Merry Christmas Rick Perry

[Rapscallion]

I asked if the good done by religion outweighs the bad. Please provide proof. Also, please provide proof that religion is necessary to perform good acts.

Rapscallion

[Panacea]

Tell me about it. As much as I hate the man, he is right on this issue. I just wonder if he's exaggerating the extent to which people get offended (a tactic of the religious right).

He's wrong on this issue. This law won't pass Constitutional muster, unless the schools start having major celebrations of Ramadan or Yom Kippur, or the Chinese New Year (with its complete significance, not the show we Westerners see). A single menorah in the cafeteria isn't going to cut the mustard. Perry would have been far better to just leave the issue alone. Instead, he's opened the door to more litigation. Dumbass.

For Merrry Christmas, I'm not sure. But I imagine their might be. At the D&D camp I'm part of is a part of the local public school system, and one thing that was made clear to me was that, while at the camp, I had to either take off the cross I usually wear, or always wear a dress shirt/polo/turtleneck so it wasn't visible.

That's a surprise. It's also a violation of your rights. The courts have consistently held that religious icons can be worn on school grounds.

Not 100% sure how I feel about this one. It seems unnecessary to begin with and smacks of more of this War On Christmas(tm) bullshit.

I agree; I see the same thing. Only thing is, it will backfire horribly. It will only appeal to the hard core social conservatives, not the live and let live mainstream. It invites litigation that the state can't afford, and keeps ill feeling going and going. Which may have been the purpose behind the bill; keep the issue in the press and the base worked up.

Then I suggest reading it.

Rapscallion

I did read it. And I don't get it, either. Seriously, Raps: you sound like Andara massively stepped on a raw nerve--not how you usually approach this subject when we've discussed it in the past.

I was discussing an issue that came up in defending religious indoctrination at a secular level.

Not indoctrination. The issue with this bill isn't about making anyone worship in a particular way, worship at all, or celebrate Christmas. It's about ensuring the celebration of a religious holiday that is celebrated on a secular level by many secular persons and practitioners of other religious faiths.

You don't have to follow a religion to peform the charitable things you mention.

No one here said you did. But the whole idea of charity is well entrenched in many religious faiths, including Christianity.

Be a bugger if anyone did a study that showed that atheists are more likely to give more to charity than theists. Wouldn't it?

Sure it would . . . if that's what that study actually said. But it is not what the study says. What the study actually says is that athiests are more likely to give to charity out of a sense of compassion while the religious are motived less by an emotional response (ie compassion) and more by their feelings towards their doctrine or a sense of community. Compassion is still part of the picture, but it is more institutional than individual.

But the study does not say atheists give more than the religious.

I never said you didn't say that. What your argument boils down is religion being irrelevant in terms of good and bad, which leads to questioning what the point of religion being.

Again, no. The point was that good and evil arise from us as people not from whether or not we are believers or not. It is certainly true that evil people have used religion as a cloak to hide their mideeds, or to enable them. It is also true that throughout history there have been people who have risked everything to live their faith, to do good service to their fellow man. Religion's role in bringing communities together for the common good continues to do great things for humanity even as some continue to subvert its role. However, the fault lies not in the faith, but in the motives of the individuals who abuse it.

Faith does give some evil ideas, such as stoning or lashing rape victims. However, it also provides handy get-out clauses. "I may have sodomised the unwilling, but if I say sorry and accept god just before I die, I'm in heaven anyway.

Well, first of all, the repentance must be sincere. You can't lie to God; if you say sorry only because you are afraid of the consequences then you are not sorry for what you did, you are only sorry you got caught.

The concept of repentance and forgiveness is about reconciliation and rebuilding, not about letting people get away with their crimes. It is the very concept of repentance and forgiveness that allows people to escape the cycle of vendetta and payback. That can't happen when the offending party is less than sincere, or when the harmed party refuses to release their anger. Letting go of injury is a crucial part of healing.

Not all Christians believe that a simple sorry is all you need for forgiveness. Many believe you also need to do good in the world, and that sins need to be purged away (Purgatory). So, please don't over simplify the concepts of reconciliation because there really is a lot more to it than that surface assessment.

What exactly have the fundamentalists amongst atheism done that is so wrong? Hurt someone's feelings, is about the most I can work out.

The militant atheists bother me in that they would love to completely eradicate religion. I find their behavior to be little better than fundamentalists of any faith.

However, you're basically proving my point here. Religion isn't necessary for a person's actions, so why try to shoehorn it into schools?

That wasn't the point. The point was to allow it to continue to be present for those who want it. The caveat always has to be that those who don't aren't forced to participate in the religious aspects.

Well, if confucianism contained within it instructions to, oh I don't know, stone to death people who worked on a certain day, or execute children who cheeked their parents, then I'd decry that as well. If it has teachings that are deplorable, then it can be deplored.

Or, you can deplore the teaching but not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Those teachings are part of Judiasim, not Christianity. Yet, I don't think there is a Jewish sect that would even think of acting on those teachings. Christianity kept the Old Testament because Jesus was a devout Jew who often criticized his religious leaders for being hypocritical about their own rules. That basis of the faith is important, and one of the most important lessons it teaches . . . one that is usually overlooked by everyone pro and con . . . is that God loves everyone, especially the weak, the powerless, the ones who have trouble following the right path. Jesus spent more time with the despised of society, rather than the powerful, and he emphasized a world where mankind stopped being judgmental and focused on the important part of life: loving one another.

It doesn't matter if you are a militant atheist determined to see the ill in everything religious or a religious fundamentalist overly focused on the letter of the law rather than the spirit: neither is loving of one another.

However, you're talking about a being able to create an entire universe within the bounds of the religion in question. You think that such a being who wants the salvation of a race he created wouldn't be able to make sure the text got out without corruption?

Not without overriding free will. Man chooses his own path, and the consequences of that path.

The priest at my church today talked about the "exemption clause" that many Christians seem to expect from God. That if we are faithful and believe that we should somehow be exempt from the bad things that happen in this world, be it natural disaster or the evil of our fellow man. This is a false expectation; when we make demands like that on God, we are asking to be God and to pick winners and losers in life. This is really unfair and unrealistic. Militant atheists have a similar demand; they insist that without God doing all the work in life to fix Man's mistakes that God can't really be real. They want to take God's motivations out of the equation.

Yet there are adherents desperately trying to enforce their beliefs on others over biblical matters, such as gay marriage. They probably have no issue with cutting their hair, eating shrimp and pork, or gardening on the sabbath,

Let me point out that the issue of gay marriage is controversial within Christianity; there are many Christians (myself included) who believe it should not only be allowed, but encouraged. Granted, those who oppose tend to cherry pick that passage of Leviticus . . . although they point to passages in the New Testament to support their world view (which creates different issues). So while your point is true, I would ask you not to paint all Christians with a broad brush.

Why should dogma change, anyway? When did the god of the burning bush, the god who flooded the world, the god who gave the commandments to moses, the god who was so annoyed with our sins that he sent his own son who was himself to be killed by us so we could be cool together (think about it), the god who seems to appear in images in grilled cheese these days, why is such a powerful being incapable of giving a clear message?

The message is very clear: love one another. Unfortunately, it is just too simple for most people to follow. Even the Apostles didn't get it until after Jesus died: they thought he was going to lead a rebellion against Rome and he did something very different.

Ethics is a word I find interesting. It boils, along with 'enlightenment' and 'moral', down to the concept of 'what I agree with', and people claiming the bible isn't moral baffle me. It's not moral within their world, but it's moral within its own scheme to take slaves from neighbouring nations, to stone the disobedient etc. If those actions are unacceptable, and the actions are part of a whole that claims the entirity must be correct due to an invisible father figure who gives you free will and punishes you for using it, then surely you have to deny the entirity of the message.

God holds us accountable for what we do in this world. But His capacity for forgiveness is unending, which is why he sent his Son to suffer upon the Cross for us.

It's important to take the bible in context within the times of which it was written. Man has been on a path of social evolution for thousands of years, and actions that are reprehensible today were perfectly acceptable in years gone by. Essentially you blame God for the sins of people who are long dead irrespective of what a relationship with God really means.

So, back to Mother Theresa etc. WBC is a special case - even other baptist churches have backed away, but they are at least honest in following the exact text of their chosen instruction manual. I can respect them for that. I also hate them for it. Mother Theresa has had a few people investigate her and find out that it's not that good, actually.

I didn't watch the video. Penn and Teller are well known for their hostility to religion as was Mr. Hitchens, so I didn't bother.

Mr. Hitchens wrote a book critical of Mother Teresa called the Missionary Position, and argued she should not be made a saint. Unfortunately, he does not have the first idea of what sainthood really is, nor does he understand that perfection is not something required in order to be a saint.

Now I don't know how credible his complaints about Mother Teresa really are; I suspect that there is probably a lot of claims that are taken out of context and others that while true simply represent the fallible nature of humanity. It's really hard to know since his book contains no citations of any kind to enable the reader to determine the veracity of his claims, or the claims of the people he cites.

In short, Hitchens get a platform to make a lot of really shocking claims . . . then doesn't have to back them up with anything remotely resembling a little something called "evidence," claims that those who are hostile to religion then cling to as a sort of dogma in of itself.

Just so you know, though. God wants everyone to become a saint. All persons can and should strive for sainthood.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here - seems as if you're agreeing. I don't think you need religion to do good or bad, as we view the terms. At that point, I have to ask why to give an excuse and a get-out clause to those who are bigoted etc?

We don't need religion to do good or bad. We need religion to have a relationship with our Creator, to continue in a path of social evolution that brings us closer to God. Because God loves us and wants us to love one another, doing good is an essential part of religion.

And just remember, bigotry goes both ways.

[Panacea]

Continued . . .

Professors are more likely in my experience to allow people to think for themselves, but religion follows and attempts to indoctrinate in a particular way without deciding between two options (well, unless you want to burn for eternity). Not all professors do what they should, but most of them will give you the tools to think and seek evidence.

Sure. Learning how to gather information, analyze it, synthesize it, and critically evaluate it is the cornerstone of a liberal education.

Ironically, that process was begun in Western Civilization by the Roman Catholic Church when it began establishing universities in the Middle Ages.

I can't speak for every religion, but the Catholic Church does not require me to check my brain at the door. I'm free to have my own mind and my own conscience. I'm free to evaluate Church teachings for what they are. I have issues with several Church teachings, and how they are interpreted by some of the more conservatives members of my faith. And that's OK, because it was never meant to be easy, but rather supposed to be hard. I continue to make use of my own mind; I don't take things at face value just because the Church says so. Rather, I think and I struggle and ask God to help me find the answer . . . and sometimes that answer isn't what the Church says.

I think it's quite pertinent. Why is Rick Perry trying to bring this into law for the schools? Is it down to him believing in freedom for all religion, or is he doing it to further his particular religion? Answer this honestly.

OK, I will. I think Rick Perry is doing this to fuel his political ambitions, including another run at the GOP nomination in 2016. While I don't know what he really thinks about his faith, I don't think faith is his primary motivator.

It's an attempt to insert indoctrination into a place where minds are malleable and need protecting from insane ideas. It's in the same strategic mould as intelligent design, trying to insert the 'what if we're right' concept into minds.

It's an attempt to let kids celebrate the Christmas holiday openly in public schools, while ignoring the fact kids already do this. That's it.

I don't mind teaching about religion within religious education, and I don't condone teaching against religion.

I'm the first to agree the teaching of religion has no place in public schools. That's for Sunday school and church. But I also think that people who want to be open about their observance of religious holidays should be allowed to do so.

That's why I'm still skeptical. It's not hard to see his point at face value. There have been a few cases where some overly offended douchebag took offense to a simple Merry Christmas, but the conservative Christians take this too far by acting like this small minority is trying to overthrow Christmas. Not to mention some of the religious right acting as if the mention of anything other than Chrstmas or Easter is some attack on their faith (they have quite the persecution complex).

I couldn't agree more. Conservative Christians view other faiths as a threat and invented this "war against religion" nonsense to 1) fire up a political base for purely political purposes, and 2) hang on to power. It's both obvious and pathetic. Especially when some of these same folks only show up for services on those particular two holidays . . . and forget that Easter is the more important of the two.

[Nekojin]

I also am open to the possibility that religion is correct.

Please provide that proof.

This is already framing the debate in a dishonest way. There is no current scientific evidence that proves that a god or gods exist. Whether that's by design or because they don't exist is something we cannot determine. Perhaps the evidence exists, and we're too primitive to make the tools to allow us to discern that evidence. We're learning more and more about the universe all the time, and it's downright foolhardy to suggest that we absolutely know that something that is as-yet unproven is actually false. All logic that leads to a conclusion that there are no gods requires some assumptions to reach that conclusion.

I'm an agnostic. I don't know whether a god or gods exist. Moreover, I don't care. I don't consider it important to living my life - I think it's more important to make sure my "Mazlow Needs" are being met. When I have time and inclination to philosophize, I prefer to ponder things that affect me directly.

And you're being incredibly disprespectful to those members of the community who have a faith.

[Andara Bledin]

I asked if the good done by religion outweighs the bad.

This isn't a valid question.

Religion doesn't do anything in and of itself. Neither does science. Or charity. They provide frameworks in which people can do things.

[Panacea]

I asked if the good done by religion outweighs the bad. Please provide proof. Also, please provide proof that religion is necessary to perform good acts.

Rapscallion

I don't think anyone here has the time to write a doctoral dissertation on this subject. And that includes me, btw. Since that's what you seem to require, we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

I don't think religion is necessary to do good acts; clearly it is not. I do think that many good acts were inspired by people of religious faith, and that religion has a lot to offer many people. We've talked about many examples.

You don't have to embrace religion or like it. But I think that to claim that religion does no good at all is disingenuous. It ignores many small individual acts of faith that did a great deal of good, along with institutional efforts such as have been mentioned by Kheldarson.

[Kheldarson]

I think it's quite pertinent. Why is Rick Perry trying to bring this into law for the schools? Is it down to him believing in freedom for all religion, or is he doing it to further his particular religion? Answer this honestly.

I'm only addressing this since everything else has been tackled quite nicely by Panacea, and I don't have a desire to write a dissertation either.

The honest answer to this is: we'll see. Again, I personally find it ridiculous that the issue has gotten to this point, but it has, so we'll see. Of course, he's not the one who's going to have to deal with it first hand, so we'll see how schools and parents handle Christmas in Texas in another few months.

The answer as to why it had to be brought in at all is because areas are getting to a point where religion of any type can't be mentioned at all, even casually, in schools simply for fear of offense. Which is why I think it's ridiculous. Talk about the holidays, share the major traditions, say Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas/Merry Chrismakwanzahannukaday/whatever, and just be happy and jolly because it's the winter holidays and we're getting out of school for a couple of weeks. I mean, honestly. That's half the reason the kids care about the holidays anyway. Presents are, of course, the other half

[Nekojin]

The answer as to why it had to be brought in at all is because areas are getting to a point where religion of any type can't be mentioned at all, even casually, in schools simply for fear of offense. Which is why I think it's ridiculous. Talk about the holidays, share the major traditions, say Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas/Merry Chrismakwanzahannukaday/whatever, and just be happy and jolly because it's the winter holidays and we're getting out of school for a couple of weeks.

That, of course, goes both ways - Christians getting their panties in a wad if someone offers them "Happy Holidays" or "Happy Hannukah" or any other not-expressly-Christian sentiment.

People suck. Religion or lack thereof isn't a guarantee of non-sucky-ness.

[Kheldarson]

That, of course, goes both ways - Christians getting their panties in a wad if someone offers them "Happy Holidays" or "Happy Hannukah" or any other not-expressly-Christian sentiment.

People suck. Religion or lack thereof isn't a guarantee of non-sucky-ness.

Not disagreeing. I think people are being ridiculous on this issue on both sides of the fence.

It's the holidays! Be happy! Stop being all....people-y! We get that enough through the year.

[TheHuckster]

I'm going to throw in my two cents in on this discussion and mention that the pattern in the violent history that has come upon us is not the result of religion at all. It's the result of humanity's greed for power and control. Religion is just one of many possible avenues one will take to achieve said power and control. Other avenues can be obtained through politics and money, among others.

I cannot speak for the people who wrote the dead sea scrolls thousands of years ago, whether they truly thought they were lead to write them by a deity or were simply struck with a need for power, knowing that if others believed their writings came from a higher power they would bow to them. That is beyond the point.

If we never had religion, society would find something else to use as a tool for power. Religion is not to blame for that, humanity is.

The question is this: If humanity didn't have the kind of greed for power and/or control that lead us to murder, extreme exploitation, and violence, would we have religion?

I am going to go out on a limb and say yes. I believe that even if we were in harmony, more or less, and didn't go out of our way to stab others in the back there would still be a subset of people who would believe in a higher being and would conform to a code of ethics based on that belief. Now obviously, in this hypothetical world, it would manifest itself differently. People would not use it dishonestly or use it to take advantage of others, nor to incite violence, however because I think it would still be a subject of unproveable debate, there would be a subset of society who were deists in some form.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Well now that we've solved the origin of good and evil and statistically sussed out the quantitative amount of good and evil religions do, I went back and read the full text of this bill.

It could probably be retitled: "Texas House Bill that includes the words Merry Christmas and legally states the US Supreme Court legal interpretation." I think it's absolutely a brownie points bill.

But as silly as it is, I can see a value to it. By essentially restating the guideposts that the legal decisions have provided thus far a teacher or an administrator can read this and have a good grasp of what they can say. I think for many, that is the problem. The "War" feels real because they're not even sure what they can do at this point.

It also puts public schools that go overly religious within the bounds of violating Texas state law. Because they're public, I doubt the ACLU will have much to say on it.

[MadMike]

If we never had religion, society would find something else to use as a tool for power. Religion is not to blame for that, humanity is.

Interestingly enough, South Park did an episode where they made that same point, although it was probably lost on the people who enjoy the show for its crude content. Yes, it gets pretty crude, but sometimes they do have a valid point.

It was a 2-part episode called "Go God Go!" Cartman got frozen, and was thawed out 500 years later, just like Buck Rogers. In the future, all religion had been abolished, but there were still warring factions of atheists, arguing over what atheists should call themselves.

So, just like you said, even if religion was abolished, people would find something else to kill each other over.

[Rapscallion]

Sorry to all the people who are wrong in this thread. I'll be back shortly to explain just why, but I've had a dicky power supply unit in my desktop make things awkward and I've been transferring things onto the laptop etc for most of the last day or two.

In other words, silence is no excuse for claiming victory.

Rapscallion

[Andara Bledin]

Oh, well, I'm so glad that your magical thinking has supplied you with the only right answers.

I await your no-doubt enlightening explanation with bated breath.

[Duelist925]

Sorry to all the people who are wrong in this thread. I'll be back shortly to explain just why, but I've had a dicky power supply unit in my desktop make things awkward and I've been transferring things onto the laptop etc for most of the last day or two.

In other words, silence is no excuse for claiming victory.

Rapscallion

Not a single person "claimed victory". Not even Panacea, who managed to decimate your own argument in a rather well written point by point.

Just about anyone who responded to you has either not said anything else since you stopped responding, or has only commented on the original point of the entire thread.

No one claimed "victory". The discussion moved on.

And no one gives even half a damn why you haven't responded yet. That you felt the need to give an excuse just smacks of stalling for time to think of a decent enough response, an intense need to have the last word, and a severely over inflated sense of relevance. Plus, its the weekend--no one expects people to post on the weekend. Not even the people who actually post on the weekend!

And, incidentally, this post? Oh, wow. "Sorry to all the people who are wrong" ? This could not have worded that in a more dickish way if it had typed it out in a special font made of letter shaped dicks. The level of condescending smugness contained in it was absolutely unnecessary.

I want to echo Andara here. Please, Raps. Enlighten us. What mysterious truths do you wield So far, all you've shown me is how to derail a thread in a way that'd have anyone else reported (after all, this is the politics thread, not religion, and the op was concerning a political law) and that, yes, Atheists can suffer the same logical fallacies as fundamentalist jackasses. And calling them "logical" is almost stretching it.