On 19 Jul 2014, at 22:08, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
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.
No machine can't respect a religious dogmatic institution and stay
self-referentially correct. But that comes from its own religion, and
I don't see why I should not respect that.
I think it is better to avoid a confusion between religion and
dogmatic religion (which is the case for most conevntioanl
institutionalized religions, for obvious political and non-religious
reasons).
>>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.
The root of the word is the Latin verb ligo, which becomes religo,
to tie or bind over again, to make more fast. For me this implies a
re-binding of many into a single organized - allegedly correct --
belief system. A mystic interpretation of the word "religo" is also
possible, with the re-binding root of the word pointing to the re-
binding of the disconnected soul to some larger meta-soul. The word
resonates with me when taken in the second sense of the meaning... in
the first sense of re-binding many into a single faith I find it
abhorrent.
So we are quite close on this.
The organized practice of religion based on following the
interpretation of some dead dogma is the antithesis of the
enlivening act of experiencing living spiritual existence.
That is why those defending dogma will forbid personal research, and
condemn the mystics, and worse, recuperate and deforms their message
after they died.
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, ...
This is true... which is why any institution needs to be kept under
the microscope of open scrutiny.
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).
My Italian great grandmother, who was anti-clerical all her life and
who did not attend church began to make the sign of the cross - when
she was well into her 90s. My father jokingly asked her what she was
doing one day - that she had never believed all her life, why was
she going through the rituals of Catholic believers. And she
responded with a twinkle in her eyes - "you never know". Evidently,
she was taking out an insurance policy J
Sort of Pascal wag, but why the cross? People seems often to believe
that the truth is either no religion or their parent religion, but
have difficulties to conceive that it might that some religion is 45%
correct, and that another religion could be 46% correct, and that all
religion can be correct on something and false on some other things.
Best,
Bruno
Cheers,
Chris
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/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
