Religion...Bitch slapped...

POSTED BY: kaneman
UPDATED: Saturday, March 28, 2026 18:57
VIEWED: 9073
PAGE 6 of 10

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE

CAUSAL

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 5:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Sorry Causal, I'm going to temporarily derail this just a bit. Are there any Hindus on the board ? I think religions reflect the society in which they were formed. I occurred to me that Hindusim was formed in a severe society. Look at it this way. If the threat you hold over people is death, but the circumstances are such that death might actually be nice, what can you do? You claim that even death isn't a release from pain - it goes on, and on, and on until you're good enough to get off the wheel of life. What do you think ?

Well, I certainly agree that religions are significantly formed by the cultural context from which they sprang. But again, this doesn't mean that they're all purely human artifacts. Some seem to transfer pretty well transculturally (I think specifically of the three monotheistic religions, and possibly also of Buddhism). So while I agree that they have characteristics of their parent culture, what do you make of the fact that some of them perform so well transculturally?

________________________________________________________________________

- Grand High Poobah of the Mythical Land of Iowa, and Keeper of State Secrets
- Captain, FFF.net Grammar Police

CAUSAL

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 5:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Causal- Quite the opposite. Religious beliefs can be wholly internally consistent. I'm not sure I'm getting your point.

Haven't got one per se. But given that a Christian (for instance) believes that the Bible is true, and not chock-full of errors, I don't see how a person's thinking could be internally consistent if, as you say, the Bible is error-ridden.

________________________________________________________________________

- Grand High Poobah of the Mythical Land of Iowa, and Keeper of State Secrets
- Captain, FFF.net Grammar Police

SIGNYM

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 5:55 PM

I said that religions COULD be internally consistent. I didn't say that this particular religion was.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

RUE

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 5:59 PM

"what do you make of the fact that some of them (religions) perform so well transculturally?"

1) The social dynamics that caused them to be formed are still around today. 2) Religions evolve with society. 3) Monotheistic religions have a survival advantage over polytheistic ones.

added:

1) As society went from nomadic gatherers to settled farmers, religions went from goddess and nature worship to monotheistic male-god centered. This major transition is when many of the world's great religions were formed.

2) Religions don't exist outside of society. They are intentionally fostered and maintained by the power elite who have an active interest in keeping them socially viable. In addition you have sects forming to deal with social changes when the religion fails to be adapted. So Catholicism, which was so well melded with feudal society, birthed 'Protestantism' which addressed the rise of Capitalism.

3) It's far easier to go from believing in many gods to one god, than from one god to many.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

SIGNYM

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 6:25 PM

I think it's interesting that monotheism tends to develop at about the same time as centralized governments. In general, religions tended to follow social development: multiple natural gods for hunting and gathering societies, polytheism for tribal societies in contact with each other, goddesses in matriarchies, and monotheism when tribes are consolidated under a central government. There are all sorts of transitional forms, and the replacement of one religion by another is even encapsulated as myths of warring gods.

...And I see I x-posted with Rue's addendum, saying basically the same thing. Rue has studied religions more than I. And I... I think I've picked on Anti too much and I've had enough yakking about religion to last me for a few days.

Carry on...
---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

BIGDAMNNOBODY

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 7:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
And I... I think I've picked on Anti too much and I've had enough yakking about religion to last me for a few days.

How about communism?

SIGNYM

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 7:21 PM

Oh, OK. As I understand it, Engels, Marx, and Lenin saw "the State" as inevitably imposing an unfair power structure on workers, hence the famous quote about the state withering away under communism. I suppose in a sense you could say that Marx, Lenin, and Engels were some form of anarchist.

The proletariat seizes state power, and then transforms the means of production into state property. But in doing this, it puts an end to itself as the proletariat, it puts an end to all class differences and class antagonisms, it puts an end also to the state as the state. Former society, moving in class antagonisms, had need of the state, that is, an organisation of the exploiting class at each period for the maintenance of its external conditions of production; therefore, in particular, for the forcible holding down of the exploited class in the conditions of oppression (slavery, bondage or serfdom, wagelabour) determined by the existing mode of production. The state was the official representative of society as a whole, its embodiment in a visible corporate body; but it was this only in so far as it was the state of that class which itself in its epoch, represented society as a whole: in ancient times, the state of the slaveowning citizens; in the Middle Ages, of the feudal nobility; in our epoch, of the bourgeoisie. When ultimately it becomes really representative of society as a whole, it makes itself superfluous. As soon as there is no longer any class of society to be held in subjection; as soon as, along with class domination and the struggle for individual existence based on the former anarchy of production, the collisions and excesses arising from these have also been abolished, there is nothing more to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/lenin-staterev.html

There was to be some form of proletarian state as a transition to communism but the extended existance of Statism as practiced by the USSR, China, and Cuba, was not anticipated by the theory of communism. Although I suppose it should have been.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

BIGDAMNNOBODY

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 7:57 PM

So 'pure' communism is not achieveable, much like 'pure' capitalism. Us humans always find a way to muck things up.

RUE

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 7:59 PM

My understanding was that communism would be a product of evolution, not revolution. The countries cited above tried to instill it rather than wait for it to appear.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

MALBADINLATIN

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 9:17 PM

Dude! Great work! You have started another classic intellectual food fight. I bet your just sitting back and watching the fur fly huh. I'm not touching this one, I'm on the fence and people on fences get rocks thrown at them from both sides.

If you're not on Malbadinlatin's side, you're with the terrorists.

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE