Episode 64: Mosques and Musilm Gay Bars Near Ground Zero! [Discussion]

[jackierulesall]

Penn finally talks about the mosque construction near Ground Zero thanks to your persistent commenting!

Watch or download now!

[king_gonad]

New here, so maybe it's been covered, but I'd like to know what was said to Penn regarding bashing Greg Gutfeld & his wanting to build a gay bar by the NY community center in order for him to make a blanket statement about only liberals disapproving of that idea. How does he know that it was only "liberals" making those comments?

[trooper09]

I am surprised to hear disgust about religion. I agree that religion in all forms is really strange to believe in. However, my stance on religion is slightly different. I believe religion is a type of philosophy except with everyone it is more of a radical stance. I don't think I will ever meet an army in the name of Friedrich Nietzsche. I do believe though religion, no matter what background plays an important role. Even if you are an atheist and you claim no religion that in itself I think is a form of religion. Now you may believe I am very strange because that defies the very definition of religion. As I said earlier, if you view religion as a more of a philosophical point of view, this is acceptable. For example, if every religion is a color, then atheism is the color black. If all colors are derived from light, black is the color of the absence of light and we consider black a color, therefore atheism can be viewed in the same way as other religions.

With that in mind, I believe mixing religion with politics is volatile because it ultimately leads to benefit one particular group of individuals. This leads to civil unrest because a government is unfairly benefiting one group while harming another and this ultimately leads to jealousy. However, I do believe religion does have a benefit in providing a basis or a point of reference when concerning morality and laws to be governed. Christians, Islams, Jewish, Atheists and Scientology have a general theme that proposes a better life and ideas on how this can be achieved. It is when a government runs afoul when its chosen to closely follow steps of a particular religion at achieving a better life for its citizens. Instead, embracing an idea drawn from religion and transforming it to include everyone no matter what the background should always be done.

I apologize for the long rant. I think there are important life lessons that can be drawn from religion and religion should be viewed more as a philosophical point of view. Completely hating religion incites anarchy, chaos and introduces a volatile point of view that does not help anyone.

[tokenuser]

Originally Posted by trooper09

Completely hating religion incites anarchy, chaos and introduces a volatile point of view that does not help anyone.

Thats a stretch. I'd almost go as far to say the opposite is true.
A belief in religion incites anarchy - especially if your religion is counter to the popular religion of the ruling government.
A belief in religion incites chaos - not moderates, but extremist religious factions, or those operating political campaigns under a thin guise of religion as a means of attracting membership.
A belief in religion incites a volatile point of view - it is not a POV founded in logic. It is a POV based upon fictional premises and the the interpretation of those premises.

It seem to be trendy to make Islam the boogeyman in these arguments, but the Christian faith has a long standing tradition of inciting anarchy, chaos, and volatile point of view going back centuries. If you want to hold up the USA as an example, it was founded by those that wanted the freedom to follow puritan protestant beliefs in a European society dominated by Catholic dogma.

[masherscf]

Bring on the chaos.

[trooper09]

I think the example you really want to apply to your counter argument is the Crusades. :-)

I guess I look at all of your counter points describing extremists within a particular religion just as harmful as hating religion itself. The point I tried to articulate is arguing against the religion facade, even though it is not directed at any particular group, a particular group can take immense offense over words about religion in general and a conflict can arise. A lawful community can quickly turn lawless.

[tokenuser]

No, I intentionally chose the Puritans on purpose as it is an event that had roots in religious intolerance.

I could equally have chosen the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, or any number of other events ... but the irony of religious intolerance (not tolerating those of another religion, whether of not you actually have a religion) in a country founded by those fleeing intolerance was too good to pass up.

[masherscf]

Originally Posted by tokenuser

No, I intentionally chose the Puritans on purpose as it is an event that had roots in religious intolerance.

I could equally have chosen the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, or any number of other events ... but the irony of religious intolerance (not tolerating those of another religion, whether of not you actually have a religion) in a country founded by those fleeing intolerance was too good to pass up.

Not as ironic as a country that is 99% descended from immigrants despising immigrants.

[normstansfield]

Originally Posted by trooper09

I am surprised to hear disgust about religion. I agree that religion in all forms is really strange to believe in. However, my stance on religion is slightly different. I believe religion is a type of philosophy except with everyone it is more of a radical stance. I don't think I will ever meet an army in the name of Friedrich Nietzsche. I do believe though religion, no matter what background plays an important role. Even if you are an atheist and you claim no religion that in itself I think is a form of religion. Now you may believe I am very strange because that defies the very definition of religion. As I said earlier, if you view religion as a more of a philosophical point of view, this is acceptable. For example, if every religion is a color, then atheism is the color black. If all colors are derived from light, black is the color of the absence of light and we consider black a color, therefore atheism can be viewed in the same way as other religions.

You have to clarify your hierarchy of concepts, and then stick to it. Which is it? Is religion a type of philosophy, or are philosophy and religion two separate concepts (on the same level) that exclude each other? (are philosophy and religion like furniture and chair, or are they like table and chair - I assume you agree that they're not like chair and furniture, where all philosophy is just a kind of religion)

If religion is a type of philosophy (which is logical as long as you define "philosophy" widely enough to include any idea, no matter how silly, about the nature of existence, epistemology, morality and politics - in other words, as long as you don't expect much from your philosophy), then belief systems that among other things reject the notion of mystical revelation are also philosophies. But they're not religions, they reject religion.

Atheism is of course not a belief system at all, it's just a very brief statement about religion ("there are no gods"), so it's definitely not a philosophy, or a religion. As for belief systems that contain the statement "there are no gods", they are by definition not religions. They are automatically philosophies if you define the term broadly enough to include religions, and they may or my not be philosophies otherwise.

Originally Posted by trooper09

However, I do believe religion does have a benefit in providing a basis or a point of reference when concerning morality and laws to be governed. Christians, Islams, Jewish, Atheists and Scientology have a general theme that proposes a better life and ideas on how this can be achieved.

I'll propose a definition of the concept philosophy, that separates it from religion, general nonsense, drunks talking about what it all means maaaan, etc. : philosophy is the honest attempt of an intellectual to rationally integrate observed reality into a belief system.

Religion, on the other hand, is the product of mystical revelation: what you yourself called silly, and I would dare term arbitrary. So you tell me, why do the teachings of a theologian who, by his own admission, seeks the truth not by means of reason and the observation of reality, but by closing his eyes and praying real hard, have any truth value?

Why would something written by a person who (presumably honestly) believes he's been talking to God have any value to you, a rational person seeking to establish what is objectively good? (that's what I assume you mean by morality: the search for what is good and evil, for a human being) Wouldn't you be better off starting from scratch (or I don't know, with one of the philosophers who attempted to come up with a rational answer to your question), than taking the word of a self confessed mystic, when trying to decide what is good?

Originally Posted by trooper09

Completely hating religion incites anarchy, chaos and introduces a volatile point of view that does not help anyone.

Unless, that is, you can find an alternative to religion. I submit to you that a couple of thousand years ago, there was a civilization which produced quite a few philosophers (from Thales all the way to Aristotle), who did just that. From that point on, religion became the moral compass of those who never had the fortune to learn about the Greeks, and the bromide of those unfortunate souls who did know about them, but willfully evaded the superiority of a rational philosophy, and consciously chose the irrational over the rational.

These men have consistently committed some of the most evil acts in the history of the human race (be they Christians, Islamists, Communists and whatever the fuck Hitler was on about), while the men who sought to build on Aristotle (the father of Logic), have created some of the greatest things in history. (the Roman Republic, the Renaissance -which was spurred by the reintroduction of Aristotle from the Islamic world into Europe by Aquinas-, the American revolution and the notion of individual rights, modern science, etc.)

[normstansfield]

Originally Posted by tokenuser

If you want to hold up the USA as an example, it was founded by those that wanted the freedom to follow puritan protestant beliefs in a European society dominated by Catholic dogma.

Some of the British colonies on the American continent were founded by those Protestants. The USA was founded much later, by people like Jefferson, who wanted individual rights and self determination for the colonies. The USA was not founded by puritans, and the DOI and US Constitution were most definitely not written by religious fanatics.