What book are you reading?

[Rii]

With all due respect, fuck no.

If your only sense of moral value is through the lens of religion, you are a poor, tiny man indeed.

A great deal of religious folk have difficulty even getting their head around the idea that one can have morality without religion. This isn't because they are "poor, tiny people" but because for them the concepts have been inextricably linked since day one, serving as the conceptual scaffolding upon which everthing else is constructed. Fortunately you can't actually "turn off" religion in someone's brain, but if you could it is probable that most of what passes for moral sensibility would switch off too. Religion is not THE foundation of morality, but for adherents it is certainly a foundation. And nor is it any different in principle from the "lenses" that non-religious folk develop. There is little doubt, for example, that my moral sensibilities and their political expression are in large part a function of the psychological effects of early childhood experiences. Every system has its centre.

[Rii]

Religion's a personal choice. It's between you, the church/temples and your god(s) (as well as the more spiritual ones like Buddhism, it's still personal), not between you and the state. It should always be a personal thing - which the law does allow for the practice of - but it should not be allowed to interfere or influence civil policy.

Yeah, good luck with that. But just to be clear: in those examples I listed earlier of men who were inspired by their religion to oppose injustice, they were wrong to interfere in the civil sphere?

[ColOfNature]

A great deal of religious folk have difficulty even getting their head around the idea that one can have morality without religion. This isn't because they are "poor, tiny people" but because for them the concepts have been inextricably linked since day one, serving as the conceptual scaffolding upon which everthing else is constructed. Fortunately you can't actually "turn off" religion in someone's brain, but if you could it is probable that most of what passes for moral sensibility would switch off too. Religion is not THE foundation of morality, but for adherents it is certainly a foundation. And nor is it any different in principle from the "lenses" that non-religious folk develop. There is little doubt, for example, that my moral sensibilities and their political expression are in large part a function of the psychological effects of early childhood experiences. Every system has its centre.

You can, in fact, "turn off" religion in peoples brains: the process is called "education". And people who give up the faith they were raised in rarely become amoral in the process, since letting go of the myth doesn't mean they need to reject the perfectly sensible injunctions against criminality and other bad behaviour - injunctions also generally enforced by secular authorities.

[Althea]

Yeah, good luck with that. But just to be clear: in those examples I listed earlier of men who were inspired by their religion to oppose injustice, they were wrong to interfere in the civil sphere?

If religion didn't exist then they'd use something else - nationalism, for example. Using a religion as a weapon turns any debate or action into a religious matter rather than a civil one. That is not good.

[Shane]

...that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.

You misunderstand what Gandhi means by religion. He doesn't mean that religion should be sponsored by the political infrastructure but that politics should be based around morality and not be a soulless machine. However retarded Gandhi may have been even he was sensible enough to endorse secularism.

"If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern." -Gandhi

And when it is via one's religion that one is inspired towards "equality and human rights" as in the case of Gandhi or Tolstoy or MLK, or any number of Christians and contemporary social justice movements, or anti-slavery movements in Britain and the United States, or Las Casas in excoriating Spain's conduct in the Americas, or any number of other examples?

See, dude, that's exactly the thing. You can put a spin on anything you want when using religion as an excuse. Do you think that the advocates of slavery use religion to validate their position? Or what about those who use the Bible as reason enough to deny equal rights to people who have sex with those of their own gender?

It's the same thing as your mother using 'Jesus does like it when kids do this' to dissuade you from something.

One can't divorce religion from politics, and nor would one want to.

This is unbelievably stupid.

[verticuous]

The Power of Habit / Charles Duhigg, at the moment.

Fascinating book.

[westyfield]

Concepts in Thermal Physics: Second Edition, by S Blundell and K Blundell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lSzUMBJnc&t=1m4s

[Cryptoshrimp]

I stopped reading Dust of Dreams for a bit because it was way too sad/horrible. Instead, I've been re-reading Dune. Pretty cool.

[DzX]

I've begun to read 'The Farseer Trilogy', written by Robin Hobb. Currently midway through the first novel, 'Assassin's Apprentice' and I'm stunned at just how engaging and well-written the novel is, especially given in about 200 pages there's been next to no action.

[Althea]

I've begun to read 'The Farseer Trilogy', written by Robin Hobb. Currently midway through the first novel, 'Assassin's Apprentice' and I'm stunnedat just how engaging and well-written the novel is, especially given in about 200 pages there's been next to no action.

If you want action, Hobb's Farseer Trilogy is the worst thing you can read. I'd like to say Hobb did a good job, but something about her writing bored me to tears.

[DzX]

If you want action, Hobb's Farseer Trilogy is the worst thing you can read. I'd like to say Hobb did a good job, but something about her writing bored me to tears.

It's not even the lack of action sequences that [if the novel wasn't so engaging] would have bothered me but the lack of anything actually occurring. Action isn't a requirement for a good fantasy series, after all ASOIAF is considered one of the pinnacle series and yet described battles and action sequences are few and far between. Martin, however, regularly introduces new events and drama into the mix [in the first three novels anyway]. Here there's none of that, whole chapters can go by in which we hear lots of description of potentially dramatic events [a sequence in which the narrator lists some petty crimes he committed in a village being one such example] but few are actually described, we're simply told they occurred.

Given I'm still reading the novel [unlike 'The Name of the Wind' it hasn't bored me enough to give up] it's doing something right. If the prose is consistently outstanding throughout the trilogy I'll rejoice.

[Rii]

You can, in fact, "turn off" religion in peoples brains: the process is called "education".

Arrogance that misses the point. But then the arrogance was the point.

If religion didn't exist then they'd use something else - nationalism, for example.

I'm not quite sure how to read this. Are you questioning the sincerity of their belief? The fact is that religion does exist and that folks like Gandhi, Las Casas, Wilberforce, etc. saw themselves and their work in opposing injustice largely in those terms, as any number of individuals and organisations do so to this day. Would you have silenced Martin Luther King so as to maintain a purely secular public sphere?

You misunderstand what Gandhi means by religion.

On the contrary, it is you who misunderstands me. I haven't said a word against secularism.

He doesn't mean that religion should be sponsored by the political infrastructure but that politics should be based around morality and not be a soulless machine.

Which is what I said. But in pressuring folk who're sincere in their belief to deny it at the ballot box and in the public arena, that's what you're asking for: soulless vote-wielding machines*. But fortunately it isn't actually possible. Of course the next obvious step is to deny religious folk the right to vote.

* One suspects they'd find jobs amongst the highest organs of capitalism.

However retarded Gandhi may have been

Charming.

See, dude, that's exactly the thing. You can put a spin on anything you want when using religion as an excuse. Do you think that the advocates of slavery use religion to validate their position? Or what about those who use the Bible as reason enough to deny equal rights to people who have sex with those of their own gender?

You can put any spin you like on an issue using non-theistic 'excuses' too, what of it? Should we ban science from the public sphere because it has been used to justify racism, sexism, eugenics, etc.?

It's the same thing as your mother using 'Jesus does like it when kids do this' to dissuade you from something.

Reflexively espoused dogma and belief in imaginary beings aren't limited to religion. The State is no more real than any creation myth, and it resembles the Church rather more closely and in more aspects than is generally acknowledged.

[DzX]

If you're going to continue this religious debate do you think you could create a new thread?

[ColOfNature]

Arrogance that misses the point. But then the arrogance was the point.

Arrogant I'll grant you, but I don't think I was missing the point at all. It's been shown time and again that as the general level of education in a population rises the level of religiosity falls.

A great deal of religious folk have difficulty even getting their head around the idea that one can have morality without religion.

Which is a failing of the education given to such people. Even the most basic schooling in ethics would disabuse them of the notion that religious morality is the only one possible.

Fortunately you can't actually "turn off" religion in someone's brain, but if you could it is probable that most of what passes for moral sensibility would switch off too.

That's quite a worrying statement. Nalano said "If your only sense of moral value is through the lens of religion, you are a poor, tiny man indeed", and I agree. If taking away a persons religious crutch destroys their sense of moral value I'd say it was never very moral in the first place, it was the fear of retribution. Also they're a terrible person.

edit: yep, straying further off topic with each post, sorry.

[Althea]

A man chooses; a slave obeys

[westyfield]

I for one am shocked that you guys chose to debate religion on the internet, rather than asking me my opinions on the subversive political messages that are rife in Concepts in Thermal Physics: Second Edition.

[Althea]

I for one am shocked that you guys chose to debate religion on the internet, rather than asking me my opinions on the subversive political messages that are rife in Concepts in Thermal Physics: Second Edition.

I bet it's bloody lefty propaganda all about SOCIALISM and COMMUNISM and LIBERALISM and other ridiculous concepts.

[ColOfNature]

The opinons of one who would choose to read such licentious, debauched material are such as should be spurned by all right-thinking people

[Nalano]

This really just seems to be proving my point in the religion thread. Anyway, BACK ON TOPIC:

I'm reading Qiu Xiaolong's latest Shanghai detective novel, Don't Cry, Tai Lake and Sven Beckert's Gilded Age chronology, The Monied Metropolis.

[Kadayi]

With all due respect, fuck no.

If your only sense of moral value is through the lens of religion, you are a poor, tiny man indeed.

I think Rii is referring to what I talked about in the religion thread. How the influence of religion is pervasive on a cultural level. That's not an argument for religion, merely on observation as to how we gotten where we have. The key thing is, we aren't naturally born useful members of society, we are taught/educated by our parents, our families and our societies. There's a laughable level of arrogance that many people have where in they believe themselves divorced from their upbringing and the values of their forebears. Certainly we all possess the capacity it take on board new ideas and values and weave them into our world, but it's foolish to presume we don't absorb those we are exposed to in our formative years. As we move forward as a species we need to look at ways of reinforcing positive cultural values that don't carry with them redundancies.