Religion poisons everything - Hitchens

I see that you're a newcomer. We've had a truckload of threads about religion here at babble ... so you might want to do a search and have a look at some of them. You might find that they cover some of the ground that you are interested in discussing.

You can look through past threads here at babble but there are also other ways to search.

One of the best way that I have found to do such a search is to go to google, go to advanced search, and type in [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble]www.rabble.ca/babble[/url] in one field and the keyword you are interested in in another field and go from there.

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hitchens raises an interesting idea about Jesus that I would have NEVER considered - that JC never existed!!

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It has been raised many times and exhaustively by Tom Harpur in [url=http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/p/pagan-christ.shtml]The Pagan Christ[/url].

I have little respect for Hitchens but I would disagree with the premise in your thread title. Religion, like an spiritual or political ideology, or even simply emotional state, merely provides a tool to exploit those easily led by those with toxic ideas.

Oh, don't just go away. That isn't how this works. Offer a retort. Don't piss me off.

Isn't there a logical fallacy in the assertion that religion, say, for example, Xianity, is based on earlier evolving myths (i.e. languages for expressing one's cultural contradictions) and then after we've established it to turn around and blame such a myth for poisoning those who chose to express themselves with it in the first place? If not logical fallacy, then a flash of neurosis.

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Religion, like an spiritual or political ideology, or even simply emotional state, merely provides a tool to exploit those easily led by those with toxic ideas.

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Like Babble. Fortunately, when all hell breaks loose on these boards and the namecalling starts, anyone who might have been brainwashed by someone here is scared away. LOL!

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In the past few years, there has been a big increase in religious exposure - on TV and so on - and this book was a welcome rebuttal to that. I am dismayed at the way religion has made a comeback, as the 21stC dawns. I was hoping for some enlightenment instead.

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Has it made a comeback... Or is it simply clashing more than it used to? I'm not entirely sure that a 'comeback in the 21st century' is an accurate description. There's been alot more active voices speaking out against it as far as I've noticed... Increased attention isn't a comeback.

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I was hoping to raise an intellectual discussion about how religion poisons everything.

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And I think we need to qualify that arguement to really continue... As FM much more elegantly states, relgion/spirituality tends to be a trait that is easily manipulated and swayed. If you are talking towards this manipulated section (I'll refer it to organized religion), then there is alot to cover. I would caution against labelling all spirituality under the same blanket umbrella as (I think) Hitchens has in his book.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies the 1997 book by Jared Diamond, gives credit to Christianity for establishing a basis in personal rights that enabled individual industriousness in europe, pre-renaissance.

Then during the renaissance, the church caved on its own principles and allowed venture capitalism, and it's a tick of the clock to where we are today...

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Originally posted by Michael Hardner:
[b]Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies the 1997 book by Jared Diamond, gives credit to Christianity for establishing a basis in personal rights that enabled individual industriousness in europe, pre-renaissance.

Then during the renaissance, the church caved on its own principles and allowed venture capitalism, and it's a tick of the clock to where we are today...[/b]

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I believe Diamonds' ass is sucking wind in this book for the most part, and that he gives too little credit to people deciding to empower themselves, as opposed to the "church allowing" anything.

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Originally posted by sknguy:
[b]To simply say that religion "poisons everything" is a rather calculated reasoning for why humans do, what humans do. If you enter into the act of arguing over religion, then your simply exposing some human vulnerability. We could lash out at the threats around us by branding them heretical. But is that simply us manipulating religion, and not religion manipulating us. Are we as individuals coerced by religion? Or are we coercing religion?

Human vulnerability hides in the many things we do and believe. I simply see that humans use religion as an excuse for conflict, not a reason. I think stopping an examination of the “poisoning of everything” at religion would never really be address the dynamics of human needs.[/b]

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I agree. Religion usually serves the interestes of the powerful, regardless of what the holy book may say. Hitchens is likely off on the wrong track as usual. Militant atheism seems very theological often times.

Blaming evil on the devil differs little from saying religion is the devil.

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Originally posted by Noah_Scape:
[b]Its a telling sign of the times - still - that I feel hesitant to start this thread, for fear of being hated.

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The times in which you're afraid of your own shadow?

Atheists, and/or those who question religion are NOT an embattled minority, despite the pleas of the narcissist humanists doing their best impersonations of Elijah screaming from their imagined wildernesses.

When was the last time a Heathen or Heretic was burned at your local stake?

[ 01 November 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

Yeah, I think organized religion is a very useful vehicle for those who seek to dominate, those who seek that level of corruption which comes from unaccountable power, as well as the merely venal, but without it they'd pop up elsewhere else from politics to being network TV executives.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela went out of his way to thank the South African churches, that raised their voices against Apartheid when all other voices were silenced, upon his release from jail after almost 30 years of imprisonment. It's a mixed bag of positives and negatives.

Welcome, Noah. You have come to the right place.

I have just two short chapters to go on "God is not Great", before it joins "The God Delusion" on my bookshelf, where it should be sitting next to "The Demon Haunted World" except the later is on loan at the moment.

Hitchen's central point is not much different than what I have been saying for years. In the various scriptures can be found justification for whatever horrid behavior, whatever crime one wants to commit against one's fellow citizen. And this is why the key to human survival certainly does not lie with non-secular governments.

But for all that, I found Hitchens tedious in much of his stuff-- but maybe I was not the intended audience for much of it. It's a good book though, and Hitchens touches on many subjects that deserve to be books by themselves.

Reading through this thread earlier this morning, it put me in mind of another book I read many years ago: Isaac Asimov's "Guide to the Old Testament". There is also a "Guide to the New Testament", and a book released in the 1980's combining the two.

I suspect they might be hard to find, now. I found the "Guide to the Old Testament" at the library, so I do not have it to refer to at the moment.

But it seems to my memory that Asimov's more academic style, with no current political overtones does more damage to the position of religion than do Dawkins or Hitchens.

But they write in more desperate times.

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Being a boomer gen, I have the "great generation" hanging over my head, and there really is hatred [or is it fear?] of athiesm there.

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Interesting. It was "The Great Generation", and I believe my parents to be very typical amoung them, who were raised on fire and brimstone, where the Sabbath was the Sabbath, and everyone had to conform. True for my father, born, raised and buried here in London, and true for my mother, raised Anglican in a mill town outside Manchester, England.

But it was this generation, after the war, who did not require their kids to go to church. In fact, they turned their backs on organized religion to a degree greater than we boomers, or gen x'ers.

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You are good critics, and I thank you for your clarity, but there is a threat when faith goes too far, and gets into areas of reality like environment and sex, am I right on that?

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Well, I am so far a cult of one on this, but I have gone further to say that, at some point, religious devotion becomes a mental disorder, and that the world would be safer if it was treated as such.

I always thought that class consciousness was, in simple terms, knowing what side of the fence you're on. Of course, it's no accident that a great deal of intellectual effort is expended on denying that social class exists at all ... so it's hardly surprising that many are unclear on the concept.

A more appropriate example would be market idolatry. Its advocates openly acknowledge that it is an article of faith.

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Despite this, many economists still think that electricity deregulation will work. A product is a product, they say, and competition always works better than state control.
"I believe in that premise as a matter of religious faith," said Philip J. Romero, dean of the business school at the University of Oregon and one of the architects of California's deregulation plan.
--New York Times, February 4, 2001

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I got the quote from an essay by Thomas Frank, [i]The God That Sucked.[/i]

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
[b]I always thought that class consciousness was, in simple terms, knowing what side of the fence you're on. Of course, it's no accident that a great deal of intellectual effort is expended on denying that social class exists at all ... so it's hardly surprising that many are unclear on the concept. [/b]

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I am aware and versed in the concept of class consciousness and I do not believe it exists, I believe it is a created mythos to foster peoples ego and for control over others.

Its not incoherent to say class conciousness does not exist. It's refutation of the idea, as functional in society.

Fine. What's the purpose of a trade union? What interests do trade unionists have in common that there would be laws to regulate their functioning, the interactions between these organizations and the organizations of bosses? I suppose it's all just a misunderstanding and people who belong to trade unions don't really have any interests in common.

Like I said. asldfkjalsdfjqwrsdfadf.

oh boy, the plot thickens:
he has a longtime feud w. Dawkins and, Canadian content alert!, he taught at York:

from Amazon reader reviews:
[i]Anthony Flew was a hardcore atheist and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Keele for twenty years and upon his retirement, Flew took up a half-time post for a few years at York University, Toronto.

Flew said : I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction." wrote Flew. He blames his error on being "misled" by Richard Dawkins, claiming Dawkins "has never been reported as referring to any promising work on the production of a theory of the development of living matter" .

This is a story of a brilliant mind and reasoned thinker, and where his lifelong intellectual pursuit eventually led him: belief in God as designer. [/i]

[ 02 November 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
[QB]Religion does poison everything because it seeks, often quite successfully, to legitimize irrational thoughts and actions.

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Religion doesn't do this, PEOPLE do this. It's nice to conceive of a mind free from the fetters of irrational thoughts, haphazard emotions, the nagging wants of the body which drive us hither and yon, but no such human being exists. The average psychology is a maelstrom of conflicting desires, hastily drawn conclusions and half-baked (and nearly impervious) justifications for why we're all normal and we have it all under control.

Sorry Tommy, commonplace religion ain't the problem, it's the symptom and merely a tool in the hands of a deeply irrational being. Atheists are no less likely to be lead around by irrational impulses; though they usually talk a very good game about how they're well-reasoned and logical. Many people have simply lost the plot and assume that their "head brain" always runs the show, even if it's often the last to the party. If it's invited at all. Often our head brain is like those people who tell you they were at the first Blue Jays game. All 3 or 4 million of them.

And what's so illegitimate about irrational thoughts and actions, Tommy? I sure hope you don't try employing rational thoughts the next time someone fires a puck at your jockstrap.

You're conflating "irrational" with "bad". Is that necessarily the case?

[ 02 November 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
[b]

But it seems to my memory that Asimov's more academic style, with no current political overtones does more damage to the position of religion than do Dawkins or Hitchens. [/b]

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By making the same mistake they do: taking religious text at immediately apparent face value and refuting it based on factual claims. In essence, by applying an unsympathetic literalist reading to a largely metaphorical and allegorical document and saying "see, it's nonsense..." without any regard to the possible (and likely intended) layers of meaning contained within.

Take the Freemasons as an example. Say what you will about them, but in the 33 Chapters of the Gospels (hence the 33 degrees) they claim there exists an allegorical key to finding a new way of conducting one's self in life - both inside and outside. As an example, the "death and resurrection" is a spiritual path that each one of us may undertake, not a supernatural event. Doubtlessly, this interpretation is understood by meditating Jesuits and Benedictines all over.

To argue that THAT isn't true, Asimov, Hitchens, and the Dawkins would have to have at the very least a) "correctly" read the allegory and b) attempted its prescriptions. They haven't.

To me, they do little more than kick down scarecrows. If they're claim is only that the New Testament is not [i]on its face[/i] a scientific treatise, then fair enough. Gotz me?!?! No argument. But that's like claiming that Shakespeare's plays are not scientific treatises. I doubt you'd find anyone to disagree, but the argument that the documents themselves are therefore useless, and without strong and intentional meaning for the various situations we humans find ourselves in, is a different argument altogether.

By failing to truly scientifically examine the possible meanings (isn't it "science" to try and account for all possibilities/probabilities of a phenomenon) in the text, let alone do the empirical work necessary to verify the content as useful or not, they've done themselves, science, and "religion" a disservice. They may have successfully refuted the claims of literalist religionists everywhere, but that's child's play. It's always been the deeper meanings inscribed into religious text that beg our close reading and attention. Funnily enough, it's the pernicious influence of modern literalism that has obscured these meanings both for believer and critic alike. We seem unable to read/think in more than one register.

Tom Harpur's rejoinder to those who remain skeptical of Jesus of Nazareth's existence is poignant: What does it matter if he did or didn't? That's not what's at issue. It is the Metaphor that is the Matter. Literally.

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[b]But they write in more desperate times.[/b]

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Is that you Elijah? The times are always desperate. We're all going to die any moment now.

[ 02 November 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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Originally posted by B.L. Zeebub LLD:
[b]The notion that the individual is ultimately morally responsible for their choices was in large part nurtured by Catholic dogma. Oddly, it was Protestants who went for the "predestined" nonsense.[/b]

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Thing is, if you accept the premise that God is omniscient, I don't know how you can avoid predestination. It's just that Calvin was the only theologian with the intellectual honesty to recognize that.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
[b]Fine. What's the purpose of a trade union?
What interests do trade unionists have in common that there would be laws to regulate their functioning, the interactions between these organizations and the organizations of bosses? I suppose it's all just a misunderstanding and people who belong to trade unions don't really have any interests in common. [/b]

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Interests in common, do not a class system make.

For example, we will take 2 bars that were in one city I lived in, both had excellent bands and a large cliental.

One was, considered "low class" the other "high class".

What were the people doing at each of them?

Drinking, doing rails on the bathroom toilet tanks, looking to pick up a fuck buddie for the night, listening to the music and dancing.

The only difference was, the people in one were wearing designer clothes, leather coats and shoes and pretending they were better than "those others" at the other bar. A "higher" class in other words.

When in fact, there was no difference in their pursuits at all.