Religion From An Evolutionary Perspective

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1306359483' post='2245944']
I don't doubt that we have more info on the scriptures than many other things, given that there's a world-wide religious phenomena surrounding it that uses it as a foundation, but those who study it know a few things that it seems the average believer doesn't: that is, it was put together by mankind during different periods in time to serve different political purposes, that who the authors were are unknown, and that the people who wrote the first copies gospels were not eye-witnesses, which means that there were already somewhere along the telephone line separated by space (they were written in Greek) and time (the earliest was placed at around 70 C.E.)

And that's why I'm bringing up the telephone game. Apparently the accounts have changed from Paul's letters to each gospel, following a succession of time. They differ slightly in their descriptions, including added supernaturality to Jesus with each one.

Which details do you mean?

By 'objective' I meant the least likely to look for things to validate their beliefs and least likely to adopt an apologetic view which can distort something to favour their beliefs. An agnostic (theistic or atheistic) stance can give you a clearer picture and ability to evaluate facts better. Most serious scholars do seem to have that stance.

Did Moses write the scrolls?
[/quote]
Actually phatmassers in general are not ordinary believers, many people here have degrees in theology, some are teachers, priests, nuns or monks, all militants take the faith very seriously.
The authors are not unknown, and were certainly written fairly early, except for St John who wrote in the 90-100s. Even before St John was writing St Clement of Rome was the 4th pope and wrote an admonishing letter to the Corinthians where he clearly delineates church structure and authority around 70AD.

Asking an atheists opinion of the something religious is like asking a MDs opinion of a chiropractor. Explain to me how an atheist can evaluate miracles or the belief in God with out bias. We start from the historical theological reality of God Almighty.

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' timestamp='1306379875' post='2246065']
Actually phatmassers in general are not ordinary believers, many people here have degrees in theology, some are teachers, priests, nuns or monks, all militants take the faith very seriously.
The authors are not unknown, and were certainly written fairly early, except for St John who wrote in the 90-100s. Even before St John was writing St Clement of Rome was the 4th pope and wrote an admonishing letter to the Corinthians where he clearly delineates church structure and authority around 70AD.

Asking an atheists opinion of the something religious is like asking a MDs opinion of a chiropractor. Explain to me how an atheist can evaluate miracles or the belief in God with out bias. We start from the historical theological reality of God Almighty.
[/quote]

See, this is why I don't feel that comfortable discussing the bible...I've come across people who have said that the authors except for Paul are not only unknown, but that some of the books of the bible were put together during different periods by different authors. I'm looking for the more credible sources.

Well, for starters I would find it very difficult to believe in the core beliefs of Christianity, that is, that Jesus rose from the dead, and that's really not what I came here to discuss. I also would find it to be too much of a stretch to believe in the miraculous and supernatural claims of the bible. You could call those biases but for me those would require extraordinary evidence. I have my own explanations for all that though, which obviously you would not accept.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, my primary interest is not in one religious philosophy in particular, but the universal human tendency for religious beliefs, which better explains why people have them, though I don't think that the shift in focus this thread has taken is at all bad.

[Amppax]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1306381824' post='2246079']
See, this is why I don't feel that comfortable discussing the bible...I've come across people who have said that the authors except for Paul are not only unknown, but that some of the books of the bible were put together during different periods by different authors. I'm looking for the more credible sources.

Well, for starters I would find it very difficult to believe in the core beliefs of Christianity, that is, that Jesus rose from the dead, and that's really not what I came here to discuss. I also would find it to be too much of a stretch to believe in the miraculous and supernatural claims of the bible. You could call those biases but for me those would require extraordinary evidence. I have my own explanations for all that though, which obviously you would not accept.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, my primary interest is not in one religious philosophy in particular, but the universal human tendency for religious beliefs, which better explains why people have them, though I don't think that the shift in focus this thread has taken is at all bad.
[/quote]

Well i'm certainly not an advocate of this (in fact i think that it is largely stupid) but Thomas Jefferson edited his own bible, and took out any and all miracles (I believe he only did this to the new testament). maybe that would be right up your alley?

[Amppax]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1306381824' post='2246079']
Also, as I mentioned earlier, my primary interest is not in one religious philosophy in particular, but the universal human tendency for religious beliefs, which better explains why people have them, though I don't think that the shift in focus this thread has taken is at all bad.
[/quote]

Obviously, any religous person worth their salt is going to explain the universal tendency for religious beliefs as hardwired into us by God, something that we all have recognizing our Creator.

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1306382070' post='2246081']
Well i'm certainly not an advocate of this (in fact i think that it is largely stupid) but Thomas Jefferson edited his own bible, and took out any and all miracles (I believe he only did this to the new testament). maybe that would be right up your alley?
[/quote]

I think it looks stupid at first glance, but he didn't do it in order to publish or revise the bible it seems, just cherry picking (or rather - miracle removing) followed by cutting and pasting the leftovers into a new book.

I think that there are universal truths on which all religions are based, so in that sense I agree with him.

[quote]Obviously, any religous person worth their salt is going to explain the universal tendency for religious beliefs as hardwired into us by God, something that we all have recognizing our Creator.[/quote]

Yes, and that's one plausible explanation, but it does nothing to explain which religion got it right if that's the case. There is also the possibility that there is a god or gods out there but that no religion got it right so far.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1306381824' post='2246079']

Also, as I mentioned earlier, my primary interest is not in one religious philosophy in particular, but the universal human tendency for religious beliefs, which better explains why people have them, though I don't think that the shift in focus this thread has taken is at all bad.
[/quote]

So the fact that there is a universal human tendency towards religious beliefs must be explained by a practical, or biological reason, it couldn't be that maybe there is a God?

Doesn't universal tendency to believe in the preternatural and supernatural ead on to conclude that perhaps there is something there?

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1306390060' post='2246124']
So the fact that there is a universal human tendency towards religious beliefs must be explained by a practical, or biological reason, it couldn't be that maybe there is a God?

Doesn't universal tendency to believe in the preternatural and supernatural ead on to conclude that perhaps there is something there?
[/quote]

If the tendency is there which I believe it is, then there would be both the biological aspect to it, which is our psychological predisposition which has evolutionary explanations and there would also be the cultural/societal aspect to it. Nature and nurture interact and select ideas which lead to positive actions which then favour itself in the ideology battle struggle for survival. The practical reasons pertain mostly to the nurture part of this, which means culturally and ideologically.

It makes sense when explaining why isolated peoples have worshipped gods but at the same time religion in its particulars is a cultural issue.

I don't see the argument that Amppax put forward as faulty, but I don't see a good reason to believe that 'god' is anything more than a concept and even less reason to accept the theology of one particular religion over another.

For all I know there could be a god or gods and no religion got it right yet.

Edited May 26, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[Socrates]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1306362812' post='2245961']
This topic is not about whether beliefs are right or wrong, it's about how and why they're adopted by people, how they're passed on and ultimately become part of a structured ideology which then gives it added strength in the meme battle.[/quote]
Fair enough. Having studied Church history, I actually do know something about how the Christian Faith was spread and grew, and let's just say I find the whole "meme theory" thing rather inane, but to each his own.



[quote]For the Jainism, yes, but don't underestimate the effect that voluntary sacrifice can have on others.

The jainist starves himself, monks and nuns give up on worldly things, radical islamists become suicide bombers...

This is al non coercive means of valuing a beleif system which [i]always trumps[/i] coercive policing as in the case of the Jainist. [/quote]
I don't think it's really fair to compare the completely non-violent life of prayer and self-denial of Christian monks and nuns with suicide bombers (an example of how the Christian and Islamic concepts of martyrdom are quite different), but in each case, I don't think such self-sacrificing behaviors can be explained away by evolutionary theory.

No animal willingly sacrifices itself for a higher ideal (different than sacrificing oneself fighting to protect offspring or the rest of an animal group). "Survival of the fittest" and the need to propagate one's gene's certainly can't explain the voluntary poverty and chastity of a monk.

[quote]I haven't, other than chunks here and there.

My interest is primarily in the psychology of beliefs and other factors that people use for their foundations, which is what this topic was about but I'm ignorant as to the historical aspect of the spreading of Christianity and of the bible itself. Reading the whole bible is something that I've been putting off for some time now mostly because of the work invovled (I'm one to not only read the bible, but a whole lot of other things surrounding it such as its historical context, archeological evidence, and older religions from which Christianity has borrowed). I'm not that comfortable debating the biblical foundational aspect of beliefs yet, because I don't know much about it.[/quote]
I appreciate your honesty.

[quote]I also find what society has done to religious beliefs and what those beliefs have done to society interesting.




Pain and suffering? Where did you read that rather extreme playing the victim?[/quote]
Lighten up, sparky.

[quote]No, what I meant was that you would have to be an atheist to see all the ways in which religious beliefs (not just from the Catholic church) still interfere in your life even though you don't believe and uphold their doctrines.[/quote]
I don't live in Brazil, and maybe things are different down there, but I'm really not sure what you're talking about. Businesses being closed for Christmas?


[quote]"[u]Having an actual trial was a step up at this time in history.[/u] "

You have a point here...[/quote]
And the Middle Ages were actually a huge step up from the allegedly more "enlightened" pagan era. Under pagan Roman Law, for instance, a citizen could legally kill his wife and children, or sell them into slavery or prostitution, with no questions asked. And the Romans were among the most civilized pagan societies. Like it or not, the whole concept of human rights originated out of a Christian framework. (You can read the books I linked to for more details.)



[quote]I'll look those up and the topics they bring foward. If I may ask, what's your educational background?[/quote]
BA in History, currently candidate for MBA. Yours?


[quote]North Korea is another totalitarian regime.[/quote]
Yes, totalitarianism and atheism are not incompatible. In fact, the vast majority of totalitarian regimes were atheist.

[quote]I'm not trying to portray Christians as bad guys, I'm saying that religious beliefs (which excludes atheism, which is simply a statement on the lack of belief in gods and not a statement on what is believed in) can cause and influence certain behaviours. Atheism has no dogma or rules on how to act or what to think and how to lead your life.

When you bring up people such as Stalin or Mao tse Tung, you're thinking just as poorly as someone who says that Hitler was a Christian and therefore all Christians are like Hitler. Stalin and Mao created personality cults that surrounded themselves and left no room for any other political cult that could distract attention from them and how they thought they should govern their countries. Not only organised masses of religions suffered, but basically any other opposingorganised mass of people, including political parties. To think that it was because they were some sort of Antichrist who were put on this earth to persecute Christians is naive.

It has nothing to do with atheism, because as well all know, killing and putting people into gulags for something we don't even believe in the first place makes all the sense in the world...
[/quote]
Never claimed such actions by the Communists were sensible, but they are historical fact.
The Communists did not believe in God, but Communist ideology is in fact atheist, and officially regards religion as enemy to be fought and opposed.
All Communist regimes have been hostile to religion: actively discouraging and tightly regulating it at best, and at worst engaging in bloody persecution. This anti-religious element is intrinsic to Communist ideology, not confined to a few monsters like Stalin and Mao (though they may have been the most brutal in enforcing it).

This ideological atheistic opposition to religion had everything to do with Communist persecution of Christians and other religious groups.

Claiming that atheism had absolutely nothing to do with Communist persecution of religion is either seriously ignorant or seriously dishonest.

No, I never claimed most atheists are like Stalin or Mao, nor that they are Communists (just as most Christians are not witch-burning stone-throwers). However, the fact is that Communism is atheistic. It was you who started attacking Christianity's "historic track record." Atheists are very quick to blame the Christian Faith for all kinds of historic evils, yet the historic track record of atheistic governments is in fact much worse.
Just don't play the historic blame-game, because you lose. Sorry.

(And, btw, Hitler was not a Christian in any kind of real sense. Yes, he declared himself a Christian on the campaign trail a few times to get votes, but in private has been recorded as making many statements condemning Christianity, which he saw as a weak "Semitic" religion. He himself was not personally religious nor a church-goer, and Nazism was condemned from the beginning by the Vatican. The Nazis were into a lot of weird occult neo-pagan type stuff.)

[quote]Missionary's work...

People who live in backward tribal cultures are using literal biblical scripture to kill people they believe are witches, kill homosexuals, adulterers, and the like. It's all very old testament but it shows how beliefs based on the literal interpretation of the same book can interact with culture to plunge society into what we in the modern western world would see as barbaric.
On the other hand, even the most orthodox Jews do not do these things anymore.[/quote]
Un-pc as it is to say so, the barbarism existed in pagan societies in Africa and elsewhere long before any Christian missionaries came along. There's still lots of work to be done. And I'd like to see some links as to what exactly you are referring to. Seems to me likely to be a few fringe elements you are referring to, rather than anything mainstream or common in African Christianity. Stoning adulterers is certainly not something condoned by the Catholic Church.

Edited May 26, 2011 by Socrates

[MagiDragon]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305926457' post='2243958']
You're twisting this situation to mean that I'm implying that they were playing a game with no regards for consequences and gambling their lives and statuses. I meant no such thing. The telephone game is a description of what happens, and in this case, a telephone game separated by both space and time if based on the orally passing down of stories and memories.
If mistakes and distortions are made, then those mistakes are also passed on and more mistakes added or the message further distorted, which is basically what the telephone game shows. When things are written down, for instance, if there's a divergence the you can always go back to the original and check.
[/quote]

No, I'm twisting it to mean that you think there was only one person there (which there wasn't) or the people there had a group delusion or mass hallucination. (possible, but there's essentially no probability of this.)

[quote name='xSilverPhinx']
Human perceptual and memory flaws are a very real thing, based on fact and [i]nobody[/i] is immune to them, not even the most intelligent among us. And the worst thing about this is that people aren't even aware that their perceptions are limited and that their memories are selective and filled in with false memories all the time. If we were aware of these, then they wouldn't happen as much...
[/quote]

Yes they are, but groups essentially *are* immune to them if given enough time to absorb non-traumatic ideas and discuss them freely.

[quote name='xSilverPhinx']
Well this is based on the fact that people don't really know when the historical Jesus was born. Herod, it seems, died in the year 3 B.C.E, two years before what most people place as Jesus' birth year. But this is of minor importance.
[/quote]

Were there multiple Herods? I can't remember if there were multiples or something else . . . *shrugs* Agreed, though, this isn't important.

[quote name='xSilverPhinx']
Outspoken atheists, you mean. As it goes if most feel the need to let others know that they're atheists it's to protest against something. The real average atheist is one that you wouldn't even know as an atheist.

I use the definition of atheist and agnostic based on their root words and not what their common usage has become (definitely an act of rebellion ). One can be an agnostic atheist just as one can be a an agnostic theist. Agnosticism (gnosis is Greek for 'knowledge') is about what a person knows whereas atheism is about beliefs. I'm agnostic towards the existence of pink unicorns but I don't believe in them.
[/quote]

I agree that the definition of atheist that you use *should* be the right one based on the root words, unfortunately, what *should* be and what *are* are not always the same.

[quote name='xSilverPhinx']
As someone who is a complete layperson in this subject, I prefer agnostic atheist scholars to theistic ones because I know that the odds of them being biased towards Christianity are much less and so are more objective when analysing historical evidence. You have to remember that a lot of historical evidence is also down to interpretation and educated inferences and not cold hard facts, especially where ancient history is concerned, where, like as in the bible, the originals have been lost and what we have are copies of copies and translations of translations.
[/quote]

I think an even more interesting gauge would be 'did the person change based on their research?'. If so, they clearly have an open mind. If not, it doesn't really prove much anything.

God bless,
Joe

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='MagiDragon' timestamp='1306438275' post='2246292']
No, I'm twisting it to mean that you think there was only one person there (which there wasn't) or the people there had a group delusion or mass hallucination. (possible, but there's essentially no probability of this.)

Yes they are, but groups essentially *are* immune to them if given enough time to absorb non-traumatic ideas and discuss them freely.[/quote]

Well a mass hallucination can be difficult, but group delusions actually can happen quite easily. The main difference between your point of view and mine is that you already accept the historicity of the bible while I haven't reached a solid conclusion yet. The fact that the originals were lost complicates things: the copies that made it into the bible could've been tampered with, unwittingly or no.

[quote]Were there multiple Herods? I can't remember if there were multiples or something else . . . *shrugs* Agreed, though, this isn't important.[/quote]

Yeah, there isn't a religion surrounding Herod so whether the accounts written about him are accurate or not doesn't really matter...

I pretty much accept that there was one historical Jesus now.

[quote]I agree that the definition of atheist that you use *should* be the right one based on the root words, unfortunately, what *should* be and what *are* are not always the same. [/quote]

It's not just about dictionary definitions and common usage. Words influence [i]what[/i] you think, which is the main problem here. I make it a point to explain what I, as an atheist, mean when I use the word 'atheist' to counter what non atheists mean when they use it. It's become loaded negatively in ways that I feel do not reflect reality.

[quote]I think an even more interesting gauge would be 'did the person change based on their research?'. If so, they clearly have an open mind. If not, it doesn't really prove much anything.

God bless,
Joe
[/quote]

You're right. So far I've looked up Bart Ehrman who became an atheist but it looks like the main thing that eroded his beliefs is that he believed that the bible was the inerrant and perfect word of god. It depends on the person...others would over look the contradictions that made him seriously question his faith.

Beliefs are not that easily changed. I for instance couldn't believe that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead based on a book, and I do try to look at things with an open mind.

Though him becoming an atheist after studying the bible in more depth doesn't give added weight to atheism, it just means that he placed more value on the bible as a founding for his beliefs than someone who can overlook contradictions and extract what they feel is the meaningful message.

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1306434485' post='2246274']
I don't think it's really fair to compare the completely non-violent life of prayer and self-denial of Christian monks and nuns with suicide bombers (an example of how the Christian and Islamic concepts of martyrdom are quite different), but in each case, I don't think such self-sacrificing behaviors can be explained away by evolutionary theory.

No animal willingly sacrifices itself for a higher ideal (different than sacrificing oneself fighting to protect offspring or the rest of an animal group). "Survival of the fittest" and the need to propagate one's gene's certainly can't explain the voluntary poverty and chastity of a monk.[/quote]

Yes, but they're both based on ideas or beliefs that lead to the behaviour that is martyrdom (in the sense that encompasses both worldy sacrifices and suicide), which can be very powerful in its own right.

We don't even know if animals which have highly evolved brains similar to ours such as apes and even marine mammals even have the cognitive capacity to know what 'higher ideals' are.

In fact, it's a bit complicated when comparing humans to other animals in that evolutionary sense. We're so successful that we've started adapting the environment to our needs on a scale that doesn't exist anywhere else in the animal kingdom. We're not at the mercy of the environment in the same sense that they are. Natural selection has a lessened selective power when it comes to us.

As for cognitive arguments: how other intelligent animals perceive things that we know and take for granted such as the knowledge of our finite lives is not clear. The same for symbolic thought and abstract reasoning. Some of those animals are self aware in the sense that they will recognise themselves in a mirror even though they've never seen their own image before. Chimps and dolphins do this. Other closely related animals to us such as some new world monkeys do not and will fight with their image as if it were another.

And again, you're bringing up martyrdom and mixing it with the survival and propagation of an individual's genes. It's not 'survival of the fittest' on the individual's level, it's the survival of the group. In this case, the survival of an ideology with people as vehicles.

As for memes and ideology, it's the mechanism that's evolutionary, that is, you have people living in a certain circumstance and you have beliefs that cause certain behaviours which are positively selected by people living in that circumstance. It's pure analogy to biological evolution, but it's not evolutionary theory. It has nothing to do with genes.

There are however, some memeplexes (ideologies) which favour the propagation of genes and sunsequent indoctrination of offspring. It's another way these groups survive through vertical propagation. Mormons do this.

("Vertical" means from parent to child or grandparent to grandchild etc as opposed to "horizontal" which means propagation to others of the same generation and/or not linked by parenthood.).


[quote]I don't live in Brazil, and maybe things are different down there, but I'm really not sure what you're talking about. Businesses being closed for Christmas?[/quote]

I already knew But anyways, no, it's not about businesses being closed for Christmas but religion meddling in areas that it has no business meddling in based on religious arguments which are themselves unfounded instead of reason or morality. You would have to be non religious to notice it.

[quote]And the Middle Ages were actually a huge step up from the allegedly more "enlightened" pagan era. Under pagan Roman Law, for instance, a citizen could legally kill his wife and children, or sell them into slavery or prostitution, with no questions asked. And the Romans were among the most civilized pagan societies. Like it or not, the whole concept of human rights originated out of a Christian framework. (You can read the books I linked to for more details.)[/quote]

I'll look into it.


[quote]BA in History, currently candidate for MBA. Yours?[/quote]

Biological sciences college dropout (for personal reasons) and letters with an emphasis in English/Portuguese translation dropout (pure waste of time).


[quote]Yes, totalitarianism and atheism are not incompatible. In fact, the vast majority of totalitarian regimes were atheist.

Never claimed such actions by the Communists were sensible, but they are historical fact.
The Communists did not believe in God, but Communist ideology is in fact atheist, and officially regards religion as enemy to be fought and opposed.
All Communist regimes have been hostile to religion: actively discouraging and tightly regulating it at best, and at worst engaging in bloody persecution. This anti-religious element is intrinsic to Communist ideology, not confined to a few monsters like Stalin and Mao (though they may have been the most brutal in enforcing it).

This ideological atheistic opposition to religion had everything to do with Communist persecution of Christians and other religious groups.

Claiming that atheism had absolutely nothing to do with Communist persecution of religion is either seriously ignorant or seriously dishonest.

No, I never claimed most atheists are like Stalin or Mao, nor that they are Communists (just as most Christians are not witch-burning stone-throwers). However, the fact is that Communism is atheistic. It was you who started attacking Christianity's "historic track record." Atheists are very quick to blame the Christian Faith for all kinds of historic evils, yet the historic track record of atheistic governments is in fact much worse.
Just don't play the historic blame-game, because you lose. Sorry.

(And, btw, Hitler was not a Christian in any kind of real sense. Yes, he declared himself a Christian on the campaign trail a few times to get votes, but in private has been recorded as making many statements condemning Christianity, which he saw as a weak "Semitic" religion. He himself was not personally religious nor a church-goer, and Nazism was condemned from the beginning by the Vatican. The Nazis were into a lot of weird occult neo-pagan type stuff.)[/quote]

Just as maybe all internet debates go, I don't see you as the victor here. If I were defending communism then, maybe. Atheism is not an ideology and so does not influence how people act. Communism and personality cults surrounding heads of State are.

The only thing that's incompatible with atheism is theism, deism or any other statement of belief in a god or gods. But atheism is not totalitarianism.

What do you think atheism is? Because the impression I get with a few people is that to them, atheism is the automatic negation of everything they believe in...


[quote]Un-pc as it is to say so, the barbarism existed in pagan societies in Africa and elsewhere long before any Christian missionaries came along. There's still lots of work to be done. And I'd like to see some links as to what exactly you are referring to. Seems to me likely to be a few fringe elements you are referring to, rather than anything mainstream or common in African Christianity. Stoning adulterers is certainly not something condoned by the Catholic Church.
[/quote]

Yes, their societies are not only backward compared to ours but filled with unbridled superstition. It's fertile ground for the Judeo-Christian vestiges of a more backward past, which christian missionary pentecostals and Methodists groups especially give a scriptural basis for. I'm wondering how many missionary groups are actually trying to make things better such as educate people about their erroneous superstitious beliefs rather than just keep giving them bibles which validate and justify them.

Another point I came across was the effect that teaching people that things 'of the world' don't matter and that people should concentrate on spirituality has on the country. In one documentary I watched, a mayor or something said that people are focusing less and less effort on building and developing the country but instead wait for Jesus to return or for their own death and salvation. Pure escapism.

As for the Catholic church, I'm sure the whole condom/AIDS controversy sparked by the last pope is well known...

I'm looking for good links and will add them soon, though I got most of the information off journalistic documentary videos.

Edited May 27, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1306434485' post='2246274']
Fair enough. Having studied Church history, I actually do know something about how the Christian Faith was spread and grew, and let's just say I find the whole "meme theory" thing rather inane, but to each his own.[/quote]

Just to add to this, the Church is a political machine, so I know that meme/belief/ritual/tradition selection wasn't left [i]purely[/i] to believers who are not religious authority. Biological evolution works without guidance and foresight, Churches on the other hand have their reasons for accepting or rejecting beliefs based on future planning and higher ideals, for good or for worse.


[quote]Claiming that atheism had absolutely nothing to do with Communist persecution of religion is either seriously ignorant or seriously dishonest.[/quote]

Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, who were atheists but also totalitarian dictators may have persecuted religion because organised religions such as Catholicism have a foreign authority (papacy) which competes with the dictators themselves. I seriously doubt that if they were sane they encouraged the opposition to religious because they atheists. They did so because they were Stalinist and Maoists.

[quote](And, btw, Hitler was not a Christian in any kind of real sense. Yes, he declared himself a Christian on the campaign trail a few times to get votes, but in private has been recorded as making many statements condemning Christianity, which he saw as a weak "Semitic" religion. He himself was not personally religious nor a church-goer, and Nazism was condemned from the beginning by the Vatican. The Nazis were into a lot of weird occult neo-pagan type stuff.)[/quote]

Well it's no secret that the pope condoned and openly welcomed fascism, but what about the Vatican's complicity in the holocaust?

(And no, saying that it was the fault of atheists like the current pope did won't deflect attention from the issue)

[url="http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/CroatianHolocaust.html"]http://www.liberalsl...nHolocaust.html[/url]

[url="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/31/1043804516182.html"]http://www.smh.com.a...3804516182.html[/url]

[url="http://freetruth.50webs.org/A7c.htm"]http://freetruth.50webs.org/A7c.htm[/url]



[quote]Un-pc as it is to say so, the barbarism existed in pagan societies in Africa and elsewhere long before any Christian missionaries came along. There's still lots of work to be done. And I'd like to see some links as to what exactly you are referring to. Seems to me likely to be a few fringe elements you are referring to, rather than anything mainstream or common in African Christianity. Stoning adulterers is certainly not something condoned by the Catholic Church.
[/quote]

Here a a few links concerning some of the damage that Christian missionaries are doing to some parts of Africa, though they're mostly referring to the influences of more conservative branches of evangelical churches and religious people of dubious character:

[url="http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v24n4/us-christian-right-attack-on-gays-in-africa.html"] http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v24n4/us- christian-right-attack-on-gays-in-africa.html[/url]

[url="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/21/ugandan-paper-gay-people-hanged"]http://www.guardian....y-people-hanged[/url]

[url="http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/mission.html"]And a more generalised one here, not limited to Africa[/url]


Again, these issues are based in part on the cultures that those countries already had, but religion in this case is making things worse and not better by giving them scriptural basis (and they're interpreting what's written in the book literally, a literalist couldn't say that they're at fault without contradicting himself or seeming hypocritical). It's unjustifiable by today's standards.

[Socrates]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1306466675' post='2246497']
. . .

In fact, it's a bit complicated when comparing humans to other animals in that evolutionary sense. We're so successful that we've started adapting the environment to our needs on a scale that doesn't exist anywhere else in the animal kingdom. We're not at the mercy of the environment in the same sense that they are. Natural selection has a lessened selective power when it comes to us. . . . [/quote]
Exactly. Religion is something which separates man from the lower animals, and something I don't believe can be reduced to simple biological evolution, much as atheists have striven to.

(Btw, I find it ironic that atheists commonly deride religion as something primitive and "less evolved" than atheism, when it is in fact something which distinguishes man from the beasts. Apes, dogs, cats and hogs don't practice religion. Human beings do.)



[quote]I already knew But anyways, no, it's not about businesses being closed for Christmas but religion meddling in areas that it has no business meddling in based on religious arguments which are themselves unfounded instead of reason or morality. You would have to be non religious to notice it.[/quote]
I reckon so. Guess I'll just have to take your word for it.



[quote]Just as maybe all internet debates go, I don't see you as the victor here. If I were defending communism then, maybe. Atheism is not an ideology and so does not influence how people act. Communism and personality cults surrounding heads of State are.

The only thing that's incompatible with atheism is theism, deism or any other statement of belief in a god or gods. But atheism is not totalitarianism.

What do you think atheism is? Because the impression I get with a few people is that to them, atheism is the automatic negation of everything they believe in... [/quote]
It was you who started attacking "Christianity's historical track record."

And deny it all you want, but atheism can influence people's behavior just as much (or as little) as religion can.

Atheism means simply lack of belief in God. Marxist-Leninist Communists fall into that category. They are atheists, and oppose religion because of their atheism. Again, I never claimed all atheists are Communists or totalitarian. Learn logic.

Vladimir Lenin, the founder of Soviet Communism, wrote, "Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism." and "Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class."

This atheistic opposition to religion was followed by all subsequent Communist regimes.

Denying that atheism had anything to do with Communist oppression of religion is just that, denial.

[quote]Yes, their societies are not only backward compared to ours but filled with unbridled superstition. It's fertile ground for the Judeo-Christian vestiges of a more backward past, which christian missionary pentecostals and Methodists groups especially give a scriptural basis for. I'm wondering how many missionary groups are actually trying to make things better such as educate people about their erroneous superstitious beliefs rather than just keep giving them bibles which validate and justify them.[/quote]
Quite a few. You selectively focus on a few fringe "Christian" groups, while ignoring the vast amounts of good that Christians do and have done around the world to better people's lives.

[quote]Another point I came across was the effect that teaching people that things 'of the world' don't matter and that people should concentrate on spirituality has on the country. In one documentary I watched, a mayor or something said that people are focusing less and less effort on building and developing the country but instead wait for Jesus to return or for their own death and salvation. Pure escapism.[/quote]
Yeah, all Christians do is sit around doing nothing waiting for Jesus to return. (One of St. Paul's epistles actually condemns such behavior.) That explains all the tireless work religious orders have done and continue to do to help poor and suffering people around the world. I've known a number of people who've done Christian mission work personally. Get off the atheist websites and start looking at reality.

[quote]As for the Catholic church, I'm sure the whole condom/AIDS controversy sparked by the last pope is well known...[/quote]
And debated to death here on this site. (Run a search.)
Christians, including Catholics, have done more to help African AIDS victims than anyone else.

Promoting chastity rather than condoms is not genocide. Sorry.

[Socrates]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1306510631' post='2246758']
Just to add to this, the Church is a political machine, so I know that meme/belief/ritual/tradition selection wasn't left [i]purely[/i] to believers who are not religious authority. Biological evolution works without guidance and foresight, Churches on the other hand have their reasons for accepting or rejecting beliefs based on future planning and higher ideals, for good or for worse.[/quote]
Your own beliefs seem far more political than the Church's.


[quote]Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, who were atheists but also totalitarian dictators may have persecuted religion because organised religions such as Catholicism have a foreign authority (papacy) which competes with the dictators themselves. I seriously doubt that if they were sane they encouraged the opposition to religious because they atheists. They did so because they were Stalinist and Maoists.[/quote]
Nice that you know more about the motivations for Communism's persecution of Christians than the Communists did.

I covered that earlier.
Inconvenient as it may be to your arguments, Communism is an atheist ideology which regards religions as wrong and evil, and thus opposes them.


[quote]Well it's no secret that the pope condoned and openly welcomed fascism, but what about the Vatican's complicity in the holocaust?

(And no, saying that it was the fault of atheists like the current pope did won't deflect attention from the issue)

[url="http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/CroatianHolocaust.html"]http://www.liberalsl...nHolocaust.html[/url]

[url="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/31/1043804516182.html"]http://www.smh.com.a...3804516182.html[/url]

[url="http://freetruth.50webs.org/A7c.htm"]http://freetruth.50webs.org/A7c.htm[/url] [/quote]
It's no secret that such accusations are a lot of bs.

The historical truth is that Pope Pius XII did more than any other person to save Jewish lives from the Nazis during WWII, so much so that his deeds inspired the Chief Rabbi of Rome to convert to the Catholic Faith.
And that his predecessor, Pius XI, formally condemned Nazi ideology before the war in his 1937 encyclical [url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P11BRENN.HTM"]MIT BRENNENDER SORGE[/url].

But don't just take my word for it. Here's a large selection of links to various articles refuting the recent "Hitler's Pope" nonsense:
[url="http://www.phatmass.com/directory/index.php/cat/344"]The Church and the Holocaust[/url]

Should be enough reading there to keep you busy for a while. Enjoy!

[quote][url="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/21/ugandan-paper-gay-people-hanged"]http://www.guardian....y-people-hanged[/url]

[url="http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/mission.html"]And a more generalised one here, not limited to Africa[/url]


Again, these issues are based in part on the cultures that those countries already had, but religion in this case is making things worse and not better by giving them scriptural basis (and they're interpreting what's written in the book literally, a literalist couldn't say that they're at fault without contradicting himself or seeming hypocritical). It's unjustifiable by today's standards.
Here a a few links concerning some of the damage that Christian missionaries are doing to some parts of Africa, though they're mostly referring to the influences of more conservative branches of evangelical churches and religious people of dubious character:

[url="http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v24n4/us-christian-right-attack-on-gays-in-africa.html"] http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v24n4/us- christian-right-attack-on-gays-in-africa.html[/url] [/quote]
You can't attack the Christian Faith itself based on the bad actions of a few self-professed "Christians."

Again, you ignore all the much greater good works performed by Christian/Catholic missionairies. There's more stories about them than I could possibly link to, but run a simple search, or just pick up any Catholic book of saints lives.

And some of your source websites are pathetic. Going to anti-religious hate sites to get "information" on the Church or Christianity is like going to neo-Nazi sites to research the facts on Judaism.
Really, you can do better than that.

Edited May 30, 2011 by Socrates

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1306790760' post='2247787']
Exactly. Religion is something which separates man from the lower animals, and something I don't believe can be reduced to simple biological evolution, much as atheists have striven to.

(Btw, I find it ironic that atheists commonly deride religion as something primitive and "less evolved" than atheism, when it is in fact something which distinguishes man from the beasts. Apes, dogs, cats and hogs don't practice religion. Human beings do.)[/quote]

I mentioned that because just as things have to be analysed in their historical context, you can't try to apply something that for all we know is exclusively human to animals and then say that it invalidates the argument for humans. A lot of our evolution is directed by us, not the as much the environment as is the case with other animals. Also, there's much more to it than simply 'survival of the fittest.' It's survival of those most able to survive, whether alone or in social groups such as us humans.

I think that when atheists say that religion is primitive, it's because it relies on primitive practices and primitive ignorance (in many cases), not that belief systems in themselves are primitive. If you look at the beliefs that primitive peoples had and see those still happening today, then they get called primitive. One example is animal sacrifice. I certainly wouldn't call an enlightned scientist who also has religious beliefs 'primitive'.

Anothing point here is that many atheists think that the belief in god is like the belief in Santa, which is also why it gets called psychologically primitive and childish.

In fact, IMO the best atheistic arguments used to explain religion, religious beliefs and the evolution of religions are based on the psychological, social and biological characteristics that make us human. Religion works on existential grounding and is about existential questions. It just goes one step further in many cases and institutionalised them.


[quote]It was you who started attacking "Christianity's historical track record."

And deny it all you want, but atheism can influence people's behavior just as much (or as little) as religion can.

Atheism means simply lack of belief in God. Marxist-Leninist Communists fall into that category. They are atheists, and oppose religion because of their atheism. Again, I never claimed all atheists are Communists or totalitarian. Learn logic.

Vladimir Lenin, the founder of Soviet Communism, wrote, "Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism." and "Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class."

This atheistic opposition to religion was followed by all subsequent Communist regimes.

Denying that atheism had anything to do with Communist oppression of religion is just that, denial.[/quote]

"Atheism is a natural and inseparable [u]part of Marxism[/u]" not "Atheism = Marxism".

Still not convinced by your arguments. Atheist is just a statement of what somebody doesn't believe, it's not about what somebody does believe. Sure you have atheists who believe that religion is the cause of all evil and that belief is what influences their acts, not their atheism.

Christianity is, like any other religious belief system, composed of positive beliefs. There is no positive belief system called 'atheism'. Atheism is at most just one facet of systems.

What you're doing here is taking a group of people who fall in the larger category of atheism but contained within a smaller group of Marxists and applying that smaller group to the larger category. There's [i]way[/i] more contained within the larger group of atheism than Marxism and you would have to try much harder to try and apply the positive beliefs of the Marxists system to the broader category of 'atheism'.

You didn't answer the question, btw. What do you think atheism is exactly? What do atheists believe in?

[quote]Quite a few. You selectively focus on a few fringe "Christian" groups, while ignoring the vast amounts of good that Christians do and have done around the world to better people's lives.[/quote]

I'm aware of those, but it's the problems that need more urgent attention.

[quote]Yeah, all Christians do is sit around doing nothing waiting for Jesus to return. (One of St. Paul's epistles actually condemns such behavior.) That explains all the tireless work religious orders have done and continue to do to help poor and suffering people around the world. I've known a number of people who've done Christian mission work personally. Get off the atheist websites and start looking at reality. [/quote]

That's why I stick to atheist websites

These are African Christians who live in harsh and sometimes hopeless conditions, not the happy and satisfied Christians that live a normal life with its ups and downs but get by.

[quote]And debated to death here on this site. (Run a search.)
Christians, including Catholics, have done more to help African AIDS victims than anyone else.

Promoting chastity rather than condoms is not genocide. Sorry.[/quote]

Sure it's not. But it's not a solution.

Edited May 30, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1306792158' post='2247795']
Your own beliefs seem far more political than the Church's. [/quote]

How so? I'm not the one who has much to gain here...

This whole meaning system thing with truth being irrelavent (and not addressed by this idea) is not politically motivated but is a good description of what happens IMO in all religious beliefs, not just Cristianity.

[quote]Nice that you know more about the motivations for Communism's persecution of Christians than the Communists did.[/quote]

Were only Christians persecuted by the communists?

[quote]I covered that earlier.
Inconvenient as it may be to your arguments, Communism is an atheist ideology which regards religions as wrong and evil, and thus opposes them.[/quote]

"Communism is an atheist ideology which regards religions as wrong and evil, and thus opposes them."

I'm not defending communism here...

[quote]It's no secret that such accusations are a lot of bs.

The historical truth is that Pope Pius XII did more than any other person to save Jewish lives from the Nazis during WWII, so much so that his deeds inspired the Chief Rabbi of Rome to convert to the Catholic Faith.
And that his predecessor, Pius XI, formally condemned Nazi ideology before the war in his 1937 encyclical [url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P11BRENN.HTM"]MIT BRENNENDER SORGE[/url].

But don't just take my word for it. Here's a large selection of links to various articles refuting the recent "Hitler's Pope" nonsense:
[url="http://www.phatmass.com/directory/index.php/cat/344"]The Church and the Holocaust[/url]

Should be enough reading there to keep you busy for a while. Enjoy![/quote]

I'll check them out.


[quote]You can't attack the Christian Faith itself based on the bad actions of a few self-professed "Christians."

Again, you ignore all the much greater good works performed by Christian/Catholic missionaries. There's more stories about them than I could possibly link to, but run a simple search, or just pick up any Catholic book of saints lives.

And some of your source websites are pathetic. Going to anti-religious hate sites to get "information" on the Church or Christianity is like going to neo-Nazi sites to research the facts on Judaism.
Really, you can do better than that.
[/quote]

Well, I got it off video reports, not those sites.

Though, I didn't see those as "hate sites". They're talking about what some Christian missionaries are doing in some African countries based on things that are written in the Bible. Those things are in the scriptural foundation for Christianity being passed on as divine truth and wisdom, so...then what?

Edited May 30, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[xSilverPhinx]

And since we're also on the topic of Christianity's historical track record, I thought it relevant to clear it up a bit.

I said that it had to do with both the Inquisition and Dark Ages (I'll just use that name, or DA for short) which are the two most brought up.

As for the Inquisition, you're right that it should be compared with other powers at that time, namely secular, but on the other hand it was also instigated by the religious. The cleansing that went on in Spain for instance was in a sense cultural genocide, did the High Clergy oppose it or actively encourage it? What about Torquemada?

As for the DAs, which were in pre Protestant Reformation times so essentially Catholic...what do you call the non tolerant enforcement of Catholicism?

Are you trying to compare Christianity's (as a positive belief system) track record against atheism (just denotes a lack of belief in gods) by comparing the number of people which each supposedly killed?

Edited May 30, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[Laudate_Dominum]

"I swear to you that Jesus Christ is God." - Dietrich von Hildebrand

[Amppax]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1306796229' post='2247814']
And since we're also on the topic of Christianity's historical track record, I thought it relevant to clear it up a bit.

I said that it had to do with both the Inquisition and Dark Ages (I'll just use that name, or DA for short) which are the two most brought up.

As for the Inquisition, you're right that it should be compared with other powers at that time, namely secular, but on the other hand it was also instigated by the religious. The cleansing that went on in Spain for instance was in a sense cultural genocide, did the High Clergy oppose it or actively encourage it? What about Torquemada?

As for the DAs, which were in pre Protestant Reformation times so essentially Catholic...what do you call the non tolerant enforcement of Catholicism?

Are you trying to compare Christianity's (as a positive belief system) track record against atheism (just denotes a lack of belief in gods) by comparing the number of people which each supposedly killed?
[/quote]

I did a paper on the Inquisition, so i think that I may know a little something about it. First of all, it is vital to note that, at the time, religion was intimately tied to the government. Thus, heretical religious beliefs and practices constituted an act equivalent to treason against the government. As ludicrous as that may sound today, that was the reality then, and that informed how such things were dealt with. Also, from what I remember, the Church actually didn't sentence people to death, it was the government that did that. I wish I could remember more of my sources from the paper, but oh well. The Inquisition was also not a persecution of other faiths, it was more of an internal house cleaning. Ok, now time to doc-dump:

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm"]http://www.newadvent...then/08026a.htm[/url]

[url="http://www.catholic.com/library/Inquisition.asp"]http://www.catholic....Inquisition.asp[/url]

[url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0711tbt.asp"]http://www.catholic....007/0711tbt.asp[/url]

[url="http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=5236"]http://www.catholicc...cfm?recnum=5236[/url]

I don't remember the books that i had, but this is just a sampling of various websites on the Catholic view of the Inquisition.

Edited May 31, 2011 by Amppax

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1306802282' post='2247864']
I did a paper on the Inquisition, so i think that I may know a little something about it. First of all, it is vital to note that, at the time, religion was intimately tied to the government. Thus, heretical religious beliefs and practices constituted an act equivalent to treason against the government. As ludicrous as that may sound today, that was the reality then, and that informed how such things were dealt with. Also, from what I remember, the Church actually didn't sentence people to death, it was the government that did that. I wish I could remember more of my sources from the paper, but oh well. The Inquisition was also not a persecution of other faiths, it was more of an internal house cleaning. Ok, now time to doc-dump:

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm"]http://www.newadvent...then/08026a.htm[/url]

[url="http://www.catholic.com/library/Inquisition.asp"]http://www.catholic....Inquisition.asp[/url]

[url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0711tbt.asp"]http://www.catholic....007/0711tbt.asp[/url]

[url="http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=5236"]http://www.catholicc...cfm?recnum=5236[/url]

I don't remember the books that i had, but this is just a sampling of various websites on the Catholic view of the Inquisition.
[/quote]

Thanks for the links, they were a good read.

Though [url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0711tbt.asp"]here[/url]:

[quote]In 1478, [i]Frederick [/i]and Isabella requested a papal bull establishing an inquisition. It was granted, and by 1482 the inquisition had been placed under the Dominican Friar Tomas de Torquemada.[/quote]

Edited May 31, 2011 by xSilverPhinx