nonsense, harm and great evil
I cannot honestly believe you lend any credence to the nonsense you are espousing. Call time out and admit this was just a wind up.(Ark)
Having dedicated the greater part of my blogging time to posts criticising religion, it has come as a surprise to some of my blogging buddies that I don’t think religions are a Great Evil that cause their adherents to be the most useless and ignorant contributors to human society.
One the one hand, I do think that religions are inaccurate belief systems. They were all created in times of relative ignorance and clearly responded to a human need to explain our existence. Every society developed some kind of formalised superstitious beliefs, and the stronger ones slowly swallowed up the weaker ones.
We now have several large world religions that are mutually incompatible (although some might argue with this), all claiming to be the Truth from some form of supernatural entities. And we have no evidence that any of these entities exist, aside from the clearly human-conceived traditions developed and passed down over the centuries.
To be honest, I’m often left speechless that so many people can still think any one of these religions is a message from gods. It seems so removed from reality, and lost in times of ignorance.
But then I have to remember I don’t know anything about existence, that humans don’t know anything about existence.
We’re a speck of dust in a universe we know nothing about. We can see lights in the form of stars that give a glimpse of the immensity but we have no idea how far it goes. We know the universe is expanding but have no idea why or where. We know there is more we can’t see than we can see even within the observable universe, but have no idea even what it is that we can’t see. We may know relatively lots compared to our ancestors, but in terms of what the universe actually is, we know relatively nothing.
So I can’t say for certain that people who think there is more, people who sense something different about our existence, are categorically wrong. As the Director-General of CERN says, we can’t prove through physics (or any other science) that gods don’t exist. I think it’s sheer arrogance, and foolhardy considering the history of humans, to insist otherwise.
In this blogging universe, I am interested in pointing out the harm (and sometimes the ridiculous) in things I stumble across. But I want to make it clear that my attraction to religion on this platform doesn’t mean I think all religious people are harmful, or indeed that religion leads people to be more harmful than humans would otherwise be. Our species does wonderful, creative, silly and awful things, all with or without belief in invisible gods.
They aren’t all harmful, but how much fuckin time is wasted on this. It sure gets old. Nice work today.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a natural feature of our species, but we seem to be at a turning point. I’m just now sure if the overall effect will be as positive as we hope, or assume it should be.
LikeLike
For greater part I agree, but to me it is not such a simple issue.
People are able to do great good despite their religious motives, and they are able to do great evil despite their lack of belief in any gods, that seem to demand the weirdest stuff from humans. Yet, that does not mean, that religion does not have an overall negative effect. People tend to attribute their choises on their values, rather than on their individual impulses to act. However, those values are greatly affected by those impulses and the impulses are affected by the values we hold.
The Great Armada 1588 never conquered England, despite the fact that the English efforts to fight them led only a couple of ships be lost, out of some 120, in the process and despite the fact that the English field army would not have stood a chance in front of the battle hardened Spanish continental army. Infact the English lost more ships as fire ships, than they could sink, or conquer from the Spanish. What happened? The overtly religious king of Spain Philip II had made the battle plans, but they were rather obscure, because he had thought, that since his god was on his side, it was going to be his god who saw that any (half baked) attack plan made in his name would go through to fruition. This is all known from his letters on the matter, that have been preserved to our days.
Wether we percieve the Spanish conquering England as a good or bad thing, is irrelevant to my example. What is relevant, is that the most powerfull ruler on the planet generally thought and publicly announced as to hold this position was through the grace of a particular god. So he was quite generally held, as much as he himself thought of himself and his plans, as having the ward of this god of his. Was any of it true? His adversaries in England thought, that it was god who saved them from the Great Armada, when a storm wrecked the Spanish ships. Was it? Or could it have more likely been a natural occurance? Only later, did the English, when creating their – quite secular – nationalist myth, come up with a notion, that their navy had achieved to stop the Spanish Armada, but the facts of the events do not align with that story.
What I am trying to say, is that we are indeed “poisoned” by all sorts of myths, of wich nationalism and religion are two major causes of harm even today. When a good person does a good thing it is all too easily attributed to their particular religion, or god, but it could just as well be attributed to their nationality, or percieved race. All of these attributions are almost equally false. The cultural backround like a religion or a nationality may affect what sort of things a person percieves good and they might act upon these beliefs they hold, but gods and races are imaginary constructs that do not affect us in any way unless our cultural heritage tells us that these are our motivators in reference to religion or nationality. It would do us good to understand the rather minute truth value religions or nationalism hold and act to do good based on rational reasons of as objective information we can actually have.
LikeLiked by 2 people
One amusing part is even if a non believer does something good, the believer thinks god is working through you and you just don’t know it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I still think we sometimes go overboard in our criticism of religion and in doing so create opposing camps. I keep saying it, but it’s a natural feature of the development of our societies, and we can’t say that people behave better without it.
LikeLike
Well, we all have our own perspective and as a result biases. I do not know if it really is the atheists who create the opposing camp in regards to the Theists. I have plenty of Theist friends whith whom we are perfectly able to engage together to make the world a better place or just have fun. Even discuss religion. Religions are most often exclusive constructs, that do instruct people in general to think that the members of this or that sect or even a wider section of a religion are outsiders. Sometimes this goes far to dehumanize the other people, but not always.
I usually end up in arguments about religion whith Theists who do not really want to discuss it, but feel themselves somehow obliged to make arguments for it anyway. It is usually enough, that I express to be an atheist, that gets them derailed, because my very existance seems to represent a threat to their identity. I have interpreted this to be a sort of expression of weak faith. That they are not actually even trying to convince me as much as they need to convince themselves, what they believe, because they believe it more out of convinience, rather than out of really understanding what they do believe. (Yes, I know this is a terribly arrogant thing for me to say, but I am an arrogant man.)
Of course we are able to do equally stupid, or possibly even more harmfull stuff without religion as we would do for religious reasons. But that is not a redeeming quality of any particular religion. Is it?
We can be just as wrong about the reality around us, wether our false conception is that there exists some god, or that lizard people have invaded the planet and controll our leading politicians, or what ever other baseless nonsense. That is not a redeeming quality of religion. Is it?
Atheism is just a position about gods. It does not tell us anything about anything else. Not about social policies. Not about military solutions. Not about legal, or moral issues. Not even about our position in the universe, because believing in made up gods does not tell us anything about our position in the universe. Atheism does not tell us how to live our lives. Not even should we or should we not join some opposing camps. There are and have always been, plenty of atheists who, for varying reasons – like the fear of death, but also just out of disinterrest – do not engage in any debates about gods or religions. I do not have any statistics or studies to back me up with this, but I bet it is the majority of atheists even today. It is completely different set of issues other than simply being an atheist, that make us join these discussions, that lead us to look like we have joined some sort of camps.
I agree, that religion is a natural phenomenon, but the Theists do not agree. (That is if they understand the word natural.) They think their particular religion is the work of an outside some sort of super -natural force. Religion is just as natural as miscarriage. Religion is just as natural as polio. Should we not try to eradicate polio just because the pubonic plague is just as bad or even worse?
Have we benefited from religion? Perhaps, but we may have benefited from war too. I do not find either worthy of celebration. War is just as natural as religion. They both cause undeniable harm, even though both cause cohesion and create jobs. Would we still have wars, even if we discarded religion? Propably yes. People can be stupid in a million ways, and religion is just one of them. That is not a redeeming quality of religion. Is it?
LikeLiked by 1 person
My religion is a way for me to live better. I am quite happy with it. Until the mid-19th century, we said that everyone else was benighted and we were God’s remnant preserving the truth on Earth, but since about then we have welcomed others into our beneficent way and not judged the outsiders particularly as outsiders. I might say the same if I were in the most monstrous cult, so you have to judge my assertion by the value of other things I say. “By their fruits you shall know them” as Jesus said.
LikeLike
I think religion is helpful to a lot of people. Maybe it’s not the perfect crutch, but it might be the best available. I don’t think it’s necessarily harmful, but I still struggle to be neutral. 🙂
LikeLike
”Maybe if I whittle just a little bit more off this square peg it will fit into this round hole? Grrrngh!!!
Oh, sod it. Hand me the bloody mallet.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
I put one of your favourite creatures in the post picture, just for you! I’ll find a way of explaining it yet, and you’ll realise you and Tildeb are wrong, and I’m Right. Just remember, Violet always knows best. 🙂
LikeLike
I saw the little spider, first off. Thanks. Nice one.
Jesus, woman … don’t do that to a body!
I just spent two minutes wiping coffee off my laptop.
LikeLike
Yes, the truth is shocking.
LikeLike
“it has come as a surprise to some of my blogging buddies that I don’t think religions are a Great Evil that cause their adherents to be the most useless and ignorant contributors to human society.”
A surprise? Well, I should hope so… but not for the reasons you think… considering that none of the atheist ‘blogging buddies’ I know of ascribe to this attitude you attribute to them – including me.
“So I can’t say for certain that people who think there is more, people who sense something different about our existence, are categorically wrong.”
You can’t? Wow. Neither can anyone else… including every New Atheist out there I’ve ever encountered or any blogging buddy I’ve ever read.
Huh. Imagine that… a lack of certainty. Who knew… even though I’ve read over and over and over by non believers in gods or a God how they do not claim certainty in the negative. It’s probably a character flaw on my part to actually believe that people who say what they mean actually mean what they say. It’s so very -un-Regressive Left of me, I know.
But what you do, what you can do, what you seem bent to keep on doing, is ascribe negative attitudes and negative beliefs to many non believers including your ‘blogging buddies’ that are not true, negative attitudes that you produce, that you submit, that you apply to others in a very negative light and that you then criticize as if you are the reasonable one.
And you think it makes you look good!
Now, I’ve seen this tactic before. Give me a moment… oh yes, I recall… it’s a standard tactic for religious apologists to malign those who criticize their batshit crazy beliefs!
Now where oh where could you have picked this up and why would you then try to use this nasty little trick against many non believers in general and some of your ‘blogging buddies’ in particular?
Maybe – I’m just guessing here – it’s because you identify more with trying to please religious apologists and want to look better in their eyes than you do in the eyes of your ‘blogging buddies’. Who cares if you malign them, am I right? After all, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (that mediocrity can pay to greatness” completes the quote but that is not the point here). So I think it’s pretty obvious to whom your flatter of imitation is aimed.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“considering that none of the atheist ‘blogging buddies’ I know of ascribe to this attitude you attribute to them”
Great we’re getting somewhere! So, religious people aren’t the most ignorant and useless people in human society. Therefore, religion doesn’t cause the worst form of ignorance and harm and we can stop bombasting around the place like it does?
“Now, I’ve seen this tactic before. ” Yes, indeed you have. On many of my posts where I criticise religion with an exaggerated and broad brush. It’s a technique to draw attention to the flaws.
“Maybe – I’m just guessing here – it’s because you identify more with trying to please religious apologists and want to look better in their eyes than you do in the eyes of your ‘blogging buddies’.”
Everyone I interact with in Blogland is my blogging buddy. I don’t categorise my buddies (sometimes Ark, John and Clare are my ‘dearest’ or ‘best’ because I’ve known them longest). I’m not interested in pleasing any subsection at any point. That was a trap I fell into in the first year or so of blogging – trying to please the audience. It creates an uncomfortable echo chamber. I prefer expressing my ponders as they come to me and having a discussion, rather than argument, with people of differing viewpoints. Doesn’t always happen. But please be assured I have no interest in ‘looking good’ in any groupthink’s eyes. I’m just exploring ideas. And do appreciate you continually challenging them.
I’m trying to see who like your comment on this bloody tablet, can’t see, but I’m insulted!!
LikeLike
Interesting points that I think triangulate back to Violet’s last post and the comments there. It seems to me that people who have embraced religious thinking patterns, even when they leave religion behind, are sometimes stuck with those same patterns. Or at least they still sometimes fall back on those patterns.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Don’t you think there’s an element of confirmation bias in terms of how we all look at religion? I scour religious blogs for awful stuff and post it, adding scathing comments, and people like you and Tildeb pop along to be appalled. Fair enough.
But what about the thousands of posts on my Reader that say nothing offensive, that actually say some fairly thoughtful things? Do any of us go to church and mosque to interact with religious people generally to see what they get up to on a daily basis? There’s nothing wrong with pointing out the harm in religion. There’s nothing wrong with pointing out that invisible gods most probably don’t exist. In fact, I think both of these things are productive and useful.
Where I’m beginning to see the difference, is when we start broad brushing religion as poisonous (I think I can safely say that without someone claiming I’m misrepresenting them) or suggest that people who are religious can’t make sensible decisions about anything, simply because they believe in something we can’t see or scientifically verify.
I’m quite sure that none of that makes me a friend of religious apologists. I’ll make another post out of this. I’ll get my readership down below 100 by the end of the week. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLiked by 3 people
Agreed. But you liked Tildeb’s comment where he says I’m trying to please a Christian apologist audience?! You may think I have wonky views, but please don’t believe that.
LikeLike
I’d be more inclined to believe you’re just being mischievous.
Have you seen Tiberious (sp?) declaring war on Inanity’s Christian mates? Aren’t we lucky these fools aren’t allowed to launch actual wars against each other these days.
LikeLike
Is that on the post I sent you to?
LikeLike
You sent me to a post? I don’t recall that. But no, i guess. It’s her latest.
LikeLike
Well, didn’t send you there, but recommended it for interest. It was her post defending the Shack for heresy charges. Funny discussion from funny group of people. I was impressed she put it up there, must lose her a lot of followers. I’ll have a look.
LikeLike
You’re reading too much into that line. It’s normal to want to be liked. None of us, including you, shouldn’t deny we try to be liked.
LikeLike
I think we can safely say, between us, that neither of us particularly try to be liked. 😀
LikeLike
“it has come as a surprise to some of my blogging buddies that I don’t think religions are a Great Evil that cause their adherents to be the most useless and ignorant contributors to human society.”
I don’t ever recall using the term evil when referring to religion,, or anything else, to be honest let alone ”Great Evil”.
Like the word ”sin”, it just isn’t part of my lexicon, not even in my writing.
Neither have I ever referred to the religiously inclined as the most useless and ignorant contributors on the planet.
Our species does wonderful, creative, silly and awful things, all with or without belief in invisible gods.
Indeed, but if you chop of someone’s head or burn them alive, beat a child to within an inch of its life, withhold medical assistance or contraception, force women dress in the equivalent of a tent ans stone them to death for adultery, mutilate genitals, and many more such wonderful practices all in the name of a god/religion , you are simply devout ( in the eyes of some) and fulfilling your god’s will.
If no god is involved one is usually regarded as just cruel or maybe even a psychopath.
I hope you are putting on enough sun block and wearing a big hat cos it sure as Gehenna sounds as if you are getting a little toasty out there in Argentina.
LikeLiked by 1 person
But Ark, I could just reply with a catalogue of genocide on behalf of people who didn’t believe in gods. This is the game that Christians vs Atheists so often play – neither side willing to acknowledge that neither religion nor atheism are inherently able to protect us from harmful behaviour. Contrary to the scientific method that Tildeb thinks is in the exclusive domain of atheism (a bizarre claim, given it was developed by religious people), we quite often to come to strange and harmful conclusions.
LikeLike
Hint, VW.
Any time you think I’ve made a bizarre claim, go back and correct your own comprehension error.
LikeLike
Okay, let me go back to the last post and find a few quotes. What was the one where you wanted to up the typeface?
LikeLike
Tildeb: ” Religion introduced into science is fatal to the gaining of knowledge. Science introduced into religious belief is fatal to the maintenance of faith. That’s why the two are incompatible METHODS.
METHODS.
METHODS.
METHODS .
Can you hear me or should I increase the font?”
LikeLike
Why is that bizarre? I explained religion is poisonous because it uses a method incompatible with gaining knowledge. You continued to insist I was vilifying religious people so I wrote this to emphasize my point about the METHOD used for faith-based reasoning was guaranteed to not produce knowledge.
LikeLike
I’ll try again. What is ‘faith-based reasoning’ and, specifically, when do most religious people use it?
LikeLike
That’s not actually an odd thing. If you don’t like the term METHOD then when you see it think TESTING. Different seeds germinate at different temperatures, in different lights, at different times of the year. Method (testing) simply demonstrates which is which. That applies to everything that can be tested, and almost everything *can* be tested.
LikeLike
Yes, but invisible gods can’t be tested, so we have to excuse religions for this part, in terms of method. For the rest of life’s decisions, I’m arguing that religious people proportionately rely on testing to the same degree as non-religious people. Just like in terms of conceiving the best political models, we all come to different conclusions – there is no correct answer – but we probably follow one party even if we don’t agree with every specific policy. So you find a lot of Catholics use birth control, for example.
LikeLike
Interesting example. I think if you want to build an logical argument you have to separate it into two parts.
The first, as you mentioned, is that membership doesn’t translate to compliance. However, the part you’re ignoring is that (adherence to) orthodoxy requires compliance. That means the level of commitment to belief is directly correlated to the level of disregard for evidence.
As a practical example we can use sexism. The more people ignore monotheistic religions, the more they can distance themselves from sexism; At the same time all Orthodox branches of monotheism (and their adherents) are highly sexist. See what I mean?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not convinced the level of commitment to belief (the part that doesn’t require scientific testing) is directly correlated to anything else. Back to the birth control example, people see that large families are inconvenient in some way, and may also read evidence that supports planning for children within resources having better outcomes, and they disregard quite serious Catholic teaching. They disregard orthodoxy because evidence tells them life is better in another way.
And I don’t blame monotheist religions for sexism. Lack of birth control is the main reason that women have traditionally been marginalised in human society. Much of the rest comes down to physical strength. I could blame monotheistic religions for perpetuating some aspects of sexism, but I think just as much is perpetuated by people attracted to conservatism, mindlessly continuing the traditions of the previous generation. That’s a natural trait too.
LikeLike
Orthodox factions worldwide prove you wrong. (Serious) Commitment to religious belief systems can only be rigid, because the consequence is “eternal damnation”.
The primordial problem is that the religious concept of right/wrong is arbitrary. It’s not based in ethics, justice or merit- it’s based in patriarchal aristocracy. That’s an indictment of the method, not the individual.
Perspective bias isn’t an issue for me, and I’m confident the same is true of Tildeb. What we’re criticizing is the method through which one reaches conclusions. The arbitrary religious method allows for religious groups to oppose vaccinations, to oppose condoms on a continent where there’s an Aids epidemic, to oppose birth control at large in countries where people are at risk of starvation; it allows for Kill the Gays Bills in Uganda, it allowed for the systematic cover-up of child-rape in Catholic institutions worldwide. It allowed for the theft of babies in Spain and mass graves in Ireland.
No one needs to visit anyone else’s blog to identify what’s wrong with religion. There’s overwhelming evidence in that regard throughout history.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of course, but non-believers don’t kill people with the expectation of going to atheist heaven, Violet, I hope you realise this. yes?
We don’t expect to get laid by 77 perpetual atheist virgins or sip chilled wine and watch cricket with Jesus’ atheist cousin, Reg. It just doesn’t work that way.
Atheists who murder people are just unpleasant people, that’s all.
They don’t do anything like this in the name of the Almighty nongod NonYahwee.
LikeLiked by 1 person
But (some) “Atheists” DO murder people because they think they are creating a glorious Dictatorship of the People that must eliminate all counter-revolutionary forces. Or the Bourgeoisie. Or the Trotskyites. It’s not as clear cut as you are saying.
Even if the crimes are not committed in the interests of supernatural redemption, the utopian ideals which have inspired murder in the past can be pretty gruesome. And they often include very explicitly atheist elements, even if nobody is killing “for atheism” per se.
But, in the end, human beings kill because we are a particularly nasty subspecies of primate that uses our big brains to invent nasty versions of the dominance games many social primates play.
LikeLike
So you mean even you can admit the motivation *is not* atheism, and yet you’re still trying to find a way of implying the motivation is atheism? That’s an appeal to confusion. A method used to deceive listeners.
LikeLiked by 1 person
But they don’t do it for supernatural reasons, and this is THE point.
Ultimately they cannot abrogate personal responsibility to a god.
They are simply psychotic.
It is the height of stupidity to assume that, without religion crimes would not be committed.
But at least it would be one more idiotic aspect of humanity we had done away with, and thus, we had set our foot on a more sane path.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No, they often do it in the name of creating a better society. I’m not sure which is more frightening.
LikeLike
Pingback: my apologetic coma | violetwisp