What's your biggest beef with religion?

[pocaracas]

I'm often amazed my the degree to which people discount the intelligence and unfairly judge the morality of people in the past, not just with respect to religion, but pretty much everything. In many ways, the ancients seemed smarter and more wise than us so-called modern and enlightened folks.

The Information Age is great in many respects, but increased information doesn’t necessarily mean increased wisdom or knowledge intelligence.

... on average.

[vulcanlogician]

Mine: It's anti-intellectual. -- It discourages and disparages intellectual curiosity.

Personally, I do not think that is even remotely fair or accurate. I think you're painting with far too broad of a brush.

While it is true that a narrow strain of self-promoting American evangelicals seem to encourage willful ignorance, the whole Christian tradition is filled with prominent scholars, scientists, and thinkers. The influence of Christian intellectuals extends from the early Church Fathers to the founders of the scientific revolution like Pascal, Liebnitz, Francis Bacon and even Swedenborg. Then there are notable Christians like John Ruskin, Milton, Gladstone, and Bonhoeffer. David Bentley Hart is one of my favorite contemporary theologians and I don't think anyone could seriously call him anti-intellectual.

Neo, I posted a beef about religion ... not simply Western Christianity. There's whole world full of people, notably muslims, who use their religion to stifle intellectual progress of millions of people. Try genuinely teaching college philosophy in Pakistan without people shooting you to death in the street.

Tausif Ahmed Khan, the former head of the mass communication department at Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology in Karachi, said that Dr. Rehman had no disputes with anyone. However, he said, Dr. Rehman had completed his doctorate under a liberal Muslim scholar who was shot to death in September after being accused of blasphemy.

People who think outside of religion's box are commonly blackballed if not right out killed in other parts of the world. We've outlawed such things in the West. But before we got around to it, people got their heads chopped off all the time for saying stuff with which the religious establishment disagreed.

Funny you mention Leibniz, because he was heavily influenced by Baruch Spinoza whose works in philosophy were banned across Europe and whose head could have easily ended up on a pike had he made a wrong turn somewhere. Who wanted Spinoza dead? The Christians. Why? Because they hated his thinking! He posed no danger to anyone and did not advocate violence. The Christians at the time merely saw fit to extinguish anyone who wasn't a proper echo chamber for their vision of the world. There is a word for that: anti-intellectualism. If Leibniz had failed to get his hands on a copy of Spinoza's illegal works, his heavily religious cosmology would not have held the form that it did. So (indirectly) bringing up Leibniz speaks to my point.


What about contemporary America? Roughly a third of the country is malinformed about the scientific consensus concerning evolution. A third of the population is not a "narrow strain" of the self-serving evangelical population. An additional third thinks evolution was a "guided process." I disagree with the "guided process" interpretation, but it's not outright fact-denying anti-intellectualism. It's the fact that 34% of people think all life existed in its present form that makes me point the finger at religion. It's pretty obvious who is pushing these patently false scientific views and convincing people that there are disagreements among scientists where there are none.

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I'm sure most of us have multiple "beefs." But this thread isn't about those. Just about your biggest one. Theists encouraged to participate.

Mine: It's anti-intellectual. -- It discourages and disparages intellectual curiosity.

Your complaint is too broad. There are religious groups that encourage and have developed thousands of years worth of writing, critical thinking, and curiosity. Religion launched modern science. Seems you need to narrow things a bit since it is trivially easy to find a defeater and render your point invalid.

Yeah, so I kind of touched on this with Neo. That is true, and you have a point.

It's a beef that I have with religion-- not just yours. The religious commonly see fit to "discourage and/or disparage" intellectual curiosity.

Do they ALWAYS do it? No. I didn't say they did, either. But there is a pattern of behavior there.

Does the pattern exist apart from religion? Yes. And I have a beef with it there too.

It might be where I live as well. I know people... good natured people... who were given such a hard Biblical inerrancy line, they might consider Rene Descartes devil worship if they ever bothered to even pick up one of his books. They aren't freaks of nature or anything, but some cultural phenomenon spooked these folks away from intellectual growth and free thinking. And I can't describe to you how much I think they were done a disservice. I don't think religions influence (in contemporary times) affects any more than a third of the population this way. But still, a third is way too much.

It doesn't make religion evil, but it is a beef I have with religion.


As I pointed out to RR, you theists are certainly allowed to have beefs with religion too. Hell, I'd think you'd have more beefs than us since it's actually a part of your life. I bet you do, but don't wanna share with us irreverent folks

[Amarok]

 The influence of Christian intellectuals extends from the early Church Fathers to the founders of the scientific revolution like Pascal, Liebnitz, Francis Bacon and even Swedenborg. Then there are notable Christians like John Ruskin, Milton, Gladstone, and Bonhoeffer. David Bentley Hart is one of my favorite contemporary theologians and I don't think anyone could seriously call him anti-intellectual

And Christians confusing people who were Christians being intellectuals with Christianity being anti intellectual which it is .And no science Christianity by hundreds of year.The Scientific revolution has fuck all to do with Christianity. Same goes for Steves nonsense . Once again Christians stealing credit for shit that has nothing to do with their religion .

[AFTT47]

If find it impossible to choose between anti-intellectualism, indoctrination and the denigration of humanity's achievements and potential.

[WinterHold]

I always tend and try to draw a thick line between "religion" and "humans".

Criticism against religion is mostly concerning what some humans do; and the foul act gets stuck to religion falsely.

Brainwashing is a human invention, there are so many forms of it, so as manipulation, so as using others and fooling them.
So don't let anger from somebody manipulative or practicing brainwashing to make you judge the whole religion he uses.

Maybe he is using religion as a carpet just like he is using people around him like a carpet.

So personally, my problem is mainly people.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Neo, I posted a beef about religion ... not simply Western Christianity. There's whole world full of people, notably muslims, who use their religion to stifle intellectual progress of millions of people.

My mistake for being so parochial. That said, doesn't that speak to something in favor of Christianity that it at least has within it the seed of fostering intellectual endeavors.

But before we got around to it, people got their heads chopped off all the time for saying stuff with which the religious establishment disagreed.

A bit of an overstatement again I believe. Yes, there was the Inquisition and various witch trials but if you consider the number of victims over the whole history of Christianity, on average, the stifling effect of overzealous religious authorities is minimal.

Who wanted Spinoza dead? The Christians.

That could well be. It is every bit as likely that being Jewish was more problematic for him.

What about contemporary America? Roughly a third of the country is malinformed about the scientific consensus concerning evolution.

That says more about the educational system in the USA than it does about religion. I'm sure similar deficiencies can be found in history, civics, and literature. Science is no exception. Religion may be a contributing cause but I'm guessing a minor one.

A third of the population is not a "narrow strain" of the self-serving evangelical population. An additional third thinks evolution was a "guided process." I disagree with the "guided process" interpretation, but it's not outright fact-denying anti-intellectualism. It's the fact that 34% of people think all life existed in its present form that makes me point the finger at religion.

A lot of people don't spend that much time thinking about science and philosophy. It's a complicated world and just figuring out my mobile plan is a challenge. I could spend my whole life not thinking about evolution at all and be none the worse. So let's not be too hard on everyday folks.

You're a smart guy. Other people are smart in other ways and knowledgeable about other things, like say...the allowable dead load in a corridor, the range of pitch for an ADA compliant ramp, the typical margin for retail housewares, or the lead times of internationally sourced commodities.

...you theists are certainly allowed to have beefs with religion too. Hell, I'd think you'd have more beefs than us since it's actually a part of your life. I bet you do, but don't wanna share with us irreverent folks

Yeah, I don't think you guys need any more ammunition and it's a bit unbecoming to air our dirty laundry on AF.

[haig]

My biggest beef of religion is the intentional (willful) ignorance.

[Minimalist]

In many ways, the ancients seemed smarter and more wise than us so-called modern and enlightened folks.

Yeah... they thought sin caused disease.  Moron.

[vulcanlogician]

In many ways, the ancients seemed smarter and more wise than us so-called modern and enlightened folks.

Yeah... they thought sin caused disease.  Moron.

They might not have known about bacteria or viruses, but the ancients still had stunning insights concerning human nature and politics.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and why wouldn't they, right?  We've been fully modern for 50k years, at least.  

We've been using microbes for about 9k of that.  Treating disease and infection for at least 5k of that.  By 2.5k or so ago the miasma theory of contagion was common (and would persist in one form or another until the invention of the microscope - it wasn't entirely wrong, either), and by 2k ago hippocrates categorically rejected the idea of a supernatural cause for disease..positing natural causes within people and their environments.  Then, 2k ago, a man named Varro..in a treatise about farming, lol.... writes this;

precautions must also be taken in neighborhood swamps . . . because certain minute creatures [animalia minuta] grow there which cannot be seen by the eye, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Terentius_Varro

I point all of this out not only to provide some meat for the idea that people from back in the day were every bit as smart as we are now..but also to point out that the dummies of the time were every bit as dumb as our own today.  It was already understood, by the time that sin was being touted as a cause for illness..that this was not the case.  

Some things never change.