Comparisons between religions and cults.

[Mercutio]

Don't get me wrong.(I don't tell me that I said that just because I deny everything that you say.)

I just want to have a clear picture of the experience, and what the conclusion really mean.
And I won't deny that I think that you somehow overextended the conclusion.

Actually, I tend to be very cautious in extrapolating experiments to the real world. You would be shocked (pun, sadly, intended) to see the extent to which Milgram has been used to explain inhumanities. Take a stroll through the literature, and you will (unless you deny everything I say ) quickly come to agree.

They were in an unknow territory, doing a research on punishment, which is by definition, against the persons will. Administrating eletrical shocks that are allegeable safe. Following instructions by an authority figure, pretty confortable with the situation, that assure every time he ask, that the proceding is completely normal and that there is nothing to be worried about.

By this point of view, I don't know why would someone stop?

Remember, the biggest predictor of when people stop was nothing at all to do with personality or profession variables--it was the experimental condition they were in. And yes, they were in unknown territory, and yes, it was against their will. Yes, they were assured that the shocks were safe, but the interviews (and the behavior of the subjects) indicate clearly that they believed they were harming or even killing the "learner". There were, to my knowledge, no subjects who could at all reasonably be considered "comfortable with the situation".

This is where you lost me.
First I don't see what those people did was a monstruosity.

Nor do I--it was human nature. The people who thought it was monsterous were the subjects themselves, and the "experts" who believed and predicted that fewer than 1% of subjects would obey. Perhaps it is an artifact of American culture that this obedience was seen as monstrous.

In fact, the number of people that stoped show that a considerable number of people (30%+-) don't tolerate even the remote possibility of harming someone.

The vast majority of those who stopped stopped after 300 volts, well after the "learner" was already screaming. So not tolerating "even the remote possibility of harming someone" is too charitable a description.

Oh...and there were other variations on the experiment. One required subjects to physically force the <s>victim's</s> learner's hand down onto a grounding plate so that he could be shocked. My book is at the office, but from memory...between 10 and 20 percent still went to 450 volts (by this time the learner was apparently unconscious (at best). There were many different variations on the experiment...I really cannot recommend strongly enough that you find and read the book if you at all in doubt. And find and watch the movie. The interest you have shown on this thread alone merits that.

Others may give the benefit of the doubt to the authority, but clearly unconfortable with the possibility of harming someone.
Sorry but that says nothing about turning someone into a moster.

How is that for a turnaround?

In his book "Obedience to Authority", Milgram makes an explicit connection to the Mai Lai Massacre; his research was originally inspired by the actions of the Nazis who followed orders to kill millions. Perhaps you do not call these examples of "monstrous" behavior, but I find it hard to find fault with one who does. If we reserve "monstrous" for situations in which we actually grow horns and breathe fire, it is not nearly so useful a word.

 

[Atlas]

You make a lousy atheist. Lost your handbook?

In a non-immaterialist sense, "Transformative, Transcendent and Mystical". ROTFL. In fact, ROTFLMGDFAO!

Ok, ok,

I didn't say I was a good atheist.

I'm still trying to pin my own self down. I've toyed with the label "Experiential Deist". But it's misleading.

I used to be Christian. I kinda fell in love with Zen. I've had many wonderful "spiritual" experiences. But when I review them, they are not proof of the God or the One. They are my feelings and experiences.

So I don't rule anything out. I lean toward atheism, well, skepticism really. I completely believe in Objective Reality as well as my subjective apprehension of it. I spoke in a previous post about my concept of the Ideal. I could be an Objective Idealist if you hadn't ruined it for me.

Plus I love words and the concepts associated with them... What am I gonna do?

Anyway, I take the Middle Way. I love these boards because they immerse me in a such a world of opposites - my path has never been so clear.

I'm just half a watt short of enlightenment. Or so I tell myself.

So pick yourself up off the floor and stop laughing at me.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

I think you have it backwards. Nihilism breeds atheism. No one who's read the Library of Babel could believe in the divine, even if they still needed it.

 

[Atlas]

Re: Re: Comparisons between religions and cults.

I think you have it backwards. Nihilism breeds atheism.

Wow Wrath, I'm trying to wrap my mind around that. Atheism seems small in comparison. Just a little expression of disbelief in a Being that no one can prove exist. Sorta like a gateway drug to the bleakness of nothingness.

I got the feeling from religionists that if you didn't believe in God (Atheism) that you had nothing to believe in and no morality, almost that you lived to repudiate all things good. (Nihilism)

You must be referring to political Nihilism; reason based materialism bent on the destruction of social institutions and all forms of authority - including the Church and God. I guess thats how you meant it. In that regard, it was kind of a terror cult. I didn't have that meaning in mind though.

I have thought about Islamic Fundamentalism in this regard. Anyone who straps a Bomb belt on is, to me, a nihilist. And I think it's a cultish offshoot of Islam. But it maintains a spiritual backdrop paying lip service to Allah and the holiness of murder for Allah's spokesmen. So it's not Nihilism and doesn't seem to lead to atheism.

I sorta liked Mycroft's distinction between religion and cult. It seems to describe the distinction we should make between Radical Islamists and mainstream Muslims. Though Mycroft was directing us toward the Jedi Knight discussion, I immediately thought it relevant to the Islamic world we face.

A religion supports society and encourages participation. By performing rituals that affirm life event (marriage, funerals, baptisms, etc) and by passing on customs and rituals, they encourage family unity. By promoting charitable acts and civic participation they reinforce the community. Religions also encourage their members to be law abiding.

Cults, on the other hand, encourage isolation from the larger group. Cult members may be asked or pressured to sever ties with family members who are not believers. No emphasis is placed on charitable works or civic participation because the greater society is seen as something they must be removed from, and of course religious rules are placed above secular law.

 

[hammegk]

... I've had many wonderful "spiritual" experiences. But when I review them, they are not proof of the God or the One. They are my feelings and experiences.

You seem to have concluded they exist, anyway.

...I could be an Objective Idealist if you hadn't ruined it for me.

Ummm. I suggest it wasn't me.



BTW, I'd say nihilism is atheism (in a Brahman/Atman sense).

 

[Atlas]

You seem to have concluded they exist, anyway.

Thoughts and feelings are hard to deny. You have them or you don't. My problem was that although I felt the "touch of God", it was because that is what I'd called it since my true believer, altar boy days. I got to joking about it, "What if it's just gas?" And I realized that it could be a phenomenal state like "yearning" that is surely a beautiful rose in me, but going by this special name. I asked if I could attain the state under another name than "God" and I found I can do it with my concept of the "Ideal".

Ummm. I suggest it wasn't me.

Maybe in a purely objective reality... But subjectively, I blame you.

BTW, I'd say nihilism is atheism (in a Brahman/Atman sense).

I agree that nihilist can hardly be anything but an atheist. But when you state it like this, twisting Hindu into a kind of Zen koan... I know you exist to torment me.

Is Truth only to be found in the irrational?

 

[LuxFerum]

Remember, the biggest predictor of when people stop was nothing at all to do with personality or profession variables--it was the experimental condition they were in. And yes, they were in unknown territory, and yes, it was against their will. Yes, they were assured that the shocks were safe, but the interviews (and the behavior of the subjects) indicate clearly that they believed they were harming or even killing the "learner". There were, to my knowledge, no subjects who could at all reasonably be considered "comfortable with the situation".

I was talking about the authority figure, he was the one confortable with the situation, in contrast with the learner, hence the paradox, in which one should you trust?

The vast majority of those who stopped stopped after 300 volts, well after the "learner" was already screaming. So not tolerating "even the remote possibility of harming someone" is too charitable a description.

But the whole nature of the experiment, which is punishiment, already set the conditions to ignore the learners complains at first.

Oh...and there were other variations on the experiment. One required subjects to physically force the <s>victim's</s> learner's hand down onto a grounding plate so that he could be shocked. My book is at the office, but from memory...between 10 and 20 percent still went to 450 volts (by this time the learner was apparently unconscious (at best).

10 to 20%?
Much better than 66%.

There were many different variations on the experiment...I really cannot recommend strongly enough that you find and read the book if you at all in doubt. And find and watch the movie. The interest you have shown on this thread alone merits that.
In his book "Obedience to Authority", Milgram makes an explicit connection to the Mai Lai Massacre; his research was originally inspired by the actions of the Nazis who followed orders to kill millions. Perhaps you do not call these examples of "monstrous" behavior, but I find it hard to find fault with one who does. If we reserve "monstrous" for situations in which we actually grow horns and breathe fire, it is not nearly so useful a word.

I would reserve the word monstrous to someone who do this sort of things deliberately. And not to people who are coerced or cheated in order to do the same thing. Which is the point that I think that the experiment shows, that you can coerce people easily.

But anyway, authority don't explain all the cases of stupid acts or beliefs.

 

[Atlas]

Hamme,

It is a wonderfully strange double entendre of the Brahman/Atman Identity. When it is stated as "God and our true self are one and the same", it is truly a high sounding, twisted interpretation for a materialist/atheist. I wonder how long I'll wait now for the righht moment to spring it on someone myself.

 

[elliotfc]

Putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "lalala don't hear you!" won't remove reality. The higher you work up the educational ladder, the fewer religionists you'll find.

Because they've found another religion to take it's place.

The higher you work up the educational ladder, the more liberals you'll find.

I've always wondered, if the educated are really so smart, why don't they reproduce more? Pass those good genes and those good ideas on!

1. The average atheist is more intelligent and a better learner than the average theist.

Are you saying that intelligence is equivalent, or directly proportional, to advancement in the educational establishment?

The further you advance in education, the more narrow your expertise becomes. You're more focused on what becomes your special course of expertise. But there are countless other topics that you may be an absolute horrible learner at/in.

2. Education has a mitigating effect on religious belief.

Well sure. If a person becomes obsessed, or absolutely committed to a point of view or a subject or a field, something may very well be squeezed out. Anyhow, it's just belief transference.

-Elliot

 

[exarch]

I will repeat this in my reply to Graham later but I do aknowledge that there are levels and scales of "weirdness". From the one hand you have a religion that accepts the evolution and from the other hand you have a religion that believes that its members must be trained on different planets... Maybe it's because I am not a member of the later religion but I can see some different levels of absurdity here.

I'm not sure if this could pass as a straw man argument. But those people adhering to "the Jedi faith" don't think they are or will be or should be trained on different planets. You must have them confused with the folks who thought they were going to be wisked away by the aliens.

You should really listen to Julia Sweeney Cleo. She has a great way of explaining how she came to realise that christianity's story is just as absurd as all the others. Think about it. God creates a man from clay, creates a woman from his rib. Kicks them out of paradise for eating the fruit of wisdom (humans weren't supposed to have wisdom?). Then much later, a young virgin gives birth to a kid, who somehow releaves all humans of the sin comitted so many years before by the earlier mentioned woman, simply by being nailed to a cross by those very people he apparently just saved.

Yes Cleo, admitting the earth is round and we evolved from monkeys really is a mile stone
These guys who aspire to be like Jedi definitely aren't the worst folks. Trust me.

Atheists believe that there is no meaning in life, we just live. This thought upsets me. I am afraid of people that just live. I have them capable of anything.

Ah, now I see what it's all about. You're scared. you're scared of death, scared that once it's finished it'll be all over and you don't get any second chances. Scared that there's no big sky-daddy watching over you and ready to take you in once your tour of duty is over.

Well, I think atheists, because of the lack of heavenly reward or fear of punishment, enjoy their lives much more, simply because they acknowledge that they only get one shot and then it's finished. What is the purpose of life?
Living it !!

 

[exarch]

Originally posted by LuxFerum
Yes they are, people want things from their religion, if the religion don't provide it, they will change to another in a heart beat.

So that explains all the gay christians and priests and ... no wait, it doesn't, it completely conradicts it
So why would people needlessly suffer being branded as a sinner when they could just as easily move to another religion that would accept them as they are without judging them?

Fear of hell!! They really believe there is a god, they really believe they'll burn in hell for their (perfectly natural) feelings, and they definitely don't want to risk their eternal soul just to be happy. It's about fear, and beliefs hammered into their heads by others they regarded as wiser.

Convenience has nothing to do with it.

 

[Cleopatra]

I'm not sure if this could pass as a straw man argument. But those people adhering to "the Jedi faith" don't think they are or will be or should be trained on different planets. You must have them confused with the folks who thought they were going to be wisked away by the aliens.

Really? This is what I thought about them maybe I am wrong I must check.

You should really listen to Julia Sweeney Cleo. She has a great way of explaining how she came to realise that christianity's story is just as absurd as all the others.

I can't have an opinion about something I have not heard, I hope that she will be in TAM's II DVD. You must meet some of the people I know Exarch. All the theists do not take religion literally the way Ms Sweeney did when she was young. Some theists knew from start that this was a parabole and nothing more. I am sorry that some people take the scripts literaly and spend their lives believing that the man was created from the soil indeed.

But all of us do not have the same education and cultural background.

Think about that.

Yes Cleo, admitting the earth is round and we evolved from monkeys really is a mile stone

You say that because you live in the 21th ce. Many other theories that we take for granted today were rejected as absurd during the past and not only because of religious reasons.

Plato who conceived the notion of the soul had realized that the brain doesn't function in one level, he observed that we have dreams and he observed other phaenomena that science hasn't deciphred totally yet. He named this other mysterious part of the brain soul. Now post some next to Plato's name for launching the theory of the existence of soul and attributing to it devine origin. What sort of F*** retard Plato was?

These guys who aspire to be like Jedi definitely aren't the worst folks. Trust me.

How you use the word "worst"?In religious way ?

Ah, now I see what it's all about. You're scared. you're scared of death, scared that once it's finished it'll be all over and you don't get any second chances. Scared that there's no big sky-daddy watching over you and ready to take you in once your tour of duty is over.

*Reading with anticipation to see where this will lead...*

Well, I think atheists, because of the lack of heavenly reward or fear of punishment, enjoy their lives much more, simply because they acknowledge that they only get one shot and then it's finished. What is the purpose of life?
Living it !!

I am sorry but I woke up the cats with the laughers. Would you care to elaborate? What's an atheist way of living life?Apart from the lack of fear which are the principles on which atheists built their lives.

NO ! Wait do not reply here, please. Could you please post your ideas regarding the meaning of life here because I recieved a rather angry post from a new poster regarding my ideas and I promised to transfer this discussion there where it belongs.Thanks

 

[exarch]

Originally posted by elliotfc
Because they've found another religion to take it's place.

Well, not entirely correct. They find things to replace some of the social functions religion provides (as has been said, marriage, birth, death,...) but without having the required belief in nonsense like a supreme being and other wackyness.

 

[hammegk]

...but without having the required belief in nonsense like a supreme being and other wackyness.

What belief do you hold? Science answers all meaningful questions, perhaps?

And you must believe that "You are, therefore You think".

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Religion is unable to answer any meaningful question, so in the conflict between science and religion, it doesn't really matter whether science can answer everything (although of course it can't) - it can give us answers to some questions.

 

[exarch]

Originally posted by hammegk
What belief do you hold? Science answers all meaningful questions, perhaps?

Well, if anything *IS* going to answer all "meaningful" questions, it's probably going to be science. Religion has the tendency to take the easy road of "goddidit" to answer all tough questions.

In other words, if anyone is ever going to prove that god exists, it's going to be a scientist, because the religious people aren't even interested in proving that, it's already assumed to be true.

 

[hammegk]

Religion has the tendency to take the easy road of "goddidit" to answer all tough questions.

As opposed to Science, which intones with suitable pomp & dignity, 'emergent property' (which has the same meaning as goddidit).


You forgot to address the "I am, therefore I think" question.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

No, I don't think that's right.

The colors of hummingbird feathers are the result of iridescence, which is an emergent property of the structure of the feathers. The substance of the feathers alone doesn't explain the color, but when the substance is arranged in a particular way, it reflects a small band of electromagnetic waves preferentially.

For that matter, color itself is an emergent property of light and electron shells. Most properties we experience emerge from lower-level rules.

"Emergent property" doesn't mean "god did it"; quite the opposite, actually.

 

[LuxFerum]

So that explains all the gay christians and priests and ... no wait, it doesn't, it completely conradicts it

err. I don't know what you are talking about :\
But if you mean that because someone uses some part of some religion to discriminate against someone else in that same religion, that will make those people leave the religion, then I say that that don't happen because those people don't represent the religion to them.
In fact, religion itself protect them from this kind of behavior like "Don’t judge other people, or you will be judged".

So why would people needlessly suffer being branded as a sinner when they could just as easily move to another religion that would accept them as they are without judging them?

Because it is natural to see yourself as not a perfect model, and it is good to realise that you are not the only one with imperfections. Being granded as a sinner is not needless suffer, but to put yourself as equal in the society.
If someone really have a problem with being a sinner, they would probably change to another religion.

Fear of hell!! They really believe there is a god, they really believe they'll burn in hell for their (perfectly natural) feelings, and they definitely don't want to risk their eternal soul just to be happy. It's about fear, and beliefs hammered into their heads by others they regarded as wiser.

Convenience has nothing to do with it.

Not really, they can hammer what ever they want, somethings you just can't change.
People are not religious for fear of hell, in the same way that we don't post in trsoftttwnd for fear of let that thread die.
Or obey to civil laws, do you obey them just out of fear of punishment?

 

[exarch]

Originally posted by LuxFerum
err. I don't know what you are talking about :\
But if you mean that because someone uses some part of some religion to discriminate against someone else in that same religion, that will make those people leave the religion, then I say that that don't happen because those people don't represent the religion to them.
In fact, religion itself protect them from this kind of behavior like "Don’t judge other people, or you will be judged".

I completely disagree.
I'm not saying that I know what they are thinking, but from some of the things I've heard from them directly, I gather that they see themselves as lesser, because other people tell them. And you're right, they're not leaving their religion just because they're being judged, which is a 180° turn from your position a few posts ago, where you said people will just leave a religion at a whim, if they don't like playing with the other kids any more.

You're either seriously overestimating the amount of people actually switching beliefs, or seriously underestimating the amount of cr*p people will put up with before doing so.

Because it is natural to see yourself as not a perfect model, and it is good to realise that you are not the only one with imperfections. Being granded as a sinner is not needless suffer, but to put yourself as equal in the society.
If someone really have a problem with being a sinner, they would probably change to another religion.

No. In fact, I think people who are so truly convinced they are sinners are so deeply immersed in their religion that they will be less likely to leave than those who don't take religion quite so seriously.

Not really, they can hammer what ever they want, somethings you just can't change.
People are not religious for fear of hell, in the same way that we don't post in trsoftttwnd for fear of let that thread die.
Or obey to civil laws, do you obey them just out of fear of punishment?

Yes, I obey them because I hate paying speeding tickets. If there weren't any speeding laws, I'd do 160 km/h on the freeway, just because I can.

Sadly, Lux, many people's only reason for being nice is the reward they get afterwards (or the punishment if they aren't).