Things Religion Has Totally Ruined
I was so inspired by the Richard Dawkins article that I decided to compile a list off the top of my head of things that religion has ruined or tried to ruin for everyone (kind of like how one dumb kid shoots his eye out with the Bobba Fett missle launching backpack and then none of us are allowed to have one). Feel free to add your own!
- All my Sunday mornings and Tuesday evenings (CCD) as a kid
- TV at 4 a.m. (if I'm watching TV at 4, chances are I want porno or the Three Stooges, not preachers)
- Network TV at any time
- Post-game interviews with victorious athletes
- Cat Stevens
- Sex - oral
- Sex - manual
- Sex - regular
- Sex - other
- Marriage
- My ability to enjoy Mad Max, The Road Warrior, Lethal Weapon, Gallipoli, The Bounty, and Braveheart
- September 11
- American politics
- Mid-East politics
- Irish politics
- British politics
- Fuck it, world politics in general
- The U.S.'s ability to compete in the fields of science and technology (in progress)
- Spain from 1478-1808 (see The Spanish Inquisition)
- Salem Massachussettes in about 1692
- Women's rights
- Gay rights
- Civil rights (Dr. King and other religious leaders excepted, see the KKK).
- Tolerance
- Birth control
- Man's ability to think for himself
3 comments:
Found you through Bjorn.
Before I vehemently disagree with most of the things on the list, let me add one thing that strikes a little closer to home:
-my love life
Damn, damn, dammit, son-of-a-bitchin' bastard, damn it all to pus-spewing, blood-gutted hell (thanks to Seth MacFarlane for the last few words).
That said...here's where you're wrong.
-Cat Stevens: there wasn't much to ruin (except for Teaser and the Firecat, which is a shining star among a heap of dark matter)
-Sex: Believe it or not, some religions actually espouse sexual activity. Kama Sutra. Enough said.
-Marriage: Religion invented marriage (even "pagan" religions, all the way to the Mycenaeans). Anyone who wants to argue that one with me will be smaked down, I promise.
-Ability to Enjoy Mel Gibson films: Gibson's version of "Hamlet" should have done that already.
-September 11: Is it your opinion that Zen Buddhism and Islamic Fundamentalism are even in the same ballpark simply because our English word "religion" happens to encompass them both? If we're going to group things together that don't belong anywhere near each other, I may as well say that "people" have been responsible for all evil on the planet, and we've ruined everything. And I'd be right, but, just as you are right now, I wouldn't be saying much of anything.
-World Politics in General: Historically, you're better off putting it the other way around (Politics ruined Religion). Spanish Inquisition is a case in point: compared to, say, the pre-Holocaust slaughter of the Armenians, the Inquisition was a cakewalk. Each time, the killing was run by a political machine. Singling out the times when the political machine was also religious doesn't make much sense unless you've got a specific reason why the slaughter of thousands is more reprehensible than the slaughter of millions if only because religion was involved in the former.
(in short, people kill each other all the time. Religion is hardly the startion point, and hardly the ending point. It's hardly even relevant. And besides, they were only killing Protestants.)
-Man's Ability to Think for Himself: Am I doing better than you?
For the record, I don't mean to be offensive except where slightly humorous, and I do find you rather funny. If trading factual jibes back and forth is your thing, than by all means respond and we can rumble. If not, my apologies, and I'll back away and return to my music site, which I will now shamelessly plug:
www.wazoosings.com
It's good. And free.
And if you're in the mood to be more peeved, I've posted my unequivocal opinion of Richard Dawkins in the Comments section a few posts below.
To respond to your points:
Cat Stevens - a lot of hippies would disagree with you, but that's a
matter of taste. You can't deny that he went from a peace-loving,
Peacetrain-singing hippie to calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie
within a decade or so, thanks to his religious conversion.
Kama Sutra - I would argue that the Kama Sutra is not a religious text.
It clearly has roots in Hinduism, but you speak as though it were part
and parcel of the Hindu religion. Is it handed out at temples, the way
the bible or the koran are are churches and mosques? Weigh the minute
influence of the Kama Sutra against the overwhelming influence on sex of
just about every other religion on earth and tell me which way the
balance tips.
Marriage - to say that religion "invented" marriage is ridiculous.
Marriage was as much a contractual agreement as anything else, until
various churches discovered they could make money off it and it became a
holy sacrament. Then of course they decided to put as many rules and
regulations on it as they could, including forbidding people to get
divorced (so long, women's rights). And anyone who thinks that religion
hasn't screwed up the process of marriage has never tried to get married
in a church to a partner from another religion.
Mel Gibson's Hamlet - at least Hamlet wasn't beaten and scourged for 90
excruciating minutes. Nor did the entire movie consist of Hamlet being
stabbed by Laertes, to the exclusion of all that "To be or not to be" stuff.
9-11 - You're deliberately clouding the issue with a faulty argument.
Was religion a contributing factor to 9-11, yes or no? The answer is
yes. Bringing Zen Buddhism into the equation is a straw-man. Zen
Buddhism is more a philosophy than a religion, anyway. From what I
understand, the Zen part of Zen Buddhism seeks enlightenment through
meditation. It doesn't say, as most religions do, that it's adherents
know god and what god wants, and everyone else will be burned for all
eternity. It preaches tolerance and personal exploration as a means to
enlightment. It says little about god and seeks to peacefully coexist
with other religions and beliefs.
World Politics - what motivated the Crusades? The desire to reclaim the
Holy land from the infidels. What motivated Henry the VIII start the
Church of England and touch off years and years of religious and
politcal strife? The Catolic church's refusal to grant him a divorce.
What was used as a justification for hanging women in Salem and burning
women at the stake in Europe? The superstitious religious belief that
withces and the devil walked among us. Ask yourself, how would early
Salemites have justified hanging women based on personal disputes and
grudges if not for religion?
Was the impetus for all of these things the darker side of human nature?
Yes, of course. Was the enabling factor and justification for these
crimes the tenets of religion and the belief that the perpetrators were
doing exactly what god wanted them to do? Yes, of course.
And in answer to your final question, you do seem to be thinking for
yourself, which leads me to believe you aren't devoutly religious and
wiling to look at other points of view, whether you agree with them or
not. And your disagreements don't appear to be too vehement to me.
Greetings, Emeryroolz.
On Cat Stephens, I didn't know he was calling for Rushdie's death. That very much changes my opinion...of the man, not his music. I'm still right about his music.
Kama Sutra - However it is used now, the Kama Sutra was very, very much a religious text at its inception. That doesn't "tip the balance," obviously, but it does show that the claim "religion ruined sex" is overly simplistic and, well, wrong. That's the point I was trying to make.
Mel Gibson's Hamlet - Truth be told, it was the viewer of that monstrosity that was beaten and scourged for well over ninety minutes. And at least twenty of those were Gibson thrashing about like an epileptic in the catacombs, crying "to be or not to be."
Marriage - No, you're wrong. Ancient religion invented marriage, though you're correct about the contractual agreement part. Taking ancient Mycenanan culture as an example, the contract was pretty much for the purpose of securing an heir to the family's property - whatever comes out of the woman's loins was the heir, so she had to be contracted to one man. But it was very much a religious contract, bound to the gods, and not much of a political one, since politics at the time was more a matter of who was the strongest power in the land than...well, okay, it's not at all different, actually. But you didn't get married for the state, which didn't exist. You did it in front of the gods, for the gods, for the purposes of the contractual dissemination of property, which, for some reason, the gods were interested in.
A few sub-points: Divorce was rarely anywhere a woman's "right," and it doesn't make sense to talk about religion "removing" it. It was the necessary outcome of a logic that demanded a legitimate heir - the marriage contract theoretically guaranteed that whoever came from the wife was the man's son. That's why, in ancient Greece, it was acceptable for the men to fool around but not for the women. The point wasn't morality, it was genetics, and the age-old question, "who's your daddy?"
And on religion screwing up marriage...hey, I'm with you. No more dating new converts for me.
9/11 - I'm not trying to argue anything. What I was trying to say was that, unless you use some kind of term slightly more specific than "religion," you're not saying much of anything with a blanket statement about 9/11. On the Zen Buddhism point, you're right. In this case, though, all I have to do is replace "Zen" with, say, "Shinto," or "Orthodoxy," or something else that wouldn't have resorted to violent means, and the point remains the same: bashing all belief systems as bad "religion" doesn't really say anything, unless that thing is just plain wrong.
On World Politics - touche. I don't think I can say much to that, except "well, it was the darker side of human nature," in which case you'd just as easily and rightly say that human nature is all the more reason to leave off reasons for hatred and disagreement.
And dating. All the more reason for leaving off religion, is dating.
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