haikuhamu said:
I belong to a Catholic discussion forum and have to share an observation I have made.
I have read many posts in the Catholic forum about how skeptics and scientists etc are taking over the world and squelching the light of faith. This trend is viewed with fear, horror, and loathing.
I have seen the converse here. Scientists and self-acclaimed skeptics posting about how the horrors of faith and religion are taking over the world.
My personal interpretation is that both groups are overtaken by conspiracy theories and letting their fears rule their interpretations of world events.
We, as human beings, are wired to divide the world into "us" and "them"....and guess who's wearing the white hats and who's wearing the black ones!
I suppose that's why I enjoyed the fantasy novel "Wizard's First Rule" so much. One of the central themes was about how people are so willing and almost eager to believe what they fear is true.
So, if I told a group of Catholics that wicked scientists are prepared to do dangerous experimentation on newborn babies, they'd believe me. (Well, some of them, anyway) If I told you that Catholics or Christians or some religious nut group was ready to do human sacrifices at midnight, you'd believe me. (Well, some of you, anyway)
Perhaps you have fallen victim to the "black and white" mentality you suppose, or maybe you haven't spent enough time on the boards. Anyway, it doesn't matter, but I suppose it could look like both sides saying the same things about each other.
I doubt there are that many anti-religious conspiracy theories on this board, although I have seen a few theories that don't involve conspiracies. Most center around the idea of conversion, and certain intolerant streaks among fundamentalists of any religion. If you want to call taking over the world "imperialism," it has happened before, although I believe the motives were more political than religious, but I am slightly marxist when it comes to looking at history.
There is an apparent "us vs. them" mentality, but this is more of a reaction to things like conversion attempts, bizarre yet harmful myths about atheism, personal attacks, flawed arguments used to target atheism, and so on, where "us" is the attacked party, and "them" is the attackers. R&P in particular experiences occasional waves of "trolls," people who look like they are out to make the posters angry, but act like they believe what they say. This happens on the million dollar challenge forum too, but the R&P guys seem more active. We cannot know what these people believe, whether to properly assign the label of "troll," but they do look foolish, if not irritating. Naturally, after the troll is gone, those of us still itching for a rational response, or answers to the various questionable statements will seek out the source, and this often turns into an attack after years of searching and coming up with the same old responses that create more problems and don't answer the question. These like-minded individuals which all say the same exact thing become a "them," and the next thing you know the complaints pour in. Also, in R&P, people are easily bored by seeing the same arguments over and over again, instead of seeing their questions answered. If this goes on, the bored turn to ridicule attempting to provoke an answer. After all, this board is about rational discussion, not attacks and arguing one side.
But the way I see it, the target isn't so much the people involved as it is religion itself. The JREF boards are, after all, a forum for skeptical discussion, so in R&P, you should expect people to be skeptical of religion in a board devoted to it. Organized religion in particular is the target, primarily Christianity because it's everywhere in English speaking countries.
Fear rarely comes into play. Usually it's about some preacher using religion to justify hate speech, because he has other people who feel like they have to follow him and believe what he says. Religion may be the target of the criticism, but it is always people who generate what little fear there is. Some of us believe that if religion did everything it promised, these men would be an impossibility. I doubt anyone on this board is afraid of religion. I will say they are afraid of getting blown up, and there are a few people who say they would do that, all in the name of religion.
And if you said Catholics or Christians were ready to perfom human sacrifices at midnight, I'd be rather skeptical, because that contradicts everything I have learned about mainstream Western religions. Whereas I would be inclined to believe it if you said a small cult was responsible. In either case, I'd have to see the news article first. That's how the "look what the religious people are doing" threads are started on this board. I might even get lazy and not read the article, but that's a failure on my part, not the skeptical community.
