I'm clear that I won't learn jack if I don't continue to ask you and people like you, who are bold enough to not tip-toe around the precious beliefs of others and to also try to answer your intriguing questions.

awwwww!! flattery will get you everywhere - [no candy emoticon dammit]

I'm not a blower of smoke up butts...

NOW, GIMMEE SOME CANDY, DAMN-IT!

Hi everyone, just a breather between research projects. I found this topic interesting and wanted to respond to so much that was said, BUT... I'll try to stick to the main post - bear with me while I set the stage for my answer.

I was remanded to speech therapy through the whole first grade. I remember thinking then, " how come “I” had to go to speech class? I noticed that most everyone on TV sounded like “us”, except for Bozo and Tonto. For them it was ok, for me it was wrong.

At the age of 18 I lived on a military base on Okinawa and eventually in Japan. I mingled with Americans from all over the United States.

Typically we all marveled at each others accents and made guesses as to where they came from. Not one person ever had a problem identifying me as a Chicagoan, just by my speech and my accent. I thought, “they made me different, embarrassed me, affecting my own self-efficacy for so many years, by sending me to speech therapy, just so that I could grow up and speak, profoundly Chicagoan and be identified as such, everywhere I go.

Of course I tell that story with humor, now, but I've never gotten over how silly are the things we find so important.

The way I understand it all now, is as Francis Bacon puts it, “Idols of the Tribe”. How could I be one of them if I didn’t sound like them, if they couldn’t understand me?

The understanding, of which I speak, began way before our first words and continued to develop with every experience within the tribe. We didn’t just learn to communicate with common words. We learned to relate common words and phrases to the images that conformed to the common-sense, common understanding, or common thoughts of the “Idols of the Tribe”. The idols of the tribe were the unquestioned, authoritarian combined knowledge of the family/culture/society that we were born into.

Superstitions abound when you’re blue collar, union and from a big city. German, Irish, Polish, Italian, Black, Caucasian, Chinese, Mexican, Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, so many with whom we were not affiliated, and yet we had to learn to understand the nuances between our common "tribal" beliefs and that of so many other beliefs. We learned how to communicate with all the others, by watching, listening. Words were defined with imprinted images of body language, tone, vocabulary, and facial expression, all meant to teach us, whom to fear, and how to behave in this, or that, situation, and all before we could hold a conversation.

We learned, immediately upon speaking, how to spell our name, our address, our phone numbers, that police officers, clergy and nuns and any church was a safe haven. (back then, in Chicago, this was true) We learned bigotry, without ever hearing the word. We learned fear and not to show it before we even know why that was important.

THEN: We moved to the suburbs, separating from the day to day vigil of the tribe (extended family and friends). There, my parents were free to teach us that bigotry was wrong, that every person was entitled to the same respect, that superstition held no merit if it wasn’t worth proving and , I say ... with a deep sigh, that religion, our faith was necessary.

You see, for all my parents did, to break from the traditions of hate and bigotry, they still felt it was necessary to continue to segregate our thoughts from others, by declaring our beliefs for us.

Common-sense is what we, as social creatures are expected to learn, know, and understand as it relates to the sum total of all the knowledge of our “tribe” or social circle.

What other “common-sense” are we taught? “Red sky at night, sailors delight, Red sky at morn, sailor be warned.” “Don’t go out like that; you’ll catch your death of cold”. And the sudden doom and gloom that takes over a room when the horseshoe over the door loosens and falls upside down. “Shiver me timbers”.

Of course, that’s all silly stuff; but we also learned to play “fair and square”. That was coined by Francis Bacon, by the way. Who would ever have thought, we could learn philosophy at such a young age? But that’s just a “drop in the bucket”. We “took great strides” when we learned that “discretion is the better part of valor”, unfortunately for some, “mum is the word” and “with a grain of salt” they listened to their elders chime, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” It’s true, if we had listened to our common-sense, we might have noticed “the writing on the wall” and as we were told, so many time, we should have “put our best foot forward” and we might have avoided this whole expensive bail out affair. But then, common-sense “to the nth degree” will never foretell “the best laid schemes of mice and men.” Maybe it’s just “a forgone conclusion” that there is simply “no rest for the wicked.”

How did we ever learn all those sayings and what, as children, did we ever relate them to? I must know hundreds of these, where did they come from? What purpose have they served? Can I dump them all out and fit more important knowledge in their place?

If I know all these strange things, if I remember these, what else is in my subconscious that interferes with an open mind?

Religion is the greatest common denominator of common-sense or common knowledge within the group. Its authority is never questioned and the teachings from the tribe begin from birth and become so ingrained that many people, today, mistake that knowledge with genetic or inherited traits.

Without religion we would have far less common-sense to cloud the clarity of our thoughts to muddy the stream of consciousness with prejudice.

Without religion we would have far less “knowledge” of the moral kind, on which to judge others.

Without religion societies would be free to govern without consideration to religious morals and consider only the civil rights and liberties that should be associated with all humanity.

Religion creates a subservient society, rigidly governed by morals. Without the flexibility to adapt, the religious morals create negativity, hate, despair, and very sadly they add to the inability of the mind to accept possibilities outside the rigid context of the beliefs.

One final comment, Immanuel Kant, set forth a great system of ethics. One of his principles is this:

“Act so as to use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always as an end, never as merely a means.”

Oddly this system of ethics, while heralded by many a Christian, is obviously, sorely, been misunderstood. For it goes against this wonderful theory that any man should be used as a means to an end – which highlights the hypocrisy of Jesus as a savior (the human means to an end!)

http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=jEOkxRLzBf0

My lady, if religion or gods never existed, how would one be able to concider themselves lost?

Think of all the STUPID, BAD choices people make on a daily basis...
Most/some of those people don't care or believe in God.
Most good standing citizens are God fearing individuals. They try their best to be the best person they can be...

If we lived in a world that was run by people that had no regard for themselves or others, it would be Chaos!

Tribo wrote and I quote:

".....morals dont come from religion or god, they are taught by the societies ones raised in...."


Tribo.... I have known people to come out of the most horrendous backgrounds , only to become some of the most wonderful loving people I know.

But I have also known people who came from the most loving backgrounds, only to become some of the most unloving people I know.

Social animals may use comparison to learn, but are not given the seemingly specific and divisive man-made directive to categorize as "right" and "wrong".

Splendidlife wrote:That seems like an unproven assumption to me.

How would one determine if an animal did "categorize as right or wrong"? (Is the premise falsifiable?)

You state that it can't happen.

But how would you tell?

What would be the test you would use?

What evidence would be required to indicate either a positive result or a negative result?

Life without "religion" would be HELL.

That's the short of it.

The self-righteousness and intolerance of religious zealots is a major cause of pain and suffering in this world.

Life without "religion" would be HELL.

That's the short of it.