No, not an online quiz. This is a simple one. This is the test for you to apply to a religion that asks you to kill in the name of its god. Any religion, any god, any type of killing
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Fair enough. It is sometimes (note, Ace, that I say sometimes) the fault of people in the middle, powermongers and politicos, who pervert the name of a god in order to further their own hatreds and petty ambitions. Thing is, people are still individuals when you get right down to it. They are each still responsible for thinking and understanding what's going on before their eyes. If someone says, "our god wants you to kill," individuals ought to question that and say, "wait, the god I serve said not to kill, so what god are you serving, Mr. Pious?" Take away that idea that anyone can put shades on the word of a god, the idea that a god in one place will talk about the sanctity and sacred nature of human life yet turn around and tell you to murder women and children elsewhere in the same book, and you force a goodly number of people to start thinking before they act. Don't get me wrong. The Fundamentalists are still going to kill in the name of serving their god, but get the rest of the world to recognize them for what they are and you've gotten one step closer to a population who won't tolerate their breed of self-serving misery.
"people", in the aggregate, are gullible and lazy. they'd rather believe what they're told, no matter how obviously illogical and stupid it is, than think for themselves. (paraphrasing here) "one percent of the people think; five percent think they think; the rest would rather die than think."
obviously, the problem is to undo this mental laziness - to rearrange things so that "people-in-the-aggregate are required to think for themselves, rather than just passively accepting what they're told. unfortunately, you can't just tell them to think...
Independent thinking is not something often encouraged by the church in general (see Galileo) and the trend for the last thousand years or so is to take ignorant, illiterate, and superstitious folk and brainwash them from birth to abide by the teachings the "divine leaders" want spread. To engrave this behavior into a race for power is abysmally bigoted and distressingly real....look around. The evidence is overwhelming. It is only in the last twenty years, with the advent of logical thinking and widespread education, that the church as a whole has noticed a weakening of thier power base. Amazing what being taught that you can and should think for yourself can do.
Exactly. Now the only quibble I have with this new Enlightenment is that the religious zealots aren't going to give up without a fight... and they're willing to not only die for their cause but to take the rest of us with them in the process. We've got to not only defuse that ticking time bomb, but also secure the world against their madness. Put people who won't allow their nonsense to hurt others into positions of capability.
Thing is, people are still individuals when you get right down to it. They are each still responsible for thinking and understanding what's going on before their eyes. If someone says, "our god wants you to kill," individuals ought to question that and say, "wait, the god I serve said not to kill, so what god are you serving, Mr. Pious?"
Take away that idea that anyone can put shades on the word of a god, the idea that a god in one place will talk about the sanctity and sacred nature of human life yet turn around and tell you to murder women and children elsewhere in the same book, and you force a goodly number of people to start thinking before they act.
Don't get me wrong. The Fundamentalists are still going to kill in the name of serving their god, but get the rest of the world to recognize them for what they are and you've gotten one step closer to a population who won't tolerate their breed of self-serving misery.
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obviously, the problem is to undo this mental laziness - to rearrange things so that "people-in-the-aggregate are required to think for themselves, rather than just passively accepting what they're told. unfortunately, you can't just tell them to think...
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