Tainted the church is

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I have always wondered why people have to subordinate their faith to a system that has been perverted by human mistakes for so long, and therefore is so unclean. It is wrong to remember only the good deeds of the church, as it is wrong to remember only the good deeds of Adolf Hitler. So by assuming christianity you also claim validity to the actions performed by the church through history. All of the bloodshed included. Why would you want to? I am not a christian, but I do try to be a man of god. That is why I cannot claim to be of any religion. A true man of god will not allow any other men to stand between him and god, because he knows that the verdict of god upon us all is equal. That is why no man can invoke the judgement of god upon another man, and that is why the church is tainted.

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Re: Tainted the church is
Cyracuz

A good question, but I can't find an answer.
I am not religious nor theist, but I think the problem is not in the perversion of the initial values of a religion - that applies to all of them - but in the need of a religion.

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Sire:-

Why pick on the Church?Your argument applies to every other long term institution.You don't take account of conditions obtaining in those times.Your post was once heretical.
I bet the coverage of the Pope's sore throat has your eyeballs standing out like chapel hatpegs and the viens in the side of your head purple and pulsing.Too much of that and it becomes permanent.
Do you really think Europe could have developed to what it is from where it was any other way.If you do perhaps you would be so kind as to furnish us all with a brief outline of the stages of growth.

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spendius wrote:

Quote:

Do you really think Europe could have developed to what it is from where it was any other way.

No I don't. Any other way and the result would be different.

Why the church? That this concerns all long term institutions might be so, but nowhere is the lie so apparent as in the church.

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Oh:-

I'm not so sure about that.

How would you have gone about promiscuous reproduction in relation to property rights?It was the norm once.

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Re: Tainted the church is

Cyracuz wrote:

I have always wondered why people have to subordinate their faith to a system that has been perverted by human mistakes for so long, and therefore is so unclean.

Because for many people, the original desire isn't to be religious, but to be accepted in a group, and to believe what their parents believe.

Over time, their interest in pure religion may grow, but by then it's been entwined with the dogma of the institution, and they may only be able to experience it through "the system".

Some people break free, but most are content to follow the herd.

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Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:

So by assuming christianity you also claim validity to the actions performed by the church through history.

Not so. Christianity is about faith, not about ceremony and the actions of men. Meeting in churches or small groups is merely a way to keep yourself focussed and to learn from others, not a blanket endorsement of all action of the current and historical church. The Roman Catholic church tends to emphasize ceremony a great deal, but it's certainly not the only Christian church out there. You seem to be taking your individual experience with a church and extrapolating out to all Christians, which, to use your own comparison, would be like me saying that since Adolf Hitler had a funny little mustache, all men with funny little mustaches want to kill millions of people.

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Ok idaho. So I can, based on your description of what christianity is about, state that nazism is about ideology and not about the actions of men. How wrong is that? Nobody will ever remember nazism for anything else than the acts it was responsible for. Why should religion be treated differently? If you really believe in god, you should renounce the church. I've said this many times before. If you want what rosborne says is the true motive for being in church, wich I by the way agree on, the go for it. But don't claim any moral high ground on account of it. If this is the motive of christians, then christianity is nothing more than a tag that you clip onto the ear of a cow to show wich herd it belongs to.

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Re: Tainted the church is

Cyracuz wrote:

I have always wondered why people have to subordinate their faith to a system that has been perverted by human mistakes for so long, and therefore is so unclean. It is wrong to remember only the good deeds of the church, as it is wrong to remember only the good deeds of Adolf Hitler. So by assuming christianity you also claim validity to the actions performed by the church through history. All of the bloodshed included. Why would you want to? I am not a christian, but I do try to be a man of god. That is why I cannot claim to be of any religion. A true man of god will not allow any other men to stand between him and god, because he knows that the verdict of god upon us all is equal. That is why no man can invoke the judgement of god upon another man, and that is why the church is tainted.

Wherever you find human beings, you find religion.

How could this be if religion did plot play an important role in evolution, with those groups that have religion surviving and those that have none perishing?

Wherever you find human beings, you find mistakes.

Why should the mistakes of the religious (or their leaders) lead to a condemnation of religion, while the mistakes of, say, scientists are do not lead to a condemnation of science.

In every human endeavor, you have experts.

If religion plays an important function in human society, why should there not be experts in religion? Maybe the priests know something besides theological trivia. Some evidence: venereal diseases have become rampant in the US as a consequence of the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s, but almost no one who has followed the advice (no homosexual sex, no sex outside of marriage, and no drugs) of the Catholic Churches, or mainline Protestant Churches has contracted AIDs.

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"Wherever you find human beings, you find religion."

... Sure, and you find unbelievers everywhere as well. So doubt could have just as important role to play in evolution.

"Wherever you find human beings, you find mistakes."

...Science is predicated on finding and correcting mistakes; this is called the "scientific method". Religious claims are often based on "revealed truth" -- when religious people mouth these axioms but behave differently in actual life we have an example of "hypocrisy".

"In every human endeavor, you have experts."

...In the medical examples provided, the real experts are the scientists who discovered the viruses and bacteria which cause disease. Follow their advice and you won't contract AIDS either. Any knowledge which priests have other than "theological trivia" is derived from practical experience and education and is not the sole possession of the religiously inclined.

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hightor wrote:

"Wherever you find human beings, you find religion."

... Sure, and you find unbelievers everywhere as well. So doubt could have just as important role to play in evolution.

"Wherever you find human beings, you find mistakes."

...Science is predicated on finding and correcting mistakes; this is called the "scientific method". Religious claims are often based on "revealed truth" -- when religious people mouth these axioms but behave differently in actual life we have an example of "hypocrisy".

"In every human endeavor, you have experts."

...In the medical examples provided, the real experts are the scientists who discovered the viruses and bacteria which cause disease. Follow their advice and you won't contract AIDS either. Any knowledge which priests have other than "theological trivia" is derived from practical experience and education and is not the sole possession of the religiously inclined.

Religious authorities were giving their advice before AIDS appeared. Humanists, atheists, etc., gave their advice only after scientists told them what the proximate causes of AIDS are. They were -- too late. And the advice they give (don't share needles, use a condom) is not as effective as abstention from drugs and extra-marital sex.

Scientists, as scientists, don't give advice. They seek the clear expression in mathematics of physical laws and make predictions based on them. Some scientists are religious. Some aren't.

It's a mistake to believe that religions don't change in response to perceived mistakes. They do it all the time on small matters and even on very important ones. The Mormons changed their views on race. The Amish steadily allow more use of technology. The Catholics stopped selling indulgences. When a religion refuses to adapt, adherents begin to doubt, then leave, and the religion dies.

Almost everyone has values, even humanists and atheists, but values lie outside the domain of science. They lie in the domain of philosophy and religion.

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Religion is a 'lens' through which the adherents of a specific 'flavour' see the world in which they find themselves (through no fault of their own!).

Some lens are more transparent; those of the major faiths, which need only a fairly substantial 'tint' on reality, for their beliefs to make sense; and others are the stereotypical "Coke bottle" lenses of the myopic 'visionery', ground to a focus that lets only a very small portion of reality through!

[as with any philosophical journey, only with the methodical stripping of the veils from your eyes, (and acceptance of what you find to be 'reallity') can you come to terms with what is really 'out there'!]

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Heimdall, you're way off base if you are trying to credit the bloodshed of the church to "mistakes".

And it is not so that the people with religion win out over the people without. It's just that the winners write history.

There is not one single aspect of christianity that is not inherited from another, older religion. Chatholic christianity differs from other religions in that it was created with a political agenda. Tainted tainted tainted. After all, what true religion of man could negate the importance of the female half of humanity in the way christianity does?

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Cyracuz,

I wasn't responding to your original post, but to hightor, stating some simple truths of which I thought he might be unaware.

Am I off-base for not allotting a sufficient proportion of my time for expressing hatred of Christians?

Heimdall

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Heimdall -- I admit to having used poor language -- scientists aren't in the business of giving "advice". But the well-informed individual can make conclusions about behavior based on the findings of scientists. Priests, however, are hardly "experts" in these matters, they merely help to enforce a moral code, which if rigorously followed in this case, lessens the chances of one contracting an STD. Moderation and temperance in regard to the human passions is not the exclusive province of Christianity and not every religious prohibition happens to coincide so fortuitously with medical realities.

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Tainted the church is

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