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[NFossil]

That the bible has done more good then harm, if only because it gave people pleasure and any place where it has been used maliciously would have been filled with something else.

So...
When religion leads to good, religion is instrumental, and takes credit.
When religion leads to harm, religion can be replaced, and is therefore innocent.

[Leafsnail]

Well, it's like the Bible Code. Anything that can be done with the Bible can probably be done with Moby Dick too. Work of sufficient length, so on so on.

Noone believes that Moby Dick is the infallible word of their lord, though...

[fqllve]

That the bible has done more good then harm, if only because it gave people pleasure and any place where it has been used maliciously would have been filled with something else.

So...
When religion leads to good, religion is instrumental, and takes credit.
When religion leads to harm, religion can be replaced, and is therefore innocent.

Sure, if you replace religion with <noun>. If something does good then yes, we should recognize the good that it does because we want good things in the world. If something that does good also does bad then we shouldn't hold it against it because anything can be twisted like that.

Racial pride is good because it can help you maintain a culture in an increasingly homogeneous world. Racial chauvinism is bad, but it doesn't necessarily make the first thing bad.

Well, it's like the Bible Code. Anything that can be done with the Bible can probably be done with Moby Dick too. Work of sufficient length, so on so on.

Noone believes that Moby Dick is the infallible word of their lord, though...

Not yet!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Racial pride is good because it can help you maintain a culture in an increasingly homogeneous world. Racial chauvinism is bad, but it doesn't necessarily make the first thing bad.

Since you mentioned it, I don't see why people feel this need to "maintian their culture". Besides, would it not be better to allow cultural lines to dissolve away instead of continuing to futilely reinforce them, allowing people to better relate to one another? I doubt we could list all the conflicts that have sprung up during human history over radically different cultures. I would say that racial pride is no better that racial discrimination, because it tears people apart.

Humanity spent so long waging holy war after holy war, and now that it's almost over it seems silly. Should we not focus on what brings us all together rather than what seperates us, in matters of both religion and culture?

[NFossil]

That the bible has done more good then harm, if only because it gave people pleasure and any place where it has been used maliciously would have been filled with something else.

So...
When religion leads to good, religion is instrumental, and takes credit.
When religion leads to harm, religion can be replaced, and is therefore innocent.

Sure, if you replace religion with <noun>. If something does good then yes, we should recognize the good that it does because we want good things in the world. If something that does good also does bad then we shouldn't hold it against it because anything can be twisted like that.

I guess that's fine... My problem is something else.
How do people decide whether something is instrumental or trivial/easily replaced in some result? Simply by the desirability of the result, and by whether they want to support the cause or not? That way, one supporting the cause can claim the cause trivial when bad stuff happens, and instrumental when good stuff happens?

[Muz]

Racial pride is good because it can help you maintain a culture in an increasingly homogeneous world. Racial chauvinism is bad, but it doesn't necessarily make the first thing bad.

Since you mentioned it, I don't see why people feel this need to "maintian their culture". Besides, would it not be better to allow cultural lines to dissolve away instead of continuing to futilely reinforce them, allowing people to better relate to one another? I doubt we could list all the conflicts that have sprung up during human history over radically different cultures. I would say that racial pride is no better that racial discrimination, because it tears people apart.

Humanity spent so long waging holy war after holy war, and now that it's almost over it seems silly. Should we not focus on what brings us all together rather than what seperates us, in matters of both religion and culture?

Bringing people together doesn't help anyone's political ambitions more than tearing people apart.

Today's holy war is just "democracy" or "communism". Later on, we'll probably declare war on someone to defend animal rights or the environment.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Bringing people together doesn't help anyone's political ambitions more than tearing people apart.

And? What, you think being politcal pawns is all there is to people? We shouldn't even try to be more peaceful because it doesn't fuel a political movement any better than bitter hatred of one another does?

Today's holy war is just "democracy" or "communism". Later on, we'll probably declare war on someone to defend animal rights or the environment.

Overall, I think we're still getting better about it. These days, there still exists a voice of dissent to our conflicts where there once was none.

[ECrownofFire]

Damn, I think I have to link this site again (I've linked it before in the Atheists thread). Prepare to spend hours of your life reading it.

[Duke 2.0]

Today's holy war is just "democracy" or "communism". Later on, we'll probably declare war on someone to defend animal rights or the environment.

Overall, I think we're still getting better about it. These days, there still exists a voice of dissent to our conflicts where there once was none.

Eh?

[fqllve]

Since you mentioned it, I don't see why people feel this need to "maintian their culture". Besides, would it not be better to allow cultural lines to dissolve away instead of continuing to futilely reinforce them, allowing people to better relate to one another? I doubt we could list all the conflicts that have sprung up during human history over radically different cultures. I would say that racial pride is no better that racial discrimination, because it tears people apart.

Humanity spent so long waging holy war after holy war, and now that it's almost over it seems silly. Should we not focus on what brings us all together rather than what seperates us, in matters of both religion and culture?

Well, I guess it depends on your preferences. But to me a world with one culture is boring. Just like a world with only one language. There's so much possible diversity that it doesn't make sense to me to confine yourself to one thing. In a world with many cultures there's always something new and exciting to discover, and that means a whole lot to me.

But even if we did become some one culture SciFi planet I don't think it'd end conflict unless by one culture you mean "everyone believes exactly the same things about everything." And wow, that would just be boring as shit. I'd kill myself.

I guess that's fine... My problem is something else.
How do people decide whether something is instrumental or trivial/easily replaced in some result? Simply by the desirability of the result, and by whether they want to support the cause or not? That way, one supporting the cause can claim the cause trivial when bad stuff happens, and instrumental when good stuff happens?

I don't see ideas as being instrumental to any result, otherwise there wouldn't be more than one religion in the world. Pretty much anything is trivial to replace to get any result. It's more that I don't think you should hold corruptions of an idea against the idea itself, since any ideology is susceptible to corruption.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm not saying that we should become one global culture (which I doubt has much chance of occuring untill we have more than one globe to culture it up on), but that we should try to avoid radical divisions between the cultures that do exist. I think that we would end up with far more expansive cultures throught this anyway, without the fear of being like a culture that one dislikes driving or limiting your actions

[smjjames]

I'm not saying that we should become one global culture (which I doubt has much chance of occuring untill we have more than one globe to culture it up on), but that we should try to avoid radical divisions between the cultures that do exist. I think that we would end up with far more expansive cultures throught this anyway, without the fear of being like a culture that one dislikes driving or limiting your actions

The problem though is that there kind of is one with Muslims and Christians. It doesn't help that most of the muslim world is pretty backwards in their thinking. (Note I said MOST, not ALL).

As for the whole global culture thing, yea, if there is only one colony on a world, then the global culture IS that colony, but even then, there would be cultural baggage imported from elsewhere, so its not truly uniform. Unless we're talking about one of those experimental utopias or religious sects isolating each other.

Mars is going to be one huge multi-social experimental experiment when we get to colonizing it. As for mars, yes I know we have problems with microgravity, but we don't truly know the effects of low gravity on people such as on mars.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Today's holy war is just "democracy" or "communism". Later on, we'll probably declare war on someone to defend animal rights or the environment.

Overall, I think we're still getting better about it. These days, there still exists a voice of dissent to our conflicts where there once was none.

Eh?

Unless I'm missing somthing, back during the Dark Ages, doing somthing like publicly speaking against whatever war your country was in is a pretty good way to get beheaded in most places. Unless you were actually the King yourself, but that's a rather exclusive position.

EDIT: It seems I went stupid there for a moment and mixed up inclusive and exclusive.

[Neonivek]

Dark Ages?

Even during the Renaisance it wasn't a good idea.

Though Dark Ages don't really exist so to speak. >_>

[smjjames]

The advisors might have a chance, but then again, monarchs HAVE had their advisors killed.

In Greece (Athens at least) and Rome, there would have been a better chance that you at least won't get killed. It wasn't until the 18th and 19th centuries that people could start to speak out without fear of retaliation. So we HAVE come a long way, even if some places haven't gotten there yet.