Which religion is more spiritually bankrupt?

Originally posted by ckoh1965
Well, I'm not saying that the other religions are perfect. They are not! But Islam is the most hypocritical. On the one hand, it teaches its followers to be kind and humble, not to harm others etc. Then when they find it necessary to suit their purposes, they can conveniently make a loophole by saying you can kill for the purpose of protecting your religion ...[text shortened]... ieve in religion, but it's still possibly to tell which one is better than the other.

And yet the Westboro Baptist Church don't see it your way. You complain about Jihad (of course Islam is totally against murder), yet Christains burndown abortion clinics, with the people still inside.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
True, but religions tend to accumulate baggage like any institution. It's not as simple as the here and now proponents.

So you're asking which religion's history shows the most hypocrisy? Tough call.

Every now and then reformers come along to clean religions up. People are often more comfortable with hypocrisy because they can get on with their lives. The Taliban is an example of reform gone wrong.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
And yet the Westboro Baptist Church don't see it your way. You complain about Jihad (of course Islam is totally against murder), yet Christains burndown abortion clinics, with the people still inside.

As I was saying, I don't believe in Christianity too. But I think we must be careful with out analysis. If for example a religion teaches its followers not to kill, and then the followers choose to kill anyway, then I wouldn't blame that religion. For whatever reasons, perhaps due to wrong interpretations, the followers believed that their religion told them to kill.

Now we have Christians, of which its prophet sent a very clear message: NO VIOLENCE. And he practised what he preached. If you choose to ignore this 'rule' then it's up to you.

On the other hand, we have Islam, of which it is actually provided in its holy book, that you MAY kill under certain circumstances. And it's because of the many interpretations of those 'circumstances' that we see a lot of inocent people die in this world.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
So you're asking which religion's history shows the most hypocrisy? Tough call.

Every now and then reformers come along to clean religions up. People are often more comfortable with hypocrisy because they can get on with their lives. The Taliban is an example of reform gone wrong.

no no no. Think of it like a beaver's dam. It's not made of beavers! Religion is an emergent property of humans, especially religious ones!

Originally posted by scottishinnz
no no no. Think of it like a beaver's dam. It's not made of beavers! Religion is an emergent property of humans, especially religious ones!

Right. I figure that prophets pop up to fill a (religious) need. The Arabs needed Mohammed; his sub-conscious poured out those surahs and away they went. Sincere Muslims try to connect with the source of that vision (that source was not Mohammed). I think secular people can connect with the same source. Not sure if this post is on topic or not.

Originally posted by rwingett
I will believe many things, but it will not be by virtue of my atheism.

Your atheism is foundational to your views, it affects much in how you
look at things.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Your atheism is foundational to your views, it affects much in how you
look at things.
Kelly

You have the cause and effect backwards. My views are foundational to my atheism, not the other way around. My atheism is the end result, not the underlaying cause.

Originally posted by ckoh1965
As I was saying, I don't believe in Christianity too. But I think we must be careful with out analysis. If for example a religion teaches its followers not to kill, and then the followers choose to kill anyway, then I wouldn't blame that religion. For whatever reasons, perhaps due to wrong interpretations, the followers believed that their religion told the ...[text shortened]... etations of those 'circumstances' that we see a lot of inocent people die in this world.

You have white supremecists like the Arian Brotherhood or the KKK and when some poor black guy gets strung up, hung, whatever and dies, when the authorities go after the leaders of the cult, they invariably say, we never told anyone to kill, we only want 'separate but equal', which is unmitigated BS but they take this stance and continue to preach violence when reporters or cops are not around. So the leaders of both christianity and islam can do the same. BTW, there are passages in the bible, notably Liviticus, that does call for killing. So two opposing religions with instructions to kill cannot be coming from a god. Its all manmade with this incredibly hypocritical stance of godliness. They know if they just say commandments come from the leaders, it would be a one generation rule like Alexander the Great and the rules change as soon as the old tyrant dies and a new one takes over. This way, calling it written by a god, all the later generations can hark back to the original so the filthy perverted practices of these barbaric religions go on throughout millenia of time.

Originally posted by sonhouse
You have white supremecists like the Arian Brotherhood or the KKK and when some poor black guy gets strung up, hung, whatever and dies, when the authorities go after the leaders of the cult, they invariably say, we never told anyone to kill, we only want 'separate but equal', which is unmitigated BS but they take this stance and continue to preach violence ...[text shortened]... the filthy perverted practices of these barbaric religions go on throughout millenia of time.

Thank you for enlightening me. I'm not a biblical scholar, you see. Well, obviously I haven't read enough. I didn't know that the bible does tell its followers to kill too. But I suspect that its criteria must be much more restricted, I don't know. Nonetheless, I fully agree with you. If indeed a holy book does allow the killing of another human being, then it cannot have come from God.

But, really, if we look at what's happening in the world today, of the many wars and killings that's going on, you'll notice that many more muslims who would claim that they're killing FOR their religion. Perhaps they're some Christians who claim that they kill for their religion too, but I'm fairly certain that the number is much smaller.

Originally posted by ckoh1965
Thank you for enlightening me. I'm not a biblical scholar, you see. Well, obviously I haven't read enough. I didn't know that the bible does tell its followers to kill too. But I suspect that its criteria must be much more restricted, I don't know. Nonetheless, I fully agree with you. If indeed a holy book does allow the killing of another human being, then ...[text shortened]... y kill for their religion too, but I'm fairly certain that the number is much smaller.

Yes, but when one of them is the president of the world's richest country...

Originally posted by scottishinnz
no no no. Think of it like a beaver's dam. It's not made of beavers! Religion is an emergent property of humans, especially religious ones!

This tendency in humans to create religions, where did it come from?

Why is it that there is this need to create religions?

Can you identify the source of this need in humans to create religions and why such a need should be there in humans in the first place?

Originally posted by jaywill
This tendency in humans to create religions, where did it come from?

Why is it that there is this need to create religions?

Can you identify the source of this need in humans to create religions and why such a need should be there in humans in the first place?

Humans have an innate tendancy to see patterns, even when none exist. I believe the reasons for the development of religion are twofold (a) people see patterns in nature and, devoid of a better explanation revert to a supernatural explanation (i.e. the whole "design" argument) and, (b) a tool developed to allow the political control of large groups of people. As the size of groups that people live in has increased over the last 13,000 years or so, so too the size of the boss required to keep control of that group has increased. Small groups look to their bosses, larger groups like countries, look to their kings. As the group becomes larger, kings are no longer sufficient to control the population. Let's face it, who is better to control the population than an omnipotent, omniscient God who punishes them for being bad, and rewards them for being good?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Humans have an innate tendancy to see patterns, even when none exist. I believe the reasons for the development of religion are twofold (a) people see patterns in nature and, devoid of a better explanation revert to a supernatural explanation (i.e. the whole "design" argument) and, (b) a tool developed to allow the political control of large groups of ...[text shortened]... omnipotent, omniscient God who punishes them for being bad, and rewards them for being good?

You have given two interesting answers.

1.) An innate tendency in humans to see patterns.

2.) To develop a tool to control other people.


This tendency to see patterns even where none exist? Did man just decide to have this innate tendency for some strange reason? Why does man have this innate tendency to see patterns anyway?

Do people just want to see patterns? If so why do people just want to see patterns?

Are the SETI scientists who are looking for patterns in radio signals to determine if extraterresteral life is trying send us signals, do they also suffer from this religion creating tendency to see patterns?


And about the need for a tool to control people?

What do you think it is in man that makes him think there is a need to control people? Is it related in any way to the innate tendency to see patterns?

I'm puzzled why these two seemingly unrelated tendencies together are the cause of man's creation of religions.

Do you know of some connection between the two religion creating causes in humans?

Originally posted by jaywill
You have given two interesting answers.

1.) An innate tendency in humans to see patterns.

2.) To develop a tool to control other people.


This tendency to see patterns even where none exist? Did man just decide to have this innate tendency for some strange reason? Why does man have this innate tendency to see patterns anyway?

Do peop ...[text shortened]... gions.

Do you know of some connection between the two religion creating causes in humans?

Pattern recognition in humans.

To understand this, it is good to be able to understand human evolution.

Humans have evolved powerful mechanisms to understand sometimes complicated patterns. A simple example would be thus. Imagine a caveman who comes across two fruit trees. One bears many more flowers than the other. Later in the season, our blossom rich tree also bears many fruit. The following year our hypothetical man comes across two trees. One contains many blossoms, the other contains few. He can only protect one tree from others who would seek to eat the fruit. Which should he choose? If he makes the right choice, he gains alot of fruit, which he can use to grow big and strong, allowing him to attract many, high quality females. If he makes the wrong choice, he is not as strong, and either only has few children, or may even die.

The best theory for the large human brain that I have heard is of sexual selection. Females and males bring different things to the reproductive party. Males produce copious sperm (there are good reasons for this too), whilst females produce a single large egg, which they continue to feed for a minimum of 9 months after conception. On top of the energetic costs of this, females actually put themselves in greater risk by being preganant, they are less able to run away from danger, etc. So, females invest alot in reproduction. Males can essentially copulate and leave.

Over evolutionary time, females have exerted a pressure for fidelity amongst their males. When I say this, I mean traits have evolved within females that mean that most females will choose "true" males over "cheating" males. By having a mate which stays with them, they are protecting their own interests, a faithful male will feed the female, and their child. A faithful male will protect the female and their child. Indeed, this theory also explains the "seven year itch". By age 6, a child, whilst not independant by any means, requires a sufficiently small amount of a parents attention that a second child is likely to be successfully reared (of course, these arguments are more relevant to the human condition 10,000 years ago, rather than the highly artificial conditions nowadays, but they are still relevant).

Males are not exempt, and they have evolved mechanisms to fake being faithful. They look faithful, but really will further their evolutionary interest by fathering lots of childrem. This has set up an arms race, the net result being the development of the brain which, of course, is required to try and detect signs of deceipt in others. Look at how easy it is for clever people to decieve stupid people, for example.

This pattern recognition has been highly useful for us over evolutionary time, but sometimes works against us. This is the reason we have developed statistics for scientific usage, for example.

Part 2 to follow.

Originally posted by jaywill
You have given two interesting answers.

1.) An innate tendency in humans to see patterns.

2.) To develop a tool to control other people.


This tendency to see patterns even where none exist? Did man just decide to have this innate tendency for some strange reason? Why does man have this innate tendency to see patterns anyway?

Do peop ...[text shortened]... gions.

Do you know of some connection between the two religion creating causes in humans?

Tool for the control of people.


People evolved to live in small groups, pretty much everyone in these groups knew each other, and everyone had a very clear idea of each persons role in society. Some people are stronger in these societies, and they normally command the food supply, especially surplusses, and perhaps also breeding rights. We certainly see this in many other species.

Over time, as agriculture started to develop, this allowed specialised casts of people, artisans, scribes, tradesmen, and chiefs. People like to know why things happen, and where they came from. As language developed, it was useful for the chiefs in society to develop gods. These could be used to explain why the world is the way it is, and also act as a source for their power, as the power of the group started to eclipse the power of the rulers. For example, the UK population could march upon Parliment tomorrow, and the UK authorities could do nothing about it, but they don't since the population is reletively disorganised, and is placated by the actions of politicians most of the time.

As socieities got larger, the God had to grow with the population, as did his wrath. If we look at primitive societies, even today, we see primative Gods, with limited power, but as we see development, so too do we see increasingly powerful Gods. An omniscient, omnipotent God is simply the extreme incantation of this trend.

So, as you can see, even with my potted explanations (although I could go into far greater detail), that it is the basic psychology of humans that allowed the development of Gods as a method of control by people who realise it's better to be the ruler than the ruled.

My personal opinion is that atheism is simply a rebellion against the freedom that religion has seeked to repress for thousands of years.