Please be advised, I am not saying that all Christians are violent and closed minded... I know many who are caring and wonderful people. But I am referring to the religion as a whole which tends to be ran by the goal of superiority among others.
Unless, like me, you happen to understand that human behaviors like lust/wrath/envy/animosity/etc are innate evolutionary developments that enhanced the survival of our species for almost all of our history and are probably some of the major reasons we made it this far at all. In modern society, these behaviors can be counterproductive, yes? The religious approach of simply condemning them and threatening people with damnation or bad karma or whatever is like advocating a good bleeding to get the bad spirits out of a sick person with the consumption. A nice idea if all you have is a backward understanding of the problem. I think we're beyond that. Don't you?
I am surprised you can say that since issues like animosity and envy coupled with nuclear technology is what most people would indicate as the single most threat to (at least human) life on this planet. There are various types of religious methods for dealing with lust/wrath/etc - you seem to be indicating atonement - but there are indications that atonement is not the highest method of dealing with it, since it is unstable Sometimes one who is very alert so as not to commit sinful acts is victimized by sinful life again. I therefore consider this process of repeated sinning and atoning to be useless. It is like the bathing of an elephant, for an elephant cleanses itself by taking a full bath, but then throws dust over its head and body as soon as it returns to the land. The actual solution to dealing with issues of faults of character is rather explained as The embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, though the taste for sense objects remains. But, ceasing such engagements by experiencing a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness. You seem to be neglecting the possibility of a positive alternative being offered, as opposed to "IF YOU DO THAT YOU ARE IN BIG TROUBLE" which does not ultimately benefit anyone
That's a solution? How will you implement this as a solution to the baser instincts of humanity? How will you, without an understanding of the origins and basis for these behaviors, modify or eliminate them? Will you use science to study the brain? Or neuropsychology? Or an understanding of why we lust/aggress/fight? What is the real basis and outline of your solution?
The Catholics used to be one big hate group against everyone else. They said that anyone who didn't believe in exactly what they said was damned to hell for eternity. That's some hate right there.
more like a concise introduction to the solution a person can give up a bad habit by taking on a good habit I'm not sure what you are asking here can you give an eg? I wasn't aware that modern science was offering any clear understanding of these base behaviours the solutions they seem to be offering seem to deal with the effect and not the cause anyway, there are elaborate understandings of the basis of behaviour available this is simply the study of effects and not the cause there is no indication that advances in neuropsychology can be correlated to advances in jollyiness In short, we are creatures of attachment and not renunciation a simple example is that if a child is misbehaving, it is better to give them some sort of other thing to do rather than sitting them in a corner with nothing to do (unless you want to supervise them through the whole ordeal) on a grander scale, our attachment to transient things (which gives us lust, wrath, etc) can be given up when we develop attachment to god - if god is unobservable, unverifiable, unknowable, etc, where is the possibility of attachment?
A note for Deep Thought Is that really the best you can come up with? I mean, duh of course Christianity is a hateful, supremacist philosophy. It should be pointed out, however, that a massive apostasy has watered down Christianity to the point that, as MZ3 reminds, not all Christians are violent and closed minded. In fact, there are many who would assert that at the core of Jesus' ministry was a deep trust in God. You know, faith? This is why I get along with certain sects. The Quakers I've known, for instance, have generally shown that trust. I've also seen their trust falter, and that was unfortunate, but compared to the vitriolic exclusionism and exceptionalism infecting so much of contemporary Christian evangelism, a flock toppling their pastor for domestic violence issues° isn't something I'm going to complain about. ____________________ Notes: ° toppling their pastor for domestic violence issues — This is even an adjusted description. The story as it came to me is that shortly after I encountered this congregation, the pastor stepped aside in the face of opposition from some of the more conservative members of the congregation who were concerned not so much about the idea that he lost his temper and gave his son a good hard smack in the teeth as they were that, instead of trusting in God to show him the way, he entered anger-management therapy in order to get a hold on his emotions and preserve his family. Unfortunate, indeed, but compared to what has taken place in the years since, whether or not he should have stepped down/been ousted is the business of that congregation, and not my judgment to make. There are so many greater internal challenges facing Christendom today that any rational sense of proportion suggests quite strongly the impropriety and superfluousness of any indictment I might invent for such an incident.
There are some Christian groups/sects that I would say are hate groups and there are Jewish sect and Islamic sects that I would classify as hate groups too...just to be fair! But not all Christian groups/sects are hate groups (e.g. Methodists and Unitarians).
I'm just curious why, if such sentiments are so offensive or spurious or whatever, this is the best people can come up with. I realize Christians don't like to think of themselves as hatemongers. And I'm aware that not all of them are. (You might have missed the part about apostasy.) But, you know, white supremacists don't see themselves as hatemongers, either. They, like the Christian soldiers, see themselves as holy warriors. Remember: hatred is acceptable—all the way to genocide—if one believes God wants it. In the meantime, I prefer the apostates who defy the hatred and prefer to put their trust in God's compassion and judgment. Of course, as one of our neighbors has expressed, following what Jesus actually says makes Christians candy-assed wimps.
He's not being either of those, it was a legitimate thread pointing out how religion seems to make hatred acceptable. Deal with that or piss off.
Religions are like guns in this respect. Guns don't kill people, people do. And so it is with religion. Religion does not kill people, people do.
Eliminating religion will not stop killing any more than eliminating guns would. If we just look at the atheist regimes of Mao, Stalin and Hitler, we have a body count that exceeds 100 million people. Atheism, not religion, is responsible for the mass murders of history. Even a second-rate atheist despot like Pol Pot killed more people in a month than the Inquisition managed to do in three centuries. There is only one well established religion I know of that has killing of non-believers as part of it’s core beliefs.
You make the mistake of assuming those so-called 'atheist regimes' were built on the pursuit of atheism. Those despots simply replaced gods with themselves as the center of worship. The theocratic infrastructure remained the same. Abrahamism.
I would hope very few Christians are violent and closed-minded. Sadly some are. There is certainly nothing that Jesus said that would lead them to violence. They do so against their religion. Same with superiority. Sure Christians believe they are right, but there is no supremism in the teachings of Christ. World domination through violence is not an attribute I would ascribe to Christianity. Christians for example who refuse to allow homosexuals in their Church are going against their teachings in my opinion. Homosexuality is a sin, but so is pre-marital sex. I doubt many Christians can claim innocence with that, but God doesn’t differentiate. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
While I agree with you that the elimination of religion would not stop killing, I'd like you to justify your fallacious claim that the killing committed by mass-murderers was done because of atheism. Your failure to justify this will signal your ignorance, your willingness to lie, or your willingness to believe things without evidence.
Technically you are correct. The definition of Abrahamism is: “Abrahamists believe in Tanakh (Old Testament), New Testament, and Quran as holy scriptures inspired by God.” (based on http://abrahamism.blogspot.com/) The only religion believing in all three is Islam. But of course Muslims believe the Torah and New Testament are forgeries. Allah is NOT the same God as expressed in the OT or NT. The Muslims claim their religion is an evolution of the OT and the NT to claim legitimacy. It is a false claim. Atheists would serve their cause well by learning the vast difference between Allah and God.
