@Curtmungus your honor of being more famous than me is quite deserved. I salute you.
Religion, Why?
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Well, Chaos, those are the points one might make were they a-religious/atheistic, etc. It is possible that people who are religious, or “spiritual” may have many other reasons for religion, outside of it’s utility as a war-enhancing mechanism.
And don’t kid yourself. There is a lot more going on than simply Allah vs. Jehovah. It would be nice if it were that simple. Religion may have the purest aspirations, the greatest hope, and may help people be in touch with God. Like with any good thing, it may be corrupted. A knife in a chef’s hands, a car in use of meal-on-wheels, the hammer in the hands of a carpenter, charisma in a person of good will seeking to make positive changes in society, so easily may be a knife in the hands of a theif, a car in the hands of a drunk, the hammer in the hands of a mafia enforcer, charisma in a German painter.
Any tool used for greatness, used in love, creating beauty may be perverted by evil forces.
Finally you left out many “good things about religion” that we religious people find handy. It is difficult to make one appreciate these however. -
I don’t even hate Bush enough to think he thinks he has the power of God behind him :D
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Chaos, Religion is used often as a pretext for violence, but it is not the religion encouraging violence, the perpetratours look for an excuse.
For example, the religious wars in europe occured because the nobles wanted an excuse to seize church land, and to seize other noble’s land.
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But YB, millions of people went along with it because of the Religion. A few leaders cannot do much without the masses.
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evil forces
What’s that, socialism, atheism, humanism, science, evolutionism ? What does that eat in winter, an evil force ?
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Yanny, they do not follow because of religion, they follow because the leaders unite them through hate/desperation for loot.
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ButtDude, it seems to me tis all of the above. I appreciate yer cynicism, that people follow raving bastards for their own selfish, pragmatic reasons (i.e., the loot) – but I guess in many cases lots of people just get swept up in an emotional, spiritual or whatever kind of ferment or fervor, believing in their own righteousness – or believing in their badness… at that moment it likely makes little difference. They become part of a greater animus… the mob. Can this be sustained beyond a fired-up bonfire moment? Sure. Desperation, as you point out, has plenty to do with it. So does routine.
The function of orthopraxy: when people are bent, or bend themselves, not to a set of ideas, words and beliefs (orthodoxy), but to a set of ACTIONS. Once masses of people are involved in a set of habitual actions (pick any: doing the nine-to-five thing – buying breakfast cereal in branded boxes in chain supermarkets you visit by car – marching in ranks and singing national fighting anthems – running through life with cell phone glued to ear – voting along party lines – not voting at all – etc.) once people are committed to such habitual actions, then they will adopt various convenient REASONS or rationales or theories or ideologies… to explain the consequences of these actions, and even to explain WHY they perform these actions in the first place. Nine times out of ten, the person prefers a quick, convenient, canned rationale. (Insert ideology, theology, philosophy, etc. here.)
Such rationales can be perfectly straightforward and common-sense: “I have to make money and save up so my kids can make it to a better college.”
Other rationales can be absurd or mystical or untestable for most practical purposes available to the average person: “We have to strip minority X of their property because our religious leaders say they are filthy devils.”Anyway, don’t take my word for it; for further reflection, read about it in “Propagandas” or anything else written by Jacques Ellul.
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The function of orthopraxy: when people are bent, or bend themselves, not to a set of ideas, words and beliefs (orthodoxy), but to a set of ACTIONS. Once masses of people are involved in a set of habitual actions (pick any: doing the nine-to-five thing – buying breakfast cereal in branded boxes in chain supermarkets you visit by car – marching in ranks and singing national fighting anthems – running through life with cell phone glued to ear – voting along party lines – not voting at all – etc.) once people are committed to such habitual actions, then they will adopt various convenient REASONS or rationales or theories or ideologies… to explain the consequences of these actions, and even to explain WHY they perform these actions in the first place. Nine times out of ten, the person prefers a quick, convenient, canned rationale. (Insert ideology, theology, philosophy, etc. here.)
Hmmm… that’s was actual something pretty profound :)
What’s that, socialism, atheism, humanism, science, evolutionism ? What does that eat in winter, an evil force ?
I guess Communism is in the clear… 8)
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Communism isn’t in the clear, Moses, its just that “evil force” is not a vile enough word to describe the sadistic nature of communism. :)
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From the capitalist perspective which survives by feeding off of surplus labor… :-?
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Religion is in a lot ways a cover for power. You use religion to get people to stand up behind you, to do what you tell them to.
Many leaders who claim they have God behind, probably don’t give a shit about God, they just want the power.But the holy scripts can be interpretated in so many ways (simply because they contradict themselves all the time, just look at the bible for instance) that they acctually tell you to go to war.
The bible says that you should not have any other Gods. You may see it as your duty to convert these “savages” who’s not christian.Therefor religion have been too bad and is only a tool to get power. It has been so forever. Just look what happened to Galilei when he said that the sun was center of the universe, not the earth. He was almost killed, because that fact would make the church look weak and it would lose its power.
The same thing with crazy leaders.And about communism, no one have ever seen communism, so don’t talk like you know what it is, unless you have read for example Marx (which I have btw, and I acctually have a poster of him on a my wall, hehe) 8)
Soviet was far from communistic, thanks to a mr Stalin. It’s quite ironic acctually, how Lenin in his will said that he would want Trotskij or two other guys (don’t remember who they were right now) and said that he definitly didn’t want Stalin. And Stalin changed it and you know the rest. I want to quote a former american general, who after the fall of Soviet said “One evil empire down, one to go”.
The only country who have been close to communism is Cuba acctually. And they are not in misery, Castro is loved (why else would there be tens of thousands of people coming to cheer him when he speaks in public), they have the best doctors in the world, everyone is granted food etc.
And the ones who run away from Cuba are those who just want to have more than everyone else, why else would there be so many who ran away when Castro took the power? And guess which people it was who ran away? And you’re not forced to stay, as Castros daughter who lives in exile said “going away from Cuba is practically the only right you have”.Yeah yeah, whatever, this is out of subject :) Start another thread if you want to know more or something.
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That was me posting above.
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Chaos - too much to challenge, a few things to agree to . . .
- Canada has the best doctors in the world.
- People risk and give up all they have to leave Cuba. Even today. And i’m certain that any leader in the world could conjure up a crowd of thousands to cheer, particularly if they have the force of will (and will of force) to shut down protesters.
True sanctions have hurt Cuba, and i’m glad that we have nominal relations with the Cubans, however i see too many trying to escape for one reason or another to be convinced that the resorts are not the only utopian aspect of Cuba.
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I’m not so sure about Cuba. There’s a lot of censorship there which I don’t agree with… however, it’s much better than the previous rulers they had.
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Cuba ain’t paradise, but its not horrible either. Lifting the US sanctions there could do a lot of good for both sides.
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Other countries have life MUCH worse… :-?
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like afganistan
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I’m not so sure about Cuba. There’s a lot of censorship there which I don’t agree with… however, it’s much better than the previous rulers they had.
Totally agree.
Cuba ain’t paradise, but its not horrible either. Lifting the US sanctions there could do a lot of good for both sides.
How can you live without Cuba’s rum ?
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Simple, I don’t drink )
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Good idea. :)
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