Ron -thanks
Incrapatio -
I'm not sure what you are saying.
I think your point could be read as having "religion helps keep stupid-people in line" overtones (though I don't think this is what you intended), or, rather more controversially in my mind, "many people would not be moral (in whatever moral sense we are talking about) without religion" (though this is also not what you say, I understand). I accept that, without any moral system, this would be true. But I think, on the other hand, instead of religious thought, couldn't one just educate people about a more directly humanistic morality MUCH more efficiently.
As an aside, I am suddenly struck by the fact that, in stark opposite to the "religion is the opiate of the people" view, that Nietzsche put forward the view that the "people" (that is to say, slaves) invented religion precisely to keep their rulers in line and answerable to someone.
I do not have much evidence to my hand to back up the point that a humanistic education is superior to a good old-fashioned Christian one insofar as the moral/ethical content is concerned. I do, however, think that such an outlook is far easier to grasp and less open to manipulation.
A I am pretty cynical at times, but I don't think I am being so here. My religious tradition nudges me to put myself out to be kind to people sometimes and avoid bitchy comments in a way I wouldn't necessarily do otherwise. There may well be plenty of people who don't appear to need that help, but lots of us lazy sods do.
Do you need a religion though to behave in this way?
B I was not talking specifically about Christianity (although I think what I said about not being the centre of the universe applies.)
I was not assuming that you were, but I was limiting my reply to the Christian perspective because I didn't have all day to reply
It would certainly apply to Islam.
I don't think that it is true in Islam, in that, at least culturally, there is a rather hefty hierarchy of religions (apostate, atheist, jew, christian, muslim it goes, all other things being equal). I do not to what extent the qur'an puts coherent (that is to say, non-contradictory) emphasis on the intrinsic value of life.
My understanding of Buddhism is that one of the Four Noble Truths is that one of the causes of suffering is our delusion that our subjective experience is real.
It's not clear to me how this relates to what you were saying. I disagree with it, of course, if what your interpretation states is that *all* is illusion.
C Christianity certainly gives a far higher value to individuality than that, as traditional language about the soul implies. But the soul is a concept that is soooo medieval.
I thought it was rather fundamental to Christianity myself. Certainly Catholocism and Islam. I would also think that the *majority* of children being taught religion are being taught about how terribly important souls are, of how the *soul* ends up in heaven if people are moral, and the *soul* ends up in hell if they are not. Also, "Medieval" isn't necessarily bad
With this talk of modern Christianity, I would ask could you estimate (or cite other people's estimations of) what proportion of self-professed Christians would know of and have adopted these developments? And (to rephrase a question I've asked elsewhere), how many people are working in the trenches trying to bring these beliefs to the masses, explicitly rejecting more naively-formulated notions?
It is rarely used nowadays other than in scriptural citation. Human beings are in the image of God, and God is joined to human nature in Christ.
How is one to interpret this statement? (do not answer this one if you do not wish; I understand it's a messy affair to verbalize).
D You think Christianity is anthropocentric?
I've already answered that one
What about post modernism?
I have little experience with postmodernism, so can't answer, notwithstanding the rather frivolous quip that Eagleton, having already claimed women's rights and black-liberation to be encapsulated (maybe too strong a word) within the postmodernist movement, would probably have little trouble with also including the animal rights movement.
Poll
