Well, having just read the article myself, I must agree with most of the criticisms against it: The author may or may not have a point, but he’s done a piss-poor job of backing it up with anything cohesive. It really is nothing more than a specious hodge-podge of cherry-picked factoids cobbled together in one of the lamest attempts to suggest correlation I’ve encountered in a long while.
Of course suggesting a bunch of equally-lame correlations as a counter-argument is at least as obtuse.
As DtC suggest, the take-home, if there is one in such a paltry exercise, is that religion is not the obligate cohort of goodness. But does this really need proving? And if so, are those convinced of the necessity of the association likely to even be capable of considereing a better-crafted counter-argument? I highly doubt it. A pointless discussion all around.
And will remain so indefinitely, as far as I can tell. What is there for it, but to fight for one’s personal freedoms, and at least convince the religionists that a healthy distance between religion and govt. protects the integrity of both? Hopefully the example of true theocracies, as well as the religionists’ own doctrinally-supported belief in the human tendencey to sin, will be influence enough for them to at least restrain themselves from acting as if they really know what God wants out of all of us.
Certainly I agree with you. Communism is not a religion for the same reason that atheism is not a religion — it recognizes no deity. The argument that I’ve been countering is that communism is a religion because it elevates its founding icons to deitific status. But if that were the case, then we could assign the label “religion” to practically everything under the sun that involves an ebullient fondness or adoration of something. Cat petting could be a religion. Masturbation could be a religion. Heck, even atheism could be a religion for someone like, say, Dawkins. Why not reserve the term “religion” for things that recognize a supernatural deity, and continue to use terms like “fetish” or “obsession” for less etheral things that just consume people’s attention?
I agree. But I had presumed that my opponent was talking about the “pseudo-atheism” of communist party members, and not the “pseudo-atheism” of the faithful. Clearly, those who were relocated made no secret of their faith, while those who scrupulously hid their faith might have escaped relocation. But the people who did the relocating were unequivocally atheist — nothing “pseudo” about it.
We could include professional sports and entertainment in the list too. We “idolize” the home run hitter in baseball and the guy with the most yardage in football. All praise be to Henry Aaron. may Henry be with you. And also with you. Nolan Ryan is my pitcher, I shall not want. Yay though I walk through the valley of death I shall fear no evil, for Hulk Hogan is with me. Just where are the limits? What are the goalposts?
Strictly speaking you are right - it is not a religion. I think, however, that it has religion-like properties, the deification of its founders being only one. Far more important is that religion explains why things are, and tends to maintain that explanation by faith in the face of facts. For instance, rational theists have migrated from god creating man out of clay to god creating man by subtly and invisibly directing evolution. Communism has explanations for the state of the economy and society, which it kept despite being falsified. (Like 50 consecutive years of unexpected bad harvests. )
the point of the analogy is that Communism couldn’t bear co-existing with a belief system that so directly contradicted its tenets, not to mention that provided another and competing organization. You can hardly say they were wrong considering what happened in Poland, for instance.
So why did ancient, polytheistic, religions have no trouble co-existing? I think it is because their major tenet was that all can be explained by the action, perhaps random, of some god or another, and accepting another set made no significant difference in this.
Religions do not have to recognize deities to qualify as religions. Zen recognizes no deity. neither does Taoism or Janism. Not all religions are religions of worship.
I think the reason is right there in the name. polytheistic religions acknowledge more than one god; they have no intrinsic reason to deny or demonize the gods of others. As I’ve heard it put, “I’ve got my gods and you’ve got yours; if I get in trouble, can I borrow some ?”
Monotheism, however is hostile by nature to other beliefs. The whole idea is that you have the One True Way, which means everybody else is wrong.
The Japanese language is not so limited that to determine if someone is religious or not can only be expressed by asking someone if they believe in God.
Kami does indeed mean God in Japanese, but to determine in Japanese if someone is religious or not you would probably ask; Anata shyukyo arimasuka? Which literally translates to Do you have religion?
Anyway, having lived in Japan many years, I often asked Japanese about their religious affiliation (out of pure curiosity) and I can confirm from first hand experience that the most common response was Mu-shyukyo, which literally means No Religion. In other words, they would fall into the category of atheist/agnostic/none religious.
In my own private little survey of the Japanese , I estimate roughly 65% answered Mu-shyukyo(no religion), followed by roughly 30% who answered Bukyo (Buddhist), with the remaining 5% answering Kristo (Christian). Before someone points out that this doesn’t constitute real scientific evidence, I am merely presenting my own first hand experience and I don’t claim that this should be taken as evidence in anyway.
It was quite interesting to me how no one I questioned answered “Shinto”, the homegrown Japanese religion where the Japanese emperor is considered the supreme “living God”. In my opinion this has much to do with history. Prior to WWII, Shinto as a religion and a way of life in Japan was very much a part of the pre-war Japanese society. Indeed the education of children, the social structure, not to mention the Japanese military was deeply influenced by Shintoism.
I find it very interesting to compare the Japanese religious mentality pre-war and post-war. What made the Japanese abandon religion, especially Shinto, so suddenly and in mass? Partially, I think it had to do with Douglas McArthur who deliberately and publicly exposed the emperor of being nothing more than human. No living God there.
But the popularity of the Japanese emperor did not completely disappear, indeed he remained a popular figure in post war Japan.
I think more importantly, there was a more common and general realization of how complete and unquestioning blind faith brought Japan to complete devastation and destruction. As such, religion lost its appeal all together after the war. Indeed, when discussing the reason for their lack of religion with most Japanese, they will often explain how destructive and violent religion is. Although they occasionally point to the problems of the Middle East as an example, they more commonly point to the Japanese religious sect known as Ohm Shinrikyo. The sect responsible for the sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subway many years ago. That attack by Ohm Shinrikyo seemed to re-affirm to the none-religious Japanese how destructive and pointless religion is.
So what’s the point I’m making? And how does this relate to the discussion at present?
In my opinion, there is a direct correlation between the decline in quality of life when religion dominates a society, measured by poverty, crime, teenage pregnancies and general ignorance etc. I found it interesting how Paul compared 1st world democracies and I confess to some alarm how the US government is slowly but surely allowing religion to dictate US policy and law. The Japanese sudden turn off of religion came at a heavy, destructive cost, but the lesson was learned. Using Japan as an example makes some sense since Japan in the 1930s was somewhat advanced and industrially modern for its time and when they fell it was a hard fall. I think the more the US turns away from science and reason, they too will fall. I’m not saying it will be sudden and destructive as happened in Japan, it could be a slow spiraling decline. Indeed this is probably more likely. Unless the US government can reverse the trend of marrying government with religion, the path will be an eventual decline and overall weakness of the US. When that happens, we can compare the US to countries such as the Philippines, where poverty, crime, murder, and teenage pregnancies are quite common place, and yes, staunchly religious. The Philippines is an interesting example because, after they gained independence from the US in 1946, it was the richest nation in Asia, even richer than Japan (which admittedly had just been defeated in WWII), 60 years later it is one of the poorest and one of the most religious. When I have discussions with someone regarding religion and its benefit to a given society, I often point to the World map and ask people to point out a strongly religious nation that is advanced, rich and economically strong none oil nation. There is none. I say none oil, because Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf states are rich only because of a low population with huge oil reserves. In nations where religion strongly dominates society, with the exception of the Gulf States, it is invariably poor.
The report briefly touched upon the differences between the US states hinting that poverty and ignorance is lower in the more secular North Eastern states compared to the South and Midwestern states. I think it would be very interesting and perhaps revealing to see a study done comparing only US states.
This got a bit long winded, and I didn’t even touch upon communism, which has been so frequently brought up in this thread. Will keep that for a later post as I need to go do something.
Well, seeing as my own experience and observation has been that the most sincerely and thoroughly moral people I have ever known were almost always atheist or agnostic, and the most truly immoral generally claimed to believe in god one way or another, all I can say is: “About damn time!”
(Has anyone in this thread yet pointed out the differences within our own country? The highest rates of abortion, STDs, and various other unfortunate things occur in the same places people are thumping their bibles loudest…)
It is a popular rumor. The “folk wisdom” in some areas is, the biggest whore in town will usually be Rev Fire N Brimstone’s daughter. The meanest most violent drunk will be his son. It is not a fact or a statistical analysis, more like a long running joke.
I still have a “thing” about all evil coming from religion. Take away religion, in all its forms, and some people will still be no good. There will always be those who want it all, and want it for free. There will always be those who will do whatever it takes, no matter the cost to someone else, to grab wealth and power. There will always be criminals and tyrants.
Having absolute certainty of one’s righteousness seems to be the thing that leads people to commit atrocities, whether they believe in God or not.
After all, if you’re sure that other people really are evil/worthless/TheWrongRaceColorOrCreed, what’s the big deal about killing 'em all (whether or not there’s an invisible pink unicorn to sort them out)?
Certainly many people who think like this are believers (at least in my experience here in the US).
But I can’t believe that some of them wouldn’t have been assholes without being told that the IPU made everything OK. Quite a few in the USSR and PRC seem to have made the leap, down to the ones carrying out orders.*
(I am equating here ‘religion’ with the belief in God, which I acknowledge is not agreed upon).
*Brian: You don’t have to do this – you don’t have to follow orders!"
Roman soldier: I like orders!
Thanks. I think those are pretty powerful statistics. As you may have gathered from my posts, I am not a big fan of oraganized religion. One of my biggest objections is the thought police aspect of it.{in some cases, at least, not all} Instead of teaching people to think for themselves and develop and grow, it’s a very repressive atmosphere where they seek to control rather than educate.
According to thses statistics their “family values” approach isn’t working to well.
There’s an obvious solution. The one sizable religious organization in America committed in principle to doubt and questioning is the Unitarian Universalist Association. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalist_Association So let’s make it our state church! And I get to head up the Unitarian Inquisition! “We have WAYS of making you think for yourself”
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