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Anyone up for an anti-religion jihad?

  
  

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schwantz
17:59 / 25.10.02
I've really had it with this whole subject. If all these idiots are so sure that heaven is waiting for them, could they all just kill themselves so that those of us who want to live HERE, and make THIS PLANET a better place can get on with it?

First of all, there are the Islamic fundies who think that if they can just terrorize enough people, they will CHANGE WHAT WE BELIEVE. Or if not, we will be killed. Lovely. Does anyone want to live in one of these societies? It seems to me that everyone I meet from Islamic countries (Syria, Iran, etc) has ZERO respect for the fundies. And yet, the pathetic "governments" of the region shamelessly use people's religious beliefs to control them. At this point, I'd almost be MORE happy if we DID turn the war on terrorism into a war on Islam - personally though, I'd widen the scope to include ALL religions.

Then there are the nutcases in THIS country. We got Ashcroft covering up statues in DC. We've got Phelps out here terrorizing a murder victim's family with "God Hates Fags" signs. We have morons and their "intelligent design" "theories" (sorry about all the scare quotes), which to any REAL scientist, are just a bunch of semantic games and ridiculous speculation. Same deal with the anti-evolution crowd. We have judges who want scripture on the walls of their courts, and we have brain-dead congressmen and women mindlessly shouting out the "under god" part of the (already obnoxious) Pledge Of Allegiance.

I mean, the usual reasons, excuses, and justifications for religion are just not cutting it at ALL with me any more. We're past the point where we need an "explanation" for lightning in the sky. We don't need silly rules about what to eat anymore because we have fucking REFRIGERATORS. And anyone who can't figure out right from wrong without a 2000-year-old handbook and a bunch of outdated dogma can kiss my ass.

And to counter the usual BS responses, let me try to anticipate and shoot them down:

1. Yeah. Scientists DON'T know where the universe came from. They're still working on that. Maybe we will never know. Does this mean there is a "god" who created all this? C'mon. Get real.

2. Sure, religion is a great help (crutch) for many people. Let's kick out that cruch and maybe people will realize they don't need it.

3. No, I don't want to go to heaven. (Hint - there is no heaven, you moron) There IS a chance of creating a similar place here, in REALITY, however. THAT is what I'm concerned with.

I'm sick of the deal that we, as rational, relativistic, secular humanists get. WE have to couch all our arguments in PC, relativistic terms. WE have to question our own values, and try to understand how they have been colored by our environment. WE have to tiptoe around other people's beliefs. WE have to use the scientific method to prove any theories about the world. And, most importantly, WE have to admit that we might be wrong about ANY of our theories. And WE have to give these nutjobs "equal time" for their stupid ideas. For the fundies, they have no such quandaries. Since they know everything already (or if they don't, they fill it in with generic "god did it" or "god says it's so" garbage), they can be smug in their "complete" knowledge of the universe.

I say forget it. Even if I don't know if there is a god or not (although I have a theory...), I DON'T CARE ANYMORE. There are MUCH more important things to worry about here on earth.
 
 
Cubby
18:04 / 25.10.02
What it seems you're really pissed about is blind stupid hate and ignorance, and while there is a long history between stupid hate and religon, the latter isn't a requisite for the former.

It'll still be out there, probably in the guise of "science". Can we say Eugenics?
 
 
Linus Dunce
18:23 / 25.10.02
Yup. God is love, whether or not you believe in him/her. Personally, I don't, but without these childish notions, where would we be? Eating our children and killing our neighbour for his lawnmower.
 
 
Jack Fear
18:32 / 25.10.02
Uhh... baby with the bathwater, anyone?
 
 
Seth
20:01 / 25.10.02
More than chucking the baby out with the bathwater: it's the sound of someone so frustrated at the prejudice and ignorance displayed by some people who happen to belong to organised religions that they've relented on fighting the good fight and decided to reflect exactly the same ignorance and prejudice straight back at them. This attitude will solve all the world's problems. I mean... anti-religion jihad? It's hard to imagine someone being capable of missing the point by that wide a margin

I'm already a fan of Cubby though, even after just reading one post to this thread. Hello Cubby
 
 
Ganesh
20:03 / 25.10.02
Understandable but misguided.

*grits teeth*

And.

No.

Abstract...
 
 
schwantz
20:08 / 25.10.02
How am I being ignorant?

And as far as science as religion - can't you see the difference? One has dogma, the other has the scientific method. There are REAL and VAST differences between the two. Science is not just some "other flavor" of religion.

What is religion good for, at this point? I'm serious. Tell me what good comes out of religion, and how that good NEEDS religion in order to manifest itself.
 
 
cusm
20:23 / 25.10.02
Note that a fanatical devotion to the scientific process is functionally no different from fanatical devotion to religion.

Really, its the fanatics we could all do without, not what they are fanatical about.
 
 
schwantz
20:24 / 25.10.02
And where's the baby? Charities? Missionaries? Civil society?

This may be true, but none of those things require a religion to make them work, and when they DO invlove religion, they tend to taint whatever good comes out of the work. Charities force prayer sessions on the homeless, missionaries - we know about some of the atrocities that have been done in the name of missionary work.
 
 
schwantz
21:49 / 25.10.02
And if you want to follow the Cubby, take it to:

http://www.cubby.net/


  
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:40 / 25.10.02
*Takes a long draught of grown-up juice*

Scwantz, I don't think anyone here is claiming that your frustration is invalid. Indubitably, the extreme ends of any religion will come into conflict with what may be defined as "divinest sense".

That's a quote, by the way.

And, in your own nation, the pervasive nature (and the wealth) of the fistulous hatred certain Christians seem to feel about other souls and actions created presumably by God would indubitably lead all men of good conscience to anger.

However.

The leaders of the United States for the next couple of years are dodgy.

People who believe that the best way to follow the Sword Sura of the holy Qu'ran is to blow things up are dodgy.

This does not mean that all Christians, or all Muslims, or all Zoroastrians, if they happened to have bombs and guns and dollars, are evil.

For example - the triumph of the Taliban in Afghanistan, IIRC, was in no small part due to the semoleans possessed by Osama bin Laden, who was able to buy them Toyota jeeps and thus change the face of warfare in Afghanistan. Does this mean we should hate Toyota? The Japanese? Capitalism? Those who take the Yankee dollar?

Perhaps so.

And yet, perhaps there are good Japanese people out there. Good capitalists. Perhaps even good employees of Toyota. By declaring war on them, do we succeed in declaring war on badness in general? I am unsure that we will. And I fear that the costs are going to be out of proportion to the aims.

Religions are ways of looking at the world, just as are science and mathematics and formal logic (all tolerated with some cavilling on Barbelith). Where any of these become weapons of war against others who might, at the basic level, love the world, or love humanity, who want to make things *better*, then they become hate. But I see no profit in others deciding that to become hate is necessary or desirable for those who have signed up to liberal humanism.
 
 
The Strobe
00:40 / 26.10.02
Exp has it entirely: Anti-religion jihad: What, and, indeed, the fuck.

But never mind, eh. I think cusm might be onto the more appropriate line of thinking.
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
07:48 / 26.10.02
Note that a fanatical devotion to the scientific process is functionally no different from fanatical devotion to religion.

Really, its the fanatics we could all do without, not what they are fanatical about.

At this point I would throw in a reference to Robert Anton Wilson's New Inquisition as it applies perfectly to this statement.

And someone has to acknowledge haus's response. That has to be one of the best posts on barbelith, sensitive, non-confrontational, brilliant.
 
 
Sleeperservice
14:34 / 26.10.02
While the original post may be a bit OTT I have to agree really. Even most 'nice' christians refuse the recognise the relationships of many people on this board in any way other than disgust, fear, hate or, at best, pity. And yet we're supposed to do what? Turn the other cheek? Bend over & take it like a man?

The arguement about it being bad people that kill & hate, not religion, is begining to wear just a bit thin. Having organised religions seems to give these people a focus for their hate & violence that I'm not sure would be expressed otherwise. So lets take that focus away. Organised religion is, afterall, just an early form of government that has hung around *far* too long...

So yes. Ban organised religion. Worship who you like in your own home. But it stops there. Enough is enough.
 
 
Rev. Orr
15:24 / 26.10.02
Any thoughts as how to get around that pesky right to free assembly in the US? It's all getting a little 'don't ask, don't tell', sleeperservice. "Look, we don't mind that you're religious, but could you not mention it and pretend that you're normal around us right thinking people".

I'm no fan of organised religion and as an Anglican I think the best thing that could happen to my church in this country would be disestablishment. I'm not going to try and deny that some indefensible actions are done in the name of religion, but are we calling religion to account for its actions or denying its right to exist? The former is useful, even necessary, the latter is just as worrying as the bigotry being condemned. Like lynching racists, declaring people of faith to be anaethema isn't the answer.
 
 
schwantz
21:50 / 29.10.02
Interesting on-topic article at:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15798
 
 
Malle Babbe
13:52 / 30.10.02
[quote]Note that a fanatical devotion to the scientific process is functionally no different from fanatical devotion to religion.[/quote]

While such activities as eugenics does give creedence to your argument, if I am living in the middle of somewhere in the midst of a cholera epidemic, securing a clean water supply will do me a lot more good than witch-burning.

I think the big frustration is the fact that religious people, whether laity or clergy, state that their belief system is what enforces an orderly society, and is the only thing that will keep themselves and other people from chopping off their neighbors' heads and rutting in the streets, while at the same time wringing their hands uselessly when their brothers in faith use their chosen creed to do just that.
 
 
Pepsi Max
14:13 / 30.10.02
Anyone up for an anti-religion jihad?

Yeah, let's start those bloody atheists and fanatical agnostics. I say chase those intolerant bastards out of town.

It's the only language they understand.
 
 
The Natural Way
14:14 / 30.10.02
Oh look it's the "religious people" beast...

Aaargh! Run!
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:55 / 30.10.02
religious people, whether laity or clergy, state that their belief system is what enforces an orderly society

Wot, all of them? Good to know.
 
 
The Natural Way
15:05 / 30.10.02
Above me:

Wot I said, but less obliquely.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
20:07 / 30.10.02
I get bloody angry with some religious people too, schwantz, but since I think man/woman invents gods to suit hir own petty little earthly whims, I have to balance the nasty creepy brimstone-flecked fundamentalists with the good people I know whose religious belief isn't so much a crutch (or a whip) but a simple philosophy that drives them to be better people. I have spent a lot of time around Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Quakers and Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists and, while I doubt I'll ever swallow their kebabs wholesale, I have to say many of them are entirely admirable people and their faith only makes them more so.

Me, I'm 100% atheist but that's a club that boasts some monsters too so I'm disinclined to join your jihad. There are days though when my resolve weakens, for all the reasons you set out so eloquently above.

I was just thinking about an elderly Scottish Salvation Army woman I worked with in cardiac theatre years ago, when I split up with my boyfriend of several years. Throughout the time I was falling apart each day in front of her she never preached or made a show of praying for me or anything else I'd have found bothersome but, by her deeds; her kindness and concern, she probably helped me more than anyone else to get through a bleak, bleak time. Despite the fact that she sincerely thought I was going to Hell. But she was out with her homeless soup kitchen and her tambourine every weekend in her Holy togs and left her God to do the judging. It was all very paradoxical and I never came to share her beliefs but I had great respect for her faith, which was simple but far beyond me.

Take away the religion and the dickheads will still proliferate.
 
 
Lurid Archive
20:38 / 30.10.02
Amen to that, Brother Zocher.

Personally I find the paradoxical Salvation Army Woman exactly the sort of person who troubles me most. I have no problem with people who, as you say, are made more admirable by their faith - and I've known plenty. But I've meet quite a few religious people - usually christians - who I want to shake. They are often lovely, caring people who firmly believe that, for instance, gays will all go to hell. (Its often gays isn't it? I don't know why.) I have christian friends who *know* that I'm going to hell. Its just so frustrating and seemingly unassailable.

Ironically, it may be my own inflexible morality that is the source of the problem. Those damn Jesuits...
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
10:00 / 31.10.02
May I recommend www.infidels.org

Fantastic place for venting pent up rage over just this kind of thing.

But if you're serious, I'm in.
 
 
illmatic
11:26 / 31.10.02
"What is religion good for, at this point? I'm serious. Tell me what good comes out of religion, and how that good NEEDS religion in order to manifest itself."

I'd say what religon is good for is providing a sense of coherence, celebration and meaning, which it does for millions of people. The scientific process may (debatable) provide a more accurate/proveable map of reality but it tends to factor out our emotions and subjectivity, some of our most vital qualities. Until science captures peoples hearts and provides meaning on a human scale, we'll always have religon in one form or another.

And the religous have no monopoly on atrocites - what about all the massacres committed under the banner of godless communism? It's arguable that a lot of the suffering in the developing world today isnt caused by religon but by devotees of the free market (which surely has claims toward being a scientific process)>
 
 
illmatic
11:42 / 31.10.02
Re: the generation of the meaning. Wasn't Nietchze's project trying to fill this void without reliance on anything transcendent? Does anyone better read than me want to comment?
 
 
The Natural Way
08:06 / 01.11.02
"But if you're serious, I'm in."

Said the bloke whose name is MU. Y'know, as in the seed-syllable concocted by Buddhists.

God, muddy, blurry ground.......
 
 
Linus Dunce
12:07 / 01.11.02
Ah-ha! Yes! And so we'd have to suppress *all* references to religion in our language. No more cussing, not even euphemisms, dash it! Hardly any fiction. No more questions about morals or ethics or human existence. No philosophy. Only censored scientific journals and the instructions to the microwave to read. And that reductive piece of crap, The Selfish Gene.
 
 
illmatic
13:39 / 01.11.02
On the subject of The Selfish Gene, has anyone ever read any Steven Rose?

Gives all that reductionism crap a good kicking but still left my meagre store of scientific knowledge feeling enriched.
 
 
Sleeperservice
20:37 / 01.11.02
To quote Ignatius_J;

Ah-ha! Yes! And so we'd have to suppress *all* references to religion in our language. No more cussing, not even euphemisms, dash it! Hardly any fiction. No more questions about morals or ethics or human existence. No philosophy. Only censored scientific journals and the instructions to the microwave to read. And that reductive piece of crap, The Selfish Gene.


Care to elaborate? I have a shovel you can use...
 
 
Ganesh
21:34 / 01.11.02
Just had to point out that the "100% atheist" up there crosses himself every time a 'plane takes off and indulges in groovy pray-ins everywhere from Notre Dame to the Wailing Wall. Seems a little... agnostic to me...
 
 
Linus Dunce
11:10 / 02.11.02
Well, I'll take that shovel in both hands ...

If you're going to have an anti-religion jihad, and you believe bad behaviour is inherent in religion, you're going to have to suppress our use of language, because language, unsurprisingly, is the medium of religion. (BTW, religion is one of the reasons people like us were taught to read. That, and to make us more productive at work.) As a lot of literature discusses big questions, which, even in hegelian counterpoint, imply the possible existence of God, you're going to have to censor it. No more Shakespeare, Beckett, Murdoch, Dick. I guess even Dawkins' work would run into problems here.

Mr Illmatic's The scientific process may (debatable) provide a more accurate/proveable map of reality but it tends to factor out our emotions and subjectivity, some of our most vital qualities sums up nicely what's wrong with the ridiculous idea that human behaviour, love, hate, indifference, art, science and comedy, can be solely attributed to deoxyribonucleic acid's will to power.

Haven't read any Steven Rose, but I'd read Elliot's The Lifted Veil and Shelley's Frankenstein while you still can.
 
 
schwantz
16:15 / 04.11.02
Couple things -

Of course it would be impossible to outlaw religion. And I wouldn't even really want to (China, anyone?). It's just frustrating that my personal philosophy of "live-and-let-live" lacks the power of the fundamentalist worldview.

Also, don't just take one book or study that you disagree with, and try to turn it into an argument against the scientific method. That's just sloppy.

And Ignatius - gimme a break.

"No more questions about morals or ethics or human existence. No philosophy. Only censored scientific journals and the instructions to the microwave to read."

Why do we need religion to discuss morals, ethics, or philosophy? These are all interesting questions and topics that have only been distorted and obscured by religion.
 
 
Linus Dunce
17:12 / 04.11.02
Of course it would be impossible to outlaw religion.

Well, doesn't sound like a very exciting jihad.

It would probably be very difficult to discuss, say, Descartes or his thinking in any depth without reference to God. Philosophy etc. is borne of religion,indeed, philosophy and theology used to be pretty much one. So to say religion has obscured and distorted philosophy is like saying the telegraph has buggered up the internet so therefore we shouldn't worry about e.g. Ohm's law. Religion is an old tool, but unfortunately, because we still don't have any concrete knowledge of what causes e.g. our morals, we still need it, if only as a placeholder.

BTW, sloppy? So you're saying a theory isn't necessarily disproved by a contrary example?
 
 
schwantz
17:31 / 04.11.02
The reason I say religion has obscured philosophical discussions is that it places a punishment/reward system around moral judgements, which only serves to confuse the arguments. For example - is murder wrong because you go to hell if you murder, or is there a worldly reason to not murder? Of course there is a worldly reason, and it is much more compelling to me than the religious argument.

As for the Selfish Gene - hey, feel free to disprove his thesis. That's the beauty of the scientific method. No theory is ever "sacred" or unquestioned (unlike most religious dogma). All I'm saying is that one bad theory does not taint the scientific method.
 
  

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