We have pondered a lot on this in here Tyke. Not sure I should be in so much agreement with someone with a handle suggesting Yorkshire, having commitments this side of the Pennines myself! But I agree entirely, not least because we seem to need more than 'rationalism' to solve basic problems of getting along. Our increasing connectedness takes many forms, involving floods because trees have been hacked down (a theme in terms of water rights of many old Westerns) and buying products from sweat-shops (etc.). In other terms, despite so far the Internet, we remain divided and ruled. There is much violence and violent competition in nature and also much cooperation in it. Religion appears easy to use to motivate violence and this scares me, along with seemingly inevitable problems with faith being so irrational and incapable of accepting facts at the expense of retaining dogmas. One thing I believe bolsters this is the insistence of science as a rational activity and worse politics as one. I working on a chapter about Einstein working on relativity at the moment. The relativity principle was already 'old hat' as he came to it rather than something he dreamed up, and there's a key point at which he realises a need to re-invent the underlying kinematics of physics to incorporate the relativity principle and consolidate it in electromagnetics. You use a great phrase above 'as it appears is the problem of a whole social structure or social sin which is outwardly ordered and inwardly ridden by psychopathic obsessions and delusions'. This resonates in metaphor with a choice he had to make in reconciling Maxwell's work with the relativity principle. Most were taking the route that one had to take one or the other. He made the choice to try to reconcile them - broadly succeeding. What has to be said here, is that it is easier to stick with the science, at least for me. I find the world outside this insufferably irrational and nasty, very much as in your rather Freudian phrase. Most people don't do science and though I believe many more could if we didn't mystify it so much, for most it has to be taken on faith, through demonstration of its products and so on. Given the difficulties involved, it is hardly surprising that people default to stuff they think they can understand like religion and tradition. Even as we might debate this, the majority either have no access to the debate or no care for it. Sooner or later, in our democracy, we come back to them for a vote. This is not what we would do to decide whether I'm right on Einstein or in developing what is now his established theory - we restrict this to elite, esoteric groups.
Science tends to predicate understandings of religion in neuroscience (there is a 'godspot') and such stuff as in-groups and out-groups. Even amongst animals we find violence. Human history is full of examples of the violence between in and out, and religion is a general presence. The idea of religion as basically mythical and about social control is old. We probably need to reflect more than we do on science as social control (there is plenty of academic work - Foucault was a recent favourite). I suspect we tend to see it as producing results anyone should understand - a very faulty perspective. Much of what happens socially is based on ignorance, something none of us can do more than claim to be free of, a claim that turns us into liars as we make it. I tend to see the answers in public scrutiny, but our understanding of this is currently a can of worms - we elevate it to an ideal forgetting how easy it is to corrupt. Religion too might be a way out, yet again is easy to corrupt. Developing personal integrity and virtue is another, again easy to claim whilst using the claim to manipulate others (our idiot political model - perhaps derived from religion?). There has been much work on a model that the correct position to take is the depressive position - pragmatic and seeking only normal unhappiness. This is contrasted with the paranoid-schizoid position which demonises any opposition seeing out-groupers as 'enemy'. Violence easily perpetuates itself as the winners survive. We have even tried Mutual Assured Destruction to evade it. We lack reliable history and this is something religion evades in its theories in use, which are in sharp relief to the espoused theories. What we need are practical, peaceful theories in use. On 7 Dec, 17:37, tyke <[email protected]> wrote: > Our world is no longer limited to territorial sensitivity as in times > past. Our global reality becomes more apparent with each advance in > human sciences. Everyone and everything is increasingly connected. > Amidst this, religion emphasises that purposeful interdependence with > the human community and with its nature as the basis of ultimate > happiness and fulfilment. This purposefulness triggers the idea of how > adherents of religious beliefs make some particular choices that > affect and effect the self and this self becomes a source and object > of actions. can religion be argue out as the object of violence or > perhaps nicely coined as the 'faith of violence' > Can faith and violence exist as bedfellows? Do the adherents of > religious faith indulge in violence? The problem of violence is not > the problem of a few rioters and rebels, but as it appears is the > problem of a whole social structure or social sin which is outwardly > ordered and inwardly ridden by psychopathic obsessions and delusions. > for as it appears and historiographically the realities of Christian > Crusades and Islamic Jihad explicate further the relationship between > faith and violence.hence is religion + violence = faith of violence? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en.
