Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
My original point is that "religion has never done anyone any good" is fairly useless statement. It's useless because it's circular. It assumes what it pretends to demonstrate. In other words, "religion" is always bad to the person who says it, but that person can never specifically define what constitutes "religion." They like to leave it open ended so that anything that fails to meet their fancy (and that's most everything) can be dismissed as "religion." So it's just a means of bashing. What's religion? Something that's bad. What's bad? Anything religious. That's basically the extent of the analysis.
It reminds me of the school kid who hangs out in the parking lot at school and sneers at all the athletes and band members and anyone who's actually attempting to accomplish anything. To him they are all "chumps." But really he's just trying justify his underachievement. Perpetual religion bashers do the same thing. Everyone's a "religious chump" but them. Only they are clear about how to do it right, but in the final analysis all they ever do is bash "religion."
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Speak it bro Igzy, loud and clear.
And you are right, religion is not to blame. It's human nature, the human condition, that is to blame. Religions, any of them, more often than acceptable, are a tool of human nature.
And human nature is uncivilized.
I have humming bird feeders out front. I get great joy in watching them. They don't want to share the feeders. The fight over them so much that they don't have time to feed at the feeders. They dive bomb each other, and one plants himself by the feeders to dive bomb on comers, trying to horde them all for himself.
It's in their nature. And it's in human nature too. And religion often is used to dive bomb on-comers ... as we see presently from the Muslim extremists ... that is just one example among many.
Just as we could say that religion (in general) has improved humankind, we could also say religion, and religious clashes, has been a curse upon humankind.
From what I've seen of religion in my life time it makes me wonder who, in their right mind, would ever want to be religious.
Maybe that's why there's such a falling away these days, from religion, in both America and Europe.
I recently read a study that, revealed Americans today don't trust clergy. No Duh. With all the examples coming out in the news, and even in more private venues, like here locally, about pastors in my nearby area, no one in their right mind would trust clergy. The clergy doesn't deserve trust. They've earn distrust. We have found that, they are nothing special. They are just as subject to human nature as the rest of us.
So it's not religion to blame bro Igzy. It the old reliable and most persistent human nature. We're monkeys with religion. And religiousless monkeys aren't as uncivilized as their human counterparts.