Religion versus human dignity.

... Timber can be completely wrong in his viewpoints on Christianity ...

Quote:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."

(Weinberg).

Do you agree ?

. . . possibility may be. Of course, possibilty and probability are not at all the same thing - which precisely, and without any other consideration, is why casinos are profitable.

fresco wrote:

Quote:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."

(Weinberg).

Do you agree ?

I disagree. Even though I do feel religion can be an insult to human dignity.

I strongly disagree with the phrasing "..but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."

Nah, it doesn't take religion. If we could wipe out religion with one clean sweep, I believe we'd see the same amount of 'good people doing bad things'.

The phrase could have been boiled down to "I, Weinberg, do not like religion. " (pointing his finger in that direction).

Only another 'answer' for the chaos and 'bad' that are part of human nature.

Marc Hauser (Harvard?) just published a "revolutionary" book on morality, entitled Moral Minds, in which he argues that religion is not a necessary condition for moral behavior. Indeed, he argues that we have as a species evolved the "drive" for making moral distinctions of right and wrong. I will read it soon.

Flushd,

Surely Weinberg has good reason to dislike "religion" especially when it contributes to the sociopathy of others. Several million air travellers are probably having the same thoughts right now !

You cite "human nature" but it is self evident to many that religion is an arbitrary offshoot of that part of human nature we call "cognition". This yearns for "meaning" and evokes "an afterlife" which fuels the sociopathy of those who hold this as paramount over "this life". You need only turn to the "religion" of Nazism" with its Valhalla concept to see parallels with Jihadi martyrdom. Nazism was strong enough to tip the scales for many "good Germans".

No doubt some cosy scene like a reunion in "the afterlife" is as comforting as a warm fire on a winters day, but fires have the habit of getting out of control !

(NB I am conscious of the fact that you posted your comments at the same time as your reply on another thread concerning "spirituality" and my reponse there is a footnote to the above).

Quote:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."

(Weinberg).

Do you agree ?

You do not disprove religion, you cure people of it. It has repeatedly been shown that religious people believe in the face of contrary evidence. Religious fantasy is always more real to the religious than reality. Religious people are therefore no more subject to persuasion that they are wrong than the man in the madhouse who thinks he is Napoleon. Both require psychological attention not logic. ……Of course, in the modern age, in the UK at any rate, most religious people are quiescent, but elsewhere we have seen that all of them are not. Religion therefore can be an extremely serious delusion, and the fact that most religious people today are law-abiding should not fool us into forgetting the witch hunts, and the Inquisition

Your sarcasm aside, JLN, a Buddhist crusade, pogrom or jihad is not an easilly imagined concept.