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

What I found interesting about the man (he's since gone on to whatever afterlife may exixt) was that he was the brand of *Send me a dollar or two so I can go on explaining how wonderful Christianity is* type of televangelist. I had only a little problem with that, other than it might take money from people who could ill afford to lose it.

Subsequently the only show of a *religious* nature I've worked on was by a much more aggressive televangelist who I will only describe as having the initials P P. He was a shark, plain and simple and at the time actually wanted money to *buy bibles to smuggle into Russia* (this was the early 80s) or build muscle powered cassette players for Swahili bible passages. (As an aside, one of the other cameramen was a black gentleman from South Africa who almost came to blows with him while trying to explain that the part of Africa he was pointing to didn't speak Swahili.)

The bills from the audience (5,000 or so) were collected in of all things Kentucky Fried Chicken Buckets and counted in different rooms for different denominations so no one knew what the total was. They were bills, by the way because he had called for a *silent donation* and coins made a noise in the buckets.

You don't have to be a murderous fundamentalist to be a harmful fundamentalist.

I'm right now reading Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis. Written in the mid 1920s. Nothing has changed except we now have TV and radio to swindle faithers with.

Gif,

"Dawkins goes further and makes an argument that, once excused from rational thought, there is no way to stop a 'fluffy-theist' from becoming a murderous fundamentalist."

Is this what Dawkins says? I'd kind of got the impression from this thread that he was a bit more nuanced than this, but maybe not. Anyway, the argument is seriously flawed, because (a) in the majority of cases, this isn't what happens, the vast majority of religious people are not murderous fundamentalists, and (b) the evidence seems to suggest that what causes people to become murderous fundamentalists is political rather than religious (I refer again to Robert Pape's study). I would go further and say that in certain circumstances, terrorism is a rational reaction to the circumstances people find themselves in (which is not to excuse it).

The model that seems to underlie the argument is that people are either rational or not rational, and that like an axiomatisation of mathematics or logic, if you allow one inconsistency or irrationality into the system, the whole structure tumbles down. But people aren't like that. Just because I'm unreasonable when evaluating the risk of eating delicious fatty foods, doesn't mean I'm unreasonable about the risks of smoking. Unreasonableness in one domain doesn't pollute the reasonableness in the other. Taken overall, everyone is unreasonable, and it couldn't be any other way.

And even if you took it as a given that irrationality does spread once it's taken hold, there's nothing unique to religion about this. If someone wants to do something at some deep level, or feels they have to do it, they will find reasons to do so, exploiting some already existing element of irrationality to do so (and this is present in everyone). Atheists are capable of doing murderous things in the name of what they perceive as the greater good or national interest, just as theists are capable of doing such things in the name of god.

>>Anyway, the argument is seriously flawed, because (a) in the majority of cases, this isn't what happens, the vast majority of religious people are not murderous fundamentalists<<

Yes but at any particular historical moment in time there is the potential for this to happen. Eg the Spanish Inquisition. And yes the vast majority of Catholics probably were not so extreme. But a small elite at the top were. And they gained their power base from being essentially supported by the masses. No elite in any organisation can function without a degree of acquiescance from the masses within that social structure. And I'm sure the vast majority of Muslims in Iran are not murderous fundamentalists, but a certain number of the theocracy in charge, can hold views such as the Nazi holocaust wasn't such a bad thing, because of very common muslim acquiesance to a degree of hostility to Jews.

And I suppose I'm also returning to a degree to a point I've made before that purely political irrational ideology couldn't function so effectively without hundreds of thousands of years of tradition of religious irrationality, on which to build it.

>>Thank you Dogster! It's true, I have never said, or thought that gay people should have fewer rights than anyone else. Regardless of what I think about some things they do, I don't feel that they have any fewer rights than anyone else<<

I'm sorry Vicky, but this is a lie. I'm gonna go and find the post where you say exactly that.

Ah, here it is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F58051?thread=617354&post=23283666#p23283666, Specifically post 332, 2nd paragraph. Some of her more charming abuse in that thread seems to have been modded

Actually I found post 304 to be interesting as well:

*Not so, Alfster... I am afraid it takes a lot of very creative interpretation to get around the plain condemnation of homosexuality in Scripture, in the OT and the NT. God doesn't approve of homosexual practice any more than God approves of theft, lying, adultery, fornication and similar.*

The OT? I thought that was symbolic imagery? And didn't Dr. Erhman talk about how mistakes in the bible are due to the particular leanings of the scribes who copied them?



Goes off to mine for some more quotes.

Oh and dogster, interestingly I've just switiched on the telly, and it's midway through a doco about 'Jonestown', and the incident where Jim Jones provoked mass suicide of his 'Doomsday cult' in the jungles of Guyana.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/18/newsid_2540000/2540209.stm

I don't recall quite such a degree of extremism of behaviour occurring in purely political structures.

And of course in more rent years the Branch Dividian mass suicide in Waco, Texus.

*I am a Christian Universalist, and I believe that *everyone* will eventually be saved, no matter how many lifetimes it takes..*

(same thread, post 39)

Well that's disturbing and reassuring at the same time... In the words of the Church Lady *How conveeeeeeenient!*

*I am a Christian Universalist, and I believe that *everyone* will eventually be saved, no matter how many lifetimes it takes..*

Question to Vicky: Is that "mainstream christianity" or can it be dismissed as insignificant? (9th attempt) How do we determine what is "mainstream" and what is fringe?

Effers,

"Yes but at any particular historical moment in time there is the potential for this to happen."

But any historical moment the same thing could happen in a secular way (more recent examples such as WW2, gulags, etc.). The thing is - it mostly doesn't happen whether religion is involved or not.

"I don't recall quite such a degree of extremism of behaviour occurring in purely political structures."

Well I guess that depends on what you mean, but my initial reaction is - are you kidding? To take a recent example, consider the pictures in this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prisoner_abuse

Or for some older examples selected at random:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai
http://www.galenfrysinger.com/killing_fields.htm

Can you call this stuff anything but extreme behaviour?

Honestlago,

I had a very quick look at that link, but despite the offensive homophobia, I didn't see Vicky wanting to deny any rights to gay people.

How about the rights of freedom of expression, or to marry? Advocacy of restrictions of those rights is clearly implicit in all of her posts and explicit in some.

And, incidentally, while I agree that there are secular inspirations for violence and cruelty as well as the more common religiously inspired cruelty, it seems to me that you're overreaching a bit when you imply that the abuses at Abu Ghraib have nothing to do with religion.

What about flushing the Q'ran in a toilet?

The entire dispute is (to a great extent) a confrontation between two religions.

<>

The definition of faith I posted is perfectly clear - from a religious point of view, which is what I wanted (although the latest incarnation of the Indonesian person seems to have misunderstood that. Nothing in my definition about faith being believing ridiculousness!

Essentially, yes, I'd go along with that one you've quoted.

<>

I don't want to be a pedant (Hey, yes I do!) but that should be "mothers-in-law"

<<*Not so, Alfster... I am afraid it takes a lot of very creative interpretation to get around the plain condemnation of homosexuality in Scripture, in the OT and the NT. God doesn't approve of homosexual practice any more than God approves of theft, lying, adultery, fornication and similar.*>>

*And how precisely do you think that equates to my saying homosexuals should have fewer rights?*
<>
No, it's not, but parts of it are.
<< And didn't Dr. Erhman talk about how mistakes in the bible are due to the particular leanings of the scribes who copied them?>>

I've not seen that video, obviously, but I've read books by Dr Ehrman. He's what we call a modernist...

Please explain to me how what I've said constitutes either a demaind that homosxuals have fewer rights than heterosexuals, and further please explain how what I say constitutes abuse? I just don't see it! (I've seen on M2M, gay people saying much more derogatory things about straight women...

<<
It's a meme, not a civil rights movement. Gays who shut the hell up about what they do in bed, and just get on with it, without feeling the need to tell every gory detail, get on just fine. If you're going to say that heterosexuals talk about their sex lives all the time, then I've just got to ask what kind of people you mix with!

Some extremists have been known to claim that a woman saying she's married constitutes homophobic censorship, because a gay man can't say 'I am living with a man in the nature of marriage'. Of course he can! He just should not be (a) talking about it ad nauseam, and (b) expect everyone to like it.

Being discreet about your sex life, is manners, not 'passing' and so any attempt to equate not telling the whole world about what you and your latest boyfriend got up to between the sheets with being forced to pass as white in order to escape a lynching, is just illegitimate. (Because as sure as little apples, someone will come along and try to say there're the same thing.They have before) >>

Vicky

Okay...I won't get into a "he said, she said" with you. Your posted remarks are there for all to see; each of us can make up our own minds as to whether your hostility and condemnation of gays and lesbians rises (or sinks) to the level of abuse (your word, not mine).

I'm interested in your statement that not all of the OT is symbolic imagery, but that "parts" of it are.

(10th attempt) How do you decide what is literal and what is metaphorical? What are your standards for deciding? Moreover, where do those standards come from and are they shared by all?

In reply to your post 7031, Dogster.

>>degree of extremism of behaviour<<

The links you gave, refer to extreme, what might be called 'sadistic' behaviour. The example I gave was of mass suicide. To me that is of a completely different order of irrationality from torture and sadism, as much as I abhor personally the latter. I could just about imagine that it could be possible to be drawn into some awful sadistic behaviour because at school as a youngster I did join in with a bit of bullying. I don't feel good about it now as a mature adult, obviously. But in terms of human nature I can see how a tendency towards such behaviour maybe fairly common and very easily provoked in *stressful* situations. Your examples all involve situatons of 'war' where people are under incredible stress and one has to take account of that when looking at irrational behaviour.

I've mentioned in previous posts about the famous Milgram experiment in the sixties which demonstrated how easy it can be for virtually anybody to get drawn in to sadistic and torturing behaviour. In terms of my argument about hundreds of thousands of years of 'belief' in the power of some magical 'higher' authority, which we absorb culturally, as it runs so *deep* in our societies, it doesn't surprise me that people so easily can be cowed into behaving in such a way as, 'I was only following orders'.


But to actually *twist* an innate capacity for sadism so far as to wish to annhialate one's own existance because of belief in some non empirical celestial realm, strikes me as the behaviour that most definitely demonstrates just how psychotically extreme behaviour can potentially become through 'faithism/religion/magic'. Once again this refers back to an earlier point I've made that *political ideology* always has the REAL WORLD as a test in which to function. Faithist ideology revolves around a non real world fantasy, than can never be tested, and so is far more more insidious than any political concept. In my own life when occassionally I've entertained suicidal fantasies there's always been some kind of almost unconscious/irrational belief that I would escape into some other realm. This comes from early learning I think of a 'religious/magical' type, that there is some non physical realm that exists. Such thinking of mine has only occured when I've verged on psychosis.

Maybe the 3rd Reich really *would* have lasted a thousand years if it had been couched in purely religious terms?

**But most importantly, once again I reiterate my thoughts that one cannot dismiss the cultural effect of hundreds of thousands of years of magical/religious thinking, as an important factor as a context allowing human beings so easily to slip into irrational behaviour of whatever stripe.

Most little kids grow up with stories of magic and fantasy of various kinds. I'm not saying that's neccessarily wrong, but I do think it can potentially lay the foundations for behaviour in later life, that is utterly irrational, whether it be politically or religiously based.

Maybe its as much about terminology? Maybe rather than religious thinking I'd probably more accurately call it, in a generic sense, *magical/superstitious thinking*?



As an aside, what is your view on the supposition, however one may define it, to the concept of the 'unconscious'?

The reason I brought the question of the 'unconscious' is because I was thinking about how we might describe this tendancy to irrational thinking and behaviour, as working. Yes its true I'm not completely sure how to describe its basis, but most of us seem to agree its 'wrong thinking'. But why would it have evolved? Because it does seem to be fairly universal in human societies. And what might be the mechanism of its functioning?

Freud does have a load of theory about it which is essentially unproven. But how else might we describe its mechanism?