God Hates Human Sacrifice?

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chansen said:
It doesn't matter what I believe when it comes to Kimmio's position. Claiming that God or Jesus is some kind of peacenik is revising the bible to suit what you wish it said.
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Funny I thought the same thing about your claims.
 
The laws were made for people to live by and get along. He knew this. He's not opposed to that outcome. Jesus breaks the letter of the law but fulfills the spirit of the law. He is killed for breaking the letter of the law, for doing what authorities saw as flying in the face of the law. But he understood, intuitively, I believe, what the spirit of the law is. He leaves it summed up with his followers in two commandments. "Love God.... And love your neighbour.''and in another verse "As I have loved you so must you love one another" . He wasn't warm and fuzzy with everyone, no, he was hyperbolic, or maybe the writers were - but he was kind hearted.
 
anyhew, instead of all this silly theory, here's some actual awesome science done by an expert in the field, who actually has talked to jihadists, who understands religion in its fullest sense as opposed to the simple 'it's bad, aright?' and who people like the US gov't actually listens to and builds policy around

more marvelous Scott Atran

the article is actually Scott Atran taking issue with certain claims by Sam Harris, but I present the article to you because it has some links to some of Scott Atran's papers investigating religion

here it is

(oh, and there's a wonderful website i've just come across that is all aboot islamophobia -- its called 'loonwatch'...check it out?)

here's another quote for y'all quote dumpfile from The Atran:

"People make religious belief – whether Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and so forth - compatible with violence or non-violence according to how they interpret their religious beliefs. And how people interpret religious injunctions (e.g., the Ten Commandments), as well as transcendental aspects of political ideologies, almost invariably changes over time."

*basking in the glow of science*
 
Kimmio said:
"Our interpretations reveal less about God or the Bible than they do about ourselves. They reveal what we want to defend, what we want to attack, what we want to ignore, what we're unwilling to question..." ~Brian McLaren (Theologian/ author)
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Yes, so take the supernatural g_d or even the term out of the equation, and it becomes a simple statement of how we exist :3 What we say reveals what we want to defend, what we want to attack, what we want to ignore, what we're unwilling to question...

So, what some good people have been saying here, that it is not the Religion that causes the harm, it is the PEOPLE and their INTERPRETATIONS and ACTIONS that cause it...
 
and that we can actually figure out the various MECHANISMS & BEHAVIOURS behind it and adjust our various aspects of society to account for them...
 
That's what I've been saying. Adjust the mechanisms and behaviours - by teaching non-proliferation and peace. In religious and secular settings.That I believe Jesus is peaceful is not the problem -because the problem is that a pile of WMDs and guns, is still far more dangerous than a stack of Bibles. We've got religious zealots and war hawks who may or may not be atheist, both are pro-weapon. We've got moderates who are pro-weapon-for-protection. So far, we have relatively few, who are speaking up for actual disarmament. They seem to be in the minority.
 
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The problem remains, who disarms first? Once you have that question answered, you also have the answer to the question, "Who gets attacked first?"

It's a noble goal, no doubt. But it's beyond unrealistic. Much better to slowly remove the reasons for masses to want to or be willing to fight. Religion is only part of that. Access to food, clean water, educations, good jobs, etc. If teenagers in Afghanistan had iPhones and high school exams, they wouldn't be radicalized by religious zealots.

Scratch that - some western youths are still radicalized by religious leaders. But again, if we can de-legitimize religion in the eyes of more people, fewer and fewer will have religion as a reason to intervene. Combine that with stabilizing unstable countries with education systems and economies that are not mostly dependent on oil or the drug trade where only a few people get mega rich, and there are fewer reasons to fight.

How to stabilize these countries? I don't pretend to have that answer. But I am not about to put forward an unrealistic one.
 
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I still say getting rid of weapons is a better focus than getting rid of religion. You will never rid the world of people who believe in God, or connect myth to meaning or both. Even educated people. Connecting myth, creativity, to meaning is where great art comes from - not just religion. It provides inspiration and hope, too. Without it - I can see it now - art becomes religated paint to by numbers - and poetry gets lost to technical manuals. Because those are 'realistic' and sensical. How people interpret what God is changes or there would not be churches like UCCan.


If we can dream of sending people to space, to inhabit Mars, to build satellites, to create the Internet - to get that done. Surely, we have it in us to work towards the realization of disarmament. Maybe we have to dream better dreams. Why be pessimistic about that? If you get rid of weapons, there will be zealots with some agenda still- with spears and stones. A bit easier to keep a lid on. And maybe there will be war-hawks-turned-wooden-duck-carvers.
 
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