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Religion
In reply to the discussion: Reza Aslan Made the Worst Case For Religion On The Daily Show [View all]nil desperandum
(654 posts)53. Perhaps
if religion satisfies some fundamental need for tribal affiliation
I agree with you on this statement, and I think this is perhaps part of the issue but I do not believe that religion from a tribal perspective is irrelevant it is in fact often problematic.
Tribal affiliations create subgroups that often can't coexist comfortably with the other subgroups who claim to worship the same god and often even the same prophet. One can take a historical look at Iraq to see that the British created a nation from three separate tribal groups who are so fundamentally opposed to the other variants of the same religion they result in murderous clashes over that variation. The only unifying factor in Iraq was a murderous dictator who so oppressed everyone that they dared not respond for fear of large scale annihilation by that dictator's forces. The current vacuum we created and the resulting murderous chaos indicates the inability of the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis to defend what is not an actual nation to each of those sub groups consequently ISIS style groups will always find a way to exploit that lack of cohesive multi-tribal affiliation.
We should not require tribes anymore, especially in the US where we should be a melting pot of cultures that results in a singular identification, American. Dozens of variations on that them doesn't enrich a culture through diversity unless those variations all carry the same respect for the other iterations, which never happens. There is always some suspicion that those other iterations have it wrong, so they are accommodated but not actually accepted. Ignorance and fear are often the recruiting tools of religion. There are far more picking a religion based on a fear of dying and no longer existing than are doing so out of an intellectual journey to find a cosmic meaning for their existence that hardly makes religion irrelevant.
I doubt one can remove religion in a single fell swoop from the masses who need to identify with that primal tribal affiliation, but a continued decline isn't necessarily a bad thing. Humans always seem to feel a need to group together often at the expense of other groups. We are certainly one of the more murderous species to inhabit the planet regardless of religious or tribal affiliations.
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Equating criticism of religion with bigotry is common on both the left and right.
beam me up scottie
May 2015
#7
religion is learned cultural behavior. believers go along with their culture even tho they may
msongs
May 2015
#5
Isn't he they guy who claimed to be a religious scholar, but it turns out he lied about it?
Lordquinton
May 2015
#8
Lol, no I compared your lame caricature to one that is significantly more accurate.
rug
May 2015
#35
which is of course meaningless if you had been using QED correctly to begin with,
Warren Stupidity
May 2015
#70
Warren, do you really think you're in a position to lecture anyone on the proper use of words?
rug
May 2015
#72
Wait. You are demanding "credentials" for responses on an internet message board?
Warren Stupidity
May 2015
#76
Agreed. I like what he said about giving credit to religion when it does good.
hrmjustin
May 2015
#21
Reducing religions to mere labels with no necessary beliefs behind them renders...
Humanist_Activist
May 2015
#50
Probably because there is no "objection" - it's funny that in his desperation to absolve religion...
trotsky
May 2015
#58
I'm familiar with Aslan. I think he's generally rather superficial in his analyses.
LTX
May 2015
#73
Its not an objection, but an observation, if belief is no longer necessary for...
Humanist_Activist
May 2015
#78