Originally posted by Omega VisionThat's still not an answer to my question. I want actual examples of religious practices that in your view don't cause harm and can be tolerated, not propaganda videos, generalizations, and more irrelevant quotes.
Just reverse what those clips show and you would have what I can tolerate and what would be good for religions.
No killing of gays, no brainwashing children and no self delusion by belief in fantasy, miracles and magic.
Regards
DL
Originally posted by Oliver North
DL: what does a good person do to fight the evil in Syria?
Put an end to Islam and all the Abrahamic cults.
Many are working on that from both without and within.
Everyone who asks a question contributes to the downfall of religions.
Everyone who answers a question truthfully contributes to the downfall of religions.
Regards
DL
Originally posted by Oliver North
and this would help how?
If I have to tell you then you would not understand.
These might jog something though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c0RFxXrYzg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqN8EYIIR3g&feature=related
Regards
DL
Originally posted by Greatest I am
If I have to tell you then you would not understand.These might jog something though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c0RFxXrYzg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqN8EYIIR3g&feature=related
Regards
DL
do you actually think the Syrian conflict is religious at its origins?
Originally posted by Oliver North
well, to be clear, what you mean by "societal enlightenment" is really "societal norms". And you are right, if the societal norms don't include some degree of a particular ideology, it is unlikely that more extreme versions of that ideology would flourish (even though they don't particularly flourish anyways).But I think the crux of our disagreement is that imho removing religion merely changes the things extremists are extreme about and which behaviours or groups of people they target. The issue to me is much more about the psychology of people who become extremists. Something like a low tolerance for ambiguity and a high need for primary control might produce an extremist in any context. It isn't something that is fed by the people with higher tolerance or lower need for control, it comes down to how individuals are able to make sense of themselves in the world. A moderate Christian isn't facilitating the extremist one in any way other than maybe allowing for the extremist to be a Christian, rather than some other type of extremist.
I have more broader issues with wanting the end of religion, but here specifically, it seems like targeting specific individuals with specific cognitive strategies that promote extremist thinking would be far more effective than removing religion.
An old-ish discussion, but I missed this reply.
You have a point, and I won't disagree on the psychological underpinnings of many extremists as opposed to religious ones. What I could probably still assert is that it gives the extremes ("10's" in my earlier example) a platform from which to gather others. There's probably a lot of hateful 8's and 9's that are only so because they found an environment accepting of their prejudices, and a handful of extremist 10's goading them on from, in this case, a religious pulpit.
Religion is one of the best accomplices to this sort of thing. Not the only one, mind you...politics, social causes, etc. And I guess I just don't accept that there are entire tribes or sects of psychologically pre-destined extremists, and instead see it as the psychologically imbalanced few leading on the sheltered and ignorant many. It creates a trend where only case studies would exist otherwise.
Which still turns my argument on its head a bit, because then it's not the many supporting the extremist few but the reverse. But I do think there's still something to be said for the religious environment breeding hatred, or exacerbating evils that would otherwise be quite isolated or benign.
Originally posted by Oliver North
so like, I understand how I fall into your category of "agnostic", I just wonder why you think that is a meaningful place to put me when I not only don't identify with the term, I would actively say I am not an agnostic.Like, I get my own bias might be to an individual's own definition of their identity, but what value is a system that classifies people according to definitions they don't agree with? Like, what value is there to your system that calls me an agnostic?
It seems almost akin to someone insisting that transgendered people have the same gender as the sex they were born into, not the gender they feel or experience the world as. Like, maybe in terms of self identity, we need to come up with something akin to the sex/gender dichotomy that exists in biology, but even still, I would question the use of such a strict and inflexible system.
Dudemon's definition of agnostic is incredibly broad. He's tried to call me one too.