Maybe this would change things?

[Eagledad]

>>Religion, lads, is the only thing that has ever brought people together in groups beyond race/ethnicity/tribe/political caste/economics, and the only thing that has ever tempered the darker and more destructive nature of those other beliefs.

[packsaddle]

Eagledad, no problem. I'll try to remember in the future. One correction: I think I have been careful NEVER to write anything that "clearly defines (my) feelings of religious principles and for those who believe in them." But I suppose that leaves you free to guess at them. Have at it.

 

Beavah, I'm always ready to oblige. Regarding TheScout, I'll have to let him write for himself about his beliefs but the range of beliefs I've encountered within the 'Christianity' rubric has been simply amazing. I was always not very clear about TheScout's specific beliefs...I guess I doubt your clarity about it too.

And I suspect that some flavors would take umbrage at being confused or combined with other flavors. At least that's what gets my wrist slapped if I express the null hypothesis that there isn't much difference between them. Remember, as TheScout wrote: (just kidding, I'll spare you this time) (This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[Beavah]

Yah, packsaddle, it's da difference between lookin' from within and from without, eh?

 

In science, there are all sorts of flavors. Physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, da social sciences and all kinds of others.

 

If yeh talk to 'em, you'll find some harder, some softer, some don't care for da others' standards of evidence, there are different experimental practices and all the rest. Some take umbrage at being combined with other flavors. The range of opinions and beliefs is amazing.

 

I'd still venture to say that you could make a statement about good science or bad science, or about a shallow understanding or a deeper understanding, both within biology and often enough in other fields as well, to the extent they share general principles.

 

No different from any other area or topic, like Christianity. Theology is a human endeavor strivin' to understand, just as science is, and it can make da same distinctions. Different subgroups you'll find "harder" or "softer", some don't care for da others' standards of evidence, there are different doctrinal practices and all the rest. But it's still possible to make statements about shallow or deep understanding, good practice or poor, both within Christian denominations and often enough across denominations as well, to the extent they share general principles.

 

Lookin' from without, it might seem wise to try to reduce things to individual personal opinion and belief, eh? Even allows yeh to find poor science or shallow science that supports your own political view or prejudice. But da reality is that science constitutes a community. So lookin' from within the community, notions about muddled or shallow thinking are quite normative. Most folks within the community can tell 'em apart.

 

The same is true of Christian Theology.

 

You frequently quote this favorite quote of yours from TheScout. It's exactly the same sort of thing as some non-scientists quoting favorite lines from climate change or evolution skeptics. Like them, yeh do it to try to discredit the discipline and those who practice it. Like them, yeh imply that it's not a community that shares approaches and beliefs, but rather just competin' individual beliefs all of equal value.

 

I reckon yeh know better.

 

Beavah

 

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[AZMike]

"So, it comes down to this:

 

If everybody respected everyone else to follow their own beliefs ( which means not forcing yours or expecting others to follow them) then things would really be hunky dory!"

 

I couldn't agree with you more.

 

If Obama would just allow Catholic employers to pay for the insurance needs of their employees as they see fit, and not have to pay for abortifacients to kill the unborn or contraceptives, things really would be hunky dory.

 

Or, looked at from another angle:

 

If the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. would have stopped trying to impose his dang Christian fundamentalist religious beliefs on the people of America and let the bus owners and the lunch counter operators and the poll watchers make their own choices about how they wanted to live, things would have been hunky-dory. Why should he have thought that what he believes should be what the white population had to believe, right? (And what's with all that religious Bible-thumping language he threw into every speech? Didn't he realize that religion has no role in the marketplace of ideas?)

 

And Pope John Paul II? Don't even get me started about him. The duly constituted and elected government of the Soviet Empire (an Empire which REALLY respected the separation of Church and State, mind you!) didn't need some old white guy who wouldn't ordain women and was all opposed to gays thinking that what HE believed about the rights of man and the inherent human dignity granted by God to all people should be what THEY had to believe. Where did he get off speaking truth to power, inspiring the people of the conquered nations, and helping cause the breakup of an empire?

 

Or the Dalai Lama, some old celibate nut in a saffron robe and no shoes telling the world that the Chinese government shouldn't crack the heads of protestors in Beijing and Tibet.

 

Or those buttinksi abolitionists like the Catholic Abbe Guillaume Thomas Francois Raynal, or Quaker leaders George Fox and Levi Coffin, or Methodist founder John Wesley, or Methodist minister Calvin Fairbanks who was sentenced to 15 years hard labor and numerous floggings for the crime of preaching against slavery and helping escaped slaves on the underground railroad. Where did they get off trying to tell others what to believe?, and putting their lives and freedom on the line. Didn't they realize that slaves weren't considered fully human, and that the Supreme Court had declared slave-holding to be a constitutionally protected right?

 

I could go on and on here, but Bottom line? A world where no one expressed their beliefs about what others should believe, and never expressed their own sense of morality, would be a very gray and unfree and frightening place. You may agree or disagree with some of the religious principles espoused, depending on where you are on the political spectrum, but there's no doubt the world is a better place overall for people speaking them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Eagledad]

>>One correction: I think I have been careful NEVER to write anything that "clearly defines (my) feelings of religious principles and for those who believe in them

[BSA24]

> never expressed their own sense of morality

 

Discussing morality requires no religion according to BSA. Remember that we are to teach boys how to be good men without using religion.

 

BSA is a grey place to you?

[BSA24]

> never expressed their own sense of morality

 

Discussing morality requires no religion according to BSA. Remember that we are to teach boys how to be good men without using religion.

 

BSA is a grey place to you?

[packsaddle]

Beavah, I repeat that quote because I agree with it. It's that simple. I do disagree with some ideas and I try to make that clear. If I haven't been clear enough, I apologize. I'll try to do better in the future.

Eagledad, That seems about right...I think.

 

AZMike, Employers shouldn't be paying for employee health insurance in the first place. They should pay the employees a competitive rate of pay and then the employees should buy whatever coverage they choose or need. THAT would eliminate that stupid argument about Catholic hospitals, etc.

Ahem, it would also eliminate any 'control' the church would have over their employees' health coverage. I like it!

[AZMike]

I'd have no problem with that. Traditionally, health care programs have been one of the points prospective employees can weigh along with pay, title, location, and other fringe benefits. By requiring the same coverage be provided by every employer's underwriters, it creates this problem.

 

As many Catholic facilities are self-insured, it doesn't completely solve the problem.

 

Using marketplace incentives, like allowing the sale of policies across state lines, would drive down the cost if insurance, as would tort reform, but Obama has resisted those.

[Beavah]

Beavah, I repeat that quote because I agree with it. It's that simple.

 

Well, then, I'll keep repeatin' my objections because I think da quote is hurtful rubbish. Also simple.

 

AZMike, insurance is largely regulated at the state level, eh? So is medical practice and licensing. It's not easy to waive a magic wand and open up interstate commerce on the matter without federalizing a huge body of state law and practice (with a dubious constitutional basis for doin' it).

 

I've got no objection to da notion of goin' to non employer-based health plans. Most economists agree that would be a much more sensible system overall, albeit with some risks and traps. That's what the insurance exchanges are doin' in Obamacare in some ways. Folks can decline their employer coverage and purchase coverage on da market. So under the ACA, those Catholic hospital employees can choose to pay for coverage which covers abortion or sterilization, just as packsaddle suggests. It's just likely to cost more than the coverage being subsidized out of the generosity of their Catholic Church employer.

 

Beavah

 

 

[AZMike]

"AZMike, insurance is largely regulated at the state level, eh? So is medical practice and licensing. It's not easy to waive a magic wand and open up interstate commerce on the matter without federalizing a huge body of state law and practice (with a dubious constitutional basis for doin' it). "

 

Perhaps, Beavah. But the overhaul of the U.S health-care system that we are about to see will be so unprecedented that they might as well go all the way and create a federal oversight board for interstate policies. Maybe that is the way to go, I don't know for sure.

[NJCubScouter]

Well, I knew that before this thread was finished, we would hear from Beavah and his peculiar (and fictional) view of history that ignores things like mass forced conversions, Crusades, Inquisitions, etc.

[Beavah]

Ah, there yeh are NJCubScouter! Knew you'd be back with da personal stuff.

 

If you're goin' to make a claim, though, I think even the elementary schools teach students that yeh also must provide evidence and reasoning for the claim. It's not enough just to call it fiction.

 

Let's pick just one of your theoretical examples, shall we? I don't care which, so we'll try the Crusades.

 

Now, when we talk about the Crusades, we're really referring to dozens of separate events occurring over hundreds of years, each with different driving forces and people involved. So which of da Crusades do yeh feel was primarily religious?

 

The Spanish reconquest is also typically referred to as a Crusade, and came with an Inquisition and forced conversions to boot, so it's a good example. Of course, da Spanish Inquisition was under the authority and control of the Spanish Crown, eh? As was the reconquest itself. So was that truly religious, if it was being prosecuted by the government? Do yeh honestly think that in the absence of religion the northern Spanish ethnic groups who were bein' squeezed by a slowly emerging France and Arab encroachment from the south would not have launched a program of reconquest against da weaker of the two? That such a political and military effort along ethnic lines would not have included some brutality?

 

Really?

 

Of course not. The strife that occurred in Spain in da 14th through 16th centuries occurred because people of different ethnic groups were competin' for limited resources. It would have occurred had they all been the same religion. Yah, there were religious elements there, because each ethnic group also happened to have different religions. But if religion were neither a necessary nor sufficient cause, it strikes me that blaming religion for those events is a bit overboard, eh?

 

Yah, there were also forced conversions pushed by the Spanish Crown as well, eh? But let's think about that a moment. When ethnic cleansing is goin' on, it strikes me that conversion providing protection for people is arguably a way in which religion restrained both the state and people's ethnic tendencies. It provided a way out of more brutal ethnic cleansing, which had been the norm (and still is the norm in many places). Would that Hutus and Tutsis had a notion of conversion even a few decades ago! It would have saved a lot of lives.

 

So when yeh actually spend some time lookin' at things in a more careful and considered fashion, it's not always so clear, eh? Have religious folks behaved sinfully and shamefully in the past, especially if measured by modern standards? Of course. But is that because religion made 'em do it, or is it because they were a bunch of packsaddle's over-evolved monkeys? I'd say the latter. So let's not blame bein' monkeys on religion, eh? Blame the scientists.

 

Beavah

 

[moosetracker]

Ireland - Catholic / Protestant battle.. Yes it is about class as well as religion, but religion became a big part of telling the superior from the inferior, and was used to sow prejudice and mistrust..

 

Battle in Isreal because Jews were given land, and Arabs were uprooted.. Maybe a one-sided war on religion but still it was the Jews that were given the land.

 

Hitlers genocide of Jews.. Yes it wasn't only Jews, Yes Hitler was a nutcase.. But Jews were a target for basically being Jewish.

 

War is always about a mish mash of several reasons for war, but that doesn't mean that religion does not take a major role in alot of the battles.. If nothing else, then to say.. God is on our side, the other side is Godless..

 

At the very least, you can not state that is the religion is the only thing that has ever brought people together..

 

Let's not look at war.. Let's look at the fact it has only been in recent decades of when it was to marry people of different faiths, and some people who are serious about their faith will still frown on it.

 

Faith pulls groups of people within the faith together, and seperates them from those of different faiths.. As does any ot the other things mentioned (racial/ethnic/tribal/political/economic). It is just another tool used to identify differences about each other, and label yourself as superior to someone else..

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmmm....

 

Do yeh understand da history of Northern Ireland, moosetracker? Yeh know of course that the British had invaded Ireland multiple times well before Britain became Protestant, right? And yeh know of course that in order to secure its control, Britain forcibly transported a large Scottish (Protestant) population to Northern Ireland and gave 'em military and economic control over the native (Catholic) Irish population, right?

 

Now do yeh really think that was religious? Seems like da normal political act of a conqueror and occupier tryin' to secure land, eh? The Chinese are doin' that right now to Tibet, and nobody can accuse China of being religious. Or perhaps yeh mean that if the Dali Lama and Tibetan Buddhism weren't around, then the populace would be more subservient and easier to conquer?

 

Yep, I agree that when wars split along ethnic lines that include differences in religion, da language of war picks up religious overtones. I don't think that has anything to do with religion, eh? I think it just has to do with war accentuating the differences between groups. If one group lived on land where there was abundant material for red dye and the other on land with green dye components, the language of war would pick up on nefarious clothing color. That has nothing to do with dying clothes and everything to do with da nature of war.

 

What's different about monotheistic religion is the notion of conversion and the sense that it's possible to share somethin' that transcends tribal, ethnic, or national lines. That sense of common shared value is what led to the laws of war in the West, eh? The sense that because of shared faith, even war had rules. The notion of conversion makes it similarly possible to transcend tribe/ethnicity/nationality as well, eh? It's possible for one of them to become one of us, so that puts limits on what is allowable in war.

 

Even notions like naturalized citizenship have their origin in da Christian notion of conversion, eh? Yeh spend some time as a visitor and then as a learner, until yeh know the basics of da religion, and then yeh renounce former allegiance and swear fealty to the new faith and are baptized. Aside from dunkin' 'em in water, that sounds like the U.S. naturalization process, doesn't it?

 

Beavah