Re: The Religious Right - New Tactics for Invading Public Schools


"Jean Paul" <jobbahut@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"John Galt" <whoisjohngalt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Jean Paul" <jobbahut@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 22:09:40 -0500, "Jean Paul" <jobbahut@xxxxxxxxxxx>
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"Rumpelstiltskin" <PleaseDoNotReplyByEmail@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
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On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:14:36 -0500, "Jean Paul"
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"JC" <dontbother@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Jean Paul" <jobbahut@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message


<snip>


I don't know who taught you about the Bible but apparently they
didn't
know what they were talking about either. The Bible is not a
literal
history. It is a book of stories intended to teach one the moral
principles of the times. That they used fictitional characters is
no
different than what is done today. That there are non-fictional
characters
intertwined in the stories is also not something that is different
from
what is done today.


--
I've got a whole new outlook on life. If the kids want to foot the
bills,
hell, I'll take all the
government handouts they want to force on me. Who says being a
senior
citizen is tough?
Listen up kids, hang in there. Work, work, work. Millions of senior
citizens are counting on you!

http://www.reason.com/

JC

Joseph Campbell. Bishop John Spong among several others. Who taught
you?

Try telling most church attending Christians that it is not literal
history
and see what they tell you.

But I agree with you that it is not literal history. And that is
what
Joseph Campbell and Spong and others have taught me.


I remember Campbell saying that some people believed the
bible stories were true, and these were the theists, whereas
some believed they were false, and these were the a-theists.
There was a little smile on his face that made it plain to which
group he felt he belonged!

To be nitpicky though, theist/atheist has nothing to do with
the stories, just with the existence/nonexistence of godhead.

I think one of the many things that Campbell taught me that was helpful
was
that if the "religionists" had any evidence whatsoever that their
religion
was true, then they would not need faith.



Absolutely. Of course, the church has tried to make
lemonade out of the lemon by saying that Jehovah is
testing people's faith by hiding all the evidence.
Apparently Jehovah likes people who believe things
never seen on sea or land without any evidence at
all. Unfortunately, as was revealed in the South Park
episode I mentioned elsewhere, most people have
guessed wrong. Only Mormons go to heaven.



After reading almost all of Campbell's books, almost all of Spong's
books,
Sam Harris' books, Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason" , Richard
Dawkins'
"The God Delusion" and a few others as well as the Bible itself, I am
fairly
well informed on the topic.


You have me beat by a mile. I've only seen the Bill Moyers
TV series on Campbell, and although I've heard a lot about
Bishop Spong and I heartily approve, I've never read
anything by him. I have read Paine's The Age of Reason,
and I've read all Dawkins' books and a number of scattered
essays. If you like Dawkins, you'd probably like Daniel C.
Dennett, whom I've mentioned elsewhere. Dawkins quotes
him frequently, and Dennett quotes Dawkins frequently.
I think of them as the philosophical scientist and the
scientific philosopher - a good pair!

I've never read much of the bible either, and never
touched any other religion's sacred books. I still seem to
know more about the bible than most Christians, though.



Campbell actually believed there is some "informing mythology" ,
"spirituality" if you will, present in the Universe. His Mask of God
series
spoke to this belief of his and he evidenced it by demonstating the
emergence of very similiar mythologies all over the world, many as
isolated
cases apart from proselitizing missionaries.



I don't think I go along with Campbell there, although that would
depend on the terms in which he casts the idea. The fact that there
are similar mythologies all over the world doesn't seem to me any
better evidence for an "informing mythology" than the fact that
people usually report extraterrestrial beings as being bleach-white
white people with very large eyes would be evidence that's what
extraterrestrials must really look like. I think the "informing
mythology" is entirely a product or by-product of the evolved
structure of the brain of man (or at most of animal life in general).
Likewise, I'd guess that the usual appearance of extraterrestrials
is related to a hard-wired model of human anatomy, likely a very
basic and powerful lower-brain model. Reports of ghosts look
something like extraterrestrials, come to think of it - perhaps for
the same reason.



Richard Dawkins, in his new book, "The God Delusion", speaks to the
issue
that we were discussing regarding religious speech in public schools.
I
think it is important that we keep the public schools free of the
religious
demagogary that is so prevalent in the Muslim world as well as
preventing
the schools from becoming religious battlegrounds. After all, it has
become
difficult enough just getting the kids to master the three R's. Seems
most
of them today want to major in one of the sports, cheerleading,
football
rallies, and recess.


Dawkins is my favourite person alive today. Did you know where
he was born? Nairobi ! His father was a diplomat of some kind
when Kenya was under British control,

I mentioned in passing elsewhere that I don't mind dead religions
at all. It's the living religions that scare me. I regard them as
the greatest threat to the survival of the human race. I've quoted
the final lines of Stevie Smith's "How do you see?"several times
in soc.retirement, but not since you arrived:

I think if we do not learn quickly, and learn to teach children,
To be good without enchantment, without the help
Of beautiful painted fairy stories pretending to be true,
Then I think it will be too much for us, the dishonesty,
And, armed as we are now, we shall kill everybody,
It will be too much for us, we shall kill everybody.


I believe you are correct.

As Dawkin's writes in his book; the Nobel-Prize winning American
physicist Steven Weinberg said, "Religion is an insult to human dignity.
With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil
people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it
takes religion."

Well (ahem) perhaps physicists should refrain from socioreligious
commentary.

I find those sorts of perspectives to be rather........isolated (working
hard to choose a milder adjective than my first thought) from history.

Does anybody really believe that, if religion didn't exist, men (power
hungry as they are) would not simply have found another excuse to do
evil?

JG



Every time I read that, I think of the Middle-East, which includes both
the Muslims and Bush's Christianity.

JP

I think you are correct that men would probably just find another excuse,
or rather it would be blamed on something else, for their evil.

But I offer another quote, from Blaise Pascal. "Men never do evil so
completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

I concur with not just this, but most of Pascal's observations on the topic.

As demonstrated in observations of chimpanzee's, violence is probably in
our genes, or at least a byproduct of social group forming. There will
always be evil. But let's not provide any greater number of excuses for
men to do it.

But........this implies that religion has *never* succeeded in its primary
objective, which is the elevation of human ethic. I think it absurd to argue
that the net impact of religion on 6K years of human history is negative.
Without it, I would strenuously argue that man (or, perhaps better to say,
individual men and women) would descend into sociopathy.


JG


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