RE: What's your opinion on Liberal Religion?
November 24, 2021 at 12:15 pm
(This post was last modified: November 24, 2021 at 12:28 pm by emjay.)
I'm glad you said this...
... because this was really starting to bug me:
... because what you seemed to be advocating was basically the virtue of hypocrisy, but without recognising the disparate negative implications of that... that's what I was calling depressing... ie it has little effect on the good, but makes a bad thing much worse. For instance it's hypocritical in a sense for me as an atheist, not believing in god, to sing hymns/carols at Christmas, but no-one's going to have any problem with that because it's a benign, religious/cultural tradition, done in good spirit. Just as is the case with all your examples of Buddhist traditions in Japan. But not all religious practices and customs are benign.
Where religious practices are oppressive and infringe upon other people's rights, such as Christianity's general treatment of gay people, then hypocrisy only adds insult to injury. I'm gay and if I was in the process of being beaten up on account of religion and asked my attacker 'why are you doing this?' and they said 'because God is against homosexuality, it says so in the Bible'... then that to me would at least explain, if not condone what they were doing to me, but if then I asked 'do you believe in God?' and they said, 'well, no', and I said 'so how do you justify this?', and they said 'I just like being part of the club... it gives me a sense of community... and I like this practice'... you can surely see how that would ring hollow and add insult to injury, kicking me while I'm down metaphorically as well as physically in this case?
Now I'm not looking to get into an argument about this, and I doubt you are either, judging by the sorts of things you've said so far (about your niece's church for instance)... you basically strike me as an idealist, in the intellectual way you approach belief and religion, and generally speaking I personally find that quite endearing, but however lofty ideas may be in theory or the abstract, that doesn't necessarily translate well into reality.
(November 24, 2021 at 6:25 am)Belacqua Wrote: ...
But overall I may have overstated my case, for which I apologize. "Exaggerated for emphasis," as the diagrams used to say. I don't mean to claim that there has ever been a hard-and-fast split, in which what one holds to be true is irrelevant. I just think the description of religion as an early and failed version of science misunderstands the role that religion plays in people's lives.
... because this was really starting to bug me:
(November 23, 2021 at 2:36 am)Belacqua Wrote: ...
And yes, religion can push bad things. Zen Buddhists in Japan were intimately involved in the pre-War militarism. Zen mindfulness is a useful tool for people about to die in a suicide airplane. But to say that that is intrinsic to religion and the good parts aren't is just lopsided.
... because what you seemed to be advocating was basically the virtue of hypocrisy, but without recognising the disparate negative implications of that... that's what I was calling depressing... ie it has little effect on the good, but makes a bad thing much worse. For instance it's hypocritical in a sense for me as an atheist, not believing in god, to sing hymns/carols at Christmas, but no-one's going to have any problem with that because it's a benign, religious/cultural tradition, done in good spirit. Just as is the case with all your examples of Buddhist traditions in Japan. But not all religious practices and customs are benign.
Where religious practices are oppressive and infringe upon other people's rights, such as Christianity's general treatment of gay people, then hypocrisy only adds insult to injury. I'm gay and if I was in the process of being beaten up on account of religion and asked my attacker 'why are you doing this?' and they said 'because God is against homosexuality, it says so in the Bible'... then that to me would at least explain, if not condone what they were doing to me, but if then I asked 'do you believe in God?' and they said, 'well, no', and I said 'so how do you justify this?', and they said 'I just like being part of the club... it gives me a sense of community... and I like this practice'... you can surely see how that would ring hollow and add insult to injury, kicking me while I'm down metaphorically as well as physically in this case?
Now I'm not looking to get into an argument about this, and I doubt you are either, judging by the sorts of things you've said so far (about your niece's church for instance)... you basically strike me as an idealist, in the intellectual way you approach belief and religion, and generally speaking I personally find that quite endearing, but however lofty ideas may be in theory or the abstract, that doesn't necessarily translate well into reality.
