Dragaera

The Religion Debate

Wed Nov 27 22:33:01 PST 2002

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
<snip>

> Maybe.  I object strenuously to the whole concept of religion,
> spirituality, etc.  It's superstitious nonsense, and hurts people, and
> destroys great civilizations.

I was recently commissioned to create a website for the Gyuto Wheel of
Dharma Monastery here in Minnesota for a group of Tibetan Buddhists
(refugees) They have a Monastery here in MN. I know little to nothing about
their religion but when I asked what's the goal here what do you guys
basically do the answer I got was:

We try to teach Compassion and Love as well as promote Peace. The only way
of effective teaching is to demonstrate, near as I can tell they do.



Now some look at it as propaganda other see it for something else. I'm not
going to 'argue' your opinion. I am curious though how you perceive people
like this to be practicing their religion to be hurting people and
destroying great civilizations.



What I see are real world actions of placing emphasis on good things (I
don't know anyone who will argue against those things mentioned above Peace,
etc.) even if the tool they use (their religious practices and teachings)
are very superstitious or nonsensical.

I think what is misunderstood about many people who practice religion is
that they don't always believe every part of the teachings, for many only
the underlying positive points are important (don't hurt other people, treat
others well, unconditional love, etc.). It's a persons free will that
determines what they believe, so maybe what you think is religion hurting
people is really just people believing dumb shit, which will still happen
rampantly without religion however you lose the benefit of them believing
other good things as a side affect of that belief (you can look at it the
other way around as well they want to practice these ideas and they find a
religion they can practice within that meets some goals for them)



What is so Awfully wrong about religion that counter's in it's entirety the
good aspects of it?