On 17 Jul 2014, at 20:24, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]
] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 9:25 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Atheist
On 17 Jul 2014, at 10:33, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List
wrote:
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]
] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2014 11:20 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Atheist
Salman Rushdie wrote:
> religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes,
mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue,
speaking of religion in the fashionable language of "respect". What
is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now
being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded
name?
It is the liberal consensus that we should always respect all
religious beliefs regardless of how stupid or cruel it is; for
example tune into just about any international news broadcast and
you will probably see at least one story about religious violence
somewhere in the world, but the media won't call it that, the media
will call it "sectarian violence". As for me I think there is a
point beyond which a euphemism becomes a lie.
John K Clark
I would describe it as a societal paradigm... this unspoken rule that
all should respect religion. It dominates both the political right
as well as the left.
I think it is more the general and positive idea of respecting the
others. But sometimes people forget that this rule is limited to
those who respect you. If you respect those who does not respect
you, you lose dignity and eventually life.
Well sure... life is more pleasant when people have a live and let
live attitude. As you point out respect needs mutuality. Respecting
an institution that does not respect anyone that does not adopt
their dogma is a one way flow of respect that leads to a distorted
situation. Religion - for the most part - does not respect anything
that is not in accordance with its dogma, therefore it should not
"expect" to be respected.
You mean institutionalized religion, I guess. I prefer to distinguish
"religion", which concerns the realtion between machine and
transcendent truth, and their local contingent institutionalization,
which in the comp religion are provably necessarily betraying
religion. It is a theorem of sort: religion (if comp is true) is just
not institutionalizable, at least in the sense of asserting truth/
false, or good/evil, etc. people can met and dance and do many
religious things if they want to, but it is more like singing,
dancing, taking drugs, or whatever. It is not normative neither in the
beliefs, nor in the actions.
Religion is a useful tool to power structures (when it is not the
power structure itself);
I agree, alas. I would say that it is in the nature of religion to
easily be confused with the 3p structure which might try to
represent it. That is why the basic of the mystics is negative, they
often say only: no it is not this, nor that, neither this nor ...
Neoplatonist theologies reflects this in being "negative theologies".
But that's the fate of anything near a Protagorean virtue. Not just
the Churches, also the Trade Unions, for a different example. The
very goal of the Trade Unions is morally positive, as it defends the
employees on possible employer abuses. But an old Trade Union can
become a machine defending the interest of the Trade Unioners only,
up to the point as being a problem for both the employer and the
employees.
The same for money. At first it makes it possible to share the
products of works, and speculate about the futures, but then it can
be used for its own sake, perverting its distribution and
speculation role.
Fake or lies based powers quickly speculate only on how long they
can lie.
In no case should we throw the baby with the bath water. All
positive thing which are related to a protagorean virtues are on the
risk, when implemented, to be perverted by its name or social
representation.
I agree all human institutions become captured eventually by small
classes of people who rig the system - any system -- to favor their
own. Once the cockroaches manage to worm their way into power within
any institution it is almost impossible to rid the institution of
their influence.
OK.
religion serves the interests of central authority. Emperor
Constantine and the Roman imperial elites of the time have as much
(or more perhaps some argue) than any mythical prophet, to do with
the evolution of a loose set of scattered stories into an organized
imperial state religion united under the crucifix (and conveniently
the emperor as well).
When a religion is institutionalized at the level of the state; not
only politics will get inconsistent and authorianists, but the
religion itself will become a mockery of itself. Also, at such a
level (an Empire), it can take *many* centuries to recover.
All insitutions become means for enforcing an uneven playing field
for the benefit of a favored elite class.
Yes, but some institutions are needed, like academies, government,
diverse societies, ... Like a living body, they can be sick, and we
have to be vigilant, ...
In the religious domain, it is simpler: *all* institution, betrays,
just by their existence, any of their message.
You would probably describe me as being liberal, but I certainly do
not ascribe to any dictum that I respect the institution of or
practice of religion. Quite frankly I do not. Especially organized
religion, which is a lot like organized crime IMO, sharing with it
many of the same characteristics and practices.
I agree 100%. This makes me only anticlerical, though. Not against
religion. (Nor religious communities, nor even religious state/
country, as religion can be taught through example. But it cannot be
installed by force, nor even by votes. In fact religion like science
can develop through practice, research, and "exemplary
behaviors" (yet never named as such).
Agreed. I am one whose life has been - at least in part -
characterized by my own spiritual quest, but I am fervently anti-
clerical... my family has been anti-clerical since the Napoleonic
wars; I continue in this tradition.
Nice :)
My parents were religious-atheists, that is "strong atheist" when
young, but then they became anti-religious/agnostic, and even slightly
believer, when getting older. But all my grandparents where religious
(jewish, christians, strong atheists).
A few examples of some shared characteristics: murdering (or
shunning) those who attempt to leave; murdering (or marginalizing)
the competition (very mob like behavior); demanding protection money
from those under its control - the tithes to the church are they
really that different from protection money to the local gang boss.
I could go on, the ways in which religion and organized crime
operate is quite numerous.
Totally agree. But the culprit is not the religion, nor money, nor
the trade union, etc. the culprit is in the humans, who for special
short term interest pervert the original thing. A bit like in a
cancer, the culprit is not the blood cells which feed the tumor, but
the cancerous cell which "perverts" the sanguine system to feed the
tumor.
I agree, but see any organized institution as being bound in the end
to become corrupt and controlled by the cancer or organized criminal
syndicates that later on transmute into established aristocracies.
Religion, unlike trade-union, are bound in the start to be corrupted
by institutionalization. That was the basic idea of the early mystic:
don't name God, meaning, don't refer to anything 3p when talking about
It/she/it. It can only be exploited by the bandits, as history
illustrates so well.
Religion are very easily taken into hostage by bandits looking for
power, but children are easily taken into hostage by bandits too.
That makes not religion, nor the children, bad per se.
I differentiate between spiritual quests and religion for this very
reason. I see organized religion as primarily being a tool for the
enforcement of earthly power; as being something far differnet than
spiritual awakening or seeking.
OK. We differ only on the vocabulary. I prefer to keep the terms used
by the originators of the ideas, and avoid the use made by people who
directly do the contrary of what has been proposed.
I bet that all honest people, looking just a bit inward, are
religious, and confusing religion and religious-institution can only
push them to defend the institution. Atheism (strong one) is a de
facto ally of religious institutions, unlike anticlericalism.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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