how does that benefit me? Or why shouldn’t I steal something I want, or kill somebody I don’t like, if I’m sure I won’t get caught?

What answer can we give to such a person that appeals to their self-interest, if that’s all they’re motivated by? If we can get them to believe that God (or, if you prefer, Karma—anyway, some personal or impersonal force) will see what they do and reward or punish them for it, maybe we can get them to behave themselves that way.

Of course, one big problem with this approach is that, if the only reason you can give a person for doing or not doing something is “God said so” or “You’ll go to hell” or “God will reward you with 72 virgins,” this could just as easily be used to get someone to do or not do something which is good, or which is bad, or which is silly and inconsequential. And another problem is that a person who behaves himself from fear of hellfire can’t really be said to be a good person, only a prudent or scared or brainwashed one.

But still, this may be the best we can do with someone who’s completely self-centered, at least until/unless we can get him to be more ethically mature. And in that case it may mean that it’s important to teach religious morality but make sure it’s the right religious morality.
One alternative to doing things out of self-interest is doing things out of love, and it is this that is most central to the teachings of Christianity. While there have been times and places where Christian morality has been pushed in terms of otherworldly rewards and punishments (“Do this so you won’t go to hell”), and there are even hints of this point of view in the New Testament, what I see mostly stressed in the teachings of Jesus, Paul, etc., is that we should do what is right, not out of fear/hope of divine payback, but out of love.

51

[QUOTE=9thFloor]

In my experience, (defensive) xians tend to point to the misuse of religion and to the fact that earthbound considerations can be taken into account as well. And, of course, that’s often true. But the rub is those cases where it can’t, of course. Just because a given system can co-exist with another (ascendant religion with secular humanism) doesn’t mean that there aren’t parts of the ascendant religion that are intractably at odds with the other. From Jehovah’s Witnesses refusing blood for their dying kid, the Mormon that arranged for the marriage of that underage girl recently, to Falwell stating verbatim that 9/11 was god’s punishment for tolerating homosexuality and abortions, to Phelps stating that “god loves dead soldiers” because it’s punishment for the country’s spiritual waywardness, there are endless examples of where “reasonable” (in the secular meaning of the word) discussion becomes moot. When you hit a wall where the other side says “yes, that makes no sense to you but it’s not meant to be understood, god works in mysterious ways so we’ll just do what we believe god said even though we have no idea why he said it and who are we to question god” so we’re doing it anyway, it’s time to condemn religion as a secular problem which, of course, is just what secular laws do – the simply superimpose on top of religion and pretty much say, “yes, that’s nice that you believe that but we call it murder so off to jail you go…” which is fine but of course doesn’t address the underlying issue if the person killed is still dead – or, in the case of 9/11, thousands upon thousands are.

[/QUOTE]

We have been made aware of some of the religious beliefs of the 9/11 hijackers but the road that led to 9/11 contained an awful lot of non religious factors. There’s no way to honestly say that tragic event was due solely or even primarily to religious beliefs.

I completely agree that we must address the underlying issues. I think the underlying issues go deeper and are more nuanced than religious belief. In the meantime we can be consistent in making people responsible for their actions and dealing with principles that believers and non believers share.

52

[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
Ah, but how do you get a bad man to do good?

It occurred to me after my last post that there are some people who could be motivated by religious belief to do good (or avoid evil) that they could not be motivated to otherwise: those who are completely selfish and live by a “What’s in it for me?” mentality.

Why, they might ask, should I ever give anything to charity (at least if no one will ever find out that I gave)? Sure, the people I give to might be helped, but how does that benefit me? Or why shouldn’t I steal something I want, or kill somebody I don’t like, if I’m sure I won’t get caught?

What answer can we give to such a person that appeals to their self-interest, if that’s all they’re motivated by? If we can get them to believe that God (or, if you prefer, Karma—anyway, some personal or impersonal force) will see what they do and reward or punish them for it, maybe we can get them to behave themselves that way.

Of course, one big problem with this approach is that, if the only reason you can give a person for doing or not doing something is “God said so” or “You’ll go to hell” or “God will reward you with 72 virgins,” this could just as easily be used to get someone to do or not do something which is good, or which is bad, or which is silly and inconsequential. And another problem is that a person who behaves himself from fear of hellfire can’t really be said to be a good person, only a prudent or scared or brainwashed one.

But still, this may be the best we can do with someone who’s completely self-centered, at least until/unless we can get him to be more ethically mature. And in that case it may mean that it’s important to teach religious morality but make sure it’s the right religious morality.
One alternative to doing things out of self-interest is doing things out of love, and it is this that is most central to the teachings of Christianity. While there have been times and places where Christian morality has been pushed in terms of otherworldly rewards and punishments (“Do this so you won’t go to hell”), and there are even hints of this point of view in the New Testament, what I see mostly stressed in the teachings of Jesus, Paul, etc., is that we should do what is right, not out of fear/hope of divine payback, but out of love.
[/QUOTE]

Sadly, I fear you’re probably right; there are, I’m sure, people that can only be made to do ‘good’ in the secular sense of the word out of religious reasons.

Rather sickening though, no?

53

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
We have been made aware of some of the religious beliefs of the 9/11 hijackers but the road that led to 9/11 contained an awful lot of non religious factors. There’s no way to honestly say that tragic event was due solely or even primarily to religious beliefs.

I completely agree that we must address the underlying issues. I think the underlying issues go deeper and are more nuanced than religious belief. In the meantime we can be consistent in making people responsible for their actions and dealing with principles that believers and non believers share.
[/QUOTE]

What caused 9/11 is an entirely other issue, but xian leaders have stated that it was due to religious factors. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Osama bin Laden agree insofar as that goes. All have stated that those men were simply used by ‘god’ to effect ‘his’ will on earth, namely punishment for waywardness/being infidels.

Religion can be the underlying issue and it’s those instances I’m interested in.

The times when religion is used as a pretext and there is really some other underlying issue are very frequent and definitely an issue, but beyond my point.

54

[QUOTE=9thFloor]
Sadly, I fear you’re probably right; there are, I’m sure, people that can only be made to do ‘good’ in the secular sense of the word out of religious reasons.

Rather sickening though, no?
[/QUOTE]

If that is what works for them, and the results are positive, then why is it sickening?

55

[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
Ah, but how do you get a bad man to do good?

It occurred to me after my last post that there are some people who could be motivated by religious belief to do good (or avoid evil) that they could not be motivated to otherwise: those who are completely selfish and live by a “What’s in it for me?” mentality.

Why, they might ask, should I ever give anything to charity (at least if no one will ever find out that I gave)? Sure, the people I give to might be helped, but how does that benefit me? Or why shouldn’t I steal something I want, or kill somebody I don’t like, if I’m sure I won’t get caught?

What answer can we give to such a person that appeals to their self-interest, if that’s all they’re motivated by? If we can get them to believe that God (or, if you prefer, Karma—anyway, some personal or impersonal force) will see what they do and reward or punish them for it, maybe we can get them to behave themselves that way.

Of course, one big problem with this approach is that, if the only reason you can give a person for doing or not doing something is “God said so” or “You’ll go to hell” or “God will reward you with 72 virgins,” this could just as easily be used to get someone to do or not do something which is good, or which is bad, or which is silly and inconsequential. And another problem is that a person who behaves himself from fear of hellfire can’t really be said to be a good person, only a prudent or scared or brainwashed one.

But still, this may be the best we can do with someone who’s completely self-centered, at least until/unless we can get him to be more ethically mature. And in that case it may mean that it’s important to teach religious morality but make sure it’s the right religious morality.
One alternative to doing things out of self-interest is doing things out of love, and it is this that is most central to the teachings of Christianity. While there have been times and places where Christian morality has been pushed in terms of otherworldly rewards and punishments (“Do this so you won’t go to hell”), and there are even hints of this point of view in the New Testament, what I see mostly stressed in the teachings of Jesus, Paul, etc., is that we should do what is right, not out of fear/hope of divine payback, but out of love.
[/QUOTE]

My other thought on this is that, in my experience, when a ‘bad’ guy gives his life over to god and now does ‘good’ things ONLY for afterworld reasons it seems to be pretty easy for their underlying nature to come through as ugly, petty, vindictive, vicious, etc. since those were never really addressed. Those times are then categorized by such folks as ‘oops’ and backslidden and they apologize and are forgiven, etc. and go on from there. I knew a guy that beat his girlfriend like that. Those instances are supposed to be taken as deviances and exceptions but I don’t know that one can so comfortably align with these afterworld moralities.

And if one isn’t going to use the afterworld aspects of religions, then really it seems to me that one would be just as well – better, in fact – without it at all.

What fascinates me is the genesis of an idea and its eventual extinction.

When people use raising kids as an example to god/humans, that always seems to me indicative of the fact that we – humans – made up this idea of god and, of course, patterned this god idea after the way we raise our own kids. In that way, it’s no different than passing down myths or folktales that are instructive without actually believing in the actual existence of the characters that populate them.

My own suspicion is that man created god to identify what was inexplicable to him at the time and at a time when man’s brain was literally less developed (how xianity dovetails with evolution is an entirely other bizarre idea) and that as time has gone on, and our brains have developed, the innate yearning for worship will itself come to be understood as simply that: an innate yearning and not indicative of any objective god at all. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

I agree many of the teachings of the new testament are very humanistic. Insofar as that goes, I’ve got no trouble pulling those parts out a la carte just as I do with parts of every other religious practice and belief. (Ironically, Judaism rejects that entire testament which is the one where there is more of a humanistic bent; I don’t know enough about Judaism to imagine where they get their humanism from, assuming its incorporated into their descendant religious practices.)

A friend of mine was an SGI Buddhist all his life and we’d argue about it all the time; mostly, he was taught that maintaining the practice would lead to earthly benefits and that if he didn’t get what he wanted, then he still got a secondary benefit from the practice of meditating to try and get it. Same thing as prayer where folks say pray and if you get it, that means god cares and if you don’t get it that means god knows better and it’s not time for you to get that yet. Which, of course, is so self-justifying as to be beneath rebuttal.

Anyway, we’d argue about it and he’d point out all these aspects that he thought were good about it and then finally when he left it he looked back and realized that the good parts are all over the place in other religions, practices, ideologies, faiths, and even in those that are totally at odds with SGI and that he’d really been holding on due to habit and comfort zones.

As in the case of my friend in his one life, I think mankind as a whole will evolve past religion and see it for what I believe it to be: a comfort zone with truths that we’ve invested into the religion that work just as well, better actually, a la carte.

56

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
If that is what works for them, and the results are positive, then why is it sickening?
[/QUOTE]

Pavlovian morality strikes me the way the Pharisees struck jesus. It’s the entire xian notion of rejecting works (OT) as the way to go. Insofar as that goes, me and the character named JC feel the same.

57

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
We have been made aware of some of the religious beliefs of the 9/11 hijackers but the road that led to 9/11 contained an awful lot of non religious factors. There’s no way to honestly say that tragic event was due solely or even primarily to religious beliefs.

I completely agree that we must address the underlying issues. I think the underlying issues go deeper and are more nuanced than religious belief. In the meantime we can be consistent in making people responsible for their actions and dealing with principles that believers and non believers share.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, secular law of course does its best to hold people accountable for their actions. I’m interested in the actions not happening in the first place since the dead are still dead and they aren’t helped by incarceration or capital punishment of the religious evildoers; which is particularly relevant in these instances where the perpetrator kills themselves in the process. In those cases, holding someone responsible for their actions really does nobody any good and deters not a single one of such folks. Discussing principles that believers and non-believers share about suicide bombing isn’t going to do much good, in my view.

I believe you’d be better off trying to destroy the religious belief that motivates the suicide bomber than in trying to tell him his interpretation of his religion is wrong. Wider scope gets you out of the forest so you can see all the trees.

58

**One of them is Huckleberry Finn, who (in the book named after him) wrestles with his conscience and finally decides to do the “wrong” thing: i.e., to help the runaway slave Jim escape to freedom, even though he “knows” that this is the wrong, sinful, immoral thing to do. (What we readers are supposed to see, though Huck himself doesn’t, is that he is doing what is truly right, which is at odds with the morality he has been taught be the society he lives in.)

The other person is Saul/Paul who, before his Damascus Road experience, was as religious and pious and God-fearing as anybody, and who thought it was his religious duty to persecute the Christians, but who later repudiated this point of view. Now there’s an example of doing evil from religious motives!**

Yeah, the Finn example works well there.

On Saul who became Paul (who, it’s been suggested, may have been an epileptic by the way, which would explain the visions) that’s really interesting. His behavior of persecution was based on religious beliefs as you said (and yes, an evil). When he had the vision and god told him to do otherwise, he changed (which, by the way, is an interesting example of something that was brought up in another thread entitled, "If there were a God, don’t you think he would’ve made him or her self known by now?"If there were a God, don't you think he would've made him or her self known by now? - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board which argues in favor of the implication that doing so would help – it helped Saul!), but anyway I wonder what would have happened if a mile further down the road Paul had another vision from god that told him to go back to persecuting xians again. What would he do? This is the whole problem to me of afterworld beliefs – they function as a way to basically palm off your own innate moral sensibility (or they can be used that way) onto ‘god’ even when it makes no sense to you. Were Paul to have had another vision a mile further down the road where god reversed himself, it seems to me the moral thing would have been to say “you know what? i’m doing what i think is right and i’m not persecuting them unless you can give me a moral reason that I agree with.” But then, of course, you’re back to intellectualizing (a term oft-used perjoratively by many xian faiths as supposedly implicitly ‘bad’'; in fact, I’ve often heard it used by Hannity and by Haggard – he of the gay masseur – as “intellectual snobbery”).

Stop using your brain (that ‘god’ gave you)! LOL Stop being proud! Who do you think you are? Speaking of which…

If one goes back to the traditional xian beliefs around the war in heaven and the fall and satan, etc. – incorporating widely-held xian beliefs that include the bible as well as other literature and interpretations written by saints, etc. – the whole notion was that god made man and told the angels that man was now his #1. To which satan objected. In other words, a case can be made that one interpretation is that satan didn’t agree and wouldn’t just blindly obey without having justifiable reasons and would rather rule in hell than worship a god that won’t provide reasons for his actions that satan could morally (he was an angel after all) understand and agree with. It’s cast, of course, as simple pride. “Intellectual snobbery” has a pretty close ring to that.

The tree of knowledge pretty much says it all for me. You see verses in the first book of the bible where the gods (plural) are said to be discussing among themselves that they must not allow man to know as much as the gods do.

And later, in that same book, we get the blind faith thing with Abraham with no (secular) morally justifiable reason provided for going out to kill his son. The entire tenet of that story points to the notion of looking to god for your morality EVEN WHEN (and maybe ESPECIALLY WHEN) it flies in the face of secular morality. Just like terrorists do.

59

[QUOTE=9thFloor]
My other thought on this is that, in my experience, when a ‘bad’ guy gives his life over to god and now does ‘good’ things ONLY for afterworld reasons it seems to be pretty easy for their underlying nature to come through as ugly, petty, vindictive, vicious, etc. since those were never really addressed. Those times are then categorized by such folks as ‘oops’ and backslidden and they apologize and are forgiven, etc. and go on from there. I knew a guy that beat his girlfriend like that. Those instances are supposed to be taken as deviances and exceptions but I don’t know that one can so comfortably align with these afterworld moralities.
[/QUOTE]
Just like many dysfunctional families. I’ve noticed a tendency among some Christians to wave off certain behavior in the way you describe, providing the “sinner” professes Jesus as Lord. In the meantime a morally decent person who doesn’t see Jesus as Lord is still lost. It’s as if praising Jesus verbally is more important than the actual behavior of the person. I’ve seen similar behavior in families where blood is what matters.You’re expected to overlook bad behavior for the sake of the family. That’s one of the reasons I stress focusing on the actions and making people wholly responsible for their behavior. I also point out to Christians how much behavior is stressed in the NT.

I agree. It’s a metaphor we can understand but I do think it’s taken to far when people literally see God as their otherworldly father figure who will take care of them and religions try to present themselves as “god’s favorite” children. It’s like siblings arguing over who Dad likes best.

I see the connection between mythology and discovery. IMO the same desire to understand and explain that propels science also moves mythology. You couldn’t eventually have the Wright Brothers without Icarus. I have no idea what we might eventually discover about consciousness and other areas where we’ve only begun to explore. I think religion with all it’s problems is a legitimate way for the average person to explore.

Having gone through a few belief changes I understand what you’re describing. I do see that people hold on to certain beliefs out of habit or tradition. I also think there is a certain desire to be part of a group. A feeling of belonging and security. Whatever it is it’s strong enough that people accept a lot of whatever the group doctrine is. I don’t belong to any organized religion but I understand the desire to feel a part of something. I can go to a service and enjoy the spirit in the room. I don’t think it matters whether we cloak our group affiliation with secular terms or religious ones. As long as people draw unnecessary lines of separation and form an US vs. THEM mentality similar problems will continue.

btw, stressing the behavior, the action and it’s consequences, is a good way for people to start looking at beliefs in an a la carte fashion. When people focus on behavior and consequences they have a priority shift which makes letting go of certain beliefs a lot easier.

60

[QUOTE=9thFloor]
Yes, secular law of course does its best to hold people accountable for their actions. I’m interested in the actions not happening in the first place since the dead are still dead and they aren’t helped by incarceration or capital punishment of the religious evildoers; which is particularly relevant in these instances where the perpetrator kills themselves in the process. In those cases, holding someone responsible for their actions really does nobody any good and deters not a single one of such folks. Discussing principles that believers and non-believers share about suicide bombing isn’t going to do much good, in my view.

I believe you’d be better off trying to destroy the religious belief that motivates the suicide bomber than in trying to tell him his interpretation of his religion is wrong. Wider scope gets you out of the forest so you can see all the trees.
[/QUOTE]

That’s assuming it was only religious belief that motivated them. I doubt that’s true. If we truly support justice and equality as principles, whether we support them with a foundation of religious belief or secular philosophy, then I think we are more likely make progress as a race.

I’m all for preventing it from happening and I’d agree that dealing with details of belief plays a part. The question is how best to do that. There was an Islamic Imam who was going to speak to Islamic terrorists and using Islam to get them to renounce violence. Do you suppose he might be more successful than someone saying “religion is bullshit”

Some beliefs fly in the face of existing evidence. Creationism is a good example. I don’t understand the fight to hold onto that belief or to teach ID. It isn’t necessary to believe in creationism and a relatively young earth to value the principles Jesus spoke of. I remember talking to my sister about Adam and Eve being a story rather than real people. She prefers to see them as real people. I don’t care because I don’t see it as a belief that directly affects her behavior. OTOH the reverence and moral authority given the Bible is another issue. Science, archeology, and literary studies, show beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bible has been altered over and over again. I think using hard evidence to alter people’s view of the purpose of the Bible will help alter other beliefs as well. It also aides in returning personal responsibility to believers. They can’t retreat to “God said it” Dealing with the beliefs we have hard evidence about is one thing. I think proceeding with caution is a good idea concerning beliefs that are unfalsifiable. Why create animosity over things we simply don’t know. IMO it’s important to support people’s personal right to find their own way , whether it be as a believer or not, while also promoting a gradual tearing down of the barriers that separate us. What are the things we can consistently apply to people across the board. An examination of their behavior and it’s consequences, while not allowing them to use any label, religious or secular, to defend bad behavior.
I’d add that I think it’s important to stress to people that no matter how “sure” they are about their beliefs, when we point out how many people are just as sure about vastly different beliefs we indicate their beliefs are better recognized as provisional. We encourage them to find the difference between religious tradition and a meaningful belief system built on their own convictions. We teach them that a belief system is also a living thing that can change and grow. Interestingly enough, those principles are in the NT as well.