Should we ban religion?

@Elmud,

No, I do not think so. The history of witch trials is interesting: many scholars no believe that the Salem Witch Trials were the result of that town's grain being tainted with ergot. The psychedelic drug, LSD, is derived from ergot, and ingesting ergot produces the same sort of reaction. These scholars think that the people ate the tainted bread, and literally tripped out - imagine eating unwittingly eating LSD; you can bet the experience would be terrifying.
We know as a matter of fact that ergot tainted bread has caused mass hysterias throughout history.

Now, ergot does not explain away all witch burnings. Those unrelated to ergot do not seem to be the result of a literal reading of scripture, but rather societal paranoia and contempt for independent and marginalized women. An independent woman in the middle ages posed a real threat to the existing social order.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

No, I do not think so. The history of witch trials is interesting: many scholars no believe that the Salem Witch Trials were the result of that town's grain being tainted with ergot. The psychedelic drug, LSD, is derived from ergot, and ingesting ergot produces the same sort of reaction. These scholars think that the people ate the tainted bread, and literally tripped out - imagine eating unwittingly eating LSD; you can bet the experience would be terrifying.
We know as a matter of fact that ergot tainted bread has caused mass hysterias throughout history.

Now, ergot does not explain away all witch burnings. Those unrelated to ergot do not seem to be the result of a literal reading of scripture, but rather societal paranoia and contempt for independent and marginalized women. An independent woman in the middle ages posed a real threat to the existing social order.

And the social order would be described as? Conservative or liberal? What I'm getting at is this. Could you give me your definition of fundamentalism? What kind of mindset is it? I'm just trying to narrow it down.

1 Reply

@Elmud,

Fundamentalism is essentially the practice of reading scripture as being literally true.

For example, a fundamentalist would read Genesis and conclude that evolutionary science is false. A non-fundamentalist would read Genesis for the spiritual wisdom and let science investigate the physical history of the origin of species.

Common to fundamentalist belief is that scripture, particularly the Bible, is free from any error. This is called Biblical inerrancy.

0 Replies

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

No, I do not think so. The history of witch trials is interesting: many scholars no believe that the Salem Witch Trials were the result of that town's grain being tainted with ergot. The psychedelic drug, LSD, is derived from ergot, and ingesting ergot produces the same sort of reaction. These scholars think that the people ate the tainted bread, and literally tripped out - imagine eating unwittingly eating LSD; you can bet the experience would be terrifying.
We know as a matter of fact that ergot tainted bread has caused mass hysterias throughout history.

Now, ergot does not explain away all witch burnings. Those unrelated to ergot do not seem to be the result of a literal reading of scripture, but rather societal paranoia and contempt for independent and marginalized women. An independent woman in the middle ages posed a real threat to the existing social order.

Actually, if I take your meaning correctly, you may have this backwards: The evidence of the tainted food you reference is being examined as a potential reason for some of the accused's bizzare behavior (that was suspected of being of evil origin), not the accusers per say. So couched, it speaks not to the actions taken by those in authority.

Just FYI Smile

1 Reply

@Khethil,

I'm not particularly well versed in the subject of ergot tainted grain, but from what I have seen on the matter ergot tainted grain has been suggested as the cause of mass hysterias. If the whole community is eating the infested grain, which was typically the case given storage practices, then the accused and the accusers, I imagine, would have been acting "bizarrely".

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@KaseiJin,

Wouldn't it be remarkable if a persons theology remained personal, people have been killing people for having the wrong theology for eons, its most distasteful aspect is its political ambitions, world religions are ambitious religions as confused hodgepodges of belief. An individual may have a well ordered belief system, but that does not speak for the population at large. That stated, it here to stay.

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Should we ban religion?

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