Religion as a bar to immorality

[johnson1010]

Here is a disgusting piece of humanity.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/02/saudi_r ... ian_women/

Get religion, get morality?

[ant]

Here is a disgusting piece of humanity.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/02/saudi_r ... ian_women/

Get religion, get morality?

You're smarter than this, Johnson.
What fallacy is being committed by numbskulls who believe "religion" condones this heinous, evil, criminal behavior.
Show some intellectual honesty and courage here, please.

[ant]

This article sets forth something I actually had been thinking about the last couple of days.
You should give it a moment of your time.

http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/ ... ach-other/

[ant]

Here is a disgusting piece of humanity.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/02/saudi_r ... ian_women/

Get religion, get morality?

Here's what Peter Higgs of Higgs Boson fame recently said about Richard Dawkins:

"I’m not against religious people, unless they behave like extremist fanatics. The problem with Dawkins is that he concentrates all his attacks against the fundamentalists, but obviously not all believers are that. In that sense, I think sometimes Dawkins himself is the one that ends up adopting a fundamentalist attitude in the opposite direction."

Do I keep more current with stuff like this than you or are you simply eager to ignore what reasonable minded men of science are saying these days?
Or do they have to be celebrity scientists selling thousands of layman books to get your attention?

[youkrst]

Do I keep more current with stuff like this than you or are you simply eager to ignore what reasonable minded men of science are saying these days?
Or do they have to be celebrity scientists selling thousands of layman books to get your attention?

ant, literalism, fundamentalism, these things need to be vanquished without delay, they are causing untold harm and suffering to real men and women every single moment they are allowed to continue.

it is plain to see that until literalism and fundamentalism are outgrown no worthwhile spirituality can occur.

to be in favour of literalism and fundamentalism is to be against human wellbeing.

no-one cares if you quietly think this or that..

but fundamentalist literalist islam and christianity are like a mental illness. a dangerous harmful spiteful vengeful CONTAGIOUS mental illness.

[Interbane]

Do I keep more current with stuff like this than you or are you simply eager to ignore what reasonable minded men of science are saying these days?
Or do they have to be celebrity scientists selling thousands of layman books to get your attention?

I agree with Dawkins approach. He's extremely vocal against the extremists. Why would that upset you ant? Are you wanting to defend religious extremists? You should be thankful for Dawkins work, rather than shielding the atrocities that extremists commit.

You're essentially criticizing Dawkins for being vocal against the compulsory rape that johnson's article refers to. This is what it means for mainstream religion to "enable" the extremists. Without engaging a single neuron, you come out on the offensive against the most vocal opponents of these disgusting acts because you feel your beliefs are being threatened. If those are your beliefs then they should be threatened to extinction. If they're not your beliefs, then stop defending them.

[johnson1010]

What fallacy is being committed by numbskulls who believe "religion" condones this heinous, evil, criminal behavior.
Show some intellectual honesty and courage here, please.

Perhaps the same mistakes which allow you to doubt whether an atheist is capable of having any meaning in their life? You will note that i never indicated that "religion" condones this behavior, but rather the title of the thread says what i am addressing : Religion as a bar to immorality. So i have not made that mistake, where you have in your contention that atheism is the cause of Mao, Stalin, and Hitler's attrocities.

But Religion is not the automatic moral-code-upgrade people imagine it to be. Being religious, even very religious is not a bar to immorality in the least, and this latest article, is sadly only the latest article. Religion is not the cause of people behaving like ass-hats (though there certainly are many lines in the canon texts of religions that DO expressly demand heinous acts from believers), but it does nothing to stop them. It's the person's choice to live a moral life, in other words, which is responsible for them living a moral life. Not the religion.

Do I keep more current with stuff like this than you or are you simply eager to ignore what reasonable minded men of science are saying these days?
Or do they have to be celebrity scientists selling thousands of layman books to get your attention?

I had read Higgs' stance several days ago when it was covered by a number of news sites. I disagreed with it. So what? Should i bring every snippet of mild disagreement to your attention? Higgs has contributed greatly to physics but that does not make him a master of all topics, nor does it indicate that he's put in the amount of time that Dawkins has thinking about this subject. Conversly, i wouldn't put Dawkin's word up against Higgs' when it comes to the standard model of physics either.

Nice stab at the hipster position, Ant.

"I was reading Higgs before it was cool..."

And right about the time it was widely covered because it criticised one of the "celebrity scientists selling thousands of layman books" which you astutely point out are the only kind which can command my attention, and is therefore likely the only reason it was given such coverage to start with.

[ant]

Do I keep more current with stuff like this than you or are you simply eager to ignore what reasonable minded men of science are saying these days?
Or do they have to be celebrity scientists selling thousands of layman books to get your attention?

I agree with Dawkins approach. He's extremely vocal against the extremists. Why would that upset you ant? Are you wanting to defend religious extremists? You should be thankful for Dawkins work, rather than shielding the atrocities that extremists commit.

You're essentially criticizing Dawkins for being vocal against the compulsory rape that johnson's article refers to. This is what it means for mainstream religion to "enable" the extremists. Without engaging a single neuron, you come out on the offensive against the most vocal opponents of these disgusting acts because you feel your beliefs are being threatened. If those are your beliefs then they should be threatened to extinction. If they're not your beliefs, then stop defending them.

What planet do you live on?

He's extremely vocal against the extremists

Are you serious?


You are being conveniently imprecise here.
He is extremely vocal against RELIGION in general. He rarely makes the distinction between religion and religious extremism. There is an important difference that he is either ignorant of or purposely decides not to be honest about for personal or professional profit. Or both!
His continuous harangue against religion has caused even people like Sam Harris to begin to say the distinction must be made if any progress is to be realized. Dawkins has yet to make that distinction with any consistency.
It's outrageously dishonest of you to imply otherwise.

You're essentially criticizing Dawkins for being vocal against the compulsory rape that johnson's article refers to.

You're dangerously close to setting up a false dichotomy here - either support atheists who are vocal against religion (which you clump together with pathological, murderous extremism) or be guilty of supporting these and similar types of atrocities.
I'm of the same opinion of people like Harris who want the distinction to be made. Don't be imbecilic about this. It's pissing me off.

This is what it means for mainstream religion to "enable" the extremists.

Here is the definition of "enable"

1
a : to provide with the means or opportunity <training that enables people to earn a living>
b : to make possible, practical, or easy <a deal that would enable passage of a new law>
c : to cause to operate <software that enables the keyboard>
2
: to give legal power, capacity, or sanction to <a law enabling admission of a state>

How has mainstream religion, like Christianity and its tenets of love, charity, and forgiveness provided the means or opportunity for religious extremists to murder, rape, and commit acts of war?

How have peaceful tenets made it "easy" for extreme pathology to kill?

How would you like Christianity to sanction religious extremists?
Would you like some type of Crusade or what?

Could you specifically be referring to Islam and its near silence on Islamic Extremism?
If you are, stop being evasive about it sprout a pair and say so.
Religion isn't enabling extremism, pal, particularly Islamic extremism.
Who in their right mind would believe that the millions of people that practice religious faith peacefully and have positively contributed to society would also be "enablers" of pathological extremism?

Come back down to earth with us all, please.

[youkrst]

How has mainstream religion, like Christianity and its tenets of love, charity, and forgiveness provided the means or opportunity for religious extremists to murder, rape, and commit acts of war?

gee i don't know ant, let me google that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/3/204.short



http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2 ... 1492764663

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

"God told me to end the tyranny in iraq"

George must have got "end" and "increase" mixed up in the interpretation.

[youkrst]

Who in their right mind would believe that the millions of people that practice religious faith peacefully and have positively contributed to society would also be "enablers" of pathological extremism?

obviously, it's the ideology, the doctrine, that is the enabler as a justification for base and debased behaviour, not people who practice peace.

http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/ ... rks-spark/

or

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/nation ... 6466356492