More harm or good in the name of religion?

[Aigoo]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 6:20pm

All the wars, all the conflicts...it does define cultures, but is the constant loss of life really worth it?

[Popular]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 6:30pm

Interesting question...

Most of my family lives in Israel, so I've definitely given this some thought.

All religions have their extremists but ultimately I think religion serves a more positive purpose than a negative one. It's just that all the good stuff isn't what gets put on the news. Religion is fine, it's the people who interpret it that are sometimes messed up!

[gymman]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 6:45pm

As the character Jean says in the second-to-last scene of John Osborne’s play The Entertainer: “Here we are, we’re alone in the universe, there’s no God, it just seems that it all began by something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of rock. And here we are. We’ve only got ourselves. Somehow, we’ve just got to make a go of it. We’ve only ourselves.”

from Chris Durang's blog...
Updated On: 12/30/05 at 06:45 PM

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 6:49pm

Hard to measure hope and compare it to atrocity. I say go with your heart, and not your pain, and you'll find your way just fine.

[Plum]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 7:01pm

Is that really a good way to think about it?

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 7:29pm

Man's religious roots and conceptions of God go straight down to his earliest stirrings of consciousness when he gazed at the stars and sought to make sense of and align his life with an implacable and often monstrous universe through myth and ritual. And those impulses are embedded in all humans as firmly as our DNA and will be as long as we remain human and have a sense of wonder about the mystery of existence and being. No matter how agnostic or atheistic any one individual may be, you can rest assured they subscribe to some kind of 'magic,' belief, creed, ritual or myth that gets them through their life--call it what you want: it's still spiritual and religious in a sense. Any one who can summarily dismiss the religious impulse as childish, unnecessary, destructive or what have you, has never visited Chartres Cathedral and experienced at first-hand one of the greatest and most profound expressions of universal humanity, with every stone and piece of glass radiating inexpressibly joyous emotion.
As far as organized religion goes, the Catholic Church, for example, whatever its failings, singlehandedly kept Western civilization alive during the Dark Ages. If it had not been for the scholars and intellectuals of the Church, it is doubtful the legacies of the ancient world in the realms of literature, art and the sciences would have survived. Without them, it's very possible you would not be sitting at a computer writing but making Xs in the dirt like an illiterate peasant.
In short, to sum it up, just because a knife is used to kill someone doesn't invalidate it as a tool of civilization.


Mother Abbess
Nonnberg Abbey


PS. As far as the quote from THE ENTERTAINER in Chris Durang's blog is concerned, he still seems to get a lot of mileage out of God and religious notions in his writing (check out the thread below). Could be the lady doth protest too much?


Updated On: 12/30/05 at 07:29 PM

[Plum]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 7:47pm

"Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you - even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers, and triumphs over all opposition.

"Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world."

Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Updated On: 12/30/05 at 07:47 PM

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 7:50pm

Aye, verily. During the whole Pledge of Allegiance debacle, I wanted to get a t-shirt that read:

One Nation
Under
Metaphor


Daisy Gamble
New York, New York

[justthefacts2]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 8:29pm

It's so simple - God is Love.

Gee, who said that?

[boytobroadway]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 9:12pm

I think how Religion and government have become hand and hand is what is TERRIBLE!

That is what I think causes so much controversy.

Why should bush say that gays cannot get married jsut because HE thinks it is wrong. ICK!!

I just don't feel like elaborating on the subject, but religion and government should NOT go hand and hand like they seem to now.

[justthefacts2]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 9:35pm

Aigoo, the conflicts and the constant loss of life are due to greed, lust for power and, ultimately, the devaluation of human lives. These are the reasons men slaughter and enslave each other. If they claim to do it in the name of religion, or God, or the White Rabbit, or Aigoo it doesn't mean a thing. They do it to achieve their own ends, not God's. That is the blighted world we live in.

Why not look at the great holy men and woman of history - lives filled with acts of mercy and love, of meditation and vision - when you consider what religion means to human development? What about Mother Theresa and the women in her order nursing the sick and dying? The acts of these people actually follow the tenets of their faiths.

[hateobnoxiousteens]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 9:50pm

The problem is the misinterpretation of religion and about 90% of the planet has this problem. And you are right it causes death, hatred, wars and governments like ours that cannot seperate the catholic church from government. It is something that can personally help and heal a person and give hope to someone, someone sane. And this has gone on ever since the beginning of organized religion, its nothing new, only the slow witted people believe it began on September 11, 2001.