Mankinds Worst Mistake

[JCarter426]

Absolutely. Let's all take a moment to acknowledge that my criticism was leveled at "abstinence only". I think you and I both agree that abstinence should be part of every comprehensive safe sex educational program, just like proper condom use.

 

The problem, it seems to me, as you mentioned, is that it usually is "abstinence only". I'm from Massachusetts, and even here there are restrictions on promoting anything other than abstinence. Yes, you heard me right--Massachusetts. And from my experience, "abstinence only" doesn't work--and not just in Massachusetts.

[Achilles]

The problem, it seems to me, as you mentioned, is that it usually is "abstinence only". I'm from Massachusetts, and even here there are restrictions on promoting anything other than abstinence. Yes, you heard me right--Massachusetts. And from my experience, "abstinence only" doesn't work--and not just in Massachusetts.

If it makes you feel better, your experience is supported by quite a bit of social research as well. Unfortunately, discussing it comes dangerously close to violating the PG rating of KC so I can't post any of it here. PM me if you want links to the CDC (etc) studies.

 

CDC and other gov't studies are OK to post as long as they aren't vividly graphic in their descriptions. If they are, please send me the links by PM too--I'd love to see the research, too. Thanks, Jae

 

You pruned my posts last time I covered it so unless the rules have changed, the gov't studies were too graphic for KC.

 

Probably too graphic then. The PG-13 rule applies to all of LF, actually, not just KC. The owners want it that way, I follow through on their wishes.

[Jae Onasi]

You know Jae, back when I was in high school my logic professor told me to write an essay called "Religion is an opium for the people". Basically what it's about is trying to determine if religion is good or bad for mankind. In the end I acknowledged the efforts done to help some people, but it was still my opinion that religion is indeed an opium for the people, that over the course of human history it has done a lot more harm than good. I still have that essay somewhere, if you want me to present the arguments I used there.

 

Let's see--how many people have been allegedly harmed/killed? 100,000? A million? Maybe a couple million?

 

Let's compare that to the good done by one single Catholic hospital in Milwaukee--approximately 480,000 people assisted in some way (care for birthing, surgeries, inpatient/outpatient care, ER visits, etc.) every year. This hospital has existed 128 years. Even if they haven't seen that many people over the last 128 years, they've easily exceeded a million people helped. That's _one_ hospital. There are easily thousands of Christian hospitals around the world providing health care for millions of people. However, that doesn't get recorded in history (other than perhaps data) and doesn't make the news for the most part. Warfare is 'sexier' to historians than records of patient visits at religious health care facilities.

 

I went to a Christian work-study college--you work on campus 20 hours a week and it pays tuition/room/board. We made too little to afford college when I went, but too much to get decent financial aid. That college provided me with a solid education along with about 1500 other students. They graduated about 400 a year--multiply that by about 80 years for 32,000 just at that college. That doesn't include other universities that educate students, like Loyola, Notre Dame, De Paul, Marquette, Pepperdine, Wheaton, Trinity University, and those that started as religious schools such as Harvard, Princeton, and Northwestern. How many millions have received educations that might not have access to any higher education at all without these and many other religious colleges and universities?

 

We have thousands of visits to our local (religiously based) food pantry and thousands to our local (religiously based) shelter every year. Our church during the summer months hosts a homeless shelter once a week in our church gym. We feed and shelter anywhere from a few to 75 people depending on weather conditions. With the housing/credit crisis we'll probably see more this summer. Multiply that by the other churches that help in this program in our city. Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago houses hundreds of homeless people in its shelters and provides around 10,000 meals daily. That's roughly 3,650,000 meals in one year at that one mission alone. That's not including their food pantry program, their health care mission, and their education programs that help tens of thousands more. There are many other homeless shelters and food pantries around the world run by churches that reach people in need. How many people have been fed and housed by the Sisters of Charity around the world?

 

The Salvation Army helps people in need after disasters such as home fires or tornadoes or hurricanes and help others with things such as getting warm coats. They helped over 31 million in 2006 and over 33 million in 2004.

 

Religion has its warts--none of us is perfect and we all screw up. That includes screw-ups in the institutions we run, too. However, the billions helped by religious organizations in just the last 20 years, never mind the last 2000, far exceed the harm done to people by frankly sinful church members and leaders.

 

 

Stream of consciousness reply here....

Your statement was that christians are the only ones offering assistance with the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

I never said Christians were the _only_ ones. I said this:

 

Tell that to the thousands of AIDS victims and people with other health problems that our Christian missionary doctor is treating in Africa. The Cameroon gov't doesn't have enough resources to treat them all, and no other secular organization has cared enough to go help.

I could have been ultra-specific at the end of that last sentence and said 'at her hospital/in her area' but I thought it would be inferred by context because of the reference to only one missionary doctor and the 'all' referring back to her patients specifically and not all Cameroon citizens. There are lots of missionary health care professionals in Cameroon and the rest of Africa. I know there are secular organizations working in Africa and I'll assume that includes Cameroon, but they're not active in her particular area, and the hospital she works at covers a fair amount of territory.

 

The people who have been helped by the staff of this missionary hospital and this missionary doctor are very grateful for their help, and they would never characterize religion as mankind's worst mistake, as Arcesious asserted.

 

I think you and I both agree that abstinence should be part of every comprehensive safe sex educational program, just like proper condom use.

Yes, we do agree on the comprehensive sex ed approach, that's for sure. Now, people might think the space-time continuum has ruptured and/or the 'end times' have arrived because we actually wholeheartedly agreed on something....

I thought the issue (which you brought up) was AIDS in Africa

Well, it was really more commentary on 'the people she has helped' than the specific disease, but AIDS patients make up a huge percentage of her patient base there.

I do think that 17% (and growing) is significant though.

I've not seen that stat before. Please don't think I'm questioning the veracity--I'm being literal there. Other organizations can fill in the condom gap, too. The Catholic church wants to and does provide help, but I don't see why they should provide condoms in violation of their own faith and when other organizations are available to take care of that in their place.

[Achilles]

Religion has its warts--none of us is perfect and we all screw up. That includes screw-ups in the institutions we run, too. However, the billions helped by religious organizations in just the last 20 years, never mind the last 2000, far exceed the harm done to people by frankly sinful church members and leaders.

Do you think those people only acted as they did because they were religious? I think religious people come dangerously close in inferring that they are the only ones capable of behaving morally sometimes.

 

The people who have been helped by the staff of this missionary hospital and this missionary doctor are very grateful for their help, and they would never characterize religion as mankind's worst mistake, as Arcesious asserted.

I could see how this is relevant if I thought that her actions were motivated entirely by religion. I'm sure the people that she works with praise her and not her religion (it is her doing the work after all).

 

I've not seen that stat before. Please don't think I'm questioning the veracity--I'm being literal there. Other organizations can fill in the condom gap, too. The Catholic church wants to and does provide help, but I don't see why they should provide condoms in violation of their own faith and when other organizations are available to take care of that in their place.

I think my point may have been lost in translation. The catholic church forbids condom use (and some activists, not necessarily catholic, have spread propaganda that the west purposely creates condoms with holes in them to help facilitate the spread of AIDS, thereby causing distrust and driving down use). If 17% of the population is catholic and, in their efforts to be good catholics, aren't using condoms (which I'm sure is helped by the aforementioned propaganda) and the local culture doesn't have the same criteria for adultery as we do, then hopefully you can see how an unsupportable ban on safe sex (and comprehensive safe sex education), based on superstitious belief, is not only criminally reckless and irresponsible, but deadly.

[Jae Onasi]

Do you think those people only acted as they did because they were religious? I think religious people come dangerously close in inferring that they are the only ones capable of behaving morally sometimes.

Do you think that religious people who did negative things only acted as they did because they were religious? It cuts both ways in this case.

 

I could see how this is relevant if I thought that her actions were motivated entirely by religion. I'm sure the people that she works with praise her and not her religion (it is her doing the work after all).

She's an extremely quiet, humble person. She'd be terribly embarrassed by such praise, actually. She used to be in practice in the US--she felt called by God to use her skills in the mission field, and that's how she ended up in Cameroon.

 

I think my point may have been lost in translation. The catholic church forbids condom use (and some activists, not necessarily catholic, have spread propaganda that the west purposely creates condoms with holes in them to help facilitate the spread of AIDS, thereby causing distrust and driving down use). If 17% of the population is catholic and, in their efforts to be good catholics, aren't using condoms (which I'm sure is helped by the aforementioned propaganda) and the local culture doesn't have the same criteria for adultery as we do, then hopefully you can see how an unsupportable ban on safe sex (and comprehensive safe sex education), based on superstitious belief, is not only criminally reckless and irresponsible, but deadly.

I wanted to know more about the stat than anything else.

In regards to condom usage and the Church, the Church isn't forcing people to have sex, so there's no way this can be considered criminally reckless or irresponsible. If they did force people to have sex unprotected, then they would be culpable of malfeasance. However, people have a choice whether or not to engage in sex. Promoting the only way to avoid an STD is neither reckless nor irresponsible. Condoms, for all the good they can do in this situation, are not 100% fool proof, unfortunately, though I think they're a big help in that department.

 

The 'intentional holes in the condoms' thing is just ludicrous.

[Serpentine Cougar]

I think mankind's worst mistake was eating the forbidden fruit, and the sin that introduced into the world.

 

Regarding religion being the worst mistake, it's not so much the religion that is flawed than the people following the religion are flawed. That's why they need the religion in the first place. As Mohandas Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." If people followed their religion perfectly, there wouldn't be any mistakes of mankind, because we'd all be perfect.

 

Yay!!! Communism is the answer

Like religion, if true communism was followed perfectly, it would be a good thing. But it doesn't seem like that's happened yet.

[Achilles]

Do you think that religious people who did negative things only acted as they did because they were religious? It cuts both ways in this case.

You didn't answer my question, but in the interest of being a good sport, I will answer yours:

 

No, I do not think this is true for most cases and it has never been my contention that they did. My argument has been that religion does allow them a "free ride" and that in some cases religion does instigate the behavior. In almost all cases, religion is partially culpable because if you look in the applicable holy text you will find a verse telling the person to do what they are now in trouble for doing.

 

(note: "religion" is used rather vaguely here. Let's assume that we're discussing the big three and not Buddhism, etc).

 

In regards to condom usage and the Church, the Church isn't forcing people to have sex, so there's no way this can be considered criminally reckless or irresponsible.

It is influencing them not to take reasonable precautions. We can put aside philosophical differences regarding whether people should have sex or not and operate from reality, i.e. they are.

 

If they did force people to have sex unprotected, then they would be culpable of malfeasance. However, people have a choice whether or not to engage in sex.

Indeed. It would be be great if they could get sufficient education so that they also felt as though they had a choice to be protected or not. Let's stick with reality please.

 

Promoting the only way to avoid an STD is neither reckless nor irresponsible.

Agreed, unless the person taking the responsibility for educating is also guilty of intentionally misleading their audience about public health information. Then it is reckless and irresponsible.

 

Condoms, for all the good they can do in this situation, are not 100% fool proof, unfortunately, though I think they're a big help in that department.

I don't think anyone will contest this. However this is like saying say that trapeze artists should not use a safety net because they sometimes fail or that people should not wear seat belts because they sometimes don't work. Sure, no one has to drive, but amazingly a lot of people do anyway.

 

The 'intentional holes in the condoms' thing is just ludicrous.

Most of what these people are being told is ludicrous.

[Ravnas]

I think mankind's worst mistake was eating the forbidden fruit, and the sin that introduced into the world.

 

Regarding religion being the worst mistake, it's not so much the religion that is flawed than the people following the religion are flawed. That's why they need the religion in the first place. As Mohandas Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." If people followed their religion perfectly, there wouldn't be any mistakes of mankind, because we'd all be perfect.

 

 

Like religion, if true communism was followed perfectly, it would be a good thing. But it doesn't seem like that's happened yet.

 

Exactly, a system like Communism can only be achieved through common understanding and a true desire among man to work together, which is a problem as the necessary criteria to meet those goals require a change on how is man viewed and how they would act, which would conflict with the nature of man that religion has established. The Bolshevik revolution in the early 20th century did not lead to communism contrary to popular belief but to some sort of despotic state with a communistic twist.

[igyman]

Let's see--how many people have been allegedly harmed/killed? 100,000? A million? Maybe a couple million?

 

Let's compare that to the good done by one single Catholic hospital in Milwaukee...

 

First I want you to know that when I say that religion is mankind's worst mistake I don't mean specifically Christianity, or any other religion, but rather all of them. As for the allegedly harmed/killed, as you put it, there's nothing alleged about it, people have been harmed/killed and the only thing historians aren't sure of is the number of victims.

Some examples of religion based crimes would be:

- people being sacrificed to the gods in ancient times, including ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome. In Egypt and Rome as far as I know some rulers were considered to be gods and people were killed for offending them.

- the Medieval and Spanish Inquisition, where the death toll varies according to different sources, but could have been up to nine million.

- the Crusade, again at least thousands of deaths, but there's no accurate count.

- the Turkish conquests. Serbia was once occupied by the Turks and we have an extensive history when it comes to Turks trying to convert the enslaved population to Islam and persecuting those who wouldn't convert. Christianity had to be practiced in secrecy.

- more recently the terrorist attacks on your own country, fueled by radical Islamists. Then the subsequent wars started by your country in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to bring the terrorists to justice, but as far as the media report more civilians and soldiers have been killed than terrorists.

 

I doubt the crimes that spanned for over two thousand years can be overweighted by recent efforts to help the needy.

One more thing. I'm well aware that there are lots of good and tolerant religious people and that there are those who aren't, but you don't need a lot of bad people to cause bad things. Again I will reference to the more recent tragedy of 9/11 - it took a couple of fanatical terrorists with guns to take over airplanes with hundreds of people and ram them into buildings to kill even more.

 

Since this forum has its share of religious discussions, I will try to refrain myself from further commenting on religion in this thread. The title, after all, says "mankind's biggest mistake", not "religion is mankind's biggest mistake", the latter is just my opinion.

[Totenkopf]

Bit of a stretch to blame religion for peoples' own willingness to be sheep in the face of any ideology (facism, communism, nationalism.....). Mans' biggest mistake is most likely his own inability to see beyond his own wants and desires, consequences be damned.

[JCarter426]

Bit of a stretch to blame religion for peoples' own willingness to be sheep in the face of any ideology (facism, communism, nationalism.....).

 

True, but religion (all of those) teaches people to be sheep, even if they wouldn't be otherwise.

[Totenkopf]

So do most/all secular ideologies also. Frankly, most ideologies strongly encourage or demand a level of conformity that reduces people to sheep.

[Ray Jones]

Got any examples?

 

If people followed their religion perfectly, there wouldn't be any mistakes of mankind, because we'd all be perfect.

As far as I know, most religious people deem their acts as "perfectly following their religion", even more those who have the "nutter"-attribute bit set.

 

In other words, how do you define "to follow their religion perfectly"?

[Totenkopf]

Nazism and communism leap to mind. Also, PCism.

[Ray Jones]

Nazism worked mainly through the principle of oppression and fear, not through people being sheep. Communism, well that may be another story, dependent on which country's communism you take into account. At least the communist/socialist Germany I grew up in did not demand people to be sheep. Of course some people were, but the majority surely was not.

 

However, I don't consider a certain level of conformity as "being sheep" -- I rather call that "acting as a whole".

 

 

As for PCism, is that an ideology anyway? Or is it merely another term for "got too much time at hand"?

[Totenkopf]

Right, there was no pressure to conform in any of those societies.

 

However, I don't consider a certain level of conformity as "being sheep" -- I rather call that "acting as a whole".

 

So, when religious people "act as a whole" they are being sheep, but not so in a secular situation? Talk about having your cake and eating it to.

 

PCism, as in political correctness. cute pun on your part, though.

[Ray Jones]

Right, there was no pressure to conform in any of those societies.

Oh, so, all those religious "sheeps" are religious due to...pressure?

 

 

So, when religious people "act as a whole" they are being sheep, but not so in a secular situation?

Err, no?

[The Source]

Mankind's worst mistake would be:

http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/hiroshima.htm

 

I think that the invention of weapons that could wipe out whole civilizations is a big mistake. Yes, I could make an argument over oil spills, but those things can be cleaned up and cured overtime. When a nuclear weapon goes off, both human and environmental damage is next to almost unfixable.

 

Edited :: I didn't even see this:

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=187341

[Totenkopf]

Mankind's worst mistake would be:

http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/hiroshima.htm

 

I think that the invention of weapons that could wipe out whole civilizations is a big mistake. Yes, I could make an argument over oil spills, but those things can be cleaned up and cured overtime. When a nuclear weapon goes off, both human and environmental damage is next to almost unfixable.

 

Well, don't forget bio and chemical weapons. They may do less obvious damage to the environment, but the are deadly b/c they're much cheaper to produce in quantity.

 

@Ray--perhaps you'd like to define what you mean by pressure. But generally speaking, that's what people mean when they talk about people being sheep. Not just that they merely mill around and do nothing b/c they're lazy, but also b/c they want or need others to tell them what to do. In essence, they're sheep b/c they don't/won't think for themselves. They willingly succumb to pressure in order to belong (or at least be otherwise left alone, so they hope).

[The Source]

Well, don't forget bio and chemical weapons. They may do less obvious damage to the environment, but the are deadly b/c they're much cheaper to produce in quantity.

 

@Ray--perhaps you'd like to define what you mean by pressure. But generally speaking, that's what people mean when they talk about people being sheep. Not just that they merely mill around and do nothing b/c they're lazy, but also b/c they want or need others to tell them what to do. In essence, they're sheep b/c they don't/won't think for themselves. They willingly succumb to pressure in order to belong (or at least be otherwise left alone, so they hope).

I hear you man. I think weapons of mass destruction tops my list. Right below WMD is the creation of religious sects. I am not talking about Christianity the faith, but more in the lines of Catholicism, Islam, Protestant, and Mormons. Religious sects are widely responsible for more deaths than anything else man made. People twist faith in a way, which causes crusades based upon ethnic cleansing. Grrr... "We come in the name of this faith, we translate that faith this way. If you don't like our translation, you will be hung or crucified." Horrible. Horrible...

[Ray Jones]

@Ray--perhaps you'd like to define what you mean by pressure.

People are usually not forced into religion, but ideological systems usually have severe means of punishment at hand for not sheeping in line. To put it simple -- while one side "only" fears hell in afterlife, the other one fears deportation/torture/death in this life.

 

To me that makes quite a difference in "pressure".

 

But generally speaking, that's what people mean when they talk about people being sheep. Not just that they merely mill around and do nothing b/c they're lazy, but also b/c they want or need others to tell them what to do. In essence, they're sheep b/c they don't/won't think for themselves. They willingly succumb to pressure in order to belong (or at least be otherwise left alone, so they hope).

I strongly doubt that any victim of deportation (or their family members) would agree on any of these points. Neither did they want to be lazy, nor needed someone to tell them what to do. And by no means they did not want to think for themselves. Also, I would not call it "willingly" when you succumb to pressure because you don't want your family dead.

[Jvstice]

Yeah. Developing the technology to wipe yourself and probably most multicellular life at the same time from the face of the earth would definitely top my list of worst mistakes.

[Ray Jones]

Well, at least mankind is now aware of the dangers coming from the use of this technology. At the end it might not be so much of a mistake, because we kind of stopped using it.

[Totenkopf]

People are usually not forced into religion, but ideological systems usually have severe means of punishment at hand for not sheeping in line. To put it simple -- while one side "only" fears hell in afterlife, the other one fears deportation/torture/death in this life.

To me that makes quite a difference in "pressure".

 

Wrong, history is replete with examples of religion being forced down the throats of various populations. It still occurs in some parts of the world and is the ultimate aim of the radical islamic groups. Ideological groups like the nazis and communists also brainwash (ed) children early on to conform to their new environment through education and socialization. It doesn't work on everyone and many who defied religion being thrust down their throats also suffered bodily harm and/or other forms of loss.

 

 

 

 

I strongly doubt that any victim of deportation (or their family members) would agree on any of these points. Neither did they want to be lazy, nor needed someone to tell them what to do. And by no means they did not want to think for themselves. Also, I would not call it "willingly" when you succumb to pressure because you don't want your family dead.

 

Not really sure what you're talking about here. Are you implying that the only people who are "sheeple" are a specifically targeted class (like perhaps the jews). Most people in a democracy are sheeple, who merely vote for the candidate of their parents/friends w/o really thinking about it. Or b/c they joined a party and don't wish to alienate their friends/fellow party members with their misgivings (assuming they think about it at all). As to the point about willing, you confuse that with desire. They may not have desired being on the butt end of coercion, but if they don't find a way to fight back, they go willingly (though not happily).

[Serpentine Cougar]

As far as I know, most religious people deem their acts as "perfectly following their religion", even more those who have the "nutter"-attribute bit set.

I know many religious people who wouldn't say they are perfect. They know they are sinful; that's why they need religion.

 

In other words, how do you define "to follow their religion perfectly"?

Impossible. I don't think we as humans are capable of perfection. What I meant with that statement was that even people who say they follow a certain religion don't keep all of the tenants of that religion perfectly. If all Christians lived the way the Bible tells them to, and followed all of its commandments perfectly, never doing anything wrong (according to their religion), they'd all be Jesuses. The fact is they don't, and they can't because of sin.