Terrapin Tables

No clue, but if i ever get called, I will just have to tell them I hate all deities...to be safe.

Looks like one of those laws that's on the books, but not enforced. Article 37 states atheists can't even hold office. But laws like this don't bug me as long as they're not enforced (which is why I think no one is actively challenging them). The U.S. has done a fairly good job in keeping church and state separate considering its founders had very strong religious views.

"The U.S. has done a fairly good job in keeping church and state separate considering its founders had very strong religious views."

That's the most common, and, in my opinion, most dangerous misconception about America's formation. To wit*:

"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine." - George Washington

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." - Thomas Jefferson

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." - TJ again

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of the Chrisitan dogma." - Abraham Lincoln

And my #2 all time favorite quote:

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My mind is my own church." - Thomas Paine

The extent the founders wanted involved in government went no further than ensuring citizens could worship how, or if, they wanted to.

*Quotes taken from Salvation for Sale, Gerald Thomas Straub

though i do believe that thomas paine was a wise man, i do know that the definition of church is a body of Christian believers or a edifice for religious worship thereby making his statement that his mind is indeed a church (unless he was also suffering from multiple personalities disorder or a physical building) a bit of an unlikely scenario (though i do appreciate the sentiment that he belongs to no one religiosity).

i do also believe that i was taught that America was founded on the belief that no one religion be favored and that no person should be persecuted for his beliefs (since women at that time could be persecuted for pretty much anything). and though i find it difficult to understand people that don't believe in some higher power, i do respect that they are present and make this world a much more interesting place.

i suppose it would be difficult to enforce such a law keeping atheists from being jurors/elected officials (since i should probably write something about the original statement posted by John).

in my humble opinion, sometimes faith takes you places logic cannot.

I was referring to the first settlers, because they had very strong views on religion. I believe the founding fathers weren't as reverent, but it's not like they were a bunch of atheists. They still had strong views on the ties between morality and religion.

The first quote proves nothing about Washington's own beliefs ( if anything, helps prove my point)...

And Thomas Jefferson saw so many good rules to live by in the Bible that he compiled his own.

With small exceptions like Thomas Paine, they all believed in God. Not all of them were tied to organized religion (I've heard them described as Deists), but it's obvious from their writings that they all believed in a creator.

i think there's an important distinction between the first settlers and the so-called founding fathers. i think it's pretty clear the settlers had strong religious views, i must admit i know less about the founding fathers. but rick's original point remains - despite claims to the contrary, the powers that be along the way tied religion to at least some of the operations of our government (e.g., the oath witnesses take before testifying, "in god we trust" printed on our currency).

michelle takes us into an interesting criticism of paine on the basis of the semantics of the term 'church.' perhaps she also takes umbrage with expressions like "his body is a temple" "she's a fox" and such.

oh, and i wholeheartedly agree that "sometimes faith takes you places logic cannot". indeed, my nephew has unshakable faith that the tooth fairy exists, and that if he opens his eyes overnight the tooth fairy will instantly disappear, never to return. let's hope that he does not suffer or, worse yet, cause someone else to suffer because of this faith.

The etymology of "church" is ancient Greek - from kuriakos, meaning "house of the lord." They didin't mean a religious lord, the Greeks, yet the word was adapted metaphorically to mean "house (for worshipping) a Lord," with "Lord" now usually representing Jesus/God.
So, as Christians have adopted the word "church" metaphorically to mean "where we worship God," so too did Paine adopt it to mean, as I would state it, "personal sacred place."

I understand the idea of "faith taking you places" but, simply, it does nothing for me. Faith relies on belief, and in my eyes, trust. I cannot trust in that which I cannot communicate with, and - not intending to insult - have always felt belief in religious powers to be a sign of personal weakness. I also understand, however, that these are only my opinions. For all the crap I give Michelle sometimes, she knows (I hope) I mean her no real disrespect. I think religion can be an incredibly powerful tool that can change someone's life for the better in countless ways...but I know that I am not among them.

Regarding Jefferson: I haven't read that book, Rick, but the reviews state it "gives us a preaching Jesus of distinctly human dimensions, without miracles or resurrection" and is like "the Bible without all the supernatural stuff." His book is, apparently, known as an anti-Bible, intended not to glorify any sort of established religion, but to use the story of Jesus to reflect Jefferson's own rational ideas. He wanted to point out, I say after only reading synopses of the book, that current organized forms of Christianity were full of poo, and if you MUST believe, well, "do it like this."

Those are my feelings, too...religion can be wonderful...but it's man that's fucked it up. Once a religion demands something of you, be it money, chastity, fear, etc., it stops being salvation and starts being extortion.

If religion is such a bad thing, why does every major culture have a religion, and why do so many people believe them. There's obviously more to it than just wanting to understand things. I read an interesting article, I think it was in Nature, about that. They think that organized religion was fundamental for the development of advanced culture. Not only did it give morals, it helped unite everyone through a common source, the church. People evolved to have strong faith. And those that didn't, didn't fit in with society.

Anyway, you all pretty much know my own opionions. And I don't think it's a sign of personal weakness to believe in God. Knowing all that I know about science, it takes a lot of faith to accept the Bible. To me, that's more of a strength than a weakness. Anyway, I'm late for work so I can't type any more.

"If religion is such a bad thing, why does every major culture have a religion, and why do so many people believe them. "

In the previous statement, if you replace religion with a lot of other words, it becomes a neat excercise. Racism, for example.

Some colonies were founded on freedom of Christian religion. Rhode Island for example, which was founded by people who had been persecuted in Massachusetts due to their religious beliefs.

During the early 19th century, church services were held in Congress and the Supreme Court, among other buildings, some of which Jefferson attended.

Those places where logic does not travel neither does reason or justification.

God may exist, but man created religion.

God may exist, but man created religion.

Word to John...that's kind of my point. Like I said, religion can do wonders for people - it's churches that have ruined it (not to get into the semantics of the word "church" again, I'm using it to rep religious organizations).

I have yet to see a Western religion left uncorrupted. I know we have a couple of Catholics 'round these parts, so I'll go easy, but you see what I mean.

john beat me to the punch. he replaced religion with racism. i was thinking war.

That's what I get for typing up a post when I didn't have enough time to review it. The first sentence was just an introduction to what I was trying to say in the rest of the paragraph. If I had known everyone was going to attack that sentence without reading the rest of it, I would have left it out.

The point was that religion in general, not specifically Christianity, has a stabilizing and unifying effect on society. I wish I could find that article to link to, but I guess I'll just have to rely on memory. The writers contended that religion, if not necessarily essential, is very conducive for a complex culture. That is why religion of some sort is seen in every complex culture today. It was essential for people to accept the religion for the culture to work. So, you may still see that as a sign of personal weakness, but from these authors' point of view, it was a necessary evolutionary adaptation to advance to complex culture.

"The point was that religion in general, not specifically Christianity, has a stabilizing and unifying effect on society."

In what way has religion stabilized society?

See, that's our difference of opinion. What you see as "unifying" I see as "controlling." I spent all of two minutes on this, but haven't been able to think of one culture where the religion truly guided the people to big and better things. Islamic nations, Egypt, Rome, Greece, Medieval Europe (leaders like Clovis and Charlemagne), Ancient Japan, China, etc. were all furthered by a lord-slave system or tyrannical leaders claiming the approval of the deity.

I say we're currently on the upslope of the next great step of human evolution - the computer age, or whatever it'll be called in 3050 - and I can't see religion as having had anything to do with it.

Wait, I thought of 2 religious cultures that worked: North American Indians and Aborigines. Each are devout, spiritual people, and each achieved stasis with their environments and, largely, peace amongst themselves. (Yeah, tribes clashed, but internally they were peaceful - and wars were not fought for religious reasons). The difference? Decisions were made communally, and while religion was looked to for guidance, it was allowed to make decisions. (I feel).

And if one feels religion is unifying, than ponder this, as Nate pointed out to me: In the last hundred years every war fought has been fought for religous reasons. And even before that, says I, all the great injstices of the world were done under the supposed eye of an allegedy approving deity. Again, I come to the conlusion that though religion iteslf never hurt anyone, man's application is flawed, has always been flawed and, as it seems to be the nature of man to exploit those who are weaker than themselves, it will always be flawed.

And that's why I reject it.

Figured I'd jump in...

I've always thought one of the primary purposes of religion is to serve people with explanations for things they could not otherwise understand. This is a bit of a two-way street: on one hand it can be seen as a way for people to believe in higher powers, and thus gives things (people, events) a purpose. It also can be seen as simply a set of ideas to satiate people who cannot come up with better explanations.

So religion can serve a purpose in a society a number of ways... it can give it's people beliefs that there is a reason for their existence, it can give them explanations for everything from why people die to why the moon changes shape. Not to mention that if a common religion exists, it is a great unifier. This could be why societies form religions so often.

That being said, there are things I don't like about religion. It's often not open to modification or new ideas. Many people simply accept, say, the writings of the King James Bible and are afraid to question it. If, say, the scientific community were like that, we'd still think the Earth was the center of the universe.

Anywho, this really doesn't follow up on any other responses, so I'll say that power certainly corrupts, and when ever you have an organized religion, you're going to have people in power. A great many wars have been started due to differences in religions (not all though -- Falkand Islands, Persian Gulf... etc) and the only thing I can say is that at least those responsible usually had good intentions. But I agree that religion allows pompous leaders to do terrible things, which is wrong.

BTW Chris, you'd probably like Carl Sagan's views -- he always said that religion is a sign of a civilization's infancy, and that if people based their lives off of reason and logic, there would be no need for it [more]

"In the last hundred years every war fought has been fought for religous reasons." Vietnam was fought for political reasons. Korea was fought for political reasons. WWII was fought because the Germans and Japanese wanted to expand their territory. Europe is full of Christians, yet there have been plenty of wars in Europe's past. It seems to me that most wars are fought for resources, power, or politics, and that sometimes people use religion as a justification after they've already decided to fight.

"Again, I come to the conlusion that though religion iteslf never hurt anyone, man's application is flawed, has always been flawed and, as it seems to be the nature of man to exploit those who are weaker than themselves, it will always be flawed." A similar statement could be made about technology. Every war that has ever been fought up until after WWII used the highest technology available to kill people. Since WWII, the only technology that we don't use is nuclear weapons. If man's application is flawed, it is up to us to correct the application, not reject the source. Religion has done many good things as well (missionary hospitals, schools, etc.)

"What you see as 'unifying'I see as 'controlling.' " Point well taken. But could complex societies have developed without that control/unification? And remember that Rome did have periods where it was ruled by the Senate, and Greece was a democracy. And not all monarchs were tyrannical. Many used their power to build infrastructure in their countries that improved the life of their citizens.

"and I can't see religion as having had anything to do with it." If religion was essential for initial development of a complex civilization, then all future stages of societal evolution owe it a debt. You can't advance to future stages without the initial stages. If, as you argue, religion wasn't essential, then your statement is correct.

Anyway, I'll look for that article tonight. It might have been in Natural History. But without having it to reference, I'm not going to try and defend the authors' position, anymore.

One last thing after reading Rick's post. Me, Rick, and Roy had a brief e-mail discussion a while ago where I was trying to logically argue the existence of a soul. I still stand by my argument. And although it does nothing to argue which religion is right, it does argue that there's some sort of spiritual aspect to our lives. The point being, there can be logic that leads you to believe in religion.

Technology is exploited. However, when you build a bomb, everyone knows what it is for. Pretty straight-forward. And it ain't to save your soul. Does technology serve as justification for action? Perhaps, but we all know that religion serves as justification for action.

Of course control is required for developing societies. People can and have developed governments for this. A deity is not required.

Religion may have played a fundamental role in the development of society. So did slave labor. Slave labor seems to outlived its usefulness, and it was dispensed with. Owe it a debt. Don't keep it around for nostalgia's sake.

To say that the Korean and Vietnam wars were fought for only politcal reasons is, well, flat out wrong. At the time the cold war was very real. To think it has nothing to do with religion is just naive. Why did we have such a problem with Russia, Korea, Vietnam, etc.? It was because of a difference in theory of a higher power. In those countries, whoever held the top position of power was 'God' as far as their citizens were concerned, and the U.S. thought that was wrong. When the U.S. would want to expose it's citizens as being communist, one of the first questions to be ask was "Mr. Smith, do you consider yourself to be a God fearing American?" What does God fearing have anything to do with being American?

WWII had to do with expanding territory...for the master race of Christians. Tell all the Polish Muslims and the Jews that it wasn't religion that determined whether or not they got to die in a gas chamber. And the Japs were just coward enough to fall in line, and even believed that if they crashed their fighter planes into U.S. battleships they would be sent straight to heaven (sound familiar?).

wow, much to say and not much time to say it in. and doing so in order from my last reply

fatboy - did read more than your first sentence, read the first paragraph with war substituted for religion. scary, isn't it? if you think war has stabilized society, you might want to take a look around the globe. i'm extremely thankful that i live in a part of the world where my or someone else's religion doesn't bring havoc down upon me.

chris - i don't view religion as "controlling" yes, i see the idea that power corrupts, but i don't see it as controlling.

very interesting quote from rick:
"... there are things I don't like about religion. It's often not open to modification or new ideas. Many people simply accept, say, the writings of the King James Bible and are afraid to question it." so the idea is that religion is somewhat stagnant, and the example you used was the King James Bible - but the King James Bible is ITSELF an update of earlier writing.

fatboy - nice work pointing out wars that didn't have religious origins. chris was a bit off with his claim.
fatboy also says, "If religion was essential for initial development of a complex civilization, then all future stages of societal evolution owe it a debt. " which i agree with...the catch is that IF religion was essential... to show it was essential we would have to PROVE that without it, "societal evolution" could not have happened. we would have to show that "societal evolution" could not have happened otherwise. yes, prove it, not just posit it, so until we get the flux capaciter working in the delorean (sweet 80s reference), or the truman show becomes real, i don't think we'll ever be proving. and this is really a signal for what i find most troubling with religion, namely the shift from "i think" or "i believe" to "i know" or "it is so"

fatboy - as for our discussion a year ago, it's easy to stand by your argument when you don't respond to criticisms. rereading what i wrote, i am inclined to think you have a lot of explaining to do. (perhaps you'd rather us continue our discussion regarding boy scout troop leaders. as i recall, i'm also awaiting a response to that. ) what's more, even if we believe that we have a soul (as i am inclined to do) it is far from clear that such a belief implies that a religion is correct, let alone which one. as you say, "it does argue that there's some sort of spiritual aspect to our lives..." indeed it does! but it's a far cry to then start believing that any religion is correct. "...The point being, there can be logic that leads you to believe in religion." if there is such a logic, i haven't seen it.

john - excellent point: even if it was necessary (which i contend remains to be shown) that is no need to keep it around for old time's sake.

Just want to say, I'm glad we handle this like adults. I mean, it's obvious we're all rather intelligent, but usually this discussion would have come down to screaming and profanity. I'm proud of us.

And, I was off about ALL wars this last 100 years...the Persian Gulf conflict was entirely econmically motivated, as I see it, and so is our current involvement in the area (well, economics and our failure to treat the Middle East like individuals for a few hundred years). I mean, I could make extremely tenuous arguments to try to seem in the right, but we all know it'd be b.s. and I would get called on it. But I still forget about it in my morning Geopolitical Analysis Session.

But my point, in summation, is: worship if you want. Your own way. To your own god/gods/houseplant/whatever. If you need someone to tell you how - a church - you should be wary of what they say, as you're probably feeble enough to be dominated and exploited by them*. To that end, I have lost patience for organized religion and, not being a particularly faithful person myself, have eschewed all religion. I believe in facts.

*what was that study where researchers found a negative correlation between IQ and level of religious faith? I'm looking at you, Roy. Not that it was the end-all discussion, and we all know IQ is usually junk...you should hear some of the things psychologists and scientists said to my parents (which my Mom shared when I was too young to hear it) after stamping me with my IQ. Seriously, I was once told - directly - that I'd be the guy to invent the thinking computer. Fuck that, pass me a beer.

I understand that there are a number of studies on intelligence and religion. I can only read them for what they say, I am sure Mr. Levy is more than capable of telling us whether or not they are reputable. Whether or not corellating intelligence and religiousity proves anything, I am not sure.
I like this one because it says Gallup and I have heard of them. Old people are more religious. I believe this is referred to as 'cramming.' This one cites magazines , (journals)and such, which I also like because they have shiny covers.

Roy, I was trying to say that a soul implies religion, in that lack of religion implies that we don't have souls. If there are other philosophies that reconcile a soul without some type of religion, I don't know of them but I would be happy to hear about them. But that is where the logic stops. I don't know of any logical way to prove any particular religion. But if I can use logic to imply that I have a soul, I want to know more about that soul. And then using other, non-scientific and non-logical methods, I have chosen a religion for myself, which I do not force on anybody else. The alternative would be to accept that I have a soul, but that I'll never be able to know anything about the nature of my soul.

I know that I still have work to do on my reasoning. I've been doing some thinking about it, but it'll be a while until I get it in more order and have a chance to write it down in an organinzed manner. I'll let you know when I do. What was that other topic I was arguing? Gay scoutmasters?