THE VEXED QUESTION OF RELIGION

snood

Try this.

If I say "a needle is sharp", I cannot define "sharpness" by talking about the physics and chemistry of the atoms and molecules in the needle. These are different descriptive levels albeit the physics and chemistry contribute in some way to "sharpness". In the same way, psychology of the individual contributes in some way to the social dynamics of groups but the levels and purposes of these modes of observation are different.

An old news item about a fatal stampede during a "Christian Rally" always gives me cause for thought in these matters where the benign intentions of the individuals clearly had no effect on crowd dynamics.

For clarity, can you use a little more direct language to dispute my contention that religion is good for some people?
I'm sure your observations are very astute, but I'm just not getting you.

Yeah, fresco, keep it simple for us simpletons. c.i.

fresco is visiting the enthralling and often perplexing world of General Semantics -- or is it existentialism?

Fresco

Are you trying to say what is satisfactory for the individual may not be good as a group. Or the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I can understand some philosophy, but the science of physics and chemistry are way out of my field of understanding. c.i.

C.I.
You can't define sharpness by the way the molocules line up.

Yeah, CI! What's wrong with you!? That's as clear as crystal! Pay Attention!

No, indeed i am not, and i feel that my statement was clear, having made it for a second time. The individuals within such a group may have the necessary expertise, and should in such an example, by all means bid a contract or apply for a grant. In such a case, the "faith-based groups" are irrelevant to the procedure. For the group per se to claim the expertise, however, does not follow from the coincidental expertise of a member thereof, which does not of necessity qualify the group. The group, being self-identified as religious, is not entitled to any government funds, based upon the concept of a wall of separation.



And, as i consider the response to these two quotes to be linked:



Apart from the notorious contention about the frigid nature of christian charity, they've not done so in the past--and they have no claim based upon their nature to have any applicable expertise in these areas. I've worked in the family shelter business, back in the Reagan days when so many became homeless (and not all blame to his administration, which bears a heavy burden of responsibility of blame--in the late 1980's, the advent of crack cocaine was a major factor in the homelessness of young single parents, as well), and two of the finest resources available were Catholic Social Services and Lutheran Social Services. They have expressed no interest in these "initiatives," and i have every reason to believe that those with an agenda in this game don't want the traditional, main-line religious organizations involved. I'll go find it if you insist, but there can't be bothered for sake of this post--Pat Robertson is quoted from an episode of The 700 Club saying that "we" (by which he always means himself, his organization and his adherents) want no part of the main-line, traditional religious organizations. I did not make clear, and this is a fault in my presentation of my argument, that i consider this "faith based initiatives" scam to have been designed around specific, existing, far right religious programs. The one which claims it can "treat" drug abuse solely by an appeal to embracing Jesus as one's personal savior was high on the Shrub's list. This discussion as initiated is not specific to this topic of "faith-based initiatives," which is perhaps why i failed to make this clear. I see Bush as having specific groups in mind with this, and traditional religious organizations have remained mute, or stated that they do not wish to participate.

I believe i can deal with the rest of your argument without quoting the passages. In mid-nineteen-eighties, my neighbors across the street, two gentlemen who rent a house together, were prison guards, and as of then, almost 20 years ago, there were both male and female guards at the Marion Federal Penitentiary, a maximum security facility. You may be correct in your statement about prison guards, but to my knowledge, as of then, no such policy exiswted in the Federal system. At all events, i find this rather disingenuous, as you have remarked that this was a local jail, and is not therefore, exemplary of Federal policy. It is also quite different in that there always hangs before us the issue of a wall of separation between church and state--i cannot imagine that you contend the Feds ever allow an exemption in their programs for discrimination on the basis of an individuals chosen confession. If you've produced support for you contention about the nature of the First Amendment, i've certainly missed it, and you might link it for me, if you think it useful. Once again, as the relationship between church and state is such a vexed issue, the standard of oversight to assure that Federal funds do not end up furthering specific sectarian ends is much more critical than even the concept of flagrant waste in defense contracts, as an example. The Federal government should never be placed in a position of supporting any religion, even unknowingly.

Hazlitt - The problem we have here is that--as I stated earlier and you failed to quote (accident?)--I do not disagree with the quotes Setanta offered, but I disagree with his belief that they somehow disprove or even take an alternate view than mine.

I do not support the mule-animal that is government bred with religion; rather I speak out against government that is intolerant of religion.

In a more perfect today, wherein the federal government were not straying into the business of welfare and charity, where it ought not go, there would be no question of faith-based initiatives. But we are where and what we are, and I simply cannot see how anyone can reasonably argue that the government may not hire a faith-based GROUP, without arguing that they may also not hire any person of faith. And if you acknowledge that refusing to hire someone based on their faith would be an act of discrimination by the government, I can't fathom how treating a group thusly based only on their association with a faith, is any less a form of government discrimination based on faith.

This discussion is actually a spin-off from an encounter Setanta and I had in another discussion, in which I responded to the same list of quotes from Setanta with this:


And here's an exceptional quote for you, though I suspect you may come away from it with a different message than do I, it may at least serve as a staging ground for further discussion...


Franklin here cites the kind of government funding of religion which the 1st amendment can not tolerate; taxes being taken from people and used to fund a specific religion. This is a very different thing than using tax dollars to pay an organization to perform a secular service, regardless of the organization's religious ties or lack thereof. (Or at least it is to me.)

Scrat, you've simply restated an opinion, without providing any supporting evidence that your contention has historical antecedants, that there is a textual basis for your interpretation. That is what i'm asking for, and that is why i began with those quotes, to support my argument by reference to the antecedants for this point of view. As for the contention that government ought not to go into "the business of welfare and charity," i'd like to know what you think the expression "promote the general welfare" from the preamble to the Constitution is supposed to mean. No, i retract that, i don't want to read your exegesis, likely to be tortured, to explain that away. Given that there is no constitutional prohibition upon such works of public charity, if the people vote for it, or vote for those who establish such programs, then the objection looks a great deal to me like quibbling with reality.

Fresco,

You are assuming the individual intentions or wishes of the individuals involved are, in the first place singular and in the second place "benign." Individual dynamics are complicated, never singular and based on conflict. Since this is so, the group dynamics in a stampede in a Christian rally, do reflect some of the intentions of those Christians. The stampede would be a group compromise serving the purpose of conflict resolution. But it would also just as likely reflect non-Christian dynamics as well. There's nothing special about the dynamics of Christians. We're all human and have both libidinal and aggressive motivations, Christians and non Christians alike.

Scrat, you present a real challenge to anyone who wishes to argue with you in as much as you insist that text means something that it obviously does not. In all honesty, I can only conclude that you are espousing a novel and recently contrived interpretation of the first amendment.

Also, it seems clearly obvious that the religious right organizations lining up to get federal dollars so that they can do secular work are clearly not interested in a purely secular program. Why else would they insist that all their programs be staffed with adherents of their own religion. This can only be because they want to set forth "the one true" religious message, which is their own message. I see this as the establishment of a religion on the part of the government.

I read recently that prisoners in the federal penitentiaries in Illinois who agreed to under go the Charles Coleson, salvation oriented, program of reform, were given several important perks as a reward. These were perks unavailable to other prisoners. Of course, prisoners were flocking to the program eager to get the perks. Is this not the establishment of a religion by the federal government, and is it not showing favoritism based on religion? It's part of the Bush faith based money for religion program.

A few months ago, I heard a rather simple minded young woman (I could hear her little eyes sparkling as she spoke) explaining about the new Welfare programs. What used to be called Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) is now coming in the form of marital counseling, education the virtue of sexual abstinence and classes about parental responsibility. Can you see it? Father's will not need to pay child support anymore because the marital counseling they receive will hold families together.......yeah, sure, tell me another. This pollyanna fundamentalist religion is oozing throughout the federal governmental structure and it will eat it away, leaving us with a state ruled by the toxic religion of this small, over zealous and well organized segment of society.

BTW, I think Snood is right about what is good for one not necessarily being good for another. Some forms of religion can be very helpful for many and if it does no harm, that's good. However, I think most rigid, fundamentalist religion is like feeding donuts for fat people. It fills them up and makes they feel good, but their quality of life is in question overall and their health will become a problem for those of us who have learned to eat our meat and vegetables in reasonable portions. This is at best. And the most pernicious fundamentalist teachings are like donuts laced with poison, dunked in syrup and fed to the starving. Bush's religious affiliation is toxic and he's inflicting it on us all.

Well, I'm afraid I can't add my voice to the chorus opposing Snood's lone tenor baritone here.

Religious experience and practice in the world is far more varied than our traditions here in Europe and the Americas might suggest. Buddhists, for example, have no particular interest in the notion of a singular supra-natural Creator, and their religious practices, though commonly communal, are quite different than our tradition as regards commjnity prescriptions/proscriptions regarding 'sacred' and 'profane' - that is, insisting that one's neighbors ought to behave in a certain way, which is the liberty issue this thread is dealing with. Other faiths too have as their area of concern, the self rather than the sort of things Pat Roberts gets up to. So even talking about 'religion' as if it is unvaried in any important way is incorrect.

Further, to argue that religion is suspect or invalid because it deals with comforting the afflicted (usually phrased as the weak or the unbalanced) is not a complete description of the story that might be told here. Who of us is without some means of bringing about surcease of suffering in ourselves when times are bad? Is it somehow worse to imagine a hug from an image of god than it is to imagine a hug from an image of a deceased grandparent?

Existence, by which I mean subjective being ("I am") is a bugger of a thing even for those of us so incredibly fortunate to live in the sort of age and place where we are now. We are destined to lose every single thing we love. And our bums will wrinkle.

Regarless of how consciousness arose, and regardless of how well we come to understand, to the smallest level of detail, the mechanics upon which it is possible, the fact of it - the "I am" - leaves us in a place where only the language of religion or poetry or love is appropriate.

I'll take love, thank you. but the language of some religions may be preferred or seen to be equivilent for some.

Snood, I long ago concluded that some people are better off, as individuals, with religion than without. Most of us have some sort of philosophical or religious structure that we use to make sense of things. The ideas involved may be simple or complicated, but they do a job for us. Whether they are true or not (which is another complicated question) they still do the work we personally need to have done. I am talking here about benign forms of belief.

The question of whether religion is good for the society as a whole is something else again. Religion espouses good morals and it teaches us to love our neighbors and to obey the laws of the land. All this is good for the society at large. What is not good for the society is for one religion to attempt to operate in such a way as to interfere with the conscience of the adherents of those in other religions. One of the chief ways in which a religious group may do this is to seek some favorite rank, or authority, or special treatment from the government. When this happens, those in the unfavored groups cry foul and trouble ensues. It is in order to prevent such troubles that we have the first amendment.

I'm not sure, but I think this may be the general kind of distinction that Fresco was making. In your analogy of the army to religion, you seem to have mixed your references to individual vs social benefit so that there was some uncertainty as to your exact meaning. Personally, I think I got the general idea of what you were trying to say.

Brother Blatham and Sister Lola, A-men.

You know what? Sometimes I wish there is a god to punish people like GWBush. With so many fundamentalist christians in this country, they can't see the 'sins' of this leader who is destroying our constitutional rights and the separation of church and state. c.i.

Au

You are spot on !

I keep saying the same thing in different ways. What may be called "good" for an individual may be "bad" for a group or groups interacting. But more than this, what we call "good" and "bad" can also depend on the situation. So in snoods army scenaro for example he might say that a only a few deaths in a battle are "good". Tell that to the grieving relatives !

Lola

Point taken. You and I might come to an agreement about the social psychology of behavioural mechanisms which needs to take ordinary language apart. But for the average reader the news-worthiness of this item was enhanced by the irony of "how could a caring God allow this to happen ?".

In the context of this thread, where the relationship between politics and religion is under scrutiny, the "ironic level" is the dominant discourse. To some extent this is because technical debate is iconoclastic to all institutional "realities" including "President" and "nation" so things can get out of hand.