Post by gadreel on Aug 22, 2017 2:00:24 GMT
I think that there is 100% a set of harms that have been (and in some cases continue to be) inflicted on society by organised religion, and I am opposed to that. You must understand that for most of my life I was not involved in organised religion in any way and when I was I was hanging out with the most left leaning of the left church, so I agree with you, but also I see that the current batch of priests is more and more becoming liberal and compassionate. Having said that the church is an old school institution and so is liable to be the last thing to fully catch up with modern morality and thinking.
I don't agree that religion holds us back in modern times, but I do understand where you are coming from and (I assume you are American) I guess that it is pretty blatant where you live.
I am American yes, and quickly stated, religion does hold us back because it has always been the last to accept knowledge that contradicts it's beliefs, and it fights vigorously against that new knowledge if there is a contradiction.
And it will always be a source of harm, not because it's people are bad, but because it is a system of delusion. It promotes a warped view of reality. People act on their beliefs and if those beliefs don't reflect reality, then their actions are sooner or later going to come into conflict with reality. This is why you have religious intolerance of homosexuality even though it's 100% normal in all mammalian species. They are living in their delusional biblical world and not the real world. The same thing with terrorism, or thinking prayer works.
As an example I particularly have a problem with phrases like "they're in a better place" when somebody dies. That's disgusting. I know people say it casually, but you are literally saying that death is preferable, and while I get that most people say it very casually and mean it as a condolence, if we teach things like this, that an afterlife exists and it is an ultimate goal, then by this warped view of reality it would be logical to make decisions that people are better off dead.
And that's why we've seen suicide cults like Jim Jones, Hale Bop, and the Branch Davidians. There are plenty of others. That's why we see suicide bombers who think they are going to heaven if they kill people.
You have to take a stand, that instead of feeling comfortable with your views regardless of evidence that you are going to value and promote reality instead. If we simply tolerate delusional points of view unchallenged, at best it's an insult to that persons intelligence (as if they are incapable of accepting reality), and at worst it is sitting back and saying we are ok with people committing irrational actions to each other, and themselves, based on completely delusional views of reality. And I don't know why we continue to accept that. I have more respect for your intellect, than to think you can't accept reality for what it really is, and I feel the same about everybody else.
Let me be clear, I do adjust my model continually based on new knowledge that comes to me, so in that way I am accepting reality for what it is. The exception to that is the example I gave where if it came to me that definately there was no intelligence at the source but for some strange reason my model was not changed then I would still use intelligence as the source of my model because I accept it is an interpretation not a truth claim. I would just have to accept that in reality there was no intelligence but my model asks me to behave as if there is. In my defence this is an extremely unlikely scenario as such new knowledge would by it's nature force my model to change.
As an aside, from a foreigners perspective, America is mad when it comes to religion, and I accept that I may have been in a skewed sample group, but the religious people I know are not the sort to dismiss science, nor to dictate religious dogma as if it was truth.