DAR
The “good cause” known as paying restitution for priest buggery.

Isn’t it up to nearly $3 billion now?

Why yes it is:

“American dioceses have paid more than $2.6 billion in abuse-related costs since 1950, according studies commissioned by the U.S. bishops.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-31-catholic-abuse_N.htm

And that’s just the US. Keep those donations coming, they’ll need it. More bills are no doubt in the pipeline.

DAR
Your life is hell? Speak for yourself Bob. My life is the greatest thing I have ever known and as far as the evidence suggests, the greatest thing I will ever know.

Incidentally, D’Sousa, dishonest lying sack of crap that he is, has a book out smearing Obama with the most ridiculous absurdities. Media Matters rips it to shreds with 15 well referenced examples:

D’Souza’s The Roots of Obama’s Rage rooted in lies:

http://mediamatters.org/research/201010040030?lid=1141717&rid=54577251

Is it innocent to raise a child believing that there’s no purpose to life? That they just happen to be one congealment of matter over another.
At least in one scenario you have the ability to avoid hell….. in your scenario life is hell and the end of it you’re greated with the void. Prior to the end of it that void reflects back the absurdity of your existence.

LOL!
Sure… it goes to a cause YOU agree with.
I’m Catholic, and when I dontate “I know it will go to a good cause” too.

It’s not that complicated.

Moderates love to explain how they changed the religion or somehow found the real communis… er… real interpretation that has magically turned it into the peace man, love everybody, hippy-dippy utopia view that it was always meant to be. The fundamentalists generally dismiss this as a bogus interpretation that directly contradicts the ideological rules set down by god in the Bible. They have a point.

Don’t get me wrong. I love moderates far more than extremists. They tend not to not want me dead and burning in agony for all eternity. Yay!

But when you tell someone you worship and try to follow the wisdom of a god notorious for genocide, killing individuals, baby-killing, biological warfare, etc… and then try to say it’s okay because we don’t really try to mirror those aspects of him… oh and by the way I’m going to force my child to believe this god and his bronze age cultist worshippers who cherished his stories of wiping out the heathens with unspeakable wrath.

I suppose we heathens should have little concern about the forthcoming indoctrinated legions because there are a lot of moderates right now who don’t look at that stuff as justification. That must mean they and others won’t do it again, right? I mean just look at islam getting radicalized again over the last several generations. I’m sure if we look at history we’ll see no parallels with christianity ever… *cough*

Nothing to worry about by moderates clinging to the infallible guide of a genocidal god that has no problem killing people like me in it. If they interpret it just the right way, they’ll think my existence isn’t an abomination that their god wants destroyed. I feel oh so much better.

Thank you, and the compliment is returned. I guess it depends on what we’re trying to achieve. I feel I understand your position fairly well, I’m not sure you fully understand mine from your last post. It seems like there might be more that could be said to help that along, but I’ll let it rest if this isn’t something you want to continue with.

” I think (1) you slightly over-exaggerate the dangers of religious belief (e.g. in bringing up a child to believe) – we certainly tried to teach our kids to a thoughtful faith, and I think most christians that I know do (obviously this varies) ”

Certainly, it does. My problem isn’t so much with the transmission of beliefs and values, which happens in every area of life and is a huge part of being a parent. Rather, it’s with the “Or Else” that’s writ large in the Abrahamic faiths. Love God, OR ELSE (bad things will happen… eternal punishment, family disowning you, friends’ parents not wanting you to play with their kids etc…). Kids grow up learning that asking the “right” kind of questions wins them praise and appreciation, and asking the “wrong” kind of questions makes people very, very upset. This may not be true in your case. If that’s so, I say that’s all to the good, and I hope you encourage others in your faith community to take the same approach if they don’t already. Furthermore, I hope you take it beyond your community of like-minded believers and out into the congregations of other Christians who take a more hard-line approach. No child should have to worry about whether or not their parents or their friends will still love them simply because something he learned in Sunday School doesn’t make sense and the explanations didn’t help. If you didn’t grow up with that experience, please understand that plenty of people did (and do!). I think we can both agree that this sort of coercive transmission of values is wrong. It teaches kids to quit asking questions. (Having read the Bible many times as a young child, I can also say that going to the source material is of little help here… it’s very anti-doubt.) I’m open to any solutions you might have. Do you think uncomfortable questions should be welcomed in the Church?

I do. I think they create a “positive tension” (to borrow a phrase from MLK, here), one which brings to the surface things that are typically swept under the rug. But I know for certain that not every religious person I’ve met feels that way. Many (most? possibly) would much rather stick with rehearsed and comfortable answers. I think it’s a shame, because there’s a lot of room for deepening as an individual (and, arguably, as a global community) when those tough questions are approached head-on.

“(2) you consistently under-recognise the fact that exactly the same problems can occur with other beliefs and unbelief.”

Actually, I don’t. I’m not addressing those problems here because there is plenty to discuss simply tackling the problem of whether or not blind faith is a virtue. Anything else would be moving into straw man territory or getting off on a tangent that buries the original point I was trying to make. I do want to point out that I specifically did nod this way when I said a grassroots movement of believers who challenged themselves to understand fully the alternate faith (and non-faith) positions of other compassionate and intelligent people around the world would *not* solve all of our social ills. It would, however, serve to reduce the perception of one’s own faith as the “one and only” faith worth following. I think that would be a very good thing, all things considered.

“I suggest you attack it rather than muddy the waters and draw into your net of condemnation people of goodwill (which I believe I am). As it is, it would be easy to infer that your real problem is religious belief, and the extremism attack is just one means of arguing against it.”

That’s a complicated thing. I can honestly say that I’ve learned a great deal about the world from the explorations I’ve made into Christianity, Paganism, Buddhism, and Islam. I’ve been all of the above at one point or another in my life. I recognize the emotional and intellectual value of faith. But it doesn’t come without some pitfalls, even in moderation. I think the de facto assumption that there is an all-powerful being looking out for the best interests of humanity is, in and of itself, a dangerous assumption in a dangerous world. Relying on the supernatural to take care of us may not be our best and last hope for peace. Accepting each other as equals who have different and non-compatible notions of the same reality seems more likely, but that won’t happen until the default position of any believer is that their faith is not the only way to God– that it is not intrinsically better or more divinely inspired than any other notion of spiritual growth. It’s not a comfortable position, and certainly not a majority position. Until it becomes that way, I do think the net result of religion in general is divisive, and generally bad for a cohesive global village where diversity of every sort is truly welcome.

“I feel that we might be starting to repeat ourselves.”

Productive communication usually involves at least a little repetition. Otherwise the important points can be missed.

“PS I wasn’t familiar with Milgram so I looked it up in Wikipedia. I don’t think it proves your point. (1) The person who made quote 5 in my list above murdered 8 people. (2) Wars are started by Governments (authorities which we obey) but the problem isn’t Government (even more widespread than religion!) or democracy but evil people”

The problem is also good people– good people who think they are doing the right thing because someone they respect told them to do it (and even if they do privately have reservations, who are they to argue? — which was the whole point of the Milgram reference). I know good people who have expressed blindingly offensive intolerance toward me without even realizing they are doing it. They don’t look at it as offensive because all their life, they have been told that this is the proper way to go about having these conversations. I let it go, because they simply can’t grok the concept that it would be better to assume that nobody has the answers… they lack the mental scaffolds to even begin to approach something like that. I do think a society that creates this phenomenon has a responsibility to future generations to find a solution that will hold up over time and prevent our kids from growing up to be just like us. They can be better. We owe it to them to help them learn from our mistakes.

I appreciate the friendly manner in which you’ve engaged with me, but I’m not sure further discussion will achieve much. I think (1) you slightly over-exaggerate the dangers of religious belief (e.g. in bringing up a child to believe) – we certainly tried to teach our kids to a thoughtful faith, and I think most christians that I know do (obviously this varies), and (2) you consistently under-recognise the fact that exactly the same problems can occur with other beliefs and unbelief. If your real problem is the extremism, I suggest you attack it rather than muddy the waters and draw into your net of condemnation people of goodwill (which I believe I am). As it is, it would be easy to infer that your real problem is religious belief, and the extremism attack is just one means of arguing against it.

I will read your next comment, and will happily continue if we both think that would be constructive, but I feel that we might be starting to repeat ourselves. What do you think?

PS I wasn’t familiar with Milgram so I looked it up in Wikipedia. I don’t think it proves your point. (1) The person who made quote 5 in my list above murdered 8 people. (2) Wars are started by Governments (authorities which we obey) but the problem isn’t Government (even more widespread than religion!) or democracy but evil people

I hope you take this in the spirit that it’s intended, rhubar. If it helps, read through Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail first. The simple act of belonging to a church and contributing to a collection plate carries with it enormous responsibility. The act of raising children to believe in the doctrine of any one particular faith carries with it enormous responsibility. They are not “innocent” acts, they are intentional. I will certainly concede that there are religious groups that are generally neutral when it comes to the question of whether or not harm is done. I identify as an atheist, but I am also a Unitarian, and I do occasionally enjoy going to the local service. I do not have a problem putting my money in the plate, I know it will go to a good cause.

What is *not* innocent is raising a child to believe that religious doubt is a bad thing that will cause you to burn in an eternal pit of fire. (A part of my religious upbringing, on the Lutheran, Catholic, and Baptist sides of the coin depending on what year you want to slice out of my childhood and examine.) What is *not* innocent is contributing (even if it’s only through a loose affiliation with the occasional coin tossed into the coffer on Christmas and Easter) to any organization that institutionally denies gay people the right to live a normal and happy life with the partner of their choice. These are not “extremist” points of view. They’re pretty much normal (at least around here), and they aren’t innocent at all.

I’m not condemning religion by pointing to extremism, I’m condemning religion because it gives extremists a contextually valid excuse that moderates really can’t argue with. I’m pointing out that there are real social problems involved with religious certitudes, and we desperately need the thoughtfully religious to help fix them. We need the moderates to stand up and afirm the importance of a Questioning Faith, and we need the moderates to work from within to end intolerance based on societal mores that have no justification whatsoever outside of the Bible (or the Torah, or the Qu’ran). In short, we need a new understanding of the force of religion and it’s fundamental purpose in society.

It won’t solve all the social ills of the world if we get that kind of grassroots movement occuring throughout the world, but it will go a long way towards fostering independent morality and eliminating the problem posed by Milgram’s 37 out of 40 blindly obedient murderers who were only doing as they were told.

Yes, I think I’m willing to agree with you that an infallible holy book is likely to lead to stronger motivation, for good or for bad, than almost anything else. But I think it is clear that any belief that is held to be certainly right can lead to much harm. Those who claim total reason as their authority can be just as certain, “unpersuadable” and (as the quotes show) pretty nasty.

I still think if you condemn religion (as you did) by pointing to extremism, you catch a lot of innocent people in your nutcracker for the sake of catching a few dangerous fanatics. (I personally have met thousands of christians in my time and never ever met any fanatics like you describe, although I know there is the occasional one out there.) Far safer and fairer is to simply condemn the fanatics, of whatever the persuasion. Otherwise, to the innocent who get caught in your condemnation (of whatever type), you seem as evil and unjust as the fanatics you are trying to catch.