1) You are not totally wrong on this one either. Of course there are those that I like and those that I don’t like. I am the one who decides which one is a serious scholar and which one is a complete M…n with followers. I am the one who makes these decisions (for myself of course). But still I don’t believe I’m making these decisions in an arbitrary manner. I am shaping my opinion on these issues in the same way I am shaping my political of philosophical opinions. I try to maintain a critical approach, and then I am deciding which one is truth, with one is fairy tale, which one is obvious bigotry etc. etc.
This is why I am totally opposing all types of religious schools before the age of 18. No one can teach you religion before the age of 18. If you try you will get two types of people
a) People who have lost all sense of belief in the spiritual world and are either pretending to believe something (or are self-deceiving about that) and
b) Fanatics who were so unable to resist the amount of pressure that was applied on them in their early years (Like the President Xi Xing Ping of China who was just a farm boy who was recruited into the ranks of the Communist party and has been entirely indoctrinated by it), that they suffer some kind of Stockholm Syndrome and seen no other exit other than insanity and end up surrendering entirely to whatever indoctrination they have been exposed to.
I am not against extra curricular Bible classes, Kuran classes etc. Also some practical things like Yoga, music, dancing, tai-chi could even be made mandatory in public schools. But I am against all types of religious schools before the age of 18. And then, there should be religious colleges (4 year programs) for all people who are willing to become priests, pastors, rabbis, İmams etc. or for people who simply happen to be interested in these subjects.
Once I had met this guy who was impressed by the amount of nihilism and loss of direction of some people in the area he lived in and hoped to solve this by sending his kids to a religion oriented school. My answer to this is that this is simply not way to solve this problem. What you need is:
a) A truly loving and responsible family. Parents who are kids themselves should not be allowed to become parents.
b) A free, universal, secular and mandatory education system between the age or 6 and 18 (16 if you decide to move to a professional high school).
And this is it. Religious indoctrination cannot replace these two things and in fact, it will only make it worse if these two elements are absent.
The satisfaction of spiritual needs after the age of 18 is another issue. Of course I am against sectarian formations, UFO cults, brainwashing abusive Guru’s etc. But I would support all forms of religious groupings, truly spiritual communities etc. who are focusing on some mainstream teachings instead of some invented cults. And I am saying this because is you let anybody invent his/her own religion then how do you stop some of those suicide sects or brainwashing sects who are openly using and brainwashing their adept being hidden under the umbrella of religious freedoms?
With traditional belief systems you don’t have these problems. So if someone tries to abuse me through İslam, other Abrahamic beliefs, or other true religions (And believe me, they are trying to abuse me and my entire society through the misinterpretation of İslam) I can always resist them and say: “Well, here is my book. Where did you get this? What you say isn’t present in the book. It isn’t present in the historical records? So where did you get this Mister?”
But what can I do in the case of scientology for instance? What do I say if someone is pretending to be the reincarnation of Big Mo. Of if he / she is pretending to be receiving from the Andromeda Civilization?
So not believing is OK. But you should still probably be able to accept the fact that most of mainstream religions are still a little bit more than fairy tales. Because we are able to debate and do research and have rational debates about the beliefs that are contained in these religions. So we may be mistaking (and that’s what you are saying) but we are still rational people, with a rational belief system and for most of us, our two foots are still firmly in the ground. We are not having LCD trips like some UFO cults, or suicidal sects in which we are veneering an enlightened being of some sort whose only problem is to sexually exploit the women and receive cash from his male followers. No I think. That traditional religious systems are very serious beliefs systems that are very demanding in terms of both religious devotion and intellectual work that have to be invested in order to be able to get any visible result from these belief systems. Or at least, this is how I see it.
2) I told you how the druidic culture and religion of the Celts have been destroyed. When he conquered Gaul, Caesar deliberately destroyed the druidic culture (and all the wisdom they had accumulated through the ages through their unwritten oral teachings) because he wanted to assimilate the Gauls into the Roman way of life. The Roman religion (and the Pagan religion of the Greeks) was in the most part superficial. Ordinary people still believed in Jupiter, the Vestal Virgins etc. But for the elite, the Gods were mere concepts. As I told you, Roman emperors were even going as far as deifying themselves. It was a highly materialistic culture that focused on material / worldly pleasures and they weren’t civilized at all. The Gauls were not wrong in their hatred toward them. The entire Roman economy was based on slave labor. They were brutal and barbaric and their entire power was based on their superior military machine. So Jesus came (In my opinion) as a revolutionary. So they crucified him. But this wasn’t enough. The people didn’t want the old ways anymore. So they converted. And when Constantine made it the official religion of the empire, in this kind of society no one could really remain Pagan when the elite of the empire had turned to Christianity. In fact there was this Emperor Julian (331-361 AD) who wanted to restore the old ways and forbid Christianity once again. But he failed. The people wanted to adopt the new belief system.
Of course the Catholic church of the middle ages became highly oppressive and dogmatic. But I don’t think this was the case in the beginning of Christianity. Still it is true that it was the Christians who burned the library of Alexandria in the 4th century. And I agree that that gradually became less and less tolerant toward other belief systems. But this too happened by itself. People don’t like what is different. Once they became the majority, they probably forced the remaining minority into their belief systems.
But as I said. If I decide to believe something, I’d rather believe an ages old religious teaching that has some rationality in it (this you cannot deny) than some new cult that was invented by a perverted mind in order to be able to exploit people. In fact, anyone who puts some amount of effort in understanding one of the worldwide recognized religion will see that there is an amount of wisdom and true spiritual messages in these teachings. Even an Atheist cannot deny this. This is a fact. For this reason I think that the term “fairy tales” is not a good description for these traditional belief systems.
This is why I am totally opposing all types of religious schools before the age of 18. No one can teach you religion before the age of 18. If you try you will get two types of people
a) People who have lost all sense of belief in the spiritual world and are either pretending to believe something (or are self-deceiving about that) and
b) Fanatics who were so unable to resist the amount of pressure that was applied on them in their early years (Like the President Xi Xing Ping of China who was just a farm boy who was recruited into the ranks of the Communist party and has been entirely indoctrinated by it), that they suffer some kind of Stockholm Syndrome and seen no other exit other than insanity and end up surrendering entirely to whatever indoctrination they have been exposed to.
I am not against extra curricular Bible classes, Kuran classes etc. Also some practical things like Yoga, music, dancing, tai-chi could even be made mandatory in public schools. But I am against all types of religious schools before the age of 18. And then, there should be religious colleges (4 year programs) for all people who are willing to become priests, pastors, rabbis, İmams etc. or for people who simply happen to be interested in these subjects.
Once I had met this guy who was impressed by the amount of nihilism and loss of direction of some people in the area he lived in and hoped to solve this by sending his kids to a religion oriented school. My answer to this is that this is simply not way to solve this problem. What you need is:
a) A truly loving and responsible family. Parents who are kids themselves should not be allowed to become parents.
b) A free, universal, secular and mandatory education system between the age or 6 and 18 (16 if you decide to move to a professional high school).
And this is it. Religious indoctrination cannot replace these two things and in fact, it will only make it worse if these two elements are absent.
The satisfaction of spiritual needs after the age of 18 is another issue. Of course I am against sectarian formations, UFO cults, brainwashing abusive Guru’s etc. But I would support all forms of religious groupings, truly spiritual communities etc. who are focusing on some mainstream teachings instead of some invented cults. And I am saying this because is you let anybody invent his/her own religion then how do you stop some of those suicide sects or brainwashing sects who are openly using and brainwashing their adept being hidden under the umbrella of religious freedoms?
With traditional belief systems you don’t have these problems. So if someone tries to abuse me through İslam, other Abrahamic beliefs, or other true religions (And believe me, they are trying to abuse me and my entire society through the misinterpretation of İslam) I can always resist them and say: “Well, here is my book. Where did you get this? What you say isn’t present in the book. It isn’t present in the historical records? So where did you get this Mister?”
But what can I do in the case of scientology for instance? What do I say if someone is pretending to be the reincarnation of Big Mo. Of if he / she is pretending to be receiving from the Andromeda Civilization?
So not believing is OK. But you should still probably be able to accept the fact that most of mainstream religions are still a little bit more than fairy tales. Because we are able to debate and do research and have rational debates about the beliefs that are contained in these religions. So we may be mistaking (and that’s what you are saying) but we are still rational people, with a rational belief system and for most of us, our two foots are still firmly in the ground. We are not having LCD trips like some UFO cults, or suicidal sects in which we are veneering an enlightened being of some sort whose only problem is to sexually exploit the women and receive cash from his male followers. No I think. That traditional religious systems are very serious beliefs systems that are very demanding in terms of both religious devotion and intellectual work that have to be invested in order to be able to get any visible result from these belief systems. Or at least, this is how I see it.
2) I told you how the druidic culture and religion of the Celts have been destroyed. When he conquered Gaul, Caesar deliberately destroyed the druidic culture (and all the wisdom they had accumulated through the ages through their unwritten oral teachings) because he wanted to assimilate the Gauls into the Roman way of life. The Roman religion (and the Pagan religion of the Greeks) was in the most part superficial. Ordinary people still believed in Jupiter, the Vestal Virgins etc. But for the elite, the Gods were mere concepts. As I told you, Roman emperors were even going as far as deifying themselves. It was a highly materialistic culture that focused on material / worldly pleasures and they weren’t civilized at all. The Gauls were not wrong in their hatred toward them. The entire Roman economy was based on slave labor. They were brutal and barbaric and their entire power was based on their superior military machine. So Jesus came (In my opinion) as a revolutionary. So they crucified him. But this wasn’t enough. The people didn’t want the old ways anymore. So they converted. And when Constantine made it the official religion of the empire, in this kind of society no one could really remain Pagan when the elite of the empire had turned to Christianity. In fact there was this Emperor Julian (331-361 AD) who wanted to restore the old ways and forbid Christianity once again. But he failed. The people wanted to adopt the new belief system.
Of course the Catholic church of the middle ages became highly oppressive and dogmatic. But I don’t think this was the case in the beginning of Christianity. Still it is true that it was the Christians who burned the library of Alexandria in the 4th century. And I agree that that gradually became less and less tolerant toward other belief systems. But this too happened by itself. People don’t like what is different. Once they became the majority, they probably forced the remaining minority into their belief systems.
But as I said. If I decide to believe something, I’d rather believe an ages old religious teaching that has some rationality in it (this you cannot deny) than some new cult that was invented by a perverted mind in order to be able to exploit people. In fact, anyone who puts some amount of effort in understanding one of the worldwide recognized religion will see that there is an amount of wisdom and true spiritual messages in these teachings. Even an Atheist cannot deny this. This is a fact. For this reason I think that the term “fairy tales” is not a good description for these traditional belief systems.
