Should We Respect Religion?

But Europe has not arisen form nowhere as atheistic or secular. Europe has arisen through thousands of years of religion, during which time its moral and cultural foundations were built. Countries like Ireland, Italy and Greece are far from secular, they are still very religious countries, although this does not seem to stop their stability or success. I think religion does seem to be far more tolerant in Europe than in America though.

Europe could not have arrived at this current stage without religion to get it there, and all of us in Europe and America take our basic right and wrongs from religion no matter how atheistic we are or how much we dont want to, why.. even if our parents weren't religious, then their parents were or certainly their grandparents and the things we are taught as children; rights and wrongs; morals take the base from these religious values passed down (often unconciously) through generations of family and also the society at large.

 

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Although it's certainly true that most of us get our morals from a combination of instinct and the culture we find ourselves within, and it's also true that the present cultures in the US and Europe are highly influenced by Christian history, it certainly hasn't been shown that a society with a secular history would be 'amoral'.

Most of us simply don't want to go around killing and raping, and most of us are capable of seeing the negative consequences to ourselves of behaviors that are generally considered "wrong". No religious or even societal indoctrination is necessary.

Everywhere we find humans on this planet, we find them living in societies, no matter how divergent their religious beliefs may be. The obvious conclusion is that humans are social animals. Social animals mostly play nice with eachother because it's instinctive.

We observe moral behavior in apes and chimps as well, and they certainly don't appear to be influenced by religious thinking. Even ants and bees exhibit morality.

 

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That's crap. Human civilisation just so happened to be formed when every man thought the Earth was flat and superstition was the method to find truth. I'm sure you will not attribute the Middle East's unrest to it's religious origins... or is it just successful regions who owe their stability to religion? The truth is that the success of a region comes through societal consensus, and I have to ask: Could this have been achieved in Europe without the gradual downward spiral of religious influence?

LOL! Bollocks! If we took our morals from the Bible, we would be in shit street. People who happen to be religious cherry pick the Bible. People who are atheist use their common sense. The question is, why do religious people cherry pick the Bible? Because they are basing their moral judgement on societal consensus, and then apply this consensus TO their religion... Not the other way round.

The only religious values I had instilled within me were sectarianism (to hate the protestants) and to have Bible myths forced on me as fact. Teachers told me that Adam and Eve were the first two humans on Earth - Can you believe that? My moral values were from all sorts of sources and people, without whom, the Bible would be a throwback to the dark ages.

 

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As there has never been a civiliation that has arisen whithout religion, it has never in anyway been shown that it would be moral either...

 

I guess I would say that since there is no reason to suspect it wouldn't be, and since humans are clearly social animals, and since we observe moral behavior in societies of other social animals, and since game theory predicts niceness in such arrangements (repeated prisoner's dilemma), it's rather silly to claim such societies wouldn't be moral.

Common sense suggests such societies would trend toward a set of ethics that have real utility, while tending to eliminate arbitrary ethics like dietary codes, restrictions on consentual sex, etc. ... much like the trends we actually observe in more secular societies.

 

Hardly, as I have said much of Europe is still very religious. Although the religion has taken a more mature and tolerant line than in America.

Classical music and art originate in religious Europe.
Modern science and medicene originates in religious Europe. Or if you want to go further back it originates in religious China and religious India.
Modern mathematics and philosophy originate from religious Greece.

Many atheists will argue that religion held up scientific progress by saying something like Christians all thought the world was flat until science proved it round. This argument is fallacious because there is nothing in the bible to state the world is flat or that the sun revolves around the earth or any of these other things (I am not aware of any other religious text making these claims either) . These claims were made by the scientists of the time – who happened to be Christians, but then .......everyone at the time was Christian.

Partly because the bible is not true representation of original spiritual teachings – it has been changed through time. Partly due to the intense pressures of living in secular society.

Much religious writing and teaching was intended to be esoteric and therefore coded. Many religious teachers do not understand the true meanings. This is not the fault of the original teachings.

If you want to look at root causes try British imperialism in 19th and early 20th C and American imperialism in late 20th and now and the mess created after ww2. Of course now religion is a factor but it is not the root cause.

Various religions lived in relative harmony for centuries before this period. You can go back to the crusades of course, but then again the real reason for the crusades was money and power, wars meant taxes could be raised and the riches gained from such campaigns was significant (no electronic bank accounts in those days) Religion was a convenient excuse. Again there is nothing in the Christian bible to support these wars (or what there is requires very twisted interpretations). So how were the crusade justified. It was told to the people that they could gain access to heaven by fighting religious wars and killing people, but there is not scriptural authority to back this up. So it is power hungry kings using false religion to motivate people. Much the same happens now with Muslim suicide bombers.

 

I respect religion's (powerful) ability to completely brainwash people. Even if I'm repulsed by it, religions are still the most powerful memes on the planet.

 

We can observe niceness in other animals it is true, but niceness does not equate to morality. What animals do, is act nicely when they feel that way; when the feel angry or aggressive they act that way. They are controlled by their emotions. To be moral one must be able to act nice even though one feels angry; to be generous when one feels hungry (and not just to own offspring) i.e. to be able to give a controlled response. Animals do not do this.

Chimps are group animals because their survival chances are improved in groups. There has to be some group dynamics to allow this to happen, but this is all based on natural selection not on morality.

If you consider fighting for the right to mate with the females of the tribe moral, or victimisation of the weak members of the tribe moral, or public masturbation moral, then yes you can call chimps moral.


It is often an accusation made against atheists by theists that atheist morality is simply natural selection. This is usually vehemently denied by atheist, but you seem to be saying exactly this
???

If this is your only basis for non religious morals, where would that leave the poor, sick, disabled in a society that grew out of atheism with no religious influence? Where would that leave democracy and law?

 

Rubbish.
1st. Commandment, Exodus 20:3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. Old Testament punishment - Deuteronomy 17:1-5 “And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heavens, which I have not commanded. Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing and shalt stone them with stones, till they die”. Deuteronomy 13:6-10, “If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is of thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. Thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God." Exodus 22:20 “He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed”. New Testament punishment - Mark 16:16 “He that believeth not, shall be damned”.

I think you will find the first four commandments incite man to war.

and as for the quran theres 460 statements saying kill or maim the unbeliever

Don't bother to warn the disbelievers. Allah has blinded them. Theirs will be an awful doom. 2:6
Allah has sickened their hearts. A painful doom is theirs because they lie. 2:10
A fire has been prepared for the disbelievers, whose fuel is men and stones. 2:24
Disbelievers will be burned with fire. 2:39, 90
"Whosoever hath done evil and his sin surroundeth him; such are rightful owners of the Fire." 2:81
If you believe in only part of the Scripture, you will suffer in this life and go to hell in the next. 2:85
Jews are the greediest of all humankind. They'd like to live 1000 years. But they are going to hell. 2:96
For disbelievers is a painful doom. 2:104
For unbelievers: ignominy in this world, an awful doom in the next. 2:114
Allah will leave the disbelievers alone for a while, but then he will compel them to the doom of Fire. 2:126
The doom of the disbelievers will not be lightened. 2:162
The worst thing anyone can do is deny the revelations of Allah. Those who do so will be awared an evil doom. 6:157
How many a township have We destroyed! As a raid by night, or while they slept at noon, Our terror came unto them. 7:4-5

all this is incitement to religious violence.

 

I disagree with both your assessment of behavior in social animals and your concept of morality. Sure, if you define morality to be 'a list of arbitrary and senseless rules no-one really wants to follow', then no rational society would accept such a code, and by such a definition, it wouldn't be a moral society. But it may still be a thriving and healthy society that is considered moral by those who live in it.

By the definition of morality you provided, I contend there has never been a moral society.

Humans do these things too within the "moral" societies you seem to think exist. Our entire economy is an elaborate mating competition.

I wouldn't say it's natural selection exactly (I assume you mean social Darwinism?), but I would agree that our concepts of morality are primarily instinctive.

I'd say moralilty is nothing more than concensus behavior that facilitates social living. In modern societies, such behavior is codified into the legal system. Modern laws are based on pragmatics and tend to formalize our instincts. Any society that does not self destruct is a moral society.

Any of us could end up poor, sick, or disabled. That fear is the underlying reason social programs exist. It has nothing to do with religious heritage.

You give much too little credit to instinctive empathy and rational self interest and seem to think people are shortsighted fools with no social instincts unless they have a holy book to tell them otherwise.

 

This is why I specifically stated the Christian bible. The whole point of Christianity being it follows the teachings of Jesus, which differs it from Judaism. The teachings of Jesus are contained in the new testament and express a new understanding (a new covenant) of the old testament.

This being so, according to Christians, any reading of the old testament must be tempered with what is in the new testament. i.e. unlimited forgiveness; love of neighbour as of self, kindness and charity. So a Christian could not act on old testament scripture without giving priority to the newer teaching of Jesus Christ – hence Christian…

Now if you were to level your accusation against Judaism, you would have more of a point… the Jews though were not responsible for the crusades were they.

There are also numerous statements calling for mercy to be shown and a saying that; “one may strike a blow if one is received but the reward in heaven will be far greater if one forgoes striking back”

Of course this leaves it open to interpretation, but one can find calls for mercy and forgiveness in the Koran if one looks, the same as one can find calls to violence if one looks for that as well

 

You mean my concept of morality as taking care of the weaker members of society , not just the strongest prosper and the weakest suffer?

They are not arbitrary if they are based on compassion and try to minimise suffering. Do you really not want to follow such morals?

No society has ever considered itself immoral – a society is always moral according to its own ethical code.

 

however Jesus quotes and agrees with the Old Testament, in particuler these

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel (one volume), 1 & 2 Kings (one volume), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the 12 Minor Prophets (one volume), Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah (one volume), 1 & 2 Chronicles (one volume) Jesus refered to the first five as the Law.
Jesus said: "Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
"For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. Matthew 11:13
"The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. Luke 16:16
Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." John 1:45
After the reading of the Law and the Prophets the synagogue officials sent to them, saying, "Brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say it." Acts 13:15
"But this I admit to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets; Acts 24:14

so you see, my earlier post was correct, it does not matter whether you state christian or anything else, it all the same.

 

That's because (as I said) religion has less influence in Europe than it once did. Even though in some European countries there remains many people who would call themselves believers in god, they are far less fundamental in their following of religion and they are part of the decline of religious adherence in Europe. Where religion has the most influence, you will see more of what you call immaturity and intolerance... places like the US, the Middle East and Europe in the dark ages.

Take the word 'religious' out of the above paragraph, then you become a bit more accurate... Unless you want me to reply with a paragrah saying "[insert atrocity here] originated in religious Europe"...

Have you not heard of scientists/philosophers who made observations that contradicted religious dogma, resulting in their incarceration or execution?

Matthew 4:8 - Once again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world [cosmos] in their glory.

Daniel 4:7-8 - I saw a tree of great height at the center of the world. It was large and strong, with its top touching the heavens, and it could be seen from the ends of the earth.

These are obviously impossible on a round Earth... As for the claims that the Sun goes around the Earth...

Psalm 93:1: “Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm ...”

Oh, I see... if they create a work of art, they are religious artists, but if they make a dubious claim about the world, they are scientists who happen to be Christian?

Exactly! They apply their morals TO their religion based on societal pressures. Just as slavery and female oppression was considered moral to the people who wrote the scriptures in the first place.

If you were around in the days when those old chaps wrote the scripture, I doubt they'd encourage you to decode the scripture. Scripture was taken at face value until reason and rationality seeped it's way into humanity via science.

If you want to claim that religion is the root of ALL positive things in society, then you'll have to accept that religion is the root cause of ALL negative things too.

HAHA... Not only do you claim that all negative things in society have nothing to do with religion whilst trying to tag all positive things with it, but you claim DIRECT religious violence isn't anything to do with religion at all. Which is bollocks since scripture has passages which are a clear incitement to hatred and violence, as well as a long history of religious conflicts. It seems you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

 

I am sure you know metaphoric writing when you see it and I am sure you know well, that these are metaphor. In the case of Daniel it is a vision not of a real life situation…

These are not the origins of flat earth, this came from the empirical observations of the time i.e. people did not perceive the curve of the earth so they assumed it to be flat. The Vikings thought the earth was flat before the bible, so clearly the bible is not the origin of such ideas.

Ok then they are religious artists and religious scientists.

Here are some more religious scientists, are you going to discredit their work just because of their religious belief?
• Isaac Newton: the initiator of modern science: Laws of Motion, Theory of Gravity
• John Dalton: developed Atomic Theory: chemist
• James Clerk Maxwell: the fore-runner of present day physics: the Unification of electricity and magnetism
• Georges Lemaitre: developed Physical theory of the expanding universe: "the primeval atom"
• Arthur Stanley Eddington: founder of modern Astrophysics, also relativist and cosmologist
• Charles Alfred Coulson: molecular orbital theory: Chemist
• John Eccles: Nobel prize winner (Neurophysiologist)
• Charles Townes: Nobel Prize winner who developed the laser (Physicist)
• Tony Hewish: Nobel Prize winner: Radio astronomy
• William D Phillips Nobel Prize winner: Laser cooling (Physicist)
• Francis Collins: Director, Human Genome Project
• Brian Heap: Animal Physiologist, Past Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society
• Peter Berger: outstanding Sociologist ("The social construction of reality")
• Pauline Rudd: innovative Glycobiologist: molecular structure and function
• Kathleen Lonsdale. foundational crystallographer.

So slavery was moral to the scripture writers was it…. Well maybe you can tell me how many slaves Jesus kept? Or what about Moses, how many slaves? How many slaves did Elijah have or John the Baptist? I think you will find the answer is none. If slavery was such a moral act why didn't these exemplars all have slaves? What about Buddha, how many slaves before he took the religious path – a lot, and how many after – none!

The bible talks about the things of the time, at this time slaves were kept, the bible references this. There are a also a few pieces of pragmatic advice to those finding themselves in slavery. It does not advocate slave keeping as a moral act. This is propaganda by atheists such as yourself, who either don’t know what they are talking about, or do know and wilfully twist things to serve your own pet hates.



And now female oppression;
Well firstly female oppression was there long before organised religion. Females have always been oppressed, being the weaker sex and with the previous rule of ‘social darwinism’ ha, this was inevitable. Religion did not invent female oppression.

Secondly, if you think women are so free and liberated in this secular society of ours;
Try working full time becuase it is now required to survive, also having babies and raising children, whilst at the same time being constantly bombarded with the soft porn images and breast implants that cover the media which women are supposed to try to live up to as well… try that and then tell us how free and liberated you **ck*** feel.

But can you not see that the logic and argument you use here must fall on you as well..

If what you say here is correct then using YOUR argument it must logically follow that ;

If you want to claim that religion is the root of ALL negative things in society, then you'll have to accept that religion is the root cause of ALL positive things too.

And also

If you want to claim that science is the root of ALL positive things in society, then you'll have to accept that science is the root cause of ALL negative things too

I am only doing what the majority on this forum constantly tries to do to against religion.

(of course this forum is as much about point scoring as anything else and in reality there is of course both good and bad that has come from both science and religion – the common factor in both being people, who have the ability to bring out either good or bad from almost anything)

 

These social programs did not exist before relgion. Now, yes, they exist independantly from religion but were it not for relugion they would not have cone to be in the first place.

Empathy only gets one so far. I can have an empathatic understanding of your suffering that will be caused by my actions, but I can still decide to carry out those actioons anyway as I consider my personal interests of more inportance than your suffering.

As to short sighted fools - - well if we look at all the environmental damage in the world, all teh STDs the unwanted pregnancy, teh high levels of personal debt driven my wanton materialist consumerism. Then yes I would say we have alot of shortsighted fools on this planet...

 

People were perhaps quite right to believe in flat Earth until evidence came along to knock it down, but the statements in the Bible clearly followed the presumption that it was flat and immovable. Some people need to be told that althought the writers of the Bible may have been great story tellers, they were just normal men with no divine revelation.

As with the Bible being metaphorical, the great challenge of the Christian apologist is to distinguish between what is metaphorical and what isn't. It's still commonly assumed by Christians that Jesus really did come back to life and bodily ascend to heaven. I think this immediately unqualifies Christians from telling anyone else what is likely to be true and what is likely to be myth.

Yes, and my point is that you seem to be correlating beneficial aspects of society with religion. Hence why you call an artist a religious artist etc. Seeing the majority of scientists today are atheists, it sort of blows your theory out of the water that religion had anything to do with the success of scientists in the past. Any degree of religious dogma holds science back, in general.

Jesus on slavery:
The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it. "But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given." (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)

The bible endorses slavery as it endorses many other horrible acts. It did not merely write about them because they happened and were a fact of life - it writes about them in such a way that shows they approve of it.

Half of the Bible is totally immoral by today's standards. Morals change, even the 'holy' men who wrote the bible would be thrown in jail in today's society if they behaved they way they preached others to behave.

Abraham Lincoln is thought of as a liberal ahead of his time, and he was. But by today's standards, he would not get to be president given his racist attitudes. Bush may be immoral by today's standards, but put him in Lincolns day and threre'd be a statue of him in DC.

Point is, morals are always changing and will continue changing, religion or no religion.

Women have in our lifetime gained an extraordinary amount of civil liberties, so I wouldn't go moaning that there is still some way to go. If it weren't for the decline of religious dogma, who is to say the liberties women now have would be possible?

Religion may not have 'invented' female oppression, but your skewed argument painting religion as an all bright and beautiful thing responsible for no wrongs is called into question when it endorces female oppression and slavery.

It doesn't matter either way, because it is wrong. You simply can not give religion credit for all things good or all things negative. Where your argument completely falls apart is when you claim religion is capable of no wrong whilst trying to acclaim it with all things great about the world. This is your fundamental point, and a stupid one.

Luckily, I wouldn't be stupid enough to make either claim.

 

Fire makes a very important point here, one that most theists continually ignore. They love to point out that some creative mind in the past was a Christian or Muslim, in effort to exploit the positioning of that religion as some sort of catalyst for the creative mind's achievements, yet they vehemently deny any unpleasantries to the same degree.

 

Luke 12:41 Peter said, "Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?"

Fire, generally speaking in the sections that lead up to Luke 12:41, Jesus basically states that you don't need Earthly possesions and the Lord will provide for you. Not a slavery endorsement. In 12:41 through 12:48 Jesus is trying to explain to be ready for God by being faithful to him always, not just because you "have to". 12:41 actually has the word "parable" in it, depending on translation.

 

rjr6: what if you've been faithful to god, but you want to take you favourite thing with you, can you? or you dont want to go to the heaven, Can you refuse?

if you say no to the first question, and no you cant to the second then it's slavery.
because you personal choices are removed.