6 ms·

Your last point is important. The author seems to assume that the priests are honest and trying to do the right thing. Given human nature, I have trouble believ

by pge 9y ago

Your last point is important. The author seems to assume that the priests are honest and trying to do the right thing. Given human nature, I have trouble believing that a person with unilateral decision making authority over the fate of another always does the right thing. Far more likely, as you suggest, that he punishes those he does not like (out group members, didnt pay him enough, etc)

jacquesm 9y ago
Priests are as close as it gets to professional liars, why would they tell the truth at all unless it served their interests?
- jdmichal 9y ago
  There's a huge difference between lying and holding allegedly mistaken but otherwise wholehearted beliefs.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    > wholehearted I'm sorry, but I just don't buy it. The degree to which one would have to be willing to fudge things in order to make that work seems incredible to me. I can forgive the laypeople, the people who have placed their belief in others who claim an authority they don't have a right to but I find it impossible to afford the purveyors of the belief systems themselves the same leeway. After all, if you study something more than a little bit then you should be intricately familiar with the thing and in the case of religion it would require quite an act of self delusion in order to get to the point where you would start influencing the lives of others based on the belief you profess to be an authority in. Maybe they have some other code by which they live but a search for truth or a solid foundation under the religion at hand does not seem to factor into it. I've met quite a few priests, not a single one - to date, I'm prepared to be surprised - struck me as willing to place evidence over dogma and reason over belief. But that didn't stop them from eating over the backs of their subjects and making promises they would never be able to keep.
    - jdmichal 9y ago
      > After all, if you study something more than a little bit then you should be intricately familiar with the thing and in the case of religion it would require quite an act of self delusion in order to get to the point where you would start influencing the lives of others based on the belief you profess to be an authority in. I'm not entirely sure what your actual implication is here. Could you try rephrasing? > Maybe they have some other code by which they live but a search for truth or a solid foundation under the religion at hand does not seem to factor into it. > I've met quite a few priests, not a single one - to date, I'm prepared to be surprised - struck me as willing to place evidence over dogma and reason over belief. But that didn't stop them from eating over the backs of their subjects and making promises they would never be able to keep. Given that dogma and faith are typically defining traits of religion... I'm unsure what you expect the results to be? Also, to be honest, I have a hard time distinguishing anything that you've said so far as a verbosely-worded "DAE atheism? reason right, religion wrong!" Which I personally is a bit of a false dichotomy that people like to present. But then again, I'm solidly in the agnostic camp. I believe such things are and will always be unknowable, so attempts to apply logical and knowledge-based arguments are misguided. But, in an attempt to offer some kind of response: Yes, there are plenty of accounts of people doing terrible things in the name of religion. There are also plenty of accounts of people doing terrible things for other reasons. As far as I can tell, this is just people being people, using whatever excuse or reasoning or power they can to serve their interests.
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        > I'm not entirely sure what your actual implication is here. Could you try rephrasing? I don't think that it is possible to study religion for any time at all and Catholicism in particular to conclude that it is just men making up stories that can't be verified in order to gain positions of power. This coupled with all the stage magic to impress the feeble minded should sour anybody that wants to be priest on the job. So to me those that make it through that filter are either feeble minded themselves (rare) or are cynical enough that they feel that in spite of knowing better they will still continue the charade. > Given that dogma and faith are typically defining traits of religion... I'm unsure what you expect the results to be? I can't help it, I'm always assuming that people would like to know the truth, I can see that if you throw that out the window that 'anything goes', but once you cross that bridge the differences between the church of scientology and the catholic church are smaller than the common bits. They're both structures put in place to allow the slightly more powerful to prey on the slightly weaker. > Also, to be honest, I have a hard time distinguishing anything that you've said so far as a verbosely-worded "DAE atheism? reason right, religion wrong!" Which I personally is a bit of a false dichotomy that people like to present. I had no clue what the meant so I looked it up, apparently DAE stands for 'does anyone else' and within that context I can't make soup of your accusation. FWIW I'm probably a lot worse than anything you'd like to accuse me of, personally I think that 'men of the cloth' are criminals of the worst order, they willingly and knowingly spread mental viruses that cause great harm to society. You can read just about any history book to verify that. Of course we don't have any laws against this so it is all fine and good. But that does not diminish the harm. > I believe such things are and will always be unknowable, so attempts to apply logical and knowledge-based arguments are misguided. Well, there you go: problem solved. > But, in an attempt to offer some kind of response: Yes, there are plenty of accounts of people doing terrible things in the name of religion. Nice to see we can agree on that. > There are also plenty of accounts of people doing terrible things for other reasons. This is true, but that's an argument that is along the same lines as people that don't want India to have a space program because lots of Indians are still hungry. The fact that people are doing bad things for other reasons is no ground to ignore the (vast amounts of) bad things done by religion. > As far as I can tell, this is just people being people, using whatever excuse or reasoning or power they can to serve their interests. Maybe our viewpoints are not that far from each other after all. Yes, it's just people being people.

by pge 9y ago

jacquesm 9y ago

Priests are as close as it gets to professional liars, why would they tell the truth at all unless it served their interests?

jdmichal 9y ago
There's a huge difference between lying and holding allegedly mistaken but otherwise wholehearted beliefs.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > wholehearted I'm sorry, but I just don't buy it. The degree to which one would have to be willing to fudge things in order to make that work seems incredible to me. I can forgive the laypeople, the people who have placed their belief in others who claim an authority they don't have a right to but I find it impossible to afford the purveyors of the belief systems themselves the same leeway. After all, if you study something more than a little bit then you should be intricately familiar with the thing and in the case of religion it would require quite an act of self delusion in order to get to the point where you would start influencing the lives of others based on the belief you profess to be an authority in. Maybe they have some other code by which they live but a search for truth or a solid foundation under the religion at hand does not seem to factor into it. I've met quite a few priests, not a single one - to date, I'm prepared to be surprised - struck me as willing to place evidence over dogma and reason over belief. But that didn't stop them from eating over the backs of their subjects and making promises they would never be able to keep.
  - jdmichal 9y ago
    > After all, if you study something more than a little bit then you should be intricately familiar with the thing and in the case of religion it would require quite an act of self delusion in order to get to the point where you would start influencing the lives of others based on the belief you profess to be an authority in. I'm not entirely sure what your actual implication is here. Could you try rephrasing? > Maybe they have some other code by which they live but a search for truth or a solid foundation under the religion at hand does not seem to factor into it. > I've met quite a few priests, not a single one - to date, I'm prepared to be surprised - struck me as willing to place evidence over dogma and reason over belief. But that didn't stop them from eating over the backs of their subjects and making promises they would never be able to keep. Given that dogma and faith are typically defining traits of religion... I'm unsure what you expect the results to be? Also, to be honest, I have a hard time distinguishing anything that you've said so far as a verbosely-worded "DAE atheism? reason right, religion wrong!" Which I personally is a bit of a false dichotomy that people like to present. But then again, I'm solidly in the agnostic camp. I believe such things are and will always be unknowable, so attempts to apply logical and knowledge-based arguments are misguided. But, in an attempt to offer some kind of response: Yes, there are plenty of accounts of people doing terrible things in the name of religion. There are also plenty of accounts of people doing terrible things for other reasons. As far as I can tell, this is just people being people, using whatever excuse or reasoning or power they can to serve their interests.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      > I'm not entirely sure what your actual implication is here. Could you try rephrasing? I don't think that it is possible to study religion for any time at all and Catholicism in particular to conclude that it is just men making up stories that can't be verified in order to gain positions of power. This coupled with all the stage magic to impress the feeble minded should sour anybody that wants to be priest on the job. So to me those that make it through that filter are either feeble minded themselves (rare) or are cynical enough that they feel that in spite of knowing better they will still continue the charade. > Given that dogma and faith are typically defining traits of religion... I'm unsure what you expect the results to be? I can't help it, I'm always assuming that people would like to know the truth, I can see that if you throw that out the window that 'anything goes', but once you cross that bridge the differences between the church of scientology and the catholic church are smaller than the common bits. They're both structures put in place to allow the slightly more powerful to prey on the slightly weaker. > Also, to be honest, I have a hard time distinguishing anything that you've said so far as a verbosely-worded "DAE atheism? reason right, religion wrong!" Which I personally is a bit of a false dichotomy that people like to present. I had no clue what the meant so I looked it up, apparently DAE stands for 'does anyone else' and within that context I can't make soup of your accusation. FWIW I'm probably a lot worse than anything you'd like to accuse me of, personally I think that 'men of the cloth' are criminals of the worst order, they willingly and knowingly spread mental viruses that cause great harm to society. You can read just about any history book to verify that. Of course we don't have any laws against this so it is all fine and good. But that does not diminish the harm. > I believe such things are and will always be unknowable, so attempts to apply logical and knowledge-based arguments are misguided. Well, there you go: problem solved. > But, in an attempt to offer some kind of response: Yes, there are plenty of accounts of people doing terrible things in the name of religion. Nice to see we can agree on that. > There are also plenty of accounts of people doing terrible things for other reasons. This is true, but that's an argument that is along the same lines as people that don't want India to have a space program because lots of Indians are still hungry. The fact that people are doing bad things for other reasons is no ground to ignore the (vast amounts of) bad things done by religion. > As far as I can tell, this is just people being people, using whatever excuse or reasoning or power they can to serve their interests. Maybe our viewpoints are not that far from each other after all. Yes, it's just people being people.