God a figment of an evil imagination?

robindch

PDN wrote: »

I don't believe that religion is supposed to set up a political system or to control a society.

Historically, that's almost invariably what's happened. The structure is quite simple -- an administration needs two things: legitimation to convince the passive, and enforcement to pacify the active. Religion provides the legitimation, while the military provides the force, and the administration collects and distributes public resources to both, to maintain itself.

As Joyce put it:

James Joyce wrote:

O Ireland my first and only love
Where Christ and Caesar are hand and glove

PDN wrote: »

Speaking from personal experience, my Christian faith has certainly made me a better person and therefore more beneficial to others.

I don't believe that anybody has any problem with others believing what they want to, and attributing (or otherwise) personal improvement as they wish. If you've gained personally from believing one thing or another about Jesus, then few would pick a fault with you for doing so.

The issue comes when claims are made, and actions carried out, based upon these beliefs. Particularly the kind of unhappy and unthinking mass action that religion has an unfortunate habit of encouraging -- for example, that one that I mentioned earlier on today about AIDS orphans being prevented, on religious grounds, from learning about AIDS.

JimiTime

PDN wrote: »

I don't believe that religion is supposed to set up a political system or to control a society. Such moral monopolies tend to produce corruption and hypocrisy.

Speaking from personal experience, my Christian faith has certainly made me a better person and therefore more beneficial to others.

Wise words! I have had many conversations with people who just put a barrier up when mentioning anything spiritual. In these people, its categorically due to the obvious hypocricy and abuse of power religion has and is guilty of through the ages. They can't seem to fathom Christianity being any different from the institutions that have held its name through the years. Always saddens and frustrates me.

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote: »

Wise words! I have had many conversations with people who just put a barrier up when mentioning anything spiritual. In these people, its categorically due to the obvious hypocricy and abuse of power religion has and is guilty of through the ages. They can't seem to fathom Christianity being any different from the institutions that have held its name through the years. Always saddens and frustrates me.

Fools!

You should politely inform them that they are close minded idiots and that there is plenty in the Bible itself worthy of disdain and revulsion, without needing to even look at Christianity since the New Testament, if they are just willing to open their minds and accept the possibilities :pac:

Húrin

robindch wrote: »

What's wrong with them?

Prohitibion of any knowledge gained by means other than rationalism: "This principle in a strict sense rules out agnosticism. [and religion]"

"All beliefs must be founded on reason and human experience."

No justification for its claims
"All human beings are entitled to inalienable human rights such as those enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Silliness:
"H5. These rights inhere to humans from the time the human fetus becomes a viable biological entity capable of independent existence without physical or organic dependence on another human being."

I do not see how pro-abortion views can be a fundamental principle of an ethical system.

Contradiction:
"Humans do not have a right of dominion over animals and the environment, it being recognized that humans along with many other species of animals do change their environment by their very existence."

Rationalism is the cause of our ecological crises. Once divine authority is eradicated from nature, there is no discouragement from slashing and burning. To enthrone something as anthropocentric as rationalism is incompatible with harmonious living with the non-human world.

Arrogance:
"This rule does not mean that children should not be inculcated in ethical standards. But these should be a basic non-religious kind of ethical standards such as those that Humanists promote. "

Atheism claiming the objective high-seat at the table of philosophical discussion again.

"H10. There is no conclusive evidence that life exists after death so humans should exert themselves primarily in terms of their present life."
Demands materialism.

Mark Hamill

Now I'm not a humanist, but I'd wonder why you have a problem with some of these rules:

Húrin wrote: »

"All beliefs must be founded on reason and human experience."

Whats wrong with this? Imagine if everyone based their beliefs on what they experienced and on what they could reason from those experiences, as opposed to blindly following what others tell them?

Húrin wrote: »

No justification for its claims
"All human beings are entitled to inalienable human rights such as those enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Do you need a justification for this? Are there some people who, in your opinion, don't get these rights?

Húrin wrote: »

"H10. There is no conclusive evidence that life exists after death so humans should exert themselves primarily in terms of their present life."
Demands materialism.

Whats wrong with it "demanding materialism"? Spending your whole life living in terms of something that may or may not happen after you die seems like a waste of a life.