[Prometheus The Supremo]

Its pretty amazing how far majority Christian states have come in advancing civil rights in the past 200 years of humanity. Hopefully we can evolve defining societies by their religion, but my hope is that the Islamic world can at least get to some level of legal sanity. It pains to see people's hands get chopped off or people get beheaded in 'friendly' states like Saudi Arabia.

i don't think the freedom came for free in most cases. the church just didn't decide to be good, it lost its authority and physical power so it had to be good. the freedom comes from the will of the people and their ability to stand up to tyranny. when the populace change their views, they also change who they choose to let govern them. if people get beheaded or mutilated in some countries, it could be because either a good chunk of their population supports that sort of thing or is indifferent to it.

as dogmas decrease, rationality increases. the freedoms gained in the past 200 years have not been gained in the name of religion but rather in the name of humanity. they are reality based initiatives.

 

[Brandon716]

My personal opinion is that religion is just a disease like HIV or cancer. Mankind will have to deal with it and hope it doesn't kill us all in the end.

 

[Mongo]

i don't think the freedom came for free in most cases. the church just didn't decide to be good, it lost its authority and physical power so it had to be good.

<snip>

the freedoms gained in the past 200 years have not been gained in the name of religion but rather in the name of humanity. they are reality based initiatives.

Exactly. For the most part, the freedoms we now have, have been obtained in spite of organized religion, not because of it. The churches have objected, kicking and screaming, every step of the way.

Islamic society today is very much like Christian society was 400 years ago (remember the 'witch' burnings -- literally millions of them -- along with often severe oppression of anybody who did not belong to the local version of the Church). The main reason that we are not still in that pit is the rise of a philosophy and political movement which was opposed to the Church's influence and control of the various national and subnational governments.

It is important to recall that many of the founders of the American state were not Christian. They were quite determined that the Constitution they were writing would clearly establish that government and religion were to be entirely separate. It is only fairly recently that religion has started to officially creep back into the U.S. government.

 

[adma]

actually Burlington and Oakville has now become Conservative territory, federally.

I know. But that's still "suburban centrist Democrat" by US standards.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

My personal opinion is that religion is just a disease like HIV or cancer. Mankind will have to deal with it and hope it doesn't kill us all in the end.

they took something so innocent (wondering what happens when we die and wondering why we are here) and they attached a ruthless government to it. exploiting people's hopes of eternal life, bribing them to conform to their system or face eternal suffering.


they don't know there's a god or afterlife for sure, that's why they call it faith but they know for sure that god hates this, loves that, wants you to do this, not that, etc.... and the afterlife consists of this and that but not this and that, etc.

 

[Mongo]

My own opinion: every existing religion is an enormously complex meme system, which has survived to the present day because it has a set of 'hooks' -- such as an afterlife that gives an assurance of personal continuation beyond death, a system of post-death rewards and punishments that strongly influence the believer to adhere to that religion, and so on -- that have evolved over time to resonate with various human mental quirks. Those proto-religions that did not include these hooks failed to survive. The major religions that we see today are the survivors of centuries of brutal Darwinian competition to gain the allegiance of human hosts (or 'worshipers').

It is ironic that members of certain fundamentalist Protestant Christian sects are so opposed to the concept of evolution, since their religions are the result of evolution, over many centuries, acting on earlier meme systems.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

it's passed on from one generation to the next like a chain letter. their main objective is to get you while you're young and don't possess enough knowledge of the real world to refute their claims because they know that once you reach a certain age, they can't get you no more.


PS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfQRUFQde-E

notice how she spreads her belief to her daughter.

edit: i found her youtube profile. she removed that video. pretty scary outlook on life.

 

[Brandon716]

I know. But that's still "suburban centrist Democrat" by US standards.

Many Democrats are fairly far to the right on many issues, but in a two party system where do people go when they have no choices? LOL

 

[Brandon716]

they took something so innocent (wondering what happens when we die and wondering why we are here) and they attached a ruthless government to it. exploiting people's hopes of eternal life, bribing them to conform to their system or face eternal suffering.


they don't know there's a god or afterlife for sure, that's why they call it faith but they know for sure that god hates this, loves that, wants you to do this, not that, etc.... and the afterlife consists of this and that but not this and that, etc.

BTW, when I was 5 years old I was afraid of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T4BnNq5rsY

But these days we're trying to make our 5 year olds afraid of terrorists and nuclear bombs. Welcome back to the 1950's.

 

[King of Kensington]

actually Burlington and Oakville has now become Conservative territory, federally.

By US standards, Harper is practically a Democrat or a "Schwarzenegger Republican."

 

[Brandon716]

By US standards, Harper is practically a Democrat or a "Schwarzenegger Republican."

He's also not that far to the left... Don't kid yourself about his true intentions, his difference is that the nation he governs won't have a right wing agenda, Harper knows this, and he tries to tame himself in order to build a Conservative majority.

The US is the opposite: Republicans run to the right because there is a more conservative nature in the US population, particularly on social issues. Democrats have intentions to do things very different from what they end up doing because they don't have public will to create important initiatives and policies that need to be forged.

I'm already seeing this amazing lack of principle with Obama. Obama has already shaped up his administration to become a centre-right governing body and used the backs of leftist Americans to get there, without a unified left base he never would have had the light of day. But in the end we'll get little to nothing. But I can still be surprised, hopefully.

 

[Brandon716]

BTW, if you want a real visual on how Obama got where he is, here's his claim to fame. He lost the primaries, his real win were mostly caucuses. Here's the original Iowa caucus that launched him to victory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnh-136QqO8

 

[adma]

He's also not that far to the left... Don't kid yourself about his true intentions, his difference is that the nation he governs won't have a right wing agenda, Harper knows this, and he tries to tame himself in order to build a Conservative majority.

In a way, maybe the same can be said about Mitt Romney relative to Massachusetts...

 

[King of Kensington]

He's also not that far to the left... Don't kid yourself about his true intentions, his difference is that the nation he governs won't have a right wing agenda, Harper knows this, and he tries to tame himself in order to build a Conservative majority.

I don't think Schwarzenegger is particularly "left", he is just not nearly as rightwing than the mainstream of the GOP is in the US and the same is true of Harper in power. The fact that Harper was a rightwing ideologue at the National Citizens Coalition, etc. doesn't matter to the voters as much as what he's done since coming to office. Things haven't changed all that much from the Chretien/Martin years, policy-wise.

The very small minority of Canadians who like Sarah Palin and post on Free Dominion probably hate Harper and think he's a total sellout and want to bring back the Reform Party.

 

[W. K. Lis]