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Does religion really help us?

  
  

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fabi
23:18 / 13.03.04
I was reading a history book and I suddenly realized the most obvious fact, that almost all wars have begun because of religion differences. So, my question is:
Is religion a great thing that's helping us to be better and to have at least some moral principles or is it just an evil purpose for all wars?

thaks
 
 
---
02:22 / 14.03.04
Well i think if the western world had something more like Buddhism and Taoism a lot of wars over differences would of been avoided, but that's just my opinion......

I really don't see what some of this stuff has done other than imbalance us, and am even tempted to read up on some Satanism in order to look for some of the things that the established Christian dogma has deterred me from, i'm that convinced that it's a mess.

I see Taoism as being something that finds a harmony in our nature instead of just slicing it in half and calling it God and Devil, Jesus and Satan etc, so maybe the more people that get influenced by that, the better.

I really do wonder just how mad Jesus would think the Church system actually is.
 
 
Cat Chant
08:01 / 14.03.04
Is religion a great thing that's helping us to be better and to have at least some moral principles or is it just an evil purpose for all wars?

Depends on the role it plays within different societies and subcultures. I don't think it's useful to unify all the myriad theologies and social systems of the world under the term 'religion', as if the only important axis of differentiation was 'religious'/'secular'. Jack Frost has brought up Daoism already, which is a useful way of thinking about how 'religion' is an impossibly broad term whose meaning changes completely not just from religious system to religious system, but depending on its historical and cultural context.

Some 'religions' in some periods of history in some cultures have united state and military power with a particular philosophical value system which maps isomorphically onto the Schmittian political distinction between 'friend' and 'enemy', and adds a moral imperative to destroy the enemy either physically or through forced conversions. But that's not only a feature of religious systems: secular political systems such as fascism, for example, can do the same thing. Conversely, the black/Afro-American Protestant Christian church in the South was an incredibly useful institution for the American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s, although other religious and secular systems also had parts to play in providing sites for organization and resistance. I don't think you can adequately approach even a single religion, like 'Christianity' or even 'Protestantism', in the terms of your original question: sometimes Christianity helps us to be better (in very pragmatic terms, eg playing a role in overthrowing race segregation in the Southern USA); sometimes it's an evil purpose, although not for all wars as of course there were wars before Christianity existed.

Actually, that's another thing. When you say "almost all wars", which ones do you mean? Not the Second World War, or the First, or any of the wars of the Roman Empire or (arguably) of the main phase of European colonialism (eg the Chinese Opium Wars), for example. I can only think of the Crusades as wars that began because of religious differences, and I expect someone who knew more about them than me could point out that that's debatable.

I suspect the idea that military antagonism is best understood in terms of 'religious differences' is born out of, and serves to legitimate, the contemporary situation - the US/UK's "global war on terrorism" as a clash between incommensurable belief systems or cultures - which is a context in which I mistrust it very deeply.
 
 
wicker woman
08:02 / 14.03.04
To paraphrase Bill Hicks, maybe it's time to create a new religion.

Of course, that path could always end up some sort of Transmetropolitan-ish nightmare. A new religion invested every 5 minutes in the City! "It means I can shove an icepick through your brain and call it an act of faith!"
 
 
Jack Fear
11:20 / 14.03.04
...almost all wars have begun because of religion differences.

Name ten.

Go on, name ten wars that have their roots primarily in religious differences.

(Wars for territory and resources in which religious motives were used as after-the-fact justification do not count.)

I ask you to back up your claim because this little unexamined proposition seems to me to be somewhere straddling the line between "tenuous overgeneralization" and "ludicrous poppycock."

I wait to be proven wrong.
 
 
Jack Fear
11:46 / 14.03.04
Shit, just realized that Deva's already thrown down that particular gauntlet--though not as brutally as I. (Righteous wrath, and all that.)

That said, Deva, I don't know that I'd classify the current "clash between incommensurable belief systems or cultures" as being a religious conflict as such: I see it as an ideological conflict, analogous to the Cold War with its broad battle lines of Communism vs. Democracy. Ideologues (on either side) can be just as terrifying in their zeal as religious fanatics...

But there are very few (except on the lunatic fringe of both sides) who posit the War On Terror as a religious conflict: indeed its strongest backers characterize it as not so much a war of Christianity vs. Islam as a war of values loosely defined as Judeo-Christian (democracy, tolerance, pluralism) versus, well, fascism basically--albeit a fascist ideology that defines itself in terms of Islamic tradition: what I would term an after-the-fact justification. Hence the ugly, clumsy, but probably accurate term "Islamofascist."

Religions, Islam especially, are notoriously flexible, and adapt to local custom, tradition, and mores: Man creates God as much as the other way around. In other words, religion does not so much define a national character as reflect it: The culture of the Arab world was tribal, patriarchal, and misogynistic long before the advent of Islam, and so the strain of Islam that flourished there was tribal, patriarchal, and misogynistic.

Is that a cultural difference? Yes. Is it strictly religious? I would argue not.
 
 
---
13:23 / 14.03.04
This debate could go on for ages. It depends on who you see the governments as serving. If you think their serving themselves, then no, it probably isn't religious, it's power and greed. On the other hand, if there's a secret war going on behind the scenes it could be a number of things :

Christianity vs Islam
Satanism vs Christianity
Islam vs Satanism
Power and Greed vs Islam/Christianity etc

It all depends on how wierd your prepared to believe things could actually get.

It's ok saying i'm a fucktard or whatever, but if The Illuminati/Masons are real and turn out to be serving what they think is Lucifer, (Masons would only be aware of this if they progressed through the lower degrees and then into the inner order apparently, according only to stuff i've read, which could easily be bullshit, obviously.) then it's all been about religion for a long, long time.

I'm into conspiracy though. My view is biased towards the fantastical and i openly admit that. It's not that i believe this and would go ranting about it on the streets or anything, simply because i would never judge something like Masonry on account of what i've read on the net and in books, but i like to try and have a totally open mind because lifes more interesting that way.
 
 
Jack Fear
15:04 / 14.03.04
It's ok saying i'm a fucktard or whatever...



Seriously, though--I think for these purposes we need to operate under Occam's Razor, and its corollary (the name of which I can never remember) to never attribute to malice what can be explained by mere stupidity.

In other words, things are often what they seem.

I think the lizzzzzzzzzards-angle is a red herring, because it removes the element of free will and motivation from the rank and file--it depersonalizes real people and their concerns by casting them as pawns in an enormous game.

If there is a "secret war behind the scenes," how far behind the scenes is it? And how can the people actually doing the fighting be so wrong about why they're doing it?

If the conflicts in the Middle East are really a front for the battle of Baphomet vs. Cthulhu (or whatever), well, geez, there's an awful lot of people who seem to think it's really about territory and oil.

So who should I believe? The Iraqis and Saudis and US policymakers and oil companies who are on the ground and in the thick of things, who actually live through this stuff, or David Icke, safe at home in Blighty?
 
 
---
18:38 / 14.03.04
Seriously, though--I think for these purposes we need to operate under Occam's Razor, and its corollary (the name of which I can never remember) to never attribute to malice what can be explained by mere stupidity.

Well i don't think Occams razor can be applied to just anything and think that in many cases it promotes close-mindedness by looking for the simplest theory when the simple theory could in fact be what we are being tricked into choosing. Although it's right in some cases i think it's dangerous to apply it in this situation when we are without any real knowledge of what the truth actually is, and have no means of being sure how to go about establishing that truth.

I think the lizzzzzzzzzards-angle is a red herring, because it removes the element of free will and motivation from the rank and file--it depersonalizes real people and their concerns by casting them as pawns in an enormous game.

I honestly think that many people are pawns given the amount of stuff we get fed from the education system, religions, media etc. I'd guess that many people are conditioned and pretty much without free-will. As for lizards, i don't buy that either.

If there is a "secret war behind the scenes," how far behind the scenes is it? And how can the people actually doing the fighting be so wrong about why they're doing it?

I'd say manipulation. Making people believe that they're fighting the forces of 'terrorism' when in fact their probably just fighting for the personal gain of the elite. This can be done in so many ways but i'd say the main one is media manipulation.

If the conflicts in the Middle East are really a front for the battle of Baphomet vs. Cthulhu (or whatever), well, geez, there's an awful lot of people who seem to think it's really about territory and oil.

Yeah i agree like i just said, but what type of shit do you have to have in your mind to go and do something like invade a whole country and kill scores and scores of innocents just for the things you mentioned? Maybe these people are just fucked in the head, i don't know. I could rant about conspiracy theories for another thousand words but i really don't believe in them that much to start promoting them. I was in the middle of this part of the post and i thought : what the fuck am i doing? I have to be honest and say i ain't got a clue, but it seems pretty fucking ugly whatever these saps are doing and they seem a little too soulless to be just greedy. Maybe they made thier own Lucifer/Satan/War God or something.

If you look around in books and on the net you'll find some pretty shocking things that seem to have a whole load of facts to go with them tying groups/people in power to some pretty sick shit. Look up Bohemian Grove, The Protocols of The Elders Of Zion, Bilderbergers, Masonic-Illuminati links, etc etc etc. All you have to do is read it as if it's definately fiction and have a laugh at it, but after you see the amount of stuff thats building it gets pretty fucking wierd.

In fact, if your gonna end up ranting like i am right now maybe it's best to just carry on with whatever your doing?!

So who should I believe? The Iraqis and Saudis and US policymakers and oil companies who are on the ground and in the thick of things, who actually live through this stuff, or David Icke, safe at home in Blighty?

Well there's probably many, many people out there fighting this stuff that make David Icke look tame in comparison, but if they're fighting the governments i wouldn't hold your breath waiting to see it on the evening news. That the big media corporations are government owned in almost every case isn't something that's very far out there.

Fuck it, it's got that mad that it all reads like fiction to me anyway.
 
 
D Terminator XXXIII
18:47 / 14.03.04
This is a truly short, pat post - but the main idea (...that I shall build upon in the coming week) is that religions did help us. Along the way. When societies first began to form, laws must have become essential.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
22:04 / 14.03.04
I've often wondered about Occam's Razor - is there any particular reason to trust that approach ? This fundamental assumption that life is, well, obvious, keep it simple and so on, this in many ways kind of reductive argument, that if it seems a bit odd well it can't be quite right... doesn't seem to do justice to reality, really.

I mean there could be yetis out there somewhere.
 
 
Jack Fear
01:12 / 15.03.04
I dunno, Zen Mem: it seems to me that if you read the newspapers and the history books, you'll find plenty of explanation for why things are the way they are, without the intervention of the Trilateral Commission, the Gnomes of Zurich, or the Elders of Zion.

Fuck it, it's got that mad that it all reads like fiction to me anyway.

That's the conspiracy mindset in a nutshell, I think. It's a fundamentally lazy approach, it seems to me--or maybe it's meant to protect the believer: rather than wade through the tortuous and ignoble history of simple human nature--and that human nature is a condition in which you yourself share--you can ascribe all of the world's evil to some "outside" force: The Man, or The Government, or The Greys. Or The Jews. And so, in a subtle way, you let yourself off the hook.

This sidebar is rotting the thread pretty badly... maybe a new thread on conspiracy mindset is called for? Or have we already got something that will suit?
 
 
eddie thirteen
05:01 / 15.03.04
I don't think Occam's Razor necessarily precludes the existence of the yeti. It's situational. I mean, if we *found* a yeti, then we'd have to be pretty closed-minded (and in violation of Occam's Razor) to come up with an alternate explanation for its existence (i.e., that the yeti we presently regard is, in fact, a German Shepherd). And there's really no reason to doubt that the yeti does exist -- being that the yeti is basically just a big gorilla, albeit one who lives in a cold climate rather than the jungle -- other than we haven't found one yet. If we sent a huge battallion to the arctic circle in search of the yeti (if Bush had done this instead of sending that afore-mentioned army to Iraq, he would probably have my vote, because how cool would THAT be!) and, six months later, there's no yeti, then I think you kinda have to give up the yeti ghost. At present, the yeti seems less likely than not because he's just really fucking huge and can't possibly hide all *that* well, even if he is snow-camoflauge-colored, and you'd think someone would have gotten a decent photograph of him by now. But even so, it's not like we've seriously devoted time and manpower to finding him -- he could be out there!

Threadrot? You make the call.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
11:35 / 15.03.04
Back more-or-less on topic, and with reference to Deva's point about the Crusades: I am no expert on the Crusades and would welcome any further comments from people with greater insight, but my feeling on this matter is that though religion could be seen as the chief factor in starting these wars, it is important to note that (certainly for mediaeval Christians, I'm not so hot on Islam, though I have no doubt that territorial ambition played as great a part for them as jihad) the religious entity of Christendom was identical with the geographical entity of Christendom (hence problems with Byzantine Christendom, the status of which was a sticking point at several times during the four several crusades). So it's difficult, if not pointless and misleading, to attempt to draw a distinction between geopolitical and religious motives for the Crusades...

You will recall that mediaeval mappa mundi generally have Jerusalem at the centre of the world; I wonder whether it was therefore a matter of temporal as well as spiritual necessity for the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor to assert authority over it, in order to support their secular as well as ecclesiastical power?
 
 
grant
17:05 / 15.03.04
Yes. Control of the Holy Land was a big symbolic deal for the Holy Roman Empire. They weren't that great at hanging onto it, though.

I've also heard the first Crusade explained as an extension of Viking raids -- the Christianized warriors needed something to do with all their piss & vinegar, and found a rationalization to go do it.
 
 
40%
10:52 / 18.03.04
I really do wonder just how mad Jesus would think the Church system actually is.

No particular church system could be any madder than the beliefs underlying the religion itself. Primary of which is that Jesus rose from the dead and is currently ruling humanity from heaven. Have you ever considered that if this isn't true, the religion as a whole is inherently mad, as was Jesus himself?

How can you talk about 'what Jesus would think'? If he's not currently around to judge, the whole religion is wrong by definition, so of course the church system is mad. If he is, then he is in perfect control of what is going on in the world, such that his 'opinions' would define reality, rather than responding to it. So....what are you like, basically?

Jack - it seems odd to me that a Christian would advocate occum's razor. Surely occum's razor would say that the simplest explanation is that we're born, then we die, and that's it. The Garden of Eden, original sin, the incarnation, the resurrection and the final judgement are about as far from the simplest explanation as you can get! If you can believe in those things, why do Zen Memetic's theories about invisible power struggles seem so fantastical? Many Christians seem to find such leaps very small indeed.

I'm sure Smoothly Weaving would be interested to hear your answer too, as he was asking me as an ex-religious person, whether the tendency to have faith in one thing you can't see leads to having greater sympathy with other people's beliefs which cannot be empirically proven.


Anyway...religion as a cause of war.

I would think the central question is the degree of separation between church and state, especially in terms of whether religion is seen as a means of governance. Some Muslim nations seem to take it for granted that religion should dictate all other matters, political, legal and military, whereas in our nation, religion is seen as a private matter. Even those church communities which very much believe in 'spreading the word' seem to prefer to do so by personal means rather than political/legal means. They do not hope or expect that their religion should be imposed on society from the top-down. They might not want that even if it were possible.

Growing up in my particular religious context, I took it as a maxim that faith is a personal choice, rather than an institutional leaning. In fact, instituionalised religion can seem to create a false sense of security through outward compliance without any real conviction. So the Crusades to me seemed not only wrong but absurd and pointless. How could anyone believe that a forced conversion actually meant anything? So the Crusades could be a result of stupidity, as always seemed intuitively true to me, or they could be a result of ulterior motives.

A lot of Christianity in this country is fairly apolitical (except in as much as abdicting from politics can be said to be a political act). Therefore, it's not causing an awful lot of wars at the moment, despite the fact that people still have strong beliefs. Is this an indication that religion doesn't necessarily lead to war? Perhaps. Depends on your view of what true religion is. Why does the Church of England never starts any wars? Is it because they are such a paragon of religious enlightenment? Or is it because they'd prefer tea and biscuits? "CAKE OR DEATH!" etc.

But we've not had any evidence for the 'religion causes war' proposition, so we needn't really worry about finding evidence against it just yet.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:20 / 18.03.04
No particular church system could be any madder than the beliefs underlying the religion itself. Primary of which is that Jesus rose from the dead and is currently ruling humanity from heaven. Have you ever considered that if this isn't true, the religion as a whole is inherently mad, as was Jesus himself?

As I believe CS Lewis said, you cannot maintain that Jesus was a good man whoi simply happened to believe himself to be the son of God and take his advice as credible, any more than one might a man who believes himself to be a teapot.

How can you talk about 'what Jesus would think'? If he's not currently around to judge, the whole religion is wrong by definition, so of course the church system is mad. If he is, then he is in perfect control of what is going on in the world, such that his 'opinions' would define reality, rather than responding to it. So....what are you like, basically?

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of divinity as conceived by the mainstream Christian church. I would suggest, however, that further questions and issues resulting form theological confusion should go in another thread. We are not talking about theistic principles here, but about the effect of religion on society.

Also, incidentally, lots of people seem to be quoting Occam's razor here, without anyone actually appearing to know what it *is*. Occam's razor states:

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

That is, entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. Introducing a vast conspiracy involving invisible orders of Satanists could be seen as introducing unnecessary entities in order to represent the invasion of Iraq, say, as a religious war rather than a political or territorial war. The application of Occam's razor to the Christian creation myth does not end in "we're born, we die and that's it" because the two are dealing with different questions. Arguably one might say that applying Occam's razor to the question of what happens before we are born and after we die would reuslt in "we are born, we die and that's it", but even then a proper application would probably identify the certainty "that's it" as an unnecessary entity...
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:54 / 18.03.04
Is religion a great thing that's helping us to be better and to have at least some moral principles or is it just an evil purpose for all wars?

Religious and territorial motives often seem to get mixed up so that one can't be separated from another and that's when wars get extremely complicated and seem to go beyond our standard of 'war'. Northern Ireland is probably a good example- constant fighting between Protestants and Roman Catholics for space. Israel is another and probably even more complex but the whole situation has a tendency to be emotive because people don't see it as an occupation. It's naive to assume we live in a world without religious war and to assume that humanity is any better at separating war from its belief systems nowadays (hello George W. Bush).

How many people fought in the Crusades compared to the Iraq war? Considering that most of the leaders of the governments who went in to Iraq are right wing Christians I'd put a small and largely unfounded proposal through that it was a religious war.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:22 / 18.03.04
The wisdom of Homer seems useful here.

"It's because they're stupid...that's why everyone does everything"
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:27 / 18.03.04
On Anna De L.'s point, I can't be the only one who finds both Bush and Blair's 'committed Christianity' a little worrying...since Christian dogma does not view humanity as an open ended ongoing concern, but a finite, bounded affair curtailed by an apocalyptic End of Days in which All will be Judged...and I never met a religious person who wasn't convinced of their own selection in the lineup for the Good Stuff.

So why even bother with G8, Kyoto, world peace and so on? The world is fucked anyway, it's full of sinners, who are hellbound regardless, while both George and Tony are Fighting the Good Fight, and have guaranteed their place in Heaven.

Apocalyptic belief systems and a mandate to govern the affairs of the world and its people seem just a mite contradictory to me. Anyone know what I mean?

Sorry, threadrot, of sorts.

Sorry, threadrot, of sorts.
 
 
ajm
18:07 / 18.03.04

People can only improve by themselves. Another person or an external system of thought cannot produce a change in oneself unless one lets it, therefore only through the individual. Organized religion, beliefs and philosophies are something one must overcome to become spiritualized, enlightened or 'improved'. Most people look to religion for confirmation of their own beliefs and not to find truth. You can see this in the way in which no two people from the same religion will have the exact same interpretation of there beliefs and what they mean.

What is war but mass violence and this type of violence can only occur through the accumulation of small acts of violence. These large scale acts of violence cannot spontaneously ignite, there is always a spark. The spark is the religious/political/social institutions. If you belong to any of these then you are creating an act of violence, maybe a small one, but it adds to the mass. As far as I see, there is no difference in conforming to the beliefs of a religion, or your country or any group of like minded individuals. When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. Even to simple label these beliefs 'evil' colors our perception of the truth which is, if we look at the history of mankind, all the violence is perpetrated by groups with different ideologies, which in the end stands for nothing but to differentiate themselves from one another.

Also, forcing anyone to believe what you believe is a form of violence. The 'idea' of hell is a way to force people to believe because there is no rational basis to submit to their beliefs except through fear. It is equivalent to telling someone to 'bow down before me or you'll burn their eyes out' (in the afterlife), which is undeniable violent. Therefore Christianity is violent by nature in this regard and spreads violence through anyone who hears of its views. Eternal torture? That's not choice or free will.

Faith: The blind belief of an 'idea' in the opposition of rationality. Faith: Spirituality through ignorance.

There's no compassion or understanding or love as far as I can see here, only the seed's of intolerance, ignorance and war.

Andrew M

"Belief is a denial of truth, belief hinders truth; to believe in God is not to find God. Neither the believer nor the non-believer will find God; because reality is the unknown, and your belief or non-belief in the unknown is merely a self-projection and therefore not real.
You all believe in different ways, but your belief has no reality whatsoever. Reality is what you are, what you do, what you think, and your belief in God is merely an escape from your monotonous, stupid and cruel life.
Furthermore, belief invariably divides people: there is the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Christian, the communist, the socialist, the capitalist and so on. Belief, idea, divides; it never brings people together. You may bring a few people together in a group but that group is opposed to another group.
...Therefore your belief in God is really spreading misery in the world; though it may have brought you momentary consolation, in actuality it has brought you more misery and destruction in the form of wars, famines, class-divisions and the ruthless action of separate individuals."
Jiddu Krishnamurti - The First and Last Freedom
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:59 / 18.03.04
The spark is the religious/political/social institutions. If you belong to any of these then you are creating an act of violence, maybe a small one

So. it isn't necessarily religion that is at fault? We must also rid ourselves of politics and of society?

So, what's our model for a violence-free future? It was recently commented that democracies tend not to be in the habit of declaring war on each other (that is, "true" democracies do not declare war on other "true" democracies), so perhaps secular democracy, or for that matter religious democracy (e.g. Turkey) is the answer? Although perhaps another factor is that major democracies often have a lot to lose and friends with decent-sized nuclear arsenals...
 
 
sleazenation
22:53 / 18.03.04
democracies don't fight wars with other democracies they just fund opposition parties and incite them to sieze power in a coup, especially if they try to nationalize the oil industry...
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
09:04 / 19.03.04
I would suggest that 'religion' as a hierarchical organisation based on dogmatic adherence to ancient texts, and manifested by archaic ritual which is purely symbolic, is so far from the original basis of the belief and worship of higher intelligence that it serves little purpose other than to divide and confuse; it also provides the mechanism for corruption and abuse of power conferred within the hierarchy.

I subscribe to absolutely no established 'faith', but consider the ingestion of 20g of Hawaiian psilocybe to be a sacred act of communing with the divine. I strongly suspect (though have no proof at all) that psychedelic plants provided much of the impetus toward a belief in the divine for ancient civilisations...it is fairly difficult to avoid the metaphors after ingesting ayahuasca, or mushies, or any of the other multitude of naturally occurring plants which derange the senses.

Other methods of achieving the same result are equally valid, and quite likely instrumental in the history of religious belief (flagellation, extreme isolation, deep meditation and so on), but the point is the intensely personal and active participation in the Universe-as-an-organism, the Godhead, the Oneness, the Way, whatever you want to call it.

Dilution of the this ritual aspect to an hour and half listening to a reading from a book, and ingestion of bread and cheap wine, seems to miss the point entirely.

As has occurred in other threads recently, it's that old chestnut again : most religious text is like a finger pointing at the moon - the point being to follow the finger and behold the moon -WOW! Unfortunately, organised literalists tend to miss this point, and spend centuries staring intently at the finger, fighting wars with, and burning at the stake those who describe the finger in different forms, never actually noticing the moon which was the whole point in the first place.

Personally, I prefer to gatecrash straight into The Party with the assistance of intelligent plant life. It is useful, it does fill me with a sense of the divine, and I don't feel the need to blather on about it to anyone else.

Er, except here, of course.

Bugger.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:29 / 19.03.04
Concise version of Money $hot's post: "my method of interacting with the divine is more intense than yours (you point-missing, diluted fools)."

My divine is better than your divine. Wow, that's progress.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
11:21 / 19.03.04
Not really, Fly, just an attempt to get the thread back from democracies waging war on each other to whether or not religion is useful for human improvement...to which I tried to express that as a large, organised power structure, no probably not, IMO, whereas as a personal relationship with the divine, through whatever method floats your boat (and I expressed my own, while pointing out a few alternatives, by no means exhaustive), yes, I would say so. And my opinion extends to the notion that symbolic ritual is no substitute for the real thing.

I'm usually quite careful to say 'seems to me' and avoid 'isness' if I can, since my opinions are just that, but clearly have a habit of getting right up your nose nonetheless.

The 'fools' bit is entirely yours, though. And as for 'better than', I read it more as 'this is what works for me, the other options on offer are pale in comparison'. Oh well, you can't please everyone all the time.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:59 / 19.03.04
What your post doesn't seem to allow for, however, is the possibility that there are 'established' belief systems in which the rituals are more than symbolic. Your description of communion as an example of this would seem strange to a Catholic, for example, since hir articles of faith might well include transubstantiation (sp? - you know, the wafer actually turns into the flesh of Jesus, wine into his blood - wacky, but then so's intelligent plant life). This is before we get into the thorny issue of when a ritual stops being symbolic and starts being an interaction with the divine: many Christians would argue, I imagine, that taking communion is an act of love and remembrance done in response to a request from a historical human manifestation of the divine with whom they have a personal relationship. Again, wacky but... you get the idea.

I dunno, you can try and convince me that there was nothing dismissive in the sentence that begins "Dilution..." and ends "...miss the point entirely", but I'm sceptical. I know you mentioned other methods for experiencing the divine, but they're all either rather rare and extreme, or couched in terminology more commonly associated (however erroneously) with other faiths, whereas one of the key aspects of Christianity as I understand it (I'm only going to speak for that particular spectrum of belief because it's the only one I ever really experienced) is generally that anyone can have a meaningful interaction with the divine through very simple means. To qualify this generalisation: obviously some variations of Christianity stress this more than others, and some even include the role of a human intercessor...

In those cases, I guess I'm with you, and the more I think about this, the more I think that I was going off half-cocked (again). It may well be that the implication of your post was that religion can manifest itself as BOTH/EITHER "a hierarchical organisation based on dogmatic adherence to ancient texts, and manifested by archaic ritual which is purely symbolic" AND/OR ALSO "the belief and worship of higher intelligence... a sacred act of communing with the divine" ACROSS the groups of belief system which we call Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc - if so, this wasn't entirely clear to me, and I read it as saying that the faiths just named generally fell into the "hierarchical" category in contrast to your own experience , which was of the latter "sacred" type.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:25 / 19.03.04
OK - so, Money $hot is saying that religion fulfils about the same need - the need for a sense of "belief and worship of higher intelligence" - that he satisfies by taking hallucinogens. There is a double issue here. One issue - that his experience of the divine is better in quality than the experience provided by going to church - isn't necessarily the issue here, as it doesn't address whether religion "helps us", unless that help is considered to be help in experiencing the divine.

Of course, there are lots of ways of experiencing something greater than oneself. German romantic philosophy was big on the idea of sublimity, which in some ways functions comparably to the experience of the divine others might get from holy communion. Also, of course, the experience of holy communion to somebody who believes that it is a representation of the body and blood of Christ, who died so that they may live free of the burden of original sin, may be rather more affecting and rather closer to communion with the divine than it may seem to the external observer. Some will find receiving communion more satisfying and a more coherent and productive way of being made aware of and partaking in the presence of the divine than taking mushrooms, others will go the other way. I'm unconvinced that the fact that taking hallucinogenic drugs often creates a feeling not unlike religious awe or a sense of a greater externality suggests that the origin in the human species of religious awe or a sense of a greater externality - is it not more logical to believe that the human mind simply couches experiences resulting from the consumption of halucinogens using its existing toolkit?

Anyway, we are now seeing another dichotomy, that between structured religion and what we might call "spirituality" - a numinous perception of certain feelings of participation with the universe achievable by various means (drugs, self-flagellation, meditation, milky tea). Because hierarchical and dogmatic, structured religion is bad, although Money $hot seems to be suggesting that it "pales in comparison" also as a way of experiencing the divine - that is, it is bad on one level because it is not an effective way of experiencing the divine (although the idea of a ritual that is purely symbolic and thus worthless is on I am having trouble getting my head round) and on another because it is a structure of authority, and thus potentially liable to abuse.

So... given that we need the experience of the divine, and we don't need an organised religious structure to provide it, why do we still have organised religious structures? Is it pure perversity, or are there other benefits - for example, social structures, pastoral care, systems of support - or is it that M$'s understanding of what is provided by ritual, or the success with which it is provided, is a bit skew-whiff, or is there some other reason?

While we're here, could I ask what you gain from this sense of communion with the divine, M$ (and anyone else out there, of course)? You say it's useful for the improvement of humanity, but how exactly do you see its usefulness?
 
 
illmatic
12:26 / 19.03.04
Just a thought, Money Shot, don't have the time to do a big post today. The thing I find so interesting about religon is it is a social and collective way for people to negoiate their relationsip with the divine, and "channel" these influences into society, and vice versa. I didn't think your post really allowed for that, unless your psychedelic sessions are happening in some sort of community session. (Actually, there are a couple of psychedelic churches now I think about it, the Native American one and I believe there's a Brazilan church that uses Ayushusca as a sacrament)- ie. it didn't get into the complexities of living and working with other people. Comments?

Ajm - found your post a bit bizarre to be honest. You still seem to be thinking of religon as one big static entity that divides us, therefore you can dismiss it easily. To me, it's more like a multiplicity of dfferent intentions and outputs see Deva's post above, or Flyboy's last paragraph.
 
 
Jack Fear
12:26 / 19.03.04
To sum up: reading from a book, eating bread, and drinking wine may be in itself an empty activity, as Money $hot suggests.

However, I would posit that the spiritual routes of which s/he approves (taking drugs, ritual ordeal, etc.) are also meaningless and empty, when considered in and of themselves, outside of their devotional context.

In other words, as always, it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it--that's what gets results. I mean, have we learned nothing from Fun Boy 3?

The worship-activity itself is relatively unimportant: what is impoirtant is that it be performed in a state of mindfulness. Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water: After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. There's nothing symbolic here, nothing in fact but perfectly mundane activity. The outer landscape stays the same; the inner landscape changes.

When you go to church, it's a hollow, diluted dumbshow: when I go to church, every gesture aches with meaning and immanence. When you take psilocybin, you're communing with the godhead: when I take hallucinogenics, I'm a drooling burnout who just wants to get fucked up.

Different means, same ends. And when you fail to recognize that there are a multitude of valid paths to the center, that's the beginning of religious intolerance.
 
 
ajm
12:40 / 19.03.04
No (Starskey), the answer is not to actively rid ourselves of religion, politics and society, but to simply see the effects of these systems on ourselves externally and internally. The key to a violent free society is for 'you' to understand your relationship with the divine, which isn't through ritualistic prayer/belief or the ingestion of different types of chemicals, which is an escape from the divine and not a path to it.

After all, it is 'you' who has a hand in creating society (reality). Through the accumulation of everyone's desires, fears, insecurities, hate, suffering and love we have the global society, which seems dominantly violent, a blown up projection of our inner psyche. War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday life as society is the outward expression of man. The conflict between himself and society is the conflict within himself. There will never be an end to violence through any religious or political system or ideology if there is still that violence within us (all of us), so the important thing is for use to understand and therefore transform ourselves. Not to force others to change to the way we are, when we don't understand ourselves. Which seems to be most peoples answer, "If only everyone was Christian or Jewish or communist or democratic, then the world would be peaceful". Which would take incredible violence to occur, and the results would be civil violence. So war is merely an outward expression of our inward state, an enlargement of our daily action. It is more spectacular, more bloody, more destructive, but it is the collective result of our individual activities. Therefore, you and I are responsible for war and peace will never come through violent means.

What's important is to understand ourselves and our relationships to people, ideas, possession, the beliefs you hold and the beliefs you reject. All these things influence and condition our current state to the point that we don't really have 'free will' and are simply at the whim of fate. Breaking free from fate can only occur through the understanding of our own conditioning to understand how you and I are the cause of war and the state of society.

(what a bummer topic, we should talk about bunnies)
AJM

"To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me.
Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states - greed, envy, ill will and possessiveness. To put an end to sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be a psychological revolution and few of us are willing to face that. We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations and so on and on; but we will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our stupid lives.
To rely on others is utterly futile; others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation which will lead to outward action.
Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace."
- Jiddu Krishnamurti

*Sorry for quoting this guy again but he has alot to say on these issues and I feel he should be more widely known (and who I might be slightly parroting).*
 
 
Jack Fear
12:47 / 19.03.04
Oh, and AJM:

People can only improve by themselves. Another person or an external system of thought cannot produce a change in oneself unless one lets it, therefore only through the individual. Organized religion, beliefs and philosophies are something one must overcome to become spiritualized, enlightened or 'improved'. Most people look to religion for confirmation of their own beliefs and not to find truth.

...except, of course, that any religion worth its salt is less a comfort than a challenge: a design for living, an exhortation to be better than you possibly can be. "Imitation of Christ," for instance, is a rough path, an unattainable goal--and if you swallow it whole and follow the program, it's going to lead you through some difficult places, and force you to confront and overcome some of your own comfortable assumptions, prejudices, in programming.

In short, it will improve you despite yourself, dragging you kicking and screaming from your natural "fallen" state towards something better--more compassionate, more peaceful, less ignorant, more loving...

...if you let the message be what it is, instead of what you wish it to be.

It seems more likely to me that a person would find real spiritual improvement on a path dictated from outside, where faithful adherence to that path will sometimes require hir to act against hir own proclivities and instincts.

The problem with devising your own path to enlightenment and spiritualization is that too often it works backwards--you start with your own fears, weaknesses, perversities and prejudices, and then "discover" a spiritual technique that oh-so-conveniently allows for them--or even sanctifies them.

A hypothetical example, if I may? Say your starting point is that of a hardcore racist. If you follow traditional Christian teachings--really follow them--you'll find that to be an increasingly untenable position, what with the "love one another" and "in Christ there is no Gentile or Jew" business. Uncomfortable: challenging: revolutionary. Something's got to give. And the Christian tradition isn't gonna change: it is of old, and carries more moral weight than your own prejudices. If anything is going to change, it is going to be your attitudes.

Now for the alternative: do you think that the hardcore racist left to develop his own spiritual path is more likely to come to one that embraces tolerance and pluralism, or one that casts race-hatred as not only acceptable but morally necessary?
 
 
Jack Fear
12:52 / 19.03.04
Sorry--posted that before I read your latest.

And kill the sig quote--as you rightly noted, it's pretty irritating. And do you not see the irony in it? Krishnamurti, a charismatic visionary, laying out a prescription for world change based on inner revolution? "Don't listen to leaders--except to me, of course."

It's all a bit Life of Brian, innit?
 
 
illmatic
13:04 / 19.03.04
I'd echo Jack's apology, my personal feelings are that we the best appraoches are ones that build dialogues and go towards the "opposition" as it were. I remember being very impressed with a groupof Christians called Hioly Joe's who truned up on the London pagan scene to chat with people and build bridges. You first post seemed a bit dismissive of other's paths to me that's all.

Ignore me, anyway, I'm just passing through today.
 
 
ajm
13:12 / 19.03.04
Jack:
And if you follow the path of say, Charles Manson, it may also be a hard path that challenges you, doesn't mean it will take you anywhere.
The problem I have with following other people or gurus is that it denies the self and teaches you that you are inadequate as you are, which is real intolerance. Being an imitator has no spiritual significance. Acting like one who had a divine connection does not mean you will obtain divinity, just as acting like a rock star doesn't make you one.

I'm surprised you even hear of Krishnamurti even if you don't fully understand his teachings (not saying that I do). Krishnamurti also says, "Don't listen to me". He states you need to listen to yourself, and not to accept anything he or anyone else says as fact, but to enquire and come to an understanding for yourself. I don't hear many saying this.

Also, I know Christians who follow Jesus and at the same time they don't see themselves as rasist (althought they are) and intolerant as they look upon other religous people as silly and misguided (but of course they still love them). But if these people could objectively look at themselves they would be able to see the violence inside of themselve which they ignore or cover up through there own righteousness.

AJM
 
  

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