Pope on gays : "Who am I to judge?"

[The Brain]

So much negative energy in this thread.

[Berkut]

How can you not understand how one could take a set of ideas, remove those ideas that are not dependent on the religious foundation of the set, and evaluate them on their own merits. How can this be anything that is remotely difficult to understand?

Take the Ten Commandments. Some of them are clearly religious in nature and have no real meaning absent the existence of the god (Thou shalt have no other god before me). Some of them are clearly secular, in that they are useful (or not) regardless of whether or not the god in question actually exists (Thou shalt not kill).

What is so difficult about the idea that one can extract singular ideas or concepts from the set?

Because I dont understand how you make the determination as to what is dependant on a religious foundation and what is not when all the ideas were part of the religious belief. 

I just told you how to do that.

Thats why I say you want to have your cake and eat it too when it comes to analyzing whether reigion is a net benefit to society.  You wish to strip out all that any objective observer would view as good to make the case that the rest is bad.

Well, yeah. That is exactly my point.

The parts that are seen as objectively positive, in my experience, also tend to be those parts that are necessarily religious in nature.

Again, lets look at the Ten Commandments as an example. I would argue that they are a overall poor set of moral or ethical guidelines, because they are based on a false premise, namely that god came down and SAID that these were moral and ethical guidelines that we should follow because he said so. This results in very adverse outcomes, because people do things like ignore some of them on the basis that god told them to (Those Hittites were not what he meant when he said we should not kill!) and such.

The response FROM OTHER ATHEISTS is that there is much good there along with the bad, and you cannot simply ignore the good when evaluating it. Fair enough.

But then I note that the parts that us non religious types recognize as "good" tend to be the exact same parts that are not actually dependent on religion at all. Thou shalt not kill is pretty good advice whether god says it or not. So in the case of the parts that ARE good, I do in fact claim that mostly they are good without any need for the religious trappings, so there is no need to claim that the religion itself is "good". It is not Judaism that says that not killing people is good, it is simply good on its own merits.

There are two separate evaluations of specific ideas within the set that makes up a religious ethose:

1. Is it a objectively "good" and valuable idea?
2. Is it a specifically religious idea?

My point is that when you run these evaluations, in my experience it is the case that nearly (if not all) the ideas that fall into category 1 do NOT fall into category 2.

Therefor, yes, I am in fact wanting my cake and eating it too - that is exactly the point. The parts of religious thought that everyone who is NOT religious claim are in fact good ideas are invariably those same parts that aren't all that religious!

So why would we conclude that it is religious thought that is valuable?

[DGuller]

Again, though, how do you enforce the compliance with the good teachings that cannot really be policed by other humans?

[Berkut]

Again, though, how do you enforce the compliance with the good teachings that cannot really be policed by other humans?

That is a good question, with a not simple answer. But I recognize that it is likely the best case for the utility of religion. I am not sure I have the stamina for the discussion though.

[crazy canuck]

So much negative energy in this thread.

I blame the negative aspects of atheism which are easily identifiable as not being consistent with religious teaching. 

[grumbler]

Again, though, how do you enforce the compliance with the good teachings that cannot really be policed by other humans?

According to Confucius, you do it in self-interest; that you are better-served yourself by living a life of virtue than one of vice.

That might not convince everyone, but the argument has been made, and it is pretty widely honored in theory, at least.  It probably has less power in a society that is not shame-based, though.

[DGuller]

Again, though, how do you enforce the compliance with the good teachings that cannot really be policed by other humans?

According to Confucius, you do it in self-interest; that you are better-served yourself by living a life of virtue than one of vice.

That might not convince everyone, but the argument has been made, and it is pretty widely honored in theory, at least.  It probably has less power in a society that is not shame-based, though.

Isn't shame still just a method of policing by humans?  It has to be known by others that you've gone against the morals in order to be ashamed.

[Jacob]

Not really, no.

[grumbler]

Isn't shame still just a method of policing by humans?  It has to be known by others that you've gone against the morals in order to be ashamed.

I think it is actually the fear of discovery that deters in a shame-based society, rather than the post-discovery shaming itself.

I don't disagree with your basic issue, I just noted that there have been some nominally "successful" answers. 

I guess my problem is that a moral system based on the fear of punishment by a highly improbable being isn't of much more value than the fear of discovery and shaming (and shaming the family, as well).  I suppose that, if you can get to them when they are impressionable youths, you can make people believe enough in improbable entities to provide some deterrence even later in life, as in "this god's existence doesn't seem likely to me any more, but maybe I don't want to take the chance."

It's a conundrum.

[Razgovory]

I appreciated the dig he threw in that he has studied it for years unlike you. Fun like Viking's comment about how everyone started acting like hooligans when he'd briefly stepped away from the conversation.

I'm good with it.  The Pope has taught Catholicism for decades, I think we should take his word for it we he says it's the true religion.

[grumbler]

I certainly hope you wrote this with deliberate irony. 

Not really, no.

Actually, I think I prefer it this way. 

[Sheilbh]

Another straw in the wind by Vaticanologists are the new appointments. One with responsibility for the clergy wrote his doctoral thesis on clerical celibacy and a loathed liberal, rejected by Benedict XVI, is apparently on his way back.

Also apparently the Vatican's unblocked the cause for canonisation of Oscar Romero and it could proceed in a year or two

[grumbler]

Well, Romero has the necessary three miracles... even if two of them were just card tricks.

[Sheilbh]

If he's considered a martyr he can go straight to beatification without any miracles

[DGuller]

If he's considered a martyr he can go straight to beatification without any miracles

That's a pretty nice gig.