[Keith]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

I would submit that Steve's article is written simplistically because this is a pretty simple issue.

As I mentioned I don't want to get bogged down in details that have been discussed to death before. But a couple of examples to illustrate:

"When you subscribe to a religion, you substitute nebulous group-think for focused, independent thought."

A number of religions encourage focused, independent thought including Judaism and Paganism.

"religious teachings are invariably mysterious, confusing, and internally incongruent? This is no accident by the way — it’s quite intentional."

There's a massive conspiracy to create incongruity in religion? The incongruity in (for example) the Bible has nothing to do with the fact it was written by dozens of different people over thousands of years?

"When you subscribe to an established religion, you have only two options. You can become an idiot, or you can become a hypocrite."

Or you can go with a religion that's not mired in dogma and has the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances.


I think Kent hit the nail on the head when he said this is Steve's rant against Catholicism, not religion.

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

Are you saying that Steve shouldn't write anything because it may have been discussed better elsewhere? I don't think that's a very well thought out perspective.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that Steve's posts are normally intelligent and insightful - at the cutting edge of the topic. This post, on the other hand, is a puerile coverage of the topic.

To quote Steve from here:
"Is your content worthy of being read by millions of people? Remember that the purpose of content is to provide value to others. Do you provide genuine value, and is it the best you’re capable of providing?" [...] Since I write about personal growth, I want my writing to change people for the better. I want to expand people’s thinking, to raise their consciousness, and to help them eliminate fear from their lives."

I would love to see a quality article from Steve on the pros and cons of religion, but this is not it. This is far from the best he's capable of providing - instead, for some reason, he's chosen to write from the point of view of a 13 year old Catholic who's just realised the flaws in their religion and is railing against it.

Steve is capable of a much more insightful and transformative article on the topic.

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

What are the merits of religion exactly? Why would people need an intermediary organization in order to act ethically?

To me, the main merits of religions are that they explore the parts of reality that science can't address. "Subjective Reality" for example, is effectively a religion (and one with quite a few adherents).

Note that, as that example demonstrates, intermediaries are not mandatory parts of religion. (Ethics is a bit more complex - there are religions without inherent ethics, but suggested patterns of behaviour do tend to emerge naturally from the cosmology. eg. A 'go with the flow' approach emerges naturally from Daoist principles which are derived from observing nature).

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

You say you challenged the merits of the content, where exactly?

I referred to the blog post as a simplified diatribe. ie. The content is oversimplified and ranty.

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

Here is your first post on the thread.

Huh, apparently permalinks break if people are using different numbers of posts per page. That's kind of bodgy.