Absolutely. I would say more specifically about resources - whether mineral, agricultural, logistical, or to destroy ideologies that threaten those resources elsewhere. Clashes of ideology are fights for resources and races for supremecy. As for the Nazis, it doesn't really matter whether Hitler was religious or not, as the fact remains that the vast majority of those who carried out his orders were either Catholic or Protestant. And let's not forget that the earliest European genocide on record was ordered by Pope Innocent III (never short of irony, those Catholics ), and it's where we get the phrase: "Kill them all and let God sort them out.". "Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people." - Arnaul Amalric, a Cistercian Abbot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnaud_Amalric Now we have GCHQ and the NSA monitoring all our communications - in the past we had the ostensibly celibate minions of Rome listening to every sin and trespass in Christendom. Look at how many reasons Europeans have found to fight in the Middle East throughout over two millenia... I'm sure the fact that it contains vast resources and logistical nexus has nothing to do with it! With or without religion, humans will do terrible things to each other. And those in power will always find an ideological reason to get the plebs rallied around so they are willing to die in order to line another's pockets. And on the interpersonal scale, you get selfless people of all faiths and none. I've never seen any evidence of Christians being more pleasant people than atheists, or communists being more friendly than capitalists. If ideology is just the window dressing tacked on to human nature, what good does religion do? If I consider the good that has come out of religion, it is purely technical in nature - essentially psychological techniques - like those of Taoism, Sufism, Gnosticism, Tantra, Zen etc. (and it is worth noting that religious institutions almost always try to erase these practices, because self-revelation and ideoligical shackles don't mix very well). The thing is, these techniques work whether you believe in the objective truth of deities or not. You don't have to be religious to get the same benefits. The biggest problem with religion, I feel, is dogma. This has actively hindered human progress by way of stifling open enquiry in all fields of human endevour: science, politics and art. There can be no truly open enquiry if you begin with the supposition that certain things are known and immutable. Dogma is not exclusive to religion, but all the most extreme examples of it are. So, looking at history, it seems that religion is largely inconsequential, other than holding back science a few centuries. We probably would have found some other reason to slaughter each other, seeing as the Crusades, the Reformation, and the various Inquisitions were about resources and power. And on the personal level, your life will be no better or worse whether you are atheist, Methodist, Hindu or Satanist - no god will reward or punish you for your ideology, only other people. Just as you will not be any more or less kind than you are, no matter whether you believe in a supernatural cosmic deity or not. At the end of the day, I feel it is about enquiry, knowledge and honesty - what do you feel is best: A child believing that Father Christmas brought their Lego set from Lapland, and it was made by elves using magic tools. or: A child being told that their parents bought them their Lego set because they love them, and then explaining the production of plastics and the petrochemicals needed to produce them, then leading into the geopolitical problems created by competition for resources, then leading into the environmental effects of such products? Which approach do you feel would lead to a more caring and knowledgeable society?
I'd be interested in seeing your numbers for this one. I'm aware they killed a lot of people, but more than all religious persecutions since history began? We including Aztecs in that figure? Wars generally have a variety of causes, such that someone with an agenda can claim 'it's not about slavery but the widening gulf in industrial capacity between the North and South.' Suffice it to say that although there were advantages for the elites making those wars, having a cultural divide between different religions doesn't help matters. I'd also point out that the examples of atheistic governance fall prey to the same sort of sophistry - 'it wasn't about communism, it was the death knell of imperialistic power structures!' Etc. While delivering on none of them. If the best religion can offer is empty threats, well... Yeah, hence why religious folks don't have wars, dreadful people or awful crime. Whatever your stance on religion, education, law enforcement and economic interdependence have more to offer long term peace than old texts that promise retribution. The atrocious dictators you've named all came from religious backgrounds that made these promises to them. Says who and why?
Not really, if we want a factory to stop spewing toxic waste into a water way we don't need to ignore the tumors it causes and focus on the pretty colors it turns the water. These entities have become much more than their founder's message, otherwise they'd be in the self help section instead. Authenticity is just another way of saying 'does it feel true to you?' Which it might. I'm not eager to end religion, it's had some cool cultural output - neat books and temples and music. I don't find the argument that it causes crime or violence very persuasive - last study i read on the subject said it had to do with local income inequality and the number of unmarried young men. Which makes an intuitive amount of sense. But I think religion is largely a product of economic deprivation and a lack of education, which, hopefully ultimately are wiped out. So, when religion wages wars it's for territory, but when secularism does it, it's due to internal perversity?
^^ That and too many other comments in the last couple days to quote-tag --- Perhaps it's not an either/or choice. I am inclined to think that there are at least 4 perspectives that one should consider simultaneously, with religion as it is being discussed here mostly being only one of them, and science as it is being discussed here mostly being only one of them. 1) There's the inside view of an individual -- what he sees, thinks, feels, etc. One's own religion (or lack thereof) and his personal reasons for choosing it are here. 2) There's the outside view of an individual -- what a scientist sees under the microscope and in the telescope, what he can measure on a scale. 3) There's the inside view of a group -- culture, friendships, shared ethical norms, family. Life inside a church group, e.g. living out the full ecclesiastical calendar of the Catholic Church, is here. 4) There's the outside view of a group -- underlying designs and their structures, what sociologists study and measure, e.g. what the Catholic Church looks like to people who can't receive the eucharist To look at and consider just one of these four areas to the exclusion of the other three is to miss out on a great deal of truth. One's conclusions will necessarily be incomplete. http://www.elasticmind.ca/innerpreneur/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/MYAQAL.jpg http://www.mentoringforchange.co.uk/images/aqal_quadrants.gif http://integral-naked-holons.s3.amazonaws.com/Overview/AQALfig9.jpg
I was picking up on something like this, by you: "The biggest problem with religion, I feel, is dogma. This has actively hindered human progress by way of stifling open enquiry in all fields of human endevour: science, politics and art. There can be no truly open enquiry if you begin with the supposition that certain things are known and immutable. Dogma is not exclusive to religion, but all the most extreme examples of it are." The religious people to whom you refer there are ignoring the exterior views. In other words, whatever "truth" science can find, was ignored by them. The same thing happens with dogmatically-stifled atheists. They ignore the truths that ascetic monks find through meditation and all their religious rules.
Okay, I see where you're coming from. But doesn't that entirely depend on the mutability of the dogma you invest belief in? As a simple example; if you believe the bible to be a literal document, then much of science is incompatible with your beliefs.
And you'd be ignoring 1/4 of the views, or maybe 1/2 of the views -- the "outside" or "exterior" views. But the atheist who says all religion is bunk is doing the same thing. He's ignoring the "interior" views. Both are "wrong."
I've been arguing for the validity of an interior narrative and self-revelation. But you don't need religion to have that. In fact, allowing your unconscious imagination to merely regurgitate dogma limits the usefulness of it. But it's not like there are many religious people who feel that any interior narrative is as valid as any other. If you believe you have found truth, then by definition anything incompatible with that is false. Anyone can invest enough belief in a narrative to find "truth" in it. My main point is that unless you have found the truth in a number of incompatible paradigms, then you will never know how mutable "spiritual truths" are.
Sages don't speak of truth as mutable. I can't tell if you're arguing against religion itself (which would be a wrong position) or just arguing against immature religion (in which case I would join you).
Yes, some sages do speak of truth as mutable. In the terms of your binary choice above, I would call any religion that supports the idea of the objective existence of supernatural entities immature. They are surplus to requirement and patently silly.
The sages disagree with you. Example: the four most recent books I have read are: 1) Spider-Man (irrelevant to this discussion) 2) another Spider-Man (irrelevant to this discussion) 3) "Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers" by Thich Nhat Hanh, wherein the master outright affirms the existence of a supernatural entity and argues that it's the opposite of immature 4) "The Integral Approach: A Short Introduction" by Ken Wilber, wherein the master affirms Christianity specifically (amongst other paths) as being true at least at the "integral" level Back in time I read Wilber's "Integral Spirituality," wherein he discusses religion much more in-depth, and affirms Christianity (and other paths) at least at the "integral" level.
It entirely depends on which sage you read, doesn't it? If they are mining objective spiritual truths from their mind, why don't they all say the same thing?
I think these sorts of gyrations are only made for religion's sake - we don't see anyone pleading that there are different types of truth for psychological delusion, for example. In that, I think religion is only distinguished by the number of people who subscribe to it. I'm willing to say that religion is a real phenomenon - it truly motivates nations to go to war, individuals to commit great sacrifice and worship, rituals to be followed, art to be produced, etc., etc. But that doesn't imply that religion has any truth about the way the world works, its history, its origin, etc., etc. The truths it holds for people's internal states, well, sounds like those are the same truths that art or literature hold. They're truths about us as people, but that doesn't mean we should give the Bible anymore weight than say, The Satanic Verses. I think you're also neglecting the interplay between these different truths - I'm going to extend religious thinkers the benefit of the doubt here and say that if they found that they were wrong about a thing, they would give up the belief (anything else is simply willing delusion) - but it's not coherent to believe at once in a merciful god and evolution at the same time. One of those beliefs necessarily has to give, unless one is given to postmodern mental acrobats.
They do all agree once they reach a certain, er, "elevation" or "altitude." Or maturity. You're rightly picking on the great number of people who operate at a magical or mythical altitude but you are wrongly overlooking the small number of people operating at an integral altitude. I think you'd benefit from reading Wilber's "integral" stuff. His book "A Brief History of Everything" explains, well, everything, and then "Integral Spirituality" focuses just on religion. It was one of those handful of, "Oh. ... OH!!!" lightbulb moments for me when everything suddenly fell into place and made sense.
