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Why the religious mindset can be so dangerous

Psychology, sociology, and anthropology are all separate from a basic understanding of morality. In fact, a basic understanding of morality is actually necessary in order to have any coherent understanding of any of those.

Not as much as you may think. The line can get quite blurred frequently. For example, up to about the 1960s, it was believed that physical, corporal punishment of children was crucial to raising well-disciplined and respectful children. "You have to break their will", was sometimes what was said. It was based on the Biblical understanding of "spare the rod, spoil the child". I remember meeting one lady who recounted her childhood when she and her siblings would be playing peacefully in their rooms together, and their mom would sometimes just show up and beat the tar out of them, leaving them all crying. When they were older, they asked her why she did that. She told them she did it because she was worried that if she didn't do it, they would grow up undisciplined and spoiled. But there were a series of landmark studies in the 1960s which showed that while corporal punishment DID get the bad behavior to stop immediately, it didn't teach the kid WHY it was wrong. They would just learn to do it when no one was looking. It didn't seem to teach much respect for the parent- actually quite the opposite: resentment and even outright hatred as they grew up. It also taught them the important lesson that might makes right, and it was noted that it was correlated with bullying behavior in school and, later in life, dysfunctional relationships at work and domestic abuse of their spouse (what better lesson in "might makes right" than some big grown-up beating you up as a little kid into submission, right?). There was also higher incidences of anger management issues, anxiety, and depression. They also showed that there were far better methods of discipline without such adverse side effects. These studies really started to seep into the popular culture, and the incidence of child abuse declined markedly over the next few decades.

But I was talking to a child psychologist recently who told me that the incidence of corporal punishment and child abuse is still remarkably high. Interestingly, she said, when she educates most parents about the problems with this kind of child-rearing, and teaches them more effective and less dangerous techniques of teaching children, they are open to the idea and learn. The ones she really has trouble with, however, were the religious ones who don't believe that the Bible could be wrong, and continue to quote "spare the rod, spoil the child" type quotes as they keep beating their children.

Now I don't know how you feel about this particular issue. I can tell you we raised our kid without ever raising a hand on him, and I am pretty proud of the kind of boy he is growing up to be. But maybe further studies will show that the Bible may have been right after all on this. But regardless, I am not sure how this question, or other questions of whether drunks should be allowed to drive, or whether women should be allowed to vote, etc.., can be decided better by thinking about how nature has laws and Newton's laws govern the orbit of the planets. This is not how we make decisions about what to do. We make decisions by doing things, seeing and studying their consequences, and then modifying our behavior to match- whether that's a child learning not to touch the flame on a candle, or us as a society learning that we shouldn't be letting drunk drivers on the road.
 
I think the vast majority of civilizations have had an understanding of indecency, but I see what you mean. I do think though that you can have an objective moral framework and still maintain cultural nuance and differences. If you think I'm arguing for a hegemonic Christian super-culture, that isn't the case. In fact, such a thing would be pretty anti-Christian. Christianity doesn't advocate for a globalized understanding of a unified culture... nuance is allowed. It simply provides a framework which is based on our intuitive understanding of morality granted by a creator. Nothing more, nothing less.

Again, what is considered nuance and what is obviously natural law can get very grey. There is no obvious dividing line. For example, as Valery here is arguing, the same God which created the laws of the universe COMMANDS that women cover their face for modesty. For Valery, it's a natural law. If we don't do that as a society, men will always be tempted by women they shouldn't be getting tempted by, and all society will go to pot, right? But you and I just see it as a contingent cultural practice and nuance from which his religion arose.

Similarly, this strong backlash against homosexuality seems to me to be a cultural norm. As you know, there were many cultures historically and even today for whom such a practice is not such a big deal, and they did fine.

So I would ask: why not leave it free and see what happens, like you would in a science experiment? If it is as dangerous as you say and society blow up, well then we will know never to do THAT again (much like a chemist learns never to mix strong acids and bases together too quickly again once it blows up once or twice)? But if nothing happens, then... hey, what's the problem? Would you, like Valery, say we just have to blindly follow the holy scripture and not play around too much or explore because it's so dangerous?
 
Being Christian doesn't mean you accept crazy BS liberal ideas, like abortion.


But it does mean you accept Christ and His teachings, not hypocrisy and Trump in lieu of Him.

Luke 6:46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?

Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
 
The problem with that analogy is that Adam and Eve were never warned about a burning hell...God only warned them if they disobeyed, they would die...why?
What makes you think that?
Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):
"(Remember) when your Lord said to the angels: 'Truly, I am going to create man from clay. So when I have fashioned him and breathed into him (his) soul created by Me, then you fall down prostrate to him.' So the angels prostrated themselves, all of them, Except Iblees (Satan), he was proud and was one of the disbelievers. (Allaah) said: 'O Iblees (Satan)! What prevents you from prostrating yourself to one whom I have created with Both My Hands. Are you too proud (to fall prostrate to Adam) or are you one of the high exalted?' [Iblees (Satan)] said: 'I am better than he. You created me from fire, and You created him from clay.' (Allaah) said: "Then get out from here; for verily, you are outcast. And verily, My Curse is on you till the Day of Recompense.' [Iblees (Satan)] said: "'y Lord! Give me then respite till the Day the (dead) are resurrected.' (Allaah) said: 'Verily, you are of those allowed respite Till the Day of the time appointed.' [Iblees (Satan)] said: 'By Your Might, then I will surely, mislead them all, Except Your chosen slaves amongst them (i.e. faithful, obedient, true believers of Islamic Monotheism).' (Allaah) said: 'The truth is - and the truth I say * That I will fill Hell with you [Iblees (Satan)] and those of them (mankind) that follow you, together.'" [Saad 38:71-85]
“And He taught Adam all the names (of everything)…” [al-Baqarah 2:31]
 
Is this you officially claiming you don't believe in morality on page 15 of this thread?

Where do those laws come from? Where does order come from? You need to explain both of these.

Why do all civilizations adopt these moral laws? Why do humans universally understand these things to be moral goods? You have to explain this.

FINALLY. You finally submit that your understanding of morality is subjective... I thought we'd never get there. Our modern understanding of morality, especially in the United States, borrows heavily from Christian theology and moral teachings, not humanism. I suspect that the more this foundation which was reinforced by hundreds of years of tradition erodes, you're going to see a society which is more and more immoral and degenerate. Of course, we could never objectively define moral decay in a society which is godless. People in the future might think that legalized pedophilia and after-birth abortion are just as morally permissible as anything you believe in and they would be right. Everything would be relative.

Your nice little syllogism of "if there is a God" (and you are just using the "if" as a trap door to use in case you want to claim that you are "just philosophizing" when you actually totally believe everything that you post) and then DEFINE your God as the source of morality and said morality is thus "objective" has not the least bit of merit because you have not provided the bit of evidence for any of it, and so there is not the slightest bit of need to "believe" any of it. I showed where it is humanism in the of people getting together and moving forward to form a stable long-term society is the manner in which ethics is determined.

All civilizations accept certain basic tenets of ethics because they have proven to be vital to the stability of society. No "divine guidance" is needed at all. And even supposing that "everything if relative" does not mean that a society based on humanist ethics is going do anything outlandish as you seem to think. Given that no God is needed in the first place to establish an ethical society, it does not then make any difference if there is a God or not to "guide" it.

I have already explained a couple of times how the Constitution was established as a humanist, not a religious-based document. There is no mention of a God, and the only mention of religion is to make sure it does have the capability directly engage itself in the government.
 
So there are no practical reasons, such as to preserve modesty?
The ultimate reason we do that or anything else that Allah commands is that He commanded so. We obey whether we understand the wisdom behind it or not.
The purpose of clothing is to prevent fitnah (temptation), and this can only be achieved if clothes are wide and loose. Tight clothes, even if they conceal the colour of the skin, still describe the size and shape of the body or part of it, and create a vivid image in the minds of men. The corruption or invitation to corruption that is inherent in that is quite obvious. So the clothes must be wide.
 
The ultimate reason we do that or anything else that Allah commands is that He commanded so. We obey whether we understand the wisdom behind it or not.

Yeah, I know, and that is another one of those things which is so concerning about this sort of mindset. A little, I suppose, like Abraham who blindly wanted to slit his own son's throat, without any attempt to understand, or reason- only because that's what he was commanded. And then we wonder why religion makes it so easy to kill and commit atrocities.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."
-Voltaire
 
Which one of these do you support?
Not the god taught Adam language myth. I leave that to the fairy tale belivers.
 
The ultimate reason we do that or anything else that Allah commands is that He commanded so. We obey whether we understand the wisdom behind it or not.
Allah is mythical. You only have blind belief.
 
I actually agree with you.

Neoliberal fiscally conservative reaganites and bushites are only slightly less cringe than modern progressive liberals.

I am so glad you agree that so-called classical conservatives are religious hypocrites of the first order.
 
View attachment 67300660You mean this one is the burning hell that isn't mentioned?
A more accurate translation is Gehenna, everlasting destruction...

“If ever your hand makes you stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than to go off with two hands into Gehenna, into the fire that cannot be put out."
 
I am so glad you agree that so-called classical conservatives are religious hypocrites of the first order.
Any" Christian" who partakes in politics is a hypocrite...

“My Kingdom is no part of this world. If my Kingdom were part of this world, my attendants would have fought that I should not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my Kingdom is not from this source.” John 18:36
 
Not as much as you may think. The line can get quite blurred frequently. For example, up to about the 1960s, it was believed that physical, corporal punishment of children was crucial to raising well-disciplined and respectful children. "You have to break their will", was sometimes what was said. It was based on the Biblical understanding of "spare the rod, spoil the child". I remember meeting one lady who recounted her childhood when she and her siblings would be playing peacefully in their rooms together, and their mom would sometimes just show up and beat the tar out of them, leaving them all crying. When they were older, they asked her why she did that. She told them she did it because she was worried that if she didn't do it, they would grow up undisciplined and spoiled. But there were a series of landmark studies in the 1960s which showed that while corporal punishment DID get the bad behavior to stop immediately, it didn't teach the kid WHY it was wrong. They would just learn to do it when no one was looking. It didn't seem to teach much respect for the parent- actually quite the opposite: resentment and even outright hatred as they grew up. It also taught them the important lesson that might makes right, and it was noted that it was correlated with bullying behavior in school and, later in life, dysfunctional relationships at work and domestic abuse of their spouse (what better lesson in "might makes right" than some big grown-up beating you up as a little kid into submission, right?). There was also higher incidences of anger management issues, anxiety, and depression. They also showed that there were far better methods of discipline without such adverse side effects. These studies really started to seep into the popular culture, and the incidence of child abuse declined markedly over the next few decades.

But I was talking to a child psychologist recently who told me that the incidence of corporal punishment and child abuse is still remarkably high. Interestingly, she said, when she educates most parents about the problems with this kind of child-rearing, and teaches them more effective and less dangerous techniques of teaching children, they are open to the idea and learn. The ones she really has trouble with, however, were the religious ones who don't believe that the Bible could be wrong, and continue to quote "spare the rod, spoil the child" type quotes as they keep beating their children.

Now I don't know how you feel about this particular issue. I can tell you we raised our kid without ever raising a hand on him, and I am pretty proud of the kind of boy he is growing up to be. But maybe further studies will show that the Bible may have been right after all on this. But regardless, I am not sure how this question, or other questions of whether drunks should be allowed to drive, or whether women should be allowed to vote, etc.., can be decided better by thinking about how nature has laws and Newton's laws govern the orbit of the planets. This is not how we make decisions about what to do. We make decisions by doing things, seeing and studying their consequences, and then modifying our behavior to match- whether that's a child learning not to touch the flame on a candle, or us as a society learning that we shouldn't be letting drunk drivers on the road.

The ultimate goal of punishment should be to create awareness and is a call to refocus. Is a glass of water in the face corporal punishment ? Maybe.....gentler methods are available.....such as sitting in timeout. When I say awareness that also implies that the one administering punishment should be aware. The punisher has deficiencies......frustration with their own ineptness, little control of their own emotions, etc. Maybe they need to count to 10 before they yield to impulse.
 
But isn't this a burning hell? Or just a burning......grave? Sounds pretty bad.
Gehenna was a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem, where all the trash of the city was thrown...the fire itself burned continuously so anything thrown into it was destroyed, which is why Jesus spoke to his listeners about Gehenna...they would know Jesus was referring, not to eternal torment, but eternal destruction, of anyone/anything thrown into it...
 
I'll take The Spanish Inquisition for $400 Alex.
 
A non-answer. You lie to yourself.
Nope. A real answer, unlike your believer nonsense. Adam is mythical and that will remain a lie until someone can prove that he existed.
 
I'm not talking about cancer happening spontaneously or lightning striking spontaneously. I'm talking about the laws which lead to all of these things. The foundations of science. The human brain, nervous system, and the human eye are so complex that their forming out of total randomness would be incredibly small.

It's like the analogy I listed earlier. If you were to happen upon a planet and find a note out the ground that read "Hello devildavid. Welcome to planet X. Have you brought recipes from earth?", would you assume this note was created through matter randomly coalescing into a readable note or would you assume aliens or some other intelligent life form made it? Human beings are much more complex than something like that and yet we exist, according to you, through total randomness.


This says nothing about the laws which allow lightning to strike or cancer to metastasize. These are the things I'm talking about. At the foundation of all things, there is total chaos without intelligent design.

There are no laws that lead to anything. There are physical things that take place due to the circumstances at the time. Thus, lightning does not come from a clear sky. But when it does come in a storm, it is very hard to predict when and where it might strike.

Complexity does not preclude random activity. That physical things can be organized does not mean they did not stem from random actions. One does not preclude the other. Saying things are random does not mean everything is purely random all the time. Genetic mutations are random even though the results appear not to be. But at the smallest level, like viruses, they are random all the time. That is why we still get the flu every year. It depends on whether or not you are looking at the micro or macro level of physical things. Randomness and organization can and do exist simultaneously all the time.
 
It isn't "my" brand of morality. It is a standard of objective morality intuitive to all human beings that was written on our hearts by a divine creator. Natural law doesn't even assume that the God is a Christian God. You don't have to believe in a creator and can instead choose to believe in subjective morality, but you can't say objective morality is "wrong" or "my" brand of morality. If it is true, it just would be. I don't need to prove to you whether or not it is objective if we are the product of intelligent design. How do you not get this basic point yet...

Of course it's your brand. You are the one assuming that your if-God is DEFINED as the prime source of all morality without the slightest iota of evidence and proof other than some fancy double-talk. Natural law assumed nothing because there is no such thing. There is no indication that we are a product of intelligent design. This is all just statements of YOUR BELIEFS and nothing more.
 
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