Since we've gotten told to stop talking generally about religion twice in the Homosexuality and Religion thread and were told that, if we want to talk generally about religion, we need to make a new thread, I have made a new thread.
Full disclosure: I am an agnostic atheist and anti-theist, but I'm very interested in theology and religion.
Mod Edit: All right, there are a couple of ground rules here:
- This is not a thread for mindless bashing of religion or of atheism/agnosticism etc. All view points are welcome here. Let's have a civil debate.
- Religion is a volatile subject. Please don't post here if you can't manage a civil discussion with viewpoints you disagree with. There will be no tolerance for people who can't keep the tone light hearted.
- There is no one true answer for this thread. Don't try to force out opposing voices.
edited 9th Feb '14 1:01:31 PM by Madrugada
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
Religious or not, we all misbehave
Lab studies have backed that view, by asking participants to interpret moral vignettes or play games that tempt players to cheat, says Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University in New York City. In a 2008 review for Science, for example, researchers found that believers act more morally than nonreligious people only when interacting with other members of their own religious community. Such selectivity makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, Haidt says. If, as some scientists hypothesize, religion evolved to increase social cohesion, it shouldn’t just make you “blindly nice to everybody; it should make you more virtuous when you are interacting with others of the same faith.”
Lab studies have limitations, however. The artificial scenarios they rely on can’t tell researchers much about how religious and nonreligious people behave in daily life, or whether moral considerations are “even relevant” to how people actually behave, says Daniel Wisneski, a moral psychologist at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City, New Jersey, and a co-author of the new study, which appears online today in Science.
Wisneski and colleagues used Craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, and other outlets to recruit 1252 adults ages 18 to 68 throughout the United States and Canada. Tempted by the possibility of winning an iPod Touch through a lottery, participants downloaded an app to their smart phones which allowed researchers to buzz them via text five times a day between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. When they opened the texts, participants were prompted to open a link where they could confidentially report whether they’d witnessed, heard about, or performed any moral or immoral acts within the past hour, and jot down a description. They also entered details about how intensely they felt about the event, rating emotions such as disgust on a 0 to 5 scale.
Reading through the 13,240 messages that the team received over the course of the 3-day study “was an interesting process,” Wisneski says. Participants confessed offenses both tawdry and peculiar: “Arranging adulterous encounter” and “[h]ired someone to kill a muskrat that’s ultimately not causing any harm” were two examples. Although Wisneski says that the negative reports periodically got him down, tidings of good deeds soon lifted his spirits. One person said that they “gave a homeless man an extra sandwich,” for instance, and another reported hearing about an organization that “freed Beagles that had never seen daylight or felt grass.”
Overall, people who had identified themselves as religious or nonreligious when they registered for the study committed both moral and immoral deeds with “comparable frequency,” the team reports. Unsurprisingly, being the target of a positive moral act made people feel slightly better than actually performing one, the researchers found. Benefiting from a good deed made participants more likely to do something nice for someone else later on, a phenomenon known as moral contagion, Haidt says.
The study also confirmed that people with different political views emphasize different moral values. Many of the reported moral acts centered on avoiding harm to others or protecting people from oppression. But other values were at play, too. Wisneski and lead author Wilhelm Hofmann spent weeks classifying the reported acts according to six moral principles identified by Haidt and his colleagues: care for others, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. They found that conservatives were more likely than liberals to report acts involving sanctity and respect for authority, and liberals were more likely than conservatives to talk about fairness—a result that replicates earlier findings in the lab, Haidt says. In addition to Haidt’s six original values, the team found that participants’ judgments reflected two others, honesty and self-discipline, which they used to classify behaviors such as sneaking fast food “though I promised someone I wouldn’t have it.”
An obvious weakness of the study is that people’s view of themselves may color how they report their own behavior, says Fiery Cushman, a moral psychologist at Harvard University. Still, it’s reassuring to see phenomena such as moral contagion, which have been observed in experiments, replicated in everyday life, he says. “It’s kind of a report card on what we’ve learned from the lab.”
A nice butterfly
Yeah, not very sure of the validity of the study given that the reports came from people themselves, not to mention that it does not seem to bring to light if they were informed it was an experiment or if they were kind of conned into it?
Still...one of those sorts of amusing experiments.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
They were smart to include a description of the act in the survey, because the religious participants would probably have reported some things those lacking it would not. Like a Jew being tempted by a bacon sandwich, for example.
Lost in Space
I just read a very interesting article on Rawstory about a woman who escaped the "Quiverfull" lifestyle and how destructive it is for families.
Quiverfull is an extreme Christian lifestyle that is based around practicing absolute submission to God, embodied by strict Biblical values. These include the dominant role of the husband, no birth control, stay-at-home mothers, homeschooling, debt-free living, and absolute obedience.
edited 22nd Sep '14 3:54:33 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Is that cake frosting?
I am happy that she escaped what was evidently a terrible situation to live in.
But I will be frank, it kinda irks me how she keeps writing "Christianity says that..." and identifying Christianity as a whole with the ahistorical, abusive, anti-intellectual mess that she used to follow; nor did I like in the least the way in which she, in the very beginning of the article, instantly dismisses people suggesting that the problem was not Christianity as a whole but her own interpretation of it with "I was in a close, personal relationship with Jesus for over 25 years".
Perhaps this is not the nicest way to put it, but the Bible is a book for grown-ups. It is extremely nuanced and multi-layered, and the surface meanings of many of its passages are often false or patently contradictory with those of other passages, and the texts that it contains were written in different times by people who lived in wildly different societies from ours and operated under different assumptions. If you are going to grab a handful of verses that relate to family life, shut down all forms of critical thinking, and attempt to model your whole life around them, then you are going to have an absolutely horrible time.
But this is not, despite what the author writes, "regular Christianity writ large … lived out to its logical conclusion": it is regular Christianity writ stupid, and its emergence is a fairly recent phenomenon at which the ancient Church Fathers — many of whom were rather crusty people, and not at all "liberal" in the modern sense of the term — would have facepalmed so hard that they would probably have affected continental drift.
There's more that I could say about the article, but let me just mention the "Jezebel spirit" which, according to the author, consists in being a "bossy, dominating woman".
Let's forget for a moment that Jezebel is presented as a negative character in the Bible because she promoted the worship of Baal, and — more in general — because she was a foreign-born ruler who was supporting Phoenician cultural domination of Israel; and let's also forget that the interpretation of the whole passage is far more complicated than it seems — Elijah, for instance, is presented as at least as bloody-minded as Jezebel. But still, one does not have to look far into the Bible to find positive examples of "bossy, dominating women", such as for instance a Prophet/warlady who ruled Israel as a Judge for 40 years and whose strategies soundly defeated an overwhelming Canaanite force, or a widow who told off the rulers of her city for their cowardice and proceeded to personally assassinate the leader of the besieging army. Or what about a young woman who seduced the King of the Persians and manipulated him into executing his main consellor, who was oppressing the Israelis? Or, on a less bloodthirsty note, what about Ruth, who by the way is mentioned among the ancestors of Jesus, who blatantly defies tradition and societal expectations by refusing to return to her country and relatives after the death of her husband, and chooses instead to live alone with her mother-in-law and support her, following her in a foreign and strange country?
edited 23rd Sep '14 5:10:32 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Lost in Space
You're taking home the wrong message. The problem is, and always has been, the people who follow the religion in a way that leads to harmful outcomes. The religion itself is just a tool, like any other. What's worth noting, however, is how frequently religious faith is associated with these kinds of negative behaviors. In other words, regardless of how many people use it for personal enlightenment without becoming jerks or wacko fundies, Christianity has spread a large number of highly toxic memes that draw in the susceptible like flies to flypaper and leave them stuck, slowly dying inside.
Religious faith is a conduit for toxic memes; it creates a susceptibility — a back door, if you will — in the brain's information filters, through which anything can leak. Paul Krugman, a prominent economist that I follow closely, is fond of the term "affinity fraud". [1]
Note that this effect has been demonstrated to be highly pronounced among church congregations, where someone who is a member of the church is readily believed when selling duplicitous financial products.
It should be logically obvious. People are indoctrinated from a very early age to believe in something that has no physical evidence and whose tenets are passed down by Appeal to Authority. They are told that a single book contains all the wisdom of mankind and that everything else is at best misguided and at worst a deliberate lie. They are actively discouraged from seeking out alternative explanations. They've been trained to deny the evidence of their senses and reason and instead submit to authority. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that they'll readily accept anything that comes through that channel.
Of course, not everyone has that experience of religion, but even in the people I know who are perfectly nice, open, and tolerant, I observe a tendency towards magical thinking when it comes to their God.
edited 23rd Sep '14 5:48:26 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Plus you're not exactly making the text sound worthy of the reverence it receives there.
Is that cake frosting?
You can chug down homeopathic medicine to your heart's content without any danger whatsoever; but try to do so with real medicine — especially with powerful medicine like, I don't know, chemotherapy and the like — and you'll be incredibly lucky to even survive. To mess around with powerful religious ideas without critical spirit and carefulness is about as sensible as doing the same with medicines, if not ever less so.
edited 23rd Sep '14 5:53:25 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Zzzzzzzzzz
Might I remind you that this is not "The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Bashing Thread."
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Is that cake frosting?
For what matters, I do believe the Bible to be divinely inspired; but this does not mean that the authors were not human autors, writing moved by human concerns and under limited perspectives, it just means that I believe that through these concerns and perspectives one can perceive the way in which the Divinity chooses to manifest itself in our world.
edited 23rd Sep '14 5:52:45 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
It's certainly an interesting document from a historical perspective, but nowhere in it is there anything that inspires my confidence that the writers had a clue what they were talking about.
You have to sift through tons of war and murder and atrocities to find nuggets of stuff which doesn't clash horribly with your own sensibilities. Is this really what you want to call divinely inspired wisdom? There is a line where "nuanced and multi-layered" devolves into incoherence, and I don't think it would be unfair to say the bible has crossed it in places. The half dozen translations it has gone through certainly don't help matters.
V
Then again, since when was Religion meant to be easy?
Keep Rolling On
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
It presents easy answers to difficult question and circumvents acutally inquiring about stuff. So since forever.
edited 23rd Sep '14 6:50:29 AM by Antiteilchen
Depends on the religion.
Lost in Space
Most religions have supposedly sophisticated philosophy and teleology worked out over hundreds or thousands of years. That means little to the average churchgoer, other than to create a veneer of authority backing their tribal knowledge.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Let's see, aside from the Abrahamic faiths, only Arivadian Buddhism/Chinese Buddhism/The Buddha from the West, Confucianism, and maybe some branches of Paganism really fit that.
There are more faiths and denominations that are individual or small group based then say congregation based.
edited 23rd Sep '14 7:00:35 AM by Gabrael
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
Shinto, Theravadan Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Sufism, Zoroastrianism, Some branches of Paganism such as Nordic and Native American, Cantabile, Voodoo, Youraba faith, Dogun faith, Indonesian Animism (most any form of Animism actually, I just know the most about Indonesia's history), Some sects of Christianity such as Silent Sisters and the Cult of Mary, Gnosticism, Jainism, Dravidian faiths, Some Reform Judaism sects...I could go on for a while.
All of these either in majority or mandate espouse personal relationships with limited guidance/cooperation with small groups or teachers if that much.
Now the Abrahamic Faiths may have more adherents, but the number of other options that aren't so community dependent out number them greatly.
edited 23rd Sep '14 7:33:20 AM by Gabrael
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
Lost in Space
Good for them, I guess? They certainly don't represent a majority, or even a plurality. Just counting the quantity of faiths out there is kind of disingenuous. The authoritarian religions are a lot more popular.
edited 23rd Sep '14 7:35:06 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
No need to be dismissive. The point is that there are other valid and respected options for people that have just as rich and encompassing history and ethos without depending on community involvement.
edited 23rd Sep '14 7:37:17 AM by Gabrael
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
Who Am I?
I would just like to point out that only a tiny fraction of the Christian community abuse their wives or children. It certainly isnt a significant risk factor.
More importantly, I am afraid that the message might get out "You cant escape your abuse unless you give up your religion." That would be an unnecessary barrier to women of all faiths who need to be able to make the decision to go seek help. There are plenty of priests/ministers/rabbis/ etc. who run domestic violence shelters and are willing to help protect women and children from abusers regardless of what rationalization they are using. The easier we make the decision to leave the abuser the better. If they feel that they can maintain a spiritual connection to their faith while seeking better circumstances the easier that will be. I dont wish to take anything away from that woman's story- she did what she felt she had to do- but her interpretation doesnt necessarily apply to everyone in those circumstances.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Hmm, is ethics not really directly tied to religion on-topic for this thread?
Personally I feel that a secular ethical worldview can be a valid religion, so I kinda feel that it would be.
(Specifically, thinking about discussing supposedly "non-anthropocentric" ecological ethics.)
Lost in Space
There is a strong meme among people of faith that only religious belief can act as a foundation for morality, and by extension, ethics. By direct consequence, people who hold this meme are also susceptible to being fed moral and ethical beliefs that are directly or indirectly harmful because they lack a facility to rationally evaluate those beliefs.
The problem isn't the religion in and of itself. The problem is the vulnerability to harmful ideas that the religion creates in its adherents. The same can be said of any other group mentality, of course, but the danger lies in religion's prevalence. It's so much a part of the fabric of society that most people accept it without question.
You can still get looked at funny when you say you don't go to church, or answer "none" when asked your faith/denomination.
edited 23rd Sep '14 8:04:11 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Is that cake frosting?
Antiteilchen: easy? We are talking about a text which in the first two chapters presents two mutually contradictory mythical accounts of the creation of the world, using two different names for God (one of which, inexplicably, is in a grammatical plural case, but keeps getting used as if it were in the singular case). And then it gets worse...
Now, it is true that historically, most of the believers did simply not have the time or the inclination to get really into the theology. I think that this is actually improving, and rather quickly too: this in part is certainly due to greater free time and education, but I think that the greater merit here is of the success and dissemination of scientific discoveries - I'm thinking in particular about cosmology and evolution - which make the "naive" conception of the Divinity less and less tenable (they have little to no effect on more refined notions of God such as, for example, those of medieval Scholasticism; but I'm quite open to the idea that they may help refining them further).
And of course, then there's the greater amount of interaction with people of different religions - or of no religion whatsoever - which spurs us all to clarify and learn to better defend our beliefs.
In effect, I think - I'm not being flippant here - that the current spreading of modern Western atheism will have an overwhelmingly positive effect on Christianity as a whole, by helping us to abandon complacency, triumphalism and shoddy thinking.
edited 23rd Sep '14 8:16:32 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Hi!
I think that some degree of doublethink is just about unavoidable. Reality — and moral reality in particular — is really too complicated and nuanced to be reducible to simple, one-size-fits-all formulas without disregarding some of its facets altogether. However, this is not to say that there is no value in striving for coherence: after all, inconsistencies are signals that something is wrong, or at least not sufficiently analysed, and ignoring them would be as much a wasted opportunity as just erasing them with simplistic solutions.
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.