The Glade 4.0

That is a 'purpose' of religion? Really?

Absolutely. That, and control of a populace.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Indeed. Note that I didn't mention faith. Faith is its own separate issue. I am talking about the organization of a faith into a doctrine, used to unite people for any of a variety of reasons, but most commonly persecution, and the preaching and spread of that doctrine, what most people would call "religion."

I would not, under any circumstances, attack another's faith, because I have a lot of respect for faith. Faith, whether it be in a god or gods, in one's self or one's fellow man, or nature, or technology, or in anything, is a vital part of humanity's ability to understand the world, most notably, the way in which we manage the things we do not know, and cannot know.

The difference is when those things are codified into a religious doctrine, when you sit down and say "this is what we all believe." The purpose of doing so is to define yourself as different from those who do not believe the same. We all ask the same questions, but we all get different answers. Whether you find your answers in the Bible, the Qu'ran, the Torah, scientific inquiry, or simple belief in one's self isn't what matters. What matters is the separation that comes from associating one's faith with a religion.

The name on the building that you worship in is not a matter of faith, it is a matter of community. Fundamentally, communities develop as a defense of common interests, whether physically, spiritually, or ideologically. The forming of a church community operates on the same principles as the founding of the United States, or even putting together a poker group with the guys.

If it helps, you can change the reference to "religious institution," if you like, or perhaps even "church," but I loathe to use the latter term, mostly because it's inherently Christocentric (which should be a word if it isn't), and on both counts, because it implies some sort of centralized leadership, which, while true of Catholicism, isn't true of other religions.

Maybe if you have a very juvenile, oversimplified version of things. That, however, is a very curious thing to say about a religion whose Great Commandment is "Go forth and make disciples of all nations."



A lot of things matter besides what other people believe or don't believe. As for that being what non-Catholics or non-believers see, well, you're seeing what you want to see. You already would have had a negative view of the catholic church regardless, and all you do is take the negative images and inflate them, while minimizing, ignoring, or coming up with bullshit reasons to ignore the positive, in order to confirm what you already think.

I'll remind you, I am not Catholic, and despite having looked seriously at it, have decided not to convert. the Catholic church faces serious issues and challenges, and some of those relate to its fundamental doctrine vis a vis other Christians, most notably Orthodox Christians. Nevertheless, the fact remains that many of the scandals and misbehaviors of the Catholic church have been endlessly exploited by its enemies as well. As for this Italian Comedianne, I don't knbow what sort of persecution is possible under Italian law, but I have a feeling it's nothing to serious.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The purpose of sitting down and defining your faith is defining your faith. It isn't separating yourself from others; if those others didn't exist in the fist place, or came to agree with you, you'd still believe the same thing.



I hate to break this to you, but forming a community, or defining commonly-held beliefs isn't in and of itself, some sort of "us against them" thing. Even if it is, the "them" tends to be doing exactly the same thing. Furthermore, this has nothing to do with either religion or faith. The same issues apply just as well to secular political separations, and even ethnic separations; the only difference with ethnicity is you don't get to choose yours.

This is just special pleading against religion, where an "us" and "them" mentality is A) assumed to inherently be a bad thing and B) assumed to somehow have something to do with religion when in fact, it is not unique that way. The same thing can be applied to pro-gun and anti-gun people. Pro-gun people express their views that they should be allowed to have guns and form common groups in that regard. Anti-gun people express the opposite view and form their own groups. And you know what? "Us against them" is perfectly correct, because anti-gun people really do want to take guns away for the sake of taking guns away.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Maybe if you totally smoke crack. If the belief didn't exist in the first place, the organization wanting to control the populace through the belief wouldn't exist either.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I said nothing about belief or faith. Just religion.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I know. And religions don't just pop into existence without faith.

Do you think the Pharisees just made up Judaism so they could control the populace?

No, it probably was the fact that they all had that faith back when they were all slaves in Egypt. The Pharisees had that faith from their fathers, just as the average Jew did. similarly, the Catholic church came from events before. The Church formed, and then, later on, various church leaders intertwined with secular/noble leaders to use the Church to control the populace, but that doesn't change the fact that all of them believed in the faith they were "using to control the populace".

Religion is only used to "control" a populace for religious reasons that the populace and the leader fundamentally agree on. Sometimes the leader abuses it, but this is the difference between a religion and a "cult" as we know cults today. A cult is formed for short-sighted control and gain, and falls apart without the personality at its center; a religion sponsors reform movements and remains.

You'll notice that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all survived the deaths of Moses, Christ and Mohammed intact. Buddhism survived the death of Siddhartha. They aren't there to control the populace; when they're used that way it's particular people using a faith the populace otherwise would have had for benefit.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Scientology.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

On the topic of religion as control: I'm loathe to use the phrase, as well as the "opiate of the masses" phrase because it sort of implies some diabolic figure manipulating their society, which I don't think is expressly the case for religion as a whole. But if you take a slightly broader view, again, from a historical perspective, religion has long played a very, very large role in manipulating society, whether it's using the predominant religion as a means of manipulating political views, or forcing (or more politely, convincing) the populace to adopt a religious belief as a means of gaining power in its own right, people tend to use religion to take advantage of the faith others have.

More directly quoted:



That, in and of itself, is an example of the same phenomenon. The phrase does not imply "go forth and understand your fellow man," but "go forth and make your fellow man understand as you do." That is a perfect example of an us vs. them philosophy.



You make the presumption that I am uninformed simply because I only present the negative views. If you like, I could also cite Pope Benedict's long-standing initiatives to increase literacy and fight poverty in Africa, his adoption of more modern forms of communication, as well as a variety of other things. The presumption that those speaking in the negative are less informed than yourself shows quite a bit of hubris.

The separation of faith and religion is both what makes religious conversion possible and completely unnecessary. The choice of religion is not a matter of what you believe, because what you believe is what you believe, regardless of whether you call yourself Catholic, Southern Baptist, or a Pastafarian. Religious conversion comes from the attempt to find people of like mind, which is a social activity, not a faith-based one. It also means that converting from Catholic to Buddhism isn't going to change your faith, despite the dramatic difference in religious doctrine.



Which is, inherently, my point, that religion is a social construct. When you form a poker group with your buddies, the purpose is to get together once a week, play some games, maybe smoke a cigar and drink a beer or two, and to ultimately exclude from the gathering the people you don't want to be around, whether it be a "guys' night out" sort of thing where everyone gets away from their wives, or a group of coworkers getting together to complain about their jobs. If the idea is just to play poker, there are poker rooms at casinos where you can make more money and play better competition, so the purpose isn't poker.

Religion functions along that same axis. While the rationale is different, the reason is the same, to define your subset of people who are "good" and to make that subset distinct from the "other."



Again, this is primarily just a complete rehash of my point, which was that religious separation is fundamentally the same as most other social constructs, that of combining people with similar goals and interests, and working toward those goals and interests, usually to the disadvantage of people who don't share those goals and interests. American philosophy is more or less dominated by an understanding of that idea, that human beings will naturally develop these sort of structures, both in attempts to defend themselves from persecution as well as to persecute others. Inherently, when one group of people works for their own advantage, someone else will be disadvantaged.

Note that I have never said that this is a bad thing, though one can draw countless examples of negative consequences from the phenomenon. It's primarily a social thing, and therefore, a human thing. While our current social climate loves to paint every answer in a black and white sort of moral construct, you're either right or you're wrong, the problem is that things don't work that way. Americans live in a society where we can distinguish, by law, varying levels of murder, why would the presumption be that other aspects of our social lives can be defined rigidly as "good" and "bad."

My personal view of religion and faith is that the organization of your faith to form a community is perfectly fine, but once that faith becomes subsumed by the doctrines of the religion, you lose your capacity for free will. When you have to go to the Pope, or even your pastor, preacher, priest, cleric, sheik, or any other religious figure, in order to discern God's will, you lose sight of the fact that you have every bit the connection to God that he does. That ability to think for yourself and come to your own conclusions is the foundation of what makes humanity special, and offering that as a sacrifice to be a part of any social construct is a worse evil than anything the Pope could do on his own.

I'm not sure why you are arguing with this. That organized religion was developed, in part, to define people and put them into groups is widely accepted and, frankly, obvious. The central idea is to define a belief system, and in many cases bring that system to others (make them into us).

Further, most major religions define "rules" that the populace must follow. "Christian values", the "ten commandments", "sharia law", etc. etc. These are established rules/guidelines set in place to "guide" or "control" the populace.

Consider Arthur Jeffery's Islam: Muhammed and His Religion..



Bolded by me. Submit to the will of Allah, follow these rules, and you are a good Muslim. They even define terms for believers and non-believers (us and them).

No, it doesn't imply "make" them believe anything. A disciple is someone who wants to believe as you do, not someone who is forced. You convince a disciple of their own free will to agree with you.

As for the idea that it's played a role in "manipulating society", that in and of itself creates this idea of diabolic figures. Even the absolute worst figures of history were products of the ideas and forces that shaped their childhoods and lives, and the circumstances they had to deal with, and when they were doing their manipulating, plenty of things besides religion have been used as well; everything from "stealing our land" to skin color, to "enemies of the proletariate."



I make the presumption you are uninformed because what you have said so far indicates that you are uninformed. Don't make ignorant posts, then came back talking about how you're aware that Benedict wants to increase literacy and decrease poverty in Africa and claim "HA! I know more than I let on!" Aside from the fact that it is not hard to find out what global initiatives Benedict has sponsored, it is not anyone else's responsibility to read your mind.



This is absolute nonsense. If you do not believe in the tenets of a religion, you do not have that kind of faith. You have a different one. Your idea is completely backwards; you wouldn't change your faith because you converted from Catholic to Buddhist; you'd convert because your faith changed.





Since you don't actually know that religion is a social construct, everything after that can be ignored.



You have not, in any way, established that religion exists for this purpose.



You have not established that religion is a social construct, nor that "American philosophy" is dominated by any particular idea.



Now you're just rambling on pompously.



So in other words, all of this has just been you expounding your personal opinion as if it were fact. Got it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Mainly because it was not developed for that purpose. It has certainly had that effect, but religion was not developed; rather it evolved. Even in cases where people actually set down to identify concrete tenets of faith (i.e. Council of Nicea), they were working based on beliefs that already existed.



That might carry more weight if the central purpose of Christ's coming was to deal with the fact that human beings can't follow the rules.

Disregarding that, however, we are not talking about control of the populace for the spiritual purposes and supernatural purposes of the religion itself. If that's what you're referring to then you're correct, but it is certainly not what Mus and other nonbelievers refer to since they reject the existence of those things in the first place.

Consider Arthur Jeffery's Islam: Muhammed and His Religion..



Bolded by me. Submit to the will of Allah, follow these rules, and you are a good Muslim. They even define terms for believers and non-believers (us and them).[/quote]

It is plainly obvious that Mus, who does not believe in either Allah nor any other God is not talking about control by a supernatural figure, but by human beings.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Preaching to the masses, inherently, is about expanding your own sphere of influence. While I wouldn't go quite so far as to call that a measure of control, it is, in itself, an exercise in self-defense. As in protecting yourself physically, having a crowd which agrees with you reinforces that belief in all of the members who believe similarly. The purpose of missionary work isn't to provide benefit to those whom you would convert, but to expand the range of influence of the church. Inherently, if your belief structure requires the conversion of non-believers, you must ignore the possibility that the non-believers don't want to believe as you do, or that believing as you do would be detrimental to them. This is not a policy of inclusion, but of absorption. Again I would reiterate, this needn't necessarily be a negative thing, but one cannot ignore the negative results and exalt the positive ones.



I don't feel as though I have yet made an ignorant post, and it's uncommon that I do so. However, if it is not your responsibility, or even capacity, to read my mind, then don't assume acknowledgement of the negative is a condemnation of the whole until I expressly condemn that whole.



My point, which I will admit was poorly constructed, is this: Events in your life change your faith, changing which church you go to does not. Of course, in such an extreme shift, your faith has changed to some degree. However, less-extreme shifts don't necessarily require such an event, such as Catholics moving to Protestant organizations. In these cases, they have simply found better explanations for the answers that they already had.

This point is intended to lead directly to the idea that your religion does not determine what you believe in, unless you allow it to be so.

As for the remainder of your dismissal: I am sorry that you perceive my posts as an attack on your particular religious organization, which was never the intent. The intent is to point out that your religious organization is an entity which was not created by God, but by people, and therefore is subject to the infallibility that affects all social constructs, from governments to labor unions to bowling teams. Holding the Pope to some sort of higher standard morally is probably okay, in the sense that we would hold police officers to a higher standard of morality as well. However, maintaining that the Pope shouldn't resign because it is a position given to him by God is false, it was a position given to him by the social structure that is the Vatican, and he should be every bit as free to step down and pursue other interests as any other human being in a position of authority.

As for professing my personal opinion as though it were fact, it is a fact that persecution forms religions, on both sides of that persecution. It's actually right there in a lot of religious texts, from the persecution of the Jews in Egypt, to the persecution of the Christians in Rome, to the persecution of Jews as a tenet of Islam. The whole of that phenomenon comes from humanity's intrinsic belief that we are better than others. In all of these cases, from a historical perspective, it's very easy to see that the pressures behind such persecution were not at all based in religion, but other factors, from political to economic, and in those cases, religion is being abused to incite a hatred borne of a desire for personal gain, either from an individual or political perspective.

If you simply want to lump me into the people making Darth Benedict jokes, that is your prerogative, and I have no problems with that. I expound on my beliefs because I believe it pertinent to discuss them, and hearing other opinions both tests and reinforces my beliefs in various different ways. My reasons for posting are not out of some misguided attempt to get you to believe as I do, but to plumb the reasons you believe as you do, and use that to inform my own views. If you wish not to converse, all you need to do is stop conversing. Doing, so, however, would not be you coming hither and making a disciple of me.

Yes, but the "do this or your bad" is control. From an atheist's point of view, it is men who say "do this or your bad", and just say that's what God told them. The principle is the same. Faith exists. Religion occurs when people of faith get together to define their faith and, inevitably, define rules for how to behave as a good believer.

Religion, thus, is created for that purpose - to define the belief system, and how to live in accordance with that system. That is control.

**** religion.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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Have you seen some of these crusty bastards? I'd rather not. Not a single chick in the bunch I could get excited for.

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Raell Kromwell

I dunno. Hayley Williams has a cross tattooed on her thigh. Probably the second worst thing ever done with a cross.