listening to For What it's Worth by Buffalo Springfield
Hot off the press... I learnt the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'ite Muslim a couple of weeks back. It doesn't sound like a lot but damn it's sure causing some problems in Iraq at the moment. I suppose this is one of the 'classic' problems people have with organised religion.
If I had £1 for everytime some idiot has said 'if it weren't for religion the world would be a much better place' then I would have... well at last count about £46. Whilst anyone who knows me will be aware I am not a religious person, nor do I believe in God, however I am glad I was brought up in a religious family and that I live in a society that does still to some extent reflect the core values of Christianity (or Islam, or Judaism).
The reason is that it gave me a moral framework to develop within. Now I believe that no one has an innate sense of morality - no one is born intuitively knowing what is right and what is wrong - it's something we pick up from our environgment as we grow up, much the same way as we learn about anything else (and it is not a meme, whatever that twat Richard Dorkin will tell you). I believe that without a strong reference point young people get lost. I suppose the popular secular view is that there is no such thing as an objective right or wrong and that each person is equally as well placed as the other to make value judgements on issues. The problem is if you are still developing as a person you need some sort of reference point, and I really strongly believe that without this you are lost.
Now this reference point does not have to be a religion, it can be any sort of ethical philosophy e.g. humanism, however I think what is important is that all people as they grow up are given something to lean on until they are in a position to start making their own choices.
I think even then it is important that people continue to view themselves as part of a society or a community and not just as an individual whose rights and views have the same weight as everyone elses - this seems to be the popular view on the street and there are a lot of problems out there as a consequence of this. How are we meant to operate as a society when each person thinks their own claims as to what consists a 'good' life is equally as valid as everyone elses? Basically we can't, and that breakdown is obvious everywhere we look. Whilst I do not want to sound like some sort of prickish Daily Mail editor I think we have gone very wrong somewhere, whether that was 250 years ago in the beginning of the Enlightenment Project or at any number of junctures since. I have been thinking about this alot recently whislt re-reading After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre. It's an interesting book, some good ideas in there that I won't try and regurgitate now. Maybe some other time.
Also imagine how boring the world would be without all the little spats it gives us. To badly paraphrase a film that I can't remember the name of:
'in Italy 400 years of war and murder gave us Dante, the Renaissance and Da Vinci, in Switzerland 400 years of peace and brotherly love gave us the cuckoo clock'
If I had £1 for everytime some idiot has said 'if it weren't for religion the world would be a much better place' then I would have... well at last count about £46. Whilst anyone who knows me will be aware I am not a religious person, nor do I believe in God, however I am glad I was brought up in a religious family and that I live in a society that does still to some extent reflect the core values of Christianity (or Islam, or Judaism).
The reason is that it gave me a moral framework to develop within. Now I believe that no one has an innate sense of morality - no one is born intuitively knowing what is right and what is wrong - it's something we pick up from our environgment as we grow up, much the same way as we learn about anything else (and it is not a meme, whatever that twat Richard Dorkin will tell you). I believe that without a strong reference point young people get lost. I suppose the popular secular view is that there is no such thing as an objective right or wrong and that each person is equally as well placed as the other to make value judgements on issues. The problem is if you are still developing as a person you need some sort of reference point, and I really strongly believe that without this you are lost.
Now this reference point does not have to be a religion, it can be any sort of ethical philosophy e.g. humanism, however I think what is important is that all people as they grow up are given something to lean on until they are in a position to start making their own choices.
I think even then it is important that people continue to view themselves as part of a society or a community and not just as an individual whose rights and views have the same weight as everyone elses - this seems to be the popular view on the street and there are a lot of problems out there as a consequence of this. How are we meant to operate as a society when each person thinks their own claims as to what consists a 'good' life is equally as valid as everyone elses? Basically we can't, and that breakdown is obvious everywhere we look. Whilst I do not want to sound like some sort of prickish Daily Mail editor I think we have gone very wrong somewhere, whether that was 250 years ago in the beginning of the Enlightenment Project or at any number of junctures since. I have been thinking about this alot recently whislt re-reading After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre. It's an interesting book, some good ideas in there that I won't try and regurgitate now. Maybe some other time.
Also imagine how boring the world would be without all the little spats it gives us. To badly paraphrase a film that I can't remember the name of:
'in Italy 400 years of war and murder gave us Dante, the Renaissance and Da Vinci, in Switzerland 400 years of peace and brotherly love gave us the cuckoo clock'
posted by S T Cox at 1:05 PM
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