Evil's War against Religions

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Fooloso4
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Fooloso4 »

Lark_Truth:
I am not attempting to hide any truth, just to state the facts as I see them.
I am not claiming that my religion is the whole truth and that others are half truths.
So what is the “whole truth”, the truth that is hiding behind half truths?
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Lark_Truth
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Lark_Truth »

I don't know the whole truth, Fooloso4, which is why I am talking with you guys.
If there was a definite truth, then I would have to say it was this: There is a definite evil - whether or not it is the devil Satan is of some debate, though I believe it is him (the scumbag) - in the world today that is divided from the good of the world, and this evil is growing larger and larger. I have heard it described that there is more evil in the world today than there ever was, which is saying a lot. The lines are growing more and more definite, and I hope that I know which side I'm on.
I could say more, but I am concerned that it would make me sound like a bigot.
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Steve3007
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Steve3007 »

Lark_Truth:

Do you have a particular reason for stating that there is more evil in the world today than in the past? Assuming that you equate evil with acts of violence between humans, the evidence seems to suggest that the amount of violence per person is dropping as the decades and centuries go by:

pri.org/stories/2014-09-29/world-actual ... -it-or-not

On average, each person alive today seems to be less likely to suffer violence at the hands of other people than they were in the past.

Do you base your view on such things as news reports from the world's trouble spots?
Fooloso4
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Fooloso4 »

To be hidden can mean what we are not able to see, but it might also mean that there is someone or something deliberately keeping it from view. Given you belief in the “devil Satan” I take it you mean the latter. It may be, however, that it is your own beliefs that are keeping things from your view. You impose your belief about the workings of Satan on what you see and so see the work of Satan. But it may be that there is nothing hidden in this sense, only things we do not know or do not understand.
I have heard it described that there is more evil in the world today than there ever was, which is saying a lot.
Well it says a lot about the person making the statement starting with the fact that he or she is remarkably ignorant of history.

The lines are growing more and more definite, and I hope that I know which side I'm on.

Yes, there is an awful lot of drawing lines and choosing sides today, and that itself is a potential source of evil.

The concept of evil has changed from a description or attribute of something to a force or being or entity. If we look closely what we see is either the work of man or the work of nature, not the work of the devil Satan. A natural event is not evil by intent but because its consequences are harmful to our interests we might call it bad or evil. Human actions, however, can be evil by intent. But given the law of unintended consequences, not every human action that is harmful is harmful by intent. And of course what might be harmful to one’s enemies is said to be good from this side of the line and evil from the other.

A church destroyed by lightning is not war against religion. A racist gunman killing the congregants of a black church is not a war on religion. Wars between Jews, Christians, and Muslims as well as wars between Christian sects or wars between Muslims may be, at least in part, religious wars, but they are not wars against religion, they are wars for religion. There are some atheists who are at war with religion, but it is a war of words and ideas and only evil if one feels that it will do harm to their religion. If what the atheists say is true how can it be evil and if what they say is false how can disclosing what is false and honestly arguing against it be evil? How can conversation between believers and non-believers be evil?
Dark Matter
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Dark Matter »

Belindi wrote:
Dark Matter wrote:Like I said: your sophistry bores me...almost as much as repeating myself.
Academic abilities take time and effort to acquire and you too could acquire 'sophistry' if you made the effort.
And join F4 in his delusions? I asked that he take things together as a whole because that's the nature of religion, but he chooses to dissect segments like a first year biology student dissects a dead frog. He's misrepresented what a philosopher/theologian wrote by taking things out of the context of the whole. He said that what you said poses a challenge to what I said when in fact I've said essentially the thing. More recently, he asked, “Is the “true experience with eternal realities in time” your own experience?” Even that is taken out of context as tho omitted words “it represents,” are critical to understanding what was being said.

That's sophistry, Belindi, idolatry, and it's delusional to think it's the way philosophy pursues truth.
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LuckyR
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by LuckyR »

Steve3007 wrote:Lark_Truth:

Do you have a particular reason for stating that there is more evil in the world today than in the past? Assuming that you equate evil with acts of violence between humans, the evidence seems to suggest that the amount of violence per person is dropping as the decades and centuries go by:

pri.org/stories/2014-09-29/world-actual ... -it-or-not

On average, each person alive today seems to be less likely to suffer violence at the hands of other people than they were in the past.

Do you base your view on such things as news reports from the world's trouble spots?
No doubt the "growth of evil" that LT is referring to is NOT true growth (as you have addressed quite nicely) rather growth in media coverage of evil. Thus the problem with seat-of-the-pants perception as a substitute for actual measurements.
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Belindi
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Belindi »

Dark Matter wrote:
And join F4 in his delusions? I asked that he take things together as a whole because that's the nature of religion,
I'm trying to remember where quite recently I read something of this "taking things together as a whole" as what god is about. It was to the effect that our notions of good and evil are ours and not god's. God is so much larger than us that we cannot see that what hurts us and which we call evil is part of the large scheme of things "together as a whole" . I agree, as one must pretty obviously agree. I think it was The Book of Job.

Taking things together as a whole is easy to accept with reference to god's omnipotence and omniscience. It's not easy to link up god's omnipotence with god's goodness.The nature of religion is usually very much to do with ethics and morality. And I don't think you can do it, Dark Matter. The best link I can suggest between god's omnipotence and god's goodness is that if one reflects upon the large eternal "taking things together as a whole" it helps one not to be quite so discouraged by all the evil in the world.
Dark Matter
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Dark Matter »

It's really quite easy to link up God's omnipotence with God's goodness, and it's been done. But if you want to start yet another thread on the PoE, go ahead.
Belindi
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Belindi »

Can I take it that you know of the Problem of Evil? Must we rehash it?

Dark Matter, if you know of a viable solution to the theists' Problem of Evil, and publish it, you would be rightly famous.
Dark Matter
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Dark Matter »

It was published hundreds of years ago.
Belindi
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Belindi »

Dark Matter wrote of a solution to the theists' problem of evil:
It was published hundreds of years ago.
Please supply a reference of some sort however vague.
Dark Matter
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Dark Matter »

Belindi
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Belindi »

Dark Matter, thanks. I'll read those later.

-- Updated March 26th, 2017, 5:16 am to add the following --

Dark Matter, I scanned the Guardian article and see that it recommends as book by David Hart. I know a little about David Hart's ideas, and I'd probably endorse them. However it's immediately apparent to me that because most people don't read books a more accessible medium should be used by priests.
Dissimulation
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Dissimulation »

If you fail to recognize the dangerous of dogmatic belief and/or the practical social and individual consequences you can at least infer why religious institutions created 'evil' Characters. Anything that contradicts the narrative of the fantasy is called evil, anything that supports it 'divine'. It instills innate guilt and fear. The 'devil' perpetuates the notion of the 'trinity deity' (omniscient, omnipotent & omni-benevolent) by ascribing the genealogy of evil to the devil, all observable acts of 'evil' are not ascribed to the 'trinity deity'. A system of belief, that once accepted as truth can not be disputed in dialectical argumentation, the believer , believing untruth as truth without validation or reasoning fails to recognizes it as a fallacy. unfortunately this mass delusion has and continues to have profound detrimental global and interpersonal consequences. Ironic that in order to recognize this you must already be aware of the fallacy of religion.
Fooloso4
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Re: Evil's War against Religions

Post by Fooloso4 »

Belindi:
However it's immediately apparent to me that because most people don't read books a more accessible medium should be used by priests.
This is ironic because it appears that Dark Matter himself has not read the book but is making claims solely on the basis of the book review.

In the book Hart says he:
… forthrightly and unhesitatingly describes a God who is the infinite fullness of being, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, from whom all things come and upon whom all things depend for every moment of their existence, without whom nothing at all could exist (7).
And:
One might very well conclude, for instance, that the world contains far too much misery for the pious idea of a good, loving, and just God to be taken very seriously, and any alleged creator of the universe in which children suffer and die hardly deserves our devotion.It is an affective - not a strictly logical - position to hold, but it is an intelligible one, with a certain sublime moral purity to it; I myself find it deeply compelling; and it is entirely up to each person to judge whether he or she finds any particular religion’s answer to the “problem of evil” either adequate or credible (16).
So, he does not attempt to avoid the problem of evil by appeal to a remote God to which nothing can be attributed, as DM did in the thread on the problem of evil. Hart’s is a God who knows exactly what is going on, is loving and just, and yet does not intervene to prevent evil. He acknowledges that it is a problem and does not offer a solution, he leaves it up to the individual to decide whether any religion has provided a solution to this problem.
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