[haylie]

Originally Posted by Dridzt Are you making this up as you go?

Nope. I'm actually quoting it from my Sociology teacher. I happen to agree with him.

"a social phenomenon meant to organize society in a state where the law or moral code doesn't allow it" According to who is that such an obvious truth? Care to qualify that with some historic or even contemporary examples so we have something more than hot air to talk about?

Okay. Take the medieval society in Europe. Back then the idea of "state" or "government" was nonexistent. All the things we take for granted today in a democratic society (schooling, medial care, social aid, counseling) were not available for your average Joe the farmer and his 20 kids that happened to constitute the vast majority of the population.

The first schools for children were created by the church, with the intention of teaching kids to read the Bible, to sing songs, to memorize prayers, etc. Before that, schooling was only available to the nobles and they had to pay big money for it.

Medical care for peasants? The church. Help for the poor? Church again. See where I'm getting at?

Want more recent examples? Okay. Take the US. By the way, I'm not pulling this out of my ass, it was Tocqueville that studied this topic. The US democracy is different from European democracy in the sense that it is very focused on the individual and not on the society as a whole. It encourages individualism, competition and generally doesn't encourage solidarity. There is no incentive for people to organize themselves in a community. There is a "void" created within the system, and it is thanks to religion that this void is filled. People organize themselves in communities because of religion. People don't act like douchebags with one another because of religion. If the state doesn't tell them not to act like douchebags, it's religion that does it. The state only guarantees human rights, there's no moral, no feeling of belonging to a community. And it is exactly this that makes it a democracy. It's a democracy because it is neutral, because it doesn't favor one moral over another. It leaves people the freedom to choose what moral they want, be it religious or not. All societies need a moral code to function properly. If the state doesn't provide it they will go to religion, or invent their own morals. But most of the times, they happen to coincide with religious morals (don't kill, don't steal, etc).

"is nothing more than a form of crowd control" Who's the controller and who's the crowd? Which category do you place yourself in? Kinda breaks that notion of society as an atom right there.

By "crowd control" I mean providing a moral code for the people so that they understand basic human rights and wrongs such as don't kill other people, don't steal, and later respect and your peers, respect your parents, be loyal to your wife etc. Society cannot exist without moral codes, like I said above. If there is no state to provide them or the state, like in the US, chooses to leave the freedom to the people to choose their own morals (I'm talking about stuff that isn't guaranteed by law, such as no stealing, no killing, etc.) then people will turn to either religion or common sense for a moral code. But that begs the question, where does common sense come from? School? Well, thank religion for inventing it then.

From your final apostrophe it looks like all you got from the discussion sofar is that everyone (but you) is looking at religion (our subject) subjectively. News flash! That's all individuals do... "Objectivity" is also a moving target approximated through discourse where subjective views and perceptions clash, merge, cancel out until synthesis is reached.

It certainly looked that way when all I could read from people bashing religion was "LOL YOU BELIEVE A DUDE UP IN THE SKY CREATED US THAT'S LIKE SO DUMB".

By subjective, I meant that they take the premise that what religion wishes to transmit is fake, then build their arguments around that. Religion is SO much more than 'the world was created like this' and 'you have to do this or that else you go to hell'. Religion wasn't just dreamed up by some guy high on opium one day. Religions were developed by intelligent and dedicated people over the course of hundreds of years. Religion explained phenomenons of nature back when no one gave a rat's ass about it, encouraging people to be interested in these phenomenons and later leading to research and even science (I like to think at least one scientist decided to study science one day just to piss the Church off). Religion gave life meaning. Religion helped develop art and cultures. Religion has shaped our society for hundreds of years and continues to shape it even today.

I've seen different interesting viewpoints (including your own sofar apart from that "me vs all" complex) with just hints of convergence.

It's me against the world, baby. I wouldn't have it any other way.

We've had self-proclaimed atheists, agnostics, skeptics and religious people pitch in, how you manage to fit them all in bubbles is quite a feat

My response wasn't directed at everyone, just the ones that based their dismissal of religion on the fact that "LOL BUT HOW CAN A DUDE CREATE THE EARTH".

Originally Posted by Led ++ What? I don't see how you can take the content out of religion. And it sure as hell (no pun intended) isn't irrelevant.

Like I said before, the fact that you blindly believe in whatever other people tell you makes no difference whether you believe God or the Big Bang created the Universe, whether the Ten Commandments or the Constitution are what people should follow, etc. You believe in something other people told you, be it religion, the state, your parents, your teachers, etc.

All types of religion served the exact same purpose, the one I've blabbered about above. Be it Christianism, Buddhism, freaking Egyptian mythology. They all:

1. Tried to explain the world's origin and certain natural phenomenons
2. Gave people a moral code so as to not kill themselves
3. Encouraged the development of art, culture, philosophical thinking, literature, etc.

In a nutshell, they all shaped the modern world. And the content is irrelevant, even more so as all the wold's religions have a lot of similarities.

Originally Posted by Led ++ The state to me looked more powerful back in the old days when everything it said was law, no questioning.

So... today, everything the state says (The Constitution) isn't law? (funny story: it is)

The state WAS the religion.

EXACTLY. There was no state, so people needed religion to fill that role. You agree with me, you just don't realize it yet, don't ya?

And the ten commandments are in todays constitutions because they are the base of our survival. It's in human nature (for normal people) to know that killing is a bad thing.

No it isn't. It's a part of our moral code. If you took a newborn baby and abandon it in the jungle to be raised by animals, it wouldn't know that killing is bad. Humans aren't born with morals. We learn morals from other people, from our parents, from school, from... religion?

Yet we kill people everyday.

How do you explain that? If it's human nature not to kill ourselves, why DO we kill ourselves?

The ten commandments aren't in the constitutions because some old wise guy got them from god. They are the base of a society that can live together. Moses knew that when he had to stay at his mountain for 40 years or so. Egyptians knew it some 1000's of years before him. And we still know it.

Exactly. We need moral codes. We need someone smarter than us to tell us not to kill each other, not to steal, not to act like douchebags to one another. Ever stop to wonder why all religions advocate almost the same basic principles as the 10 Commandments? Why they are all so similar?

Maybe they have a common origin, maybe God dictated them, maybe some guy high on opium thought it all up. Who knows. Who cares. Thank whoever's out there that they did, else we'd all still be in trees right now.

But it's not our god that says it, it's our common sense.

Before you had your "common sense" to guide you, people used religion for that very purpose.