Religion
Related: About this forumThink Again: The religious mind-set
Isolation in private virtual universes, in which death and mayhem have no permanent consequences, makes radical cruelty less unthinkable.
By JONATHAN ROSENBLUM
12/27/2012 14:31
I’m often struck by the commonalities in ways of thinking shared by religious believers of different faiths – or at least by Christians and Jews. (I do not know enough to comment on Eastern religions, and with respect to Islam, those common elements seem to be increasingly overwhelmed by resentment, xenophobia, and a burgeoning death cult.) The morning after the 2012 US presidential election, political analyst Michael Barone described the major division in American society primarily as one between religious belief and non-belief. On one side are those who are “traditionally religious, personally charitable, appreciative of entrepreneurs, and suspicious of government”; on the other side are those who are “secular..., less charitable, suspicious of business, and supportive of government as an instrument of liberal causes.”
He noted that the old religious wars between devout Protestants and believing Catholics are largely a thing of the past, as the two groups find themselves increasingly similar in their thinking on a wide range of social issues. He might have added Orthodox Jews as well.
ONE AREA where the divide between believers and nonbelievers stands out boldly is in response to tragedy – whether at the hands of nature or man. The religious believer tends to use tragedy as a spur to introspection about himself and his society and as a means to work on his relationship with his fellow man and with God. He lives in a world rich in metaphor and filled with hints as to how to improve his own behavior.
The nonbeliever, raised on the Enlightenment confidence in unaided human reason, is far less likely to look within. While he may pay rhetorical lip service to the need for national stocktaking in the wake of tragedy, he does not mean himself. That stocktaking is for the purpose of identifying the villains and coming up with new laws to restrain them.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=297529
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djean111
(14,255 posts)Believers - good and wondrous and gentle and kind....
Non-believers - shallow and brutal and stingy.
Got it.
Pure bullshit.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Historically the Enlightenment focused the mind on perceivable natural phenomena, not on internal processes. That is what the Enlightenment is all about. It put the so called "spiritual values" aside in the search for verifiable truth. The assumption was that the scientific method was the only way of knowing. How does one define, love, beauty, justice? These are ways of understanding reality, but they escape the absolutism of the Enlightenment. Where did the posted list the three nasty things you ascribe to him?
In religion, the closest followers of the Enlightenment are the fundamentalists, who look for certainty in a visible book. They demand that all others have failed to recognize the truth. But truth, love etc. are far more fluid than that. Before you get bent out of shape think through what the Enlightenment really posited--for the good and for the not so good.
Squinch
(50,957 posts)Your interpretation of the Enlightenment doesn't change the words of the post.
toby jo
(1,269 posts)I would call the religious, specifically the Abrahmic traditions , to be the inhabitants of a virtual universe all to their liking. I think that's what happens when you anthropomorphize the self into a 'god-form'. You get to describe the universe of your liking. Notice how the middle eastern gods behave suspiciously like the middle eastern man?
There is nothing at all introspective about this process. It's more egotistical.
Drop the messianic thoughts, and you are left with reason and it's infinite arrangement upon the infinite. You're also harder to manipulate. Now THAT'S introspection.
Don't know the good man Rosenblum, but he's Abrahmic, to realize conclusions like these.
rug
(82,333 posts)djean111
(14,255 posts)We don't meet every Sunday just to affirm that we don't believe.
The premise of that article is that just because atheists did not show up in groups, we are somehow not as caring.
Blechh.
rug
(82,333 posts)they have a more likely source of solace in tragedy.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)The article just points to the compassion expressed by the religious. Of course any positive thing said about that is going to feel the storm on "Religion." How dare anyone point to anything positive among believers. Is it at all all possible that religion and the religious played a vital role in offering themselves to the bereft in Newtown and all over the world for that matter? Only anti-religious fundamentalists might say "No." Maybe the non-religious ought to be thankful that there are little groups that like that traveling around. The people in Newtown certainly were.
Moonwalk
(2,322 posts)--You did note, didn't you, that he lifts religion up by putting atheism down, did you not? Is there some reason he couldn't have discussed how spiritual faith make one go introspective without doing that? If he had, I doubt there would have been any storm.
But he had to make it: "We religious folk got it all over the atheists because...." So this essay got a storm and RIGHTLY SO. And you should re-think your view of this. If the essay had said those who believe in Jesus are more introspective than those who don't, you'd be mad at them. You wouldn't be defending them saying, "how dare anyone point to anything positive among Christians...." You'd be saying, "why couldn't they explore the positives of the Christian faith without making it a war between those who are believes and non-believers in Jesus?"
The storm here isn't over anything positive said about religion. It's about the negatives, misconceptions, and just outrageous WRONGNESS said about atheism used to make religion positive. And the essay writer, by the way, cheapens ALL his positives by doing that. He had to make up lies about the other side in order to make his side look good. So how positive is his view really?
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Vituperation from either side is not.
tama
(9,137 posts)"The nonbeliever, raised on the Enlightenment confidence in unaided human reason, is far less likely to look within. While he may pay rhetorical lip service to the need for national stocktaking in the wake of tragedy, he does not mean himself. That stocktaking is for the purpose of identifying the villains and coming up with new laws to restrain them."
To be exact, the article is critical towards Enlightenment and factually atheism is wider concept and phenomena than Enlightenment. Sure, many atheists are believers in Enlightenment values and attitudes (and don't like their belief system questioned or criticized any more than religious believers), but they are not identical concepts. The article does not in expressis verbiis discuss e.g. Buddhist atheism and Eastern notions of "Enlightenment".
Do you hold Western Enlightenment ideas, values and attitudes above criticism?
dballance
(5,756 posts)Um, the Crusades, the Inquisition. Confining Galileo to house arrest for pointing out the earth actually revolves around the sun.
And most recently the religious police in Saudi Arabia forces girls to die in a fire of their school dorm rather than leave a burning building without the proper covering of their faces and bodies. That happened in 2012 - not 1012. Or the religious males who tried to assassinate a girl in Pakistan just because she wanted to go to school and wanted other girls to be able to go to school.
Then there are the folks from Westboro Baptist who show remarkable compassion for fallen soldiers by picketing their funerals and holding up signs proclaiming God hates the US and US soldiers. 
Yep, I'm just amazed at the compassion the major religious organizations show. Especially the mega-churches. Particularly when so many of their "leaders" have been caught in sex scandals (GAY sex scandals) and with prostitutes and drugs.
Sorry if I'm a little cynical and lacking on compassion for them.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,326 posts)You are totally wrong. It does not 'just point to the compassion'. I actually wonder if you read it, rather than just the excerpt given here. You have given a kneejerk "defend the religionist" response. The man is a far right extremist, claiming religion justifies his wish for everyone to carry more guns.
Here are the right wing talking points - often extremely uncompassionate:
“traditionally religious" = "personally charitable", "appreciative of entrepreneurs" and "suspicious of government"
Well, that's bullshit, for a start, and that was in the quoted paragraph. Are you going accept your religion as meaning you should be suspicious of government? Surely not.
"The religious believer tends to use tragedy as a spur to introspection about himself and his society and as a means to work on his relationship with his fellow man and with God. He lives in a world rich in metaphor and filled with hints as to how to improve his own behavior."
Self-righteous bullshit. This guy thinks he personally does all the right things. Yet, here he is, telling non-believers and Muslims how evil they are. He's used Newtown as a chance to attack people outside Judaism and Christianity (and some inside too - remember, he goes on to say Persident Obama is doing the 'evil' things, like government, too).
"The nonbeliever, raised on the Enlightenment confidence in unaided human reason, is far less likely to look within. While he may pay rhetorical lip service to the need for national stocktaking in the wake of tragedy, he does not mean himself. That stocktaking is for the purpose of identifying the villains and coming up with new laws to restrain them."
Suddenly, the man's a mind-reader. He just knows that whatever his enemies (and, let's be clear, this article does show he has such disdain for anyone who isn't his kind of Jew or Christian that he sees them as enemies) say or do, deep inside they just want to punish poor gun carriers.
Then we get some paragraphs about how nature is so big, there's no point is trying to build defences against it, we should just accept what comes. This is right wing "we must never spend tax payer money for the good of the country" bullshit. But he's dressed it up as if the Bible tells you that. Are you happy this nasty little shit has hijacked your scripture for such an uncompassionate purpose? You ought to be fuming. I'll lay a bet this guy has spent his time denying global warming is happening, too (he talks disparagingly about spending hundreds of billions of dollars to prevent something that hadn't happened in living memory, without pausing to consider if it was part of climate change), and will pivot, with the rest of the right wing, to "it's too big to fix - we may as well continue burning all the fossil fuel we can", when he feels he can't lie any longer).
Then we get this abomination:
"THE DIVERGENCE in response between believers and nonbelievers is no less great with respect to maninflicted tragedies, such as the recent mass murder in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 26 people, including 20 children, were murdered. True to the Enlightenment confidence in the power of laws to shape human behavior, US President Barack Obama has appointed a commission and promised legislative action forthwith.
Yet it would be a stretch to call the legalistic response rational, in the sense of being based on evidence and/or logic. Every proposed restriction on privately- held firearms currently on the table (many of which will not pass constitutionally, given the current state of Second Amendment jurisprudence) has previously been tried to little effect."
You may not have been reading the rest of DU about Newtown, or what right wingers are saying about Newtown, but anyone who has can see the right wing talking points about it starting to build up. After a ridiculous claim about Obama ("true to the enlightenment"? He gave a speech that was very religious, and compassionate; but this writer you're defending is far right, and he has to lie about Obama - it's in his nature), he starts with the NRA claim "you'll never be able to put any restriction on firearms, so don't even try" (the main difficulty is the millions the NRA gets from gun manufacturers to block any reform, of course). Then he uses another NRA talking point - he wants more "involuntary commitment of the mentally ill" (you're calling that compassionate?), because that diverts attention from guns. Then more NRA BS: "the one proven means to reduce the lethality of public shootings is allowing the carrying of concealed weapons". This might as well be LaPierre writing this bollocks. He follows it up with a simple lie (this observant Jew seems to have forgotten about bearing false witness): "Some members of the liberal commentariat even suggested targeted assassinations of leaders of the National Rifle Association."
Then there's a stunning piece of hypocrisy, in which he criticises others for "riding beloved hobbyhorses", when he has trotted out numerous right wing claims in this piece. And he proceeds to blame isolation for what happened. But he's the one who has spent the piece calling for less government, more individual charity, and rather than regulations of guns, for more private individuals to carry them to shoot anyone they personally think is up to no good.
All in all, I've never seen you so blind to right wing bullshit, which you have completely misread as 'compassion'. The only explanation is that the guy is religious, so you leapt to his defence without thinking. Shame on you.
On edit: if, by 'the article', you meant the one in reply #6, and not the one in the OP, then consider this a reply to your post #20, where you are defending the OP article.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)All cultural systems--including religious ones--project their own ethics on whats they call reality.
What does Rosenbaum's Abramic background have to do with it?
Michelle Johnson
(14 posts)And just to think:
Richard Nixon was a Quaker !
I won't bring up Hitler, but you can Google his religious background.
The current Pope of the Catholic church just delivered a crusade against gay and lesbian people around the world being given equal rights as heterosexual people around the world. The Pope of the largest Christian faith on this planet is launching his own holocaust!
So much for THAT argument.
So much for religions having anything to teach people living on this planet in 2013. Just my opinion.
Oh, by the way, a fascinating forum on religion here, where believers seem to be in the minority here.
rug
(82,333 posts)Michelle Johnson
(14 posts)I don't do reading of hateful posts. I have little time for this in my life.
If, you, as the initial poster in this thread, have found something of interest to post, why did you not post that?
I don't read the writings of Hitler, nor Nixon either. Not that they are equally evil, just kind of dull to read.
rug
(82,333 posts)I have little time to explain to people who Godwin their first post.
Enjoy your stay.
Response to rug (Reply #9)
Post removed
rug
(82,333 posts)Response to rug (Reply #12)
Post removed
I believe everything you say implicitly.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)for having only 13 posts...congratulations! No doubt he or one of his fellow apologists were a bit too stung by the truth and had to try to squash it, but everyone sensible will still read your hidden post and nod.
Trust me, he doesn't get any better with time.
rug
(82,333 posts)You are a valuable contributor to DU.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Michelle Johnson
(14 posts)The nonbeliever, raised on the Enlightenment confidence in unaided human reason, is far less likely to look within.
Pure, unadulterated bullshit, lies, and fantasy. Just re-read that false premise, and get back to us about all the research and statistics and documentation behind such an outrageous assertion, or just admit, you wanted to believe it, so you just believed it, accepted it, and didn't bother to question it.
Pure bullshit. Is your critical thinking mind that weak?
rug
(82,333 posts)Who are the "us" you just signed up with?
muriel_volestrangler
(101,326 posts)What a dumb fucking question for you to ask. But it does make you think you can get away without defending the turd of an article you linked to.
rug
(82,333 posts)I'm not surprised you think this is a "dumb fucking question".
muriel_volestrangler
(101,326 posts)behind the outrageous assertions in the article. Stop dodging the discussion about the right wing bollocks you linked to.
rug
(82,333 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,326 posts)Respond to questions or points that others make, in a constructive and adult manner. Try not to channel Bart Simpson.
rug
(82,333 posts)Listen, muriel, when I feel a need for pointers on how to post, not to mention, what to think, I'll make sure to call you.
Here's a pointless smiley for you.
(Note, the "you" is plural, hence the plural smiley.)
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Lets not get into the silly game of citing others dirty underwear. There is enough stink to go around.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)In the early days of the Democratic Underground it was felt that there ought to be a forum where Democrats interested in how progressive politics and religion went hand in hand could share ideas. It didn’t take long until a small group of fundamentalist who were anti- religion saw the opportunity to take over that conversation. And so they did. If anyone wanted to say anything positive about religion or even to have a rational discussion with people of no religion or who did not know where they stood, fundamentalists jumped down their throats. Those who wanted to have a serious conversation about religion and public policy were savaged and decided that this was not a place for rational conversation, and most of them left. Every time a new theist came along, they too were savaged. That is still going on, as you may have observed. However, there are a number of theists, inquisitive agnostics and a few atheists who believed in conversation free of the vituperation that had characterized this group. They are still around. Many of us no longer respond to the attacks on religion or answer the angry questions. We still are happy to share with those of any or of no religious persuasion who are curious and who want to engage in intelligent discourse without the sniping. You are correct that it is strange that a forum—or in this case a group—that purportedly focuses on religion has more posts by antireligious fundamentalists than by those seriously interested in discussing religion—even if they are not religious. Criticism of either religion or non-religion is fair game--as this OP makes clear. Agreement or disagreement with any single perspective is not the issue. Most of us enjoy hearty disagreements, but the nasty, often vulgar put downs of anything positive about any religious perspective no longer has any interest and we just ignore those persons and their posts.
Examples #3 ‘”pure bullshit.”
#16 “absolute, self-satisfied, bigoted bullshit”
#1 ‘”What a bunch of self-serving claptrap”
And there is the obvious anti-Semitic attacks in $#2 and #19
So you see conversations go on here at two levels. Rationality means that some of us simply ignore one of them.
djean111
(14,255 posts)drawing comparisons with atheists?
The ridiculous and insulting and groundless comparisons are what I object to.
rug
(82,333 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,326 posts)Neither #2 nor #19 is "anti-Semitic". The article is an observant Jew trying to use his religion, with extensive quotes from his scripture, to back up his far right views. He emphasises his Judaism again and again.
Again, shame on you for attacking a DUer like that. You're a grown man; you ought to know better. And stop defending the right winger. What the hell are you doing that for on DU? #1 is right: it is self-serving claptrap, with him patting himself on the back how he uses disasters to 'grow', while he's actually attacking people who aren't like him, while calling for more guns. And #3 is right: it's pure bullshit. Can't you see he's using religion to defend far right views? #16 is right: it is bigoted - look at how he dismisses Islam as "increasingly overwhelmed by resentment, xenophobia, and a burgeoning death cult".
This guy is to the right of James Dobson. Why are you defending his bile?
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Even if you were somewhat overboard in how you said it.
It is interesting that two people—you and I—can read the same thing and see in it very different perspectives. What complicates it even further is when the author comes from a very different background.
First, I must admit that I had not read the entire article— only about the first half, so that had I gotten to the whole thing I might have modified my approach. However, my comment was limited to a single aspect of the article: whether, in fact, the followers of the
Enlightenment—which are most of us—are less inclined to look inward to the non-scientific values and therefore have a more one dimensional perspective on reality, and therefore are less prepared to deal with introspection and relationships. I have just blocked out his other arguments, realizing they came from an Orthodox Jewish perspective, which is beyond my concern. Neither do I really understand what he means in his bit on guns, as well of his other concerns.
My guess he is to the right of either of us, but I think to classify him as to the right of Dobson is based on too little evidence.
So let’s confine this conversation to the point about the mind-set growing out of the Enlightenment
eomer
(3,845 posts)The OP article clearly fails the "intelligent discourse without the sniping" criterion on both counts. It isn't intelligent discourse but rather a cynical ploy to disguise gun fanaticism by cloaking it in religion. And it clearly isn't "without the sniping".
I would agree with you if you were to equally call out both sides. But my impression so far is that you only bring out the civility flag when you can hit an atheist over the head with it.
Response to Michelle Johnson (Reply #4)
cbayer This message was self-deleted by its author.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)Drivel.
Michelle Johnson
(14 posts)He also goes on to say that belonging to a church/temple makes all of us better people, we live longer, we don't fight as much, use less guns and have smarter children.
Church or synagogue is the solution to each and every human ailment, according to the article, it's really such a fantasy world, and, of course, not a single actual fact, just opinion, or something he read somewhere and misunderstood.
He actually claims that gun laws don't work!!!! Only Israel and the USA allow so many guns. Israel is much much more restrictive thatn the USA, and thus, less murders per 100,000.
The article is all over this place: religion solves all problems, and, by the way, gun laws don't work. Wow!
xfundy
(5,105 posts)Even the ones that were hidden by juries.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)All you have to do is turn on the TV after any disaster and you can see the religious believers thanking their Lord for smiting some other believer than them.
Then when other humans show up to rescue their asses they thank their Lawd and not the actual humans who did the thankless work.
See? I can write a really bigoted and hateful piece of crap too! Yay me!
The difference is I know I'm being a bigoted nutpicking asshole.
xfundy
(5,105 posts)The best way to learn how to be one is to mirror their posts with the same "logic" and "reasoning."
xfundy
(5,105 posts)Or so the True Christians™ keep telling us.
Yet, the ones who're so very loudly proclaiming their holiness are so often caught molesting children, stealing money from churches and/or churchgoers in Madoff schemes, cheating on spouses, having gay love affairs while spewing anti-gay hate every hour on the hour.
It must be so nice to imagine you're so high up on a cloud, at the right hand of BabyJesus™. "Smite him, BabyJ! He made me mad! Smite 'im!"
What a trifling existence, yet so filled with false grandeur.
"SMITE 'IM, BabyJ! He caught me with an altar boy!"
So many posts, so little truth or reason or rationality. Pfft.
rug
(82,333 posts)BYW, would you mind tellin muriel who the "us" is?
muriel_volestrangler
(101,326 posts)What was your purpose in posting this - to show us another religious guy saying that what the world needs is more guns and less flood defences?
rug
(82,333 posts)You may be confusing that with policies offered in the name of various religious beliefs.
I may take another stab at if if you take another stab at describing the "us" you want me to show something.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,326 posts)So the author/editor is claiming those right wing positions (more guns, less regulation, no government spending on disaster prevention) are part of 'the religious mind-set'. Surely you don't agree that they are. So I wondered why you posted it.
rug
(82,333 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,326 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)And understand religious metaphor better than theists on the average since they know more of religious traditions and teachings than do theists.
At this juncture it would be impossible for you not to know this so your constant feigned ignorance is fooling no one, most particularly the God you evidently seem to believe in.
rug
(82,333 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Matthew 7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
rug
(82,333 posts)Psalm 19:12
"But who can discern their own errors?"
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)The nonbeliever, raised on the Enlightenment confidence in unaided human reason, is far less likely to look within. While he may pay rhetorical lip service to the need for national stocktaking in the wake of tragedy, he does not mean himself. That stocktaking is for the purpose of identifying the villains and coming up with new laws to restrain them.
This person is analyzing someone he's never been, an unbeliever, and presenting his baseless suppositions as fact.
rug
(82,333 posts)
cbayer
(146,218 posts)He really ought to try offering his POV as an opinion and back away from presenting it as fact.
I found him very off-putting.
dimbear
(6,271 posts)Copts blowed up, Sikhs blowed up, Sunnis blowed up, Sufis blowed up. A pattern slowly, haltingly, as through a glass darkly, emerges.
