Are the Churches Incorrigible? Are They Any Better Today?

[Michael Schubert]

As a lifelong atheist, I would like to bring this question up for debate:
Can America's present-day churches be reformed for the better? When I look around me today, I honestly can't see much difference between the present-day religious bigots and the past atrocities committed in the name of God throughout history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fT662iSUJg

To start us off, let us take a look at some of these headlines:

Islamic militants kill 30 in Nigeria school attack.

Islamic States Reject UN's Attempt to Protect Women; it Violates Sharia Law.

The Boy Killed For An Off-Hand Remark About Mohammed- Sharia Spreads in Syria.

In the above examples, the perpetrators of these atrocities are acting in allegiance to their bible. Religions, as I understand them, are all primitive, for each faith's adherents conduct their daily lives according to scriptural, doctrinaire dogma that was written way back before anyone knew anything about science and reason, and so instead they made up fantasy stories about gods and miracles to explain life's mysteries. Adhering to Allah's thousands-of-years-old instructions, the perpetrators reject rights for women because their bible tells them to. This is hardly disparate to the Christian Dominionist leaders of today, such as Phylis Schlafly, who fought long and hard against the Equal Rights Amendment for women. Back in the 1970s, conservative Christians quoted the Holy Bible as their reason for opposing gender equality. Just read this passage from Corinthians:

[/i]“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”[i]

Schlafly and her colleagues firmly believed that women's place was in the home, and she was to be loyal to her husband at all times. The now-failed Equal Rights Amendment did the exact opposite of this: It allowed equal job opportunity for women, and even made them eligible to the draft. Sadly, the amendment's plain idea that women are equal to men is precisely why the Christian extremists viewed it with such depravity. How it is that people can choose a thousands-of-years-old book of fiction over reason and common sense today is well beyond me.

And today we even have Pat Robertson slandering atheists, homosexuals and non-Christians on national television. The other televangelists are no different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvTqV4jui...0A&index=3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YahBpd4pQRk

Now we can compare today's Taliban and Christian Dominionist Church to the past atrocities performed in the name of religion.

The best example is the Spanish Inquisition. Born from the Catholic Church, the terrorist organization tried and tortured people in the name of Catholic orthodoxy. They often waterboarded their victims, and put them in strappados.

Speaking of the Catholic Church, who could forget the numerous pedophile scandals with the Vatican? And the fighting between the Protestants and the Catholics in northern Ireland continues to this day.

So are religions any better or more moral today than they have been these past few hundred years? It's hard to tell. I realize I am only looking at religious extremists. Do you know any good church goers today who are decent people?

Anyway, that is all something to think about.

[Silver]

Some churches do change.

I remember not too long ago some churches made a public apology to homosexuals for the way the church treated them.

The churches can change their ideas on anything, it seems, except for its belief in god. Once the belief in god is gone, it is no longer a church.

[Michael Schubert]

Some churches do change.

I remember not too long ago some churches made a public apology to homosexuals for the way the church treated them.

The churches can change their ideas on anything, it seems, except for its belief in god. Once the belief in god is gone, it is no longer a church.

I'm not too sure of that. The Church of Scientology doesn't have a god. They just believe in aliens that are living in our brain.

[Minimalist]

No. They are inherently corrupt.

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-- Thomas Jefferson

[Lucanus]

No doctrinaire, dogmatic belief has been shown to survive without causing at the very least unpleasant conflicts.

Even though many religious leaders call for peace and collaboration between the different religions, some people will inevitably fall in extremism. It's not like everything but christianity is a virus for the West. I think it's more like every extremism is.

I am not talking only about religions, just look at what happened with doctrinaire marxism-leninism in the USSR or with McCarthy's paranoias in the USA.

As long as they accept that what they believe may not be true for some people, I am perfectly fine with churchgoers. The problem is, many of them aren't. So it must not be a matter of religion itself, but a matter of critic sense.

[Anomalocaris]

In the long run, religions like christianity will be dominated by those sects which are most successful in gaining and retaining converts, both from other religions and from other sects. Those sects that would be the most successful in doing so would that those that would be willing to go to the greatest extreme to gain and retain converts without generating a backlash so serious that it would defeat its own purpose.

So by the nature of both its creed and the overall organizational behavior of things like itself, christainity drifts towards the maximum extremism it can get away with.

If it seems to have become more tame, it would be because external factors have sharply limited the things it can get away with.

Rest assured if the circumstances were to loosen that limit, such as a confrontation with Islam, or a general acceptance of thought restiction in the name of "security", rest assured christianity would take the maximum advantage of room created to become more extreme.

So christainity can change, but never in a way that would make it intrinsically less extreme, only in a way that makes it appear less extreme to suit contemporary sensibilities.

[Rahul]

Maybe religions are outward manifestations of basic human nature. Maybe we could wipe out all dogmatic belief and it wouldn't even solve anything.

We'd still be monsters.

[Walking Void]

Maybe religions are outward manifestations of basic human nature. Maybe we could wipe out all dogmatic belief and it wouldn't even solve anything.

We'd still be monsters.

Well, maybe not. One thing that is common throughout religion is stupidity. Keep the world informed and maybe human nature would not be so fundamentally savage.