Religion is the root of all evil

[Sorrow]

I cannot agree with "Religion is the root of all evil." comment either. Even though belief systems sound ridiculous at times and have caused mostly agony and pain throughout history, we are now seeing the results of not having religion. Individuals are failing to develop moral values of their own which results in low-trust societies.

In my country most of people are Catholics and most of people that failed to develop moral values are Catholics, so it's not true.

 

[remake]

I haven't read all the posts yet BUT the medieval Muslim world was a highly developed civilised society...for it's time of course. The things you are saying are characteristic to the pre-Islamic Arabic culture which even if that was the case isn't quite true since they didn't bother cutting young girls clitorises but rather buried them alive.

I didn't use medieval in the way 'medieval' is being interpreted by you. I basically meant that the muslim world we know today seems pretty medieval in Western eyes. They do cut off clitorises and labia today, you know. And it's not even in the Quran.

The real medieval Muslim world was more civilized than the Muslim world is today, IMO.

Why didn't you say that before then brothhheeerrr?

I still support my idea of people not being able to develop moral values individually yet.

 

[remake]

I cannot agree with "Religion is the root of all evil." comment either. Even though belief systems sound ridiculous at times and have caused mostly agony and pain throughout history, we are now seeing the results of not having religion. Individuals are failing to develop moral values of their own which results in low-trust societies.

In my country most of people are Catholics and most of people that failed to develop moral values are Catholics, so it's not true.

Eh, that still doesn't say anything about the non-theists or non-believers though...

 

[alec]

This is what the mods/admins will say: don't double post.

Also:

we are now seeing the results of not having religion. Individuals are failing to develop moral values of their own which results in low-trust societies.

It's stupid to think that atheists wouldn't have any morals. I'm an atheist and although I'm not a model civilian, I do have morals. I grab a little bit of this and that philosophy, constructing my own ecclectic system, a set of rules I live by, making a clear distinction between good and evil, right and wrong. It's a looser system than what the Bible or the Quran or the I Ching dictates, but it works (most of the time). It's all about finding some sort of system that works for you, and since I don't want to be enslaved by another person's system, I've constructed my own. Atheists aren't bad people. In most cases, they're just people who cherish their individuality and freedom. Not wanting to belong to a group isn't a crime, it's a personal decision.

 

[remake]

I'm all for people constructing the sort of morals that fits them the best. I personally am like that too. But the fact that you and I do this doesn't mean the next guy on the street will be able to do this as well.

Ask yourself this question as a simple example though: why do drivers obey traffic rules? What is their priority? To not hurt pedestrians and other drivers or to not get a fine?

And since the whole strict moral system has been more or less removed from our lives it is evident that there are no taboos to control people's actions towards each other which results in a minor case of social captivity.

I just think that it is way too early to say that (the majority of) the people can chose their own definition of good and bad.

P.S: thanks for being the forum police and warning me about double posting.

 

[alec]

Ask yourself this question as a simple example though: why do drivers obey traffic rules? What is their priority? To not hurt pedestrians and other drivers or to not get a fine?

I'd say it depends on the driver. Some obey traffic rules, because - in most cases - traffic rules make sense.
Then again, a lot of them road warriors simply do it because they don't want to get a fine or land in jail. The young ones, the drunk drivers, the ones that need to get to gym right after work and don't have a minute to waste.
It's a stupid comparison in any case. Most if not all rules depend on scare tactics: if you don't do it like this, you'll get sanctioned. Same in religion: if you don't act like this, you'll go to hell. Believers don't fear the fine, they fear damnation.

And since the whole strict moral system has been more or less removed from our lives it is evident that there are no taboos to control people's actions towards each other which results in a minor case of social captivity.

The whole strict moral system has been more or less removed? What age are you living in? Compared with my early teen years, there are far more laws we have to live with nowadays. Freedom of speech has become a hoax, for instance. I hear all those politicians praise freedom of speech (especially now, close to election time), but freedom of speech does not exist anymore. If I were to write a book about that ludicrous stone in Mekka that gets muslims all exited, I would simply not find a publisher (while Flaubert was still able to criticize it). If I were to draw 200 cartoons about Mohammed, my publisher would not think twice, but a gazillion times before publishing it (if that ever would happen). These are sad times for freethinkers, who don't even want to offend other people or cultures, but simply want to speak their minds.
Try and make a joke about some guy in a wheelchair and tell it to your boss. Try to make a joke about blowing up a train with firecrackers yelling "Allah is great". It's just not done anymore. You get a fine if you do. You lose your job. People look weird at you. Or you get stabbed to death by some religious zealot. The moral system today is stricter than it ever was. Commercials are taken off the screen because they might offend someone. If Benetton did the same kind of commercials/billboards they did in the early nineties today, they'd go bankrupt in less than a month. The freedom we enjoy today is only a farce, a smokescreen. As long as politicians go on pretending it's genuine freedom, the herd will believe it. Comedy has been replaced by porn (it sells, look at MTV). Comedians are a dying breed. And so are freethinkers. How sad.

One of my heroes, Jules Feiffer, wrote/drew this in 1960. How true it is today.

 

[Dracon M'Alkir]

Morality is DNA-hard-coded.

Take this quick test if you think I'm full of shit:

1. There is a trolley running down a downward road, completely out of control. On it's current trajectory, it's going to run over and kill five innocent people. Directly next to you is a lever, that if you pull it - will cause the trolley to veer left and run over one person, but in the process saving the five innocent ones that were originally meant to be run over.

2. There are five dieing patients in a hospital, all that have failing organs, and without transplants, they will all die within the hour. In walks a healthy man, coming for an annual check up. You are the head of the medical staff, and your co-workers tell you that you can kill this innocent man, remove his organs in order to save the lives of the five other dieing patients.

Now:






Your first impulse without even THINKING about the problem, would be to pull the lever.

For the second problem, you chose NOT to kill the innocent person, to remove his organs and to save the lives of five others.

Both scenarios involve the one person being killed without their approval. Both scenarios are exactly the same, yet however you chose them in the following order.

You now have your solid state evidence proven by your own mind that morality is hard-coded in DNA.

If you need further proof, take animals in the wild for example, and their ecosystems. Why don't animals of the same species kill out their own species? Steal their neighbor's eggs? Vandalize other birds nests'? There's plenty of great examples.

 

[Sander]

Morality is DNA-hard-coded.

Take this quick test if you think I'm full of shit:

1. There is a trolley running down a downward road, completely out of control. On it's current trajectory, it's going to run over and kill five innocent people. Directly next to you is a lever, that if you pull it - will cause the trolley to veer left and run over one person, but in the process saving the five innocent ones that were originally meant to be run over.

2. There are five dieing patients in a hospital, all that have failing organs, and without transplants, they will all die within the hour. In walks a healthy man, coming for an annual check up. You are the head of the medical staff, and your co-workers tell you that you can kill this innocent man, remove his organs in order to save the lives of the five other dieing patients.

Now:






Your first impulse without even THINKING about the problem, would be to pull the lever.

For the second problem, you chose NOT to kill the innocent person, to remove his organs and to save the lives of five others.

Both scenarios involve the one person being killed without their approval. Both scenarios are exactly the same, yet however you chose them in the following order.

You now have your solid state evidence proven by your own mind that morality is hard-coded in DNA.

This is a faulty comparison. In the first example you are given no time to consider or even consult the people involved. You are also not asked to actively kill someone. In the second example you have to actively end someone's life without consulting them in any way.

Here's a better comparison: take your first example, then take a second example where you have to act quickly to kill a murderer before he kills more. Most people will kill the murderer.

 

[Dracon M'Alkir]

This is a faulty comparison. In the first example you are given no time to consider or even consult the people involved. You are also not asked to actively kill someone. In the second example you have to actively end someone's life without consulting them in any way.

Here's a better comparison: take your first example, then take a second example where you have to act quickly to kill a murderer before he kills more. Most people will kill the murderer.

The whole point was to make an instant moral judgement, and the answers that people automatically choose are just backing my point of that given any circumstance that requires a moral decision, many people will often follow an inner set of moral rules, even if they were never taught what the right thing is because morality is hard-coded into DNA.

 

[Sander]

The whole point was to make an instant moral judgement, and the answers that people automatically choose are just backing my point of that given any circumstance that requires a moral decision, many people will often follow an inner set of moral rules, even if they were never taught what the right thing is because morality is hard-coded into DNA.

This assumes that this moral judgement is not culturally based or taught. The only way that you could positively prove that this is somehow based in your genes is by taking people with *no* cultural background.
Here's a hint: those people don't exist.

Here's a clue that it's not based in DNA: mass-murderers exist.

 

[Dracon M'Alkir]

The whole point was to make an instant moral judgement, and the answers that people automatically choose are just backing my point of that given any circumstance that requires a moral decision, many people will often follow an inner set of moral rules, even if they were never taught what the right thing is because morality is hard-coded into DNA.

This assumes that this moral judgement is not culturally based or taught. The only way that you could positively prove that this is somehow based in your genes is by taking people with *no* cultural background.
Here's a hint: those people don't exist.

Here's a clue that it's not based in DNA: mass-murderers exist.

Right, but animals aren't culturally based or taught; you don't necessarily need to look at people only.

Mass murderers usually have something wrong with them that causes them go out and murder people, serious psychological issues that are usually because of, you guessed it.

 

[Sander]

Right, but animals aren't culturally based or taught; you don't necessarily need to look at people only.

Oh really? Do you honestly think that culture and environment in upbringing do not affect animals?
Because if you do, you're plain wrong.

 

[Jarno Mikkola]

Morality is DNA-hard-coded.

Take this quick test if you think I'm full of shit:

1. ...
2. ...

Well, in the first example, I wouldn't pull the swich. With an exception. And in the second I wouldn't kill the person. With the same exception. And the exception is, that my DNA wouldn't be on the veins of the people involved. Reason one; I wouldn't be prosecuted by the people involved. Or if I would be, it would be one againts one, not one vs. five. Do I need more. And to the second question, a second would be that the one that was more likelly to have productive life, and I would have had to swear the oath that says something along the, no harm, no foul.

 

[remake]

Ask yourself this question as a simple example though: why do drivers obey traffic rules? What is their priority? To not hurt pedestrians and other drivers or to not get a fine?

I'd say it depends on the driver. Some obey traffic rules, because - in most cases - traffic rules make sense.
Then again, a lot of them road warriors simply do it because they don't want to get a fine or land in jail. The young ones, the drunk drivers, the ones that need to get to gym right after work and don't have a minute to waste.
It's a stupid comparison in any case. Most if not all rules depend on scare tactics: if you don't do it like this, you'll get sanctioned. Same in religion: if you don't act like this, you'll go to hell. Believers don't fear the fine, they fear damnation.

And since the whole strict moral system has been more or less removed from our lives it is evident that there are no taboos to control people's actions towards each other which results in a minor case of social captivity.

The whole strict moral system has been more or less removed? What age are you living in? Compared with my early teen years, there are far more laws we have to live with nowadays. Freedom of speech has become a hoax, for instance. I hear all those politicians praise freedom of speech (especially now, close to election time), but freedom of speech does not exist anymore. If I were to write a book about that ludicrous stone in Mekka that gets muslims all exited, I would simply not find a publisher (while Flaubert was still able to criticize it). If I were to draw 200 cartoons about Mohammed, my publisher would not think twice, but a gazillion times before publishing it (if that ever would happen). These are sad times for freethinkers, who don't even want to offend other people or cultures, but simply want to speak their minds.
Try and make a joke about some guy in a wheelchair and tell it to your boss. Try to make a joke about blowing up a train with firecrackers yelling "Allah is great". It's just not done anymore. You get a fine if you do. You lose your job. People look weird at you. Or you get stabbed to death by some religious zealot. The moral system today is stricter than it ever was. Commercials are taken off the screen because they might offend someone. If Benetton did the same kind of commercials/billboards they did in the early nineties today, they'd go bankrupt in less than a month. The freedom we enjoy today is only a farce, a smokescreen. As long as politicians go on pretending it's genuine freedom, the herd will believe it. Comedy has been replaced by porn (it sells, look at MTV). Comedians are a dying breed. And so are freethinkers. How sad.

One of my heroes, Jules Feiffer, wrote/drew this in 1960. How true it is today.

Their reason to drive above the speed limit is not directly relevant as long as it is not a life or death matter. Which in most cases isnt. What matters is that such little things sometimes give hints about ones character, moral values.

I don't know. I have met many Muslims that accept a set of Muslim morals not because they are afraid of burning in hell, but because of their love of humanity which they found in religion or within themselves with the help of religion. My social circle in Turkey was full of non-Religious people that still (un)consciously followed Islam. I'm not talking about worshipping Allah, praying 5 times a day, or fasting during Ramadan. I'm talking about the essence of the whole thing it like a sense of collectivity, sharing, being modest etc... But maybe that has more to do with being spiritual than being Muslim.

So what I'm saying is you might be an atheist or a very sensible person that wants nothing to do with religion. You still DID inherit the Christian, Muslim, Jewish (pick your poison ) values from your environment. Even if not the practice, the essence of it. We are losing this inheritance and people are not exactly developing well-balanced morals to replace them. We are becoming more and more egoistic.

I am sure you could write a book criticising the Hajj and get it easily published. I don't know about a book insulting the Hajj though. That was the case with the cartoons; they were tacky and ignorant. Also the timing was really bad. I look nothing like a stereotypical "terrorist" and yet I get searched till my testicles every time I fly for the simple fact that I have a Turkish passport. There is a lot of prejudice towards the "Muslims". And that's why there was a good reason why the Muslim world reacted so heavily. I truly cant see how those cartoons could be related to anything that has to to with freedom of speech. The cartoonists were hardly freethinkers. They were mere puppets hired in to draw those cartoons. If freedom of speech means perpetuating this modern day witch-hunt and labelling every other guy with a beard a terrorist or a barbarian, or making fun of the only thing the very people you are killing in Iraq have, thanks I'll pass on it.

I believe freedom of speech to be something more noble than just hits below the belt.

Yes it is correct that post-modernism has been ruthless to the the MTV-kids whose brains soaked up the dominant culture they were force-fed like a sponge. Yet it has never been easy to access information. The "freedom" movements in the 3rd world countries have never been this big. In every book shop in Turkey (yes we have some of the most wicked laws against freedom of speech and yet...) there is a whole section filled with alternative magazines about politics, philosophy and art. I struggle to find such a big assortment of anti-... media even in big book stores that sell here in the Netherlands. It is not that our freedom is a hoax. It is just that we are not stimulated enough (by state, society, economy, friends, family, weather) to put our freedom to use. We have never been this free in the history of mankind to chose between freedom and comfort. It's all about the love of golden shackles baby.

 

[Starseeker]

Ask yourself this question as a simple example though: why do drivers obey traffic rules? What is their priority? To not hurt pedestrians and other drivers or to not get a fine?

I'd say it depends on the driver. Some obey traffic rules, because - in most cases - traffic rules make sense.
Then again, a lot of them road warriors simply do it because they don't want to get a fine or land in jail. The young ones, the drunk drivers, the ones that need to get to gym right after work and don't have a minute to waste.
It's a stupid comparison in any case. Most if not all rules depend on scare tactics: if you don't do it like this, you'll get sanctioned. Same in religion: if you don't act like this, you'll go to hell. Believers don't fear the fine, they fear damnation.

And since the whole strict moral system has been more or less removed from our lives it is evident that there are no taboos to control people's actions towards each other which results in a minor case of social captivity.

The whole strict moral system has been more or less removed? What age are you living in? Compared with my early teen years, there are far more laws we have to live with nowadays. Freedom of speech has become a hoax, for instance. I hear all those politicians praise freedom of speech (especially now, close to election time), but freedom of speech does not exist anymore. If I were to write a book about that ludicrous stone in Mekka that gets muslims all exited, I would simply not find a publisher (while Flaubert was still able to criticize it). If I were to draw 200 cartoons about Mohammed, my publisher would not think twice, but a gazillion times before publishing it (if that ever would happen). These are sad times for freethinkers, who don't even want to offend other people or cultures, but simply want to speak their minds.
Try and make a joke about some guy in a wheelchair and tell it to your boss. Try to make a joke about blowing up a train with firecrackers yelling "Allah is great". It's just not done anymore. You get a fine if you do. You lose your job. People look weird at you. Or you get stabbed to death by some religious zealot. The moral system today is stricter than it ever was. Commercials are taken off the screen because they might offend someone. If Benetton did the same kind of commercials/billboards they did in the early nineties today, they'd go bankrupt in less than a month. The freedom we enjoy today is only a farce, a smokescreen. As long as politicians go on pretending it's genuine freedom, the herd will believe it. Comedy has been replaced by porn (it sells, look at MTV). Comedians are a dying breed. And so are freethinkers. How sad.

One of my heroes, Jules Feiffer, wrote/drew this in 1960. How true it is today.

Welcome to China. The brainwashing is so complete the the people sanction themselves.

 

[Sorrow]

I'm talking about the essence of the whole thing it like a sense of collectivity, sharing, being modest etc...

I never experienced anything like this from Catholic religion. A bunch of assholes that would share one religion with me would still be a bunch of assholes that I don't want anything to do with.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

My 2 cents in here:

I see a lot of hate against organized religion. It's main goal in today's society is to give people with little social acceptance a place in a community that accepts all.

I think that the direct connection between the individual and God is something most religious people should strive for. Intermediaries always lose something on the way...

For anybody that does not beleive in a higher power, remain ignorant to the world around you. To think that evolution created such complex systems, the desire to be free, a sense of morals, the ability to feel, to create art, sexual desire and the thrill of meeting someone new and exploring their bodies, is a sign of lacking the very logic someone mentioned earlier.

 

[alec]

My 2 cents in here:

I see a lot of hate against organized religion. It's main goal in today's society is to give people with little social acceptance a place in a community that accepts all.

I think that the direct connection between the individual and God is something most religious people should strive for. Intermediaries always lose something on the way...

For anybody that does not beleive in a higher power, remain ignorant to the world around you. To think that evolution created such complex systems, the desire to be free, a sense of morals, the ability to feel, to create art, sexual desire and the thrill of meeting someone new and exploring their bodies, is a sign of lacking the very logic someone mentioned earlier.

Don't get me started. Please.

 

[Plasma-pip]

My 2 cents in here:

I see a lot of hate against organized religion. It's main goal in today's society is to give people with little social acceptance a place in a community that accepts all.

I think that the direct connection between the individual and God is something most religious people should strive for. Intermediaries always lose something on the way...

For anybody that does not beleive in a higher power, remain ignorant to the world around you. To think that evolution created such complex systems, the desire to be free, a sense of morals, the ability to feel, to create art, sexual desire and the thrill of meeting someone new and exploring their bodies, is a sign of lacking the very logic someone mentioned earlier.

1. The desire to be free is part of an innate arrogance that says "I'm better, so I'll do it myself." A system that has come out of the need for (gasp) natural selection!
2. Ability to feel, I don't know what exactly you're getting at other than our senses.
3. Create art, something that we must do to give ourselves a sense of accomplishment after we have fulfilled our basic needs.
4. Sexual desire, and how does nature not condition us to have babies?
5. Finding something new is part of learning, and if we could not learn at all we'd all be doing absolutely nothing. Learning is the very BASIS of evolution.

Now, tell me if I missed anything important.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Yes, you missed my whole point.

I was enciting you to think about *what* or *who* gave you all these traits, abilities, not *how* would you see them as.

Ability to feel, I don't know what exactly you're getting at other than our senses.

Love, hate, envy, jealousy, you know, what makes us human.

Sexual desire, and how does nature not condition us to have babies?

Babies? Haha, that's not why I want to have sex with most of the girls that I do.

Anyway, above the post you quoted, lies written "my 2 cents" and not "THE UNIVERSAL TRUTH", so please, treat it accordingly.