You make a good argument, James. I especially like your breakdown of the word "religion", implying that it doesn't necessarily mean the existence of a God. However, I am having trouble with religion, as it is, and knowingly practiced in today's atmosphere which cohabitates with politics. Much of today's religion is, in fact, the “I’m rig…
You make a good argument, James. I especially like your breakdown of the word "religion", implying that it doesn't necessarily mean the existence of a God. However, I am having trouble with religion, as it is, and knowingly practiced in today's atmosphere which cohabitates with politics. Much of today's religion is, in fact, the “I’m right, you’re wrong, and this conversation is over” ideology for which the evangelical right seems to be so fixed. And I'm not talking only about Christianity; religion has always been the dominion of man in how it was to be approached. "God" is seen as a man; Adam was seen as the first human on earth; for centuries, man had dominion over women; and nowhere in history (up until modern times) has woman been given a scintilla of worth of respect. And one should not even get me started on ISIS's brand of Islam, or the Taliban, or even Wahhabism as practiced today in Saudia Arabia. I know a little something about this, my friend, as you may know, I was born in Damascus Syria and lived in the Middle East for the first 10 years of my life. I certainly don't disdain nor disrespect Islam (nor any other religion; it is not my business to evaluate religion) as there are many suras in the Koran that protect women; however, like all other religions, Islam, as also Judaism, and likely all others tend to be interpreted by men for men and can be "evangelized" as ISIS did so readily. OK...I need to stop; I feel myself droning on here. 😅
Your experiences have taught you many things about this than I will never know, but we both know that morality has a small short-term cost compared to its enormous long-term benefit, and immorality has a small short-term benefit compared to its enormous long-term cost. Jesus knew that, so did the prophet Muhammad, and so did the Hebrew prophets.
The point I’ve been trying to make is that if we use the word “religion” to refer to something that is moral, and we use the same word to refer to something that is immoral, then the word has unnecessarily lost its meaning, the loss is to the good guys, and the bad guys won another battle.
I think winning this battle would be easy. I’m trying to suggest to the moral people of the world that we adopt a practice of referring to a moral practice as a religion and referring to an immoral practice as a fundamentalist ideology. The intent of the former is to unite, and the intent of the latter is to divide. But I too need to be careful about droning on.
"I think winning this battle would be easy. I’m trying to suggest to the moral people of the world that we adopt a practice of referring to a moral practice as a religion and referring to an immoral practice as a fundamentalist ideology." This idea of yours...I can definitely work with that.
You make a good argument, James. I especially like your breakdown of the word "religion", implying that it doesn't necessarily mean the existence of a God. However, I am having trouble with religion, as it is, and knowingly practiced in today's atmosphere which cohabitates with politics. Much of today's religion is, in fact, the “I’m right, you’re wrong, and this conversation is over” ideology for which the evangelical right seems to be so fixed. And I'm not talking only about Christianity; religion has always been the dominion of man in how it was to be approached. "God" is seen as a man; Adam was seen as the first human on earth; for centuries, man had dominion over women; and nowhere in history (up until modern times) has woman been given a scintilla of worth of respect. And one should not even get me started on ISIS's brand of Islam, or the Taliban, or even Wahhabism as practiced today in Saudia Arabia. I know a little something about this, my friend, as you may know, I was born in Damascus Syria and lived in the Middle East for the first 10 years of my life. I certainly don't disdain nor disrespect Islam (nor any other religion; it is not my business to evaluate religion) as there are many suras in the Koran that protect women; however, like all other religions, Islam, as also Judaism, and likely all others tend to be interpreted by men for men and can be "evangelized" as ISIS did so readily. OK...I need to stop; I feel myself droning on here. 😅
Your experiences have taught you many things about this than I will never know, but we both know that morality has a small short-term cost compared to its enormous long-term benefit, and immorality has a small short-term benefit compared to its enormous long-term cost. Jesus knew that, so did the prophet Muhammad, and so did the Hebrew prophets.
The point I’ve been trying to make is that if we use the word “religion” to refer to something that is moral, and we use the same word to refer to something that is immoral, then the word has unnecessarily lost its meaning, the loss is to the good guys, and the bad guys won another battle.
I think winning this battle would be easy. I’m trying to suggest to the moral people of the world that we adopt a practice of referring to a moral practice as a religion and referring to an immoral practice as a fundamentalist ideology. The intent of the former is to unite, and the intent of the latter is to divide. But I too need to be careful about droning on.
"I think winning this battle would be easy. I’m trying to suggest to the moral people of the world that we adopt a practice of referring to a moral practice as a religion and referring to an immoral practice as a fundamentalist ideology." This idea of yours...I can definitely work with that.