I think that you are reading a lot into my texts which isn't there Toby. Where have I said anything about wanting to reduce the World's population for green reasons ? I have not identified myself with any of the World's religions. As for condemning anyone for their sexual tastes, this has nothing to do with me, as long as between consenting adults. I also have nothing to say about gay marriage, because I am against all forms of marriage. Abortion I also have no strong opinions on, for me it is ok. up to a certain time and if done for the right reasons. If you had to assertain exactly what my religion is from my texts alone (eg. Catholic, Moslem, Buddhist, Jew, Hindu etc.) you would not be able to do so, as I am none of those.
I am not sure anyone on this thread has stated their current "affiliation" to a religion. Toby - in order to prevent the nastiness that often goes with debates on whose belief is correct this thread has been aimed at spirituality rather than narrowly at religion - which is a subset of it. That way i has been possible so far to have an interesting exchange of views in this interesting area. So your views are as equally interesting as I guess that although you are not religious I would not be surprised if at times certain things cause you to wonder about the meaning of life etc.(not the universe and everything though)
I apologise for that, don't even remember typing it. Nothing personal meant cologne. I'll stay out from now on
No offence taken Toby, and you do not need to 'stay out' if you don't want to. There is a difference between believing in some sort of God, or creative force, and belonging to any of the established religions. Just as there are many who officially belong to those religions who, if pressed, do not really believe in God. In fact to belong to one of those religions exclusively is one of the most anti religious things you can do. Because if you believe in God and then look at the World which you believe he created. You look at the immense variety of plant and animal life, the abundance of human cultures, languages, religions and so on then you would be forced to conclude that God loves variety. If he is omnipowerfull, and had wanted to create just one language, one culture, one religion, one race, then he could have done so - but he didn't. Why should that God have revealed himself to only one people, in only one language (when he presumably understands all of them). To believe that yours is the only true religion is the most anti religious thing you can do.
Glad you said that to Toby - I did not take his comments as anything negative - just probably read too quickly and fired off a comment. Hope Toby says more here -it is how people think that is interesting on this.
I can understand criticism both of 'belief' in itself and also of religion Leo - and can live with it. Spiritualism is of course based on superstition (which has become a negative word) ie. is not based on anything which can be empirically proved, and I can well understand how, for some people, belief in God is seen in the same light as belief in tooth fairies - although even the latter cannot be disproved. I also understand criticism of organized religion, though here it is not criticism of the religion itself but rather of some of the individuals who practice them - so not all Christians are responsible for things like the inquisition in the past. By the same token, if a person decides to kill in the name of his God then only he should be held responsible, and not every believer. We should not even be using expressions like eg. Islamic State, because the perpetrators of it have never read the Khoran (or at least not in a language they understood) - and because the vast majority of their victims are Moslems.
"I do like the idea of Sanctuary -even for someone who is accused of committing some horrible crime. I like the idea that a church will take a god's eye perspective and not judge the person - leave that to their god to do." This did make me stop and think, Leo. Initially I warmed to the idea but how do you stack it up against what the victims of such crimes feel if sanctuary prevents the said criminal coming to trial?
I can only reply on a personal perspective. If someone was accused of murder of someone dear to me and fled into sanctuary I would be disappointed that their guilt or innocence was not proven. However I would take it that the person was tacitly admitting guilt as otherwise they would come out and face trial. For them to be incarcerated - albeit in religious grounds - would suffice as a punishment as they had voluntarily given up their freedom. I do not support the death penalty so prison is the only "punishment" I could be granted. They would have a life sentence too - as leaving sanctuary would open them to trial. I could live with that.
I can understand somebody not "believing" but am not sure I can support criticism of a person who has belief or religion. I believe in personal freedom - I am allowed to think or believe in whatever pleases me - so are others. All of us though will fail to share every other person's full beliefs. All of us make decisions and it is assumed we think we are right in what we personally believe - however nobody has the right to state that he actually IS correct - only that he believes he is correct. Whenever I argue, I argue my point strongly because I think I am right, why would I not, however I am always aware that I may actually be wrong so to being rude to someone else is plain wrong. Superstition means excessive credulity or irrational belief - so that is negative. Did you mean spiritualism or spirituality? Spiritualism is no more or less sensible than is belief in any god. However I suspect there are many charlatans in the area. Spirituality is entirely different - it is about feeling there is something bigger than we are and is very common and not at all restricted. Belief in god is in my opinion equivalent to belief in any other thing that cannot be seen,heard, touched etc. Belief in fairies seems as reasonable but perhaps not tooth fairies because like Father Christmas we know that to be an invention. Organised religion is another step beyond and has the capacity for some of the world's best - and worst aspects of humanity. When i is used negatively it can lead to the worst of atrocities and yet when benign it is a force for good. Organised religion per se is not good or bad - it is how it is practiced. Thankfully Christianity has for the most part outgrown the worst aspects of enforcement and straight-jacketing. Islam on the other hand generally seems to still have a greater problem with people using it for their own ends. The likes of IS are very unlikely to be honestly practicing Muslims at all - they just lead to true believers in Islam suffering hatred due to them.
Alas the likes of isil are practicing the koran all too perfectly. There is little ambiguity in what is a very bloody book. There are far too many apologists who claim that it means something rather less unpleasant than it actually does. We're in the 21C and people take as absolute faith the musings of a 5C illiterate merchant warlord with zero tolerance for the unbelivers, zero respect for women, who got his "best" ideas when shagging his littlest bride and then flew off to god on a winged unicorn. Spare me! But don't take my word for it, read the book for yourself. I have. As Sam Harris rightly says: Religious tolerance is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.
You can read similar stuff in the Bible... or the first part.... Look at the Crusades too.. Awful stuff Man's inhumanity to man ... Mao Hitler and co. have all done it.... We need a new universal connection that binds us all.... and quite soon
Absolutely correct about the bible. Hitler was doing god's bidding so his book says. Mao the political psychopath. A universal connection? Indeed. A sort of Independence Day scale visitation where everyone gets to see except the visitors save us from ourselves rather than uniting us for all the wrong reasons. The problem is that people are generally afraid of the finality of death. Whatever the belief system, life goes on after death and in some cases death is more than welcome so life itself becomes cheap, valueless. Until people get it into their heads that there is everything to live for and nothing to die for we will continue, as a species, to rip ourselves, and our planet, to pieces.
You could even say Fez that the human brain is not capable of coping with the idea of infinity - and so he invents finality. The same being true of the cosmos - is there a wall at the end of it, and what lies beyond the wall ? Which language did you use to read the Khoran ? The book also says 'there can be no compulsion in religion' - meaning that if a person converts through fear then in the eyes of God it is worthless. The problem is that the people from IS do not read and understand the Khoran - they recite it in a language which they don't understand - remember that only about 1-2% of all Moslems can actually understand classical Arabic, and IS do not allow translations to be used. Even the so called 'sword verses' of the Khoran stipulate the rules of 'holy war' - respect for those who have surrendered, fighting only with the same weapons as your opponent, fighting only those who have attacked you first, respecting women and children as non combatants - all these are in the 'sword verses', but are not observed by IS. Also warfare is only a very small part of Jihad, all the rest being about inner struggle.
You would be hard pushed to make a claim that Hitler was a Christian Fez - he was a great admirer of the Roman empire, and regarded its decline as being due to the slavish influence of Christianity.
I do not put any wars down to religion alone. Wars come about because we are tribal creatures and naturally form bands that include and protect our own and exclude and are wary of others. That can work OK and families / tribes / groups / nations work with and tolerate each other provided they have enough "space" (not merely physical) around them. Given man's propensity to need an explanation for things, religion steps neatly into play. Now you have an explosive mix and even small things can be the trigger. Religion may well then be the trigger. Add to that, there is a small percentage (but probably not as small as you think) of the population who are psychopaths. These people do not understand and share the hurt of others and blindly step on them - where like Hitler you can add powerful oratory skills they become mass murderers.
The Koran, like the Bible and Talmud reflect times that are long past. Some people try to insist on a literal interpretation - unfortunately they come up against contradictions which they have to conveniently explain away. A vast number of Christians have now moved to a far looser reliance on strict bible text and they are then able to overlay current morality to leaven biblical texts. Muslims also have done this to an extent but it seems to me they lag behind Christians in this respect. However there is an argument that says people should develop their morality from life around them rather than those of centuries ago. If you happen to believe the stories in one of those books that is fine but should you use them to tell others what to do - whether they share their beliefs or not
I don't normally bring in external material but here is an interesting piece from Gwynne Dyer, who was a senior lecturer in War studies at the Royal military academy, Sandhurst. 'We assume that people will kill if they find themselves in a situation where their own survival is threatened, and nobody needs to learn how to die. What is less obvious is that practically anybody can be persuaded and manipulated in such a way that he will more or less voluntarily enter a situation wherein he must kill and perhaps die. Yet if that were not true, battles would be impossible'. Basically a large group of men has a different psychology - a controlled form of mob psychology - that tends to overpower the personal identity and fears of the individuals who make it up. The greatest crimes of history have always been committed by crowds of people - after all, nobody will ever know that you were a part of it, there is no sense of personal responsibility. So maybe we can say that certain essentials are necessary for war. The first being that someone, somewhere, profits from it. The second being that you can activate this mob psychology. The third being that you can convince the mob that the 'enemy' are of lesser worth than you, that they are dangerous but beatable. So maybe the roots of war lie in 'hierarchy', or obediance to authority - how many people have tried to justify their actions by saying 'I was only obeying orders'. My own father served on a firing squad and used this excuse. I do not think any of these elements are exclusive to religion - though religious belief may have the power to modify them because of the belief that you may have to answer for your actions in the afterlife - how many have refrained from killing for this reason ? We will never know that. The only political or religious belief which has never started a war is anarchy, ie. the idea that nobody has any legitimate authority over anyone else.
Infinity is a difficult concept to grasp. English, certainly not Arabic - I struggled enough with German and French! A hard read, even more absurd than the bible. I am with Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens on this. Muslims contend that it is the perfect word of god.... I put it to you that any book which can be interpreted by anyone (let alone millions) in such a way so as to cause so much pain, misery, misogyny and countless deaths is not the perfect anything, much less an accurate account of a rambling, iron-age, illiterate paedophile. And I say it again: religious tolerance is the result of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance. That is to say that one has to ignore the more bloodthirsty and ridiculous elements of scripture to tolerate anything else.
Tolerance is not really linked to knowledge is it? It is a way of approaching life and other people that simply respects that their opinions differ from your own and that while you disagree with them you are content they believe what they will. It is more a lifestyle acceptance. Tolerance can only be taken so far - it is up against a boundary that says your beliefs do not entitle you to harm another. If people want to believe the stories in old books why should it matter to me? But if they want to use those books to defend hurting others then it does matter.
