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Did the religion produce the beauty, or was it just the excuse used by people who would have created beauty anyway?

Did the religion produce the horror, or was it just the excuse used by people who would have been horrible anyway?

The horror follows directly from scripture and doctrine. Does the beauty?

As much as possible, both questions should be considered quantitatively. Of course people would continue to do both beautiful and horrible things if religion disappeared. But would they do them as often?

Seems like the same sort of post could easily be written about, say, governments, or businesses. Shall we wish for a world without those too?

yovargas wrote:

Seems like the same sort of post could easily be written about, say, governments, or businesses.

Not really. There is no doubt that business and government have improved people's lives. But IMO, the best you can hope to say about religion is that on balance it makes people no better or worse than they'd have been anyway.

from Yovargas

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Seems like the same sort of post could easily be written about, say, governments, or businesses. Shall we wish for a world without those too?

I cannot speak for business, but we already have one member here who has made it his mission and obsession in life to post constantly against government. So already half of your wish has come true.

It’s odd that I find myself defending religion here. I am not a religious person, I am not a church going person, but I have a lot of exposure to it through my family, which includes three ordained ministers. And I have to tell you that I see a tremendous amount of good coming from what they do through their religion, in fact just about everything I see of religion through them is good. Mind you, my family are Methodists, they do not belong to the Holy Church of the Psychopathic Assholes From Hell that the minister in the first post of this thread clearly belongs to. The United Methodist Church is a mainstream protestant denomination whose founder John Wesley was very big on the idea of service, and most of what the Methodists do in their religious practice involves some form of service. Their main goal is to help people. And that’s just what they do, all sorts of people. They help the poor, the homeless, the hungry, people in jail, the sick and infirmed, the elderly, disaster victims. They minister to people who are having family problems, economic problems, have lost loved ones, you name it. And they do this largely without proselytizing, they do it without passing judgement on anyone. In fact, about the only thing I can think of that I really don’t like about them is their refusal to ordain openly gay ministers or recognize same-sex unions, but even with that they very much reach out to homosexuals to help them, not to judge them or change but to help them. And the ordination rules will change over time, I am convinced.

I suppose it is possible these people might do these things even if there was no religion, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of a doubt when it comes to their own motivations, and if you ask them they will all tell they do it because of their religion.

Are there bad people in this church? Sure there are. There are bad people everywhere. Do the members of this church belong to a tradition that has done horrible, unspeakable things in the past. To some degree, yes. But it is hardly fair to condemn them for the sins of others when the vast overwhelming majority of what they do today is good.

No, it’s not just art and buildings that the church has done good with. Much good comes from religious people today and I think the world would be much poorer place without them. And I refuse to let the shitwads out there spreading hate in the name of god sully my image of what religion is. Or at least what it can be.

Dave_LF wrote:

Did the religion produce the beauty, or was it just the excuse used by people who would have created beauty anyway?

Did the religion produce the horror, or was it just the excuse used by people who would have been horrible anyway?

The horror follows directly from scripture and doctrine. Does the beauty?

As much as possible, both questions should be considered quantitatively. Of course people would continue to do both beautiful and horrible things if religion disappeared. But would they do them as often?

It is impossible to answer these questions in the absence of a good negative control and, alas, history is lacking in that regard. My guess, however, is that, if there were no religion, we'd be finding other excuses to create beauty and/or be horrible to each other.

My biggest issue with religion is that it promotes the idea of believing things without evidence (ie. faith) as a virtue. And I will never accept that it’s a good idea – it may lead people to do good things, but as Voltaire famously said, if you can make people believe absurdities then you can make them commit atrocities.

And all this talk of service and charity pales, in my view, in comparison with the struggles of homosexuals growing up in conservative Abrahamic households, the culture of guilt inflicted on children, the opposition to science on behalf of the Christian Right that has real consequences for our environmental future, and more importantly, the horrific human rights abuses committed daily throughout the Islamic World under Shai’ra Law, the continuing religion-driven violence and warfare in half a dozen countries and the profound damage that the Catholic Church’s position on birth control is doing in Africa. I’d gladly trade any and all charity and art driven purely by religious faith in order to get rid of those things.

I don't think religion is the true culprit. I think people are the culprit. Plenty of horrific things have been done outside of the realm of religion. Plenty of horrific things have been done within the realm of religion, too. People have such an enormous capacity for beauty, love, kindness, and such an equally enormous capacity for destruction, death, and cruelty. Getting rid of religion (which, btw, I'd like to go without, too, and it wasn't a favorite of Jesus' either) won't really help the human condition. (I'd argue the opposite, actually.) People will find new excuses for hurting each other.

Basically, I agree with tinwe. Thank you for expressing your view.

Lord_Morningstar wrote:

And all this talk of service and charity pales, in my view, in comparison with the struggles of homosexuals growing up in conservative Abrahamic households, the culture of guilt inflicted on children, the opposition to science on behalf of the Christian Right that has real consequences for our environmental future, and more importantly, the horrific human rights abuses committed daily throughout the Islamic World under Shai’ra Law, the continuing religion-driven violence and warfare in half a dozen countries and the profound damage that the Catholic Church’s position on birth control is doing in Africa. I’d gladly trade any and all charity and art driven purely by religious faith in order to get rid of those things.

This is such a bizarre statement to me. Mind you, I am not a conservative Christian Rightist or Muslim so I can’t speak for them, but the religion I grew up with did not inflict guilt on its children, did not oppose science, did not commit horrific human rights abuses, did not drive violence and warfare, nor did it oppose birth control. It’s record on homosexuality is not stellar, but it has made much progress on that front.

I guess what really bugs me about this is the blanket condemnation of all religion. It’s like saying that since these people over here did bad we don’t these other people over there to do good. It just doesn’t make any sense at all.

eta: Lali, you're welcome!

tinwë wrote:

Lord_Morningstar wrote:

And all this talk of service and charity pales, in my view, in comparison with the struggles of homosexuals growing up in conservative Abrahamic households, the culture of guilt inflicted on children, the opposition to science on behalf of the Christian Right that has real consequences for our environmental future, and more importantly, the horrific human rights abuses committed daily throughout the Islamic World under Shai’ra Law, the continuing religion-driven violence and warfare in half a dozen countries and the profound damage that the Catholic Church’s position on birth control is doing in Africa. I’d gladly trade any and all charity and art driven purely by religious faith in order to get rid of those things.

This is such a bizarre statement to me. Mind you, I am not a conservative Christian Rightist or Muslim so I can’t speak for them, but the religion I grew up with did not inflict guilt on its children, did not oppose science, did not commit horrific human rights abuses, did not drive violence and warfare, nor did it oppose birth control. It’s record on homosexuality is not stellar, but it has made much progress on that front.

I guess what really bugs me about this is the blanket condemnation of all religion. It’s like saying that since these people over here did bad we don’t these other people over there to do good. It just doesn’t make any sense at all.

My blanket condemnation of religion is based more the way that it (in my opinion) encourages people to believe odd things without evidence. The fact that, outside the developed world, it seems to have been far more of an aid to evil than a hindrance is another issue, but one that flows reasonably from the first.

I also don’t buy the argument that people will find other justifications – the decline in religious observance in the west has been accompanied by a decline in homophobia, sectarian violence, unsustainable birth rates and the like, and I’ve seen no evidence that anything has risen to replace it. Given a choice between living in a secular western nation and one based on religious values, like Iran, I can't imagine many people here would dither too much.

Lord M speaks for me.

Someone once said that politics is the art of making the unpalatable palatable. That might be said about religion (re death).

And comedy, now I think about it.

Lord_Morningstar wrote:

My biggest issue with religion is that it promotes the idea of believing things without evidence (ie. faith) as a virtue.

Absolutely. One of the articles I posted in the health care thread argued that the reason so many are willing to believe absurd claims about death panels and birth certificates is that they've been conditioned from birth to feel it's not just acceptable but the very highest virtue to believe what you're told by authority without or even against evidence (indeed; the less evidence there is for a claim, the more virtuous it is to believe it).

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And all this talk of service and charity pales, in my view, in comparison with the struggles of homosexuals growing up in conservative Abrahamic households, the culture of guilt inflicted on children, the opposition to science on behalf of the Christian Right that has real consequences for our environmental future, and more importantly, the horrific human rights abuses committed daily throughout the Islamic World under Shai’ra Law, the continuing religion-driven violence and warfare in half a dozen countries and the profound damage that the Catholic Church’s position on birth control is doing in Africa. I’d gladly trade any and all charity and art driven purely by religious faith in order to get rid of those things.

Exactly exactly exactly. Some may argue that without religion, there'd have been no Mother Teresa and no Salvation Army, and that may even be true (or it may not; human nature abhors charity vacuums just like power vacuums). But there'd have been no Holocaust either, and no 9/11. And even the good done by religion is usually tempered by its dark side. Mother Teresa opposed birth control, and the Salvation Army has fought legislation that forbids discrimination against homosexuals.

Riverthalos wrote:

My guess, however, is that, if there were no religion, we'd be finding other excuses to create beauty and/or be horrible to each other.

Certainly; but would we do either as often and to the same extent? Those questions are equally impossible to answer empirically with the data we have, but my gut feeling is that on balance, we'd be better people.

jewelsong wrote:

vison wrote:

The religion that built the great cathedrals and inspired lovely works of art is the same religion that herded Jews into synagogues and set them on fire.

True. Sadly and horrifically true.

Does that prevent you from appreciating/enjoying the cathedrals, artworks and music? I am asking honestly.

I get enormous pleasure from listening to Bach's B Minor Mass, or Mozart's Requiem or Handel's Messiah. I love the architecture in the great cathedrals and thought St Peter's Basilica was one of the most incredible buildings I had ever seen. I wept when I viewed the "Pietà" by Michelangelo.

How could something that produced such horror also produce such beauty? Is there even a way to answer that question?

Of course, the works of art, the music, the buildings and so on were usually designed/created by an individual or a group of individuals. The horrors were perpetuated by an organization. Maybe that's the answer.

I do not know. But both the horror and the beauty are real and valid.

Music was composed by people. Some of it was inspired by religion - either because they really were inspired by religious beliefs, or because the church was the most readily-available employer. A great artist will deliver above and beyond what is asked for - so, whether asked to write music to depict the glory of God, or the joys of human relationships, a great composer will leave you totally convinced that whatever is being depicted is the most important thing in the world.

Some of the world's greatest religious music was written by men who were fairly indifferent towards religion (Mozart, Rossini) or downright atheists (Verdi, Schubert). Also, one could argue that if women hadn't been discouraged (for centuries! centuries!!!) from pursuing careers, we would now have twice the musical masterpieces that we actually have.

Speaking for myself, I intend to continue to enjoy religiously-inspired art. I might wish that it had been created for a more worthy cause, but I'll take it in the spirit in which it was created. One of my most listened-to CD's at the moment is a collection of Monteverdi's sacred music. But in addition to his works for the church, we also have his equally-inspired madrigals, all of which celebrate the joys and pains of love between humans.

Take Mozart's operas, as well - God and religion are irrelevant to any of the characters found therein. I was watching Le Nozze di Figaro last week, and was struck by the realization that the line "Contessa, perdono!" is perhaps the most beautiful and profound line in all of Western literature and music. As much as I love his Requiem, I believe that line to be worth more than the Requiem and all the masses put together.

My long-winded and rambling point, I suppose, is that if we had no history of religion, we wouldn't be any poorer in artistic accomplishments. We'd have different music and paintings and buildings, to be sure - but certainly not less.

The constant failure of Communism is always blamed, by Believers, on the people who simply couldn't live up to its ideals. The failures of Christianity are likewise always blamed on the sinners who just can't live up to the ideals.

Not many people will say, as I say, that the fault is in the ideals, not the poor saps who twist and bend and contort their minds and hearts to try to follow them as guides to living. Centuries of guilt. That's about all you get.

And, yes, I do mean, and I mean it sincerely, that much of what Jesus supposedly preached (if there was a Jesus at all and if he said what he supposedly said) is codswallop.

If you present people with "an ideal" that they can't POSSIBLY live up to, you have them in your power. And if you combine it with Faith? Well, then, you will rule the world. And you do.

Life, and all of physics, is a bell curve. You can't have genius without insanity, selflessness without selfishness, common sense without Fox viewers.

Unfortunately in our finite human-world the symmetry is not perfect. Hence the "moral majority", which was anything but.

Perhaps it should be renamed the 'bell-end curve'.

And when you have 90% of the world's population taking up mummy and daddy's religion because they were taught it as a child...yeah, that's a great way to run the world and your own life.

Sheesh...

vison wrote:

And, yes, I do mean, and I mean it sincerely, that much of what Jesus supposedly preached (if there was a Jesus at all and if he said what he supposedly said) is codswallop.

I almost want to ask you to elaborate here with specifics, but I hesitate to wade into this discussion again...

In 1991, English football commentator and Green Politician David Icke made the claim that he was the Son of God, and subsequently wrote books suggesting that he was on a mission from God to free humanity from enslavement by inter-dimensional shape-shifting lizards from outer space. He was widely dismissed as a lunatic. Yet when Jesus, 2000 years before, made the claim that he was the Son of God sent to the world to save humanity from the consequences of a man and a woman eating a magic apple on the advice of a talking snake he was widely believed, and even today those who doubt his claims of divinity still seem to be expected to view him as an admirable man.

And that’s before we get on to the whole ‘God will reward you for abandoning your family’ or ‘men should castrate themselves to ward off sexual immorality’ things…

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vison wrote:
And, yes, I do mean, and I mean it sincerely, that much of what Jesus supposedly preached (if there was a Jesus at all and if he said what he supposedly said) is codswallop.

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and L_M wrote:
...even today those who doubt his claims of divinity still seem to be expected to view him as an admirable man.

I don't see much codswallop in the fact that Jesus' main message was to love others as ourselves..quite admirable, in fact.
Of course, as vison also said, it presents people

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with "an ideal" that they can't POSSIBLY live up to.

Jewelsong wrote:

Does that prevent you from appreciating/enjoying the cathedrals, artworks and music? I am asking honestly.

For me the answer is quite simply, "Yes." I saw the Notre Dame cathedral when we were in Paris, and it struck as a phenomenal waste of time and resources that could have been better spent digging people out of the Dark Ages. I look at pictures of Great Pyramids and can't help but think of the slaves that died producing them. I don't like to listen to songs with any trace of religious mention in them, because the words bring up a whole slew of bad emotions about all the bad things that particular religion has done. When my sisters-in-law brag about my nieces learning some religious thing down pat, it's almost all I can do to keep my eyes from rolling, instead of being proud of them.

And at my mother-in-law's 80th birthday a couple of weeks ago, I almost lost my temper when a priest she'd asked to say something started ordering people around. I nearly lost it. If my daughter hadn't seen my face and begged me to stop, I don't know what I'd have done. I was that mad, just because he assumed he had the authority to tell people to come up front when their name was called, and started scolding the first ones when they looked reluctant. Something swelled inside me and I looked daggers at him and I was as mad as I've been in a long time. I probably would have only walked out, but my daughter's pleading stopped me.

NO one has that kind of authority over me because of a religious rank, and I was very much inclined to point that out to him. But. I didn't. Because it would have distressed my mother in law. But it still sets my teeth on edge thinking about it.

And yes, knowing that the statue "David" is of some religious figure detracts from the appeal. My thoughts shy away and a "Bah! That's religious!" reaction occurs in my brain now. (Of course, that reaction was predated by a "Ack! He's naked!" reaction in my brain.... but the religious avoidance circuit is just as strong as the "don't LOOK at nude people" circuit in my brain. )

I can't think of any religious work of art, music or architecture that isn't tainted in my mind by the associations knowing about it brings up. Whatever religion! If I think something is pretty, don't tell me about the religion that brought it into being! I'll never be able to visit Aztec pyramids without feeling ill, for instance. Atrocities officially sanctioned by a religious organization will taint that religion forever, in my opinion. If I ever join an official religion, it will be one that never hurt anybody. If that's even possible.

No expects the Spanish Inquistion.