Religions are fairy tales for adults. Should we encourage them to grow up?

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

WARNING! This is NOT to be clicked under any circumstances! WARNING

Here

[Dalek Prime]

WARNING! This is NOT to be clicked under any circumstances! WARNING

Here

Okay. I didn't click it. Now what? Hmmm...

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Keep on not clicking ... I cannot stress this enough.

[Obvious Leo]

Keep on not clicking ... I cannot stress this enough.

Once is enough for me too, Gustav. I have no interest whatsoever in what you actually do have to say so you may be sure that I have even less interest in what you don't me to know about what you have to say. You're on your own, pal. Enjoy.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

OTOH I am still vitally interested in what you say and so relish the opportunity to comment on it. That you won't or cannot comment ... places me in a delectable position which I also greatly enjoy! So, we both come out winners!

[Greatest I am]

Why only taxpayer funded schools?

In my country this would actually include all schools because even private and religious schools receive a certain level of government funding.

Would a responsible government not want truth to be taught to their citizens all the time and everywhere?

Yes. However a government can only govern with the consent of the people and thus the burden or responsibility for this rests with the people. In a democracy we always get the government we deserve.

Is lying for money not fraud? Yes it is and we allow charities and religions to both flagrantly do it tax exempt.

I've always wondered what would happen if the tax-exempt status of religious institutions was challenged and tested in our high court. I'm not a constitutional lawyer but I've often heard the opinion expressed by some who are that such a tax status may be unconstitutional in this country. It would certainly cost big bucks to put it to to the test because these organisations would fight it tooth and nail and they have very deep pockets full of OUR money.

Indeed.

Justice is not justice when a citizen cannot afford to make a case or have it heard.

If a religious person ever tells us to go F ourselves, we all can say that we are already doing just that.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I think we do have a role in other people fantasies that are doing harm so that we can at least point out the harm and hope they respond properly.

So, is it that these people have simply not had the harm pointed out to them... or that they don't agree as to what is harm?

I agree with you that it can be valuable to speak out against foolish and destructive beliefs... in order to try and help turn the tide. However, due to most people's denial and resistance to change, I think more real/lasting change may come from non-engagement, keeping oneself clear, and from setting new examples that can demonstrate the archaic nature of some methodologies/beliefs.

It often seems to me that fighting against something, gives it some level of credibility/validity -- simply because of the effort people are willing to invest in it. Whereas, NOT giving it that level of involvement, might show it for the absurd fantasy it is?

No easy absolute answers! I'm winging it moment to moment with the ever-shifting wind.

Fighting against evil and giving it some level of credibility/validity as an issue is what will eventually kill that foolish belief.

If ignoring it was good, gays would still be denied their rights the same way misogynous religions like Christianity is still denying women first class citizenship.

Ignore all the evil you like. I will not. If someone does not speak out against evil, IMO, they are no better than those who practice it.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

To have harm pointed out.

• The interesting thing here is to 'turn the lens around' and have it face those making these statements. That they know, and for certain, that holding to an imago or an 'imagined sense' or even a mythological vision of some aspect of reality, or incarnation here, can really be called 'doing harm'. It is obviously insinuated that the one making the statement stands in a truer relationship to reality, that that one sees it more clearly, or grasps its essence and what is most important in it and about it. This might amount to hubris. It extends into a whole attitudinal posture in which one declares oneself qualified to make these sorts of decisions and judgments not only for ones closest to one, but for a whole nation! Given the opportunity, the structure of education would be revised to conform to whatever the core ideas about 'reality' that these folks hold. It is also implied that civic authority would have the power to apply civic penalty to those whose thinking did not accord with the established zeitgeist. And as we have seen in some of these posts, at least one in this tête-à-tête feels qualified to decide questions of mental health! One imagines, then, the logical extension: indoctrination centres, mental wards a la Solzhenitsyn, forced round-ups of thought-malefactors. Exaggeration, it is true, and yet the seeds are there.

I agree with you that it can be valuable to speak out against foolish and destructive beliefs.

• Yet it surely must be a heavy responsibility. For after all, what if one gets it wrong? How many modernist social programs - social engineering programs - have ended doing much more harm than good? But yes, we are duty-bound really to speak out about 'foolish and destructive beliefs', and for this reason, again, we must be willing to have the examination lens turned around. And on what basis do we declare that we have a viable grasp of these matters? From whence our authority? In truth, these questions (the question of religiousness, of faith, of spirituality, of growth in consciousness) are likely outside of your-plural ken - if we are to base an opinion on the silly declarations you-all make in your posts. I would say that both of you are largely ignorant of the core of the issue. If that is so, how can you possibly rectify error? It is possible that your own 'beliefs' are erroneous, partial, and arise in forms or levels of ignorance. What right do you have to define how life and existence are perceived, understood and addressed? Who the heck are you?

Real/lasting change may come from non-engagement, keeping oneself clear, and from setting new examples that can demonstrate the archaic nature of some methodologies/beliefs.

• God in Heaven! I am reminded of the blocks of time spent in Venezuela and Nicaragua and around American and European activists, many of them young, idealistic children with a very limited and parochial grasp of the world yet with an obstinate belligerency that made them stick out like sore thumbs. They actually spoke like this! I kid you not. This idea of setting to work on the recalcitrant world and whipping it into shape. If that world would only see the 'archaic nature' of their erroneous 'methodologies'. But the spirit of idealism is often a double-edged sword.

Because in the case of these particular fairy tales the facts speak for themselves.

• It is the attitude in these statements that catches my attention. In a significant sense we humans define our relationship to 'reality' through our 'imagined world' or our 'imagined relationship' to life. There is even a rather dry, materialist one, at the base of this declaration. One sees oneself in the structure of a muthos, a story that defines a relationship to life, to truth, to being. Some other people operate a different vision, or have a different intuition of life, and impose a different 'tale' about the nature of reality. But note that you suppose you have the truer one, and the right one, and the one that has the right to ascendency, and one that evolution forms (another sort of divinity). Sobering up a convoluted belief-system may indeed be in order, but you cannot say that any one of them does not allow for worthy social and human outcomes. The idea that you will do away with them is quite suspect, at least to my ears.

Almost all of the major indicators of social progress which are used in the social sciences show that the most advanced and progressive societies are those in which religious belief is not a significant factor in the cultural zeitgeist.

• I find this sort of argumentation to have a suspect element. One is that it cannot be stated with certainty just what is 'social progress', and indeed the concept is so much a part of academic outlooks that hinge in social management and social moulding projects. I hear in these declarations the enunciations of Marxian social scientists with clear idea of 'what society needs' and 'what people need', and indeed there is a wealth of written material that indicates just what these theorists intend, and what they'd do given the opportunity. One of the first things is to undermine the structure of religious belief, the structure of the family, and social hierarchies that they determine are negative. This hinges into darker political areas in which mercantile interests and corporate interests also have will and interest. Turn the world into a manufacture and distribution system where everyone looks and acts the same (sees the world through the same lens) and 'peace will come to Earth'. There are dangers here that need to be looked into.

It's sometime hard to see this from our own particular perspectives but undoubtedly the world IS becoming a kinder, more tolerant and a fairer place as the dominance of religion has waned.

• I remind you again that the 20th Century brought forth some of the most destructive conflagrations, and ones terribly mortal in astounding numbers, that did not have much at all to do with religious pieties. A couple of them had origins in some facets of the ideology which shines out of your writing. Massive 'education' projects, cultural engineering, the elimination of that dread religion, and intolerance taken to stark levels. This brings into question, at least, some of the elements of these 'declarations'. Thank you for reading, I'll take my answers on the astral plane...

I would not mind speaking to some of these issues but you are not talking to me but only talking to impress yourself.

A shame I have to ignore you as you are not stupid.

Regards
DL

[Jaded Sage]

It's been a long time since I've heard this type of thinking. As far as I can tell, religion is about compassion and wisdom. What the pseudo-religious have done with it is another matter.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

This is a standard complaint around here!

I write topically to a subject. I have little care if you like how it is expressed, not should this be of concern to you. Engage in ideas only. Respond to ideas with other ideas. There is a faction here invested in sentimental argumentation and I suspect that is your location, too.

If you will allow me to say: I have read your posts and though I would not call you 'stupid' you are misinformed, suffer from lack of preparation, and express yourself sloppily. You have thought so very little about what you hold up as important that your statements read as ignorance and your 'arguments' are easily taken apart.

Make comments about it, or don't, it is all the same to me.

[Greatest I am]

This is a standard complaint around here!

I write topically to a subject. I have little care if you like how it is expressed, not should this be of concern to you. Engage in ideas only. Respond to ideas with other ideas. There is a faction here invested in sentimental argumentation and I suspect that is your location, too.

If you will allow me to say: I have read your posts and though I would not call you 'stupid' you are misinformed, suffer from lack of preparation, and express yourself sloppily. You have thought so very little about what you hold up as important that your statements read as ignorance and your 'arguments' are easily taken apart.

Make comments about it, or don't, it is all the same to me.

I know. That is your self-centered problem.

Regards
DL

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I would not mind speaking to some of these issues but you are not talking to me but only talking to impress yourself.

Those bolded lines were direct quotes of Lacewing and Obvious Leo. Had you read the previous posts with some attention you'd have known that.

They say even death can't cure an idiot.

[The Inglorious One]

This is a standard complaint around here!

I write topically to a subject. I have little care if you like how it is expressed, not should this be of concern to you. Engage in ideas only. Respond to ideas with other ideas. There is a faction here invested in sentimental argumentation and I suspect that is your location, too.

If you will allow me to say: I have read your posts and though I would not call you 'stupid' you are misinformed, suffer from lack of preparation, and express yourself sloppily. You have thought so very little about what you hold up as important that your statements read as ignorance and your 'arguments' are easily taken apart.

Make comments about it, or don't, it is all the same to me.

Yeah, and I like your posts.

[Hobbes' Choice]

This is a standard complaint around here!
.

Sometimes when that whole world is telling you one thing, and you say another, it's time to step back and think again.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

You don't understand what is being said, Hobbles, it goes over your head. You have no argument, no grand idea you work with. You represent 'splintering' and fracturation. So does GIA. Were I to listen to your 'critique' (laughs) I would have descended to your level. That is a loss right there. It is not your fault, really, it is an outcome of our time.

Hobbles: The abstract and brief chronicle of his time: a hobbling intellect!