The religion(s) of peace

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I am taking the Philosophy of Religion this fall - I will watch for such discussion and report back.

Yes, I was referring to you, sorry if it wasn't clear.

Wow, that's especially terrible then. I always figured that the UK gets away with state religion because "nobody really takes it seriously". The same way it gets away with royalty. But apparently there really are people who take it seriously, and they are in positions of power...

There are some unpopular vestiges of law that require schools to hold some sort of religion centred assembly each day. The general public and kids (and many teachers) find the requirement disagreeable today. I gather something based on this still exists but it isn't as dogmatic as it was in my day and includes other religions. Also kids don't get beaten for not participating, but I don't know if other sanctions exist.

One of my relatives is a headmaster and he finds the legal requirement an unpopular farce. It is unlikely to get changed any time soon in law because the House of Lords and various bishops would be strongly against it due to the UK being notionally a Christian country.

The school headmaster at my school was a former naval commander and he ran the school almost like the kids were squaddies under his command, raw recruits to be drilled and beaten into submission. Discipline was his keyword. He believed all the kids must become God fearing Christians even if he had to thrash it into them. I think he was fairly typical of his era.

I think this forced religion is in part responsible for the big drift towards atheism and agnosticism in the UK. Most kids don't like religion rammed down their throat and by the time most kids (of my generation) left school they were glad to be rid of it. After school the only time the majority of those people go to a church is for traditional weddings and funerals, but those too are in serious decline. Religion is considered largely irrelevant by the majority of people in the UK but they still put "Christian" on the national census forums and think of themselves as being "Christians" despite their total lack of participation in any Christian activities. My father fits this category. To him being a Christian just means he considers himself to be a good person.

TallyMan, I am trying to find a more appropriate form for this question but I've been reading your other posts that stimulate my thinking in some consistent ways and I wanted to ask you - do you think things would be any different if the belief system of the majority of the environment that you grew up in matched your current one? Not pushing my own views and a bad experience is a bad experience indeed, just curious if you've thought this over and if so, what you get out if it.

Can you rephrase the question please, I'm not exactly sure what you are asking me.

If you found the surrounding people sharing your beliefs in theory but their behaviour indicating otherwise, would you still keep faithful to your beliefs? Certainly dissatisfaction with your background has helped you get to where you are ideologically (and in other ways) right now, but if an unpleasant individual experience (and those are radically different from person to person) is enough to shift your views in a different direction, what can be said about the objectivity of learning the truth? If we assume that even one belief is truthful, how would one single person's poor experience with people bearing said belief affect its condition of being truthful? What you restate about non-violence (and the man under your name who looks nothing like people I'm used to meeting) reminds me of a book written by a Buddhist that I started reading, expressing an interesting view that he's unenthusiastic about the possibility of the majority being Buddhists, and how he thinks they would fail to match the expectations these views pose before a person. I'd really like to know.

Not sure how clear this is, but I tried to restate the same idea in different ways pretty much.

My current ideological/religious position which is somewhat akin with Zen Buddhism is something I feel I would have arrived at irrespective of my bad experiences with Christianity at school. I was always interested in the nature of reality (from at least the age of 10) and it was at that time I initially had doubts that the Christian god existed. This mirrored itself into my behaviour of not praying aloud during school assembly. That resulted in the beatings and attempts to force Christianity on to me, which I resisted. It wasn't until I left that accursed school that I began asking questions about religion in general (there was no internet in those days and information was more scarce).

Despite my bad experience, I still found out more about Christianity, my objectivity towards the religion itself wasn't diminished. I read the bible and even attended a few different churches and held lots of religious discussions with various Christian groups. I was also a science student at this time too - another avenue for exploring the nature of reality. At was at this time that I effectively rejected Christianity completely. Scientific knowledge about things such as evolution and cosmology were the final nails in the coffin of the Hebraic religions for me. I happened to pick up a book about the teachings of the Buddha one day and it struck me very deeply and it led to research into oriental religions in general. Now aged 52 my inclinations are very much towards science, Zen Buddhism and Hindu Vedanta.

So, if I'm understanding your question correctly; while my initial exposure towards Christianity certainly wasn't positive, it didn't put me off finding out more by myself. The attempts to force it down my throat merely stalled my subsequent research into it and the final complete rejection of Christianity.

I believe children should be encouraged to investigate things for themselves. It is the role of teachers to facilitate this research not to try to force belief systems onto children.

Last edited by TallyMan on 08 Jan 2013, 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't understand things like this at all. Are these people worshipping a loving god or a devil? It's a form of insanity.

The idea that one should force one's beliefs on others is an evil one, IMO. And flies in the face of most religions I'm familiar with, which mostly teach that we are given free will and have to choose a particular path, even those that claim to be the one true church usually also teach that it's a choice. Being beaten into submission, tortured or threatened with death, none of those are choosing. They're just sick.

I also believe that children should choose for themselves. In fact that's how I was raised. My dad grew up in the Bible Belt and I think he saw enough non-choosing as a kid that he had no desire to push a religion of any kind on us.

My best friend went to prison for refusing to fight in a war.

I see, thank you for the elaborate explanation, I am glad I got to learn more of your experience beyond the focus of many of your posts that I have read. Assuming the form of Buddhism you see to be truthful went, as we say, 'mainstream' or you happened (which was something the monk who wrote the book I'm reading contemplated briefly) to live in a part of the world where it is as widespread as Christianity in the West, and you would see the people's numerous mishaps and failures, including rather grievous ones; would you feel embarrassed (or at least discontent) about them falling short? Would you be able to justify their inability to keep it to the values within your belief system? Perhaps you may even have the experience I'm referring to here. I am asking because you tend to put much stress on Christians and other widespread religions failing to match the expectations for them.

It is extremely unlikely that my own religious inclinations (I hate the word "beliefs") would go mainstream. They are way too obscure for most people. To me the Buddha was just a man who stumbled onto something. Others had stumbled onto it too in Hinduism. Human nature wants more than esoteric philosophy though. People seem to want a god to pray to. So in most parts of the world where Buddhism is the main religion, you see people praying to "Lord Buddha" as though he is some sort of god who is overlooking their lives and can help them. This isn't dissimilar to Christians praying to Jesus or their Virgin Mary or Muslims praying to Allah or Hindus praying to Krishna or any of the other raft of gods. The average person isn't interested in the nature of "reality" as I am. They aren't interested in obscure science or deep religious insights. The average person's "reality" is struggling to live, earn money, raise kids, put them through school, pay for health care and so on... this is true in most countries East or West and to these people it gives them comfort to believe in a supernatural being whatever that being is called or whatever mythology surrounds it.

So in short no, I don't have any expectations of others regarding their notional religion; even if they were to adopt "beliefs" similar to my own. We are each on our own path; making the best of what we can. From an intellectual perspective I find it frustrating when people try to preach religious dogma e.g. creationism when evolution is known to be a fact; but even here, does it really matter what others believe? Just because I'm somewhat "intense" regarding these issues and getting to the bottom of "reality" doesn't mean everyone else has to be the same. The thing I'm most passionate about is that children should be encouraged to look for themselves, do their own research and not be indoctrinated by anyone.

Christianity is a religion of peace.

That's a way of thinking I can relate to, I think, though I do often find myself noting "you are not meant to act this way" and what I see possibly makes me react differently depending on where I've been and what I've understood/thought about/forgotten maybe?

About the children though, the uncertainty present in omitting any bringing up of a god or deities would possibly bring forth refreshing new things, like highly refined arts or major scientific breakthroughs, but if I feel we cannot explore the possible dangers together if we can't agree on whether god is a real entity with certain real influence that one can interact with and benefit from (possibly suffer from?) or just an idea (an erroneous one, as you propose) that affects minds only as long as it is mentioned.

Yay! That pretty much sums up my viewpoint as well or better as I could say it myself. Right on TallyMan!

Joseph Campbell once remarked that the job of clergy all over the world is to link the name of their religion to everyday people's prayers for health, wealth, and progeny (pretty much what you say people all over the world are concerned about more than spiritual insights or scientific reality). Once a particular clergy manages to do that in whichever culture, then the money flows into their coffers.

Yes, it's supposed to be all about peace and Christians will want to spread this message around the world. Be at peace with ourselves as well. Peace starts with the inner life.

Yes, a good amount of violence has been meted out in the name of Christianity but the bulk of that is in the past with little interest in reviving it.
To this day and in the foreseeable future it is still quite common in Islamic countries to behead, dismenmber, beat, and whip people in the name of Allah.