What I've been trying to say all along

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Hence, religion should be abolished, like everything else that allows evil people to be dicks and get away with it.

Religion has served as a security blanket for problematic individuals / their followers for far too long, much too effectively. You can argue that other things besides religion should also be abolished then, my answer will be that yes, we also need to get rid of those things.

But religion has to go, too.

So the question is, how best to remove religion from the face of the earth, without allowing some other belief system to spring up in it's place.

A story:

A man, let's call him John, is fighting a war against theists.  He is an atheist.  He eventually defeats the atheists and chases them off the planet, owing as much to his enemy's brutal oppression of moderates as to his own tactical and strategic prowess.

The people of Earth, grateful to be free from the tyrannical theists, elect John into a position of power.

John's first order is to "continue the revolution".  John establishes a police force to patrol the world and root out spies and agents of the enemy...

[Archael]

sounds like a plan to me

Philsov, what if we replaced religion with something like this?

cnp:

Secular humanism describes a world view with the following elements and principles:[2]

    * Need to test beliefs - A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
    * Reason, evidence, scientific method - A commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
    * Fulfillment, growth, creativity - A primary concern with fulfillment, growth and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
    * Search for truth - A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
    * This life - A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
    * Ethics - A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
    * Building a better world - A conviction that with reason, an open exchange of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.


trumps any religion I can think of, and leaves no room for misinterpretation, abuse, or use for self gain and/or power

which is more than I can say for the big three we have today

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Okay, but can I be the head of the Secret Police?

[Redux]

Okay, but can I be the head of the Secret Police?

I want head of the Ministry of Media.

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Okay, but can I be the head of the Secret Police?

I want head of the Ministry of Media.

You mean the ministry of truth.

[DarthPaul]

I see a problem with your plan.

Once we trump religious beliefs then science becomes the main belief and people center around it for their answers.

Then we get people who believe that certain theories are right so on and so forth. No we have factions. Factions start waring with each other because for some reason people believe that if you throw enough violence at the problem it goes away.

Now we have terrorist who fight to prove their beliefs are the supreme and correct ones. As the scientific method does not always yield an answer you like or an answer at all.

Now that all that has happened we have a world very similar to the way it is now with certain variable switching places. We also have a rising of people who believe that it can't be that complicated and start to make up deities to believe in as a symbol of hope. The as these neo theists start to rise in power they start to talk (very much like we are now) about overthrowing science and riding it from this world.

Guess where we are then and endless cluterfucking circle.



This of course is just a speculative theory.


I don't want to rid the world of anything except nonacceptance. That is the key here. You don't have to believe what everyone else does but at least except it.

This may of course be an impossible feat to accomplish, but in my opinion it is the best course of action.

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

@darthpaul: You don't understand how hard it is to fulfill your
ideal. Even if your ideal is great, it's just a dream if you
can't fulfill it! So how can you fulfill it? You need power!
That's the politics of the world! I can see it clearly now!
You can't fulfill your dreams without power! You say I'm a dog
of the church! Go ahead!! I don't care! You can despise me,
but I'll be laughing at the end. You'll all submit to me!

[philsov]

if people embraced it, sure.  But what's to stop them when they reject it and start blowing shit up?

[DarthPaul]

@darthpaul: You don't understand how hard it is to fulfill your
ideal. Even if your ideal is great, it's just a dream if you
can't fulfill it! So how can you fulfill it? You need power!
That's the politics of the world! I can see it clearly now!
You can't fulfill your dreams without power! You say I'm a dog
of the church! Go ahead!! I don't care! You can despise me,
but I'll be laughing at the end. You'll all submit to me!

Nice use of quotes.

Again my ideal is also a speculative theory. Anything is possible within the scope of reason. With that said I'm gonna fly this boat to the moon somehow.

[Archael]

I see a problem with your plan.

Once we trump religious beliefs then science becomes the main belief and people center around it for their answers.

Then we get people who believe that certain theories are right so on and so forth. No we have factions. Factions start waring with each other because for some reason people believe that if you throw enough violence at the problem it goes away.

...

the problem is in your head, and that huge assumption leap you made with regards to how people would act in a secular humanist world

news flash: some people believe certain theories are right and wrong today

do you see the flat earth society blowing up buildings?

re-read this part of my post:

* Need to test beliefs - A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
* Reason, evidence, scientific method - A commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
* Fulfillment, growth, creativity - A primary concern with fulfillment, growth and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
* Search for truth - A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
* This life - A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
* Ethics - A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
* Building a better world - A conviction that with reason, an open exchange of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.

read it carefully, and tell me how your bat-shit crazy conspiracy theory wars are going to surface from this

the most important principles there are truth and the need to test beliefs... an individual in a society based on these values would be hard pressed to deny facts and evidence... not when there is simply no religion or belief-based systems to speak of

sha shing

if people embraced it, sure.  But what's to stop them when they reject it and start blowing shit up?

what's to stop them? easy. the fact that it's not a religion

it's the lack of an illogical system based on beliefs and the lack of holy books with morality that is based on the ancient world (bible, others) when we didn't know anything and sought to explain all via superstitious myths



a world such as this would allow much fewer gaps for the true immoral, evil, stupid individuals to hide in like they have today with religion

[DarthPaul]

if people embraced it, sure.  But what's to stop them when they reject it and start blowing shit up?

We are at a dilemma here for sure. To keep people from deviating from even the finest of utopias you would have to control their very thoughts and desires. Much better to kill them all than to do that.

For an interesting look into how the thought of making a truly peaceful society would work read "Naked Empire" by Terry Goodkind.

[Archael]

if people embraced it, sure.  But what's to stop them when they reject it and start blowing shit up?

We are at a dilemma here for sure. To keep people from deviating from even the finest of utopias you would have to control their very thoughts and desires. Much better to kill them all than to do that.

For an interesting look into how the thought of making a truly peaceful society would work read "Naked Empire" by Terry Goodkind.

you'll never have 100% of humanity 100% agreeing with what the majority decides is best for the planet

but shit man, can't we do better than the cluster fuck we have today?

because reality as it is today is a lot worse than what you described

[DarthPaul]

the problem is in your head, and that huge assumption leap you made with regards to how people would act in a secular humanist world

This of course is just a speculative theory.

Of course the problem is in my head. It was my theory how would it not be in my head. I put voice to it as a thinking point nothing more.

[Archael]

the problem is in your head, and that huge assumption leap you made with regards to how people would act in a secular humanist world

This of course is just a speculative theory.

a lame one dude, totally unrealistic if you read what secular humanism actually is

your scenario would be more plausible in a world dominated by.. hm.. religion, being extremely divisive and judgemental

2x:

the most important principles there (in secular humanism) are truth and the need to test beliefs... an individual in a society based on these values would be hard pressed to deny facts and evidence... not when there is simply no religion or belief-based systems to speak of

it is completely anti - religious, and I just don't see how the symptoms of religion would surface from a world view as radically different as secular humanism, which is not divisive, judgmental at all, but rather seeks to improve everyone's situation and avoid errors based on false beliefs

[DarthPaul]

a lame one dude, totally unrealistic if you read what secular humanism actually is

your scenario would be more plausible in a world dominated by.. hm.. religion

What would stop science from becoming a religion? Your stance means nothing when faced with the frailty of the human mind stripped of it's basic need for a higher power.

[Archael]

a lame one dude, totally unrealistic if you read what secular humanism actually is

your scenario would be more plausible in a world dominated by.. hm.. religion

What would stop science from becoming a religion? Your stance means nothing when faced with the frailty of the human mind stripped of it's basic need for a higher power.

the fact that it's not a religion and shares zero traits with any of them?

the human mind has a basic need for acceptance and a sense of belonging to a greater purpose, yes

and there is nothing wrong at all with our turning that greater purpose into the improvement of humanity, instead of telling people how they can and can't have sex, who they can marry, who the infidels are, who we have to kill in god's name, who we have to declare jihad on, whose religious beliefs are inferior to ours, and even who we have to enslave

seriously, how can you even argue against that? arguing for arguments sake again DP?

if you need to replace religion with something, do it with a world view where the ultimate goal is to help others, the planet, and improve your own chances of survival /offspring at the same time (secular humanism), instead of the BS you guys are trying to defend

the most dominant religions we have today are NOT based on the improvement and/or development of mankind, they teach us to chastise ourselves and limit our thoughts with false answers that may not be questioned, they are not humanist at all, remember original sin? where we are still supposed to be paying for something we aren't responsible for?

jesus christ guys, wake the fuck up, what zodiac said about atheist thought is true, and its happening for a reason

[DarthPaul]

the fact that it's not a religion and shares zero traits with any of them?

It is a way of explaning that which had no explanation. Religion in it's basic most fundamental state is that. People just take it too far.

Secular humanism describes a world view with the following elements and principles:[2]

I'll cover this before going on. I think it is very nice and should be implemented. I just think that the possibility for loopholes and corruption could destory it, which would be a shame.

and there is nothing wrong at all with our turning that greater purpose into the improvement of humanity, instead of telling people how they can and can't have sex, who they can marry, who the infidels are, who we have to kill in St. Ajora's name, and who we have to enslave

When did I say making people lives better was a bad thing? I'm all for it in fact I'm just pointing out possibilities for things to go wrong. If you plans work swell, but what if they are deviated by people working for personal gain?

I am not opposed to your plans just skeptical is all.

seriously, how can you even argue against that? arguing for arguments sake again DP?

You fail to see the difference between a structered debate being held for fun (because the chances of us being heard by anyone who truly matter right now is small) and an argument.

I am just having fun flexing the brain fibers and judging everyone stances based on the arguments they produce. Not "arguing for arguments sake". That would just be a waste of time. This way I understand you all better and have a better understanding of your beliefs. I also learn things from this. It is not about being right or wrong. Debates are about learning.

[philsov]

Save us, George Benard Shaw!

spoiler

Unfortunately the earnest people get drawn off the track of evolution by the illusion of progress. Any Socialist can convince us easily that the difference between Man as he is and Man as he might become, without further evolution, under millennial conditions of nutrition, environment, and training, is enormous. He can shew that inequality and iniquitous distribution of wealth and allotment of labor have arisen through an unscientific economic system, and that Man, faulty as he is, no more intended to establish any such ordered disorder than a moth intends to be burnt when it flies into a candle flame. He can shew that the difference between the grace and strength of the acrobat and the bent back of the rheumatic field laborer is a difference produced by conditions, not by nature. He can shew that many of the most detestable human vices are not radical, but are mere reactions of our institutions on our very virtues. The Anarchist, the Fabian, the Salvationist, the Vegetarian, the doctor, the lawyer, the parson, the professor of ethics, the gymnast, the soldier, the sportsman, the inventor, the political program-maker, all have some prescription for bettering us; and almost all their remedies are physically possible and aimed at admitted evils. To them the limit of progress is, at worst, the completion of all the suggested reforms and the levelling up of all men to the point attained already by the most highly nourished and cultivated in mind and body.

  Here, then, as it seems to them, is an enormous field for the energy of the reformer. Here are many noble goals attainable by many of those paths up the Hill Difficulty along which great spirits love to aspire. Unhappily, the hill will never be climbed by Man as we know him. It need not be denied that if we all struggled bravely to the end of the reformers' paths we should improve the world prodigiously. But there is no more hope in that If than in the equally plausible assurance that if the sky falls we shall all catch larks. We are not going to tread those paths: we have not sufficient energy. We do not desire the end enough: indeed in more cases we do not effectively desire it at all. Ask any man would he like to be a better man; and he will say yes, most piously. Ask him would he like to have a million of money; and he will say yes, most sincerely. But the pious citizen who would like to be a better man goes on behaving just as he did before. And the tramp who would like the million does not take the trouble to earn ten shillings: multitudes of men and women, all eager to accept a legacy of a million, live and die without having ever possessed five pounds at one time, although beggars have died in rags on mattresses stuffed with gold which they accumulated because they desired it enough to nerve them to get it and keep it. The economists who discovered that demand created supply soon had to limit the proposition to "effective demand," which turned out, in the final analysis, to mean nothing more than supply itself; and this holds good in politics, morals, and all other departments as well: the actual supply is the measure of the effective demand; and the mere aspirations and professions produce nothing. No community has ever yet passed beyond the initial phases in which its pugnacity and fanaticism enabled it to found a nation, and its cupidity to establish and develop a commercial civilization. Even these stages have never been attained by public spirit, but always by intolerant wilfulness and brute force. Take the Reform Bill of 1832 as an example of a conflict between two sections of educated Englishmen concerning a political measure which was as obviously necessary and inevitable as any political measure has ever been or is ever likely to be. It was not passed until the gentlemen of Birmingham had made arrangements to cut the throats of the gentlemen of St. James's parish in due military form. It would not have been passed to this day if there had been no force behind it except the logic and public conscience of the Utilitarians. A despotic ruler with as much sense as Queen Elizabeth would have done better than the mob of grown-up Eton boys who governed us then by privilege, and who, since the introduction of practically Manhood Suffrage in 1884, now govern us at the request of proletarian Democracy.  

  At the present time we have, instead of the Utilitarians, the Fabian Society, with its peaceful, constitutional, moral, economical policy of Socialism, which needs nothing for its bloodless and benevolent realization except that the English people shall understand it and approve of it. But why are the Fabians well spoken of in circles where thirty years ago the word Socialist was understood as equivalent to cut-throat and incendiary? Not because the English have the smallest intention of studying or adopting the Fabian policy, but because they believe that the Fabians, by eliminating the element of intimidation from the Socialist agitation, have drawn the teeth of insurgent poverty and saved the existing order from the only method of attack it really fears. Of course, if the nation adopted the Fabian policy, it would be carried out by brute force exactly as our present property system is. It would become the law; and those who resisted it would be fined, sold up, knocked on the head by policemen, thrown into prison, and in the last resort "executed" just as they are when they break the present law. But as our proprietary class has no fear of that conversion taking place, whereas it does fear sporadic cut-throats and gunpowder plots, and strives with all its might to hide the fact that there is no moral difference whatever between the methods by which it enforces its proprietary rights and the method by which the dynamitard asserts his conception of natural human rights, the Fabian Society is patted on the back just as the Christian Social Union is, whilst the Socialist who says bluntly that a Social revolution can be made only as all other revolutions have been made, by the people who want it killing, coercing, and intimidating the people who dont want it, is denounced as a misleader of the people, and imprisoned with hard labor to shew him how much sincerity there is in the objection of his captors to physical force.    

  Are we then to repudiate Fabian methods, and return to those of the barricader, or adopt those of the dynamitard and the assassin? On the contrary, we are to recognize that both are fundamentally futile. It seems easy for the dynamitard to say "Have you not just admitted that nothing is ever conceded except to physical force? Did not Gladstone admit that the Irish Church was disestablished, not by the spirit of Liberalism, but by the explosion which wrecked Clerkenwell prison?" Well, we need not foolishly and timidly deny it. Let it be fully granted. Let us grant, further, that all this lies in the nature of things; that the most ardent Socialist, if he owns property, can by no means do otherwise than Conservative proprietors until property is forcibly abolished by the whole nation; nay, that ballots, and parliamentary divisions, in spite of their vain ceremony, of discussion, differ from battles only as the bloodless surrender of an outnumbered force in the field differs from Waterloo or Trafalgar. I make a present of all these admissions to the Fenian who collects money from thoughtless Irishmen in America to blow up Dublin Castle; to the detective who persuades foolish young workmen to order bombs from the nearest ironmonger and then delivers them up to penal servitude; to our military and naval commanders who believe, not in preaching, but in an ultimatum backed by plenty of lyddite; and, generally, to all whom it may concern. But of what use is it to substitute the way of the reckless and bloodyminded for the way of the cautious and humane? Is England any the better for the wreck of Clerkenwell prison, or Ireland for the disestablishment of the Irish Church? Is there the smallest reason to suppose that the nation which sheepishly let Charles and Laud and Strafford coerce it, gained anything because it afterwards, still more sheepishly, let a few strongminded Puritans, inflamed by the masterpieces of Jewish revolutionary literature, cut off the heads of the three? Suppose the Gunpowder plot had succeeded, and set a Fawkes dynasty permanently on the throne, would it have made any difference to the present state of the nation? The guillotine was used in France up to the limit of human endurance, both on Girondins and Jacobins. Fouquier Tinville followed Marie Antoinette to the scaffold; and Marie Antoinette might have asked the crowd, just as pointedly as Fouquier did, whether their bread would be any cheaper when her head was off. And what came of it all? The Imperial France of the Rougon Macquart family, and the Republican France of the Panama scandal and the Dreyfus case. Was the difference worth the guillotining of all those unlucky ladies and gentlemen, useless and mischievous as many of them were? Would any sane man guillotine a mouse to bring about such a result? Turn to Republican America. America has no Star Chamber, and no feudal barons. But it has Trusts; and it has millionaires whose factories, fenced in by live electric wires and defended by Pinkerton retainers with magazine rifles, would have made a Radical of Reginald Front de Boeuf. Would Washington or Franklin have lifted a finger in the cause of American Independence if they had foreseen its reality?  

  No: what Cæsar, Cromwell, Napoleon could not do with all the physical force and moral prestige of the State in their hands, cannot be done by enthusiastic criminals and lunatics. Even the Jews, who, from Moses to Marx and Lassalle, have inspired all the revolutions, have had to confess that, after all, the dog will return to his vomit and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire; and we may as well make up our minds that Man will return to his idols and his cupidities, in spite of "movements" and all revolutions, until his nature is changed. Until then, his early successes in building commercial civilizations (and such civilizations, Good Heavens!) are but preliminaries to the inevitable later stage, now threatening us, in which the passions which built the civilization become fatal instead of productive, just as the same qualities which make the lion king in the forest ensure his destruction when he enters a city. Nothing can save society then except the clear head and the wide purpose: war and competition, potent instruments of selection and evolution in one epoch, become ruinous instruments of degeneration in the next. In the breeding of animals and plants, varieties which have arisen by selection through many generations relapse precipitously into the wild type in a generation or two when selection ceases; and in the same way a civilization in which lusty pugnacity and greed have ceased to act as selective agents and have begun to obstruct and destroy, rushes downwards and backwards with a suddenness that enables an observer to see with consternation the upward steps of many centuries retraced in a single lifetime. This has often occurred even within the period covered by history; and in every instance the turning point has been reached long before the attainment, or even the general advocacy on paper, of the levelling-up of the mass to the highest point attainable by the best nourished and cultivated normal individuals.  

  We must therefore frankly give up the notion that Man as he exists is capable of net progress. There will always be an illusion of progress, because wherever we are conscious of an evil we remedy it, and therefore always seem to ourselves to be progressing, forgetting that most of the evils we see are the effects, finally become acute, of long-unnoticed retrogressions; that our compromising remedies seldom fully recover the lost ground; above all, that on the lines along which we are degenerating, good has become evil in our eyes, and is being undone in the name of progress precisely as evil is undone and replaced by good on the lines along which we are evolving. This is indeed the Illusion of Illusions; for it gives us infallible and appalling assurance that if our political ruin is to come, it will be effected by ardent reformers and supported by enthusiastic patriots as a series of necessary steps in our progress. Let the Reformer, the Progressive, the Meliorist then reconsider himself and his eternal ifs and ans which never become pots and pans. Whilst Man remains what he is, there can be no progress beyond the point already attained and fallen headlong from at every attempt at civilization; and since even that point is but a pinnacle to which a few people cling in giddy terror above an abyss of squalor, mere progress should no longer charm us.

Taken from the Revolutionist's Handbook.

http://www.bartleby.com/157/5.html

[DarthPaul]

the most dominant religions we have today are NOT based on the improvement and/or development of mankind, they teach us to chastise ourselves and limit our thoughts with false answers that may not be questioned, they are not humanist at all, remember original sin? where we are still supposed to be paying for something we aren't responsible for?

These are the religious traits I hate most. If there is a benevolent god then why would he want to hold us back?

[Archael]

the possibility for loopholes and corruption is possible in anything you could come up with, I think

but at least it's better than what we have now, which is horrible (even through something as small as misinterpretation of holy texts) even before you get into corruption