“Religion, while the base of our culture, may be the downfall of our civilization.”
Anon.
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Agreed R j. Non-religious organizations like pro-sports, old companies and their brands, Hollywood, and the variety of news outlets all play a significant role in forming the culture in the US.
I think for most of the self professed faithful religion is but a sliver in their lives nor a basis. The Priest’s joke about the flock claiming to be on the team, but not showing up for practice, speaks to this.
More and more I think we see a general decline in the religiousity of the great body of people and the outrageous floundering of the wild eyed and sociopathic fundamentalist in its true light.
The nit-wit Rick Perry likely has shot himself in the foot with his simple minded comments about Creationism and Evolution. I don’t think the great body of ordinary religious people are ready to have Creationism supplant Evolutiion in the biology classroom (Save for some morons in the few most poorly educated states in the country).
And it has to be this way. As peoples become more capable of militant actions, more destructive than ever before, divisive religious factions are the seedbed of the end times. Not in the religious sense, but in the sense that we can end human life on Earth. That were Jesus to return, no one will be here to greet him.
Significant disagreement with the quote. Religion is not the base of our culture. The religious love to claim it is. If anything, it has been an anchor on our culture, retarding our understandings and investigations into the natural world wherever and whenever it could get away with it and then morphing into something new when it couldn’t.
Cap’n I think you av something thar matey! Anchor is about as fair a metaphor as I’ve heard.
I don’t know if anyone has been watching the Ken Burns Prohibition documentary on PBS this week but it shows explicitly the ilogical drag religion is on human existence.
Not that I’m advocating boozing, its a nuerotoxin that damages the brain, but prohibition for religious reason makes no sense on any level. Studies have shown that a few drinks daily can help prevent heart related illness.
Why is religion always so absolutist? So all or nothing? Wait a minute, isn’t that a bit like how religionistas act in the political sphere?
Cap’n you have put your finger on the absolutist anchor in American culture.
Pot on the other hand is a vasodialator that has particular benefit to people with high blood pressure, glaucoma, and other maladies where relaxing the walls of blood vessels would come in handy. It also elevates mood, eases tension and stress, and stimulates appetitie making it helpful for people with cancer, aids, and depression.
Interesting in that science tells us to moderate the intake of these helpful substances while religion tells us to outlaw them.
Sin(bad) – The Prohibition documentary is great but misses a part of the story. For the really really ugly side of prohibition, try reading The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum, a good part of which deals with the poison concoctions people drank (or were tricked into drinking by our government) during prohibition.
Smoked pot in H.S. and have no problem whatsoever with those that do. Studies are pretty clear that the societal cost of pot are way lower than for alcohol but since our puritanical society is fixated on criminalizing and punishing other peoples choices, we’re left with an un-winnable and misguided war on drugs with enormous social costs.
Yeah R j when I think of the cost of prosecuting unjust drug laws it turns my stomach. Pot is the number one cash crop of the nation and the second largest industry. All attempts to discourage this have failed by any reaasonable measure. It is “high” time, if you will pardon the pun, to legalize, tax, and move onto real problems.
Cap’n I’ll find the Blum book and give it a read. Here is the link for anyone else interested http://amzn.com/B004Z8LM3M
October 5th, 2011 at 3:01
i am not at all sure religion deserves to be
called the base of our culture. there are other components
easily equal in weight, and far and away more
truthful.
October 5th, 2011 at 8:24
Absolutely, R J.
October 5th, 2011 at 13:29
Agreed R j. Non-religious organizations like pro-sports, old companies and their brands, Hollywood, and the variety of news outlets all play a significant role in forming the culture in the US.
I think for most of the self professed faithful religion is but a sliver in their lives nor a basis. The Priest’s joke about the flock claiming to be on the team, but not showing up for practice, speaks to this.
More and more I think we see a general decline in the religiousity of the great body of people and the outrageous floundering of the wild eyed and sociopathic fundamentalist in its true light.
The nit-wit Rick Perry likely has shot himself in the foot with his simple minded comments about Creationism and Evolution. I don’t think the great body of ordinary religious people are ready to have Creationism supplant Evolutiion in the biology classroom (Save for some morons in the few most poorly educated states in the country).
And it has to be this way. As peoples become more capable of militant actions, more destructive than ever before, divisive religious factions are the seedbed of the end times. Not in the religious sense, but in the sense that we can end human life on Earth. That were Jesus to return, no one will be here to greet him.
October 5th, 2011 at 16:24
Significant disagreement with the quote. Religion is not the base of our culture. The religious love to claim it is. If anything, it has been an anchor on our culture, retarding our understandings and investigations into the natural world wherever and whenever it could get away with it and then morphing into something new when it couldn’t.
October 5th, 2011 at 18:01
Cap’n I think you av something thar matey! Anchor is about as fair a metaphor as I’ve heard.
I don’t know if anyone has been watching the Ken Burns Prohibition documentary on PBS this week but it shows explicitly the ilogical drag religion is on human existence.
Not that I’m advocating boozing, its a nuerotoxin that damages the brain, but prohibition for religious reason makes no sense on any level. Studies have shown that a few drinks daily can help prevent heart related illness.
Why is religion always so absolutist? So all or nothing? Wait a minute, isn’t that a bit like how religionistas act in the political sphere?
Cap’n you have put your finger on the absolutist anchor in American culture.
Pot on the other hand is a vasodialator that has particular benefit to people with high blood pressure, glaucoma, and other maladies where relaxing the walls of blood vessels would come in handy. It also elevates mood, eases tension and stress, and stimulates appetitie making it helpful for people with cancer, aids, and depression.
Interesting in that science tells us to moderate the intake of these helpful substances while religion tells us to outlaw them.
October 5th, 2011 at 18:53
SIN AT l80l
—————–
i like the whole post….but let me speak to your last para.
i dont care if it’s politicians, or religionistas damning
drugs or alcohol………….they are NEVER going to shut
down the market for this stuff. people LOVE their
booze and drugs. now admittedly, mis-use of these
substances causes problems…………but look at the
numbers. the people mis-using and causing ancillary
problems are a minority…………an expensive and
dangerous minority, but still a minority. drugs and booze
have been with us forever….and they’re GONNA be here
in the future.
you can bitch about them all you like…..and maybe
even declare some of them illegal……but the flow
will go on and on. and frankly, they’re as much a part
of our culture as , say , marriage and divorce.
October 5th, 2011 at 19:35
Sin(bad) – The Prohibition documentary is great but misses a part of the story. For the really really ugly side of prohibition, try reading The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum, a good part of which deals with the poison concoctions people drank (or were tricked into drinking by our government) during prohibition.
Smoked pot in H.S. and have no problem whatsoever with those that do. Studies are pretty clear that the societal cost of pot are way lower than for alcohol but since our puritanical society is fixated on criminalizing and punishing other peoples choices, we’re left with an un-winnable and misguided war on drugs with enormous social costs.
October 5th, 2011 at 20:13
Yeah R j when I think of the cost of prosecuting unjust drug laws it turns my stomach. Pot is the number one cash crop of the nation and the second largest industry. All attempts to discourage this have failed by any reaasonable measure. It is “high” time, if you will pardon the pun, to legalize, tax, and move onto real problems.
Cap’n I’ll find the Blum book and give it a read. Here is the link for anyone else interested http://amzn.com/B004Z8LM3M