Right and Wrong Religion

The people who use the who-are-you attack don't believe in what they're asking you to believe. They think that their beliefs are betters than yours; they just don't want you thinking that your beliefs are better than theirs.

Star Trek: Next Generation has an episode like that. Our heroes capture a Borg soldier, and plan to return it to its hive with a vast geometrical figure in its memory. The figure is a self-contradiction; it can't exist. But you have to study it for a long time before realizing that fact. So the plan is for this Borg to upload the impossible figure into the brains of all the other Borg. At some point in the future, the whole race will realize that it's an impossible figure, and their brains will explode or something.

The who-are-you attack is the same kind of mental poison, as is moral relativism and many other twentieth-century ideas. The people who create those ideas don't believe them, but see them as wonderfully useful ways of snarling up the minds of others.

The Borg have a collective consciousness... there are no individuals. The plan devised by our heroes wouldn't work in a society of individuals (like ours). It is not really applicable to the situation at hand. We are not like the Borg.

I guess it's an eternal struggle of ours. We are always at war with our instincts.. instincts that are sometimes contradictory. One instinct is to be individuals.. with our own thoughts and ideas. Another instinct is to want to have a sense of belonging... to be a part of a group in which members have something in common. Everyone's balance between the two is different... which is partly why we're all different overall.

Some people see the world entirely as black-and-white. Some people see the world entirely as shades of gray. Some people see the world as black-and-white with shades of gray in between. This is what happens in a pluralistic society. This pluralism is both a blessing and a curse... as it is used, simultaneously, to unite and to divide.

Politics and religion are two big tools which are far more beneficial to the user and his/her agenda, in general, when used to divide.

BB: You're right in saying that MG's argument is flawed, but I generally prefer to attack arguments as they are presented rather than to just explain why they don't make sense. When I do the latter, people just respond with "yeah well you don't make sense either pthhh" and it gets nowhere. But I entirely agree with you.

Mark: Divide and conquer.

How many religions could get believers with the slogan "Come Join Us-- There Are Better Religions Than Ours!"??

In my experience, people who come back at you with the defensive "Who do you think you are, thinking you're right?" do so precisely because they're afraid you might be right.

Mark: "We are not like the Borg."

The point of the example is that we share ideas with each other, especially among members of the same society. Those ideas are usually very complex, and rarely absorbed at a conscious level. Consider, for example, how effectively good moviemakers and TV video editors can convey complex ideas with a series of pictures or silent film. The people who are good at it wield astonishing power.

Most people have to absorb these complex ideas about a wide variety of topics. They don't have the time, or in many cases the intelligence or training, to scrutinize everything they take in. Everyone has some vague idea about how the law works, or how their computer works, or what's going on politically, or what views they hold on theology, or what they think about the latest scientific developments, or what they think about various contentious historical events.

No one has the time to sit and study everything that they need to have an opinion on. Most people's lives are filled with day-to-day tasks: raising children, managing a marriage, working at a job, keeping the house or apartment clean, controlling personal finances, etc. Those with intellectual interest may find the time to study a few areas of particular interest. But no one can know everything, so we absorb uncritically many ideas from others.

This creates a weakness: People can intentionally feed us bad ideas, ideas that appear reasonable on the surface but break down into contradictions under analysis. It's a great way to control people. You load them down with so many clever internally contradictory ideas that almost no one has the time or energy to sort through the rubbish and expose the contradictions. This was the theme of Orwell's book 1984.

Some of this involves using brute force to make someone repeat an obvious contradiction: Black is white. Day is night. (Star Trek: NG had a separate episode on that topic that involved the phrase "There are four lights.")

But other poisoned ideas are simply too dull or complex to fight. It's been a while since I read 1984, but I recall that the hero's job was to alter historical information to make it consistent with the government's claims du jour, reminiscent of the USSR's doctoring of historical photos to remove those who fell out of favor with the Party.

Mike Adams has a recent article on this, though I didn't see it until just now: http://www.dradams.org/articles/20050323.html

The most basic of our modern American mind-poisons is broad relativism about truth: If you dare to think that some statement is true, then dire consequences await. You should be ashamed, because it's presumptuous and immoral to think that your ideas could be better than someone else's ideas. You could be punished, because people might be offended by your ideas. If you hold to some truth that the majority doesn't like, then they're going to shout you down, hold protests, get you fired, and otherwise make your life miserable until you let go of your stupid little "truth" and accept what everyone else thinks.

This idea has a thousand forms, but they all trace back to what can only be called a logical contradiction: "I assert as true the following statement: No one can assert a truth." It's simply astonishing how many intelligent people believe that and cling to it with religious fervor.

When I was an undergraduate, a psychology professor once announced in class that all truth was a matter of majority opinion. I immediately asked whether the class should vote on whether two plus two was four. He didn’t want to talk about that. He was a nice guy, and a smart guy, but he wasn’t an epistemology specialist, so he didn’t have the training to realize the absurdity of what he was saying.

I’m not sure where you’re headed with your comment, Mark. My point is simply to applaud Michael’s reaction to what once was a terrifying incantation: Who are you to claim to be better than others? Who are you to claim to have truth? How dare you think you know more than someone else? Thirty years ago, everyone would have cringed at such an accusation, afraid of being called judgmental. Most of those who were adults thirty year ago still do. But the tide is turning, as Michael’s post demonstrates. He is putting together his answers to the old contradictions, as am I, tearing apart and rejecting that old nonsense that modern liberalism is so eager for us to embrace.

The old contradictions don’t work anymore. They never worked as matters of logic, but now they barely work as social control mechanisms. They’re collapsing under the weight of conservative thought, accelerated by recent changes in the way information moves. Conservatives are developing a community of thinkers who can talk freely to each other, helping each other tear apart the old contradictions and figure out what truths should replace them.

In that Star Trek episode, my objection was that they assumed as a certainty that the Borg consciousness had no way to filter out and reject contradictions. That didn’t make sense to me, but then all fiction requires some suspension of disbelief. At least on that score, I agree with you that we are not like the Borg. We uncritically absorb most of our ideas from each other, but the self-contradictory ones don’t make our heads explode. They may confuse us for a while, but eventually we can learn to spot the nonsense and eradicate it.

MW: And what a noble thing that isn't.

BB: It would seem the sense of being unsure is mutual. I have no idea what you're getting at. Your post is all over the map. As such, I will have to contain my response to specific paragraphs of your post:

The first 6 paragraphs of your post I agree with.

BB said: "The most basic of our modern American mind-poisons is broad relativism about truth: If you dare to think that some statement is true, then dire consequences await. You should be ashamed, because it's presumptuous and immoral to think that your ideas could be better than someone else's ideas. You could be punished, because people might be offended by your ideas. If you hold to some truth that the majority doesn't like, then they're going to shout you down, hold protests, get you fired, and otherwise make your life miserable until you let go of your stupid little "truth" and accept what everyone else thinks."

I agree... but this works both ways. One of the oldest conservative axioms is that free markets can solve all of the world's problems. This axiom has been used as the impetus for the rally to remove from government any assistance for those that are left behind by our capitalist system. Conservatives say that charity will pick up the slack. What they don't tell you, though, is that just as most liberal ideas based on people always working toward the benefit of mankind are pipe dreams, so too is the idea that people will automatically become more charitable. Greed is something we as a species are exceedingly good at and proud of. Why is it that only liberal ideas are junk because they work on the principle of people not being greedy? Why shouldn't conservative ideas be subject to the same caveats?

BB said: "The old contradictions don’t work anymore. They never worked as matters of logic, but now they barely work as social control mechanisms. They’re collapsing under the weight of conservative thought, accelerated by recent changes in the way information moves. Conservatives are developing a community of thinkers who can talk freely to each other, helping each other tear apart the old contradictions and figure out what truths should replace them."

I'm unsure in which context you're using the term "conservative". If you're implying that the ideas of social and political conservatives are ultimately what's true and good... I'm afraid the most you can reasonably expect from that is being correct some of the time.

I find it beneficial to not be devoted entirely to either a conservative or liberal philosophy. You won't see me pushing for smoking bans in public places (the evidence supporting higher cancer risks due to second-hand smoke is tenuous at best)... or lobbying against genetically engineered food products. You also won't see me bombing abortion clinics or pushing for the 10 Commandments to be displayed in every public building.

To me, there's plenty of idiocy on both sides of the ideological spectrum. As such, the truth and ideas that are ultimately good and beneficial are not entirely owned by or entirely the product of either ideology.

I'd also add that it seems (to me) to be that Christianity in particular seems to get that rise out of folks, as compared to other "religions".

Perhaps it's a natural hatred for Jesus Christ.

Or, it could be fostered by a few outwardly visible Christians (eg. Jim Jones, Jim Bakker) who have (unwittingly) given His message a tarnish or two over the years.

Jim Price is right. Christianity is largely discriminated against in today's America. Just look at the ACLU. They fight for every religion *except* Christianity. Makes you wonder.

Additionally, there is a huge flaw in Mr.Guitiz's argument about Iranian torture versus the Schiavo debaucle. He essentially justified the public executions there as the Iranians "doing what they see fit." There is no middle ground on Iranian torture--it's barbaric and unacceptable. Some may argue that about the Schiavo case as well. I personally think Terri's "right to die" is a bunch of crock, but regardless, there is a gray area on the issue (artificial, meaningless life versus peaceful death) that both sides can recognize. Furthermore, Terri's death, although wrong, is at least humane.

A lot of people think they're being discriminated against... including Christians and homosexuals (like myself). On the whole, however, I don't think either group is discriminated against.

By the way... if you were going to point out that I've argued in the past about homosexuals being discriminated against... you're right.. I have. It is also true that I have changed my mind about that.

I'm much more pragmatic about it than I used to be. All things considered, the government doesn't discriminate against me because I'm gay. Society certainly does.. but I largely don't care what society says. The opinion of fools is of no concern of mine.

DD: I'm not sre Schiavo's death is humane, unless she really is a vegetable.

Mark: Yeah, as long as the government doesn't discriminate then there isn't much cause for complaint. I'm not sure that bears on what Guitiz was saying, but I agree with you.

What's ironic: The Pope is going on a feeding tube possibly.

Wouldn't you say religion is basically made to be complicated simply by a world of imperfect persons forming there opinions. It seems to me that there can't be a perfectly right religion being that all humans are imperfect. I love and beleive in God and Jesus very much but don't feel that I'm in the position to judge or pass judgment on any religion, but have decided to be happy and whole just knowing that God and Jesus do exist and I am a child of God. Would you say this is a fair assesment.

Veronica: No, I wouldn't say that. Although, if you believe that Christianity is just made up by people rather than actually from God, I can understand why you'd feel the way you do.