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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Too true. Most of the time. individuals are intelligent. Unfortunately, people as a group are usually stupid. Add religion to the mix and the result is usually nasty.
However, for the sake of argument, what if His teachings are NOT to do those things? If such words are the personal interpretations of human followers that are fearful and ignorant of the true result of the damage they are advocating? Or they are aware and power-hungry? Any ideal can be used to create or vilify ideals if the words are interpreted differently.
It is at that point that I pity those caught in between where true innocence and ignorance merge
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
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"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.
it's not the deities in question who demand these things, it's the fallible, venal, power-seeking, human leaders who presume to speak in the name of their deity. Allah didn't want the Twin Towers blown up, but Osama Bin Laden did. Yahweh probably doesn't even want Palestinians machine-gunned, but the Knesset does. and so it goes.
you're perfectly right - if a deity wants someone dead, they ought to be capable of doing it themselves.
The problem with 4) is this: people like Hitler are either supposed to come about in time (as you say "will turn into") and thus has a role to play in deity's plan or else said deity wouldn't allow that birth to go on. I considered adding something like this myself, the "agent of karma" position. You're doing the will of god on earth. Why though does a god need an enforcer? You can't have it both ways; either we're not supposed to kill or we can. This way, it sounds like the famous commandment should have been written, "Thou shalt take on no freelance hits." As you say, the static is awfully likely to be on this end of the line. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, we are told that we are not capable of judging the wheat from the chaff. In other words, we cannot tell who should and should not die; that is a power left to God. If we cannot tell, then why should we be the executioner? An all-powerful deity should be consistent and do that job Himself
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However, for the sake of argument, what if His teachings are NOT to do those things? If such words are the personal interpretations of human followers that are fearful and ignorant of the true result of the damage they are advocating? Or they are aware and power-hungry? Any ideal can be used to create or vilify ideals if the words are interpreted differently.
It is at that point that I pity those caught in between where true innocence and ignorance merge
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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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you're perfectly right - if a deity wants someone dead, they ought to be capable of doing it themselves.
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