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The Tyranny of Scripture (Pat Condell)

Humanity in chains.

  • Glitchen
  • posted by Glitchen
  • Date 8/10/2008 6:27:07 PM
  • Views: 209
  • Teen
  • Teen
  • Offensive

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12 Comments

Current View: 15 / Show all Comments

Glitchen : LVL 34: VP 4.2: said:

Glitchen

1 votes NegativePositive

113 days 23 hours ago...

Sorry, here`s the links...

Saudi police raid "gay wedding"
http://www.speroforum.com/site/articl...`wedding`

Anglicans in conflict over female and gay bishops
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g...
and
http://www.telegrap
h.co.uk/news/uknew...

Creation museums
http://www.nwcreation.net/museums.html

Creationism in Louisiana
http://www.newscientist.com/article/m...

Creationism in the UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/dec...

You can download an audio version of this video at http://patcondell.libsyn.com/

klavlav : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

klavlav

1 votes NegativePositive

113 days 17 hours ago...

The man is a poet. Every line crackles with zest and lucidity. Such a refreshing contrast to the muddy mire of senseless dogma that comes out of the mouths of bible-thumpers, koran-carriers and neo-cons.

Omnicron.4735 : LVL 37: VP 4.5: said:

Omnicron.4735

0 votes NegativePositive

113 days 11 hours ago...

Many people have found great comfort and peace in the scriptures of their respective religions.
One cannot deny that scripture HAS indeed been used to justify evil acts. But what changes that comfort and peace into control and manipulation is dogma and the human Ego.

To quote from Buddhist scriptures:
In this world
hate never yet dispelled hate
Only love dispels hate.
This is the law,
Ancient and exhaustible.
---------
How does believing in this make me an "ignoramus"?
Or..
See the false as false,
The true as true.
Look into you heart.
Follow your nature.
-----------
How does following this truism give me an addled brain?

Both of these quotes where taken from the Dhammapada (the collected saying of the Buddha)

Sceth_Arkis : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

Sceth_Arkis

-4 votes NegativePositive

113 days 11 hours ago...

This mans bitterness and immature insults are a testament to his own ignorance and bigotry. Yes most religious bible thumpers are insane and misguided, but calling them names is not likely going to change anything, just going to make yourself look bad. Religious people have survived far worse and will only scoff at the insults of a bitter old English man. Religion is not going to die any time soon and most atheists need to get over that fact. However it does need to evolve in to something a little more sensible. And the Catholic Church is trying, but we still have the horde of bible thumpers that take the bible word for word. They are far more damaging to the image of religion than the sensible and respectful believers. Alright AtheistHumor, you can start voting this Unbiased opinion down now.

klavlav : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

klavlav

0 votes NegativePositive

113 days 10 hours ago...

Omnicron:

Pat is an atheist. Since Buddhism is fundamentally an atheist, or at most an agnostic, religion (incongruent as that sounds), my guess is that Pat would have no real issue with Buddhism, per se.

Sceth: How is the Catholic church "trying", pray tell? They have elected a Pope that is one of the most dogmatic in memory, who while a bishop was the head of what was once known as the Inquisition. He was responsible for rooting out and ratting out "radical" elements in the church that were deemed "dangerously progressive". This included church soup kitchens ministering to the needy in the SF Bay Area, where one priest was threatened by Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) with being defrocked if the priest didn`t stop his "seditious" activism.

And there is story, after story, after story like this. Good, honest, decent activist work being demonised by the Church itself.

(And while community leaders who helped the poor and needy were being damned by the church as "Marxists", child-raping priests were being protected by the same Church hierarchy, passed from parish to parish, with *maybe* a slap on the wrist, until the countless victims of this rape blew the lid off the Church`s silence.)

Oh, and my favourite vignette of late was when Pope Nazi went to South America, the continent where the Church not only raped countless Natives, but contributed to and condoned their massacre and enslavement, and asserted that those Natives they converted forcibly under penalty of death were secretly yearning to be saved by Jesus, so the torture was OK. The Natives actually wanted it.

What kind of fawked up BS is that?!?!

The only way the Church will "evolve" is when it`s gone. If you look at church attendance rates, they are falling. There is a yawning shortage of priests and parishes are shutting left and right.

Yes, it may take a while. But it`ll happen. Maybe not soon enough. But assuredly, and deservedly.

Omnicron.4735 : LVL 37: VP 4.5: said:

Omnicron.4735

2 votes NegativePositive

112 days 19 hours ago...

True. The Buddha did say "If their is a God or if their isn`t a God it is meaningless..."
What is important is improving yourself, and learing to overcome suffering.
My main problem with this man is he is speaking from a place of anger and hatred.
Problems are not solved with this mindset.

klavlav : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

klavlav

3 votes NegativePositive

112 days 15 hours ago...

I`ll agree that problems aren`t solved by the anger and hatred itself. But the feelings are legitimate, and giving voice to them is cathartic.

I think it is reasonable to feel anger and hatred against people who are killing others in the name of religious totalitarianism, and have been doing so for three thousand years or more.

I think it is understandable to feel anger and hatred against bigots who aren`t happy simply believing their own sexist, homophobic, racist, religious-nationalist prejudices; they must force those beliefs on others, enshrining their bigotry into law so that those of us who don`t agree are forced to live by their backwards creeds.

I think it is entirely reasonable to feel tremendous resentment against religious despots who have massacred entire populations, conducted crusades, jihads, pogroms, inquisitions, witch-burnings, who have destroyed entire cultures through murder, colonisation and conversions that *continue to this very day*.

I`ve used the analogy before of a woman being raped. We as a society have been literally and figuratively raped by monotheistic totalitarianism for much of recorded history. For you to (mis-)judge the legitimate anger, frustration, and yes, hatred that is a reaction to that ongoing assault is akin to shaking your finger at a woman being raped and telling her that her "mindset will not solve the problem".

True, there is something to be said for the cool, rational, even compassionate Zen mindset of Bushido that many strive for in these situations.

There is also something to be said for the visceral, primal, white-hot disgust at the fact that 21 centuries of petty superstition is still killing people and making lives miserable every day. There are gay men swinging from nooses in Saudi Arabia, queer kids blowing their brains out in Utah, religious-nationalist zealots on both sides of the Green Line in Israel-Palestine turning what could be paradise into hell, and I think a little anger and hatred towards the superstition that is behind it all is entirely called for.

I rode buses to work in Tel Aviv every day wondering if my bus would be bombed. I dodged bullets out my back door, shielded my own wife and son against gunfire every night as we slept, and watched helicopter gunships bombard the Palestinian neighbours I befriended all because these fools, Jewish and Arab, have been brainwashed by centuries of religious and nationalistic bullshit. I am livid. I am pissed. I am disgusted. I am sick. And I only wish more people would stand up to this idiocy, whether in fury or bodhisattva-esque perfect compassion.

Omnicron.4735 : LVL 37: VP 4.5: said:

Omnicron.4735

2 votes NegativePositive

112 days 10 hours ago...

I understand.
No that isn`t true. I can`t possibly understand.
I respect you for your strength in such terrible surroundings.
Carthisis is good but, in the process of "venting" you incite or inflame another than you have only transferred your rage.
To avoid a potentially long (and sermon like) post short is will say this:
It`s ok to "feel" angry. It`s ok "feel" the need for revenge for a perceived wrong doing.
But when we act on these feelings and allow them to control us.. we lower ourselves to the level of animals or worse. We become the very people we are trying to over throw.
If the religion is trying to tell people to kill or enslave then that is NOT a religion.
It is a political agenda.

What can we do in the face of tyranny?
Ask Gandhi.
The purpose of a religion is not a belief in (as you put it) superstition, but a path set before us to bettering ourselves self and in so doing bettering the lives of our family and our community.
I believe that there is the light of a Bodhisattva, lying dormant, niesant, in everyone.
Even the terrorists.

klavlav : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

klavlav

1 votes NegativePositive

111 days 18 hours ago...

^ Gandhi advocated non-violence, though, and differentiated it from passivity. Indeed, there are times, he taught, that non-violence necessarily involves *force*. He preached that if a violent man were running amok with a weapon, threatening and harming those around him, the non-violent path would be to stop him, even kill him if it meant that was the only way to stop his attack.

Gandhi also decried the way the British disarmed the Indians, and blamed the lack of Indian arms for their inability to revolt against British tyranny.

Indeed, Gandhi taught that passivity in the face of tyranny actually contributes to violence, rather than stops it.

Non-violence and force can be congruent. In response to your claim that (what you interpret as) Pat Condell`s "hatred" and "anger" aren`t solving things, I would argue that his passion serves as a necessary forceful response to the tyranny of religious violence that threatens peace and reason.

Omnicron.4735 : LVL 37: VP 4.5: said:

Omnicron.4735

1 votes NegativePositive

110 days 13 hours ago...

EXACTLY!
I couldn`t agree more.
BUT!
And this is an important point:
There are other ways to make a person think about his religion and it`s practices without resorting to angry personal attacks or name calling.
It takes a degree of restraint and communicative skill to accomplish this.. (I was going to say "intelligence" but I didn`t want to be misconstrued that Mr Condell has no intelligence)

Interesting discussion Mr Klavlav.
Very much different from most I`ve read on Spiked.
You didn`t call me a "fucktard" or a "religious dipship" or "fucking Nip" even once!

klavlav : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

klavlav

0 votes NegativePositive

110 days 12 hours ago...

^ GASP! You didn`t tell me you were *one of those*! Well that changes everything, ya fuktard. LOL :P

Seriously though, diagakuse toke wa, sukoshi nihongo o benkyoshimashita, demo hotondo zenzen oboitemasen, nee. Zannen desunee...(wakarimashitaka? It`s been a long time...)

I studied Japanese because I grew up with a Buddhist dad. I really do put religions like Buddhism (and perhaps Taosim) in a different class from the monotheistic religions. There`s a famous quote from Einstein about how if any religion were to reconcile the spiritual and the scientific, it would probably be Buddhism. I tend to agree.

Perhaps when I mellow (if I mellow) with age, and the kids are all grown up, I`ll become a monk like a lot of old men do in Thailand.

Omnicron.4735 : LVL 37: VP 4.5: said:

Omnicron.4735

0 votes NegativePositive

109 days 15 hours ago...

Sugoi!
Nihongo wo benkyoushimashita ne! Jyouzu!
You said: "When (I) was in university (I)studied Japanese a little. But really (I) don`t remember anything. That`s too bad isn`t it."

Tsukari wasurete shimashita ne..
Boku wa Nihonjin desuga, boku no chichi wa Canadajin desu.
Nihon ni itakoto ariamsu ka?

Moshimo hitobitoga otagaini nikumiaukoto wo yamete yurosukotosee de kitanaraba, sekai wa yoriyoku narudarou.

That last bit is a little "muzukashii" so I`ll translate:
If people could only stop hating each other and forgive, the world would be a better place.

The idea of going to Thiland is compelling. But like you I`ll have to wait until the kids are out of the house.(^-^)

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