| is there a case against organised religion?
Posted: 5/7/2007 8:23:29 AM | Generally speaking;
pro-religious nuts dont assimilate with non believers, and vice'versa...is this divide slowly splitting up our communities?
should we hold the media more accountable?
who controls the media?
who regulates our government, regarding religion?
do the major religions control out existance? | |
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| is there a case against organised religion?
Posted: 5/7/2007 9:36:05 AM |
who controls the media?
In the U.S, it's big business. Although I believe that in reality, that control is limited to a certain point. However, if I want more realistic news, I turn to BBC.
who regulates our government, regarding religion?
Unfortunately, it's the special intrest religious minority. Although, again, their power is quite limited.
do the major religions control out existance?
They would love to, but luckily, although more people seem to be delusional these days, their power is quickly slipping. | |
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| is there a case against organised religion?
Posted: 5/8/2007 6:00:45 AM | Atheists and agnostics, by the very nature of them, are more independent in their beliefs in a way that means they are not an 'organised group', and they therefore don't wield the same political influence as Jews and evanligical christians in the US who do actively group. Nor do they make a habit of suicide bombing to prove the strength of their non-belief in god/religion. Nor do they send missionaries to other countries to try and convert other people to not believe in god/religion. I use these merely as examples to demonstrate that I see these two belief systems as more passive in the overall scheme of things. Quiet resistance. No groups. (...despite the recently aired Southpark  episode that portrays a future time when groups of atheists are at war over whose type of atheism is better, lol.)
I also reckon religious groups tend to get away with quite a bit because we are somehow lead to believe that to say things that question or challenge religion is "not done". It's this whole area of protected subject matter, a cone of silence, even when it's something questionable.... like the about to be opened christian museum that will teach the factual correctness of creationism...teaching a new generation of kids that the planet is only 6000 years old in total (based on the literal history of all the whosis begat whodiddly stuff from the bible), was made in 6 days, that people and dinosaurs existed in the same time scale (and yes, apparently Noah did have a couple of the big guys on the Ark...how squishy would that have been!) and so on. Teaching it as fact, and dismissing the scientific evidence of evolution as fallacy.
And as for other examples of what religion gets away with, aside from the theological type debate stuff...
Feb 2006. The US Supreme Court ruled that a church in New Mexico should be exempt from the law that prohibits use of hallucinogenic drugs. The members of the church believe they can only hear god when taking dimethyl-tryptamine, and despite presenting no evidence to prove this, the fact that it was a religious belief was sufficient to excuse them from the law and allow them to use it. As has been discussed on this forum before...dope has proven benefits to help cancer sufferers and yet they are not granted exemptions on taking dope....but a religion can have a 'belief' and be shown privelege.
2004. A 12 yo boy in Ohio wore a t-shirt to school that read " Homosexuality is a sin, Islam is a lie, abortion is murder. Some issues are just black and white " The school told him not to wear it, the christian parents sued the school, not on the basis of freedom of speech (which can't include hate speech) but on the basis that it was their religious belief and therefore freedom of religion entitled the boy to wear the slogan. The parents won. Hateful comments are apparently justifiable if under the veil of "it's my religion". 
A 1999 Gallup Poll in the US asked Americans whether they would vote for an otherwise well qualified person (eg, all else being equal) if that person was....
...a woman...95% would vote for that person
...Roman Catholic...94% would vote for that person
...Jew....92% would
...black...92% would
...Mormon...19% would
...homosexual....79% would
...atheist.... 49% would.
Obviously the average US citizen was wary of atheists as recently as 1999, perhaps confusing them with devil worshippers?? And yet in 1797 there was a particular treaty signed under George Washington that stated in part " the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the christian religion " So it looks as if the foothold of organised religion has strengthened over America's history.
Have we gone the same way in Aus? I'd like to think not, personally. Good is good, and moral is moral, and fact is fact, and none of these should be manipulated on the basis of, or to suit, any 'organised religion'. | |
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| is there a case against organised religion?
Posted: 5/8/2007 8:56:18 AM | | Well if most Americans would rather vote for a Mormon, who believe the outright lies, and dellusions of a man who was known as a con artist prior to claiming a visitation from the Angel Gabriel, and given his little gold tablets, that NO one has ever seen, rather then vote for someone who prefers to live their lives by facts and the pursuit of science, then by golly, they do deserve the sorry state that their nation is in. | |
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| is there a case against organised religion?
Posted: 5/8/2007 11:00:33 AM | Let me try to address your questions from my point of view: -
pro-religious nuts don’t assimilate with non believers, and vice'versa...is this divide slowly splitting up our communities?
For the older generations, maybe. The more mature in our society have been brought up a certain way with certain immovable beliefs regarding religion. In Australia most have grown old under the Anglican umbrella and secondly the Catholic one. Both Christian Sects have their origins in the East or the Orient as it came to be known in the latter centuries. Nowadays, we call it the Middle East but for all time it is and always has been Western Asia. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are Asian religions and are derived from the same ancient scrolls, the same scriptures, the one same ancestor “Abraham”, the one same one God and yet there is a massive chasm in the three different interpretations.
Christianity was adopted by the West (Europe), and then twisted, stretched, stomped on and otherwise “adapted”, to suit Western requirements. The end product that we have today, the biggest business corporation, the largest land owner, the conglomerate with the most money and influence bears no resemblance to the teachings of Jesus. Christianity has been so Westernised it is no longer viewed as originating in the East but is seen as a Western Religion. This has led to an “Us” and a “Them” culture/mentality. Furthermore “Us” has come to mean Caucasian. People equate Caucasian with European and White. This is far from the truth.
Caucasia stretches from Ireland, the countries of North Africa, Europe all the Middle Eastern countries all the way to the border between India and Burma in the East. Caucasians are the largest single race on Earth. We are of course speaking in the Social Context, as Anthropological Academia believe that the four races have become so mixed through interbreeding that we are now only one race. The four races being redundant. If you had to name one country on Earth with the greatest number of Caucasians in it, you would have to pick India. Yes India is the world’s greatest repository of Caucasians. Shocked?…..Well then Google Caucasians and find out for yourself. You have always been taught that Caucasian equals “White”, but it also can equals "Brown".
There is no racial difference between George Bush, Tony Blair, Osama bin Ladin, John Howard, Saddam Hussein or Mahatma Gandhi. They are all Caucasian! There are differences but they are “Ethnic”, or “Nationalistic”, if you like, not racial.
So this is where Religion has been the root that has eventually bloomed into something that is dividing/splitting our society.
We have grown old under a particular belief in Western doctrine that was/is wrong. Grown into a habit that is like a cancer that has entwined itself with such great complexity as to make removal by surgery impossible. Since the events of the 9th September in New York, people’s mindsets have been cemented into a certain dislike and in some cases hatred. Lets face it, if Jesus, his mum and dad and his gang of twelve mates (Apostles), were to walk down the Mall they’d be arrested, thrown in gaol and probably abused because of their Middle Eastern appearance and Aramaic tongue.
should we hold the media more accountable?
who controls the media?
The administration of the Broadcasting Services Act is the responsibility of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, (ABA).
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), also plays a role in telecommunications and broadcasting regulations. You’ll get lost in the millions of pages of rules they have.
Trouble is the media is run by money, big money and every article they publish is linked to profit outcome. Trying to make them accountable for everything they print could prove to be a nightmare.
who regulates our government, regarding religion?
We are supposed to be a secular state. Our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Secular means that the state and religion are two separate entities, politics and religion are not mixed and neither is supposed to exert influence on the other. Within the social norms, I mean you can’t sacrifice virgins in tribute to you God, religion is supposed to be free.
do the major religions control out existance?
They are still a major factor. The molly coddling of American style Evangelistic Christian Sects by the major parties in the lead up to the federal election, is a prime example of how much control is exerted by religions.
Our Ministers of Parliament swear on oath on the Bible before taking up office. The Lords Prayer is read out prior to the sitting of sessions in both Houses of Parliament, requesting His guidance and approval whether all Ministers/Senators agree to it or not. We once had an Anglican Bishop as a Vice Regal Head of State. But he was disgraced and left the office because of his past handling of a child abuse case.
It goes on and on. So we are not a truly Secular State.
Yes, religions do exert a controlling overall influence in our society. But it is a dwindling one, as the youth step up. They have not known World War or even the Cold War and those two mindsets/cultures will eventually die off and we will slowly return to just being “Earthlings”, from Down Under. Hopefully minus the American influences and culture! | |
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| is there a case against organised religion?
Posted: 5/8/2007 11:11:23 AM | ...of the 27% Americans, who voted 4 George Bush, was it the religious right who got him over the line? ...................................i believe so...
seems to me, only religion can cause this type of pressure on all governments, which in turn, has caused a pseudo WWIII....! ! | |
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| is there a case against organised religion?
Posted: 5/9/2007 7:28:08 AM | Lets create a cult that worships unlimited sex, drugs and rock n roll, where we all get to wear Egyptian cotton clothing and no shoes!!
If there were enough of us massed together, we could probably get some kind of financial benefits from the government (in the sense that "charities" and such aren't taxed) and instead of drinking kool-aid, we'd drink lemonade!
Sounds like heaven to me ... | |
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| is there a case against organised religion?
Posted: 2/18/2008 10:25:46 AM | If i were to do just one thing in government it would be to make all religious groups pay tax....irrespective of whether they are mainstream or cult...
It would weed out a number of people who are involved in churches, particularly in the USA, who otherwise would be involved in sales or scamming or advertising or extortion or similar types of work..
By not taxing religions, we are providing an artificial encouragement for people to go into that business. It is unsound economics.
btw may i say something nice about the salvos. They were having their on street appeal last friday and i thought they at least try to do something akin to Christ's teachings.
And the last word should be left to Jesus himself and excuse me for paraphrasing the bible because i aint got one handy but his disciples asked him how were they to know it was him... when he returned again in the second coming.... how were they to be sure that they werent dealing with a fake messiah... and he told them to judge the bloke, not on what he said, but on what he did..... never truer words have been said.
i'm not sure about the other religions but christianity preaches love, unselfishness, generosity humility and an unconcern for material goods.... not the pseudo wealth creation scams of american born again sects.... | |
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| is there a case against organised religion?
Posted: 2/18/2008 12:03:23 PM |
A 1999 Gallup Poll in the US asked Americans whether they would vote for an otherwise well qualified person (eg, all else being equal) if that person was....
...a woman...95% would vote for that person
...Roman Catholic...94% would vote for that person
...Jew....92% would
...black...92% would
...Mormon...79% would (typo fixed)
...homosexual....79% would
...atheist.... 49% would
Be careful with polls... what this poll says is that the people who responded to the poll said they would vote a particular way.
There is this phenomenon called The Bradley Effect whereby people will state they will vote one way (ie: for a black candidate) in an election because they don't want people to think they are a racist bigot. Come election day, however, in the privacy of the voting booth they will vote for good old whitey.
Having said that, I think it is a given than atheists are unelectable in the US. Richard Dawkins made two good points about this in The God Delusion:
1) That there are certainly more atheists in the US than Jews, yet the Jewish lobby is one of the most powerful in US politics.
2) The statistical probability is overwhelming that there are atheist members of congress. The fact that no member of congress has identified himself as such is because it would be political suicide to do so.
Since the book was published, one member of congress has "admitted" to being atheist - Pete Stark.
http://bligbi.com/2007/03/12/first-atheist-in-congress/
Although the Constitution prohibits religious tests for public office, the Coalition’s research reveals that Rep. Stark is the first open nontheist in the history of the Congress. | |
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Naamah
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Joined: 11/22/2007
Msg: 14 | |
| is there a case against organised religion?
Posted: 2/18/2008 4:46:09 PM |
Be careful with polls...
Having said that, I think it is a given than atheists are unelectable in the US. Richard Dawkins made two good points about this in The God Delusion:
Funny you should say that...from memory I think I got those poll results from that very book. I think? It was a while ago. In any case, even factoring this Bradley effect, it clearly shows that people don't even try to hide their distrust/prejudice against atheists, so it still makes a very valid point about perceptions. | |
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