En la Jewish Tv Network acabo de ver dos debates sobre el conflicto cosmológico de la religión en sí misma... Uno con cuatro participantes, Christopher Hitchens, un campeón del antiteísmo, carismático, lúcido a más no poder, con ejemplos devastadores y contundentes, desgraciadamente moribundo debido a Cáncer de laringe en fase 4; El Rabino David Wolpe, un defensor pseudo-new age de las religiones, uno que se pasa por el arco del triunfo todo lo escrito por sus predecesores hasta ahora pero tampoco quiere editarlo ni cambiarlo, y que interrumpía y alzaba la voz para decir sus babosadas religiosoides; Sam Harris, otro peso pesado del ateísmo, un contrincante razonable y razonado que jamás pierde los estribos pero logra hacerse escuchar, gran defensor de la ciencia y conocedor de las religiones y la espiritualidad, al que descubrí con gran gusto hace muy poco; y el rabino Bradley Artson Shavit , otro new-agero judío para el que todas las barbaridades religiosas son parte del pasado o de la gente más baja que resulta, por coincidencia, ser religiosa, y que también propone una especie de borrón y cuenta nueva, un fijarse en lo bonito, en lo espiritual y la sabiduría que hay en todas esas tradiciones. El debate estaba titulado: Is there an afterlife? (¿Hay una vida después de la vida?) y me pareció super recomendable.
El otro debate fue solamente entre el Rabino David Wolpe y Sam Harris, si en el anterior el rabino se había mostrado alivianado, moderado y new-agero, en este no, en este saca el cobre y demuestra lo fanático que se puede llegar a ser cuando se cree con toda la estupidéz de que se puede disponer, que sólo se puede ser moral o ético si se es religioso. Este debate se llamó: Does God Exist (¿existe Dios?), y en él brilla mucho más que en el primero el Sam Harris, aunque el Rabino Wolpe es mucho más grosero en sus interrupciones y sus exabruptos, pues no respeta las reglas de la coversación.
Me parece asombroso que una escuela judía haya sacado estos debates a la luz, pero está dentro de la tradición hebráica ser abierto y no dejarse amedrentar por argumentos contrarios, independientemente de lo sólidos que son. Por otra parte, adopto muchos de esos argumentos en mi arsenal de porqué no soy religioso.
1 de marzo de 2011
Más antireligiosidades
Etiquetas:
porqué
11 comentarios:
"I'm against religion, as a social manifestation, as an enabler of stupid and ignorant people to perform acts of hate and xenophobia."
You could just leave it at that. No need to disprove God or the soul or whatever. No need to trample on anybody's beliefs. You can actually oppose hate and xenophobia quite easily from within the religious frameworks of those stupid or ignorant people you talk about.
Not really. I mean, if the Bible or the Coran orders to stone to deadth adulterers, how can I refute that from within? Or if it says that by dying while killing infidels you go directly to paradise with 70 virgins at your service, what?, Am I to contradict what Alah told Muhammed to write down? you mean from inside a mosque?, or to become a muslim to then be banned as a heretic? You are not being serious about your proposal.
Moral standards are above religions, they do not spread from them, so it's an external source of choice. It's not because people are muslims that they choose not to stone to death their wifes even when they suspect about their fidelity, but because they know, from something outside religion that that's wrong. Even if their religion tells them the contrary.
That said, there's people with low moral standards, that prefer to obey what's on their sacred books instead of thinking by themselves. These people are enabled by religion to perform the worst atrocities and are normally used by religious lords to do precisely that.
On the other hand, what? are you gonna argue about how true is God or your soul? Just because you feel/think/know it so?, give me proofs, not bullshit, and I mean, you could set up an experiment to get them, but I'm afraid, they would be all against you claims.
It's important to disprove delusions, if someone asked for a job in your institution and in a certain moment of the interview said he normally speaks with poseidon or santaclos, that they showed to himself privately and where invisible to others, and they distracted him just ten to fifteen minutes a day, he would be seen as a wierdo and probably woul not get the job. That's the treatment religious people that claim god really exists should get. Not respect.
Didn't Jesus stop the mob from stoning that adulterer?
Yes, he did. I'm pretty sure he did it from within.
I am being very serious. For example: "Thou shall not kill" is a powerful argument for vegetarianism.
Believers need no proof of god or the soul or whatever. Yet they derive value from those concepts.
I'd much rather talk to someone about not killing cows from within whatever religion than talk to her about how god doesn't exist. The former subject is pretty important to me, while the latter will probably just loose her interest.
All of which makes me wonder: what readers do you have in mind when you argue so vehemently?
Would you rather engage them on their morals or their beliefs?
I think you're mostly preaching to que choir :-)
Jesus didn't stop the mob from within christianity (it didn't even exist back then), not even from within judaism (that held that stoning to death an adulterer was a just thing), he did it from an independent moral stance cherished afterwards by christianity.
You could argue what jesus said, say if you were in front of a furious christian mob willing to kill someone, but you could also be seen as their enemy's defender and could be stoned to death too. But yeah, it could do the trick. Now try the same arguments with a muslim or a jew crowd.
"Thou shall not kill" is not a powerful argument at all, if it was, there would be no christians fighting in Irak. Besides, the word kill is extendable to vegetables, or everything that lives... and as you have admitted elsewhere, that's just silly. There's also another place where it says that if you commit suicide you're going directly to hell. And not killing at all would be commiting suicide. On the other hand, christians could tell you that that commandment applies just for human beings, or just for christians, even if that's not explicit in the text. There's also that other interpretation that says that "Thou shall not kill" is not an order, or anything like that, it's a fact. It means that we are eternal souls, so nobody can never kill us, so it's a constraint declaration. Anyway, again, you're not being serious.
Now, I knew this from pretty much the beginning of our discussion, but now by your own confession "the comb already went out": you're accomodating religions to your own vegan interests (that you might consider wise or deep) and that's why you find it such a useful tool, because it's dogmatic, it's straightforward, it has sets of orders that you can exploit to bring your own guilt to people that are gullible enough to hold your speach as Tha Truth. And that's despicable indpendently of your basic cow saving "good" intentions.
On a totally different topic: about your question on what kind of readers I have in mind... why are you asking? is it a rethorical question?
We are Lord's sons
So "thou shall not kill" is ineffective, yet you emphasize "stone to death" is very effective. That seems a little skewed.
You don't have to cut down the tree and kill it just to grab the apples. There are a lot of ways of feeding with no killing involved. You seem to have become used to it, tho.
But that's not the issue at hand, although I do besiege you to stop unnecessarily killing innocent animals.
I find religious thought and speech useful in many levels. It depends on who I'm talking to, and why. That includes talking to myself, within my inner process and such. Mostly because of what I've said, about using a framework to save time and effort.
Your accusations on my exploiting the gullible are totally out of order and I expect an apology.
Finally: it's not a rethorical question. I am really puzzled. For example that piece about Santaclos, I really wonder what you're trying to accomplish.
"Thou shall not kill" is a powerful argument for vegetarianism."
"I'd much rather talk to someone about not killing cows from within whatever religion than talk to her about how god doesn't exist. The former subject is pretty important to me, while the latter will probably just loose her interest."
So, you're not pushing your own agenda "from within" whatever religion using other people's beliefs? There you have it, so no apologies needed Sir.
"Believers need no proof of god or the soul or whatever. Yet they derive value from those concepts."
See? here's where your languages metaphor falls apart, ´cause for believers it's not just another language, it's The Language, the only possible one, and by using it without believing and on top of it in order to get through your own agenda, is not respecting it, but if you don't really respect it, why are you fighting for it?
Believers need proofs, even if they do not distinguish valid from invalid proofs, if not, what are miracles for, the apparitions, the universe's order and harmony that are allways invoked, all of which are so called proofs. Besides, believers are permanently in doubt, that's why there are all those explanations of why God does not intervene in every ugly circumstance and why they should keep believing, and how it's all gonna make sense in the end, etc. And what value are you talking about?
//So "thou shall not kill" is ineffective, yet you emphasize "stone to death" is very effective. That seems a little skewed.//
Skewed as it may seem, right now one person is being killed by people who think they're doing what God orders to them. And very probably the killers received the "Thou shall not kill" order too. But also, I never said the order "stone to death" was very effective, that's your own straw man.
"I find religious thought and speech useful in many levels"
You find it useful, but do you believe it? because if you don't, and you use it to talk to someone that does, then my accusations hold (again). Useful to talk to yourself, about what?
Wait, one last thing. I wrote that Santa stuff for your eyes only. Though mi beloved wife had a beautiful laugh when she read it, and I think more people got the joke, didn't you? Crap!
Publicar un comentario