Mustafa, religion is a complex set of superstitions comprising an
ideology the main purpose of which is the justification of the
prevailing class society. That means that it does not actually cause
anything in the way of major social change or instigate conflict. It is
only used as a justification. Wars are caused by economic conflict.
Religion may be called upon to justify a war, but that is only after the
contradictions have built up to the point that war is pretty much
inevitable. That includes the wars of the reformation too. During the
reformation feudalism was being overthrown by the bourgeois classes for
their own economic advantage in conflict with the economic position of
the aristocracy. But how could either the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie
convince the peasants to fight for them if they said that what we really
want is the right to exploit you for our own gain rather than let the
other class do it? Instead, religion was used as a justification and out
of that protestantism was born and the Catholic church was transformed
too from an institution that defended feudalism into an institution that
defended capitalism after the capitalists won. It is even being
currently used as a defense of the ongoing wars against imperialism. You
do that yourself. Instead of the struggle being framed as a struggle for
the Arab bourgeoisie against the imperialist powers that want to exploit
the Arab lands for their own profit it is being framed as a war on
behalf of Islam against the infidels. That is more palatable than we
want to exploit you rather than let them exploit you. The reason that
religion makes such a good ideology of justification of reactionary
causes is because it is inherently reactionary itself. The most basic
part of religion is the superstition. What is a superstition? A
superstition is a belief that is held by faith. Faith is the act of
believing a given proposition or set of propositions without any regard
to reason or evidence. That is, if you believe that people can ride
flying horses around in the sky then no amount of instruction in biology
or aerodynamics is going to dissuade you as long as you have faith in
the proposition that people can ride flying horses around in the sky.
That is what reactionary thought is all about. It resists learning. It
resists any kind of progress. When a lot of those superstitions are put
together in a complex system you have a ready made ideology that can be
used to justify not changing the social order. Even when the social
order is changed it then can be modified enough to justify not making
further changes to the social order. This makes religion evil. It is
used to justify exploitation and oppression. Even when it appears to be
playing a progressive role it is actually being used to justify a new
kind of oppression.
On 7/24/2018 2:15 PM, Mostafa wrote:
Bob, religion is not crucial in western societies. Subsequent to
French revolution, European nations embraced total separation between
faith and state governance. As the United States is the production of
European immigration to North America, it precisely imitated the
European disintegration of faith in action. So it rather became, faith
inaction. Islam has rules and regulations for everything including
territorial jurisdiction. This is the reason for which the west
attempts to relentlessly defame its jural principles. According to
Austrian foreign minister, Islam is declined because of its
governmental ordination. So, it has nothing to do with promoting
terror and that nonsense. Mass Christendom and Hebraism concurred to
utterly disintegrate between faith and state governing. We have the
right to persistently fend for liberty of religious practice. We have
the right to prosecute for religious sacrilege. The United States
doesn't have to abide by our legal authority. As for Atheism and what
Mr Roger blankly claimed about religion, he seems to have failed to
implement proper intellectual inductance. As for world wars one and
two, what was the motive for them? Had Hitler been waving a religious
banner, we would have portrayed religion as full of evil. Korea and
its atomic dementia, what has this to do with religion? What about
Israel and its relentlessly enormous savagery on Palestinians, what
has this to do with religion? What about this cannibalic war in Syria,
what has this to do with religion? Religion in itself, doesn't call
for evil. Its follwers may misuse some of its tenets to suppress and
reach up to certain political ambitions. I confirm what I stated
below, there is significant difference between faith in the west
versus here. In the west, everything seems to be tolerated. People
may go to Church while engaging in illicit wedlock. Regular
Churchgoers may not necessarily marry their patooties if authorised
marriage is costly to them. So, I hope list viewers recognise the
substantial difference between your conception of religion versus our.
Thus, I hope Mr Roger clarifies his uncorroborated statement about
religion. I do not agree with Atheism nevertheless, I do not say it's
full of evil without proof. To claim that Zionism, for instance, is
established on iniquity and injustice is pragmatic and decisively
substantiated. I hope we are able to proceed on a productive
discussion. I hope to see Mr Roger finally able to engage in more
serious discussion. What has world war two erupted for?
On 7/22/18, Bob Hachey <bhachey@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Mostafa,
Your message here is dripping with hypocrisy. You seem to claim that Islam
is far superior to Christianity. By making the kind of blanket statements
you made here, you are acting much like the hypocritical Evangelical
Christians. You accuse all Christians of being greedy hypocrites. That would
be like me accusing all Muslims of being terrorists which I know is not
true.
The more I read and the more of life that I experience, the more I wonder if
we humans would be better off without all religions. The bottom line here is
that there is good and bad in all religions.
Bob Hachey
An agnostic bordering on atheism
