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Intrinsic29

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#1 Intrinsic29
Member since 2013 • 35 Posts

And the point sails over yet another person's head.

worlock77

Nothing sailed over anybody's head. You made an incorrect implication in your post and people corrected you. It may have just been a semantic slip but you still made it. People are fully capable of acknowledging one point in your post and criticizing another, believe it or not.

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Intrinsic29

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#2 Intrinsic29
Member since 2013 • 35 Posts

The quote is in reference to sex-selection abortion (in most cases meaning that a fetus is aborted because she is female). I was using this quote to point out that Jains do practice some violent acts, even in ways that are somewhat widespread (widespread enough anyway, to produce the lopsided birth ratios mentioned in Luce's book).

whipassmt

That's cool. While I don't really consider abortion (especially early term abortion) a violent act, it's kind of moot because I never claimed that they don't commit any violent acts. They also believe that self defense is or can be morally defensible as well. What I claimed is that they are predictably less violent than Zen Buddhists or more specifically, that it's not reasonable to presume that all religions lead to the exact same degrees and consistencies of violence as each other. Jainism has a very specific doctrine for non violence and we see that doctrine distinctly reflected in the actions of the majority of Jains.

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Intrinsic29

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#3 Intrinsic29
Member since 2013 • 35 Posts

"Orthodox Jains can be recognized instantly by the white cotton face masks they wear to prevent the possibility of accidentally swallowing an insect. In 2001 there were 878 Jain daughters to every 1000 Jain sons, according to Singh. By 2003 the ration had fallend to 848. 'Just imagine, these people have a religion that says you cannot even harm a fly or a microbe, and yet they are killing off about 15 percent of their daughters,' he said. 'How to explain this?'". (Edward Luce In Spite of the Gods The Rise of Modern India, p. 311).

whipassmt

I'm not sure what your point is or how it relates to my argument. Could you be more specific?

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Intrinsic29

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#4 Intrinsic29
Member since 2013 • 35 Posts

Zen Buddhism produced Japan's samurai, so yeah, Zen Buddhists can be pretty violent (speaking as a Zen Buddhist myself).

worlock77

Yeah that's my point - that Zen Buddhism is simply a more violent religion (or is more likely to animate violence) than Jainism. Do you agree with that? It seems to conflict with the way I interpreted the sentence I bolded in your post ("Buddhists are just as violent as any other group.").

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Intrinsic29

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#5 Intrinsic29
Member since 2013 • 35 Posts

This is a staggering line of shit that people seriously need to stop buying into. Buddhists are just as violent as any other group.

worlock77

While I disagree with his statement, I also disagree with this. I think that people are animated almost wholly by some mix of their values and beliefs and some religious propositions are more likely to animate violence than others. I see no reason to think that all propositions will likely animate the exact same degrees of violence as each other. Do you think that Zen Buddhists are 'just as violent' as Jains, for instance?

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Intrinsic29

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#6 Intrinsic29
Member since 2013 • 35 Posts

Honestly, I know very little about Jains or Jainism. But I think you're interpreting my post rather pedantically. The point is that Buddhists, in spite of pop culture stereotypes, are very capable of violence.

worlock77

It's a very common misconception that all religions are equally harmful, violent, reasonable etc and even if it was just a semantic slip on your part to word it like that, I think it's still worth pointing out that all religions or belief systems are not equal on any of these levels and that how harmful, violent, reasonable, etc they are depends specifically on the doctrines entailed. I'm happy we seem to agree though.

edit: I should also add that other pressures can shape how harmful or violent religions are as well. For instance, Western Christianity has changed quite a bit over the years due to several factors including secular refinement. Not to say Christianity isn't problematic or anything but it has been made somewhat less so over the years than it used to be.

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Intrinsic29

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#7 Intrinsic29
Member since 2013 • 35 Posts

There are a lot of different types of Buddhists and not all of Buddhism is based on being peaceful. Hell, Samurai comes from Buddhism (or at least coexists with it without much issue). Call me when Jains (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism) start murdering innocents if you want to prove that religious propositions don't at least in part animate the actions or world views of people.

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#8 Intrinsic29
Member since 2013 • 35 Posts

Violent people in the US are typically arrested very swiftly, regardless of their religion so no. The violence shows more in areas of the world where it isn't prosecuted or where it is inflicted by the state itself.

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#9 Intrinsic29
Member since 2013 • 35 Posts

It's about love and faith in Christ.

Let me explain. The doctrine of Christ preaches tolerance and love towards your fellow man and your God.

MetalDogGear

The problem for you is that people can both be Atheistic and have tolerance and love toward their fellow man. Neither belief in or love of Jesus are required for these 2 states of being. Also, many non religious people actually go out of their way to expose themselves to as much moral philosophy as possible, including philosophy within religious literature. The difference between a non religious person doing this and a religious person doing this is that the non religious person has absolutely no reason to take on indefensible moral positions and can merely toss them out without any hassle and the religious person has to waste time making excuses for how those indefensible positions exist within their infallible scripture. It's merely and only an unnecessary obstacle that only exists for the faithful.

You can bring up the bad caused by religion, but honestly, it does no good. The Salem witch trials were an honest error in human judgement. If anything you can blame your fellow man for not following Christ appropriately. A true, honest to God (Excuse the pun) Christian would never have condone such horrors. God's plan forsaw the witch trials and he is willing to forgive our sins. He sacrificed his only son on the cross and so people like that can and do atone for their sins. I am a firm believer in once saved always saved.

MetalDogGear

The problem of religion isn't specifically that religious people have done bad things. It's deeper than that. The problem is dogmatism - people's propensity to believe propositions without sufficient objective reason and evidence. It just so happens that religion almost always (especially in the case of Christianity) embraces this propensity. There are better and worse ways to thrive as a species and whether or not our fundamental moral beliefs are true and realistic will have a significant impact on whether or not we act morally.

Now, if the nonbeliever wishes to make a case for the sins caused by Christianity, they may look to their own belief (yes it is a belief). Hitler was an atheist. Stalin as well as Mao adhered to the Atheist belief. To attack religion for this is to castigate yourself for the same crime.

MetalDogGear

No this is ridiculous. Atheism is a lack of belief in deities. The people you list had a multitude of other beliefs that existed above and beyond their lack of belief in deities. Hitler for instance, had many beliefs about other races and the purity of certain types of blood. These regimes were dogmatic and the problem is dogmatism, not religion. Atheism, by itself, is not dogmatic and has no dogmatic beliefs entailed. The only necessary prerequisite is a lack of belief in deities. Atheists can be terrible people or they can be good people or they can be neutral. If it weren't for the semantic fact that 'ist' is only used to refer to people, it would be semantically correct to call a rock an Atheist. It represents a lack of a certain belief and that's it.

And so I make the following argument:

A: If Christianity is responsible for the many crimes of humanity, then it follows that any crime under any belief is also responsible

MetalDogGear

This isn't very coherent. No one claims that Christianity is responsible for 'the many' crimes of humanity. They do claim that Christian literature has animated people to behave certain ways, many of which were immoral, but so have many other types of scripture. Ultimately, though, all of this scripture was written by man so it is man, and man's seemingly innate propensity to belief propositions on insufficient objective evidence and reason that is responsible, not Christianity or religion per se.

B: As Devil's Advocate, it is the case that Christianity is responsible.

MetalDogGear

What?

C: Therefore Atheism is responsible for the same crimes.

D: Atheism is corrupted.

MetalDogGear

I gather that you might be new to this but this isn't how logical arguments work. You have a list of premises there that don't lead to conclusions. I might interpret your 'argument' charitably by assuming that C and D represent conclusions but even then C and D don't follow from your earlier premises and your earlier premises are either absolutely untrue (A) or incoherent (B). C and D seem to be merely unsubstantiated assertions. Atheism is a lack of belief and that's it so if you want to show how it's responsible for the same crimes as certain other beliefs or how it's corrupt, you'll have to actually expose the logical links entailed.

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Intrinsic29

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#10 Intrinsic29
Member since 2013 • 35 Posts
[
it's up to you if you have to work again... if you're irresponsible and blow it all, then you're probably gonna have to work to live.4myAmuzumament
It would be very difficult and uncomfortable, if not impossible, to make 1 million dollars last the rest of my life without working. It would have to be a pretty comfortable existence for me to risk that significant of a probability of death.
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