this has nothing to do with this thread

I can see what your saying but the statues themselves were/are little more than illustrations to aid worship and understanding of the illiterate masses, who were banned from reading.
Latin was reserved for the clergy and its aristocratical patrons.

I don't know any Catholic who worships a statue.

Widespread literacy was only enabled with the advent of printing presses and knowledge of the bible opened up by the likes of Luther who translated it into the spoken tongue of his people.

He was a colourful character who believed that Satan lived in his bowel......he suffered from chronic constipation....Luther that is.......and lambasted and mocked the Devil every time he took a shit successfully.

If Christians were sincere they should drop the Pauline aspects of their faith, who's influence far outwieghed that of actual disciples during the compilation of the new testament as it stands, some three hundred years after the death of Jesus.

By following Saul of Tarkus Christians are putting more faith in his words than that of their professsed saviour, that's the real hypocrisy within Christianity.

That said though one faith/ideology Religious/political is as good as any other, all have rallied for good and bad.

The downfall is those who profess to follow them......people kill and oppress people regardless of which banner they rally...human nature.

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Well, you pretty much do the same thing with science so you can't use that arguement

btw its not about religion vs science, its science vs science

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

human nature is not something absolute why some religions/political ideals are peaceful or non violent while others are extremely violent ?? human nature is not an excuse if you create ideas that mine the darkest parts of humans you will get what comes after it no ? my problem is built political/religious institutions and ideas on other things then pure dogmatism

If people feel they need an ideological crutch to get by thats fine by me...each to their own.

Many scientific discoveries were made in the persuit of God, many socialogical benefits arose as consequence of unifying ideals; be they religious or political , whatever the dogma.

When ideas are taken out of context and people are taught to fear, are oppressed and prompted to panic, the very worst of human nature can become apparent, in both those who manipulate in a controlled and rational manner and those who react irrationally to continual agitation by those manipulators and the social pressures they create.

The common denominator to any outrage in my opinion is the individual, not its belief system.

You are right, 100%, there are no excuses.

Why though remove or raise humanity from the rest of nature, is it intrinsically benevolent?

Even the non-violent protester offering themselves to violent authoritarianism is complicit in the transaction of violence.

Non conformists conforming to non-conformity.

I'm not against it but to me it's fuel to the fire.

If anyone in society is against that societies constructs and are non violent...leave it.

Remove yourself from the cities any non essential technologies acquire land as an individual or collective and farm it.

Cease agitating others and focus on your own community, then when others come to try and take it see where human nature will take you.

That's tribalism practiced for countless millenia.

Humanity is no more sophisticated because of the toys or ideas it has developed to amuse itself than its ancient ancestors.

Thats my take anyway bro, i do enjoy your posts, sharing is definitly one of the better parts of human nature and you have a lot to share.

PEACE!!!!

Individuals are certainly capable of evil . . . But individuals are capable of all sorts of things. Human nature has lots of ways of realizing itself, humans have lots of capacities and options. Which ones reveal themselves depends to a large extent on the institutional structures. If we had institutions which permitted pathological killers free rein, they'd be running the place. The only way to survive would be to let those elements of your nature manifest themselves.

"If we have institutions which make greed the sole property of human beings and encourage pure greed at the expense of other human emotions and commitments, we're going to have a society based on greed, with all that follows. A different society might be organized in such a way that human feelings and emotions of other sorts, say, solidarity, support, sympathy become dominant. Then you'll have different aspects of human nature and personality revealing themselves."

i doubt that the whole Age Of Enlightenment was born in response to the conservative religious authorities and ideals of that time the Age Of Enlightenment practically pulled humanity out of the " dark ages" where religion reigned supreme but of course i don't want to undermine nothing no religion I'm just promoting an open religious debate based upon history and philosophy because religion is taboo now days and it's not up to such debates as political views or even social views

Corperate Rap is a fantastic example of this.

The media for the most part educates our youth not religious bodies and certainly not schools...unless you are schooled by a religious body.....LMAO!!

Surely we don't need Noam Chomsky to highlight to us the reality we witness and experience daily?

The Age of Enlightenment came off of the back of advances and presevation of established sciences by Islamic scholars which without whom may well have not been re-introduced to Europe at all.

Those nations at that time didn't see science as a threat to their established belief and embraced mathematics astronomy and philosophy introducing zero to western maths without which we would not even be communicating now.

The Wahabbist/Salafi crypto Islamic Facists crammed down our throats by the News are a minority in the Islamic world and encouraged since their conception as movements by succesive western powers.

Their Iranian Shi'a counterparts are a minority within Shi'ism and not representitive of the majority of Iranians never mind Shi'ite Muslims.

Ironically at present Iran is the world authority on stem cell research.

Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who was targeted for assasination by the Iranian regiem and the highest living authority in Sh'ia jurisprudence, kept the lid on Iraq by continually emploring his supporters not to engage in any violence against anyone be it against the coalition forces or Sunni insurgents.

That institution saved the lives of millions, Iraqi and western.

In Poland for example John Paul II was tantamount to the dismantling of the oppressive Soviet puppet regiem with its support of the Solidarity movement,granted it (Catholicism) had a vested interest in combating heathen communists..LMAO!..but at the end of the day the people on the ground know and are thankful to those who made it possible.

So can i ask how is it posible to show solidarity, sympathy and support to those who do rely on these institutions and value them, by attacking the institutions they hold dear and Evangelising alternative view points and lifestyles which, whilst many may think are progressive and benificial, are abhorrent and reprehensible to these peoples sensiblities?

Doesn't this lead to a reality whereby people are divided on the basis of ego and a sense of intellectual superiority?

Take it easy bro,

PEACE!!!

dogmatic religious/political institutions can't survive in a morally,religiously , politically , socially relative world as governments must be transparent and not dogmatically fixed the same can be applied to religious institutions in fact to any centers of power it's essential to the survival of the human race we already learned what effects have such fixed religious/political institutions religious intolerance , religious non cooperation sprung from these institutions which don't allow nothing from their dogma to be compromised for the good of whole humanity you can defend these institutions all day but DOGMATISM is not a virtue DOGMATISM is created by these institutions

i don't know if progressive ideas as secular humanism , rationalism , political secularism , moral relativism etc. are ideas which are abhorrent and reprehensible to religious people in fact these ideas give them the freedom to practice their religion of choice if religious institutions would stop attacking them and start recognizing them then this discussion wouldn't take place