Posted on 01/24/2015 10:14:41 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Some of humanity’s technological innovations are things we would have been better off without: the medieval rack, the atomic bomb and powdered lead potions come to mind. Religions tend to invent ideas or concepts rather than technologies, but like every other creative human enterprise, they produce some really bad ones along with the good.
I’ve previously highlighted some of humanity’s best moral and spiritual concepts, our shared moral core. Here, by way of contrast, are some of the worst. These twelve dubious concepts promote conflict, cruelty, suffering and death rather than love and peace. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, they belong in the dustbin of history just as soon as we can get them there.
1. Chosen People –The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept. The New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones. Calvinists talk about “God’s elect,” believing that they themselves are the special few who were chosen before the beginning of time. Jehovah’s witnesses believe that 144,000 souls will get a special place in the afterlife. In many cultures certain privileged and powerful bloodlines were thought to be descended directly from gods (in contrast to everyone else).
Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer. “Gang symbols” like special haircuts, attire, hand signals and jargon differentiate insiders from outsiders and subtly (or not so subtly) convey to both that insiders are inherently superior.
2. Heretics
Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders,
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Valerie needs to be careful of Karma coming to get her.
The 12 worst ideas Liberals have unleashed on the world:
1. We don’t need God.
2. We don’t need males.
3. We don’t need traditional marriages.
4. Gender is fluid.
5. Children don’t need daddies.
6. Citizens don’t need protection against the state.
7. All cultures are equal.
8. Truth is relative.
9. In utero life is expendable.
10. Sex is unrelated to procreation.
11. The government is here to protect you.
12. Obama’s got our back.
Those who can’t do, teach, and those who can’t teach, teach gym.
Salon should maybe teach gym.
Curiously, most of her “12 worst things” have direct analogs in atheism, where they tend to be worse....
Somewhere in there there fudge packing should be addressed..............then again there is #12. Yes I take my objection back, #12 surely addresses Lord Foul screwing us all in the derriere.
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Those who can’t teach gym write for Salon.
So that no one else needs to go to their site and give it any more hits than it deserves, here is the list. The comments following each item are simply liberal, atheist, God hating talking points. (Think Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins)
1) Chosen People
2) Heretics
3) Holy War
4) Blasphemy
5) Glorified Suffering
6) Genital Mutilation
7) Blood Sacrifice
8) Hell
9) Karma
10)Eternal Life
11)Male Ownership of Female Fertility
12)Bibliolatry (aka Book Worship)
Only parts she really gets wrong are:
Chosen People, as relates to Jews.
Karma. She’s a bitch.
Eternal Life. It’s not for everyone and you have to choose to become a renewed, redeemed and changed spirit.
Other than that, she’s right about everything else and going to hell. /S
1) flying planes into buildings
2) beheadings
3) stonings of rape victims
4) child suicide bombers
Yep, those are four of my worst ideas [a] religion has unleashed on the world.
Karma is simply an extension of the Golden Rule, which is found in most cultures and predates Christ. That's the way the universe works; if you treat people badly, you're likely to get bad treatment in return.
Eternal life isn't necessarily a religious idea, and may be reality in a few hundred years.
How about the one single idea that religion has given the world that not only made it better, but in all probability resulted in civilization itself: namely the notion that our lives are transient and that there’s something that outweighs and outlives us all?
I spent fifteen minutes on Salon, and was startled at the pimple-squeezing adolescent narcissism central to almost every article.
Hell, it was only fifteen minutes; I won’t complain - some folks live there...
Blood sacrifice is not a ‘human trait’ - but rather one originally established by God. For God Himself sacrificed animals to clothe the First Pair who were naked with skins and ‘cover’ the shame of their sin.
While God did not delight in the blood of bulls and goats, they were required as a physical lesson of a greater spiritual truth - that sin brings death and suffering. And a sacrifice was required to atone for such sin.
Without the Blood Sacrifice of Christ - there is no redemption for sin, which earns us all - eternal death.
Amazing fluid of life!
Iron rich fluid moving thru living bodies, and earth's magnetic field.
More than just EM wave generation! The coupling of Life, space-time, matter-mass, and magnetic force, not to mention our Redemption!
He IS the most awesome God!
Your list is excellent! (I needed a shower just from reading her list.)
She’s still going to hell. /S
Weirdest thing last night.
I was getting my haircut from a gal that could be Ms. Thailand.
She’s been cutting my hair for 10 years and she asks me about God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Now, I know her to be a Buddhist but, I explained it all and quite well, I think.
Don’t know what the effect is or will be but, that was kind of kewel to be asked that and I was impressed to explain it in plain English that was compelling, I think.
The essay makes good points, but atheism has killed far more innocent people than were killed in every religious war in history combined. If we only count Marxism, and ignore Nazism, atheists killed 70 or 80 million people, as a conservative estimate. (Conservatives say it was 100 million, but that's probably an exaggeration.) And yes, death by starvation is still death, so the famines that Mao and Stalin were responsible for can be considered murder.
As for the glorification of suffering, 21st century "progressives" are just as guilty. Look no further than their unconcealed wish that people in the developing world continue to live in picturesque poverty. Look at how they would prefer that people are malnourished or vitamin deficient than use the greatest sin of science - the GM crop. Here the "progressives" ignore the indisputable fact that humans have been genetically modifying organisms for 10 thousand years and that there is absolutely no scientific debate about today's GM crops. But progressives glorify the suffering of picturesque poverty and malnourishment.
Every human failing raised by this writer which she attributes to religion can just as easily be applied to the institutionalized atheism of the 20th century. This seems to be something that lies deep within the human psyche and has only been overcome on a few occasions such as in the United States with its practice of religious tolerance.
Let me guess... none of these were blamed on Muslims?
#6 - She used jewish circumcision as her example?
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