Ben Stein Expelled

[Chrisb3]

I think Laws, not Religion started civilisation (as well as farming and building ofc).

Now you can argue that without Religion to scare people into obeying the laws, then the laws wouldn't have been written or followed. I think that this could very well be true.

However that same argument means that all religion is false and has served it's purpose. We have laws independant of religion now so we don't need these old old beliefs to make people obey the law.
All they achieve now is fucking up science. Creation myths were there to add authority to God, not to actually explain anything to the standards we now have.

[PerritoBites]

Originally Posted by Xakk

Monkeys usually rule by whoever is most powerful and beats the shit out of everyone else. They will also steal from each other and are very greedy and are absolutely fucking brutal.

Here is a spoiler for you about the human race (stolen from FSR)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

[Smocca]

Who's the guy in the chair at the end? Professor Xavier?

[PerritoBites]

pretty sure it's someone getting killed in an electrical chair.

[Smocca]

Oh, right, I can see that now.

[Schatze]

Originally Posted by Xakk

Monkeys usually rule by whoever is most powerful and beats the shit out of everyone else. They will also steal from each other and are very greedy and are absolutely fucking brutal.

And humans don't? ROFL. Humans beating the shit out of other humans under the power of a central authority was how cities, city states, nations, nation states came to be.

You don't think that farmer wants to BE a farmer, do you? Hunter gatherer society was easier except for the key exceptions that were the cradle of civilization (fertile river valleys, desert landscape). Except for those situations, nomadic hunter gatherer with perhaps limited agriculture was a better lifestyle. Why did civilization spread? Because it allows the centralization and muster of men and weapons and the spread of civilization either by conquering or forcing those who do not want to be conquered to take up the same pattern of living. But in the end, the key to civilization has always been a man with a weapon.

Even in social settings in contemporary times you can still see the power dynamic. Except the means for determining social status have changed a bit. For females, the determinants of social status and the way they go about allying/shunning others is pretty damned close too.

[Xakk]

Originally Posted by Schatze

And humans don't? ROFL. Humans beating the shit out of other humans under the power of a central authority was how cities, city states, nations, nation states came to be.

Voodoochild brought up that monkeys have laws in their societies. However within the group they will terrorized, steal and kill from one another with no repercussions.
The question is what are the laws that monkeys have?

Originally Posted by Schatze

You don't think that farmer wants to BE a farmer, do you? Hunter gatherer society was easier except for the key exceptions that were the cradle of civilization (fertile river valleys, desert landscape). Except for those situations, nomadic hunter gatherer with perhaps limited agriculture was a better lifestyle.

You have accomplished in stating that when farming is viable people would rather farm than hunt. Hunting was dangerous and sporadic.

Originally Posted by Schatze

Why did civilization spread? Because it allows the centralization and muster of men and weapons and the spread of civilization either by conquering or forcing those who do not want to be conquered to take up the same pattern of living. But in the end, the key to civilization has always been a man with a weapon.

This is terribly oversimplified.

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

Please stop trying to argue with a wikipedia base of knowledge. It just makes you look stupid.

You didn't really source where you got that definition from so I googled them and found one on About.com and the other on Wikipedia.

Princeton says:
(n) religion (a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny)

(n)organized religion (an institution to express belief in a divine power)

(adj) religious, spiritual (concerned with sacred matters or religion or the church)

(adj) supernatural (not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws; not physical or material)

(adj) metaphysical (without material form or substance) "metaphysical forces"

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

What does this have to fucking to with morality being based in instinctual wiring of a social mammal?

Instincts are innate behaviors, pre-programmed at birth that are unlearned (doesn't change with experience), uniform in expression and universal in a species.
Instinct != morality

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

A religion is more than just base superstition and spirituality.It is a set of codiAs i said before spirituality!=religion.

Originally Posted by About.com

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor in his Primitive Culture (1871) originally defined animism "as a general belief in spiritual beings" and considered it "a minimum definition of religion."

You're so sure of yourself but it seems like you really don't know what you're saying.

[Arakkis]

Gryeyes, not only are you wrong about the majority of your claims, you are presenting them in a manner which shows your lack of understanding of what is being discussed. I suggest you stop posting and simply lurk so that you can learn a thing or two. This is the last post I am going to address to you as I should have taken the advice in my own sig.

Originally Posted by Chrisb3

I think Laws, not Religion started civilisation (as well as farming and building ofc).

Now you can argue that without Religion to scare people into obeying the laws, then the laws wouldn't have been written or followed. I think that this could very well be true.

However that same argument means that all religion is false and has served it's purpose. We have laws independant of religion now so we don't need these old old beliefs to make people obey the law.
All they achieve now is fucking up science. Creation myths were there to add authority to God, not to actually explain anything to the standards we now have.

Now here is the burning question that I was hoping this thread would get to: does man still need religion? Someone earlier posted a chart that showed that prisoners overwhelmingly identify themselves as religious. I would say that no matter what the penalty, there are people that will disobey the law. If religion were completely abolished, it would remove another impetus to obey the laws of whichever society people live in. Most religions espouse a framework for society that, if obeyed, would lead us to an unprecedented era of advancement.

If there were no religion, the two main reasons that people would obey the law are 1) to advance the society person live in by not being a drain on the society's resources 2) in fear of the punishment the society would inflict on them.

Now #1 is bullshit. Most people are only motivated by self interest. Capitalism is based on this fact and it is the reason communism doesn't work unless the government is authoritarian. This is the reason #2 is really the main thing that keeps people in line. With a harsh enough punishment and a guarantee on being punished if the law is disobeyed, society could survive without religion. But with this amount of punishment and surveillance, it would be a society I would definitely not want to live in.

I would say that the government promoting religion works in their favor. It adds an unseen level of law enforcement that they can't match.

[Neferata]

I think the value of religion might be overestimated a bit there. Many religions have the good ol' repentance clause, and the followers know it. Regardless, I doubt very much that religion reduces crime by any noticeable amount, as evidenced by many european countries. The most secular countries happen to be some of the safest places to live on earth, pretty much. While the most religious countries happen to be the most dangerous.

[Chrisb3]

Originally Posted by Arakkis

Someone earlier posted a chart that showed that prisoners overwhelmingly identify themselves as religious. I would say that no matter what the penalty, there are people that will disobey the law.

The rest of your post contradicts this. If prisoners are religious then obviously religion didn't stop them commiting crimes. Unless you mean that they are repenting, where it doesn't matter anyway because those kinda people are there for life. I don't think minor/non violent criminals are going to repent much.

People obey the law because they are inherantly good. Personally I'm not wanting to murder and rape all the time but held back by the fear of prison, I don't know about you maybe you do.

Unfortunatly there is a minority that is going to commit crime regardless of the puishment, the solution to that is probally down to culture and education. Parts of the USA for example are quite religious, have the death penalty and yet the USA has a high murder rate. So there is a double punishment of death and hell but violent crime still happens.

Religions need to get rid of the divine element and just preach the core philosophy while turning themselves more into a charity.
I was born a Catholic, so I want to see priests teach all the parables and things that Jesus said to children and try and help people lead better lives.
However I don't want to be told that he is the son of God because it doesn't really matter if his teachings are meaningful enough to follow anyway without the hell threat.
I also want them to use their money on helping old/sick/poor people and not on gold plating everything they own, they can go and physically help people also instead of chanting/singing in church. They should let women in and let them get married also, what kind of man wants to be celibate in this day and age? Secret Pedophiles that's who :/

[Gryeyes]

Voodoochild brought up that monkeys have laws in their societies. However within the group they will terrorized, steal and kill from one another with no repercussions.
The question is what are the laws that monkeys have?

There is a social order thats extremely complex and the laws are enforced. You apparently know as much about great ape social behavior as anything else. Im sure you can wiki up some basic understanding. In essence you have no idea what you are talking about.

You didn't really source where you got that definition from so I googled them and found one on About.com and the other on Wikipedia.

Merriam-webster is the source ill use that before "about.com and wikipedia" thanks. Equating any supernatural belief to equal religion is moronic for many reasons.

Instincts are innate behaviors, pre-programmed at birth that are unlearned (doesn't change with experience), uniform in expression and universal in a species.
Instinct != morality

Nobody ever said Instinct!=morality. So you are correct. The instincts of a social mammal is most certainly the foundation of morality and society/civilization in general. Are you really trying to argue this?

You're so sure of yourself but it seems like you really don't know what you're saying.

Once again those whose knowledge is limited to wikipedia shouldn't argue about things they dont understand. Watch ill use wikipedia and even the same guy to refute you.

"British anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor argued in Primitive Culture (1871) that this belief was the most primitive and essential part of religion.[3] Though animism itself is not a religion in the usual Western sense, some scholars believe that it contains the foundations on which religions are built"

"An example of this may be taken the European belief in the corn spirit, which is, however, the object of magical rather than religious rites. Sir James G. Frazer, in The Golden Bough, has thus defined the character of the animistic pantheon:

they are restricted in their operations to definite departments of nature; their names are general, not proper; their attributes are generic rather than individual; in other words, there is an indefinite number of spirits of each class, and the individuals of a class are much alike; they have no definitely marked individuality; no accepted traditions are current as to their origin, life and character."

He saw the development of magic and religion as due to faulty logic based on psychological errors, not as an outcome of the nature of society itself

Strange you didnt cite this even tho it was from the very section you hand picked your couple of sentences. Dishonest AND stupid those are not good combinations. Besides by your list of what "religion" contributes to society its evident you were using the "normal western" sense of the word to begin with.

[Gryeyes]

Originally Posted by Arakkis

Gryeyes, not only are you wrong about the majority of your claims, you are presenting them in a manner which shows your lack of understanding of what is being discussed. I suggest you stop posting and simply lurk so that you can learn a thing or two. This is the last post I am going to address to you as I should have taken the advice in my own sig.

Ya i didnt think you would respond. Protip read a book and stop using wikipedia.

[Grumath]

Originally Posted by Arakkis

I would say that the government promoting religion works in their favor. It adds an unseen level of law enforcement that they can't match.

If you honestly think that a large portion of a society living in fear and shame of their actions or potential actions is a positive, you have a fucked up world view. Doing good things for stupid or bad reasons isn't always a positive. The person who gives to charity to help their fellow man is far more noble and advanced than one who gives to charity to get brownie points with their celestial dictator that they live in constant fear of like an extradimensional Kim Jong Il.

[Eomer]

Originally Posted by Arakkis

Gryeyes, not only are you wrong about the majority of your claims, you are presenting them in a manner which shows your lack of understanding of what is being discussed. I suggest you stop posting and simply lurk so that you can learn a thing or two. This is the last post I am going to address to you as I should have taken the advice in my own sig.

wow, just wow

[Xakk]

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

There is a social order thats extremely complex and the laws are enforced. You apparently know as much about great ape social behavior as anything else. Im sure you can wiki up some basic understanding. In essence you have no idea what you are talking about.

I was expecting some links on it, since no, I don't really know shit about the laws that monkeys or apes apparently have.

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

Merriam-webster is the source ill use that before "about.com and wikipedia" thanks. Equating any supernatural belief to equal religion is moronic for many reasons.

The definitions from Princeton I've used don't match up with your definitions.

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

Nobody ever said Instinct!=morality. So you are correct. The instincts of a social mammal is most certainly the foundation of morality and society/civilization in general. Are you really trying to argue this?

Morality is not instinctual, as you have said many times. If morality was instinctual it would be unchanging and unlearned. There wouldn't be an argument.

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

Once again those whose knowledge is limited to wikipedia shouldn't argue about things they dont understand. Watch ill use wikipedia and even the same guy to refute you.

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

"British anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor argued in Primitive Culture (1871) that this belief was the most primitive and essential part of religion.[3] Though animism itself is not a religion in the usual Western sense, some scholars believe that it contains the foundations on which religions are built"

"An example of this may be taken the European belief in the corn spirit, which is, however, the object of magical rather than religious rites. Sir James G. Frazer, in The Golden Bough, has thus defined the character of the animistic pantheon:

they are restricted in their operations to definite departments of nature; their names are general, not proper; their attributes are generic rather than individual; in other words, there is an indefinite number of spirits of each class, and the individuals of a class are much alike; they have no definitely marked individuality; no accepted traditions are current as to their origin, life and character."

Originally Posted by Literary Encyclopedia: Sir James Frazer

Frazer's hypotheses about the death of kings, the regeneration of nature and the social impact of taboos, though largely rejected by later anthropologist who found them sweeping and patronising, passed imperceptibly into the mainstream of culture.

Literary Encyclopedia: Sir James Frazer

I didn't use Wikipeida, even though it's the only source I've found that has some agreement to your argument. You left out how half the Wikipedia article is about how it's unclear if animism can be considered a religion since it is present in all religions. The man who coined the phrase animism says it was the minimum of religion.

Originally Posted by Gryeyes

Strange you didnt cite this even tho it was from the very section you hand picked your couple of sentences. Dishonest AND stupid those are not good combinations. Besides by your list of what "religion" contributes to society its evident you were using the "normal western" sense of the word to begin with.

Animism is the link i used.

The list of six things was based on religion after civilization had taken place.