Hey Bill O! The REAL War on Christmas was waged and won a long time ago.

[Phox]

100% with LMNO's Hypothesis of Weird Shit (I mean, its not technically a theory yet, right   )

I'm gonna break from my usual line here, though. I think people should do whatever they want to do in order to cope with reality. If they want to look for facts and truth, they should. If they want to be part of the majority tribe and believe in some form of Sky Daddy, they should. If they want to get down and funky with Eris, then they should.

BUT, I disagree that Christianity teaches a basically good/useful message. The Christian belief system, as with most transcendental systems place focus on transcending this life to the next life... this life is just a shadow of the future. Further, it ingrains a system of guilt. You are unworthy of being with God, unless you accept that this dude DIED for you. You are a sinner, you are imperfect, you are fallen. Now, some progressive christian systems focus on only the nicer bits of the system (forgiveness, we all make mistakes and thats cool etc), but the foundation of the entire system is predicated on core tenants that are, in my opinion, unhealthy.

I don't mind that some people find comfort in faith. I don't mind that some people choose to believe that Grandma is in heaven looking down. If that makes them feel better, what difference does it really make if its true or false? I accept that some many people have no need to understand truth in detail... for most humans, belief in evolution or creation will not change their life in the slightest, but having a tribal identity may improve their life greatly.

In those ways, religion fills a need for people that have that sort of need. However, the guilt, the shame, the 'transcendent' nature of the belief ... in short, the entire focus of the Christian Holy Book is, in my opinion, a terrible, terrible thing to inflict on human beings.

Now, I may be misreading you here, and you may not be responding directly (or even indirectly for all I know) to my comments, but if you read that I was saying Christianity/religion in general was basically a good thing, I was most certainly not trying to imply that. While i disagree about the usefulness of transcendental thinking, I think you are pretty much dead on with the rest of it. Many of the core tenets of Christianity are harmful to society as a whole, but there are certain aspects of the religion (generally the ones that are ignored most often, charity, kindness, etc.) ARE good things, in and of themselves, and the religion itself does teach them. I do agree that the guilt and shame, and general devaluation of this life and human nature are completely abominable, though.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Perhaps, but humanity would have guilt, shame, and all the rest regardless of Xtianity... The bible simply codified it.

Those feelings would exist among individuals, but Christianity (and some other religions) are guilt obsessed. The ENTIRE belief system is predicated on guilt, and not even guilt of You doing wrong... but guilt based on the fact that you were born human.

Adam and Eve were perfect, guilt free humans. They sinned and thus could not produce perfect children. All humans at that point became sinners, guilty, worthy of death ("the wages sin pays is death"). The ONLY salvation is through a perfect man sent by God.. or was the Son of God, or was God (depending on the particular sect)... who had no sin and thus no reason to die, YET he sacrificed his own life and blood to bring the chance for salvation to all humans. BUT ONLY if all those humans follow this untenable set of rules.

Guilt is certainly part of being human, but Christianity and a number of other religions place a very unhealthy focus on that as the driving force for their existence. I don't think thats good in any way shape or form.


Also, Phox, well said

(I personally think that focusing on the here and now, rather than the transcendent future is better... but I agree that the transcendental viewpoint has some very interesting aspects as well)





* In my opinion

[Suu]

Perhaps, but humanity would have guilt, shame, and all the rest regardless of Xtianity... The bible simply codified it.

But again, it was written at a time when people needed rules to live by, and Christians weren't thrilled with the idea of functioning under Roman Law. I'd kinda like to see what a lot of the books looked like pre-Nicaea.

I think Arian Christianity (Not to be confused with Aryan, please) had much different and much more simple views. It was against the Trinity, and made Jesus lesser than God, but Trinitarianism won at the council. The religion was formatted in a way to strike fear into it's followers so that they could be controlled easier.

Instead of believing, "Hey, Jesus was a cool dude and he taught us to be good people."
They were made to follow, "Jesus said to be good to people or you're not going to Heaven because you're a filthy sinner."


...I think.

[Telarus]

Weird Shit hypothesis FTW!!! (Seriously, that was good shit)


I'll add something to the excellent conversation so far (sorry I can't find the link to the article I pulled this from). We can consider that one of the functions of religions is to allow information considered important to pass through multiple generations with low chance of signal loss. Unfortunately, this doesn't work out so well in practice. As an example, we can use the conversion of a large swath of SE Asia to Christianity. Previous to the missionaries arrival, there were large, complicated religious bureaucracies which synced their activities with a very complex religious calendar.

When the Christians got to the area, the first thing they did was ban the use of the religious calendar (good memetic warfare, in their mind). Unfortunately (and doubly unfortunate that non of the existing priest class could clue them in to this fact, as it seems even they forgot the purpose of the super-complex calendar), it seems the calendar was specifically coded to the rice planting cycle first, then the lunar cycle, then the solar cycle. It even calculated how far forward or back to push the planting season depending on weather, etc, etc. There were massive famines until the missionaries allowed the people to reinstate their local calendar (great job there, copyChrists).

Functionally, religion serves as a 'regulator' for the 1st 4 Circuits (the above example regulated a 3rd circuit discovery, an abstraction about planting rice, and ensured it's use over generational time), and (like a corporation) they are structured to outlast any specific individual in order to pass those 'lessons' down through the generations. It's no surprise then, that most mainstream religions are primarily concerned with regulating your Sex Life.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Perhaps, but humanity would have guilt, shame, and all the rest regardless of Xtianity... The bible simply codified it.

But again, it was written at a time when people needed rules to live by, and Christians weren't thrilled with the idea of functioning under Roman Law. I'd kinda like to see what a lot of the books looked like pre-Nicaea.

I think Arian Christianity (Not to be confused with Aryan, please) had much different and much more simple views. It was against the Trinity, and made Jesus lesser than God, but Trinitarianism won at the council. The religion was formatted in a way to strike fear into it's followers so that they could be controlled easier.

Instead of believing, "Hey, Jesus was a cool dude and he taught us to be good people."
They were made to follow, "Jesus said to be good to people or you're not going to Heaven because you're a filthy sinner."


...I think.

Yeah, I agree that around the 2nd/3rd century there were less bad interpretations of the Christian system (just like today there are some progressive systems that aren't focused on the sin and the death and the bad human, no cookie creed).

However, even in Judaism, the precursor and foundation of Christianity... this obsession with guilt was central. Hell, it was codified in the Mosaic Law. Their holiest day of the year was/is The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). The day of atonement, according to the Mishnah, was full of rituals which focused the entire nation on their sinful state. The High Priest would begin each day with a prayer of supplication beginning always "Ah YHVH we are sinners." or "Ah YHVH, we have sinned". The ritual of the Goat for Azazel, included bringing out this poor goat, speaking all of the 'sins of Israel' over the goat and then sending it into the wilderness where it got pushed backward off a cliff, taking the sins of that year with it.

Every time a Jew sinned, he had to make a sacrifice. He made sacrifices regularly throughout the year, so that the blood of those animals would be accepted by God rather than God asking the blood price from the human. By the turn of the millennium, the religious leaders in Israel were  using this ingrained acceptance of guilt, imperfection and unworthiness to run roughshod over the people. Ironically, much like Christianity today.

I would love to see an alternate time-line where Arian or some of the other views of Christianity had taken root... but given the foundation I don't know that its realistic... to me the focus on guilt seems inevitable.


Of course, I also admit that my past has heavily influenced my perceptions on the topic.

[Jenne]

An electric hurdy-gurdy.  

I too grew up in a religious household.  Baptist to be precise.  Though, one that hasn't always been super strict about actually going to church.  I wasn't taken to church on a regular basis until I was probably 8 or 9.  I would go to the Bible school in the summer and learn the verses and sing the songs like all of the other good little children.  Reading the story of Jesus was a regular part of Christmas celebrations.  

I never really grew that attached to the religion.  When we did go, I was never really that fond of getting up early every Sunday to go to the church for two hours.  I believed everything I was supposed to believe.  I prayed every night like I was supposed to.  But, I pretty much left the whole ball of wax behind after my Grandmother, who has just been re-Baptised, died at a Hospital after what was supposed to be a fairly routine heart surgery.  At that point, it ceased to make any sense to me.  It seemed to be a bunch of faith in this phantom that was supposed to make us all better.  Yet, he just took one of my favorite people away.  Seemed like a bunch of bullshit, so I was done.  

As far as Christmas goes, my emotional attachment to the Holiday has much more to do with being with family and all of the family traditions.  That's why the Commercialism of it really turns my stomach.  I don't care about how it taints the religious aspect of the holiday.  I just don't like how it turns what should be a simple time of commradery with friends and family into a gigantic stress-ball of shit.  

THIS.  169%  Except for the hurdy-gurdy and the grandmother, as it was actually college and being able to finally study shit my parents didn't have a say-so over that changed me for good and all.

Religion's part of my history, as in my past, and I can't say that it didn't affect me or shape who I am today.  But it's not part of my everyday like it used to be, and holidays are no longer so very holy, but I'm happy that I had the close family associations THROUGH religion that gave me the connections and traditions that I have made part of my kids' lives.

[Jenne]

To me, it looks like this:

There are things in the experiential universe that haven't been explained yet (Weird Shit™1).
There are things that happen in the experiential universe that don't make sense to me, in terms of how I think the universe usually works (Weird Shit™2).
The human brain can experience so-called "trancendental" states of conciousness (Weird Shit™3).

Religions, in my view, tend to take Weird Shit™3 and Weird Shit™2, combine them to prove the existence of a powerful placeholder label, which then allows them to explain Weird Shit™1.

I personally don't think you need to have "god" in there.  It's just a lot of Weird Shit.

[LMNO]

Now all I have to do is expand that to 500 pages, and I'll collect my doctorate.

[Suu]

Now all I have to do is expand that to 500 pages, and I'll collect my doctorate.

You should do it. Then go and teach lectures around the world and make lots of money. I'd know *I'd* throw $10 at your feet.

[LMNO]

Today's seminar:

WE DON'T KNOW SHIT.

By Rev. Dr. LMNO, PhD

[Suu]

OH FUCK! WHERE DO I BUY THE PROGRAM?!

WILL THIS BE AVAILABLE ON DVD?!

CAN YOU SIGN MY BOOK?!?!

[BabylonHoruv]

I hold that it is all an extension of putting "in god we trust" on the dollar bill.  At that point the USA became officially Mammonist. 

[Suu]

"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property"

[Phox]

"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property"

John Locke was fucked up.

[Suu]

Not really. He was pretty brilliant for his time. It's just that our lifestyles have evolved GREATLY since the 17th century.