Roger Hicks
Veteran
Indeed. But there are also groups that deliberately reach out in some directions, and preen themselves on doing so, while concealing or ignoring the fact that in other ways they are evil bigots. Perhaps skin colour and sexual orientation was not the best example: it's merely an easy one.
Cheers,
R.
hepcat
Former PH, USN
Or, depending on the belief system, "Stone, behead, or shun the heretic."
Food restrictions in religion are interesting and served, once upon a time, to keep the tribal population healthy. In the Hebrew world at some point, some scholar or physician determined that pork carried what we now recognize as trychinosis. Eschewing pork products, then, became essential in the continuation of the tribe. Explaining the mechanics of infection to an ill-educated populace was fruitless though, so it became a religious ritual. The underlying reasons for many rituals are medical in nature. Fasting, especially extreme fasting, allowed the supplicant to talk to, and hear God. Interestingly, starvation research reports that sufferers invariably begin hear a 'voice' at a certain point in their physical degeneration.
The key is an educated constituency. When education is devalued in a population, that population is ripe for exploitation by someone who claims to have an "in" with God.
Interesting stuff.
The problem comes when the entity forming the army or religion or whatever declares that the only way to leave the organization is death, and enforcement of most of the tenants of the organization carries a penalty of being cast out, shunned, dismembered, or death.
In a military environment, that's a very strong incentive for the members not to desert; especially if there's a conscription period that will allow them to exit the body honorably and without penalty. In religious bodies though, that's somewhat more problematic and is calculated solely to control the members of that religion and coerce them into never leaving.
A religious leader without followers is nothing more than a homeless guy espousing doctrine on a busy street corner.
zauhar
Veteran
Roger, multiculturalism has another angle - it was largely the wedge that destroyed economic progressivism in the US.
Short story - Bill Clinton and other 'new democrats' wanted corporate money, so they started playing nice with big business. How to distinguish themselves from the GOP? By stepping up focus on social issues (don't ask don't tell, e.g.)
That was a slap in the face to people whose religious beliefs don't accommodate that sort of stance, and the republicans were waiting for them with open arms (those still not in the fold after the preceding battles over abortion and desegregation).
In my view, a lot of the schizophrenia in the US arises from the complete separation of social/religious and economic interests; rural america is pandered to on the social issues front by the very people who seek to reduce to wage peonage all but those at the very top.
Randy
Short story - Bill Clinton and other 'new democrats' wanted corporate money, so they started playing nice with big business. How to distinguish themselves from the GOP? By stepping up focus on social issues (don't ask don't tell, e.g.)
That was a slap in the face to people whose religious beliefs don't accommodate that sort of stance, and the republicans were waiting for them with open arms (those still not in the fold after the preceding battles over abortion and desegregation).
In my view, a lot of the schizophrenia in the US arises from the complete separation of social/religious and economic interests; rural america is pandered to on the social issues front by the very people who seek to reduce to wage peonage all but those at the very top.
Randy
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Allegedly. My own view is that it fits in with all the other meaningless restrictions -- coneys? shellfish? the seething of the kid in the milk of its mother? -- and that the trichinosis 'explanation' is very much ex post facto
Cheers,
R.
hepcat
Former PH, USN
There is no doubt that it was a point of control; not done for the personal well-being of the members of the tribe as much as it was necessary for the leader to have a healthy tribe that could defend itself from attackers or wage war itself. And those religious leaders needed followers as indicated by the last sentence in my last post. A group of followers decimated by disease isn't much for venerating their leadership. I think that some of those control issues were implemented for practical reasons as well.
hepcat
Former PH, USN
And their money, Randy. Don't forget the money. Once again, it comes down to the distribution of wealth and the ability of those who have it to control outcomes. It stems from the desire of those "whose religious beliefs don't accommodate that sort of stance" to try to impose or re-impose their beliefs on others through the exertion of political control.
FrankS
Registered User
For me, it is the blending of church and state that is the scary part, regardless of which faith: Christianity or Islam. More checks and balances if church and state are kept separate.
Sparrow
Veteran
... like in the UK?
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Frank,
Possibly, but here's a counter-argument.
In the UK, as Stewart points out, there is a state religion. The effect of this is that everyone is quietly inoculated, at an early age, by an essentially harmless form of religion. Yes, there are modest numbers of religious lunatics of all faiths, but they're very modest numbers. Those who want to break away from the C of E (where my parents were married and I was baptized) can do so with a minimum of fuss, whether they go to Wicca, Catholicism, Buddhism or elsewhere. Compare this with the American 'Free Market' system where religion is sold with the same enthusiasm as soap powder, though with fewer scruples.
In France, 'Laicity' (secularism) is fundamental. You can't have just a church [synagogue, temple, gurdwara...] wedding because, after all, what does an atheist care what you mumble in front of a deity who is meaningless to anyone who does not share your faith? Politicians do not feel obliged to pay more than the slightest lip-service to the thin-skinned of any religion.
In Tibetan culture, marriage is essentially a secular concern. Sure, you can (and probably will) have it blessed, as in France. But in the most Buddhist state in the world, your religion is basically down to you, not the state or the church.
As a boy in the 1950s, I lived in Malta, at the time (and possibly still) the most Catholic country in the world. Even in the 1960s, voting Labour was declared a (mortal) sin to which you had to confess: Google Malta, Labor, Sin. Today Malta is a secular democracy.
Suggestion: it's easier to see through excessive religiosity if you live in a state in which religion is an essential part of the state, rather than in a state where numerous competing forces are fighting ruthlessly and sometimes unscrupulously for your soul (and telling you that you have one, or telling you what it looks like).
Photography? Yes. Tibetan Buddhism is well established as 'exotic': we are invited to look at these 'quaint superstitions', or worse still, 'fundamental wisdoms'. Now look at your own beliefs (if any) from the point of view of an outsider; think of photo essays showing the good and bad points of any religion. Helping the poor? Killing unbelievers? Even Buddhists have been guilty of the latter lately in Burma: Google Rohingya.
Religion is perhaps one of the easiest subject in the world to document for good and bad, progressive and repressive, traditional and forward-looking. But far too many people are afraid to document ANYTHING about religion, and thereby leave the field open to those who promote either rabid secularism or rabid religiosity.
Cheers,
R.
sdotkling
Sent through the ether
Walmart's paranoia has to do with their Plan-o-gram...how they slot items on shelves. Merchandising is a very important part of retail. Zealously guarded.
Cold
Established
Can you expound on this? On the surface, it seems counterintuitive (that those not steeped in a state-sanctioned religion would get more and varied views and therefore a greater chance at objectivity), but as someone whose never really put much stock in the conversion system of religion, I'm very interested in how any why you feel this to be the case.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Fair question. As I say, it's a question of inoculation. the basic principle is that you are given a mild version of a less virulent disease (cowpox/smallpox, for the classic Jenner version. Church of England in the UK) and thereby rendered immune to a more dangerous version of a closely related disease.
In most states (in the sense of a country, not a US state), the state sanctioned religion is well diluted (often taught by people who don't really give a toss) and therefore excludes the mad mullahs, regardless of whether aforesaid mad mullahs are Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu...
You'll always get mad mullahs but if there are sane and not very virulent mullahs it much dilutes the influence of the mad ones.
Cheers,
R.
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Sparrow
Veteran
That holds true in the UK, where we've had four and a half centuries to weed out all the nutters and remove any need to actually believe anything to be a devotee ...
... I fear the same would not be the same in southern Afghanistan or in those new settlements on the west bank, or England in the middle of the seventeenth century for that matter
Roger Hicks
Veteran
I see your point, but it has to start sometime. Even in the United States, large tracts of which were founded on religious bigotry*, the influence of the mad mullahs is not quite what it was in the 17th century.
The point about a state religion, where everyone attends the state church and gets fed the Party Line, is that you can't find enough authentically mad mullahs to foam at the mouth and stone people. Remove the state religion, and the mouth-foamers are all competing against one another.
The other great advantage of a state religion is that the adherents of the foam-at-the-mouth brigade are compulsorily exposed to other viewpoints. You don't ban other religions: you just say that people must be exposed to the state religion as well.
*No, they weren't all trying to get away from religious persecution. What many of them wanted was a place where they'd be the ones doing the persecuting. It didn't seem to occur to them that religious persecution is inherently wrong, even when you're on the side that's handing it out instead of the receiving end. This is why Roger Williams founded Rhode Island and said, "forced worship stinks in God's nostrils."
Cheers,
R.
hepcat
Former PH, USN
Unfortunately what every one of the "mad mullahs" miss is that if they want to spew whatever venom they have, the imperitive logically follows that every other "mad mullah" (and by corollary then everyone else) has the exact same right. Intolerance is exercising control.
This is an excellent subject for a photo monograph, especially in the U.S. "The exercise of free speech through hate speech advocates the overturning of free speech for control." What a dichotomy.
Michael Markey
Veteran
I find this analysis rather too neat with a strong confirmatory bias.
For most of my education I attended an all boys Catholic school.
Religion wasn`t on the the syllabus .
Neither was there any demonstration of faith at school assembly.
For my last year ,due to a move of location , I attended a State school where the religion was C of E.
In that school religion was very firmly part of the daily curriculum and the morning assembly was replete with hymn singing.
I didn`t take part in any of that and waited outside the hall with two boys of the Jewish faith and one teacher who ,if memory serves me was a Mormon.
For most of my education I attended an all boys Catholic school.
Religion wasn`t on the the syllabus .
Neither was there any demonstration of faith at school assembly.
For my last year ,due to a move of location , I attended a State school where the religion was C of E.
In that school religion was very firmly part of the daily curriculum and the morning assembly was replete with hymn singing.
I didn`t take part in any of that and waited outside the hall with two boys of the Jewish faith and one teacher who ,if memory serves me was a Mormon.
Paul Jenkin
Well-known
Despite being an atheist (lapsed from a CofE background at the schools I attended) I don't have a problem with anyone folowing any religion (or other belief system) so long as it's peaceful and doesn't try to indoctrinate those who either have no faith or are happy with the one they've got.
My "issue" is with indoctrination of the young / impressionable. I am all in favour of teaching a moral code (right from wrong) but that has nothing to do with religious teachings. All religions have, broadly, the same views on killing, theft, adultery, how to treat your fellow man, etc. For any religion to say these are "their" ideas is, in my view, laughable.
Of concern to me is the fact that children should be born and raised in a religios belief system. Children are very vulnerable and easily influenced. Education, IMO, should be about understanding what the world is and how it works - in a purely scientific and analytical way. Once a child reaches the age of majority, that is the point where it is capable to decide whether it believes in a god and, if so, which flavour.
I'm not suggesting that children shouldn't learn about religions - i.e. what their various beliefs are and how they are similar / how they differ. However, insisting that a child is brought up as a (insert name of religion here) just by accident of birth seems very wrong to me. If it didn't happen, might this go some way to avoiding wars and disputes where the origin of the war / dispute is caused or fuelled by ingrained belief and intolerance of the other person's views.
My "issue" is with indoctrination of the young / impressionable. I am all in favour of teaching a moral code (right from wrong) but that has nothing to do with religious teachings. All religions have, broadly, the same views on killing, theft, adultery, how to treat your fellow man, etc. For any religion to say these are "their" ideas is, in my view, laughable.
Of concern to me is the fact that children should be born and raised in a religios belief system. Children are very vulnerable and easily influenced. Education, IMO, should be about understanding what the world is and how it works - in a purely scientific and analytical way. Once a child reaches the age of majority, that is the point where it is capable to decide whether it believes in a god and, if so, which flavour.
I'm not suggesting that children shouldn't learn about religions - i.e. what their various beliefs are and how they are similar / how they differ. However, insisting that a child is brought up as a (insert name of religion here) just by accident of birth seems very wrong to me. If it didn't happen, might this go some way to avoiding wars and disputes where the origin of the war / dispute is caused or fuelled by ingrained belief and intolerance of the other person's views.
hteasley
Pupil
As they say, teach a kid about one religion and you indoctrinate them, teach them about a lot of religions and you innoculate them.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Never heard that one before, but it's a goodie. Thanks.
Then again, what is religion? I'm a (not very good) Buddhist. Someone asked HH Dalai Lama once, "What is the best religion?" When he'd finished laughing, he said, "I'm the Dalai Lama. What do you think is the best religion for me? But that doesn't mean it's necessarily the best for you."
He points out that "universal responsibility and the good heart" are (or should be) the cause of religion, not the result.
Cheers,
R.
Rodchenko
Olympian
Gosh. Exactly my thoughts.
Incidentally, I am a buddhist Quaker. Buddhist as in Tiep Hien (Interbeing) - made famous by Thich Nhat Hanh. I'm pretty rubbish at it, but I keep trying to act mindfully. It's the right thing to do, as far as I can tell.