Doc Dutch (06-05-2021)
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Doc Dutch (06-05-2021)
When my late husband was in the ICU on life support, one of the medical staff asked if we wanted to speak with someone in pastoral care. Being pretty shell-shocked at the time I said okay. They sent the hospital priest (it was a Catholic hospital). There is something wonderful about hospital priests; they are far more open-minded than their brethren in churches. I told him that we weren't Catholic or Christian; in fact we were pagan. He just smiled and said "We Christians like to believe that we have the only path to Heaven. There are many paths." When I told him that my late husband always told me that he'd save me a seat on the bus to Hell, he laughed and said he wished he could have met him.
"Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals." -- Mark Twain
Point of order: Religions are tools. The Bible never did anything except sit on a table. It's People who do all the nasty shit in the world.
It was human leaders who ordered the Crusades, it was human leaders who came up with "Manifest Destiny", it's humans who burned books and murdered millions of their fellow human beings, not "religion".
"Hatred is a failure of imagination" - Graham Greene, "The Power and the Glory"
Cypress (06-05-2021), ThatOwlWoman (06-05-2021)
Doc Dutch (06-05-2021)
"Hatred is a failure of imagination" - Graham Greene, "The Power and the Glory"
Doc Dutch (06-05-2021), ThatOwlWoman (06-05-2021)
Now we're teetering on the edge of the very similar discussion that starts with "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
The fact is that without guns far less ppl would be being killed. Without religion the same is true. We can also point out the downsides of not having guns or not having religion.
"Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals." -- Mark Twain
Cypress (06-05-2021)
Cypress (06-05-2021)
The entire chapter is an interesting conversation in context. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage...18&version=NIV
The abridged version:
31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”
“But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected. 32 This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.
33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.
"Hatred is a failure of imagination" - Graham Greene, "The Power and the Glory"
ThatOwlWoman (06-05-2021)
In my opinion, it is probably difficult and takes enormous commitment to be a good, pious, devout Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or Sikh.
Whatever we think about Jesus, Siddhartha Guatama, or Muhammad, the expectations they laid out for consistently living an authentic, meaningful, and ethical life takes remarkable commitment, when you think about it.
Doc Dutch (06-05-2021), ThatOwlWoman (06-05-2021)
Are you saying religion, books, guns and other inanimate objects kill people without human involvement?
Putting guns aside for the moment, if religions didn't exist, people would invent them. Why?
Regardless of Voltaire's thoughts on the subject, human beings do have a spiritual side in addition to their physical and psychological components.
The major problem, of course, is that the physical components are easily quantified, the psychological less so and the spiritual nearly impossible to do so.
Nonetheless, try as they might for five decades, the Totalitarian Socialists of the USSR and PRC** were unable to stamp out religion. Again, why? IMO, it's because spirituality is an essential component human beings. The only way to eliminate spirituality is to eliminate the human beings. That's been tried too.
**The PRC is still trying to do so, notably with the Falun Gong.
"Hatred is a failure of imagination" - Graham Greene, "The Power and the Glory"
Gods are man-made constructs to explain to the superstitious those things that science does not yet understand, and to create an afterlife to address their fear of mortality. Religion is a logical result of belief in Gods and the need to placate the powerful by worshipping them. Both have done far more harm than good. The fact is that Gods have been the explanation for many phenomenon that science now easily explains. Thunder is not Thor's hammer. An eclipse is not a dragon swallowing the sun. Every time religion says that God is right there under that rock, we turn the rock over and find science. EVERY SINGLE TIME. No exceptions.
A world without religion would be a far better world. As science expands our knowledge, we have less and less need for religion and Gods. Can I get an amen?
Agreed. The problem in the United States is that unregulated capitalism ramps up consumerism and fosters greed. "Greed is Good"..which in the US often means "Greed is God". Obviously this is completely contrary to what Jesus preached and why many Christians consider "Prosperity Christianity" to be blasphemy.
"Hatred is a failure of imagination" - Graham Greene, "The Power and the Glory"
Cypress (06-05-2021)
The early Xtian leaders were skilled at adopting local religious festivals and practices into their own worship, in order to attract more believers. It worked very well. We can still see the echoes of pagan ritual and liturgy and holidays in Christian practice today.
"Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals." -- Mark Twain
Cypress (06-05-2021), Phantasmal (06-05-2021)
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