Why was this thread closed?

The BBQ Pit
41

Open mind but no hours needed.

First “Religion” doesn’t have a goal. Religion is used to accomplish goals. Religion is needed by society for several reasons:

  1. Religion provides a common set of moral postulates on which to base behavioral expectations. That is, it provides the moral justification for the rules and laws.

  2. Religion provides a folk science, a set of explanations for why things are the way they are, a stab at thus predicting future events and possibly exerting some control over them.

  3. Religion provides a common bond for members of a group, cementing a kinship relationship be it real or fictive.

  4. Religion provides a sense of surety in the face of a very unsure world. Doubt is uncomfortable; faith succors.

Now different faiths at different times have one or the other goal more in the forefront. But those are the biggees.

Of course those rules can include a willingness to self-sacrifice to any degree or to kill others in particular circumstances if it serves the needs of a society. Of course that folk science may include a belief in a god that will be pleased with human sacrifice. Of course a percieved kinship motivates a willingness to risk ones own life for your brothers, maybe even by suicide bombing, or by throwing oneself on top of a grenade. Of course surety can be falsely placed.

Or not. On each count.

Are we taught these beliefs? Of course. Indocrinated? Maybe. Brainwashed? Not as defined by Unca Cece. To claim so is just wrong and stupid.

42

Many hours needed, amigo. You cannot shoot from the hip and answer the questions that I posed.

And your hipshot answers are wrong all the way down the line, starting with the statement you made about religion not having a goal. They all have the same goal.

43

A goal is a desire, it implies a sentient entity. Religion is not such a critter. People have goals. People operating together as societies have goals and one could even argue that the societal organism may indeed have goals of its own (although one might get a few debates to that proposition). Religion does not have goals; it meets needs.

I know that it is easy to anthropomorphise, but doing so leads to the sloppy thinking that you illustrate so well.

But to play your game … Aztec, Greek Pantheon, Christianity. A good selection. In each religion served the societal needs for common moral postulates which justified laws and rules, folk science, group identity, and comfort deriviative of faith.Variations specific to time and place to be sure, but true for each.

I know this aint GD but your saying it aint so don’t make it not so.

44

Like I said - do the research. I did. I am speaking from knowledge; you are shooting from the hip. If you’re not willing to do what I did, then don’t waste my time with speculations.

Do the work.

Oh, and by the way:

Ad hominem attacks do nothing except support my position. As I said, I am speaking from knowledge. Your disagreeing with my statements based on your ignorance of the topic does not constitute sloppy thinking on my part.

45

You could have PhDs in both theology and philosphy for all I care. Infantile claims of superior knowledge only impress if backed up by cogent arguments and/or actual evidence.

You have an obvious hostility to organized religious institutions. And organized religion has indeed been used for many an ill end through the years. But despite whatever traumatic experience you may have had, religion is not, per se, evil. Moreover, like TweedleDee (or was it TweedleDum?) you have decided that a word means what you decide it means, and have defined “brainwashing” in a way meaningless to all others. By your use of the term virtually any societal structure “brainwashes” its membership, for all governments have the potential to “manipulate their followers to the point where the followers will kill themselves or others, or allow others to kill them. Whether they do or not is beside the point.” And having kids “brainwashes” you too, since those same actions are ones many would do to protect their children if threatened.

(Maybe it took you many hours because of all the time you have spend sounding out the words and making up new definitions? Hint, it would’ve gone faster if you held the book right side up.)

46

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, DSeid . If all you can do is come up with lame, halfassed shit like that, adios. I’ve got better usage for my time.

47

Sure you can. An orange is orange, spheroid, and citrusy. An apple, conversely, is red (or yellow or green), non-citrusy, and decidedly non-spheroid.

:wally

48

Intriguing technique. Snip out all of the poster’s arguments and points, single out the insult, and then accuse the poster of only flinging insults. Let me give it a go!

Hey, this is fun!

49

Actually you made the claim. Are you admitting you can’t back it up?

So after 20 years of research, you have managed to produce only the evidence you present in this thread? :rolleyes:
Are you a slow reader? :smiley:

Just to show you how research is actually done, I pick:

Quakers
Jainism
Amish

“The Religious Society of Friends is an Alternative Christianity which emphasizes the personal experience of God in one’s life. Quakers understand the necessity of first listening to God before working in the world. They affirm the equality of all people before God regardless of race, station in life, or sex and this belief leads them into a range of social concerns.
Being “Children of Light” they find recourse to violence intolerable.”

http://www.quaker.org/friends.html

"Virtues like nonviolence, truth and non-possessiveness can be taught by setting wholesome examples.

In reality, religion is nothing but removing defilements and perversions from mind and making life pure and noble by cultivating lofty qualities like compassion, truthfulness and self-control."

http://www.jainstudy.org/JSC1.00-QandA-DF-BtoB.htm

"Since early colonial days the Amish have lived in the United States preserving their distinctive culture, dress, language and religion in peace and prosperity.

Furthermore, it is difficult, if not impossible, for a non-Amish teacher to teach the values of humility, quietness, and shunning of technological things like automobiles, television, video games, movies and fashions. Some people think the Amish are ignorant because they shun technology, but the Amish are also making profound statements about the environment. They do not use gasoline, electricity, commercial chemicals, CFCs – all of which pollute the environment.

the Amish ethics – Living non-resistant lives (They do not serve in the military, but only in hospitals or alternate service), with brotherly love, sharing material aid and living close to the soil and following the Bible literally."

http://www.holycrosslivonia.org/amish/origin.htm

And these three religions have in common:

  • non violence
  • compassion
  • decency
  • caring for the World

Strangely none of these practice violence through brainwashing. Gosh. But you said all organized religions were brainwashing cults.
Well that research took me just over 8 minutes. Not 20 years.
Would you like lessons?

50

Okay, fine. I’ll come back and post to this thread again in twenty years. I trust you’ll still be here?

On second thought, here’s a better idea: post some goddamn facts in one of your threads for once. Appeals to authority are not a valid argument, especially when you’re citing yourself as the authority. You spent twenty years “researching” religion? Where? What books did you read? What seminaries did you attend? Who did you talk to? Where did you go? Can you provide any evidence at all that you know what you’re talking about apart from your baseless assertions of competency?

51

In other words…I lose because I don’t know what the hell I am talking about.

52

I just want to say, completely as a hijack to the OP (which deserves one!), that I’ve been having a down, depressing day, and that comment just made my day completely. Thank you, most sincerely.

53

Hey Clothahump, you do realize you posted in The Pit? If this was GD I’d refrain from pointing out that you are a total doofus, but this is The Pit and your absolute inanity is fair game.

(Why oh why does Monty Python get played in my head ?“You flatulous gobutit” “I don’t need to take this, I came here for an argument” “Oh, sorry that’s 12A down the hall, this is abuse” … “I came here for a good argument.” “No, you came for an argument!”)

Of course if this was GD you’d have been lampooned in other more subtle ways.

Confession - I really wasn’t shooting off the hip. I’ve read about religions and thought about religion for over 35 years. For a short while in grade school I even considered the rabbinate, odd considering I was the class atheist. Now I’m a theist who believes in a God who doesn’t give a shit, and I have no great affection for most religious institutions. Many here have thought and studied much more than I and certainly more than you. Polycarp is just one of many who has thought long and hard about matters of religion. Unlike you they engage in intelligent conversation and respond to pertinent points in a reasonable give and take. I have never insulted any of them no matter how much we disagree.

Finally as to your offer of sexual relations … sorry but I’m a married man and you don’t seem my type any way. Feel free to shtupp my horse though. As I’m married I’ll still have my nag.

54

Like dropping into a thread on Ceceil’s columns and dumping an unsupported and unsupportable off-topic bit of utter nonsense?

Why not? It worked for the late (if not always lamented) “My post is my cite” poster, didn’t it?
hmmmm. I guess not.

55

In an actual attempt to answer the original question in this thread, I’d point out that his original comment in the other thread was essentially “witnessing” albeit in the uncommon form of witnessing for atheism. Therefore it was posted in the wrong forum as Great Debates is the designated forum for this. The second poster noted this as presumedly did whichever mod shut it down.

In this thread, the original poster is apparently stuck on the premise of “any opinion I hold very strongly is equivalent to a proven fact and can be presented as such in a debate.”

56

No, Greathouse . In other words, I have better usage for my time than reading messages from someone arguing from ignorance.

Which is what I said in the first place.

57

Neither one of which I did. Look back in this thread and you will find a post in which I very clearly laid out an exercise which anyone can do that will prove the position that I have very clearly taken from day one.

However, most folks aren’t willing to do it. I don’t know whether it is from arrogance or laziness; possibly a combination. I wasn’t even looking for it when I found it; I was looking for knowledge that would support my (at that time) Christian beliefs. I found reality instead.

58

Except that I wasn’t witnessing in any way. And I’m not an athiest.

Anyway, screw it. I’m obviously not going to get an answer to my question, so this thread can die as far as I am concerned.

59

I know nothing about religion. Don’t really care that much. But, do you intend on sharing your insights into what you think the “goal” of every religion throughout the ages has been?

While I do have a little bit of curiosity as to what your answer will be when you feel we are ready to hear it, I am more intruged by the way you choose to share information/prove your point.

I mean, are you going to tell us, or is going to be "I know the answer, but I’m not telling!! Nyhaaa, Nyhaaa :stuck_out_tongue: " all the way through this thread. I don’t think I’ve ever interacted with you before, and in fact don’t really know you or your history on the boards. But it sounds like you don’t really know what you’re talking about and, like a child, just want to take your ball and go home.

60

Okay. You made a very, very broad-brush statement which completely ignored an important distinction which Cecil made regarding the significance of two related but different terms. You applied this to all religious institutions, and all religious persons.

The Christians on this board are not in the slightest interested in brainwashing or indoctrinating people; they ask and answer the same questions as everyone else, but come to a different answer regarding them. The local church, the diocese, and the denominational church which I belong to support the importance of intelligent, open, questioning inquiry into matters theological, Bibliological, and ethical – to the extent that groups with a more doctrinaire approach condemn us for “not protecting the faith from heresy.” And there are groups that are even more strongly committed to that spirit of inquiry than we – the UCC and the UUA for two.

That’s why you’re being called on your bullshit. You have a right to hold an opinion about some groups. You have a right to redefine terms to suit yourself, but you need to communicate that you’re using them in non-standard ways. You do not have a right to generalize about groups you simply have not taken the time to investigate.

And what Little Nemo said goes. If there’s one fault that has gotten you in more bad repute here than any other, Clothahump, it’s the tendency to fail to distinguish between your own opinions and the facts (or erroneous beliefs as to what the facts are) that gave rise to them. Saying, “You’re wrong, and here are ten data points that show why” is fine. Saying, “You’re wrong, because that’s not what I think” is setting yourself up as Arbiter of All Knowledge – and Unka Cece doesn’t appreciate the competition!