[Vision2020] Fragments of our Lord

[Chasuk]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 10:00, Joseph Campbell <josephc at wsu.edu> wrote:

> . . . if I'm going to comment on No Weatherman's ridiculous, racist rants
> against Muslims and Africans, then I should be willing to say the same
> against equally ridiculous claims about Christian doctrines, or Chas's even
> more ridiculous claim that religion is "a transitional stage between the
> childhood and the adult phases of human development." A view where one's
> opponents — and over half the population of the world — come off as
> infantile idiots is a little too convenient and certainly worthy of
> commentary. Not that I think that I've convinced you or Chas of anything,
> mind you!

Marxism is a religious belief.  Nazism is a religious belief.  I'm not
talking about in the sacred sense, but in the sense that they incite
in their followers a fervor which they use to justify appalling
behavior.  If your belief -- frequently an "ism" -- becomes so
important to you that you consider it inviolable, then it is a
religious belief.

Maoism, Wahhabism, Fundamentalist Christianity.  Look at their rotten fruits.

If you can believe in something as transparently idiotic as
transubstantiation, then you have thrown logic (and your own pragmatic
experience) out the window.

I don't believe that the doctrine of transubstantiation itself is
dangerous, but that those who hold to it often are, given the wrong
circumstances.

When you are able to subsume logic to an "ism," then you can justify
slaughtering tourists in Mumbai, blowing up children in Gaza, in
mutilating the genitals of little girls in Egypt and Cameroon, in
bombing abortion clinics, or you can become a member of the Khmer
Rouge, or crash planes into skyscrapers.

Maybe religion isn't a transitional stage between the childhood and
the adult phases of human development, but I certainly hope that it
is, because as the destructive capabilities of the common person
continue to increase, the proponents of "isms" scare me more every
day.

Chas