Review:[quote]
Hitchens, one of our great political pugilists, delivers the best of the recent rash of atheist manifestos. The same contrarian spirit that makes him delightful reading as a political commentator, even (or especially) when he’s completely wrong, makes him an entertaining huckster prosecutor once he has God placed in the dock. And can he turn a phrase!: “monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents.” Hitchens’s one-liners bear the marks of considerable sparring practice with believers. Yet few believers will recognize themselves as Hitchens associates all of them for all time with the worst of history’s theocratic and inquisitional moments. All the same, this is salutary reading as a means of culling believers’ weaker arguments: that faith offers comfort (false comfort is none at all), or has provided a historical hedge against fascism (it mostly hasn’t), or that “Eastern” religions are better (nope). The book’s real strength is Hitchens’s on-the-ground glimpses of religion’s worst face in various war zones and isolated despotic regimes. But its weakness is its almost fanatical insistence that religion poisons “everything,” which tips over into barely disguised misanthropy.[/quote] amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Rel … 0446579807
I’m reading this book now, and oddly enough this comes up:
[quote]Here are six of the more striking jihadi tenets, as militant Islamists describe them:
[quote]
During some of the Ghazawat of the Prophet a woman was found killed. Allah’s Apostle disapproved the killing of women and children.”
But militant Islamists including extremists in Jordan who embrace Al Qaeda’s ideology teach recruits that children receive special consideration in death. They are not held accountable for any sins until puberty, and if they are killed in a jihad operation they will go straight to heaven. There, they will instantly age to their late 20s, and enjoy the same access to virgins and other benefits as martyrs receive.[/quote]
One of the things Hitchens says in his book is that literature gives him the same spiritual uplift that the books of god(s) give believers.
I don’t understand why highly educated, intelligent people believe that there is something as a ‘God’ … even when they see that ‘God’ is abused to misinform and kill people …
If certain elements abuse God then how would this prove or indicate that he doesn’t exist? I mean it’s hardly the fault of a believer if some fanatic idiots claim to kill in the name of (their) god. Anyone can claim to do something for any reason, but it doesn’t mean he/she is right.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in god myself and I think the world would be better without any religion at all * (though then again people would probably find other reasons to fight over) but I just don’t understand the reasoning behind your argument.
I guess I should quickly add that this is obviously not going to happen and I have no problem with people practizing their religion as long as it does not bother and harm others.
[quote]
The Dean of Manchester Cathedral, the Very Reverend Rogers Govender, added the game was “undermining” the work of the church.
"We are shocked to see a place of learning, prayer and heritage being presented to the youth market as a location where guns can be fired.
"This is an important issue. For many young people these games offer a different sort of reality and seeing guns in Manchester Cathedral is not the sort of connection we want to make.
“Every year we invite hundreds of teenagers to come and see the cathedral and it is a shame to have Sony undermining our work.” [/quote]
If they want more teens there, they should hold a lazer tag event in the church.
BP, mankind has corrupted everything it has ever touched. Not every person, of course, but I doubt there is an uncommitted sin or offense out there. People do evil things for love, money, Jody Foster, or because they hear voices in their heads. People do evil things for no reason at all. Why should religion, a human invention, be exempt from mankind’s rottenness?
My dear mother is a devout Catholic. One of the most devout. A 3rd order Discalced Carmelite. She and my father were the main sponsors of a Catholic Church built in their neighborhood in Celaya, Mexico. Money I’ll never see. But that’s beside the point.
I say this because my mother once said to me nearly exactly the same thing as Maoman’s quote. And she’s a B-E-L-I-E-V-E-R.
She once told me that the Bible was written not by God but by men inspired by God. And men are corrupt. You do the math.
I don’t believe, but I respect her viewpoint a lot more than I do that of the fundies who believe every literal word of that ancient tome.
[quote]The Economics of Religion
October 09, 2006, Featuring Larry Iannaccone
Larry Iannaccone of George Mason University talks with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts about the economics of religion. Iannaccone explains why Americans are more religious than Europeans, why Americans became more religious after the colonies became the United States and why it can be rational and rewarding to make religious sacrifices.[/quote]
It’s an application of behavioral economics to religion, not a look at the financial games.
I think the author’s point is why should god, a human invention, be exempt either?
What has really made me think about all this is how much modern (western snivilized) people use god and religion to influence their daily decisions on small and large scales, instead of apllying some rationality to them.
The author offers Israel/Palestine as a great example. Way back when in the early 1970s, an Israeli politician suggested that they simply divide the land into two countries, side by side. But noooooo. Reason? “This ground is Holy to us.” Both sides sang the same tune.
[quote=“jdsmith”]What has really made me think about all this is how much modern (western snivilized) people use god and religion to influence their daily decisions on small and large scales, instead of apllying some rationality to them.[/quote]Listen to the podcast: it’s all about the (sometimes only apparent) rationality of religion. They go on a bit, but it’s informative and worth chewing over.
[quote=“jdsmith”]
What has really made me think about all this is how much modern (western snivilized) people use god and religion to influence their daily decisions on small and large scales, instead of apllying some rationality to them. [/quote]
Define ‘rationality.’ Isn’t it good that people chance their arm with fate?
I think there are plenty of Gods, and yes, they are man-made. But let’s keep them seperate from religion.
Many Gods are seen as flawed, check that God in the old testament. What a pain in the neck that dude is. All anger and what-not. How about that monkey God, Hanuman? That is a seriously naughty boy.
Gods is gods is gods.
Religion is not God. Religion is people explaining how to behave. (I didn’t even know until the other day that there was some real guy called Ras Tafarian. Ethiopian. He claimed to be the second coming of Christ. Naughty boy.)
Don’t get them two mixed up. Gods are made by people and they are flawed. Religions are written commands, and they are to be interpreted.
I find it very difficult to believe in a god, yet I know that faith (just by itself) produces miracles (in my life constantly); what I simply cannot accept, though, is that jdsmith really reads such intellectual matter - that is simply going too far. He maybe read a snippet of the book online or something …
[quote]Religion is not God.
[/quote]
OK, I can buy that. Chinese kichen gods don’t do much one way or another. Let them be.
Bingo. Give that man a snausage. And much of that behavior can be and is quite stupid, or worse, quite dangerous.
Let’s protest military funerals in America because “God Hates Fags” and the US loves them, so they die in combat. Or let’s deny kids medicine because we believe in “faith healing;” or let’s rip off a girl’s clitoris with a sharp stone because her genitals are evil (oh and let’s sew up her vagina with TWINE until her husbands rips it apart on their wedding day). Oh happy happy joyful day.
Hitchens is writing a lot of things that resonate with me, like gods/religion were invented a long time by things that scared the shit out of protohumans (not to be confused with proto_tw who is not an ape man…not really) like thunder and lighting, eclipses etc…all these things that can now be explained and understood by a majority of the human population.
So isn’t it fair to say that, given a modern education, humanity has evolved past the boundaries of religion and god?
[quote]
what I simply cannot accept, though, is that jdsmith really reads such intellectual matter - that is simply going too far.[/quote]
:raspberry:
I cast a wide net.