On May 24 2015 09:44 fruity. wrote: How much religion would there be in the world, if parents didn't force their kids into having a religious belief?
What do you mean by parents forcing their kids into having a religious belief? Children are naturally influenced by their parents and to a greater extent by their social environment as a whole. Transmitting religious beliefs is much like the transmission of social values and political opinions, it isn't forced.
A lot of it is forced in America, but that's also how social values and political opinions are often transmitted as well (although it's probably easier to impress religious values at a younger age than it is partisan politics). The media and communities are really good at pushing religious stigmas and stereotypes (e.g., Fox News's War on Christmas/ Christians, "All Muslims are evil", "All atheists are bad/ immoral people", etc.). Plus, from birth, babies are looked at as being Christian/ religious babies due to their procedures/ sacraments (e.g., Baptism), despite babies not yet having the cognitive ability to consider religious beliefs and voluntarily choose what religion to believe in. (A baby isn't born a Christian baby; it is a baby with Christian parents. However, we grow up assuming the label our parents give us.) They're born into it- much like social/ political values eventually- but a lot of that is forced, in my opinion. (I don't think transmission and force are mutually exclusive entities, but perhaps that's just a semantics argument?)
But religious beliefs are different from religion, aren't they? When a sacrament is done on a child just after he's born, no one is forcing religious beliefs on him ; however they are forcing a religion on him. But then the extent to which the child will have actual religious beliefs in the future is determined by the influence of his family and his environment, it won't be forced upon him. Plenty of people call themselves "religious" and go to the mass and whatnot (because it is useful for their public relationships and other goals) but have little to no religious beliefs. And you could probably see that influence from the media and communities is a form of forcing people, but honestly it's just the way a society works. Influence is everywhere.
Fair enough... I don't really see the distinction between transmission and force though, unless the latter is literally under duress (e.g., A parent telling a child that gay marriage is wrong because God says so (influence) vs. A parent telling a child that she will disown him if he doesn't openly advertise the idea that gay marriage is wrong because God says so (force)). I think in most practical situations, influence is semantically more accurate; that being said, I think fruity. meant that as opposed to literal force (at least, that's how I interpreted the question).
If we're really just disagreeing on semantics, then I think we are in agreement that parents and society heavily influence the religious upbringing of a child.
1. Then people who practice religious practices will make you feel uneasy even if those people will never affect you in any direct way.
2. You believe things like that they are more violent, dumber, and less socially advanced than you.
3. You say that they are a backwards people who are the cause of all the problems in the world just because they have different ideas and thoughts than you.
Quite a lot of generalisation going on. Not sure if when you say 'you' you're meaning me personally, if so there's a shit load of ad hominem going on. To take a few of your points: Firstly, people who have different views to me, do not make me feel uneasy. It's their way of life, and I'm OK with that (this doesn't mean that I won't question though). I'm very much a live and let live type. However (and going back to the Catholic example above) This doesn't mean that I can't see the damage that a view or opinion can potentially cause to people, creed or country, and specifically how adhering to texts written thousands of years ago limits in a society's growth, and actually does harm in some circumstances. How can all we have learned in the past few thousand years be disregarded?
The second point of yours I've highlighted: Religion on it's own has been (and sadly I feel always will be) A cause for violence - especially among the monotheistic religions. Boils down to each Holy Text stating our God is the one true God, and therefore any other religion is wrong. There is no wiggle room here, it's black and white, period. And there is little which can be so easily and clearly defined. I'll highlight Islam here and how the Sunni and Shia sects attack one another in Iraq. Isn't it reasonable to say in that actually yes they are more violent? How else can you describe two groups who'd kill one another purely on their belief? But really even in this I don't know if religion is the true cause. I feel some people use religion to justify the fact they're just fucked up individuals (victims of the situation they're in perhaps?), there's a hell of a lot more people in the world who are religious, yet don't engage in violence. False dichotomy is rarely the way to go. As for 'dumber' no. Just no. But in some religions can and do limit individuals, and don't even allow room for debate (ie homosexuality) How can healthy debate ever be a bad thing? X topic is taboo in our Holy Text therefore it's off limits forever just seems overly restricting, there's no evolution here. How can the way of life thousands of years ago, be a basis for things today?
Your third point I highlighted. Wow. Never said any of that. What. lol. Seriously just.. I don't even..
Which of these groups have more people getting killed for having their beliefs?
Theists Atheists
Now, ask yourself, which one do you think suffers more for having their belief?
I would answer Theists in both questions.
And by other theists.
I don't know how that is relevant?
For context, here's the original question.
On May 24 2015 09:44 fruity. wrote: How much religion would there be in the world, if parents didn't force their kids into having a religious belief?
Where the poster implies that religious beliefs are being forced on people. But the truth is that more often than not, having religious beliefs is more likely to get you killed than not having religious beliefs--the opposite of what he was imagining.
Where does killing come in to it? And then I would like to ask who's doing the killing? To grossly generalise, which do you feel is more likely: atheists killing in the name of no God, or the religious killing due to having a different religion? Or even different sects within the same religion?
Perhaps a better wording would of been:
How much religion would there be in the world, if parents didn't pass on their beliefs to their kids? But then in a free world you have to point out that parents should be free to raise their children how they see fit. But what when that religious view is plainly wrong from a scientific standpoint?
For me a big problem with religion is that it doesn't move with the times, or progress society in anyway. It locks people in the past, locks them into a view of the world written thousands of years ago, a view unsurprisingly formed before there wasn't widespread scientific knowledge. And far worse than this - blatantly lies to defend certain aspects of their religion.
For example: The Catholics stance on condoms. Even today in the 21st century the Pope has gone on record saying that Catholics should not use condoms, they're evil. This is total bullshit, and the only person here who'd say that is not the case, would be either totally ignorant and uneducated or a troll. 30,000,000 have died from this sexually transmitted disease (HIV/AIDS), yet the church says don't use them?
How can anyone be ok with that?
The Church is quick to point out how they support and help those infected (and even research into AIDS treatment) That's great! But it's pissing in the wind when taken from the perspective of having 1.2 billion followers globally and taking an opposition to the use of condoms. It's totally counter intuitive, and when you move focus to the poorer countries of the world, with little to no health support or information services, add in religion - a one saying 'contraceptive use is evil' and boom, disaster. It's OK though! The church will help you on your deathbed!
The use of condoms to prevent disease is a controversial issue, with Catholic theologians arguing both sides. While a few dissenting theologians exist, the Church teaches that artificial contraception of all forms is intrinsically evil. (wikipedia)
And this I guess this is at the stem of my original question, wondering whether or not the archaic views that religions propagate (and hence propagated from parent to offspring) Is a good or bad thing.
Whether religious practices/views should be allowed, or whether children should be taught the teachings of their culture are two very different arguments. You can't cherry pick which parts of another person's culture is allowed or not allowed just because you disagree with it. It goes against everything that personal freedoms stand for. Countries that enforces cultural practices that said society sees as good and just have always lead to an unhappy populace and basic human rights being abolished in the name of social engineering whether its religious societies like IS or atheist societies like the Soviet Union. For the most part, whether people go to church or not is not what makes a society corrupt.
Large groups of people with power have a tendency to become corrupt--being religious is not why people do bad things for much the same reasons that being non-religious is not the reason why people do bad things. Removing religion will not stop wars, will not stop greed, will not stop class divide, xenophobia, etc... Whether different groups blame religious differences, cultural differences, racial differences, resource scarcity, personal history, etc... there will always be things that causes strife amongst tribes.
Here's what I think is very likely: people tend to feel oppressed when they see others doing things that they themselves won't do. In countries with more strife the pressures is violence and death. In countries where people are free to do what they want the perceived oppressive actions are knowing others live life differently than you. These feelings will not go away because its human nature to be less trusting of groups outside of the ones you have deemed okay.
For example:
If you believe strongly enough in atheism to have it be part of your identity. Then people who practice religious practices will make you feel uneasy even if those people will never affect you in any direct way. You will feel that there is this greater force they represent that is oppressing your way of life just because they exist. You believe things like that they are more violent, dumber, and less socially advanced than you. You say that they are a backwards people who are the cause of all the problems in the world just because they have different ideas and thoughts than you. Its the same kinds of thoughts overly zealous believers have of people outside their faith. Of racists have of other people. Of elites have of the lower class--and vice versa.
I'm a pretty strong atheist (in the sense that by now I'm pretty convinced that there is no god, and I live my life that way, yet I'm still open to hearing arguments for one's existence), and I don't feel "oppressed" by the existence of religious people (primarily because the U.S.A. isn't a theocracy, although it's made some pretty odd non-secularist choices when it comes to science education, minor policies and traditions that throw in a Bible and the word God every now and then, and the like). And when I see church get out on Sunday mornings or get asked about my religious beliefs (or lack thereof), I don't think to myself "Man, look at all that oppression... it's unfair that I don't get to go to church!" I could if I wanted to; I used to. The discrimination of non-religious people is an undeniable reality in America, but it's not nearly as bad as the discrimination that blacks, women, and gays have been dealing with. Unless you want to hold public office, I suppose.
Also, I feel you're strawmanning an atheist's position when you say an atheist insists that religious people "are the cause of all the problems in the world just because they have different ideas". Religious fundamentalism is a very real issue that is a cause for many of the world's problems, but I haven't met a single atheist who thinks that eradicating religion would lead to a literal utopia. And even if such a person did exist, he would not represent 99.99% of atheists. Perhaps a better society overall, but no one blames literally everything on religion.
And the reason why some people may argue that there is a negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence is because in many cases, there's actually a negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence.
There are several individual, independent studies demonstrating this, and the Wiki entry compiles many of them quite well; there are 27 references in the entry, and of course you could just Google other papers as well:
"In a 2013 meta-analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, of 63 scientific studies about IQ and religiosity, a negative relation between intelligence and religiosity was found in 53" "Firstly, using data from a U.S. study of 6,825 adolescents, the authors found that atheists scored 6 IQ points higher than non-atheists." "Secondly, the authors investigated the link between religiosity and intelligence on a country level. Among the sample of 137 countries, only 23 (17%) had more than 20% of atheists, which constituted “virtually all... higher IQ countries.” The authors reported a correlation of 0.60 between atheism rates and level of intelligence, which was determined to be “highly statistically significant”.[4]" "The idea that analytical thinking makes one less likely to be religious is an idea supported by other early studies on this issue[19] including a report from Harvard University.[15]" "Furthermore, the Harvard study found that participants who tended to think more reflectively were less likely to believe in God.[15]" etc. etc. etc. ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
Of course, that's not to say every religious person is dumb or dumber than I am (and I know many religious people who are incredibly intelligent), but- again- it's inappropriate to insist that creating opinions based on data, studies, and global experiences is somehow inappropriate and only done to be prejudicial towards religious people.
Which do you think is more true:
Humans can be both good or bad and it doesn't really matter what society they're in, all societies have those types of people in them.
OR
Humans are purely good and if it wasn't for the existence of religion we would all be living happy nirvana filled lives filled with happy and goody.
“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” ~Steven Weinberg, theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate
So yeah, you're going to have other problems in a community even without religion, but that doesn't justify the want for additional problems, quite possibly by those who wouldn't have otherwise created problems if it weren't for their religious beliefs.
On May 25 2015 21:19 salle wrote: While this has been a pretty well mannered discussion please refrain from discussing religion on the teamliquid forums.
On May 25 2015 21:19 salle wrote: While this has been a pretty well mannered discussion please refrain from discussing religion on the teamliquid forums.
All hail TL Rules, the one true god of what I say or do on this forum
On May 25 2015 21:19 salle wrote: While this has been a pretty well mannered discussion please refrain from discussing religion on the teamliquid forums.
All hail TL Rules, the one true god of what I say or do on this forum
Thank you for abiding by the rules set in place to make the forum a welcoming and inviting place for people of all persuasions.
smiling then pretending everything is fine, never works out in the end. having rules to force people to pretend everything is fine then smile is even worse but w/e ...
On May 26 2015 00:55 xM(Z wrote: smiling then pretending everything is fine, never works out in the end. having rules to force people to pretend everything is fine then smile is even worse but w/e ...
There is still reason for having general rules and guidelines in a forum. Besides, you can always take your issues to PM instead of posting in threads, if it's about an irrelevant topic.
On May 26 2015 00:55 xM(Z wrote: smiling then pretending everything is fine, never works out in the end. having rules to force people to pretend everything is fine then smile is even worse but w/e ...
Guidelines are guidelines for a reason. People don't just act good without rules telling them what counts as good and what counts as bad--otherwise TL wouldn't have their commandments.
there is no rule about banning entire discussions/topics. it's done out of convenience. and don't pretend like all the rules serve some greater good or something, it's laughable.
Edit: nothing bad/wrong happens in a discussion but based on past experiences, one knows something bad is going to happen sooner or later, so the discussion gets closed. it's arguable, but ultimately it's not a bad mindset to have/use on forums as a guideline . what's screwed up there though, is what constitutes a bad experience, the definition of it because that's your black hole. you can stick anything in there and still be within some guidelines.
i don't know men, the idea that people will always be shit(sooner or later) is rather insulting. (ok, web. feedback. just saw your post @salle. np)
I wondered across this, and thought to share. Thought about copy / pasting but then realised I couldn't be bothered. So all I'll say is SR-71 Blackbird, speed, putting someone in their place.
On May 26 2015 10:43 fruity. wrote: I wondered across this, and thought to share. Thought about copy / pasting but then realised I couldn't be bothered. So all I'll say is SR-71 Blackbird, speed, putting someone in their place.
On May 26 2015 10:43 fruity. wrote: I wondered across this, and thought to share. Thought about copy / pasting but then realised I couldn't be bothered. So all I'll say is SR-71 Blackbird, speed, putting someone in their place.
Been wondering about the interwebz reminding myself just how sexy and amazing this plane was. When guess what, I found the pilot talking about this very incident.
if your a waiter/waitress and your in a job where tipping is common are your employers required to pay you the standard minimum wage? I've read conflicting things about it.
EPT
