Coloradomtnman
Rational and proud of it.
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- #61
It was a joke, but you haven't been here long enough to know that. It's cool.
Oh. I should've known since it was you who posted it. Where is the embarassed emoticon?
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It was a joke, but you haven't been here long enough to know that. It's cool.
It was a joke, but you haven't been here long enough to know that. It's cool.
Oh. I should've known since it was you who posted it. Where is the embarassed emoticon?
I think your opinion is fine and stands on it's own. I should have been clearer. What I objected to was your generalization about others. I included the Lincoln quote in my post to back your position.
Lincoln was not a lover of the Christian faith, and yet he greatly contributed to American civilization.
I think your opinion is fine and stands on it's own. I should have been clearer. What I objected to was your generalization about others. I included the Lincoln quote in my post to back your position.
Lincoln was not a lover of the Christian faith, and yet he greatly contributed to American civilization.
Okay, you're right. I should've said, not all, but there are religious people who feel that non-believers have no sense of morality.
And thanks for backing me up with the Lincoln quote. Its a great one!
You should study anthropology, you might have a better appreciation for religion, and it's absolute necessity to having got us to where we are now. Your idea of religionless morality is too utopian to be workable in the past, now, or the foreseeable future.
I was an anthropology major at University of Colorado, Amanda. Anthropology has little to do with religion unless you are studying cultural anthropology. I also took some history classes. I would say that the millenium following the fall of the Roman Empire, aka the Dark Ages, is a perfect example of my point. The Church controlled everything, especially knowledge. Only monks and clergymen could read, and all reading material was controlled by the church. It wasn't until Martin Luther nailed his protest to the church door that people began to educate themselves and teach themselves to read. They established schools and lo and behold: The Renaissance. Do you know about the library Alexander the Great and Aristotle started in Alexandria? At the fall of the Roman Empire the scholars there knew that the world was round. They knew the Earth revolved around the Sun. They also, and I was really surprised to learn this, had a steam engine. The Church suppressed that information. And, look at what they did to Galileo when he rediscovered those facts.
Of course, then there was western exapansion when native tribes (labeled savages) were routinely massacred and even wiped out because of the Great Commission. Religion considered itself just and righteous and when its adherents committed genocide against the natives of the lands being colonized, the men in charge were considered heroes i.e. Columbus, Cortez, Pizarro and the imperialistic expansion of Europe into Africa and Southeast Asia. Religion was the justification (not the only reason) for the killing, the enslavement, and the suppression of the native cultures. The same goes for Australia and North America in the 19th Century.
Religious special interest groups in our own country want to curb stem cell research which could lead to cures for numerous diseases and conditions. Religious groups have funded campaigns to ban same-sex marriages. They want Christian creationism taught in public schools that atheist, agnostic, muslim, hindu, and buddhist children attend. When Bush Jr. proposed sending money to Africa to help with the AIDS epidemic, religious groups lobbied so that only organizations teaching abstinence received aid. Those advocating condoms or other preventive measures received none. This, according to the UN and other humanitarian organizations, has only hindered the prevention of the spread of AIDS and not done much to stem the epidemic.
So, if you can come up with an example of how religion has helped human beings advance as a civilization, then please, share it with me because, for the life of me, I can't think of one example.
Without religion as a control mechanism civilization wouldn't be what it is now. A strong tribal leader can control a tribe, not a nation.
There are many who still claim that the only source for true morality is faith in religion.
...<snip for space>...
just the tip of the iceberg.
Without religion as a control mechanism civilization wouldn't be what it is now. A strong tribal leader can control a tribe, not a nation.
You might be right, though I would say civilization would be a lot better with the religious mechanism of control.
I think, to support your point, one can only speculate.
I think, to support my point, there is a lot of evidence which I included in my earlier post.
Could be. Go with it man! Personally, I'd like to see what you have to say about that and since I started the thread...Without religion as a control mechanism civilization wouldn't be what it is now. A strong tribal leader can control a tribe, not a nation.
You might be right, though I would say civilization would be a lot better with the religious mechanism of control.
I think, to support your point, one can only speculate.
I think, to support my point, there is a lot of evidence which I included in my earlier post.
So is the debate possibly becoming one concerning whether organized religion is a "vestigial organ" so-to-speak of human social development?
Yes, we can look to the superiority of the nations of ISLAM to see how much better civilization is when religion is politically mandated.
Could be. Go with it man! Personally, I'd like to see what you have to say about that and since I started the thread...You might be right, though I would say civilization would be a lot better with the religious mechanism of control.
I think, to support your point, one can only speculate.
I think, to support my point, there is a lot of evidence which I included in my earlier post.
So is the debate possibly becoming one concerning whether organized religion is a "vestigial organ" so-to-speak of human social development?
I once toyed with the idea that human intelligence is exceptional primarily because of its pattern recognition ability. This would allow the development of language and higher order thinking. Greater pattern recognition ability would be selected for, or perhaps perceived pattern recognition ability would be selected for. Even mistaken patterns that did not have catastrophic results could be selected for through sexual selection. Therefore, moving beyond simple patterns like recognizing animals returning to the same pool of water, but false patterns like a certain chant bringing about rain could be selected for as a pattern recognition ability. As early social structure began to develop with "big men" or "head men" taking on some form of mild leadership role, it would naturally fall to those who achieve higher social standing due to their abilities to recognize patterns (false or otherwise). The identified patterns become formalized over time, being passed on through the development of communication and in conjunction with more formalized socio-political development. Since those with pattern recognition ability tend to be in places of greater social power, it is natural for the developing social heirarchy to assimilate the more formalized patterns creating a socio-religious power structure which could then be passed down through formalized communication and the pattern recognition ability would be diminished in its importance in perpetuating the system (although it could still lend itself to influence change in the system).
Buddhists are quite strict regarding sexual practices, I know.
Not only that, but the Christian faithful, for the most part, don't have "faith in religion". We don't worship religion.
We worship God. There's a difference, do a little research, Colom.