Mikael Stanne vs Pop(e): new interview
- Thread starter plintus
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I think people mixing religion into conflicts causes more bloodshed, as one side thinks God is on their side and it's their God-given right to do atrocious acts to the other side.
Well, no, I don't know that. Some people look at knowledge (any form of knowledge, be it of the real world or of the world of Narnia) as a tool to control others, and this is a fact. Some other people look at knowledge as something that is interesting per se. I don't think that religion were created by men as such, but even if I believed that I would not exclude the possibility that someone came up with a religious theory just out of a desire to explain to himself how the world works. And maybe the theory was well-liked and people followed. Why do you assume that it was done in bad faith by everyone involved from the onset?
afz902k
In Currents of Cobalt...
I think religion was not created to control people, it was created to explain things and to provide comfort, then evolved to control people.
But really, I don't think that having the guts to die for your believes has anything to do with "not feeling worthy of having your own philosphy". I'll explain: I was raised as a catholic, and I went to catholic school: Basically, at a religious class which was called "formación" (means something like "indoctrination") we were told that according to the catholic church, it is in human nature to do evil things, and that religion is here to save us from following that path, I guess anyone who really believes that would be more afraid to not follow God and inevitably fall into evil, thus sin, thus hell, than to follow God and get killed because of that.
In the end, my reason for not being a part of any religion, is that all of them are led by people, and there is no proof that what they are saying is true, maybe Jesus didn't even exist, maybe he did exist but he was just a mad carpenter, I don't know and I will never know...
But really, I don't think that having the guts to die for your believes has anything to do with "not feeling worthy of having your own philosphy". I'll explain: I was raised as a catholic, and I went to catholic school: Basically, at a religious class which was called "formación" (means something like "indoctrination") we were told that according to the catholic church, it is in human nature to do evil things, and that religion is here to save us from following that path, I guess anyone who really believes that would be more afraid to not follow God and inevitably fall into evil, thus sin, thus hell, than to follow God and get killed because of that.
In the end, my reason for not being a part of any religion, is that all of them are led by people, and there is no proof that what they are saying is true, maybe Jesus didn't even exist, maybe he did exist but he was just a mad carpenter, I don't know and I will never know...
Didl
Master Of Alchemy
hyena, you're welcome!
afz902k, to my poor knowledge, it is pretty much confirmed and researched that a Jesus did exist.
t.a.j., great post, thanks for this input. I in particular like your closing sentence:
"I would attack them because of their specifically religious qualities, to be more exact, because of the combination of other-worldliness and seriousness they have. A most bitter combination it is."
This is in agreement with my scepticism for religion. I do find something positive in them, but the whole concepts are full of contradictions and double standards, some stuff just does not make sense, despite the fact one has to "believe".
afz902k, to my poor knowledge, it is pretty much confirmed and researched that a Jesus did exist.
t.a.j., great post, thanks for this input. I in particular like your closing sentence:
"I would attack them because of their specifically religious qualities, to be more exact, because of the combination of other-worldliness and seriousness they have. A most bitter combination it is."
This is in agreement with my scepticism for religion. I do find something positive in them, but the whole concepts are full of contradictions and double standards, some stuff just does not make sense, despite the fact one has to "believe".
afz902k
In Currents of Cobalt...
Well, even if Jesus did exist, that still doesn't prove he was anything else than a notable philosopher...
Good post taj!
Aside from what anyone may choose to believe, I think there are general problems that arise with religion. Religious convictions have a tendency towards clashing with reality, the dinosaurs were already mentioned, but evolution is a classic topic as well. What really bugs me is when christians bring up the point that the theory of evolution is just a theory and nowhere near perfection, in fact, practically meaningless. A scientific theory is the concept that makes the most sense based on the evidence you have gathered, a concept widely accepted and nowhere contradicted by any kind of evidence. Now you may argue that the flaw is not in the theory itself, but in its positivistic approach.. "I only believe in what I can see!". Ok, I cannot argue with that, but I for myself would much rather believe in a theory supported by a majority of today's scientists and all sorts of proof than in a concept supported only by a 2000 year old book.
I have led countless arguments over that point and the reaction is always the same, a point of conflict arises and instead of asking "Reality and my beliefs are not in perfect alignment, what is wrong with my beliefs?" the question is always "How can I twist reality so that I can somehow keep my beliefs."
When reality and your beliefs are in dissonance, what are the odds that reality is wrong?
Sorry for not sugarcoating it.. and sorry if I offended anyone.
Aside from what anyone may choose to believe, I think there are general problems that arise with religion. Religious convictions have a tendency towards clashing with reality, the dinosaurs were already mentioned, but evolution is a classic topic as well. What really bugs me is when christians bring up the point that the theory of evolution is just a theory and nowhere near perfection, in fact, practically meaningless. A scientific theory is the concept that makes the most sense based on the evidence you have gathered, a concept widely accepted and nowhere contradicted by any kind of evidence. Now you may argue that the flaw is not in the theory itself, but in its positivistic approach.. "I only believe in what I can see!". Ok, I cannot argue with that, but I for myself would much rather believe in a theory supported by a majority of today's scientists and all sorts of proof than in a concept supported only by a 2000 year old book.
I have led countless arguments over that point and the reaction is always the same, a point of conflict arises and instead of asking "Reality and my beliefs are not in perfect alignment, what is wrong with my beliefs?" the question is always "How can I twist reality so that I can somehow keep my beliefs."
When reality and your beliefs are in dissonance, what are the odds that reality is wrong?
Sorry for not sugarcoating it.. and sorry if I offended anyone.
afz902k
In Currents of Cobalt...
Then there's also that ol' problem with the big bang theory... it is also a chicken and egg type of thing, and we don't really know where matter came from in the first place...
Edit: Maybe it would be a good idea to create a religious believes poll... o:
Edit: Maybe it would be a good idea to create a religious believes poll... o:
QRV
historyphobic
Trend #1: You can be retro and become a hard-headed ATHEIST. It works if you're either anti-clerical, angry at that little God that doesn't satisfy your inner thirst for faith, or if you're angry at God for allowing all evil to permeate the entire world. If you're not American, it normally comes with your common marxist combo. Psychologists can also find it with their Freudian combo. Doesn't include French fries nor apple pie.
Trend #2: Or, you can jump into the postmodern bandwagon and embrace AGNOSTICISM. It'll make you feel so in. And hey, at least you'll be considerably more honest and noble than those anacronic atheist renegades. If you want to pour some pseudo-intellectual spice into it, you can decorate your beliefs (or lack of, or doubts of) with metadiscourses about metareflections on metarelations of the metarepresentations of the metatraditions about metarepresentations of God.
However, you can never ever ever ever ever under any circumstances be a CHRISTIAN. I mean, those guys are responsible for the Crusades, and the Renaissance witchcraze, and the vile mind-controlling dogmas, and and and they're EVIL! E-V-I-L. But we'll tolerate your being JEWISH just because those guys passed through a lot on WWII and they're all full of complexes and traumas. Hell, we'll even forgive them for killing a few MUSLIMS, since those guys are nothing but a bunch of TERRORIST FUNDAMENTALIST ASSHOLES that are bringing Armaggeddon into our world. So they're very evil too.
Other Western religions are also discarded. I mean, you wouldn't dare to become a WICCA, right? That'd only turn you into a pretentious goth or witch-wannabe.}
As for Eastern religions, they're OK, I guess, since we don't know shit about them. Nobody would ever tell you anything about being a SHINTOIST (unless you become a Japanese nationalist bastard).
For all of it, few people have ever tried to question themselves about the very essence of religion. It's either a myth (that is, a lie) to satisfy our fears for death and independence, and a tool of the governing and clerical classes for controlling hugh masses. And that's it, there's nothing more to it. I mean, we're reasonable people, right? Faith is foolish, since it's irrational. Pfft, bleh. Faith. Ugh. We're all about reason, the world should be all about reason. We certainly know a lot about our inner psychic processes to tell what we should put apart in favor of reason. We perfectly know ourselves. Yup.
But then, by doing that you'd be creating another myth, anyway. So you see, things aren't that simple. In the humble opinion of this Junguian and history of religions aficionado, Stanne is just a victim of his time and place. Separating philosophy from religion... as if they've ever been apart.
Trend #2: Or, you can jump into the postmodern bandwagon and embrace AGNOSTICISM. It'll make you feel so in. And hey, at least you'll be considerably more honest and noble than those anacronic atheist renegades. If you want to pour some pseudo-intellectual spice into it, you can decorate your beliefs (or lack of, or doubts of) with metadiscourses about metareflections on metarelations of the metarepresentations of the metatraditions about metarepresentations of God.
However, you can never ever ever ever ever under any circumstances be a CHRISTIAN. I mean, those guys are responsible for the Crusades, and the Renaissance witchcraze, and the vile mind-controlling dogmas, and and and they're EVIL! E-V-I-L. But we'll tolerate your being JEWISH just because those guys passed through a lot on WWII and they're all full of complexes and traumas. Hell, we'll even forgive them for killing a few MUSLIMS, since those guys are nothing but a bunch of TERRORIST FUNDAMENTALIST ASSHOLES that are bringing Armaggeddon into our world. So they're very evil too.
Other Western religions are also discarded. I mean, you wouldn't dare to become a WICCA, right? That'd only turn you into a pretentious goth or witch-wannabe.}
As for Eastern religions, they're OK, I guess, since we don't know shit about them. Nobody would ever tell you anything about being a SHINTOIST (unless you become a Japanese nationalist bastard).
For all of it, few people have ever tried to question themselves about the very essence of religion. It's either a myth (that is, a lie) to satisfy our fears for death and independence, and a tool of the governing and clerical classes for controlling hugh masses. And that's it, there's nothing more to it. I mean, we're reasonable people, right? Faith is foolish, since it's irrational. Pfft, bleh. Faith. Ugh. We're all about reason, the world should be all about reason. We certainly know a lot about our inner psychic processes to tell what we should put apart in favor of reason. We perfectly know ourselves. Yup.
But then, by doing that you'd be creating another myth, anyway. So you see, things aren't that simple. In the humble opinion of this Junguian and history of religions aficionado, Stanne is just a victim of his time and place. Separating philosophy from religion... as if they've ever been apart.
t.a.j.
:.::
I want to make a statement about the idea that our moral values come from the ten commandments, because I believe that one good look at that text should be enough to show that less than half are actually to be found anywhere in either law or common moral sentiments.
First off, the actual commandments are interspersed with annotations and threats, making it a bit difficult to decide where one commandment ends and another begins. Thus, I will just quote in pieces that seem to go together in some way. Furthermore, I will just look for consitency with moral believes commonly held in western cultures of our times.
So let's go, here is the text from the new american bible:
Raise hands everyone who finds that inflicting punishment on someone for things their fathers did down to the third and fourth generation morally right.
Now raise hands everyone who thinks that merely submission to authority should be cause for greatest rewards and failure to submit for punishment for you, your children, their children and the children of your children's children.
Finally, hands up for creating art being a crime.
Now, slander is commonally punished, but I'm not so sure what "taking the name in vain" is actually supposed to mean. Be it said that hardly anybody seems worried by cursing, comedy or expressing negative opinions of superiors. Also keep in mind political cabaret. For a final, much closer point: where there are laws banning religious criticism (like saying: "god is dead") we usually take that as a sign for less than admireable moral states.
Now, who of you worked last saturday?
And hands up for those who think that slaves should not be allow to work on saturday.
Well now, seems like we are getting somewhere? Guess again. Think: child abuse, children divorced from their parents, familial neglect, public intervention,... There seems to be a general notion that parents need to be good parents to deserve being honored.
Then we also tend to believe that teenagers who rebel against their parent's control are not at all evil, but acting natural.
And hands up for those who think a shortening of life (whatever that may mean) is just the right kind of punishment for those dastardly youngsters.
Wellcome to obvious country. Yes, this fits our morals. Then again, a rule against killing group members seems to be an anthropological constant. I cannot imagine a society working a moment without it.
But I won't try to wriggle out of this, even if I could mention that heavily religious communities (like Iran or Texas) seem to do a hell of a lot more killing than more secular ones like Germany or Sweden.
So, one point in evidence for at least consistency with our current moral sensibilities.
Thank pornography, we have developed something like a healthy cultural stand on sexuality.
Another winner, this time even the anthropological constant argument is not quite as strong, since there are communities in evidence where private property is an unknown concept and therefore theft is quite meaningless either. This does not clearly eliminate the threat of that argument, but it's weaker.
Welcome back in anthroplogical constant land. Human existence needs dependabilty, predicability and certainty, in so far as it is social (which it almost always is), this extends to other human beings. When everybody routinly lies, no kind of cooperation is possible.
Still, like with the no killing commandment, this certainly qualifies for consistency with our usual moral sentiments.
This quote alone makes capitalism evil. Now, some of us hold some deep seated resentment against greed and wanting what others have (their money for example), but really that's just a minority and even those play the game.
Also notice the casual acceptance of slavery.
So much for the classics, but the passage in Exodus goes on to reveal some more commandments, lets take a look at them too:
Hands up for animal sacrifice and unworked stone altars...
Now, we have a grand total of three commandments, that seem consistent with current moral sentiments, and all three are subject to the argument from anthropological constants to varying degrees.
The verdict, as in all things, is yours. I think mine has been made clear.
The bible verses are quoted from: http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/exodus/exodus20.htm
First off, the actual commandments are interspersed with annotations and threats, making it a bit difficult to decide where one commandment ends and another begins. Thus, I will just quote in pieces that seem to go together in some way. Furthermore, I will just look for consitency with moral believes commonly held in western cultures of our times.
So let's go, here is the text from the new american bible:
some long dead person said:
Raise hands everyone who finds that inflicting punishment on someone for things their fathers did down to the third and fourth generation morally right.
Now raise hands everyone who thinks that merely submission to authority should be cause for greatest rewards and failure to submit for punishment for you, your children, their children and the children of your children's children.
Finally, hands up for creating art being a crime.
Now, slander is commonally punished, but I'm not so sure what "taking the name in vain" is actually supposed to mean. Be it said that hardly anybody seems worried by cursing, comedy or expressing negative opinions of superiors. Also keep in mind political cabaret. For a final, much closer point: where there are laws banning religious criticism (like saying: "god is dead") we usually take that as a sign for less than admireable moral states.
Now, who of you worked last saturday?
And hands up for those who think that slaves should not be allow to work on saturday.
Well now, seems like we are getting somewhere? Guess again. Think: child abuse, children divorced from their parents, familial neglect, public intervention,... There seems to be a general notion that parents need to be good parents to deserve being honored.
Then we also tend to believe that teenagers who rebel against their parent's control are not at all evil, but acting natural.
And hands up for those who think a shortening of life (whatever that may mean) is just the right kind of punishment for those dastardly youngsters.
Wellcome to obvious country. Yes, this fits our morals. Then again, a rule against killing group members seems to be an anthropological constant. I cannot imagine a society working a moment without it.
But I won't try to wriggle out of this, even if I could mention that heavily religious communities (like Iran or Texas) seem to do a hell of a lot more killing than more secular ones like Germany or Sweden.
So, one point in evidence for at least consistency with our current moral sensibilities.
Hands up who believe that sex outside of marriage is evil.
Thank pornography, we have developed something like a healthy cultural stand on sexuality.
Another winner, this time even the anthropological constant argument is not quite as strong, since there are communities in evidence where private property is an unknown concept and therefore theft is quite meaningless either. This does not clearly eliminate the threat of that argument, but it's weaker.
Welcome back in anthroplogical constant land. Human existence needs dependabilty, predicability and certainty, in so far as it is social (which it almost always is), this extends to other human beings. When everybody routinly lies, no kind of cooperation is possible.
Still, like with the no killing commandment, this certainly qualifies for consistency with our usual moral sentiments.
This quote alone makes capitalism evil. Now, some of us hold some deep seated resentment against greed and wanting what others have (their money for example), but really that's just a minority and even those play the game.
Also notice the casual acceptance of slavery.
So much for the classics, but the passage in Exodus goes on to reveal some more commandments, lets take a look at them too:
Hands up for animal sacrifice and unworked stone altars...
Now, we have a grand total of three commandments, that seem consistent with current moral sentiments, and all three are subject to the argument from anthropological constants to varying degrees.
The verdict, as in all things, is yours. I think mine has been made clear.
The bible verses are quoted from: http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/exodus/exodus20.htm
@qrv: nice post.
incidentally, speaking of evil christians and fundamentalist muslims, yesterday a bishop over here in italy said something that was extremely obvious yet i'd never thought of it - something to the effect that secularism is a lens through which religious behavior makes no sense unless it's either intimistic or violently political. yes.
incidentally, speaking of evil christians and fundamentalist muslims, yesterday a bishop over here in italy said something that was extremely obvious yet i'd never thought of it - something to the effect that secularism is a lens through which religious behavior makes no sense unless it's either intimistic or violently political. yes.
Villain
Doctor BenQuillity
I find this an extremely naïve belief. While there indeed might've been people who created theological theories for themselves, like you describe, that's not yet a religion, no. The theory becomes religion when people start using it to control others. There's not a single wide-spread religion in the history of mankind that wasn't used as a tool for power from early on. The original theorists could have worked in perfectly good faith, but no religion is born without people who use it to gain power.
The ancient Egyptian priests were mathematicians and astronomists who calculated when the Nile was going to flood. They explained this to the people by some divine theories and gained wealth and power - thus, a religion was born. It doesn't matter what were the intentions of those who came up with the theories, but it's obvious the ones who used those theories and made a religion out of them did it to control people.
I'll get back to Rahvin's earlier posts in this thread once my hangover miraculously disappears.
Oh, and must say: an excellent post, t.a.j.
-Villain
@taj: most of what you wrote makes no sense on account of being based on a literal interpretation of culture-specific references. however, i do concur with your conclusions: very few of the ten commandments, even if you do look at the substance rather than the wording intended for early Jews, are consistent with today's moral sensibilities. what i would like to know is what the hell our current moral sensibilities are supposed to be consistent with. the mind boggles at the mere attempt at an answer, and i do have carrots to peel.
incidentally, how is it that pornography of all things contributed to make views on sexuality healtier than before? while i reckon that having sex can be a physically and morally healthy activity, i absolutely fail to grasp how looking at other people having sex could be conductive to anything other than a masturbatory mindframe.
incidentally, how is it that pornography of all things contributed to make views on sexuality healtier than before? while i reckon that having sex can be a physically and morally healthy activity, i absolutely fail to grasp how looking at other people having sex could be conductive to anything other than a masturbatory mindframe.
t.a.j.
:.::
That was the very point. If our common moral sentiments (a vague concept in itself) have so little to do with the actual content of the ten commandments, it does not seem likely that there should be anything more than contingent historical relation.
[qoute] what i would like to know is what the hell our current moral sensibilities are supposed to be consistent with. the mind boggles at the mere attempt at an answer, and i do have carrots to peel.[/quote]
I don't think they are supposed to be consistent with anything, but they do have a lot more in common with the humanistic ethics of the enlightenment, then they do with the bible. (again, this seems obvious, the bible was compiled by a long dead culture during a long gone time from even older sources that to the editors already were distant past) Freedom, dignity and human rights and all that.
Not watching pornography, but the spread of and rising openess about porn seems a very good indicator for sexual acceptance. So this is more of a historical idea, more porn = more openess. more openess = broader domain of what's normal.
p.s. thanks for writing that you liked my posts
t.a.j.
:.::
well, no. or at least not as far as i understand. you deconstructed the ritualistic and the contingent part of the scripture. for example, you accosted the making of idols with the creation of art, and steered clear of the proper timeless significance of the commandment, ie: worship god rather than ephemeral idols. nowadays, in the western world, we do not worship golden statues; but a christian, or a modern-day jew, would read in that commandment, say, "do not worship reality TV stars as if they were god". now, if you tell me that people actually do not heed the commandment, i completely agree with you: people do seem to worship reality TV stars as if they were god, without any doubt. but this does not imply that the commandment is anachronistic per se: from the point of vie of a believer, early jews strayed and worshipped golden statues, we stray and worship unworthy objects nonetheless.
t.a.j.
:.::
"The proper timeless significance" is very much a matter of interpretation.
The whole point was to show that people from a culture very different and distant from ours wrote something down a long time ago and we have no way of knowing the rituals, insitutions, behaviours, implicit social knowledge, etc. that originally complemented the text. So we have three ways of approaching things: trying to reconstruct their culture as much as possible in order to better grasp their meaning (which would mean treating the bible like any other cultural artifact, not like some vessel of divine meaning), just taking the text as it is available to us today and interpreting it according to our way of life (which is what I did and which, as I tried to show, should lead to the rejection of the thesis that the so called ten commandments are at least consitent with current moral sentiments) or finally, we can take the religious interpretation of eternaly preserved divine meaning, ignore the translations, changes, editings, everything we know about human culture and the transmission and evolution of knowledge and believes and just talk about the "true meaning" behind it.
For one thing, it says not to crave images in the likeness of anything in the heavens, the earth or the sea. All non-abstract art does exactly this. There is little reason to asume that only the worship of them as gods is to be banned by this. There have indeed been numerous christian communities who banned all kinds of representational images.
To construct this in such a way as to only mean "do not whorship anything that is not god" is simply to not take what the text, as we currently can read it, actualy says (that is, what words in what syntaxical form it contains and what those words in that syntaxical form generally mean in today's use of the english language), but what today's religious tradition would want it to say. It is of course possible that whoever came up with the commandments and their formulation intended to say just what you ascribe to the text. Equally possible (and, obviously, in my opinion much more likely) is that they meant something else and that the anti-representationalism had some kind of historical cultural context lost to us. After all, there is, in the same book, the tale about the golden calf. Do those people get punished by god? I don't remember.
Secondly, even if your proposition were a fully correct interpretation, "worship only the true god" is not at all a moral statement. I would say that religious tolerance is commonly held to be moraly good and that seems to imply that worshiping something other than "the true god" cannot be moraly bad. It might be foolish, espc. if you buy into the christian view, but I do not see what it has to do with morality.
Your reply seemed to imply in answer to that, that "worshiping false things" leads to imoral behaviour. If only that were true. I'm afraid that worshiping the "true god" leads to as much imoral behaviour as worshiping something else. To be honest, I might be prejudical here, because in my personal experience it has almost always been the christians who were less nice then the non-christians. There are of course exceptions to that, and I have know a few christians who seemed good people through and through.
Anyway, my point was that worshiping the god of the bible (or the contemporary christian god idea) does not, in fact, imply moral behaviour and that worshiping anything else (that is: false things) does not, in fact, imply imoral behaviour.
So beyond even the matter of interpretation of the relevant bible passages (including deciding which passages are relevant), "worship x" is simply not a moral statement in any way. When we talk about morals, that is generaly not the kind of thing we mean.
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