BBO Discussion Forums: The Problem with Religious Moderation - BBO Discussion Forums

Codo, on 2014-April-14, 05:39, said:

Well, here the change was intentional. The gods of the ancient world were cruel, capricious, and had little regard for human life (indeed, they often enjoyed watching the loss of same in pointless wars and massacres, and the god we meet in the Old Testament is very much a part of this tradition.

Then Jesus came along, hoping to usher in an era of a kinder, gentler deity, and a human/god relationship based on love rather than fear.

So Jesus was consciously contradicting the other god's teaching and practice. All reports of him recount his doing good things, while virtually all reports of the previous god recount the latter doing bad things. Or maybe the previous one is the same one as before, who had a change of heart.
Or maybe the Hebrews had run out of neighbours to kill, united as they all were under the Roman Empire, so the previous god had no more ideas.

Trinidad, on 2014-April-14, 05:44, said:

This wasn't true when I was growing up Catholic, and I would be surprised if there has been a huge change since then. Maybe your "impression" is not accurate?

Codo, on 2014-April-14, 05:39, said:

No, "all" is correct, but it is true that some sects have in modern times changed their views to conform with a changing society, while others, not so much.

mikeh, on 2014-April-14, 07:38, said:

mikeh, on 2014-April-12, 16:39, said:

(emphasis mine)

mikeh, on 2014-April-12, 21:49, said:

In the above post, you are equating the RC doctrine to the RC church.

If this equation were true, the RC doctrine would be responsible for overpopulation. But since you think it is true, you logically hold the RC doctrine responsible for overpopulation.

mikeh, on 2014-April-14, 07:38, said:

Though I did above, I am not waiting for an apology.

But simply admitting that there is a huge discrepancy between the views of the RC hierarchy (the "fundies", birth control refusers) and those of the RC church (with many "moderates", birth control users) would be nice.

Rik

Codo, on 2014-April-14, 05:21, said:

Well, every single American who is fundamentalist or evangelical believes that the Bible is a historical, factual record.

The world was created in six actual days, there was a real Noah's Ark (and the Flood created eg the Grand Canyon), Jesus existed as recorded in the NT, was born to a virgin and did perform miracles like bringing back dead people, etc.

And we are talking about a LOT of Americans. Possibly half.

Vampyr, on 2014-April-14, 09:31, said:

Perhaps so. But my wife used to work for a major birth control pill manufacturer (the official business term is "Women's health" and also includes fertility enhancing methods), so I have pretty good confidence in my impression.

(Obviously there are regional differences. "The pill" is not as wide spread in regions where catholicism is the "opposing minority" or "underlying party", since people will identify themselves foremost as catholics and stick to the doctrine. But in regions where catholicism is not an issue (because everybody is, or because there is religious tolerance) "the pill" is pretty common.)

Rik

Vampyr, on 2014-April-14, 09:50, said:

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. H. L. Mencken

Codo: http://www.c-b-f.org...ion_general.pdf is an interesting study from 2008 on various things regarding the Bible, what struck me is how many people think the Bible should be taken literally. Of course many of the questions are vague. But still, according to slide 20, Germany has 13% of people who (think they) believe the Bible should be taken as literally true (for people too lazy to click on the link: US had 27%, the Netherlands 8%). If we assume that most people who believe this did read the Bible in the last 12 months (2007-2008), the rate is even more alarming. 28% of Germans read the Bible in that period, so that would mean that almost half of the bible-reading Germans believe in biblical literalism! Whenever I heard of this magical Germany where (almost) every Christian is a moderate and take most of the Bible to be allegory, I was a bit skeptical, but now I'm happy that I finally checked the facts. Note that this still doesn't include people who believe in Old Earth Creationism, or people who think the New Testament is inerrant but the Old Testament is not, people who think that the church should be based on largely on what Paul describes in his epistles (and yes, Paul was one of the most blatant misogynists in the history of religion), ...

Codo, on 2014-April-14, 05:21, said:

Perhaps I did not make myself clear because your rebuttal is to a point I did not intend to make, if I did so.

The basic thrust of my message is that a belief in a supernatural presence (with either a book or word-of-mouth as means of expressing the story) by some gives others cover for their belief in a similar supernatural being.

Trinidad, on 2014-April-14, 09:40, said:

*sigh*

If only you actually read my posts. Or tried to learn something beyond your 'impressions'.

The RC Church leadership, including the new pope, are adamant that contraception is an evil. Some bishops, and for all I know, maybe some cardinals as well, are opposed to this position, but they are a small minority in the church leadership.

I have always acknowledged that there are differences between church doctrine, as set out by leadership, and actual practice. Indeed, those differences underlie what I consider to be a strong argument against organized religion. Many, and maybe most, members of a faith will pick and choose the parts of the doctrine that they obey, and seem to see no problem in doing so: they remain convinced that by obeying those parts that suit them, they are still being good followers of the religion. Logically, that makes no sense. Religion, even when finely nuanced, is based on revealed truth: somebody somewhere, purporting to have the information directly from God (eg Moses, Mohammed) or to be god (jesus) has made statements that are absolutely true.

Adherents to a religion founded on this understanding of the universe accept these revelations. They also, generally, accept a number of idiosyncratic strictures or rules, since it is in these details that sectarianism arises, and which play a role in many conflicts and persecutions both historically and today.

After all, an Anglican will recognize many commonalities with a Catholic, but few in either church see them as identical.

If an outside observer is to make sense of the differences between the sects, where else can or should he or she start other than by looking to see what the official doctrine of the church is?

Of course doctrine changes, and I have touched on that in numerous posts.

However, it is truly absurd to suggest that the Pope, the majority of cardinals, the majority of archbishops, bishops, priests and so on are to be seem as extremist fundamentals. They may well be at the 'right' end of the spectrum of 'moderates' but take a look at the respect paid to the Vatican. It has a seat in the UN!!! many countries maintain embassies or missions to the Vatican. Not to the 'members' of the church, but to the leadership of the church. The Pope gets national television coverage whenever he visits a country or pontificates (there's a word for you...he is the pontiff, of course) on whatever strikes his fancy. Elections to the office of pope are covered even more widely than, and just as annoyingly as, weddings in the British Royal family

As for what I wrote about the RC church being opposed to birth control, I wrote that in the context of how we, as a species, move forward. I argued, and argue again, that if we are to avoid calamity, we need leadership that acts based on evidence. The RC church leadership, by virtue of its opposition to contraception, is an obstacle in the path of population control.

That is not the same as it having been the cause of overpopulation. Only an idiot (Edit:look: I know you're not an idiot...even if I disagreed with everything you say, you aren't a kook or idiot like 325, and I have, in the past, agreed with much of what you write, but your recent posts seem to have gone from probably innocent misunderstanding to intentional distortion)would think that I was suggesting, for example, that the dictates of any Christian leader played a significant role in the population explosions in India or China, or Indonesia etc. It is not the same as saying that the RC Church is 'the' main problem in terms of population control. It is saying that when the leadership of an organization that claims 1 billion followers, and that gets front page coverage for its activities and pronouncements on the world stage describes contraception as evil, then that is a problem. Do you disagree?

When a drunk driver careens into my path on the highway, the fact that someone places a call to me on my cell just before I would notice the danger didn't cause the danger, but may well be an obstacle to my being able to avoid the accident that now threatens. So too, the fact that socio-economic conditions caused humanity to favour large families may be the reason that overpopulation is such a problem now, but the resistance to population control by an influential church may well be an obstacle to resolving the problem.

Do you finally understand the points I have been trying to make?

Maybe there is a reason for the seeming lack of communication:

Is there anything truly "moderate" about believing that there is a Sky Fairy/Flying Spaghetti Monster/Invisible Friend etc that is invisible, sees what we do, punishes or rewards us after we are dead, and can do magic (but doesn't anymore)?

But at least one poster has expressed the view that he would be a mass murderer if he didn't believe in this reward mechanism. A victory for religion, or an example of the stunted moral development of someone who is still at the stage where "it is wrong to do X, because if I do it Daddy will spank me"?

Vampyr, on 2014-April-14, 14:16, said:

That depends on the definition of "moderate". To me, and a few others, the principal difference between a "moderate" and a "fanatic" lies in the amount of tolerance for others with different ideas, not in the question how loony or correct their own ideas may be.

So, if someone believes that the martians are among us, but let's everybody else believe that they're not, he is a moderate. Probably he is a loony moderate, but loony moderates are moderates too. And if someone believes that the martians are not among us (which is much more likely to be correct, at least in my view) and wants to eradicate any belief in "martianism", he is a fanatic.

I believe in moderate... and I can be pretty fanatic about that.

Rik

Someone is wrong on the internet .....

I think it is pointless to discuss things which both parties have strong (but opposite) opinions about on an open forum. I sometimes sent luke_warm personal messages about my opinion on some issues and it could move things a little bit further and at least ease the tensions between us. But having such discussions in public would be pointless. If someone challenges your hard-held beliefs on a public forum, wouldn't your knee jerk (no pun) reaction be to attack back, even if you knew that your "opponent" actually had a point? Mine certainly would.

It is like having ATB discussions with partner while the opps listen. Worse than pointless. (A petty that we don't do the POTY anymore because Rik's post about the AKQ convention certainly would fit. But I digress...). Of course, forum discussions at least can be successful if your true aim is to show the rest of the World that your opponent is a moron. Fair enough. Just don't tell yourself that your aim is to change your oppponent's viewpoints. Because you are smart enough to know that cognitive dissonance works the opposite way: the stronger arguments you pose for the theory that the Eart is round, the more stubbornly the flat-eartherners will stick to their belief.

Btw, Father, I have sinned. I didn't keep my new year resolution of not upvoting religion, CO2 or gun related posts in the water cooler.

Maybe a bit paradoxal that I posted this instead of PMing it to everyone. Now everyone is going to hate me. Oh well ....

helene_t, on 2014-April-15, 02:06, said:

Someone?!?

Everybody!!



Rik

gwnn, on 2014-April-14, 10:36, said:

So if there is a study, this must be true despite the fact that we simply do not burn our witches, stone our rapist- which should be true to some parts of the bible.
I guess you never made a survey to reach a result....

But to be fair: My own sister - who is one of the most intelligent persons I know- ( A-Level with 15, study summa com laude...) does share this point of view that you should take the Bible literally So, I know that there are more then zero persons who CLAIM that they do... But she had never been able to explain why some parts are the obvious truth and others are obviously not...

mikeh, on 2014-April-14, 07:48, said:

Yes, we do have FAITH, so we do not have any evidence, else we would know.

I am well aware that many religions do have this flavour that you need their special way to serve God to be saved. I never could understood this point from a theological point of view, I guess we agree that this has other reasons: Of course it has to do with mightiness. If you have more followers, your power will increase. And I guess it has to do with something how the mind of people works. If you make a descission, you better rationalize this descission and support it. This is true for soccer clubs, Apple-Computer religions and well nearly any other descission you make.

And about fanatics: Anybody who is fine with other point of views and other believes looks quite moderate to me. (And if I understood him right- to Rik too.)

I trust that study more than your personal opinion, sorry. What is more likely, that they made up their results in an evil conspiracy or that your impressions/personal opinion is biased? Sorry, it's a no-brainer for me. I do the same with my impressions and personal opinion.

I would guess that many of those 13% think all of the Bible is true without thinking through what that would mean to their day-to-day lives. But a poorly thought-out position is just another form of ignorance, and that just shows how the picture of nearly universal moderate, enlightened Christianity in Germany which has evolved their views significantly since the time of the Bible is just false.

Bus Csaba, isn't it possible that some of those who say that the bible should be taken literally don't really mean it? I can sorta imagine that 13% of Germans believe that Jesus literally turned water into wine, but that it is a mortal sin to collect firewood on a Saturday?

helene_t, on 2014-April-15, 08:30, said:

I think the point is that virtually no-one who professes to take the bible literally actually understands what is in the bible. In other words, they have belief without knowledge.

helene_t, on 2014-April-15, 08:30, said:

Like I said, I don't think it matters much whether they really believe it is literally true or they only think they believe it. Either way, someone who would answer yes to that question is almost the opposite of Codo's description of German Christianity, in which religion gradually evolves from blindly accepting the book towards greater understanding of human condition etc. Maybe I'm being a nitpick here and certainly Germany is one of the nice examples (Poland had 34% of literalists!) but I myself was shocked by these numbers.

about the sticks, to be the Devil's advocate, maybe they say 'Oh it is literally true that God had people put to death for collecting sticks on the Sabbath 3000 years ago but it is also literally true, as per Romans 13, that God acts through Congress to pass the laws that He likes.' Of course Jesus also said that not one iota of the law will be changed, and I'm sure there are other verses that this contradicts, but maybe well the original verses were a bit different (the original manuscripts explanation is kind of a panacea you see).

Here is how I think it works with "The Bible is literally true". I will go by analogy. We notice that most of the people who reach, say, the round of 16 in major international knockouts are white and male. So you take a survey about why people think that this is so. Some people have thought out opinions. Most do not. If they answer "All races and sexes are equally talented at birth" the worst that they will be called is politically correct. Much preferable to what they will be called if they start advancing other explanations.

Ok, back to the Bible. Do you really believe that Jonah he lived in a whale? He made his home in that whale's abdomen, oh Jonah he lived in a whale? (Gershwin, It ain't necessarily so, Porgy and Bess, as probably everyone knows)
For many, the answer is "Hey, I am on my way to buy groceries, buzz off". Suppose that the interviewer is persistent. Many, if they come from an educated class, say "Well, no, not really". But many others say yes. Why? Because in the culture that they come from, they are more likely to be called names if they answer no than if they answer yes. Really they have no interest in the question and they definitely will not thank the interviewer for bringing it up. They regard the question as rude and the interviewer as badly brought up. If they say yes they won't have trouble with any of their friends, and they can get back to worrying about whether they should buy fish or chicken.