h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Religion *causes* guilt? Surely some sort of wrongdoing causes guilt?"

In this example, many (most?) religions encourage people to believe that sex, or certain aspects of sex, which are in reality nonharmful, are wrong. Thus sex causes guilt because of religion (although also often because of tradition).

>>"Yes, it's a generalisation. What else could it be?"

For a start, it could be a heck of a lot closer to being True than it was. People were neither unfailingly apologetic in the past, nor are they fully unapologetic these days.

>>"However, in the sixties, when I was growing up, if you'd done wrong, and you got caught out, you admitted it. You didn't continue to insist on your innocence. And those are generalisations too, of course."

Yes, they *are* generalisations. *You* and your peers might have admitted things if/when you got caught, but many people wouldn't have done.

Many politicians today *do* apologise when they get found out. Possibly it's out of self-interest, but that may well have been the real reason for apologies decades ago - if someone thinks their career really is over, they might try to leave with a semblance of grace. If they think they can brazen it out, they may choose that path.
Possibly the actions that can finish a political career are different now, or less well-defined.
With Blair, I suspect he'd convinced himself what he was doing was The Right Thing, and therefore might even honestly (in his own eyes) reckon there's nothing to apologise *for*.

In terms of media coverage, compared to decades ago, I'd suggest that the concentration on the private lives of public figures may make quite a difference. If someone does do something judged to be wrong, there can be saturation coverage for weeks, and it's easy to get the impression that public figures in general are unapologetic bed-hopping, coke-snorting, embezzling liars.

Years ago, many people were treated rather more deferentially by the media, and it was possible to get away with a great deal for a long time. The impression given might have been that everyone was decent and honest apart for the few who slipped up and apologised when found out, who could slip from view very quickly, but I'm not sure how accurate that view was in reality.

Personally, I'd rather that people behaved well in the first plac, rather than worrying about apologies after the event.

"The Thatcher/Reagan generation do not operate like this. A recent newspaper article by Lynne Truss discussed the 'F-off generation'"




I'm not sure whether you are suggesting that 'Thatcher/Reagan generation'='F-off generation' and I'm not sure about Thatcher, but Reagan had a very clear association with the Christian Right in the U.S. which suggests to me that the 'F-off generation' is associated with powerful religious forces.

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No? Iran/Contras, General Belgrano, the Westland affair etc etc. Some of the slimes who served under Richard (expletive deleted) Nixon served in Reagan's government as well, and they were (and are still) among the most crooked ba**ards to hold office in any democracy since WW2.

Religion defines sin, and when you combine that with a short-temist approach being embedded in the educational system, that causes guilt.

without a more long term view, people react, often badly, and often over-react. then they realise that they shouldn't have done it and feel guilty about it.

much better to encourage forethought, so that they don't do the stuff they would feel guilty about in the first place.

On the subject of the extremists, potholer misunderstood slightly what I was pointing out.

I am not defending extremists either. but I am also pointing out that the negative behaviours that cults engage in are also committed by mainstream religion.

it is a difference in subtlety, as opposed to a difference in kind.

as for the catholic church, they probably got it in the neck because of the context in which they made the comments.

at the same time they are speaking out against extremism, poverty and lack of improvement in child health, they are actively opposing equality for homosexuals, hiding paedophiles to protect the church, and blocking every workable method of reducing family sizes by planned parenthood.

it does sound like they are ignoring some of their own teaching, and stinks of hypocracy.

especially when it isn't that long since it came out that the pope at the time knew about the holocaust and did and said nothing.

I think it may be a mistake to make too much linkage between mainstream religions and cults, which are typically small organisations, often quite estranged from the mainstream (if any) they are supposed to nominally belong to.

I don't think they are simply amplified versions of regular religion, even if they may contain (or use) elements of religion, or may start off as similar to mainstream religions.

Cults can illustrate the dangers of extreme behaviour, but whether they are suposedly nominally Christian, new-age, secular or anything else seems to make little difference to how they operate - they seem to be more driven by personality than anything else.
Whereas mainstream religions do tend to be small-'c' conservative, and slow to change, a cult can change as fast as the delusions of the leader.

I'd suspect that even if all religions disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn't stop cults arising as long as there are people who want to lead, and people who want to be followers.

I think the thing about cults and mainstream religion has to be the way it is impossible to split them by the type of behaviour, and they can only be split by the degree to which they use these negative behaviours.

It is not the cults I am opposed to primarily (although most are completely indefensible), but the negative behaviours.

I don't find preying on the weak, encouraging dependancy and covering your own back to be admirable behaviours irrelevent of who it is that is doing it.

Especially when they then block almost all of the effective measures to help those same people.

It doesn't matter to me if the person doing it is a pope, bishop, or cult leader. they are setting themselves up as enlightened leaders to help weak individuals, and then failing misserably in that task.