The Root of all Evil?

[Numbers]

Part 1: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQ8_bIji7gQ

Part 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=o4xIi-TwY-Y

This is a program by Richard Dawkins that aired on BBC4. It brings up some very interesting points, most of which I agree with. While I don't think he should have been so condescending towards some of the people he's interviewing, it does represent an atheist point of view.

While I fully respect and endorse people choosing and following their own religion, or believing whatever they want to believe, the problem arises when they impose their own religious beliefs and religious taboos on people who may not follow the same god or beliefs. As such, since religion has, for the past two thousand years, done exactly that, as an atheist I believe that religion is the most dangerous thing on the planet.

The program is about an hour and a half long, but it's well worth a watch.

[Some Rogue]

Can't watch the videos right now as I am at work but both sides are guilty of pushing their views on the other. Quite a few athiests love to point out what's wrong with religion and why people are idiots for believing. If they don't want to do the very thing they are accusing religious people of doing, they'd keep their mouth shut.

[Latrinsorm]

the problem arises when they impose their own religious beliefs and religious taboos on people who may not follow the same god or beliefs.What people (sociologists) have found out is that everyone is religious, even (and in some cases especially) those who don't subscribe to one of the Big Religions. As such, saying Christianity or Christians (for instance) is dangerous is missing the bigger picture; it is religiousness that is dangerous (in the way a knife is dangerous), not the teachings of Jesus or Moses or Mohammed or Prabhupada. If anything, one can rebuke a person who nominally subscribes to a particular religion with the tenets of that religion; an option that is not as readily available when we're dealing with those who have no codified text or set of teachings.
While I fully respect and endorse people choosing and following their own religion,You don't really (nor should you), and here's why:
or believing whatever they want to believeA religion is much, much more than a set of beliefs. Under some understandings, it's not even primarily a set of beliefs. (This is why you can have people who say "I'm a Christian and I hate Jews" and not recognize the contradiction at all with the teachings of Christ.) Religion (and for that matter, life) is primarily ritual. This is not ritual in the sense of mere rote repetition, although that is certainly involved to some extent. Ritual is essentially an activity, and as such we can't rationally equate "freedom of belief" with "freedom of religion".

In the end, we can only conclude that a) the most dangerous thing on the planet to humans is other humans, regardless of what labels they affix or permit to be attached to themselves and b) religiousness is inescapable for humans. Perhaps, in an eerie parallel of certain Christian theologists, there is another form of life we can become that could do so, but for humans it's just not possible.

[Anferis]

Religion bashings.
I love it.
This guy is smart.

[Sean]

Saying everyone is religious without explaining what those sociologists define religious as is a bit misleading.. if someone has faith in science does that make them a followers of the religion of science? or are they implying that everyone believes in a supernatural power? What exactly makes an individual religious?

[Methais]

Part 1: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQ8_bIji7gQ

Part 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=o4xIi-TwY-Y

This is a program by Richard Dawkins that aired on BBC4. It brings up some very interesting points, most of which I agree with. While I don't think he should have been so condescending towards some of the people he's interviewing, it does represent an atheist point of view.

While I fully respect and endorse people choosing and following their own religion, or believing whatever they want to believe, the problem arises when they impose their own religious beliefs and religious taboos on people who may not follow the same god or beliefs. As such, since religion has, for the past two thousand years, done exactly that, as an atheist I believe that religion is the most dangerous thing on the planet.

The program is about an hour and a half long, but it's well worth a watch.

I'm too lazy to watch those long videos, but I agree. Religion is the root of all evil. I'm not an athiest or anything, but at the same time if there were no religion, I think we'd be living in a (mostly) peaceful world.

[Artha]

Personal property is the root of all violence.

[Gan]

I thought it was the $$$.

[Latrinsorm]

Saying everyone is religious without explaining what those sociologists define religious as is a bit misleading.. if someone has faith in science does that make them a followers of the religion of science? or are they implying that everyone believes in a supernatural power? What exactly makes an individual religious?Don't think of religious as having to do with a particular religion (whether of Jesus or science or material wealth or whatever). A person is religious without necessarily subscribing to a particular religion for any period of time. The big archetypical characteristics of religious behavior are a division of everything into sacred and profane (or mundane), ritual behavior, and an object or objects of worship (to greater and lesser degrees). It's important to note that this is rarely conscious or immediately perceptible, even in commonly accepted religions.

Supernatural is a funny sort of word, if you think about it. What I think you refer to as supernatural is not necessarily entailed in religious belief, though; there need not be a God, god, superhuman deity, or any sort of mystical force.

What makes these apparently innocuous characteristics of religiousness dangerous is that from them can be derived a certain sort of surrendering of self/will to The Cause, whatever that cause is. This can result in people like Mother Theresa and Gandhi or it can result in people like Zacarias Moussaoui. This is what I meant by how a knife can be dangerous; a knife can be used to slice bread or to slash someone's throat.

[Artha]

I thought it was the $$$.
Money's just the fancy way of representing it.

[DeV]

A person is religious without necessarily subscribing to a particular religion for any period of time. Pretty much. In layman's terms, if a person wholeheartedly believes in God or a greater higher power and also believes that religion as a whole is a downright scam they can still be considered religious to a degree.

[Numbers]

Don't think of religious as having to do with a particular religion (whether of Jesus or science or material wealth or whatever). A person is religious without necessarily subscribing to a particular religion for any period of time.

I think you're just arguing semantics.

Merriam-Webster defines religion as "(1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance" which I would agree with. The belief of a higher power and, to some extent, the supernatural (easy to argue what's encompassed by supernatural). So, just to be clear, when I say religion, I'm primarily referencing the choice to believe in a higher power, as well as having faith that all the writings in holy books are true and did happen, and modeling your life after those teachings.

The whole documentary is essentially examining the problem that religion presents, in how people believe in certain things that science has mostly disproved. Where religion says that the world is 5,000 years old, the geological record, physical evidence that is quantifiable shows the earth to be 4.5 billion years old. The documentary also examines the first testament, which basically depicts god as a vindictive ass that wants everyone killed. The problem with that is how that belief has spread to different religions, although it's presented much more discretely and flowery now.

Do I think that if religion never exited, people would find something else to fight about? Definitely, whether it's land, money, the color of your skin, and so on. But I also think that if religion never existed, humans would probably be better off and more at peace than they are now.

It's also disconcerting that, according to recent polls, atheists are now the most despised minority group in America.

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

Money's just the fancy way of representing it.

No, women are the root of all evil, and the urge they create in men to ravish them.

Men get money and get property to get the hos, everyone knows that.

:rofl: (kidding)

[Latrinsorm]

I think you're just arguing semantics.Yeah that's what I thought was going on at first too, but if you really look into it it all hangs together pretty well. It's a subtle distinction, but it's absolutely crucial if we really want to understand what's going on.
all the writings in holy books are true This is actually an incredibly deep and fascinating field. Just as a tip of the iceberg, I encourage you to look into a film by John Romer entitled Testament (also from the BBC, oddly enough) and anything you can find on the Pesher technique. I'm not saying either is correct, but you can definitely get a feel for just how much we miss about the texts of major religions if we just go by what common knowledge tells us.

I'd also encourage you to talk to this priest I know, but you're probably not in the Troy, NY area so that's a no-go. In a very condensed version, though, here's what's going on: Scripture (specifically Christian) is not just words on a page to be taken in the same way we take a newspaper. The same way we can't just read Shakespeare without any analysis or preparation and think we know what's going on, we can't just read Leviticus or Corinthians and think we've got a handle on what's going on. I'm pretty sure this is true of every religion, but I can only speak with certainty about Christianity. The point of this is that it's a false dichotomy to say the Bible is either literally true or false.

I don't really have a spare hour and a half until the weekend, so I can't go point by point through the documentary you've linked yet.
The whole documentary is essentially examining the problem that religion presents, in how people believe in certain things that science has mostly disproved. It's certainly fair to say that some people who subscribe to a religion reject scientific revelations. However, a lot of people (implicitly) believe things that science has completely disproved (Aristotelian physics spring to mind) though they have no religion telling them to do so. This suggests to me that the rejection of scientific evidence is not solely a Christian phenomenon or a Jewish phenomenon. YMMV.
But I also think that if religion never existed, humans would probably be better off and more at peace than they are now.I have a few questions for you then.
1) Do you think that religion (in this case Christianity) was the root or primary cause for institutionalized racism in the United States?
2) Do you think that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been as successful without his principles of nonviolent resistance?
3) Where do you think those principles came from?

[Tisket]

Latrinsorm, you have to be the most tirelessly contentious person on the internet. Don't you ever weary of yourself?

[Anferis]

My opinion is that religion is the root of all evil.
They're suicide bombing for it.
The Crusades were because of it.
People fight over the bullshit all the time.
All over a book or two that were written long time ago and can't be scientifically proven.

[TheEschaton]

Religion has produced the some of the best people in the world, though, too.

Gandhi, Mother Theresa, MLK Jr.

-TheE-

[Tisket]

Religion has produced the some of the best people in the world, though, too.

Gandhi, Mother Theresa, MLK Jr.

-TheE-

These people would have been extraordinary even without religious trappings.

[TheEschaton]

I think their religion provoked their desire to be extraordinary.


-TheE-

[Methais]

Religion has produced the some of the best people in the world, though, too.

Gandhi, Mother Theresa, MLK Jr.

-TheE-

And some of the worst.

Saddam, Bin Laden, Hitler, basically 99.99999% of the world's past and present terrorists and all that.

[Artha]

Narcissia
Your ideas intrigue me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Sean of the Thread]

Fred Phelps for prez 2008.

[Latrinsorm]

Don't you ever weary of yourself?I know some things that some people haven't heard before. How can I, in good conscience, just reflect peacefully in my knowingness when I could very easily disseminate this knowledge? I simply refuse to be a co-conspirator to ignorance (willful or coincidental).
The Crusades were because of it.That could be. When you look at what the Crusades actually were and what Jesus actually says, though, you can detect more than a hint of contradiction. Thus, it's hard to say that Christianity motivated the Crusades. When we examine the political (including the papal) climate of the time period, however, we see plenty of motivation towards conflict. It's important to discern between what Christianity actually is and what people (then and now) call Christianity, of course, otherwise the word "Christian" doesn't really have any meaning.
All over a book or two that were written long time ago and can't be scientifically proven.Again, it's really missing the point to say any religion is just a belief or just a book. That's just not how people do religion.

It's not hard to find historical examples where people make a concerted effort to eradicate religion (France, Russia). I don't think there's any historical record of utopias springing into existence following these campaigns, which to me is pretty damning counterevidence to the claim that religion is the cause of evil. What I'd also note, though, is that at no time in human history has religiousness been eradicated or even diminished to an appreciable degree, and evil has kept right along. While we can't conclude that all evil comes from religiousness, we can certainly conclude that it's possible for evil to come from religiousness: hence the danger.

[Numbers]

I don't think there's any historical record of utopias springing into existence following these campaigns, which to me is pretty damning counterevidence to the claim that religion is the cause of evil.

This is also addressed in the documentary, in the part called "The Virus of Faith". In a nutshell, it states that when humans are young, it's basically in their genetic programming to learn as much as possible from their parents. If their parents are teaching them strict religion, they'll accept it without question, and will grow up knowing that. And then when they have kids of their own, they teach their kids the same thing, and the cycle continues, as it has for 2,000 years.

[Latrinsorm]

We know that children do not always accept everything their parents teach them as they mature, though. Not only do we know that, we know that in some cases children outright reject that which their parents held so firmly to. It's certainly fair to say that this could be a "phase" in the lives of the children, but I'm pretty sure that not all hippies have reverted to buzzcut-having suit-and-tie-wearers. We at least have to talk about a sinusoidal progression (which I think there could be some kernel of truth to) instead of a flat line (which is just preposterous).

We don't even have to reference some movement from the decrepit past. Look at your own life, look at your own family. Haven't you ever gone through a period where you questioned at least a significant portion of your parents' values and precepts? Do you think that you or our generation is unprecedented in this questioning? I think the documentary raises a good hypothetical in talking about the continuation of ancient religions, as times were obviously very different then, but times change.

I mean, how could a new religion ever get started if everyone was so irreversibly indoctrinated in either their parents' religion or nonreligion?

[Tisket]

I think their religion provoked their desire to be extraordinary.

You give religion far too much credit. I am a person of faith however I believe that greatness can exist DESPITE religion.