Comment Re:a game that tells the truth about religion (Score 2, Interesting) 523
Cyberax (705495) posted:
Nope. It's religion. Every religion breeds extremism. So the blame's well placed.
During the Black Plague, the disease was spread by the fleas which rats carried. Back then, people blamed (amongst other things) rats. These days, however, we (correctly) blame the fleas for being the actual carrier. See,
- Not every rat is necessarily a danger
- The rat is not directly carrying the disease
- There are other means of infection besides rats
Where am I going with this? Surprise! This is an analogy for religion/extremism. Religion/rats may be a common carrier of extremism/fleas+plague, but it's not technically correct to blame rats/religion. Congratulations, you think as those you have disdain for (medieval-ers are a subset of religious folk)! Paradox!
If that explanation didn't sway you, try this -
Nope. It's ________ . Every ________ breeds extremism. So the blame's well placed.
Nope. It's politics . Every political alignment breeds extremism. So the blame's well placed.
Nope. It's sports teams. Every sports team breeds extremism. So the blame's well placed.
Nope. It's text editors. Every text editor breeds extremism. So the blame's well placed.
Nope. It's skub . Every jar of skub breeds extremism. So the blame's well placed.
See how easy it is? I'm sorry if that screws with your pre-conceived notions, but the fact is that religion is merely a manifestation of the problem, not the problem itself.
Anonymous Coward posted:
And religion easily provides the most convenient excuse to do so. Prohibitions against killing obviously don't work. Rational arguments are useless against someone who claims that god has spoken to him because he has it on higher authority than anyone else. Religion goes well with the uneducated because it teaches people to take things on faith - once you get people to swallow that, you can pretty much tell them anything.
No other system comes close. Education is the best way for some immunity against religions and quasi-religious cults (see the comment on Stalinism elsewhere). I'm close to defining religion as any system that doesn't put humans first.
Bang, hit the nail on the head. If I hadn't posted here, I'd mod this up (though if I hadn't posted, you wouldn't have replied, so it's self-defeating prophecy). Yes, the largest problem with religion is it's almost tailor-made for exploitation. You could try crafting another system of exploitation, but it would end up being another incarnation of religion (see: Cults of Personality, which operate exactly as exploitative religions do). The mind-boggling irony is that although the vast majority of modern mainstream religions preach peace, they seem to have been twisted into weapons of hate. If I made bets, I'd bet that the promise of peace is the "bait" and the hatred is the "switch". But I digress.