"We are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives."

Thomas Merton

He was a Trappist monk who for twenty-seven years, between 1941 and 1968, rarely stepped outside of the rural monastery in which he lived. So what could such a person possibly teach us about ourselves? As it turns out, a whole lot. From the opening paragraph of his autobiography:

"On the last day of January 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in the year of a great war and down in the shadow of some French mountains on the borders of Spain, I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born. That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God and yet hating Him; born to love Him, living instead in fear and hopeless self-contradictory hungers."

The oldest of two sons of an American mother and a father from New Zealand, both of his parents would be dead by his sixteenth birthday and his life and education would be financed by his maternal grandfather, a successful American businessman. After a disastrous year at Cambridge in England, where his excessive consumption of alcohol and sex resulted in a poor academic performance, he was sent back to America to finish his studies at Columbia University in New York City. After a brief flirtation with radical politics and the American Communist Party, he found himself drawn to the writings of several Catholic writers and philosophers. Responding to the world of 1939, a world which seemed to be headed toward utter destruction and chaos, he had an almost unexplainable desire to convert to Catholicism - but more than that - he wanted to become a priest. On November 16, 1938, he was baptized a catholic.

On December 10, 1941, three days after America declared war on Japan, he entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane outside of Louisville, Kentucky. He became a Trappist Monk.

In 1948, he was encouraged by the Abbot of the monastery to write his memoirs. Incredibly, the resulting effort, The Seven Storey Mountain, turned out to be one of the best selling books of the year. As Merton had been inspired by the events of the prewar world to enter a life of contemplation, so were thousands of people of all faiths inspired by the events of the post war world to question the very tenets of the so-called "American Century." Tom Merton not only planted the seeds that would eventually bear the fruit of what would evolve into the anti-war movement, he spoke out against racism at a time when most people didn't even know the definition of the word. From Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:

"Blaming the Negro: this is not just a matter of rationalizing and verbalizing. It has become a strong emotional need of the white man. Blaming the Negro...gives the white a stronger sense of identity, or rather it protects an identity which is seriously threatened with pathological dissolution. It is by blaming the Negro that the white man tries to hold himself together...The Negro could really wreak havoc in white society by psychological warfare if he knew how to use it. Already the psychological weapon of nonviolence has proved effective as an attack on the white man's trumped-up image of himself as a righteous and Christian being."

Thomas Merton still matters. He reaches out to us across the decades, an articulate and passionate advocate of Peace and Love and Silence. It was his prayerful belief that only by obliterating the noise of our lives - whether it be the electronic noise of our immediate surroundings or the noise of our minds - could we achieve a pure communion with God.

The Implosion Continues

Tom Degan

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spirituality is for people who've been through hell.'

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In Islam, there is a phrase, in the Qur'an, which I'll paraphrase. Don't over do it in religion, lest you stray from the path. And, that's just what the extreme wing of Islam, Christianity and Judaism have done. Each and every one has allowed emotion to take them from the path of the original teachings.

For example, in the beginning Islam was the first religion to grant freedom to women. Mohammad's wife Khadija, was a business woman, who was 15 years older than he, saw what an honest man he was, working for her, and finally asked him to marry her.

There is nothing in Islam that requires a woman to cover her face. Culture always overrides the original teachings of any religion. One only has to look at the potpourri of uncountable sects of Christianity.

In Islam, there is no such thing as a pre-emptive strike. But Christians and Jews love it. Muslims fight only in defense and when the opposition wants peace, it is granted, even if asking for peace is a sly move.

All in all, things are bent out of proportion and we are presented with was not as it was originally but with a phony, distorted, banged up, version of religions and faith as they were originally presented. The mass-media has done incredible damage to religion of any faith. Now on the left, is the drive for atheism, sponsored by people such as Bill Maher, who I think is funny and quite intelligent.

In short, humanity is in a mess and can't solve it's problems no matter how they try. The Earth, this tiny spec in the universe with all of its arrogant humanity, are little or nothing in space and time. Unless, humanity drifts towards God(not Jesus) there simply is no hope. The question of existence is answered in the Qur'an, "you were created to worship God".

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Religion is always good, because it corresponds to a reality in the whole human constitution. To question that would be like questioning whether an arm or a leg is good.
Now when we start to ask whether it can be a force for good or evil, we immediately enter the world of politics, which, as we all know, is entirely corrupt.
For me, then, the answer is that religion is a personal matter, although the support of a group of like-minded individuals can achieve greater things than an individual can. The evil comes in when:
1) control freaks use a church denomination to justify petty, materialistic, political or just downright greedy aims, or:
2) when mass hysteria takes over from personal common sense.
I would urge anyone who has a feeling for religion to regard it as a personal way of life - a study or a task - rather than some doctor's prescription for salvation.

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Yin and yang. Matter and anti-matter. Up and down. Truth and lies. Dark and light. Hot and cold.

Before there was a universe (if there is a 'before'--like "before time"), one could speculate there was a viewpoint (God?).

Just being a viewpoint with nothing else could get boring.

The (seemingly) infinite space of the universe, (seemingly) eternity of time, (seemingly) infinite number of viewpoints and (seemingly) infinite number of points to view make a playing field and game time for a grand game of experiencing and problems/solutions that seems to solve such a profound boredom of a unitary viewpoint with no points to view, no space, no time......no game.

Perhaps God loved variety so much that she (Big Bang) blew herself to smithereens as a solution to such boredom--the intensity of such explosion corresponding to the intensity of the boredom.

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...to see if evil is perpetrated in the name of religion to answer this question for yourself.

If it is there, case closed. If not then religion must be wonderful.

Any philosophy that creates MORE evil and hatred than it stops answers that question.

Actions speak louder than words.

I also ask is it laudable to accept the words of people, gods, invisible friends, to which there is no evidence of their existence, as words to live by?

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We should not forget that Christ was a teacher, and we should evaluate His work as we should evaluate the work of any teacher: Study what he says and what he does, and try to understand it.
The ultimate aim is to be teachers ourselves one day, and so we must understand. Reading is not enough. Reading is for the brain and understanding is for the heart.
And few have a heart which would tell us to go to war in the name of Christ.
That is the flaw in our earthly systems of government. They seem to think that war is inevitable, when in fact it is completely out-of-date.
We must learn that.

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Lots of good points in this article, especially with regard to religion being neither good nor evil, but more of a tool or reflection of other needs and desires, which may be good or evil, depending on who you're talking to and/or what religion you're talking about.

The zero-sum argument is more debatable. It seems to assume that most people's needs are rational and material; that if we had more of a non-zero-sum game in politics, economics, etc., then our religions would be less extreme and our gods would be less angry and vengeful.

But it seems pretty obvious that a large part of the world's population has psychological needs which exceed their practical needs, so to speak. They thrive on conflict, hatred, paranoia, greed, destruction, control, prejudice, etc. If being a hungry rat trapped in a corner were the only thing that drove people toward extremism and zero-sum thinking, how do you explain Republicans, many of whom are very well-off and enjoy more freedoms than most of the world?

To them, a non-zero-sum world is a boring world where everyone is a winner and there are no losers to kick while they're down. People like Bill O'Reilly, his followers, and a long list of other fanatics on this planet would sooner starve to death or have a thousand root-canals than play nice with others.

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Please see , www.discussrace.com

incl. , "Discussion Forum" , "Recommended Books and Articles" links .

Peace .

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Like Wright, I grew up Southern Baptist and, in my case, "gave my life to Jesus" under intense social pressure. I vowed no child of mine would ever suffer that kind of upbringing, so I hung back from any religious experience for a long time.

I'm glad I took a vacation, because the kind of religion I came back to is not based on the absolute authority of any (often contradictory) book or patriarch. Yet I consider myself religious as well as spiritual, because I choose to affiliate with a group of people who are on a spiritual path and we share each others' lives and a commitment to social justice.

In this setting, clergy set the tone, offer insights, and give pastoral care. Not surprisingly, we accept as many women as men into the ministry, including those who identify as GLBT. I often wonder how people think God would want it any other way, but, of course, I don't believe in that kind of god any more.

My point is that I find value in religious community, and that I look for the divine in all human beings, but fundamentalists of any kind are a challenge because they look for God outside of Nature and Reason and human experience. Instead of praying, I wish we could all just shut up and listen.

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when i seen the title of this article..i knew it would be biased against christians.True christians do not advocate violence.But we as a nation do believe in defending our freedom and fighting for the oppressed in the world.The mideast looks at the great satan and sees everything they hate and fear happening to their culture..which is inmorality,sexualy explicit society,gays,ect...everything that goes against their religion and morals.AND IT ISNT THE CHRISTIANS THATS SHAPING OUR CULTURE THAT THEY SO FEAR HAVING IMPOSED ON THEM..ITS SECULARIST LIBERALS,HOLLYWOOD,ECT.!!!

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the wise man to be false, and the politician to be useful.

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Those who adhere to organized religious doctrines define themselves through the association.Those who hold more eclectic ideologies define themselves through their own experiences.
"membership has it's priviledges"- and those adherants are more than happy to whip out their 'Gold Ticket' as proof of their Status.
Eclectics or Seekers have no such 'membership card' thus never request one from others.
The Only thing a person who proclaims "I'm a Christian" tells me is that they have not bothered to contemplate the 'Fine print'. They consider their membership grants them Carte Blanc, A type of 'Trump card' which defeats all others. and this is exactly the way Organized Religion wants it's followers to think. to carry 'The Card' is to be free of any personal responsiblity- All personal 'sins' will be exonerated as long as you continually 'renew your membership'.
I on the otherhand see my ideology as a personal experience and Responsiblity. A journey taken alone with a destination determined in solitude. At the 'Pearly Gates' a 'Gold Card' membership will not be valid or accepted- only the tally of the bottom line. Rejection this membership may negate me from 'priviledges' now- but it may save me from having to answer later for it's debts too.
If there is a St Peter who guards the gates, I assume a 'Card Swipe' will not suffice, but a long disposition reviewing my personal account.
so people like Sanford, Ensign, Hagee may beleive their 'Gold Card' grants them some 'Credit', but in the end they may find 'credit cards are not accepted', thus grant No Priviledges.

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"The three monotheisms, animated by the same genealogical death instinct, share a series of identical contempt: hatred of reason and intelligence; hatred of freedom; hatred of all books in the name the one & only; hatred of life; hatred of sexuality, of women and pleasure; hatred of feminity; hatred of the body, of desires & impulses. Instead of all that, Judaism, Christianity and Islam defend: faith and belief, obedience and submission, a taste for death and a passion for the beyond, asexual angel and chastity, virginity and monogamic fidelity, the wife and the mother, the soul and spirit. In other words, life crucified and celebrated nothingness" – Michel Onfray

"Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over." -Frank Zappa

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Tom,
I really liked what you had to say and was thinking along the same lines when I came to your comments. Merton and Contemplation!

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The article really ran the gammet from A to Z, all over the place rather than the specific topic it looked like before reading...but I really liked it, probably for the same reasons. It seemed to be a really objective look at life and reality. I think too many "religious people" get locked into their own narrow views, while too many non-religious do the same in a different way. I guess we never have absolute certainty in our own views and opinions and have to live with that. But I think that the matrix test comes in how we live and view life, how peaceful we really are inside in spite of external circumstances. And I think the way we get there is through an inner life - meditation and contemplation. As Tom Degan has pointed out, Merton is an excellent example of this: going beyond the confines of a monastery and its possibly restricted thinking to an awareness of ALL LIFE and ALL REALITY. He was more and more influential in civil rights and anti-war movements as time went on. (I suspect that his electrocution death in India was no accident, but perhaps CIA carried out.) If anyone wants to get a weekly dose of his medicine, you can subscribe to The Merton Institute in Kentucky, near his old monastery...lots of wisdom available there!

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Belief that some big daddy in the sky made everything and everybody, LOVES us and knows everything we do or think, has been an unmitigated disaster for humanity.
Of all human failings, refusal on the part of some to live in the world of REALITY, and the parasitic exploitation of those unfortunates by others is the worst, and potentially the most deadly.
Let's put it this way; give your diety a name like Porky Pig, for instance. What does this do for your beliefs? Now, imagine only chimps employ religion in their daily lives. What would change? The enviornment? The need for food? Human or chimp nature? The weather?
Do these examples sound silly to you?
What kind of sense does ANY theistic belief system, completely lacking in any concrete evidence of its purports, make?
Is it enough to kill or die for?

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Let's say I make $500 a week.

There's a car company that wants a portion of that. There's an appliance maker that wants a portion of that. There's a clothing maker that wants a portion of that. There's an entertainment distributor that wants a portion of that. There's a food distributor that wants a portion of that. There's a realtor that wants a portion of that. There's a stock owner who wants a portion of that.

They have all the tools of science - marketing, psychology, anthropology - on their side, and on top of all that, a money lender who'd also like a piece of the action.

In all likelihood, I could take out a mortgage and make everyone happy, but on a rational level I understand how debt is an enslaver. I understand how being enslaved to debt can make people turn a blind eye to corruption around them. Don't want to stick my nose in, could lose my job and then I'm holding this mortgage and those credit card bills and I am fucked.

So the devil's got me down.

How do I know to make that link between being enslaved to debt, and contributing to cultural decay - and say no?

Religion. That wonderful and terrible irrational force.

As for Islam, get real. That it's a violent religion, if it is, is irrelevant. One can say Islam is no more violent than Old Testament Judaism, no more violent than medieval Christendom. It's just a more recent violence, is all.

We did not go into the Middle East to play a non-zero-sum game. We went to control the resources. What Iran proved in 1979 was that the irrational force of religion could be used to defeat the rationalized control the West had imposed. Just like Moses did when his irrational God parted the waters.

You drop a lot of names in this interview. Reza Aslan appears to be the only one worth listening to.

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Soldiers fight hardest when they are fighting the forces of evil. That is why religion is used to protect nations against invaders. Armies were blessed by Popes or Ayatollahs before they went into battle. No mercy was shown to the foe. They would torture captured soldiers because they were thought to be Heathens or Infidels. It was best to commit suicide before surrendering to an army of religious fanatics.

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I read this a few years ago and understand the truth of it:
"Religion was invented when the first fool met the first charlatan".
Right on!!

The first life forms capable of abstract thought were frightened and confused by death.
Since these early humans ALREADY had the inability to accept the concept of finality, they were consequently unable to accept the concept of death.
Therefore, they led themselves to imagine that the dead person had gone off somewhere to some other imagined place, etc.
To attempt to assuage their fears due to not having the ability to comprehend death as it actually is, finality, they invented an imaginary place and being.
They invented the concept of a god and a place for it.
It is this inability to accept death as the END which led to all these imaginary entities and the attendant later thought processes to invent a place for the dead one to go to.
The concepts of heaven and hell were invented mechanisms of control~~of OTHERS.
Hell is used as a threat such as, "If you don't this and/or that, you will go to hell".
Conversely, "If you do as I say, you will go to heaven".

I am a 70 Y/O human being who IS capable of abstract thought and am of somewhat above average intelligence.
I have no need to fall into the intellectual/emotional trap of imagining there is a god(s), hell or heaven.
I am capable of accepting death as a finality.
I am NOT fearful that I MUST think/act/believe as someone ELSE determines due to their neurotic obsession with control OF OTHERS.
I treat others as I prefer to be treated.
If someone mistreats me, rather than attempting to threaten them with some irrationality such as heaven and/or hell, I simply do not allow them another opportunity to mistreat me.
Likewise, I treat others in a manner in which I am able to feel relaxed in my own gut.
YTOU, the imagineers have no control over this rational thought process.
As for those who mistakenly believe that those of us who have been in a combat situation are fighting for god(s), mother, the "American way" and/or apple pie clearly do not understand reality.
We fight to stay alive and for our buddies.
Ask someone you may know about this who has been THERE.

Religion is a tool for con artists.
Now, "spirituality" may be something else entirely.

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I would like to see organized religion take up the struggle for animal rights. Religion has been wrong before. It has been said that on issues such as women's rights and human slavery, religion has impeded social and moral progress. It was a Spanish Catholic priest, Bartolome de las Casas, who first proposed enslaving black Africans in place of the Native Americans who were dying off in great numbers.

The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil. The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern states actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic.

Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a moral relation," "God's institution," "not immoral," but "founded in right." The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane principles" and "the laws of revealed religion."

New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of slaves (Titus 2:9-10; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-25; I Peter 2:18-25) and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2; Ephesians 6:5-9) were often cited in order to justify human slavery. Some of Jesus' parables refer to human slaves. Paul's epistle to Philemon concerns a runaway slave returned to his master.

The Quakers were one of the earliest religious denominations to condemn human slavery. "Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word of God," says contemporary Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik. "Without a doubt, the American slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold slaves.

"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-Biblical sources to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle Paul. Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his efforts to free the slaves. 'You shall not surrender to his master a slave who has taken refuge with you.' (Deuteronomy 23:15) What a pittance of material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of God."

In 1852, Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery. Others claimed blacks were subhuman. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867: "the tempter in the Garden of Eden...was a beast, a talking beast...the negro." Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah's family, he must have been a beast. Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast, and "consequently, he has no soul to be saved."

The status of animals in contemporary human society is like that of human slaves in centuries past. Quoting Luke 4:18, Colossians 3:11, Galatians 3:28 or any other biblical passages in favor of liberty, equality and an end to human slavery in the 18th or 19th century would have been met with the same kind of response animal rights activists receive today if they quote Bible verses in favor of ethical vegetarianism and compassion towards animals.

Someone once pointed out that while Hitler may have claimed to be a Christian, he imprisoned Christian clergy who opposed the Nazi regime, and even Christian churches were subject to the terror of the Nazis. Thinking along these lines, I realize that while I would like to see organized religion support animal liberation (e.g., as was the case with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement) rather than simply remain an obstacle to social and moral progress (e.g., 19th century southern churches in the U.S. upheld human slavery on biblical grounds), this support must come freely and voluntarily.

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The most dangerous words ever utterred-

"God is ON my side"

The most healing words ever utterred-

"God is AT my side"

Amazing how one little word can make all the difference.

Feedback appreciated

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa

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“I'm technically an agnostic, although one with spiritual and religious leanings.”
“This is a consequence of viewing a religion as unchanging, with an intrinsic and essential character, impervious to changes in the material world.”

It seems to me the author is trying to rationalize his early religious teachings into some natural order congruent with the universe. It is interesting that to raise the point that religion itself appears to be malleable, he went into a theory of Judaism. I wonder why he did not use his own Baptist teaching as an example. Baptists are the result of the 100-year war of reformation. Of course, religion is malleable, that is why God only chiseled 10 commandments in stone and not an all-encompassing book. For what people at what time would the book be understandable? The Baptist doctrine about the curse of Ham was used to justify slavery. A doctrine no longer preached. “In America today, asked if most people of any race, creed or color are humans and should get minimal human rights, people say yes and mean it.”

"You've got your God, we've got our God, and can’t we get along?" “Love your enemies”, they may only be enemies of your mind and not your soul.

One theme the author seems to struggle with is nature of the knowledge of good and evil, some thing we all seem to posses to one degree or another. Is this knowledge the result of some evolutionary theory or an implant? Take your pick. He seems to want to believe that some game theory will result in conditions that bring out the worst in religions. Closer to the truth is that the conditions bring out the worst in people. Why did those atheists kill all those Muslims in China? What does the Dali Lama think about those atheists? I know there are good atheists and bad atheists, or maybe there are just good and bad people at times, whatever belief system they possess. A doctrine that came out of the reformation was the grace doctrine; the grace doctrine tries to address this very problem. Personally, I am not throwing out the works doctrine. Out of the reconciliation will come a doctrine, which will strike a better balance, the grace doctrine is only the beginning of the reconciliation not the end. Reconciliation with God is not what was needed. It is reconciliation between us. However, you have to start somewhere.

A second theme that the author struggles with, does the universe have a purpose. He seems to want to believe that there is directionality in evolution and this some how creates its own purpose.
Rather than create a convoluted evolutionary theory of purpose, I will simply believe that we are the creators of souls in the dimension of the flush for the dimension of God, I will find out why when I get there and the knowledge of good and evil is replaced with the knowledge of the dimension of God.

At least the author does not take the position that it is my way or the highway. What ever you choose to believe in this space-time continuum, your way is short. Given some knowledge and freewill how long, do you think we can survive as an organism? Survival is a necessity to fulfill my belief as to purpose.

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Faith is like rain, a little of it isn't bad, and can even be helpful, but too much of it bringeth only death and destruction.

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A loose definition of religion from latin is "to bind together" or" to bind back to the source", "to unify". Latin scholars please correct. Anyway, This binding together, is usually taken as a mental instruction rather than a description of the parts already existing inside wholeness/infinity as wholeness. When parts [relativity] are perceived by individual mind, they are seen as separate which prompts mind to gather up all of the parts to create the whole. This is a problem because the act of gathering [action] creates more parts and questions thus becoming an obstacle to the experience or realization of wholeness. The individuals in Religious groups become fixated on the parts of religion [ rules of behavior, gods and definitions of gods ] often to the exclusion of the goal,[ i am being kind here] unity. This is quite normal because the mind is not designed to realize wholeness it is designed to make sense out of the parts. When the path to unity becomes more important than unity itself, and varying groups see their path as the only way, well, take cover, the bullets are about to fly.

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Mr Wright posits the existence of a consciousness beyond our own. As such, he is not an atheist.

If we accept that we are not "it" than we accept God, call God what or whom one will.

If we accept God, than we are obliged to seek connection with God -- and certainly should accept that God wants to communicate with us.

After that, it's simply a matter of what sort of language you think God speaks.

Mr Wright states, "I don't want to offend anybody, but all religions have their good moments and bad moments."

Religions don't have good and bad moments. Religionists do. Or irreligionists. Or anti-religionists.

That's a point that persons of faith and atheists and agnostics alike seem to consistently fail to grasp.

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Dinner !!! That does not apply to AlterNet and I like it that way.
BUT if by chance there is a friend or relative present in person that will put their own views aside to search for some new truth with another human without fighting it can make a get together interesting.

I once was in a study group with people having strong different religious/ denominational views and it did not last, the participants were different denominations and disagreements over trivial items were intense. I LOVED it!!!

Some good discussions were with a friend of mine who had the same religious background as mine growing up. She stuck to the teachings of the church while I did not and we never came to an agreement or changed each others views. But at least we knew where we were coming from in relation to a certain denomination, and we are still friends outside of a religious setting. She seems so smart and I cannot understand why she has certain beliefs, ...HELLO... isn't this is where all the trouble starts?

What is YOUR definition of the word 'religion'? None are totally satisfying. I went to look for a definition that fit my needs and came across this site.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn.htm

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We are what we are. With that thought in mind some people have the need to find a religion that gives them meaning and in many cases to justify bizarre, and otherwise unacceptable behavior. Then this behavior becomes what is required of them to "belong". Those who claim to be 'brainwashed' are not all convincing.
That is true of the very young, but for the most part people can choose to leave whatever church they find offensive. Their religion gives them validation and they feel accepted. Then they do as their told. That's when it gets ugly. ANNA

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'Shiavo?'Schiavo…

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Good and evil are subjective concepts manipulated by the clergy to bring in tithes. Fear is what they peddle and insinuate, mental illness their goal. They are the most corrupt reliquaries of civilization.

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Being an Atheist & knowing the fact that there is no God, just as the author does, even though he claims other wise, only wrote this story so he could be the good Jesuit & have something to discuss in regards to God. I believe the opening statement gave it away, as he said "when people are threatened, their religion brings out the worst...".

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First an answer to the question of the article from the perspective of Buddhism:

What Makes Religion a Force for Good or Evil?...PEOPLE...the same can be true about anything external. A hammer could be used to build a house for a needy family or kill and innocent person. It all depends on who is holding it.

Religion has a power that nothing can match. It is called faith. Faith allows us to reach beyond the realm of the possible and pull into reality the seemingly impossible. The goal of Buddhism for example is to relieve the suffering of humanity and life itself through the development of the faith and wisdom needed to perceive life correctly. Another way to put this goal is true peace. Of course when we look around at the world it is quite difficult to imagine a world of peace, but that is where faith comes in. It all comes down to an individual transformation. What is true for one human being can be true for all. If one person can achieve true peace with themselves then all people can. So then it becomes our goal to share this with others. That is the power of religion for good in my eyes.

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Religion is pre-rational; therefore there are irrational elements in it, that when they do not measure up to rationality's ideal level of equal rights and justice for all, and mutual self-esteem, behaviors considered "evil" result.

Spirituality is trans-rational, or psychic to mystic. It encompasses all the lower levels (holons) of development (evolution), but transcends them (more like a set of Russian dolls that a ladder of levels, it is beyond good and evil, in recognizing what evil is, as stated above. It is loving and values the true, the good (including justice), and the beautiful.

Every great religion has these levels, which run from mythic belief to ultimate non-dual I am that I am (enlightenment).

See Ken Wilber, Spiral Dynamics, Jean Gebser, Georg Feuerstein, Andrew Cohen, Plotinius, Hegel, Emerson, The Gnostic Gospels....

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Religion is pre-rational; therefore there are irrational elements in it, that when they do not measure up to rationality's ideal level of equal rights and justice for all, and mutual self-esteem, behaviors considered "evil" result.

Spirituality is trans-rational, or psychic to mystic. It encompasses all the lower levels (holons) of development (evolution), but transcends them (more like a set of Russian dolls that a ladder of levels, it is beyond good and evil, in recognizing what evil is, as stated above. It is loving and values the true, the good (including justice), and the beautiful.

Every great religion has these levels, which run from mythic belief to ultimate non-dual I am that I am (enlightenment).

See Ken Wilber, Spiral Dynamics, Jean Gebser, Georg Feuerstein, Andrew Cohen, Plotinius, Hegel, Emerson, The Gnostic Gospels....

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As an agnostic, I've asked myself what religion was for and what purposes has it served for most societies.

I concluded that religion serves two main purposes:

1. To provide comfort to people, as a way to try to explain the unexplainable

2. To keep the population in line

In ancient societies, there was much about life that people did not understand, as science was a long way from explaining many things we now understand. Life was short and brutal. Religion arose as a way to provide comfort in a world that was harsh and frequently made no sense. This is religion in a more benign sense, as it still has the capacity to provide comfort for those in trying situations.

Unfortunately, we've seen too much of religion in the second sense; as a way of keeping people in line. In ancient societies, religion was the law. So, what better way was there to keep people in line and ensure compliance than to assert that "God said it" for whatever measures a society wanted to impose on its people?

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That's not too difficult. To the extent that a religion tells you what to think and believe, it is a force for evil. To the extent that a religion asks you to actually work out for yourself what you believe, it is a force for good.

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Mr McNally is a good example of a credulous mind struggling to appear to himself and everyone else as reasonable and rational. He is neither. He actually "believes" that scientists "believe" in electrons and that it is the same as believing in God. McNally is exhibiting the faulty reasoning characteristic of the credulous mind. Scientists don't "believe" in electrons. The indirect evidence is profound. The conceptual construct allows for further logical development of theories on matter and energy which are consistent with observable outcomes and further allow for expansion and or modification of other related existing theories. Practically every physicist would accept evidence disproving the existence of electrons. THAT is the difference. No amount of evidence can disprove God to the credulous mind. Evidence is not required at all!
Further evidence of Mr McNally's credulous mind is his comment(referring to Obama's righteous stance saying the Israelis should not expand illegal settlements in Palestine): "On Israel-Palestine, I've been impressed." Impressed with what?? Politically inspired declarations? The Israeli government is going ahead with the illegal expansion of settlements and Obama will do nothing about it-not even halt or reduce "military aid" to Israel. I guess political blathering is good enough for the credulous mind.
Never mind. Mr McNally will do well. There is a lot of money to be made on ignorant people. There really is a sucker born every minute.

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No religion is perfect but the author has done a blatantly poor job of excluding other religions from the dialogue. There are plenty of people of other religions beyond Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

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I have had to conclude that religion is just about the worst thing that human beings EVER invented.

It has done little good and, in fact - as far as I can tell - has contributed mostly negative things to the world.

Why do we have religion? Because, I believe, the cave men looked around and, not able to find an explanation for the natural phenomena around them (storms, tornados floods, etc), decided to attribute them to unseen forces they called "god".

And over time "god" became distorted and used by unscrupulous peoples and governments to further their own twisted ends. Until, today, we have maniacs willing to die for their religion, and right wingers of all stripes willing to use their "god" to further their political ends.

How much bette off we - the human race - would be without "god" I can only guess. But I certainly would love - just once - to see a world WITHOUT "god".

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I don't know if it's possible to consider yourself a liberal Catholic, but I guess I've done a good job of defining things for myself, so you can agree or disagree. I think the problem with religion in general is that it makes people have no true mind of their own. Your experience clashes with what the pastors and priests and everyone else tells you. I think believing in some ideals, is not evil. Catholics are known for believing in many things that are contrary to many liberal ideals, but one thing that I always keep in my heart is to help out people in need. Personally, the only types of people I could probably truly get a long with in a religious conversation is with someone who is a liberal of that denomination and with an atheist and agnostic.

I think it's ok to disagree, but I try not to disrespect anyone because of their beliefs. If someone is truly a progressive, at least in my eyes, they will accept even the devote Christians. Just because someone believes in something that isn't all in tune with progressive ideology, doesn't mean they're evil. To write all these rules and regulations on what it means to be liberal/progressive is to be making up a religion out of the movement.

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If you must have a formula for measuring religion (and the last thing that conviction requires is a formula), try to apply the notion of “life affirming.” Yes, one can get into discussions of degrees if one needs to weigh one version against another.

However, the idea that simply “signing on” as an adherent, whether as a result of measurements or not, confuses religion with marketing. If my religion makes me better than you, because there are more of us than there are of you, that's a peddler's claim.

The expectation of religion ought to be whether it makes me better than me, better than I was before, better than I was yesterday. No one can measure that except me. And that’s a matter of qualities.

But that does not lend itself to mercantile religion, where it is treated as a product to be marketed and sold to consumers. Treating religion as just another quantity, whether quantities of win-win or win-lose, perpetuates objectification. And that misses the whole point of religion, if it is mature and not simple-minded.

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Reading the online Afterword raises some red flags for me. I'm very familiar with Wright's work and the fields Wright studies. But his noble conception of "moral order," cultural evolution and godliness is very, very flawed. I think he's ideologically slumming for uplift and positivity. There's a lot to like about the widening of fundamental moral consciousness...but there's much less to like about intuitive human psychology. I can't argue with his Nonzero hypotheses, but taking these EP concepts into a much more misanthropic realm is the obvious, if unpopulist intellectual move, now. That involves saying things about human behavior and moral psychology that people don't want to hear. Every essayist nowadays has to be sermonizing, someways, whether morally, religiously, or politically. Reducing ruminations to a neat, tidy, uplifting box is natural and stupid. There's no "God," it's just some manifest, habitual cultural imbecilities have been banished. I'm much more interested in violently exploding cognitive "illusions" than bolstering idiotic good vibes. I will check out Wright's book, though, and everyone should.

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How can superstition, of any kind, be a force for good in modern world? Religions are simply cults that achieved critical mass. They are centered around spirits and spirit worship. Render it all down to essence and it's nonsense, pure and simple. Mother Goose for grownups who never quite got over the fact that Santa and the Easter Bunny weren't real. Grow up.

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To Really Screw Things Up, You Need Religion

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Humans are primates, violent primates. If you study primate psychology and societies, you see that mob thinking is most prevalent, and that most apes will do anything to be members of the "Winning" troupe. Intellectualizing it will not help the situation at all. Introducing bovine genetic material might help, on the other hand. LOL

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Finally, a smidgen of sanity.
All ‘faiths’, -by definition-, are superstitions.

http://video.google.com
George Carlin - Religion is bullshit.

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The subject of this article is historically naive, intellectually childish and irrelevant to the root cause of violence. Religion, like science, education, philosophy and similar terms, are concepts, not actual things that cause violence. Evil results from the bad choices of individual human beings, which emanate from greed and frustration within our own individual selves. All of the above can be used as a "tool" for "good" or "evil" purposes. It is absured to pretend that religion is harmful while science is not, given the historical evidence of the French, Russian, American, Chineese revolutions, WWI, WWII and forward. In the historical past, religion seemingly played a more dominant role because societies in general were structured differently in theory. From the so-called "age of enlightenment" forward, societies have gradually been shifting away from theocracy and more towards nationalism and intellectual idealism, like democracy, communism and socialism. War and rumor of war, murder, theft, rape and other violence and the resulting human oppression, mass displacement, hunger, suffering and pain remains. Only the names and ignorant theories of conservatives and liberals have changed.

People who blame religion for human violence are only kidding themselves. Human beings are responsible for our own suffering; neither science, education, philosophy, idealism or religion are a root cause of human suffering. In spite of modern science, one plus one still does not equal four, at least as far as we know.

Richard Aberdeen
Who Would Jesus Bomb?
www.FreedomTracks.com

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First off, good and evil and very subjective concepts in this situation. That whole zero-sum thing.

Then there's the idea of the soul and that is supposed to be governed by religion. The soul can only be subject to one religion at a time, and there are a finite number of souls, so it's a scramble to claim the most souls.

Religion is a concept. How people manipulate the concept determines if religion is a force for good or evil.

Bad people make it a bad thing. Good people make it a good thing.

Lord, protect me from your followers!

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As you think it, feel it, say it, and do it, so it is for you. This is the true nature of reality creation. Denying it doesn't change it. Accepting and affirming it opens the door to the full benefits of personal reality creation and allows each one to make life into what they would have it be for themselves.

Not sure? Test it out. As you think it, feel it, say it, and do it, so it is for you. Think about how you would like things to be (getting a parking space, earning sufficient income, whatever), feel that things are in fact that way, say it aloud, then act as if it is so. That is how it is done. When your thoughts, feelings, words and actions are in agreement, the cosmos has no choice but to comply with your vision. It must be so because everyone is God.

Test it.

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... has religion as a large-scale organizing force ever done anything positive or good comparable in size or scale to the negative and evil such groups have done? What is the great positive that outweighs the crusades or the inquisition or the use of christianity in colonization?

We talk about religion as a great force for good, but where has it ever been so without a far greater level of evil to accompany and overshadow it?

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religions are either as good or evil as we make them or let them be. they are collections of facts, names, dates, relationships, events, reasons and arguments that in the modern world could be called a database. a database has three functions, to get on better with yourself, to then get on better with others around you, and by default therefore improve your quality for life. If your database isn't doing that for you, don't blame the database, use it in a different way

In my book of poems"From Exile to Excision" (available on Amazon) I try to work through this in poetic form for the modern recession blitzed world for a credit crunching price of £9.95!

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Considering the vast numbers of people who believe, need to believe and maintain it through adversity and will commit atrocity for it suggests a biological cause. It is what brings people together and motivates them in unison which is an excellent survival trait. It has served humanity well for the thousands of years if not nearly a million years keeping us together. However as with any trait it can out live its usefulness if the environment changes and it becomes a detriment to survival. I think we have reached that point. Population overload, climate change and availability of survival resources are at such a state that such precepts to reproduce and use force for conversion to one or another variant of religion is a danger to human species.

95% or so of humanity isn't "deluded" they are just following their biological imperative as is produced by the parts of their brain that gives them the need to fulfill. Those of us like myself that do not have that need aren't anomalies but the natural variability that evolution produces in any species. Always putting forth different traits that may be needed in an abrupt environmental shift. In our epigenetics we have some flexibility in that area. But as Darwin said, it isn't intelligence or strength but flexibility in adapting to a changing environment that is the key to survival. Adapt or die includes behavior too, not just morphological changes. Example is the Brazilian Fire Ant , of the genus Formicidia, in their native land had separate nests of one queen each, if they interacted it was at war. Here in the USA they now group together in mega-colonies of multiple queens and don't do battle. Adaption by behavioral change.

From my own observations I consider the need to worship 'higher beings' to be directly connected to that which people use to adore Rock Stars, movie actors, Sports Heros etc. For you see I don't, not at all. Chesterton was wrong about "believing in nothing" concerning Atheists* and even Agnostics*. Morality based upon Humanism is enough for me living in the here-and-now. People for people, respect each other and allow those of us to live different lives as long as we don't rob you of your life and liberty. Something we don't find here in the "Land of the Free" do we?

The next 50 years could see a change in humanity for the better or for the worse.

* I call myself and Atheist but Agnostic in its original meaning fits merely because it is impossible to be omniscient.

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This article continues to support that unlike what most religions purport to be the case, "God" - and more importantly - the concept of "god" - has been carved in man's image rather than the other way around.

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None of the above religions is really a religion. These are semitics cults and were created only to serve the purposes of a particular semitic tribe, Except Christianity which was a Roman Invention
Violent cults that uses the concept of G_d for domination,
Just like todays Gangs and brotherhoods etc.

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well, i just wrote about 6,000 characters commenting on this; then was told that was too many. when i went to edit it, tryiong to shorten it - poof, suddenly it was all gone as if struck by lightning... well, i don't now have the time to rewrite it all; so will try to abbreviate.

the jews have largely been on the victim end of history: egypt/rome, inquisitions/pogroms/camps. but israel's been trying hard to catch up. leaving over 3 million usa-christian-made clusterbomb fragments on lebanon; running a concentration camp called gaza; armed to the teeth with minimum 330 nukes and a vast arsenal of CBWs and other WMDs, mostly by deals with the usa.

moslems are also amateurs by comparison with christians. i once saw a tally of the deaths from moslem religioius expansionism and internal wars that set the figure at about 8 million.

then there's christianity... vatican documents boasted of a million or more 'heretics' killed in the first millennium. then the spanish inquisition began in 1297 and continued until the 1890s; killing some millions of 'heretics', jews, 'witches,' homosexuals, artists, etc. then the crusades killed a couple million or so. the 'children's crusade' were a human sacrifice of 140,000 european children – just the poorest, no royal or rich kids – sent walking across the alps, most freezing barefoot and in rags, to their young deaths.

the largest genocide in history and still ongoing... the best estimates of the numbers of native people killed in the western hemisphere, africa, australia and the pacific between 1500-1900 is minimally 300 million.

mustn't forget the hundreds of years of the wars of the reformation between catholics and protestants which killed millions. then...
the best estimate of the death tolls of the wars of the 20th century is about 162 million, of which more than a third were civilian. roughly 2/3 of that number were wars waged by or between christian countries. ever see the photos of hitler on the balcony with the grinning bishops, cardinals, ministers?

bush, emulating moses, stating that 'god told him to smite the moslems.' and smite moslems america has – since 1990, some 2 million iraqi deaths caused directly or indirectly by usa foreign policy and military action, the child genocide of the embargo, etc. now onto more afghanistan, pakistan, yemen... who would jesus bomb?

hindus have had their very bloody periods; though i doubt they come close to the christian numbers. shinto is partly responsible for the japanese WWII atrocities but it was after all, the united states that went into tokyo bay in 1852 and 1867 and dragged the japanese out by threat of war if they didn't join the world. never would've been a pearl harbor if the usa had let the sleeping dog lie, eh? buddhists, confucians, taoists? small-fry in religious killings.

etymologically, religion has the same roots as allegience and means 'binding the people to the beliefs of the king.' religion has little to do with spirituality and everything to do with empire and oppression.

any individual, organization, religion or government which wrongfully kills a single innocent person is a criminal. if the killing continues; it is an organized criminal operation which must be charged and banned forever as an evil entity. if it calls itself 'freedom and democracy' or 'the word of god' and pursues militarization, exploitation, tyranny, endless war and genocide... it is an evil fraud, period. rabies calls for quarantine to keep it from spreading. murder calls for the making of amends or punishment.

throw evil religions and governments into the trash where they belong. then perhaps we can get on with the authentically spiritual work we urgently need to attend to here.

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morning before the last election Tuesday I had this happen. I was sitting drinking my coffee and reading what ever it was I was reading at the minute. A guy I didn't know pulled up,sat down, got a cup of coffee, and told this story.

He was/is a member of the First Baptist Church. He said that the preacher got up in the pulpit and told them to vote for John McCain and follow that with a straight republican ticket. There was a long pause. I asked, "What did you do?" He said, "I got up and walked out." I asked, "Were you the only one?" He said, "Yes".

I wish I had had something really intelligent to say. Perhaps, reporting was all that really can be done. If church and state cannot be kept separate both are in peril.

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Religion is supposed to be the expression of spirituality. We cannot express spirituality when we belong to the systems that we make on the basis of our reasoning because we are the products of an intelligent System that supports life. All beings in this Universe and all other things belong to it as they constitute the System which must be the System of God to those who speak of God. But this is not so to them because their religious faiths project divinity in their systems that fall outside the System. When the human mind gets conquered by such alien systems it loses its essential qualities. That is what we find in the religious fundamentalists. The present religions are just parochial materialistic organizations- that is why they give importance to their faiths.
When human communites were degrading due to their dependance on such alien factors that violate life the ones who regained the true identity of the mind demanded that life should be based on its associations with the System that gave us life. Moses, Christ, and Mohammad belong to this group that tried to make life spiritual. When people give importance to external factors thinking that they are necessary for their cultural identity they lose both culture and spirituality. That is what we find today.
for more visit www.purereason.org

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Mercy, love, justice and peace. People can turn a noble religion into a means for mass murder. People do it for power, sex, wealth.
People can not be faithful to one sexual partner. Can not resist the use of harassment, oppression and the use of bombs.
People are so arrogant if they think they have all the answers.

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What kind of a worthwhile God is it that tells Europeans that he wants them to have this "Great Turtle Island" or proclaims to the Jews that they are his (Chosen People)? What type of religion is it that extols the virtues via a hymnal, such as "Onward Christian Soldier" as being an end unto itself or a problem solving mechanism. Any, all religions are nothing but a crock of shit!

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DVD to MP4 Mac+|+Mac TOD Converter/……&/Mac DVD to MOV

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