Caliann the Elf <calianng_graves at yahoo.com> writes: > At 08:56 PM 11/27/2002 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > > > >Maybe. I object strenuously to the whole concept of religion, > >spirituality, etc. It's superstitious nonsense, and hurts people, and > >destroys great civilizations. > > People don't kill people....*I* kill people. Wow. You sure kept busy the last century! > My poor, overactive imagination....gives me yet another visual. > Spirituality destroys great civilizations? I see this army of yoga > enthusiasts in front of a great castle...meditating the walls down > while convoluting their bodies into unnatural shapes. The people in the castle will laugh themselves to death? I've outlined my basic complaints with religion already, no need to repeat them here. > My history may be somewhat off....but I have never heard of any > great civilization destroyed by a nature worship based, > non-patriarchial religion. I don't believe any great civilization has ever *encountered* such a thing even, never mind been destroyed by one. > War and aquisition is based on economics and greed. Religion has > been known MANY times in the past to provide a handy excuse, (No > honey, I'm not going off to Africa to gain gold and plunder...I am > going to redeem our Holy City!) but religion is not the underlying > cause of it. Religion raises the stakes. The big sky-father religions raise them to infinity. Any minor little problems here on earth are trivial compared to the potential win / lose in the afterlife. > Religion doesn't harm people, nor does it cause great civilizations > to fall. PEOPLE can do that without any help from a Diety. This is, for me, a situation where Dyer-Bennet's Fourth Law applies. I don't want to spend time arguing about allocating blame, because I believe there's plenty to go around. I'm not willing to let much of anybody escape -- neither the individuals, nor the religions. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net / http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/ John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info