I'm not sure how you overlooked the essential qualifier in my comment: "Speaking for myself, ABSENT ATROCITIES AND AUTHORITARIANISM, I choose to respect people's religions." Atrocities and authoritarianism define Scientology, which is in its own unique category of corruption and cruelty. The behavior of pathological miscreant and leader …
I'm not sure how you overlooked the essential qualifier in my comment: "Speaking for myself, ABSENT ATROCITIES AND AUTHORITARIANISM, I choose to respect people's religions." Atrocities and authoritarianism define Scientology, which is in its own unique category of corruption and cruelty. The behavior of pathological miscreant and leader David Miscavige alone could serve as Exhibit A. But you probably know all that already. Now I'm really and truly done here. Have at it.
So you think atrocities and authoritarianism define Scientology but not Christianity, a religion that is primarily based on the Bible, which has as its main character a deity that commands his followers to commit genocide and threatens people with supernatural torture if they don’t become his slaves? And whose worshippers, over the past thousands years have, other than the massacres in the book they revere, repeatedly carried out atrocities that are not in the same “category” as what Scientologists have done. From what I know L Ron Hubbard never commanded his followers to invade Nevada and commit genocide on all its inhabitants, enslave the female virgins, and kill the donkeys.
Your contempt for Scientology is incongruent with the “respect” you apparently have for other religions like Christianity. I’m not suggesting you ditch your contempt for Scientology, but that you evaluate your “respect” for Christianity. If you have a problem with David Miscavige, it’s inconsistent to be okay with Moses or Jesus. You do realize Moses commands genocide in the Book of Numbers right? You do realize Jesus, in the gospels, commanded his followers to sell all their stuff and support his mission to tell Jews he was the messiah and that anyone who didn’t follow him would be tortured? The Spanish Inquisition wasn’t a coincidence.
A religion is anything that provides four functions:
1. Meaning, especially meaning for pain.
2. Purpose.
3. A sense of community.
4. Ritual.
Human beings need religion. We can turn nearly anything into a religion. Football is a popular religion, for example. We tend to turn things into religion until our need for religion is sated. Human beings experience significant adverse mental and physical health effects within a few months if they don't have ANY religion.
Jeffrey, you've expressed your loathing and disgust for anything even tangentially related to Christianity repeatedly in this thread. I personally think it's inappropriate to use such judgemental language towards a third of the global population, but we may disagree on this point.
My question is this: what is your religion or religions?
1. What meaning to you ascribe to painful or unpleasant experiences, and why?
2 What do you think defines your purpose?
3. What is your community?
4. What are your rituals and traditions?
It appears that you think your religion is vastly superior to Christianity. Enlighten us all, please.
I am expressing my disparagement toward the ideology of the Bible. Fortunately a lot of Christians are much better than the book they claim to follow. There are generally respectable Christians, but the book they revere is not.
The quantity of people who claim to revere a book and revere a man does not have any impact on how we should judge what they claim to revere. If 1/3 of the population were Nazis, would you say that people shouldn’t harshly judge the ideology of Hitler? You *judging* me for judging an ideology that promotes obedient worship of a genocidal slaver is wrong. Yes, we certainly disagree about my “judgemental language”.
The psychological well being that a religion promotes does not justify it is worth respecting. Again, Nazism could very well provide community and other elements of “religion” but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be condemned. It is appropriate to use judgmental language. Not to use it is vice — well once you learn about it. Paul went around preaching supernatural torture for everyone who didn’t join his community. For some reason you would have no problem with that judgemental language which targeted 99.9% of the population at the time, but you would chastise me for saying that was wrong because lots of people now revere Paul. That is a bad judgement. Thats one contribution to how cruel tyrannical ideologies stay popular. Jesus stated that only a “few” wouldn’t end up being supernaturally tortured for not following him, which sounds like he is being way more judgmental toward much more of the population than myself. Have a problem with Jesus?
My religion is irrelevant to the immorality of Christianity or the validity of my moral judgements toward it. An alligator could be writing what I’m writing and it would still be valid.
But, actually I do think I am religious. I think everyone is religious, although I don’t share your definition of religion, which I think is unclear. Thus the health effects claim is garbage. You write it like you’re referring to scientific research or something. I’d be fascinated to see what you are basing it on. One meaningful and purposeful tradition of mine is pointing out horseshit.
I agree though more generally that we have social needs, and without them satisfied it will eventually make most humans miserable but I don’t see the relevance to my judgements about Christianity.
Another tradition I have is denouncing people who claim to speak for gods who demand absolute obedience from humans and threaten them with torture if they don’t comply. You should consider picking it up. It’s honorable. As opposed to shamefully being their apologists.
Honestly, your claim seems to be that theism in general and Christianity in particular is a sin and the source of all evil and suffering in the world. And that people should recite daily mantras to free themselves of this sin and obtain enlightenment.
That's a religious claim. The extreme language, aggressive tone, and general scorn for any other opinions is a poor approach to apologetics for your religion if you actually wish to make converts. I suggest trying some different tactics.
Of course, making converts may not be your goal. Bible thumping street preachers often enjoy the combination of feeling superior and feeling persecuted. They simply don't care that their approach doesn't work. That may be the case for you as well.
But if you're actually TRYING to represent your faith well and bring people around to your religion, reconsider your tactics. These ones don't work.
I have only referred to gods who demand absolute obedience from humans and threaten them with torture if they don’t comply. Not “theism in general”. Thomas Paine(the guy who wrote Common Sense, which sparked the American Revolution) was a theist. He didn’t worship such a god though. He didn’t believe in Yahweh. He wrote an entire book that dripped with disdain for the Bible. You need to work on your reading comprehension badly. Your perception of me is a projection of your own prejudices.
The “aggressive” language I have used comes no where near the language that is used repeatedly in the Bible, and from the mouths of mythological characters in it, which you seem zealously to defend from any dishonor and insult.
I don’t suspect I’ll be able to convince you of much. You seem to be beyond the reach of reason.
Here is your beloved Yahweh commanding his followers to commit genocide of Amalekites, which Netanyahu recently referred to regarding his military actions in Palestine:
1 Samuel 15:2
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
Go ahead and shamefully rationalize it. I think it is profane; but I’ll wager you think it is “sacred.”
Paul was arguably the first “Bible thumping” Christian, since Christianity was largely his invention, and he was quite successful unfortunately. After all he and his followers have convinced you to defend his religion of human sacrifice.
Here is Paul hexing people who teach something different than him:
Galatians 1:6
“ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, If any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.”
Surely you think Paul, the inventor of Christianity, should have used different tactics???Right???? No I bet you will defend it. Go at it.
Most religion has been spread and maintained through violence or the threat of it. Simple historical fact. I have done neither here, but you seem to dislike me immensely nonetheless. You don’t like my “tone”. Do you prefer the tone when Jesus tells people that his imaginary god will torture them for being angry?
Check out the Hawaiian gods. They also demand obedience and are quite direct about enforcement. Pele makes her displeasure known with lava.
Human sacrifice has been a normal part of most religions up to a few thousand years ago. Absolute obedience to the gods, up to and including the sacrifice of your own children, has been normal. The story of Abraham and Isaac is the story of a god that refused human sacrifice. It was a rather radical departure from the norms of the time. It was a popular development, and a big part of the success of the Abrahamic religions. It was a substantial "carrot", and more than made up for the "stick" of potential damnation. Especially since most other religions also have some form of divine punishment, in this world or the next.
Perhaps you have a lovely new religion that is the next step in human advancement. If so, you're doing a poor job of sharing it. Your argument is all stick, no carrot.
There are plenty of ancient societies where no evidence of human sacrifice exists or demands for absolute obedience to gods. And just because some religions practiced human sacrifice in the region and the time of Judaism doesn’t mean all religions did. Nor does it mean that because it was not as evil as some religions around it that we should revere it now. That’s asinine. It’s like saying that because the Nazis were worse than the soviets Stalin should be honored. Furthermore, while Abraham didn’t sacrifice his child, enemies of Yahweh were sacrificed. Human sacrifice was practiced by Judaism.
Additionally, Christianity is a religion *centered* on human sacrifice. Jesus is a willing human sacrifice.
I don’t need to provide an alternative religion here when criticizing Christianity anymore than someone has to provide an alternative medicine when criticizing blood letting for the flu. But I have actually here honored reason, independent thinking, and the resistance toward tyranny, three values that should be a part of anyone’s “religion”.
Your statement toward me criticizing the Bible is like someone who hears someone condemn Nazism and says “perhaps you have a lovely new ideology that is the next step in human advancement.” Its grotesque. Judaism, Christianity, and Nazism were not advancements, they were just slightly different forms of degeneracy. The notion of moral progress though that you just revealed demonstrates that you likely think *you* have some sort of advanced religion, which is laughable. You are going to have to learn to read before you get beyond your slave religion.
I’ll give you a carrot once you say something that deserves it. Otherwise expect a lot of dung.
My value system generally requires having an improvement to offer before criticizing another person's belief system. Your value system lacks this requirement. That's okay.
It appears that in your ethical system, it is mandatory to honor reason, independent thinking, and resistance towards tyranny. Honoring human beings is optional.
1. The idea that there's a universal morality comes from the Abrahamic worldview. A dualistic, pluralistic, or relativistic worldview rejects the concept of an objective morality. So your worldview and religion is HIGHLY relevant to claims about morality or immorality. It would be so for an alligator too!
2. There is a fascinating amount of science regarding religion, actually. "Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts makes life worth living" by Dimitris Xygalatas is an excellent place to start. No religious claims, just scientific analysis of the physiological effects of ritual, as measured in real time by wearable monitoring gear.
3. The definition of religion comes from
"Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World" by Tara Isabella Burton. Another useful book is "Cultish, the language of fanaticism", by Amanda Montell.
“ The idea that there's a universal morality comes from the Abrahamic worldview. ”
No it doesn’t. “Universal moralities” existed prior to Judaism and aside from
Judaism. Most major ancient civilizations had universal moralities. Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, Chinese, Mesopotamians. Small societies also show them.
“ A dualistic, pluralistic, or relativistic worldview rejects the concept of an objective morality. So your worldview and religion is HIGHLY relevant to claims about morality or immorality. ”
Metaethical theory is not needed to make moral claims. I’d have no problem discussing this with you, but it’s not necessary for what we are talking about.
"Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts makes life worth living"
Looks like it could be a neat book. But I don’t think it includes your *specific* claim about health and religion. If it does I suspect the “science” is garbage. But you are welcome to actually cite the study it provides. Unfortunately people present bad interpretations of unreplicated, sloppy research as “the science” when it’s not. My hypothesis is that is what you did.
After all, the definition you provided seems like it comes from a different book? Did the ritual book’s research that it cites all use that same definition? Which doesn’t seem actually like a particularly good one to me.
Have you actually read any original “religious” literature yourself? Like the Old and New Testaments, thoroughly? Homer? Hesiod? The Epic of Gilgamesh? The Hammurabi Code? The Gita? The Upanishad’s? The Book of the Dead? The Quran?
It seems like you are simply regurgitating commentary. For example the notion that universal morality comes from Abrahamic religions is a very ignorant statement and sounds like it came from someone like Jordan Peterson or a televangelist.
Jesus was a bad man. Threatening other people with supernatural torture if they don’t absolutely obey a god who commands his followers to massacre suckling infants is bad. My metaethics are irrelevant. Just as my metaethics are irrelevant were I to say Hitler was a bad man. I suspect you understand my sentiments well enough. If you want a ritual — put “Jesus is bad man” on your Alexa to repeat once a day at noon and echo it yourself.
You claim that Jesus threatened other people with supernatural torture if they don't massacre suckling infants. You seem to imply that he not only made this claim, but originated it.
Please cite chapter and verse from the new testament to back up this claim. The new testament is quite short, it should be an easy read to find...if it's there.
“ You claim that Jesus threatened other people with supernatural torture if they don't massacre suckling infants.”
I didn’t claim that. Please reread my comment. Read carefully.
This is what I wrote:
“Threatening other people with supernatural torture if they don’t absolutely obey a god who commands his followers to massacre suckling infants is bad.”
If you need help breaking down that sentence, let me know. Your last try would get you an F. The fact that you did so horribly gives me the impression that your reading skills are not sufficient for reading the Bible. I suggest you take some remedial reading classes.
So your objection is to the Abrahamic concept of God. A concept of the divine that is held by roughly 56% of the population, nearly 3.5 BILLION people. They're all wrong and stupid.
That seems a bit like hubris to me. But it's your life. Believe whatever works for you.
It’s stupid to establish morality and truth on popularity. It’s not hubris to use our own reason and experience and emotion to assess what is true and good regardless of what is more or less popularly held to be true and good. It is courageous. It is proper self-respect. It should be honored. The fact that you have such contempt for independent thinking goes a long way to explain your reverence for Yahweh. You have slavish morals, which the Bible preaches.
I don’t simply believe everything based on what works; that’s not how rationality works.
And simply believing in Yahweh doesn’t make a person stupid. Many otherwise intelligent people can believe irrational things.
I don't think it's particularly rational or scientific to prioritize what feels good or seems reasonable over what matches the evidence.
The quantum theory of atomic structure makes no sense to me. But it matches the data better than any other model. So for now, I'll cheerfully accept it as true, even though neither my personal logic or feelings confirm it.
Your worldview is different and prioritizes different things when making decisions about truth. That's okay...in my worldview anyway.
Ancient Egyptian morality was DIFFERENT than the morality of, say, early Chinese dynasties. Deities were also generally local, although they could be moved or stolen. To the best of my knowledge, the idea of making a universal moral claim for all of humanity originated with the Abrahamic religions. Love it or hate it, that's also the origin of proselytizing.
I've read a great many sacred texts, yes.
The definition of religion I used came from Strange Rites.
All those ancient civilizations I listed had religion that promoted universal morals no less than Judaism. And Abrahamic religions were not the only or original proselytizers.
I suggest you read about Zoroastrianism. That should be sufficient to dispel your ignorance.
Zoroastrianism has the House of Lies as punishment in the afterlife. Not eternal, it's most equivalent to the Catholic concept of purgatory. It's a temporary hell.
It appears that Zoroastrianism was primarily located in Persia, and few attempts were made to spread it outside the Persian empire. Many of the most useful and functional ideas of Zoroastrianism were incorporated into Christianity and later Islam, however.
Are you a Zoroastrian believer? Tell me about your faith. What benefits does it bring to your life?
What does anything you said have to do with what what I said?
No I’m not a Zoroastrian believer.
How about you tell me about your “faith” instead? For all your defense of genocidal gods, and your demands I tell you about my “religion”, you haven’t shared your own.
Okay, then we have a fundamentally different worldview. Concepts deeply important to me simply don't exist in your worldview. I do not believe that human worth is either subjective or on a spectrum.
Yes, this puts us in separate communities. I have no problem with that.
Adulthood is a complex concept related to competence and responsibility. It MIGHT fit in your worldview. Or maybe not. 🤷♀️
I find it fascinating and befuddling that you can glibly describe some people as having negative human worth and yet find the idea of earned adulthood offensive.
Human beings are born as infants. We grow up. Most of us pass into the responsibility, independence, competence, and deliberate interdependence of adulthood. Some do not and remain socially eternally children, regardless of their physical development.
This seems perfectly clear to me, but that's because adulthood as a concept exists in my worldview. It may not exist in your worldview.
There are clearly plenty of things that exist in your worldview that simply don't in mine. But that's how worldviews work. A worldview is like water to a fish. It's really hard to see something without any form of contrast.
Which is WHY I enjoy conversations with strangers on the internet (or anywhere else). Learning to understand the worldview of others helps me learn to see my own more clearly.
Meaning: Pain that is the price we pay for joy. An elimination of pain is also the elimination of change or hope. A world without pain or suffering is not utopia, but an endless unchanging grey. That's sounds like hell to me. It WAS the ancient Greek concept of hell.
Purpose: to leave the world a better place for human beings than it would have been without me.
Sense of community: All those who honor inherent human worth are my community. As are my family.
Ritual: I have a few annual rituals, such as major holidays. My more regular rituals are a bit inadequate. Arguing with strangers on the internet appears to be one of them. 🤣
I base my current working model of Truth on a combination of pragmatism and sustainability. Basically, what works for an extended period of time. I think the scientific method is incredibly useful as a counterweight to normal human biases. I don't believe any human being can ever truly grasp Truth, so I hold onto my working model of Truth as lightly as possible. I call this humility. I maintain the awareness that I could be wrong.
I am absolutely opposed to anti-human efforts to exterminate the human species. Polar bears are worth protecting and so are people. I don't think the efforts to exterminate humanity will be successful, but I believe a great deal of harm will be done by the effort. I am strongly Team Pro-human.
I also revere adulthood, which I think is earned through personal effort. The respect due to adults is above and beyond the inherent human worth each of us is born with. Inherent human worth isn't earned and can't be lost. Adulthood is earned and can be revoked. In my worldview, it's not simply a matter of age.
There's more, obviously, but those are some major points.
Thanks for asking! I have spent a great deal of time pondering the question recently.
I'm not sure how you overlooked the essential qualifier in my comment: "Speaking for myself, ABSENT ATROCITIES AND AUTHORITARIANISM, I choose to respect people's religions." Atrocities and authoritarianism define Scientology, which is in its own unique category of corruption and cruelty. The behavior of pathological miscreant and leader David Miscavige alone could serve as Exhibit A. But you probably know all that already. Now I'm really and truly done here. Have at it.
So you think atrocities and authoritarianism define Scientology but not Christianity, a religion that is primarily based on the Bible, which has as its main character a deity that commands his followers to commit genocide and threatens people with supernatural torture if they don’t become his slaves? And whose worshippers, over the past thousands years have, other than the massacres in the book they revere, repeatedly carried out atrocities that are not in the same “category” as what Scientologists have done. From what I know L Ron Hubbard never commanded his followers to invade Nevada and commit genocide on all its inhabitants, enslave the female virgins, and kill the donkeys.
Your contempt for Scientology is incongruent with the “respect” you apparently have for other religions like Christianity. I’m not suggesting you ditch your contempt for Scientology, but that you evaluate your “respect” for Christianity. If you have a problem with David Miscavige, it’s inconsistent to be okay with Moses or Jesus. You do realize Moses commands genocide in the Book of Numbers right? You do realize Jesus, in the gospels, commanded his followers to sell all their stuff and support his mission to tell Jews he was the messiah and that anyone who didn’t follow him would be tortured? The Spanish Inquisition wasn’t a coincidence.
It seems like you may be a Protestant atheist.
A religion is anything that provides four functions:
1. Meaning, especially meaning for pain.
2. Purpose.
3. A sense of community.
4. Ritual.
Human beings need religion. We can turn nearly anything into a religion. Football is a popular religion, for example. We tend to turn things into religion until our need for religion is sated. Human beings experience significant adverse mental and physical health effects within a few months if they don't have ANY religion.
Jeffrey, you've expressed your loathing and disgust for anything even tangentially related to Christianity repeatedly in this thread. I personally think it's inappropriate to use such judgemental language towards a third of the global population, but we may disagree on this point.
My question is this: what is your religion or religions?
1. What meaning to you ascribe to painful or unpleasant experiences, and why?
2 What do you think defines your purpose?
3. What is your community?
4. What are your rituals and traditions?
It appears that you think your religion is vastly superior to Christianity. Enlighten us all, please.
I am expressing my disparagement toward the ideology of the Bible. Fortunately a lot of Christians are much better than the book they claim to follow. There are generally respectable Christians, but the book they revere is not.
The quantity of people who claim to revere a book and revere a man does not have any impact on how we should judge what they claim to revere. If 1/3 of the population were Nazis, would you say that people shouldn’t harshly judge the ideology of Hitler? You *judging* me for judging an ideology that promotes obedient worship of a genocidal slaver is wrong. Yes, we certainly disagree about my “judgemental language”.
The psychological well being that a religion promotes does not justify it is worth respecting. Again, Nazism could very well provide community and other elements of “religion” but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be condemned. It is appropriate to use judgmental language. Not to use it is vice — well once you learn about it. Paul went around preaching supernatural torture for everyone who didn’t join his community. For some reason you would have no problem with that judgemental language which targeted 99.9% of the population at the time, but you would chastise me for saying that was wrong because lots of people now revere Paul. That is a bad judgement. Thats one contribution to how cruel tyrannical ideologies stay popular. Jesus stated that only a “few” wouldn’t end up being supernaturally tortured for not following him, which sounds like he is being way more judgmental toward much more of the population than myself. Have a problem with Jesus?
My religion is irrelevant to the immorality of Christianity or the validity of my moral judgements toward it. An alligator could be writing what I’m writing and it would still be valid.
But, actually I do think I am religious. I think everyone is religious, although I don’t share your definition of religion, which I think is unclear. Thus the health effects claim is garbage. You write it like you’re referring to scientific research or something. I’d be fascinated to see what you are basing it on. One meaningful and purposeful tradition of mine is pointing out horseshit.
I agree though more generally that we have social needs, and without them satisfied it will eventually make most humans miserable but I don’t see the relevance to my judgements about Christianity.
Another tradition I have is denouncing people who claim to speak for gods who demand absolute obedience from humans and threaten them with torture if they don’t comply. You should consider picking it up. It’s honorable. As opposed to shamefully being their apologists.
Honestly, your claim seems to be that theism in general and Christianity in particular is a sin and the source of all evil and suffering in the world. And that people should recite daily mantras to free themselves of this sin and obtain enlightenment.
That's a religious claim. The extreme language, aggressive tone, and general scorn for any other opinions is a poor approach to apologetics for your religion if you actually wish to make converts. I suggest trying some different tactics.
Of course, making converts may not be your goal. Bible thumping street preachers often enjoy the combination of feeling superior and feeling persecuted. They simply don't care that their approach doesn't work. That may be the case for you as well.
But if you're actually TRYING to represent your faith well and bring people around to your religion, reconsider your tactics. These ones don't work.
I have only referred to gods who demand absolute obedience from humans and threaten them with torture if they don’t comply. Not “theism in general”. Thomas Paine(the guy who wrote Common Sense, which sparked the American Revolution) was a theist. He didn’t worship such a god though. He didn’t believe in Yahweh. He wrote an entire book that dripped with disdain for the Bible. You need to work on your reading comprehension badly. Your perception of me is a projection of your own prejudices.
The “aggressive” language I have used comes no where near the language that is used repeatedly in the Bible, and from the mouths of mythological characters in it, which you seem zealously to defend from any dishonor and insult.
I don’t suspect I’ll be able to convince you of much. You seem to be beyond the reach of reason.
Here is your beloved Yahweh commanding his followers to commit genocide of Amalekites, which Netanyahu recently referred to regarding his military actions in Palestine:
1 Samuel 15:2
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
Go ahead and shamefully rationalize it. I think it is profane; but I’ll wager you think it is “sacred.”
Paul was arguably the first “Bible thumping” Christian, since Christianity was largely his invention, and he was quite successful unfortunately. After all he and his followers have convinced you to defend his religion of human sacrifice.
Here is Paul hexing people who teach something different than him:
Galatians 1:6
“ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, If any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.”
Surely you think Paul, the inventor of Christianity, should have used different tactics???Right???? No I bet you will defend it. Go at it.
Most religion has been spread and maintained through violence or the threat of it. Simple historical fact. I have done neither here, but you seem to dislike me immensely nonetheless. You don’t like my “tone”. Do you prefer the tone when Jesus tells people that his imaginary god will torture them for being angry?
Check out the Hawaiian gods. They also demand obedience and are quite direct about enforcement. Pele makes her displeasure known with lava.
Human sacrifice has been a normal part of most religions up to a few thousand years ago. Absolute obedience to the gods, up to and including the sacrifice of your own children, has been normal. The story of Abraham and Isaac is the story of a god that refused human sacrifice. It was a rather radical departure from the norms of the time. It was a popular development, and a big part of the success of the Abrahamic religions. It was a substantial "carrot", and more than made up for the "stick" of potential damnation. Especially since most other religions also have some form of divine punishment, in this world or the next.
Perhaps you have a lovely new religion that is the next step in human advancement. If so, you're doing a poor job of sharing it. Your argument is all stick, no carrot.
There are plenty of ancient societies where no evidence of human sacrifice exists or demands for absolute obedience to gods. And just because some religions practiced human sacrifice in the region and the time of Judaism doesn’t mean all religions did. Nor does it mean that because it was not as evil as some religions around it that we should revere it now. That’s asinine. It’s like saying that because the Nazis were worse than the soviets Stalin should be honored. Furthermore, while Abraham didn’t sacrifice his child, enemies of Yahweh were sacrificed. Human sacrifice was practiced by Judaism.
Additionally, Christianity is a religion *centered* on human sacrifice. Jesus is a willing human sacrifice.
I don’t need to provide an alternative religion here when criticizing Christianity anymore than someone has to provide an alternative medicine when criticizing blood letting for the flu. But I have actually here honored reason, independent thinking, and the resistance toward tyranny, three values that should be a part of anyone’s “religion”.
Your statement toward me criticizing the Bible is like someone who hears someone condemn Nazism and says “perhaps you have a lovely new ideology that is the next step in human advancement.” Its grotesque. Judaism, Christianity, and Nazism were not advancements, they were just slightly different forms of degeneracy. The notion of moral progress though that you just revealed demonstrates that you likely think *you* have some sort of advanced religion, which is laughable. You are going to have to learn to read before you get beyond your slave religion.
I’ll give you a carrot once you say something that deserves it. Otherwise expect a lot of dung.
My value system generally requires having an improvement to offer before criticizing another person's belief system. Your value system lacks this requirement. That's okay.
It appears that in your ethical system, it is mandatory to honor reason, independent thinking, and resistance towards tyranny. Honoring human beings is optional.
I will be answering on a single thread.
1. The idea that there's a universal morality comes from the Abrahamic worldview. A dualistic, pluralistic, or relativistic worldview rejects the concept of an objective morality. So your worldview and religion is HIGHLY relevant to claims about morality or immorality. It would be so for an alligator too!
2. There is a fascinating amount of science regarding religion, actually. "Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts makes life worth living" by Dimitris Xygalatas is an excellent place to start. No religious claims, just scientific analysis of the physiological effects of ritual, as measured in real time by wearable monitoring gear.
3. The definition of religion comes from
"Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World" by Tara Isabella Burton. Another useful book is "Cultish, the language of fanaticism", by Amanda Montell.
To be continued...
“ The idea that there's a universal morality comes from the Abrahamic worldview. ”
No it doesn’t. “Universal moralities” existed prior to Judaism and aside from
Judaism. Most major ancient civilizations had universal moralities. Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, Chinese, Mesopotamians. Small societies also show them.
“ A dualistic, pluralistic, or relativistic worldview rejects the concept of an objective morality. So your worldview and religion is HIGHLY relevant to claims about morality or immorality. ”
Metaethical theory is not needed to make moral claims. I’d have no problem discussing this with you, but it’s not necessary for what we are talking about.
"Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts makes life worth living"
Looks like it could be a neat book. But I don’t think it includes your *specific* claim about health and religion. If it does I suspect the “science” is garbage. But you are welcome to actually cite the study it provides. Unfortunately people present bad interpretations of unreplicated, sloppy research as “the science” when it’s not. My hypothesis is that is what you did.
After all, the definition you provided seems like it comes from a different book? Did the ritual book’s research that it cites all use that same definition? Which doesn’t seem actually like a particularly good one to me.
Have you actually read any original “religious” literature yourself? Like the Old and New Testaments, thoroughly? Homer? Hesiod? The Epic of Gilgamesh? The Hammurabi Code? The Gita? The Upanishad’s? The Book of the Dead? The Quran?
It seems like you are simply regurgitating commentary. For example the notion that universal morality comes from Abrahamic religions is a very ignorant statement and sounds like it came from someone like Jordan Peterson or a televangelist.
Jesus was a bad man. Threatening other people with supernatural torture if they don’t absolutely obey a god who commands his followers to massacre suckling infants is bad. My metaethics are irrelevant. Just as my metaethics are irrelevant were I to say Hitler was a bad man. I suspect you understand my sentiments well enough. If you want a ritual — put “Jesus is bad man” on your Alexa to repeat once a day at noon and echo it yourself.
You claim that Jesus threatened other people with supernatural torture if they don't massacre suckling infants. You seem to imply that he not only made this claim, but originated it.
Please cite chapter and verse from the new testament to back up this claim. The new testament is quite short, it should be an easy read to find...if it's there.
“ You claim that Jesus threatened other people with supernatural torture if they don't massacre suckling infants.”
I didn’t claim that. Please reread my comment. Read carefully.
This is what I wrote:
“Threatening other people with supernatural torture if they don’t absolutely obey a god who commands his followers to massacre suckling infants is bad.”
If you need help breaking down that sentence, let me know. Your last try would get you an F. The fact that you did so horribly gives me the impression that your reading skills are not sufficient for reading the Bible. I suggest you take some remedial reading classes.
So your objection is to the Abrahamic concept of God. A concept of the divine that is held by roughly 56% of the population, nearly 3.5 BILLION people. They're all wrong and stupid.
That seems a bit like hubris to me. But it's your life. Believe whatever works for you.
It’s stupid to establish morality and truth on popularity. It’s not hubris to use our own reason and experience and emotion to assess what is true and good regardless of what is more or less popularly held to be true and good. It is courageous. It is proper self-respect. It should be honored. The fact that you have such contempt for independent thinking goes a long way to explain your reverence for Yahweh. You have slavish morals, which the Bible preaches.
I don’t simply believe everything based on what works; that’s not how rationality works.
And simply believing in Yahweh doesn’t make a person stupid. Many otherwise intelligent people can believe irrational things.
I don't think it's particularly rational or scientific to prioritize what feels good or seems reasonable over what matches the evidence.
The quantum theory of atomic structure makes no sense to me. But it matches the data better than any other model. So for now, I'll cheerfully accept it as true, even though neither my personal logic or feelings confirm it.
Your worldview is different and prioritizes different things when making decisions about truth. That's okay...in my worldview anyway.
Ancient Egyptian morality was DIFFERENT than the morality of, say, early Chinese dynasties. Deities were also generally local, although they could be moved or stolen. To the best of my knowledge, the idea of making a universal moral claim for all of humanity originated with the Abrahamic religions. Love it or hate it, that's also the origin of proselytizing.
I've read a great many sacred texts, yes.
The definition of religion I used came from Strange Rites.
All those ancient civilizations I listed had religion that promoted universal morals no less than Judaism. And Abrahamic religions were not the only or original proselytizers.
I suggest you read about Zoroastrianism. That should be sufficient to dispel your ignorance.
Zoroastrianism has the House of Lies as punishment in the afterlife. Not eternal, it's most equivalent to the Catholic concept of purgatory. It's a temporary hell.
It appears that Zoroastrianism was primarily located in Persia, and few attempts were made to spread it outside the Persian empire. Many of the most useful and functional ideas of Zoroastrianism were incorporated into Christianity and later Islam, however.
Are you a Zoroastrian believer? Tell me about your faith. What benefits does it bring to your life?
What does anything you said have to do with what what I said?
No I’m not a Zoroastrian believer.
How about you tell me about your “faith” instead? For all your defense of genocidal gods, and your demands I tell you about my “religion”, you haven’t shared your own.
Okay, then we have a fundamentally different worldview. Concepts deeply important to me simply don't exist in your worldview. I do not believe that human worth is either subjective or on a spectrum.
Yes, this puts us in separate communities. I have no problem with that.
Adulthood is a complex concept related to competence and responsibility. It MIGHT fit in your worldview. Or maybe not. 🤷♀️
I find it fascinating and befuddling that you can glibly describe some people as having negative human worth and yet find the idea of earned adulthood offensive.
Human beings are born as infants. We grow up. Most of us pass into the responsibility, independence, competence, and deliberate interdependence of adulthood. Some do not and remain socially eternally children, regardless of their physical development.
This seems perfectly clear to me, but that's because adulthood as a concept exists in my worldview. It may not exist in your worldview.
There are clearly plenty of things that exist in your worldview that simply don't in mine. But that's how worldviews work. A worldview is like water to a fish. It's really hard to see something without any form of contrast.
Which is WHY I enjoy conversations with strangers on the internet (or anywhere else). Learning to understand the worldview of others helps me learn to see my own more clearly.
My religion is as follows:
Meaning: Pain that is the price we pay for joy. An elimination of pain is also the elimination of change or hope. A world without pain or suffering is not utopia, but an endless unchanging grey. That's sounds like hell to me. It WAS the ancient Greek concept of hell.
Purpose: to leave the world a better place for human beings than it would have been without me.
Sense of community: All those who honor inherent human worth are my community. As are my family.
Ritual: I have a few annual rituals, such as major holidays. My more regular rituals are a bit inadequate. Arguing with strangers on the internet appears to be one of them. 🤣
I base my current working model of Truth on a combination of pragmatism and sustainability. Basically, what works for an extended period of time. I think the scientific method is incredibly useful as a counterweight to normal human biases. I don't believe any human being can ever truly grasp Truth, so I hold onto my working model of Truth as lightly as possible. I call this humility. I maintain the awareness that I could be wrong.
I am absolutely opposed to anti-human efforts to exterminate the human species. Polar bears are worth protecting and so are people. I don't think the efforts to exterminate humanity will be successful, but I believe a great deal of harm will be done by the effort. I am strongly Team Pro-human.
I also revere adulthood, which I think is earned through personal effort. The respect due to adults is above and beyond the inherent human worth each of us is born with. Inherent human worth isn't earned and can't be lost. Adulthood is earned and can be revoked. In my worldview, it's not simply a matter of age.
There's more, obviously, but those are some major points.
Thanks for asking! I have spent a great deal of time pondering the question recently.