Islam.
I don't know, but is that relevant? Young or old people who pierce their tongues choose to do so. Also, the tongue is possibly the most resilient organ in the human body, capable of completely healing itself even when its tip has been cut off (note: nevertheless, don't try this one at home, kids). The ceremony in question, by contrast, is performed on
babies without, naturally, their consent having been obtained. It removes sensitive and protective parts of the penis that can never be adequately replaced and, in the orthodox Jewish ceremonies Hitchens describes, involves the mohel sucking the foreskin off with his mouth. He cites several instances of this going wrong in a single year in New York alone, resulting in a number of the infants contracting genital herpes and at least two deaths. Mayor Bloomberg, however, declined the opportunity to make the practice illegal. So much for the separation of church and state.
Buddhism according to Hitchens' book. Something for my friends down the health food shop to chew over. I was in Japan a few years ago and was much taken with the atmosphere at both Buddhist and Shinto temples. Later I found out that the Shinto temple at Harajuku is a site of controversy due to the burial there of a number of fascist war criminals. Hitchens is at pains to point out that woolly liberal dreams of finding more humane religious practice in the fabled 'East' are chimeras.
Kind of depends what you mean by mainstream. Emperor worship was mainstream in Japan during WWII. Mormonism is mainstream in parts of America, despite the fact that it seems to be little more than a giant piece of hucksterism. Jim and Tammy Bakker were pretty much mainstream evangelicals weren't they? Catholicism is dominant in numerous European countries and it is in these countries that the sexual abuse cases took place. I was at a Christian missionary school in Kenya when I was 12 where we were taught that merely thinking about sin was a sin. Presumably this kind of abusive, mind warping nonsense was the good word that was being brought to Kenya's benighted heathens and thereby becoming 'mainstream'. And presumably some of those missionaries are the same people proselytising against condom use in Africa today, doing the lord's work of spreading HIV and AIDS infection – while eagerly hoping for the end days scenarios to play themselves out in Palestine so that Jesus can hurry up and come back. Charming stuff. I was actually told to expect these events sometime during the eighties back then by these same missionaries. I wonder how they explain that one.
Can I just get this absolutely clear: You do not think that religion instills morality? You're sure about that one? Because I'm very glad if you are. I heartily agree.
That's my first question on this bit of your post. My second is, does this mean you reject the notion that merely accepting Christ's sacrifice absolves us of sin? Because that seems to be the implication in saying that even religious people who commit sins 'shall be judged'.
Yes. I second Nikolai's response to this. Hitchens says further that most religion (except for the new stuff that's widely recognised to be lunatic fringe – Scientology, the Moonies) came into existence when humanity knew virtually nothing at all about the natural world or the cosmos. Understandable then that they would have resorted to supernatural explanations in the absence of anything else. Unsurprising also that the primitively inhumane practices are not just born of later interpretations, but are actually there in the old and new testament themselves. The 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' example is a very minor one. Do you condone that (as you appear to acts of bigamy and genocide)?
Give Israel back to the Canaanites! Er...and the Hittites. Sorry, couldn't resist an aside. Or two.
Well, there seems to be a humongous margin for error. So...what do you see as the 'value per se'?
I have to admit to ignorance here too, but the way Hitchens has it, as I understand it, European monks didn't come around to this stuff until a lot later – at which point there was a desperate collective squirming to somehow prove that Socrates, Aristotle et al. were somehow Christian even though they lived before the time of Christ.
Oops and oops again. And again and again and again.
The bald statement that none of these behaviours would disappear is not an argument you appear to predicate on any evidence, but then, we've already heard your views on evidence. Still, I think it would be stupid to claim that there's no wrongdoing without religion – and I'll admit that, if Hitchens' book has a failing, it's in edging a little too close to this argument. However, he also shows, repeatedly, that religion has a strange tendency not only to perpetrate great wrong itself, but to collude with wrongdoers, especially when they are the ones in power. One reason for this seems to be its overweaning need to spread itself as far and wide as possible. Another is its peculiar inability to engage with reality. A recent example, not from Hitchens: a documentarist making a film on global warming, approached Hinu priestess expecting support for environmental measures. Instead, she gave him some standard mystical mumbo jumbo along the lines that even great destruction was merely part of the cycle of existence and of no significance to the godhead.
All reasoning is ultimately circular? What are you still doing here?
I jest.
Sorry, but I just think you're projecting or grasping at straws. I gave the example of Darwin earlier because he was a religious man for most of his life. He gave up his beliefs because his observations did not support them, but he did so with great disappointment.
Well, sorry, but I actually think you've misread me. I didn't say anything about you being brainwashed and I didn't set out to flatter myself. You seemed to say that looking at evidence and using reason were mistakes because they were tools of the devil to divert us from the truth of religion. I understand that you meant this only in the context of arguments about god, but I don't see how you can keep the boundaries there. Darwin's observations of the real world led him away from belief. Many other thinkers can say the same. Were they tricked by the devil too? Should they have avoided making their observations? That was my question.
To expand on that, your suggestion that all atheists start from the position of atheism and look for proofs is, I'm sorry to say, simply risible. The origin of atheism is in scientific and philosophic inquiry and atheism was arrived at very gradually and with considerable difficulty in overwhelmingly religious societies in which the price of an honest profession of atheistic belief would often result in death. The pressure was all towards belief and virtually everyone was inculcated with belief from birth.
Well, it's a blindingly obvious point, but lots of Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews and Zoroastrians and on and on believe they have 'experience' that backs up their belief systems.
Yeah, you really have contradiction on your hands claiming you see the value of evidence, but also fear it as a tool of the devil.
No offense, but since you've basically made it clear you're impervious to logic, I think this is all I have to say to you. Feel free to carry on with your logic/evidence/gut instinct combo. All the best and all that.
Originally Posted by blp
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