Great reply Java. One thing I will disagree with you on and I'm most likely in the minority on this one in this country. I think it's best people practice their ancestral religion then feeling free. even enouraged to seek the religion of their choosing. It makes things easier and everything lines up that way. It just makes sense and is better for the community and the family as a unit. For example, I would be extremelyt upset if my boy decided he was a muslim. wow...that would really upset me. Anyhow, religions are so intricate and compelling, i don't think people would know the difference (they sure as hell don't know the REAL difference) so I encourage people to practice their family and national religions.

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I'll never Forget. To pull You Closer is to Pull You Down. Ignorence can be an envy. Applaud us as the old American Power goes quietly into the night.

In a way they do. People are socialized into their family/national religions. Eventually they learn from those religions what they like/hate about religion. For most it is simply a matter of reconcile and either rationalization or compromise. For others there is the little step into another sect of the same religion.
But some either feel something is missing so much or feel so disgusted by their socialized religion that they seek another. Others are overcome by the beauty of another religion once exposed to it.
So while from some point of view, all religions are similar enough as to make you wonder why someone would go for something different... they do have subtle differences. But more likely there are differences in the person's impressions of them. Usually if your experiences with the family religion are negative, you'll be more likely to see the positivity in another or in no religion at all. People generally have a very idealized idea of the religion they settle upon. That's why I tend to be one who never really settles on a religion... which I suppose is kind of my family religion...

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

"People generally have a very idealized idea of the religion they settle upon"

i hope you dont mind me correcting you. your sentence probably should have read like this-

"generally, people have a very idealized idea of the religion they settle upon"

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And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.

And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.

''There are not bud religions,things or what ever.There are bud people who use them wrong''

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O ΚΑΙΡΟC ΓΑΡ ΕΓΓΥC+

"Without religion, good people will do good thing and bad people will do bad things. For good people to do bad things, that takes religion."
--forget who said that

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"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." --June 4, 2003
Take a wild guess as to who this is by...

What about natural morality that evolved with us as a species? There is a new book out by Marc Hauser called "Moral Minds," its good stuff.

let me allow an example to try and highlight how this works.

Situation 1:

There is a runaway train going down the tracks and will hit 5 hikers who are in the way. The engineer has the choice to flick a switch and change to a side track, but there is 1 person there who will die. Should he/she make the switch?

Situation 2:

Same thing except this time there is no siding. The engineer has no way to stop the train. You and another person are watching this unfold. You can stop the train by pushing the person next to you in front of the train (they will die). Should you?

most people say yes in #1 and no in #2. I submit that most everyone who read that made a decision almost instantly and without regard to legal or religious laws. There are reasons behind these judgments but they are mostly rationalizations of a preconceived notion of morality.

Clearly moral values differ widely in different places, times, and people. But there are some basic principles that hold across these. The above example was posited to people of all cultures, ages, religions etc and almost everyone agreed.

If you are interested, in this particular situation it is because people have a preprogrammed moral inclination to see people as ends unto themselves, not means to an end. #1 is basic math, kill 1 to save 5; you would throw the switch whether or not that other person was on the side track (his being there is chance).

In #2, you are USING someone to save others. The math is the same, but the logic is not. We instantly recoil at the idea that others ought to be used for other purposes. (if this doesn't convince you then think about whether or not you would take a perfectly healthy person off the street in order to harvest his organs to save five people in the ICU)

There are ways to rationalize both of these decisions based on law or religion. (IE "its illegal to kill people" or "god says you should not murder")

Not that these rationalizations are wrong, but its that they come AFTER the decision has already been made.


For what its worth, this is exactly why the whole "religion makes you moral" argument is crap. We have a natural grammar for morality. Religion and law are two languages for writing out that grammar. (IMHO law does it much better; due process wasn't something they were big on in 200-1700 A.D.)

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"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." --June 4, 2003
Take a wild guess as to who this is by...

thats a bob marley song...ole

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And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.

And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.

No its actually a quote by Steven Weinberg, a physicist i think. I had to look it up after my post to remember. I may also be a Bob Marley song.

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"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." --June 4, 2003
Take a wild guess as to who this is by...

It's Weinberg's.

Here's a few more:

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."
Napoleon Bonaparte

Quote Time!

1) "I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies." Thomas Jefferson

2) "Religious creeds encourage some of the craziest kinds of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and favor severe manifestations of neurosis, borderline personality states, and sometimes even psychosis." Albert Ellis

3) "There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages."
Ruth Hurmence Green

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"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." --June 4, 2003
Take a wild guess as to who this is by...