by smiddy 9 Replies latest jw friends
Why in this 21st Century are we still cow towing to religions that are based in the distant past, of thousands of years ago , whether it be Christian Islam or whatever.? And not to restrict it to just those two , but all ancient religions.
All of them are hypocritical , on the one hand rejecting modern day society and it`s technology and on the other hand embracing it for their own advantage .
When is the human race ever going to rid itself of pie in the sky beliefs.?
Anyone ?
smiddy
How could the human race go about ridding itself of religion and uphold human rights at the same time?
Like anything I believe good education is the best way to fight against ignorance but it takes a long time to truly educate entire cultures. IMO religion will probably become a thing of the past eventually but it will take a good few generations yet for it to happen.
If they turn on religion, that will lead to the Great Tribulation©...
Nobody wants that!
All freedoms have their limits. There were those that said snake-oil salesman had a "right" to sell bogus remedies and that the public had a "right" to buy bogus remedies. In other words, why can't people buy the placebo effect if they want to? That was the argument.
Eventually smarter minds prevailed. The lawmakers realized that people were being bamboozled and taking bogus remedies in lieu of taking legitimate medicine. So lives were being lost to line the pockets of crooks.
Similarly in religion, I think we are still in the "We have a right to purchase snake-oil" phase. The argument is that religious leaders have a right to sell whatever beliefs they want to (for the most part), and the public has a right to swallow it. Eventually I think society will realize there is a line that should be drawn on what a religion is allowed to convince people of. Or maybe it's better to say the line should be moved in some to exclude extremist views.
Of course religion is not any more ancient than atheism. Atheists may have often found themselves to be in the minority in many cultures, and at different times but they are not new nor have they all been free of making humans bow in slavery to their non-religious ideals (North Korean leaders are just one example).
Humanity has the ability to embrace the transcendent, the intangible, the dream. Even secular cultures have their mythology. Did George Washington really chop down a cherry tree as a child and claim he cannot tell a lie? Call it by any name you want but we are a people who put our ideals into morality plays and place these on high pedestals to admire, secular or not.
Perhaps the question is can humans ever have a philosophy, view, or set of convictions that can ever prevent us from our own failings, that prevent our darker sides from taking over?
Whether it is a religion that throws stones at its own prophets and burns them at the stake or a regime that outlaws relgious thought and replaces it with poverty and oppression, can humans ever have any ideals that we won't twist into an excuse to do the evil we often believe we can never do?
the internet is doing a good job of ridding us of superstition and bad religions. Be patient, it's a slow process. But it is certainly moving in the right direction at speeds never seen before. Forums like this show the vulnerability and weaknesses of religion.
Religions or faiths have been with humans for so much of our history who knows if we will ever be rid of it. Even though the internet is allowing some to leave, the majority of people in the world have some sort of faith or religion that they are passing on to their children. If humans are ever fully done with religions it will be long after we're gone
@ smiddy...
Um, isn't "Fact #2" actually a question?
:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
In answer to said question, though...
...it's because politicians want the votes of those people who cling to said ancient "pie-in-the-sky" belief systems.
the internet is doing a good job of ridding us of superstition and bad religions. Be patient, it's a slow process. But it is certainly moving in the right direction at speeds never seen before. Forums like this show the vulnerability and weaknesses of religion.
I agree. The market of ideas sometimes works slowly, but it gets there. Bottom line is: you cannot legislate faith away from ppl without creating a tyranny. It has been tried in the past with terrible results for basic human rights.
Besides that, (and I stress this is only my opinion) all religion is not completely bad for progress as most progressives claim. The belief in the freedom of the individual to seek happiness as a right handed to them by their creator, (see US constitution) has created systems that has allowed for more progress and advancement in the last few centuries than in all of human history combined. (compared to centralized ruling of monarchies and/or leftist/communist movements)
Your question might be alternatively phrased as, "We live in the 21st century; why do we still have six-year-olds?"
We are not all the same age, chronologically or experientially. It is not reasonable to expect OTHER PEOPLE to respond to things the same way YOU do.
Imagine that there is someone else - Carl Sagan, for example - who came to the same conclusion you did, but arrived there 20 years ahead of you. Are you willing to hoist yourself up for mockery because you failed to keep up with Carl Sagan? Of course not. So why should anyone else be hoisted because they failed to arrive at this destination at the same time you did?
Let the six-year-olds have their Santa Claus, their Easter Bunny, their risen Christ, their Buddha, their Shiva, Kali and Vishnu, even their Allah, as long as they're not killing all the other kids in the sandbox in his name.
"Allah-hu FUBAR!"
So, to answer your question, "When is the human race ever going to rid itself of pie in the sky beliefs?"
Not for a very long time, possibly never. Our Monkey brains came from the "half-price" counter at Radio Shack; there is only so much we can ask of them.
