Antiyonder
Overlord
How do you know which beliefs are correct?
I didn't say, nor infer anything about a correct or incorrect belief, but merely that there is a right and wrong way to express it.
How do you know which beliefs are correct?
And which way is the right way? Every religion has a different opinion.I didn't say, nor infer anything about a correct or incorrect belief, but merely that there is a right and wrong way to express it.
^^^Basically anything that doesn't infringe on the rights of another. I mean, Mormons are entitled to say wanting to avoid coffee and certain other drinks their religion finds taboo, but they still need to respect that Non-Mormons aren't going to deny themselves such.
I agree, but where does this opinion come from? What tells you this? It's certainly not your religion.
If you think these things can be said politely without losing any of the original content, how would you for example say "You're a sinner and you're going to hell" politely?I didn't say, nor infer anything about a correct or incorrect belief, but merely that there is a right and wrong way to express it.
^^^Maybe there isn't. But then you're assuming that all people in religion place themselves on a pedestal and go around lecturing people frequently.
Does religion have a place in society? Absolutely! At the very least, religion, along with shared history, culture, ethnicity etc. act as things which bind a society together. I'm of the general opinion of morality as a social, not individual institution. Religion should be promoted (perhaps not by the government, especially in the US) as a way to promote virtue in general. I'm not super picky in regard to what religion, just something beyond, "I'll believe what I want, society be damned!". Though I'd also be in favor of increasing the exposure of classical Greco-Roman philosophy, or even just philosophy in general. Given how easy information can be accessed in this day and age, philosophy should be something everyone has access to.
To clarify, while I'd support something like a National church/religion to help bolster national unity, I'd never support the abolition of religious freedom, or punishments for those who don't follow the established faith.
As a mainline Christian, I fully believe that religion can coexist society and help provide morals to people. It seems like there's a lot of anti-religion vitriol on this thread, and I find it amusing that the people bashing religion and claiming that it does nothing but forces beliefs on others are the ones forcing their anti-religion on everyone else and claiming that all religion must be abolished, which would require, by nature, forcing people to give up religion. Fact is, people force all sorts of opinions and beliefs on each other, not just fundamentalists.
And for all those claiming that religion is in direct opposition to science (Usually because they heard a crazy rant from a creationist and assumed that all religious people are like that), you need to realize that almost all mainline Christian branches recognize evolution and science in general. In addition, plenty of scientists are religious. So don't try to stereotype us all as backwards, anti-gay zealots. Plenty of us, myself included, are pro-LGBT rights and pro-science.
Religion =/= fundamentalist zealotry. Just because someone's loud and annoying doesn't make them indicative of a whole group.
Does religion have a place in society? Absolutely! At the very least, religion, along with shared history, culture, ethnicity etc. act as things which bind a society together. I'm of the general opinion of morality as a social, not individual institution. Religion should be promoted (perhaps not by the government, especially in the US) as a way to promote virtue in general. I'm not super picky in regard to what religion, just something beyond, "I'll believe what I want, society be damned!". Though I'd also be in favor of increasing the exposure of classical Greco-Roman philosophy, or even just philosophy in general. Given how easy information can be accessed in this day and age, philosophy should be something everyone has access to.
To clarify, while I'd support something like a National church/religion to help bolster national unity, I'd never support the abolition of religious freedom, or punishments for those who don't follow the established faith.
Only from the outside does religion ever change. Though, I could be wrong. If anyone would do me the kindness of showing me, at any point in history, where religion was spearheading progressive, social change in a society, and not being dragged a long by other secular and humanist movements, I might retract my statement. I don't think anyone can do this, though.
If anyone would do me the kindness of showing me, at any point in history, where religion was spearheading progressive, social change in a society, and not being dragged a long by other secular and humanist movements, I might retract my statement. I don't think anyone can do this, though.
And I know I could easily draw fire for bringing this up, but the abolition of slavery in Britain appears to provide a later example. I will not tell you there was no secular influence, as that would go beyond my knowledge. However, to follow your wording, this positive social change was spearheaded by two Christians, John Newton and William Wilberforce. (Inb4 "the Bible said you should have slaves!" No it did not. It said you could have slaves, which is not the same, and legally commanded certain consequences or punishments on the mistreatment of slaves. It also never said to enslave people based on skin color, BTW.)
In short, your claim that religion changes only from outside, secular influences is a plainly ideological anachronism.
The Abolitionist movement gained much of its prominence in Northern churches that preached the equality of all races under God. In fact, churches and religion in general were a prominent part of all major black civil rights movements, especially in the 1950s and 60s with the reverend Martin Luther King Jr., who preached loving your neighbor as yourself. His preaching and religion was a major portion of his activism, and his religion informed the methods of his nonviolent protest. He was hardly "dragged along" by secular movements.
In addition, you have religious underpinnings to many of the progressive social movements of the early 1900s. While we can all agree that Prohibition was a mistake, many of the first social justice movements had theological underpinnings. One of the most notable of these was the Social Gospel movement, which was built on Biblical teachings. The Social Gospel movement worked to help victims of economic inequality by promoting labor unions and combating poverty, poor neighborhoods, and poor schools. Though short-lived, the Social Gospel movement helped many people by providing poor people with housing, education, and food. This movement was a key part in inspiring many other progressive movements, such as women's suffrage, larger organized labor movements, and even the Civil Rights movement.
Are you really splitting hairs on whether the bible endorsed vs condoned slaves? It makes no difference, both are morally damnable.
First, the way you say "your example" gives the impression you didn't bother to read the other examples I provided, both of which were centuries before secular people were numerous enough to have any kind of appreciable outside influence on religion.In regards to the abolitionist movement being your example of religion being a primary engine for social change, I'm still skeptical. I'm not an expert in that chapter of history, but I find it almost insulting to compare the bible being used as a force for anti-racism to the bible being used as a source for racism. What I mean by that is, if someone used the teachings in any particular religion to dehumanize, oppress, and subjugate you, and hundreds of years later, people from that same religion come back and say "Well, you see, this is what God really meant, he was just kidding about that slavery stuff. Sorry about all that." is the faith white washed and redeemed? Seems cheap. I'm aware that black churches in the 1950's for example served as bulwarks against racist violence, but that seems like pocket change compared to all the hundreds of years where the primary moral justification for slavery in the first place was the bible. Anyways, the argument wasn't that religion can't do good things, or help progressive values a long. The argument is that it's redundant. While it's true that the first people that advocated for the abolition of slavery in England were quakers and evangelicals, it's a leap to say that if there were no quakers and evangelicals, the abolitionist movement wouldn't have happened. I'd sooner attribute their anti-slavery sentiments to their humanism than I would their religion, and that their religion simply expressed what they intuitively knew to be true. I mean come on, if they needed the bible to receive their inspiration that racial injustice is not acceptable, that would make them horrible people. To think that you could witness slaves tied up, whipped and bloody and have no problems whatsoever, only to learn that it isn't so nice after all because of some religious text is deplorable, right? In addition, rationalist and enlightenment thinkers in Europe were also making critiques of slavery at the exact same time, and while it wouldn't be fair to say that they dragged the abolitionist movement a long, it demonstrates that religion didn't answer any moral dilemma or question that those without faith weren't already able to figure out.
I would like to see a source that indicates that forcible conversion was what characterized American slaves who were Christians. Just looking around a little bit (admittedly on Wikipedia), I found at least some evidence that forcible conversion was not the general rule for how such beliefs were obtained. (In fact, one page indicated that some laws in Colonial America prevented someone baptized, even forcibly, from being counted as a slave.) I believe I have heard historical evidence to support the idea that slaves found the theme of the deliverance of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt to have been intrinsically appealing. In the absence of a source indicating what you say, I think it sounds like another anachronism.I think it's disingenuous to give religion credit for those things because Christianity was forced on black slaves. It doesn't come as any surprise to me that black people adapted to life in America after being forcibly converted, and slowly changed a tool of their oppression, Christianity, into a tool for their freedom. There's a difference between something being useful in and of itself for social change and something being co-opted for social change. I still think my claim in this instance, that religion is primarily static and doesn't change unless external factors force it back down from it's teachings is well supported. In this instance, the external factor would be an oppressed minority.
My comment was intended to preempt the apparently not un-heard of claims that the Mosaic Law said "You need to have slaves," or "Well you're not absolutely required to have slaves, but it is highly encouraged." Checking the definitions of those terms, "endorsed" is in line with either of those claims while "condoned" is not in line with either of them. It confuses me greatly why the Old (or even the New) Testament didn't say "Do not have slaves." So while I can definitely understand where you are coming from, my point is that the actual statements in the text are certainly not anywhere near as morally damnable as the claims some people think are in the text.
First, the way you say "your example" gives the impression you didn't bother to read the other examples I provided, both of which were centuries before secular people were numerous enough to have any kind of appreciable outside influence on religion.
Second, the claim you make about the Bible being the source for racism ignores what I had previously pointed out about how slavery under the Mosaic Law, like slavery throughout ancient times, was not based on skin color. Not only is there no biblical passage that specifies anything about the skin color of slaves, but so far as I am aware there is no ancient text anywhere that promoted such an idea. That is a modern abomination.
Fourth, your argument fails to trace the cause of American slavery properly, and is a perfect example of a post hoc fallacy. Slavery existed long before any books of the Bible were written, by anyone's estimation, and it was only abolished in many countries in comparatively modern times. Thus people in the Colonies didn't say, "Hmm. I think slavery sounds like a good idea. I wonder if it can be found in the Bible. Yup, there it is, so let's do it!" The existing practice of indentured servitude (including plenty of people who were white) later transitioned to black slavery. There were multiple reasons for this shift, but the biggest has to do with the widespread belief that black people were inferior. This was not drawn from religion, as even some of the non-religious thinkers promoted it. (Dawkins even quotes T. H. Huxley of the 1800s, the man who coined the term "agnostic," to this effect.) Thus the idea that blacks were inferior (yet able to withstand heat and the sun better than whites) was clearly the primary justification for black slavery. (EDIT: Because I just noticed it, I should say that even if you meant that it was the primary "rationalization" I still don't think history bears out that conclusion, as racism was rampant in that time period and people were open about it.) And black slavery as an institution is undoubtedly the most heinous slavery the world has ever known.
Fifth, the way you worded that paragraph indicates that you know your stated criteria of religion spearheading positive social change has significantly been met in this case, but the philosophical discussion you get into appears to be sidestepping the historical issue to move the goalposts in order to downplay the fact that someone has dealt a serious blow to your claim.
I would like to see a source that indicates that forcible conversion was what characterized American slaves who were Christians. Just looking around a little bit (admittedly on Wikipedia), I found at least some evidence that forcible conversion was not the general rule for how such beliefs were obtained. (In fact, one page indicated that some laws in Colonial America prevented someone baptized, even forcibly, from being counted as a slave.) I believe I have heard historical evidence to support the idea that slaves found the theme of the deliverance of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt to have been intrinsically appealing. In the absence of a source indicating what you say, I think it sounds like another anachronism.
That only strengthens my next point: counting the oppressed minority as external is nonsensical. In what way are the adherents of a religion, no matter how they obtained their beliefs, external to the religion (or, per your stated criteria, "secular")?
But if religious morals are inferior to the best secular morals, shouldn't we use them instead?As a mainline Christian, I fully believe that religion can coexist society and help provide morals to people.
Skepticism isn't anti-religious a priori. Religion has simply failed to fulfill its burden of proof.It seems like there's a lot of anti-religion vitriol on this thread, and I find it amusing that the people bashing religion and claiming that it does nothing but forces beliefs on others are the ones forcing their anti-religion on everyone else and claiming that all religion must be abolished, which would require, by nature, forcing people to give up religion. Fact is, people force all sorts of opinions and beliefs on each other, not just fundamentalists.
If you are selectively pro-dogmatism and pro-skepticism, it's pretty inconsistent.And for all those claiming that religion is in direct opposition to science (Usually because they heard a crazy rant from a creationist and assumed that all religious people are like that), you need to realize that almost all mainline Christian branches recognize evolution and science in general. In addition, plenty of scientists are religious. So don't try to stereotype us all as backwards, anti-gay zealots. Plenty of us, myself included, are pro-LGBT rights and pro-science.