Thread un-named for the moment.

I'm thinking of a thread about the effect of religion on politics.

I don't know how to ask the question exactly. So the thread is un-named.

I was at a meeting tonight in the parish center for parents of
confirmation kids and they put on a DVD about kids and parenting and
life in general. I found it more philosophical than religious. Which was good because I'm not religious.

During the 35 minute DVD, money, economy or property were never mentioned. As expected. (Beer was mentioned twice )

The big words were time, love, understanding, trust and family.

I thought this was weird because none of these are 'religious' words.
Yet I like these words, especially in the context of my family.
I don't know what to call these words, but they seem far removed from
money, economy and property, words which seem to be having a severely
adverse effect on people's morale.

So for some bizarre reason, a part of my head started asking me if a
religious observer is more likely to be a socialist. Or a right wing
capitalist more likely to be lacking in trust and understanding.
Questions too big for a mortal soul like me.

Anyone?

Is religion a kind of psychological service ? Like Lynard Skynard advises in that song, shouldn't we live slow - I think we've sped up too much and we should live more slow - it's better for the world, for ourselves and for our relationship with others and the world - because that's all we've got (besides music).

The culture of religion will try to teach you that but economics, politics and money try to speed everything up - it's very competitive. It's good to get an antidote to it - I bet you felt good ?

The core values you identify above are certainly crucial to the teaching of the Christian gospel which the Churches seek to espouse and encourage. They are consistent themes within the gospels. Does this effect people's politics? Absolutely, how could it not?

I think it is really too simplistic to say a Christian is necessarily a socialist though. Look at the Republican party in the States for example. However, I do believe that your interpretation of the gospels will have a knock on effect as to how you interpret your politics. There are some who seem to view the core goal of a Christian as to convert the "wicked" whilst others would concentrate on the obligations and duties of Christians to broader society. I think the politics of Christians are as broad as their interpretations of the bible itself.

However, regardless of their politics, the values you identified, tend to be central to most Christians. What is perhaps different between them is their understanding of how far they should extend these values beyond their family or immediate community.

Auditor #9 wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CABsgXUyClE

I enjoyed that. Nice shots. Fab music.

Is it possible that some people look out at the ocean and see the glory of god, even though they don't believe in god, and others look out at the same ocean and see a big puddle which could become the next landfill (waterfill) site ? I think it is.

I also think I have been found out.....

Maybe at this point I should take a short history course on the french revolution...

I pause and see the glory of God in alot of things around me, I try to do it most days. When I look out on the ocean there are always a few hymns that I can't get out of my head .

However, I know a lad who says "Praise the Lord, hallelujah there's a rainbow, Praise God its a cloud". I gave him a lift somewhere once and I nearly kicked him out of the car after 20 minutes of this.

What's that about the French Revolution ?

I don't really believe in God I'm afraid but sometimes I get a buzz to think that our consciousness is ultimately housed in the same materials that you see around you - elements that came from stars apparently. And you can go outside and contemplate the stars above so you are star stuff appreciating stars.

Though potentially explicable it's a bit of a head trip.

Perhaps you should read some C.S. Lewis, Auditor

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun
has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see
everything else."

Auditor #9 wrote:

Is religion a kind of psychological service ? ...

[...]

...I bet you felt good ?

I think there has been a huge mistake made by almost all the Churches to often portray, or at least allow misinterpretation of the potrayal, that Christianity is all about feeling good. It has been hugely damaging in my experience.

johnfás wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Is religion a kind of psychological service ? ...

[...]

...I bet you felt good ?

I think there has been a huge mistake made by almost all the Churches to often portray, or at least allow misinterpretation of the potrayal, that Christianity is all about feeling good. It has been hugely damaging in my experience.

Hmm - define 'good'. Most of our daily feelings are of the sham and drudgery that is human existence - if someone is offering a bit of feelgood then I'll buy that for a dollar.

Indeed, the definition of 'good' is one of the most pressing issues that the Churches, particularly those evangelical in nature refuse to address. They encourage a fluffy feeling within people, declare it to be the spirit and multiply their congregations. Problem is when these people who become dependent on an emotion response encounter a difficult time in their life and they get thrown into disarray. That is not the definition of good which the Church should seek to promote. That is a definition which disregards the aspects of life which are more difficult to think about. Such people tend to forget just how many of the psalms, for instance, dealt with sorrow, despair and depression.

It's an interesting one alright - people's responses behaviour are perhaps broadbly based on pleasure or pain and learned responses, That's fairly basic a model for people but what else do we do ? We have drives that are instinctual and also concern momentary pleasures and hormone release and all that. Do these basic responses and instincts aid in religious worship - perhaps. Then there are other pleasures and drives like intellectual or artistic and music needs - these come closer to aiding in delivering what we (in my view) observe as 'religious' experience.

I'm referring to basic drives because they are automatic and if I believed in God I'd suspect we had an inbuilt God-gene or reflex which connected us everyday to God or something like that. A moral superstructure like that in the bible or other texts isn't immediate to us yet should be. It demands indoctrination.

We do however experience some enlightenment and transcendence from music and art sometimes and from other intellectual pursuits or constructive activities. Shouldn't we strive to eliminate depression, fear, sorrow etc. ?

Is there anything one could do to eliminate the emotional responses which you outline in your last sentence? I doubt it. As Mr Obama says, we can strive for a more perfect union, but can we ever achieve it? All those conditions are innate within our being, psychological and physiological.

I would have to disagree with you on the requirement for indoctrination in order to recognise the teachings within the bible. On what basis do you make this statement. It seems that alot of people think people become Christians based on Religious Education in schools, which they then term indoctrination. This seems a bit far fetched. Most Christians are adults, they have as rational a mind as anyone else and their Christian belief arises from personal experience, reflection and individual study, not from the religion class they sat through as a teenager. The religion class, or 'indoctrination', they sat through as a teenager is probably as relevant to their faith as it is to yours.

By indoctrination I don't just mean in school but in broader society due to the Social Contract type of thinking. The raising of a moral and legal superstructure is synthetic and accidental as there is nothing to indicate that we are innately moral but rather the opposite. We're savages but I don't know how noble and it's remarkable that we have a sense of civility at all between ourselves given that we butcher and sanction the slaughter of million through wars for resources.

I don't think we have innate moral machinery but here's hoping for a mutation that will survive and breed. Unfortunately women can be attracted to bastards
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1112/breaking21.htm

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

I'm thinking of a thread about the effect of religion on politics.

I don't know how to ask the question exactly. So the thread is un-named.

I was at a meeting tonight in the parish center for parents of
confirmation kids and they put on a DVD about kids and parenting and
life in general. I found it more philosophical than religious. Which was good because I'm not religious.

During the 35 minute DVD, money, economy or property were never mentioned. As expected. (Beer was mentioned twice )

The big words were time, love, understanding, trust and family.

I thought this was weird because none of these are 'religious' words.
Yet I like these words, especially in the context of my family.
I don't know what to call these words, but they seem far removed from
money, economy and property, words which seem to be having a severely
adverse effect on people's morale.

So for some bizarre reason, a part of my head started asking me if a
religious observer is more likely to be a socialist. Or a right wing
capitalist more likely to be lacking in trust and understanding.
Questions too big for a mortal soul like me.

Anyone?

A bit surprised you don't think they are religious words:

"Faith, hope, love - but the greatest of these is love".

Looking at religion through the eyes of someone that doesn`t believe I think that those who would seek to obey all the rules of Christianity would find it impossible to do so and live in the real world, to live reasonably comfortably and to live with other less committed people. For me there is a huge degree of cherry-picking in the rules people fully commit themselves to so that people with diametrically opposed views can still feel themselves to be following Christian principles.

I`d also be interested in peoples` views on the reverse of the question that triggered this original debate. How much are peoples` religious views determined by their politics?

Hello to everyone (Long time no see, Auditor)...

The point raised about the inability to live by all the rules set down by a religion is a point that Christ himself made when he denounced the Pharisees, that they had made it seem impossible to live a good life by placing such intolerable burdens on the people. On the other hand, that does not mean that rules are not necessary. Perhaps it might be argued that the Commandments and injunctions of a religion tend to be looked at in the wrong way, some people viewing them in the way a schoolkid would, petty bureaucracy restraining the free will. A religious person would argue the contrary, 'freedom' is an illusion, being in fact submission to the body, slavery to the genetic impulses which drive us, and that the rules are there to guide us to a truer freedom. Perhaps an analogy would be the red light at traffic lights, annoying us when we're stuck at them, but preventing chaos and properly ordering things to our mutual benefit, a benevolent force. I think such an approach has been lost on many clerics in our recent history, adding to the tendency to view religion as a 'repressive' force.

As to politics, I think religion has to be a major motivating factor in any sincerely religious person's politics. This does not mean a vote for imposition of that religion, though that clearly happens, rather a tendency for the total worldview that religious belief engenders to manifest itself in a sympathy towards a particular political interpretation. On the other hand, the religion itself can be viewed in the prism of politico-cultural values. There are Christians who will claim Christ was a proto-communist, others who will claim he was a libertarian (both wildly reductionist nonsense). The danger is always when someone believes that they alone have the only proper interpretation of how a set of religious beliefs should manifest itself in the political or social world.

Ah toxic - about time the vengeful chemically-created swamp creature came into the tinfoil-hat fold where politics meets sci-fi

Isn't religion about valuing and recognising 'the other' ? By nature we must be very egotistical entities but with religion we are encouraged to transcend that. 'Understanding' and such words are immediately intellectually meaningful to us but do we feel what they mean if you know what I mean - does religion try to bridge that gap ?

edit

because if we can't care about 'the (non-familial) other' then there's no moral basis for society.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ah toxic - about time the vengeful chemically-created swamp creature came into the tinfoil-hat fold where politics meets sci-fi

Isn't religion about valuing and recognising 'the other' ? By nature we must be very egotistical entities but with religion we are encouraged to transcend that. 'Understanding' and such words are immediately intellectually meaningful to us but do we feel what they mean if you know what I mean - does religion try to bridge that gap ?

edit

because if we can't care about 'the (non-familial) other' then there's no moral basis for society.

Greetings and felicitations.

Some (possibly most) religion is indeed that, the transcending of the weakness of the flesh, the putting away of the selfish gene, in order to reach the 'other' and God (or gods). The recognition that what is important is not the illusion of freedom in self-indulgence, rather the recognition that such is in fact slavery. But then, of course, we are indeed material beings with material needs, and often 'understanding' isn't enough to sustain the will, 'the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak', hence our sometimes irresistable desire to punch Leo Varadkar in the face. Reiligions generally (not universally) promote the dignity and sovereignty of the individual, and that is where their prime importance in the political and social world lies, the insistence that ideology and system must never be placed above the rights of the individual...

I'm convinced/concerned that 'religion' is largely indoctrination. We get 'trained' to suppress the 'id' or basic self through indoctrination and 'training' i.e. telling people from a young age that there are human laws and Laws of God. A lot of it seems to be rule through fear - at least the organised form of it anyway.

This is not necessarily a bad thing as maybe fear is the emotion that can help us to avoid the rocks we'd otherwise be crashing into on either side of us - I mean, rampant lust, gluttony and other tribe and resource-destroying emotions and impulses that need to be kept under control.

Aren't you at all disappointed that the experience of the religious and Divine is not at all immediate? I think for me it is mostly felt when another person does something 'understanding' and kind for me. I can see the potential to see divinity in this. There is also divine pleasure of a kind in serving others but we're very cynical and skeptical and suspicious of people who want to give you something for free aren't we ?

This is often how I feel about it