As Above, So Below - the religion thread (formerly: People of California, beware)

Peter, you and James already worship at the church of Morricone.

International Perspectives on Theism (Study)

http://www.norc.org/NewsEventsPublicati … heism.aspx


This is interesting.

Volker

No, not really surprising.

In case of Poland it can't be stressed enough that the Church played a large role in resisting the Communist government. It's still very well remembered.

There is a crisis in Polish views of the church, because the church has been largely responsible for large blunders in terms of PR and the fact that it tries to make a huge influence on our politics, bigger than in any country, I think (not even America!) One particular group, oriented around a radio station which is seen as not just radical, practically lunatic by most of society and not just atheist at that (a lot, a huge lot of Catholic believers are completely against their views), is particularly responsible for the more and more prevailing negative view of Catholicism in the country. The fact that the hierarchy can't deal with them properly (as demanded by both politicians from almost every side of the spectrum, even center right, and the general community) impaired the general view of the Church quite heavily.

To give you a glimpse of how the station behaves, this is an authentic phone call to the station:

"Radio Maryja, hello?" [Maryja is Polish version of Mother Mary, which the radio took its moniker from]
"I'd like to protest against how you perceive the Jewish community in your broadcasts."
"Oh, well, I don't think we have any problems with the Jewish community."
"Well, I am Jewish."
"I'm so sorry." [hangs up]

Perhaps this you might find interesting, especially Steven
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree … lim-animus



Not sure what to think but I think it's overstated. They've all been commenting hard on Christianity too.

For my friend, Steven.

http://9gag.com/gag/6992271

The most fucked up thing you will ever read. I warn you, don't read it....

Ok, read it, but don't say I didn't warn you!!

Peter

Well, what can you say? They like to suck dicks!

Seems pretty accurate to me.

It wouldn't surprise me if pedophilic tendencies has played a part in establishing this sickening tradition, similar to how practically all cult leaders "coincidentally" get the idea that God wants them to have many wives and lots of sex.

The problem is that just about everything can be excused with religion. Religion is widely used by its practitioners as a label of goodness and purity, so undue trust is given to people who carry the same label, especially when it comes to religious authorities. Here we have people who molest and endanger babies by literally putting baby penises in their mouths and sucking them clean (made me sick to my stomach just writing this sentence) and it's seen as okay because they're religious authorities.

It's the same thought mechanisms that bear a big part of the blame for the global pedophilic church scandals; religious authorities with unwarranted trust doing as they please, and frequently being protected by their own flocks and leaders even when the truth is out, because "surely a man of God can't do something as horrific as that".

Peter

@Peter I'm sure at this point it goes without saying I agree.

This is why it's important to have this on going, open, critical discussion about religion. Screw who might get offended, if beliefs (and by extension, practices) are buttfucking retarded, guess what's going to happen? Buttfucking retardedness.

I guess it's very simple for me: It's not that I'm inherently against religion, I'm inherently against faith. (There are aspects to religion I rather like, believe it or not.) Believing anything on insufficient evidence, faulty logic or pure emotion is generally a recipe for disaster.

But that kind of faith is based on good reasoning and evidence, and a faith I share! My beef is with religious faith. Faith™. Bullshit. (But extends to anything believed on insufficient evidence. Religious faith just happens to take the number one spot for belief in bullshit.)

I rather like this. Although I can see this being taken at face value and accused of hypocrisy...

And yet even knowledge is not without belief:

- You believe in there being a world out there.
- You believe that your mind gives you a fairly good representation of what's out there.
- You believe that when you think "I" you are refering to something substancial.
- You believe in the validity of induction.
- You believe in free will or logic determination.

Nobody escapes the homo philosophicus. It's all just a game of words.

(We could be Majikthise and Vroomfondel in next year's carnival. But who would be suitable as Deep Thought?)

I guess we all use different definitions of these words. Of course no one is right, because the true meaning of words has to do with how people use them. One can say the word "cow" and mean "blue". It's not wrong to use it like that, it's just stupid, because you'll end up confusing people when you tell them that "the sky is cow". After all, the purpose of words is to communicate. The best method if you want to be understood is to first of all try to use words as they are most commonly used, and secondly (but also important) to try to keep agendas out of definitions and to have useful and specific definitions that doesn't muddy the language. The definitions I use are:

Belief: A conviction that may or may not be supported by evidence.
Faith: A type of belief not supported by evidence.
Knowledge: A belief held with 100% certainty as being true.

Worth pointing out though that there's no true knowledge about the world around us. We can have true knowledge concerning things like 2 + 2 = 4 because that is how the numbers are defined to work, but nothing outside of ourselves. So using my definitions I can say that I have evidence-based beliefs that the Sun will rise tomorrow, that my mother loves me and that scientific progress is for the good of mankind; I have faith in nothing; I know that 2 + 2 = 4.

Peter