Quote:
Originally Posted by Sea Dangles
Good or bad, the religious freedoms granted in this country seem to be presenting an obstacle to our safety. As much disdain as you have shown toward the Muslim community displays an awareness that our constitution with all of the Judeo Christian values may end up endangering life as we know it. I just don't see the need for it.
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A lot of people don't think we need guns. Most don't think we need mansions or billions of dollars. Most people in this country (founded by, nourished by, protected by mostly religious folks) are concerned far more with what they want than what they actually need. I say "actually" because when we say we need something it is usually an object or a means to get or maintain something we want. I don't need, nor want, gambling for money, but I would be willing to bet that your life as you structure it is mostly founded on wants not "actual" needs. Do you even actually need the elimination of religion, or do you want it?
The biggest problem with need as a basis for existence is that there is no universally agreed definition for absolute necessity. You can deconstruct all needs eventually to zero. There is no need for anything to exist. Taken up a notch to a personal level, you, Sea Dangles, are not necessary. The world doesn't need you.
But that we do exist, if that is not some mirage or a dream in some entity's mind, then there appear to be some very basic necessities to make that existence possible. So, if you get down to the basics of what you actually need--not much.
But having gotten to the stage of existence, willingly or unwillingly, if beyond scrounging about for the necessary basics there is left a bit of time for reflection (if you somehow have gotten ahold of consciousness), you may, beyond devising better ways to get, store, and increase the basics beyond actual need, "wonder" what the hell your doing here and why (hell, of course, being figurative since at this point you may not have created or divined its definition).
Thus and so (after "evolving" into the human race as we know it) we eventually, through our mysterious ability to think arrive at a time of millions then billions of human creatures who have gone far beyond dealing with actual need into vast spheres of wants. For most of us, needs have actually transformed into wants. And these diverse wants separate us. And the separation breeds conflict.
But if you see religion as the cause of conflict, you may be putting the cart before the horse. Religion, as you might say, being a want rather than an actual need, then how is it any more of a cause of conflict than all the other different wants.
History, contrary to what you said, does not tell us that most conflicts are religious based. That's why you cannot back that up with "facts" when asked to do so. But history does tell us that, excluding psychosis, differing wants are the cause of all conflicts.
Fast forward to your contention that the Constitution (with its Judeo Christian values, religious freedom, etc.) endangers life as we know it is, again, a mistaking wants for needs. When you said you just don't see the need for it, I couldn't tell if you were referring to the Constitution or religion. Or both. Obviously, or at least it should be obvious since there is no necessity for existence, neither the Constitution nor religion, nor anything else for that matter, are necessary. Certainly not for you. But, probably because you are stuck at some surface perception due to progressive notions, you don't see how the Constitution actually facilitates what you want. If adhered to correctly, it diminishes conflict, not exacerbates it. It allows for differing wants while prohibiting those wants from being forced on those who don't want them.
Your notion that constitutional protection of religious freedom dooms us because it protects Islam is not found in the Constitution. The Constitution does not prohibit the practice of Islam as a religion. It prohibits it as a political or governmental structure being interjected into the constitutional structure.
As for your protestation that "The need for religion should have been eliminated long ago when science explained just how bogus some of the principals of organized religion really are", again you mix need for want. Neither religion, nor science, are needed. But, sure, as a "need" to get what you want they both are "necessary."
And the recorded beginnings of science were practiced by religious people many of whom were looking for proofs of God. Many scientists today practice a religion. They may not adhere to what you call bogus principals, and they may not "need" all the trappings of religion, but they may want the iteration of ritual to connect with their notion of a God otherwise unknowable. And, after all, science has its own rituals. Procedures that must be done in certain specific ways every time in order to apply their own limited human minds to the task of discovering things not visible or recognizable to the human senses. Ritual of some kind, whether it be in law, politics, science, religion, human culture as a whole may not be needed in an absolute sense, but it seems to be needed to get at various wants.
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