Eh? Buddhism doesn’t, and is.
Has anyone compared Scientology to the Shaver Mystery ? The mystery was flourishing about the time Hubbard wrote Dianetics, and Hubbard certainly knew about it, since Ray Palmers magazines had very high circulation thanks to it. (You can’t go broke underestimating the intelligence of the sf reading public either.) I don’t know much about the Xenu stuff, but there do seem to be echos of Shaverism (or, more correctly, Palmerism) in it.
This isn’t true. Altruism is a biological impulse found in may other animals besides humans. Even ants are capable of it. Religion is just one of the ways in which humans interpret the impulse. The impulse probably even has a lot to do with why and how religions are formed and expressed, but humans are evolved as social animals and purely self-interested individuals are the exception, not the norm. Communities usually perceive such individuals as disordered anomolies, dangerous to the population as a whole. It’s not “normal” not to care about others. Religion just interprets what is psychologically innate, it didn’t invent empathy or compassion or altruism. The biology precedes the cultural interpretation/expression of it.
That’s incredible. I had never heard of the Shaver Mystery before.
I love this place.
When I said:
saoirse pooh-poohed all that, saying:
Well, that’s just astonishing. You’re going to justify bloodthirsty genocide by pointing out how useful it was? What a piece of work.
Really? Why, then did the Inquisitions happen after that time, and continue into the 1800s? As late as 1858, the Catholic Church was seizing Jewish children from their parents, so they could be brought up as Christians.
Why does God need a starship? [/William Shatner, yet oddly apropos]
It is indeed all right to ridicule other religions. But let me explain what I mean by “ridicule”.
First, the RIGHT to hold any religious view and to propagate it is absolute, unconditional, and non-negotiable, subject only to limitations on criminal activity (e.g. a cult that believes it should kidnap your kids and sacrifice them). At least in the West. Islam is another matter.
I do not mean it is all right to call their adherents idiots or such. Individual dignity must be respected.
But the DOCTRINES are fair game.
You believe that the Book of Mormon is actually a record of ancient America found by Joseph Smith and translated using magical translating stones? That is fucking lunacy, man!
Read Richard Dawkins on how religions get this artificial and unfair “immunity” from criticism that is accorded to no other ideas, all in the name of “respect for others’ religion”.
And Daniel Dennett would argue that Religion is a biological impulse as well. You say ants can be altruistic, and I say, how do you know they aren’t religious? You know with their Totalitarian Matriarchal societies and all. Christianity asks of its adherents to care about people who aren’t even of their own tribe. It’s imperfectly practiced but it’s the central tenet. You show me the ant that shows altruism to another ant from a different colony, and I’ll be endlessly fascinated I promise.
I think religion is, or at least was, integral to society. This is why many people consider Socialism to be the religion of the state. I wish I knew Latin because I’ve read arguments that the way Cicero would have used the word religion would be to describe the cohesion of the body politic. I would argue that it is impossible to have a cohesive society without a common religious sensibility. Even the Secular US with it’s freedom of belief still has religious doctrine and a form of ancestor worship. Our nation’s capital is built along the lines of a masonic temple, has itself a nice obelisk and everything. You cannot go into a courthouse without seeing ancient mythology engraved somewhere. Hell even in the lobby of the CIA there is an inscription from the book of John, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” The religious impulse is about a belief in a higher power, but not necessarily a supernatural higher power. The state is a higher power, hell the stockholders in the corporation where you work are a higher power.
I’d be more than willing to discuss this topic with you, but it goes right over Der Trihs head, and in this particular context, what you wrote is just more encouragement for his bigotry. So if we want to go this route start a new thread.
I have no desire to read Dawkins on religion. I do agree that religion gets an unfair immunity though. You have some good points there.
I didn’t say the Catholic Church had no power, only that this is the point at which it began the decline before the secular Monarchies of Europe. The ultimate slap in the church’s face was when Charles V occupied Rome. The suppression of the Templars took down both the Vatican’s standing army, and its Central Bank. The King of France got out of a ton of debt and seized vast amounts of wealth, while basically holding the Pope hostage in Avignon. There was a schism in the next generation because there was a Pope in Avignon and one in Rome. The rise of the Monarchy came up during this time. After Charles V occupied Rome, the Kings of France and England (Henry VIII) excercised sovereignty outside of the bounds of ecclesiastical authority. Yes, the inquisition still happened, but what I am talking about is the power of the church in relation to the power of the big Kings.
Ah, the classic “humans are monsters” defense of religion. Religion can’t possibly have any connection with people who kill in it’s name, shouting it’s slogans, and killing it’s enemies. :rolleyes:
People hurt, oppress and kill other people BECAUSE of their religion. They do it ALL THE TIME. Whether it’s politically correct to admit it or not.
Because they aren’t intelligent enough for that particular delusion.
Nonsense. First, a Christians ‘tribe’ is their particular Christian sect; and Christian sects tend to be mutually hostile, not helpful. And worse towards non Christians.
And handing out food or whatever to propagandize people into following your religion is no more altruism than a Pepsi-run public relations driven ‘charity drive’ is.
Given that secular societies manage just fine, you are wrong. Quite the opposite; the more religious a society is, the more dysfunctional it is. Religion ruins what it touches. And despite what those like you love to claim, there’s zero reason to believe that it’s necessary in any way.
Every mormon I know would take your last sentence as a personal insult.
And telling someone that their held-with-certainty beliefs are “fucking lunacy, man!” is not a distinguishishable statement from “You’re a fucking lunatic, man!”.
You might as well just call them idiots and lunatics to their faces; if you mock their religions it’s exactly the same to them.
Not to get involved in the underlying debate, but you’re oversimplifying here. First, the Templars weren’t the “Vatican’s standing army”. They were a military religious order under the direct control of the head of the order. The Pope certainly had authority over them, just like he did over the rest of the religious orders. It wasn’t a case of the pope directly telling them what to do, the way that the President, for instance, can tell the Army what to do.
Also, they weren’t, of course, the only millitary order. Others (the Knights of the Hospital, the Teutonic Knights, the Order of Santiago, etc.) survived the breakup of the Templars, and even benefitted from them.
And Clement V was pretty much a puppet of the French ever since his election. In fact, he was the one to move the Papal court, by choice, first to Poitiers, and then to Avignon. So it’s not that the pope was “held hostage” because the Templars were disbanded. It’s more the other way around. (Of course, Avignon wasn’t part of France at the time).
The schism also didn’t happen in “the next generation”, but a few generations afterwards. Clement was elected in 1305. The schism didn’t happen until after Gregory moved the papal seat back to Rome in 1378.
Uh-huh. Genocide? Please, do tell.
The crusades were about conquest. Actually, re-conquest. Sucks, yes. (Pooh-pooh.) But what civilization was not interested in conquest at the time? You’re making a fairly simple mistake. You’re confusing the politics of the time with the religion that supported it.
No, a religious sect and a tribe are not the same thing. Your inability to understand this is why you are not qualified to discuss this issue.
Secular societies are a modern innovation. Again, you lack the historical basis to even have an undergraduate level discussion of this topic. Go out and read a book so that you can achieve at least sophomore competency of this topic.
Here’s a recommendation: ‘Rise and Decline of the State’ by Martin van Creveld. He’s not preaching a religious message, he is just talking about the evolution of institutional structures. It’ll help you to understand the role of the Catholic Church in Europe.
Until you understand why Christian sects are different than tribes, your arguments are not valid. I’ll even give you the answer. BECAUSE TRIBES ARE RELATED GENETICALLY, religious sects transcend genetic kinship societies. See how easy that is? Your argument is on the level of people who claim that corporations are feudal fiefdoms. The only commonality any of these things have to do with one another is that there are systems of human organization, past that the similarities end.
Aren’t you tired of people, even other atheists talking about how wrong your arguments are? Don’t you get sick of talking day in and day out about a subject you know next to nothing about?
You’re right the Pope was not Commander in Chief, and the Templars were not the only order but the most powerful of the orders.
‘Voluntarily’ is a matter of opinion. I will defer to a greater knowledge of the subject, but as I understand it, Phillip had a great deal of influence over Clement’s election, including the opening of the position.
Right, but it was the result of the pope moving to Avignon, voluntarily of course.
This is a specious argument. Identification of “tribe” is a socialized perception, not a genetic one. Religion is a tribe. So is country. So is sports fandom. So is political partisanship. All transcend genetics. Genetics are a circumstantial example of tribalism. It’s not a necessary or defining factor. As long as you have an “us” and a “them,” you have a tribe. Religion is one of the strongest and most aggressive social binders you can find, but it doesn’t transcend tribalism. It just draws different lines than genetics.
This is excatly what people like Richard Dawkins and others are challenging.
If a scientist puts forward a theory that the moon is made of cheese formed when the udder of a giant cow shot milk into the heavens, other scientists will conclude that this is either a joke or that the man is irrational. They will not hesitate to tell him his theory is the most absurd bullshit they have ever heard.
But for some reason, when an absurdity is put forward in the name of religion, it suddenly benefits from some kind of immunity. It cannot be challenged or held up to ridicule. It cannot be subjected to the normal rules of evidence and reason. It has to be “respected” which means you can make all of the absurd claims of Mormonism, Christianity or Islam, and nobody is allowed to crioticize you or subject your opinions to the usual rules of debate and reason.
Why is this so?
Umm no when people talk about why Iraq is having trouble as a nation, they are talking about kinship tribes. When they talk about the Pushtun and Baluch in Afghanistan they are talking about kinship tribes. Tribe is a specific type of social organization. It is not a catchall term for all social organization. If you draw the distinction like this then it’s not even possible to discuss Christianity because you eliminate its single most significant social innovation. Such a redefinition of tribe makes discussions like this pointless as they devolve into reductionist semantics.
Because videos like this leave you uneasily wondering if you’re correct to assume it’s parody?