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Again what about this...
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Because it doesn't. Because you're wrong. Because people's religions are inherited from their parents, in case you hadn't noticed, except for the tiny minority who go searching around, or the social cataclysms where one culture conquers and crushes another. People don't go around saying, "oh, they get to drink the wine during communion, as opposed to just the priest - that's the church I've been looking for!"
It's a waste of time and energy to debunk these things. It doesn't speak to the social and political role that religion plays, and it doesn't recognize how religion is acquired and perpetuates itself in the society.
Excelent!
ETA: I'm boycotting those Olympics.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]
As far for understanding that's why I'm asking questions. I totally get the initial health and environmental explanation part. There was also possibly another factor that pigs need a lot of water resources to raise. I wrote a paper on it years and years ago in an ecological anthropology class. There are many other examples of not just Jewish things that were likely no more then environmental in origin, that for the context of the time and region made sense and got elevated into something holy and religious. The same pattern happens with secular social beliefs as well. Something about human nature in this imo.
My question was directly about the jump to modern times as to why something that likely was good public health measure as well as generally good environmentally for the time which is not necessarily the case now would still be warranted in a theological sense, which you seemed to have answered here. I'm not trying to justify it one way or another, just asking for the modern reasoning so I can better understand it.
As I said before, in my experience I've actually seen such explanations as having quite the opposite effect with people in their 'religious' life. Whether it was "God" who said it as an expression of love or just simply a cultural thing that morphed into coming from "God" it's becomes something that was part of that time and simply not relevant now. So I suppose then it really depends on the person or people listening to it now.
[This is a little like dodging a peashooter.]
ElizaQ, that's an example, there are lots like that. Please understand that the Jewish approach to biblical texts is a lot less "spiritual" than the Protestant approach to the Gospels. So perhaps I left a wrong nuance by using the word "spirit". For us Jews, even spirit is quite material. Jesus emphasized faith over works, as his counterpoint to the Jewish orthodoxy of the time. Jews don't negate faith, but its role is far lower on the salvation totem pole. Learning, faith, and deeds are the keys to heaven.
Not trying to shoot anything here. Just asking for better understanding. Thank you for elaborating.
Also just to point out a little niggly detail, no need to go off on a tangent here though, is that the whole Jesus emphasizing 'faith over works' was and still is debated amongst those of a theological Christian bent. Definitely no overall conscensus on that issue.
Again what about this ...
Not having seen the Coyote quote in context, I can't be sure of its meaning but I probably agree with it, more or less. I think religion is almost always a legitimation of social arrangements and projects. But sometimes it's a fierce critic; sometimes it advocates a different world. My beliefs are pinned on those times.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]
Not that William of Ockham would buy that himself, but it's a nice graphic. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
It can be reviewed in the last thread, in full. Not much more to it than that, but it was a good point.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]
That's not really consistent with a more moderated approach to religion that Cue has been defending here.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
I would for example point to the rather peculiar convolutions that resulted in the creation of modern Turkey as an example of this process. Much of the state structure was modified from within. Much of the English "revolution" seems in hindsight to have been evolutionary, and also managed by forces already existent in the state, and among the elite.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]
I wasn't referring to you. I was trying to dodge the disruptive one-line posts of someone else. Sorry if that wasn't clear - scroll back up and it will be.
It was more of a question if you were a "fundamental change" type.
Yea, Turkey is a fascinating study in secularism and Islam.
Why? From a religious perspective debunking the small things, things which I feel are inconsequential, and in a sense easier to in a sense 'give up' or see differently can and does make it easier to debunk interpretations that have led to exactly some of these larger and more widespread bigger issues that you lay out here. I've seen it happen with people. Ever seen a literalist dogmatic crumble? I have. It started small with the small, 'head of the pin' type arguments and went from there.
In some cases questioning the small things can lead to questioning or at least being more open to questioning the bigger things.
I've said this before - and I'm open to being convinced - but I really need at least one convincing example of what you mean. I've tried to give several examples of how I approach the effects of religion (as contrasted with its origins).
I suspect that we'd get back to Engels' and Cueball's argument that it's a secondary concern in a big hurry.
I have certainly changed my own views - so I've been convinced partly by other people and partly by myself.
I have no idea what you mean by "fundamental views". I grew up with friends and classmates who belonged to religious families and received religious parochial educations. Most of the ones I know today are agnostics or atheists or skeptics - whether or not they have maintained some cultural attachments. We did a lot of convincing of each other that it was all BS, in the final analysis. Mind you, the fact that our religious education was wrapped up with Zionism made it (for some) easier to see through both.
Turns out I was right on that.
Speaking of "state smashing" that is another thing that is so fascinating about that bit from Engels Anti-Durhing, I like to quote:
Remind was quite right to point out that Engels is really not specific on what the "social act" was to be. Where is the "state smashing" here? I find the way the "material" condition is presented as so fundamental to defining the human conceptions of the world really fascinating, because it implies a motivational conundrum.
Myself, I think, if materialists are going to argue that religion is definintive, they naturally have to drop the purely materialist conception presented here by Engels, and start analysing how ideas have agency in the discourse. But then that would require abandoning a purely materialist method, and then as a consequence, remobilize the metaphyscial forces they seek to squelch.
Its a toughie no doubt.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]
I'm just sayin' ...
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
I actually have no idea what point you're making here. Was someone arguing against the use of rational arguments?
If Engels wrote after Marx's analysis of the Paris Commune, in which Marx came to the conclusion that the working class couldn't simply "take control" of the old, bourgeois state apparatus but had to, rather, "smash" it and create a new state, then I think he just assumed the conclusions of his friend without actually spelling them out.
That's a pretty rigid version of materialism there. I don't think that's a fair representation of the mature views of Marx and Engels. Georgi Plekhanov had a lot to say about this subject as well.
I agree.
On the face of it, religion did not just wither away, nor is it any less present today, regardless of the appearance of rationalism.
[ 27 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]