Religion and Science

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

[Note: I split this off from the thread on Norwegian Terrorism - VtF]

I am fascinated how religion shuffles off misdeeds done in religion's name or by people who identify as being of that religion.

[Griffon64]

"Religion" is not a sentient thing. Anybody can choose to do something in "religion's name", but that doesn't mean everybody in that religion supports that thing. Likewise with any other umbrella concept, like nationality or ethnicity.

Things were done in the name of the British Empire, for instance, that weren't supported by all citizens of England, and aren't supported by all of them now. What if I told everybody who are British that, since in the past Lords Kitchener and Roberts' burnt earth policies caused the deaths of many South Africans in concentration camps, that that must mean that British subjects believe that concentration camps were a good thing, and will always believe so? That their very Britishness causes them to be prone to oppressing people? That everybody British who had nothing to do with any of that past stuff, must support it because it was done in the name of their nationality? I bet there'd be a degree of shuffling off by the targets.

Claiming that all Muslims are violent because a handful who identify with an extreme branch of the religion slammed planes into the World Trade Center is another example where people go about it all wrong.

My point is, I think that it is senseless to take an umbrella concept like religion or nationality and say because some identifying with or belonging to that concept did bad things, everybody belonging to or identifying with that concept does bad things, and that those belonging to the group who doesn't do the bad things have no right to defend themselves.

I belong to a religion and while I don't "shuffle off" misdeeds done in religion's name, I do wish to point out that just because someone belongs to or identifies with a religion doesn't mean that the religion "made them do it" or however one would like to call it. Sometimes a claim to religion is politically useful, and the claim will be made even though the person doesn't follow the principles of the religion. Not differentiating between that kind of religiousness and other kinds is a needlessly broad attack on religion.

[vison]

I am fascinated how religion shuffles off misdeeds done in religion's name or by people who identify as being of that religion.

So am I, but I don't think that applies in this case.

[Primula Baggins]

People who wouldn't do such things themselves don't care to be tarred by the acts of others who share a label (that may be no more than a label) with them. Labels don't define people. Members of the same group are not defined by all acts of all members of that group, even if it is a religion —any more than someone should be pilloried for the acts of someone else in the same political party, or in the same union, or of the same ethnic heritage.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

I am fascinated how religion shuffles off misdeeds done in religion's name or by people who identify as being of that religion.

The converse is as astonishing; the way 'religion' embraces good deeds as demonstrating the morality inherent in that specific religion. A simple example is how a charitable act is often described as a "Christian" act...

PS

And to add one final comment to Nazism and the 'occult', it was Heinrich Himmler, not Hitler, who was the driving force behind the re-invention of the German Volk-memory. Hitler, by all accounts, was ambivalent to it in all but its effectiveness in reinvigorating German national pride. Himmler, on the other hand, was deeply involved in occultism.

[Primula Baggins]

It's certainly fair that a member of a group such as a religion can't be credited/charged with either the good or evil done by other members of the group, unless the member participates in the good or evil action.

[Dave_LF]

If a religion actively advocates some sort of behavior and adherents do in fact engage in that behavior more often than people in general, then it is probably fair to blame/credit the religion itself.

[yovargas]

While I'd broadly agree with that thought, it's kinda problematic when religions aren't monolithic things. There are dozens, probably hundreds, of different brands of Christianity and almost nothing is universally agreed upon by them.

[Dave_LF]

In that case "the religion" just has to mean the highest level you can go to where the behavior is still universally encouraged.

[anthriel]

I am fascinated how religion shuffles off misdeeds done in religion's name or by people who identify as being of that religion.

Do you feel that "religion" should then take responsibility for the actions of those who identify themselves as being of that religion? Even if their actions are clearly counter to the teachings of that religion? What would such responsibility look like? Would there be punative measures imposed by the religion on its (admittedly non-compliant) members? Are these people actually members if they have not officially joined an official religous group?

If there were punative measures associated with actions taken outside the framework of the teachings of the religion, how would that be enforced? Do these religions really have that kind of power?

Priests who molest little boys can certainly be punished by not being priests anymore, but any more punishment has to come from the laws of the land, which apply to all people, regardless of their religious affiliation.

[axordil]

I think there are really two separate issues here. There is the question of whether or not a particular religion can be blamed for the acts of those who claim its name, but not its teachings. Then there is the larger issue, of why someone who does not follow a religion's teachings would want to claim its name.

In some cases this can perhaps be attributed to the perpetrator in question being unhinged, or ignorant, but not all. I think two things are at play when the attribution comes from a "sane" offender.

First, there is the idea that the religion in question has strayed from its true values, and that it OUGHT to be condoning what the criminal in question is doing, or even that it does, but won't admit it publicly. This is the mentality of many of those who kill abortion providers, I think. They obviously think they've got the morality of the issue in hand, and that the rest of their co-religionists are either apostates or pretending to disapprove.

Second, there is the idea that once you claim God is on your side, in whatever form, you have ended the possibility of any actual conversation on whether your acts are moral or not. Killers for causes aren't interested in this conversation, because the existence of the conversation is tantamount to an admission they might be wrong, and they might have killed for a bad reason. By claiming a theological justification, however bogus by the lights of their putative co-religionists, they don't have to prove anything to anyone.

It's their version of the bumper sticker that says "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." So long as there are religions that operate under that equation, there are going to be nasty, vile people that scurry under what they perceive to be the protection it offers.

[anthriel]

Well said, ax. ("Well written", I suppose, but it doesn't have the same ring )

I think people can follow all kinds of things with a religious fervor that has nothing to do with actual religion.

This terrorist said "I am first and foremost a man of logic", and if there is anything more difficult to define than someone's perception of what religion is, it is someone's perception of what logic is.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That sounds logical.

[anthriel]

Maverick's Logic. Oy.

[vison]

Ah, yes. Logic.

Logic, she is a wonderful thing. If you start off with a correct premise.

But if you start off wrong, your logic is never going to correct that. EVER. It will just take you farther and farther from reality.

[SirDennis]

This side discussion puts me in mind of something I read just recently at AICN (of all places). The original topic was an interview given by Guillermo del Toro to AICN. The sub topic from which the post below is lifted is on Hollywood, science and immagination. Disclaimer, while I did not write this, I might have done so as it captures my own way of thinking remarkably well:

As for the derailed topic on Hollywood, science and imagination. That's what happens when people abandon religion for pointless empty spirituality. Science is banging it's head into the same wall of [...] evolutionary beliefs and vague pseudo-scientific theorizing so much that it's long ago become a false religion of it's own. Religion doesn't disappear, those who lose their religion merely replace it with another one. For the longest time it's been scienctism mixed with pure [...] beliefs about evolution, and the prophecies of inevitable progress. All of which are failing to live up to any of its promises because it never had any to give and it subsequently dying alongside other 'Western' religions because it in itself become one. Science today is largely faltering because it had been taken over by ideologically driven groups who will keep proudly running into the same brick walls of their errors rather than changing course.

Christianity on the other hand prophesized all this, so as far as the faithful are concerned, everything is still on-track and the current decline is simply history repeating itself. Christianity never technically lost members. It was just culturally cool for awhile and the majority of its members born into it never appreciated or learned about it anyway but remained because the social structure demanded it. When culture changed, they took their excuse to leave. The number of true faithful was always small. The doctrine has always been that the majority are damned simply because they took their religion for granted and never really gave a damn.

Islam on the other hand is growing, a lot, and amazingly enough in the same secular cultures that sought to throw off their Christian heritage for a purely secular one... Ironically their dreams of the promised land of scientific irreligion are doomed to falter as they slowly morph into one that will come under Islam and Sharia, in essence a religion that is more severe than the one they foolishly believed they were getting away from will be taking them over... And that's just how it goes. Vague spiritualized atheism is self-defeating and writes its own obituary. And it's only sad to see the peddlers going about clinging to the last shreds of its flailing tatters failing to see the inevitable outcome that is on the horizon. And that ladies and gents, is a true mountain of madness!

Comment by 'johnno' Aug 30, 2011 2:52:07 AM CDT Retrieved today from: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/50956

[...] indicates deleted expletives

[vison]

Science today is largely faltering because it had been taken over by ideologically driven groups who will keep proudly running into the same brick walls of their errors rather than changing course.

Oh, really?

Science is "largely faltering", eh? For the luvva pete.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

Science is banging it's head into the same wall of [...] evolutionary beliefs and vague pseudo-scientific theorizing so much that it's long ago become a false religion of it's own

I can quite imagine pseudo science becoming a false religion. The God of Science however is truth and its priests are very severe with each other from straying from that search. Moreover truth isn't what was believed in some distance past otherwise we would not have moved from Aristotle; it is what stands up to constant scrutiny every day.
I don't notice evolution being a wall; I see it as an avenue with wide vistas and all sorts of interesting by ways to explore.

[axordil]

I think he meant the promise of science=progress=better lives for everyone is faltering, and he has a point. Jetpack and flying car jokes aside, science has been great at making life for the comfortable even more comfortable, and making life for everyone else pretty much the same.

There are exceptions, notable ones, though. Mobile communications, for one (aka cell phones, sat phones, and smart phones) provide connections to the previously unconnected. We see the first fruit of that now, but so much more could come of it...

The problem of course is not with science, but with what science is done, which is another way of saying what science is funded. When it's vaccines, yay. When it's another erectile dysfunction drug, boo. Yet going back to the cell phones...those aren't given away for charity. Capitalism and real progress are neither inimical foes nor joined at the hips.

[yovargas]

That post was really, really weird. It's hard to address without a greater context. What are these "failures" it's talking about?? Was it just a long-winded way of saying "I don't buy evolution and Christianity is awesome"?