Regarding Religion as a Whole (and John Lennon, can't forget him)

They're right about you. You speak without any understanding of what you are talking about. Shall I explain it to you, or will that lead to another flame war?

 

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I understand what I posted perfectly. And if you flame me, you will be reported.

Matthew 13:41,42

"The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;

And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

 

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Do you deliberately misunderstand or are you really so thick? Ask yourself what WWJLD?

 

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Did Jesus predict he would come again to burn all who rejected him in hellfire or not? And you have been reported for insulting.

 

Oh I see. Deliberate misunderstanding. I'm done with you, right after I report you for Bible quotes and preaching. I was told that it's against the forum rules.

 

Preaching: "to write or speak about (something) in an approving way : to say that (something) is good or necessary."

 

irony.

 

You have something to contribute here beyond little smart ass quips troll?

 

In science forums about religion we cite the texts to illustrate something, not to promote the text as a way of life that we want other people to adopt as a world view.

Actually I thought MR's post was very clear and thought provoking. I'm often amazed by the way folks here think and how well they express the very ideas that just barely forming on the tip of my tongue. I was surprised by your reaction. I thought MR was approaching this serenely, without throwing darts at anyone.

EDIT: before the slight derailment, you asked how John Lennon differs from Jesus. The biggest difference was his statement "God is Dead" (regardless of how it's interpreted). As you probably know, this statement was a coup, bringing home the idea that people everywhere can be candid without having to worry about disappearing taboos.

EDIT #2. Ok so MR got slammed. I should have known better than to enter another religion thread. I'll go find another discussion where I can speak freely with people without watching them drop like flies.

EDIT #3. My bad. I simply assumed that was a ban from Syne. I don't get it. I don't know the history. I thought MR started off with a perfectly lucid answer to the question "how was Lennon any different than Jesus"? After that tempers flared and MR was gone. Hmmm. I like you guys a lot. I wished you liked each other as much.

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Lennon's song is a refutation of dogmatic practices of any kind, asking people instead to treat each other according to their common humanity. While I agree that there is some naievete involved, (which Lennon himself admits to in the line, "You may say I'm a dreamer") it's a much different message than what Jesus preached.

Jesus wanted a world where the Torah was law. He demanded that all accept him as the one path to God, and condemned all who disagreed to eternal suffering. There was, admittedly, more to it than that, but this is a workable shorthand of Jesus' message, and it could not be further from what John Lennon sang about.

I'd hardly call blind faith "heaven." But sure, that could be called the kingdom of God. And we'd all be serfs.

Thanks, but no thanks.

 

How is that sentiment consistent with this one:

How can people simultaneously have the freedom to believe what they will, while others are simultaneously 'purging' so much from those people's thinking and from their cultures?

That scares me a little. It suggests that some elite (call them "educators") is convinced that it is more enlightened than the common herd and should have the power to indoctrinate everyone else (for their own good, of course).

 

When I say education I specifically mean critical thinking skills, science, math, human history, latest technology, etc.. Do you consider this indoctrination? I mean we could always do Idiocracy.

 

It was his actions in another (unrelated) thread

 

I have no objection to education if it sticks to that kind of stuff.

What scares me is education-as-thought-control, education that's designed to 'purge' human beings of any thought of anything that dreamers like John Lennon imagine will set people against one another.

In his song, Lennon denounces 'heaven', which is humanity's almost universal dream of a perfected state. Ironically and paradoxically, Lennon's own song embodies such a vision.

He denounces 'hell', which along with the little drawing of somebody kissing the devil, suggests no more good and evil. Again paradoxically, we are still supposed to think that violence and social division are evils.

We are all supposed to 'live for today', which isn't quite the same thing as 'living in the moment'. Lennon's version suggests short-sighted and self-centered myopia.

'Countries' get the ax. Presumably the cultural differences that go with countries and different people's rights of self-determination disappear as well.

The ideal state is one in which there is 'nothing to kill or die for', suggesting that nobody really cares too deeply or passionately about anything. Stuff like selfless heroism and parents' concern for their children becomes problematic.

And certainly, 'no religion too'. That one has to be stamped out, for sure.

It just seems to me that any educational program devoted to bringing about goals like these will almost certainly be manipulative, nihilistic and totalitarian by its nature. People can call me a champion of "idiocracy" if they like, but the idea of using education as a tool to reshape young minds so as to achieve poorly conceived utopian ends is something that scares me.

 

Ok, thanks, Kitt. I just now figured that out. The timing of it made it seem like it all took place here.

So where were we? Oh yeah, world unity! Vive la différence!

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:bugeye:

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eace:

 

What you are suggesting does sound sinister and not at all what i foresee with the kind of education I have in mind. I would never suppress or oppress natural curiosity, religious beliefs (unless those beliefs harmed or in anyway exploited others), the free flow of ideas in a classroom, all of these examples feed the creative aspect of our natures and it would be cruel to try and stomp this aspect of our nature out. Do words like collective and organization scare you? Do you fear we would lose our individuality if we became too organized?

 

You misunderstand - I am not suggesting it is the governments responsibility to "purge" people of their preconceptions... rather, we, as a species, must move beyond them willingly. Admittedly, not likely to happen with our current caste-based wealth-enamored society but cest la vie...

 

I started to post a reply kind of like yours, and then I stopped to think about what Yazata was saying. The first thing that came to mind was the way ancient and primitive cultures have disappeared from the face of the Earth. I remembered a documentary taken of some primitive culture in Brazil not contaminated by society. The anthropologist who found them was allowed to observe them, so he began filming. At one unbelievable moment a warrior he is following confronts a warrior from a neighboring tribe, and a battle ensues, where they take turns shooting poison darts at each other. As I recall the guy he is filming does kill the enemy. Effectively the photographer has not only witnessed a homicide, but at any point could have intervened to prevent the murder, if not constrained by his determination to do what I think Yazata is referring to, which is not to contaminate the culture. Of course the anthropologist was agonizing over this in the live footage, as he was giving the play by play.

I went looking for it, didn't find it, but found a much more grim picture of a tribe which has only 20 members left, only 9 of whom are under 12 and offer hope for carrying that group forward. They should have been miserable, with nothing but mudholes to bathe in, etc. Yet in every respect they were either intent on catching their next meal, or just relaxing and having a good time. Near the end they are standing in the rain, which we might consider a nuisance, but grinly broadly, just soaking it up. There was no evidence of any kind of strife between them.

I can't say for sure if this is what Yazata had in mind or not. I tend to think of this as you've put it. Yazata is skeptical that "getting people together" can be done without damaging them in some way. I don't have any answers for this, it's entirely problematic. But when I thought of all of the hazards those primitive children were exposed to, with nothing but forest medicine to protect them, I even felt that it would be justifiable to move them to proper homes in a town where they can get what they need. It's just that those towns, esp. in Brazil, are probably more hazardous to them. (i.e, flavelas or shantytowns).

This may not have anything to do with Yazata's ideas, but that's what came to mind. Oh one more thing: as a possible argument to Yazata, the primitive people were happy to accept the anthropologists once they were sure they posed no threat. This says that many of the boundaries between groups are purely territorial, that they can coexist harmoniously once their rights to territory/resources are respected.

 

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