Quote for the day -- religion is doomed
"A traditional religion, one built on “right belief,” requires a closed information system. That is why the Catholic Church put an official seal of approval on some ancient texts and banned or burned others. It is why some Bible-believing Christians are forbidden to marry nonbelievers. It is why Quiverfull moms home-school their kids with carefully screened textbooks. It is why, when you get sucked into conversations with your fundamentalist Uncle George from Florida, you sometimes wonder if he has some superpower that allows him to magically close down all avenues into his mind. (He does!)
"Religions have spent eons honing defenses that keep outside information away from insiders. The innermost ring wall is a set of certainties and associated emotions like anxiety and disgust and righteous indignation that block curiosity. The outer wall is a set of behaviors aimed at insulating believers from contradictory evidence and from heretics who are potential transmitters of dangerous ideas. These behaviors range from memorizing sacred texts to wearing distinctive undergarments to killing infidels. Such defenses worked beautifully during humanity’s infancy. But they weren’t really designed for the current information age.
"Tech-savvy mega-churches may have Twitter missionaries, and Calvinist cuties may make viral videos about how Jesus worship isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship, but that doesn’t change the facts: the free flow of information is really, really bad for the product they are selling."
Valerie Tarico -- read the whole thing for more on how the hard work of dedicated people, and the very nature of modern civilization, are systematically defeating religion. Found via Republic of Gilead.
"Religions have spent eons honing defenses that keep outside information away from insiders. The innermost ring wall is a set of certainties and associated emotions like anxiety and disgust and righteous indignation that block curiosity. The outer wall is a set of behaviors aimed at insulating believers from contradictory evidence and from heretics who are potential transmitters of dangerous ideas. These behaviors range from memorizing sacred texts to wearing distinctive undergarments to killing infidels. Such defenses worked beautifully during humanity’s infancy. But they weren’t really designed for the current information age.
"Tech-savvy mega-churches may have Twitter missionaries, and Calvinist cuties may make viral videos about how Jesus worship isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship, but that doesn’t change the facts: the free flow of information is really, really bad for the product they are selling."
Valerie Tarico -- read the whole thing for more on how the hard work of dedicated people, and the very nature of modern civilization, are systematically defeating religion. Found via Republic of Gilead.
posted by Infidel753 at 10:26 AM
5 Comments:
Thanks for the shout-out!
We need to distinguish between traditional religion, which generally means just the Abramic trio, and religion. This discussion will not apply to many forms of the latter, which of course raises the issue of terminology.
Even tho you say your life is free of spiritual concepts, I'll go out on limb and bet scientific inquiry into the natural world fills you with delight and speechless awe—spirituality—just as it does Valerie Tarico. Her last point is all about the spiritual dimension of life and shared spiritual values, and she offers Jim Gilliam's description of God.
This is not defeating religion only redefining it.
We'll never get rid of religion, it will merely reformulate itself as it's always done.
Unfortunately but absolutely true too ... I of course never had much need for any religion's, beside's only as far as "art" is concerned, or any other literature as an art form, painting's, etc, etc, and alwayz looked at the bible as what I called "Constantine's Bible" ... him being the "God" of choice (or in this case by "force" : ) since it was him, not a spiritual god entity that created it, eh? I remember once, many year's ago speaking of Florida here ... a gent down when I lived in Miami who was really into the "Jesus" thing (at work at that!, we worked on the dock's of the 18- wheeler's off downtown Miami, unloading them in the day, I played music at night back then) ... I mean ... this dude was alwayz talking about Jesus ... I just thought perhap's he was gay and in the closet (just a lil humour : ) but he certainly had one of them "Jesus" fetishes : ) he asked me something like did I believe in God or evolution? while questioning my belief's once ... being I alwayz referred to nature as a type of "God" when asked as a teen (actually my dad who I was very close to, told me that when I was about 9 year's old or so, when I asked him what "God" was, he told me it was everything from the tree's to the animal's, etc) ... I told him (Jesus dude) "both" ... he looked confused, and said you cant believe in both (or similar) ... but I told him it was simple ... that nature and evolution are the "supreme", so I look at them as one. Even several catholic's that I personally know, actually admit that the church is nothing but a business, and more and more they see the "ripp- off" factor more than ever now. They basically belong to it out of familia tradition, socializing, being a "part" of a "group" etc, etc ... not much more ... we even do the same with our ritual's of going to the social club's (nightclub's)on friday night, etc I look at religion's and churches as nothing more than a social club with an over- extended rule book that need's drastic revisioning ... but that's just me Infidel.
Thanx for the read ... I agree!
Ahab: Thanks for finding this.
Uzza: When I say religion, I mean religion. I want them all gone, not just the Abrahamic ones.
Delight and awe are natural feelings and have nothing to do with "spirituality".
The fact that I quote from a piece doesn't mean I agree with every detail of what it says. And while you may disagree, I think the total eradication of religion is indeed possible, and worth fighting for.
RC: I think the same. A vast number, possibly the majority, of Americans who call themselves "Christian" are believers in only the most superficial sense. For them the label is a marker of identity that persists due to cultural inertia. It's meaningless.
You took out very essential points that we all should follow. To have more advantageous some scholars really don't wanna show those verses to general people. Thanks a lot for sharing this important issue.
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