Comments on: What’s the Harm? Why Religious Belief Is Always Bad https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557 Announcing appearances, publications, and analysis of questions historical, philosophical, and political by author, philosopher, and historian Richard Carrier. Tue, 28 May 2024 17:49:11 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 By: Crowley https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557#comment-36416 Wed, 23 Aug 2023 20:53:13 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=14557#comment-36416 In reply to Richard Carrier.

I just found this article and it’s very good, I completely agree with all the points, very logical!

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By: Dale Bailey https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557#comment-33667 Sat, 04 Dec 2021 20:02:30 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=14557#comment-33667 I don’t know how much it reflects religion per se, but as far as mythology impacting the real world there is the case of Slenderman. What started as a contest to create a fictional modern myth ended up becoming the motivation of a real-life stabbing by teenagers who claimed they did it for Slenderman despite its obvious artificiality.

I don’t know if I have a good point with this, but it did make me think of how issues that plague religion will simply find new ways to exist thanks to the transfer of information that is quickly distorted and disseminated throughout the world rapidly.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557#comment-32784 Sun, 08 Aug 2021 21:36:51 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=14557#comment-32784 In reply to Stephen Novosel.

Could you define what you meant by “oppress” and “excess power”?

“Oppression” in this context means physically depriving people of liberty through force (e.g. jailing Christians for the sole crime of being Christians or advocating Christianity).

“Excess power” in this context means actually mandating that political office holders or even voters renounce or oppose all religions (or vice versa, e.g. that they be Christians; or whatever), or formally granting actual political power to specifically atheism-promoting (or vice versa, religion-promoting) organizations, or that the state officially favor one over the other (e.g. the state allowing or funding private Christian schools but not explicitly atheist ones, or vice versa; while neutral or evidence-based schools are neither).

Some solutions are by necessity time sensitive — especially in a era where one can in milliseconds transmit a thought worldwide or move themselves/materials across borders in minutes.

If your concern is with regard to dangerous information, you don’t need any religion-based criterion. “Is it demonstrably true or false, or only arguably one or the other” for example is a question that can be asked of speech that has no inherent connection to whether it connects with a religious position or not.

It thus is not “oppressing religion” to outlaw exposing unvaccinated kids to the community; it is provable in court, with evidence, that that is dangerous, and thus within the community’s right to stop—but this is still not the same thing as legally mandating that parents vaccinate their kids (that’s more debatable).

Likewise it is not “oppressing religion” to mandate evolution theory and not creationism be taught in school science classes (whereas creationism can be taught in world religions or mythology courses), because it is provable in court, with evidence, that evolution theory is true and creationism is not (in the US the actual legal theory currently used to prevent creationism in science classes is slightly different, but comparable: that it is not factual that creationism is the principal position in biological science, whereas it is provable in court, with evidence, that evolution theory is; teaching creationism along with other religions or myths in publicly funded schools is, meanwhile, legal, because it is factually true that it is a religious belief or myth, not a current fact of science, so as as long as no one religion is being favored over others, it’s fine).

But this is not what we are talking about when discussing what people privately are allowed to believe or talk about or publish with respect to their beliefs, or whose religious beliefs we formally privilege under the law.

I can see how I’d apply agreement of your statement to a category of the religiously indoctrinated that I’d describe as benign participants — those who will only go so far; not blindly off the cliff. But, there is a more sinister category that poses an immediate danger to you, me, indeed all others, and that group cannot/will not be reasoned with.

I don’t know what you are referring to. Or what your proposal is to deal with it.

Whatever you are talking about, though, I suspect my previous answer covers it: anything you intend to engage the levers of political power to suppress, to be justified doing so, you need to be able to prove in court, with evidence meeting the legal standards of evidence, that the thing opposed is both false and actually a danger to the community. And in practical terms, you also need to prove that your proposed means of suppression won’t make things even worse than its unsuppressed target would. And that it would even work (e.g. there is no known means of controlling individual belief that actually works; hence we limit our policies to limiting behavior, and even with respect to speech—which is still not the same thing as belief—we limit it only when it causes measurable harm and is provably false, e.g. defamation, fraud, perjury, incitement to violence, etc.).

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By: Stephen Novosel https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557#comment-32783 Sun, 08 Aug 2021 13:21:15 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=14557#comment-32783 Dr. Carrier says: “Our goal is to make these bad ideas obsolete through education, illumination, and persuasion, not oppress their victims or tender excess power to any authority. ”

Could you define what you meant by “oppress” and “excess power”?

Some solutions are by necessity time sensitive — especially in a era where one can in milliseconds transmit a thought worldwide or move themselves/materials across borders in minutes.

I can see how I’d apply agreement of your statement to a category of the religiously indoctrinated that I’d describe as benign participants — those who will only go so far; not blindly off the cliff. But, there is a more sinister category that poses an immediate danger to you, me, indeed all others, and that group cannot/will not be reasoned with. What does one hope to gain by petting that rabid dog? How many lives do we sacrifice before we say “enough is enough”?

So, I’m curious to hear your thoughts as to what scenario would it take before you’d find it morally acceptable to use oppression and/or “excess power”?

We see the world differently in one small way which informs my motivation — in addition to my own life, I have a wife and children that I want to protect.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557#comment-32043 Thu, 11 Feb 2021 23:46:00 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=14557#comment-32043 In reply to thegreatcornholio007.

I fail to see any reference to anything I said here that is logical incoherent. You do not seem to know what “logically coherent” means.

The science is the science. You can accept it or ignore it. All I can do is tell you what it is.

Meanwhile, animals don’t have culture. Thus they don’t have genders. So what we “could” do with animals is irrelevant to this conversation.

Science establishes gender is not the same as sex; that you almost never know someone’s sex, only their gender (you aren’t allowed to peak at their genitals or read their DNA or lab their blood); and that there are more than two sexes; and that chromosomes do not reliably correlate to body chemistry and body chemistry does not reliably correlate with genital or womb construction or body shape or vocal formation, so there is no definition of sex that can correlate all three in any consistent fashion. And we (as in, all human beings) share 99.9% of the same DNA, not a mere 97%. These are the scientific facts. And you have presented no evidence against any of them, or anything I actually said about them.

Thus, it would appear the only delusional person here is you.

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By: thegreatcornholio007 https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557#comment-32038 Wed, 10 Feb 2021 19:35:05 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=14557#comment-32038 In reply to Art. 25.

Your entire article is literally logically incoherent.

“Perhaps the creationist would insist AIS is a “disorder,” and no one should want to emulate a “disorder,” but in fact it’s not a disorder. It’s just a natural genetic outcome, which presents few to no problems. ”

LOL So, in your mind it’s not a “disorder”, just a “natural genetic outcome”, as though the two are mutually exclusive? Lame.

Literally, every argument you use to support transgenderism, from “hormone thereapy”, what a culture believed at a given time, to grafting different organs, fur, hair, “whigs”, tails, could all be applied to animals.

Many cultures believed in “Werewolves in Europe, ‘skincrawkers in native cultures etc etc”.

You have argued absolutely nothing here that debunked the argument from the infidel or the creationist you cite in your argument, you literally proved everything they said was accurate, as all of your arguments could be applied to to lycanthropy.

We share DNA (97% in some cases), there’s the cultural norms, the belief.

You are a very delusional human being, so is your entire ideology. And yes, I’ve read and seen you say the same thing about Christians multiple times, so it doesn’t bother me to point it out to you. And yes, you equally sound like a “child”.

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By: Orlin https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557#comment-27751 Thu, 25 Apr 2019 20:06:21 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=14557#comment-27751 Religions promote the notion that holy texts (and interpretations of those texts by religious laity or clergy) provide the basis for credos by which to live, without regard for the efficacy of such ideas or the damage they might inflict on children. You point out the harm this does with regard to the epistemology of magical-thinking and the explicit abuse of scaring children with hell and the like. But the idea that ancient texts can fill this role (which should be filled by studies done on psychology, sociology, child development, etc) also allows for the perpetuation of other abuses, not directly related to religious dogma.

These are traits of toxic people and when these are inflicted on children, tend to constitute abuse: derision and judgment, passive-aggression, blaming and not taking responsibility, gaslighting, lack of empathy, boundarilessness, manipulation, negativity, refusal to apologize and ingratitude, emotional blackmail, rudeness, needing to have the last word, to name a number of them. These are emotional, verbal, and mental abuses which (like religious dogma) and impressed and imprinted upon children so that the cycle continues with each generation.

Leaving religion and changing magical-thinking are the first steps to even knowing that these abuses are abuses. (There is much to do, by way of therapy, self-reflection, & study, to further rid oneself of these abusive behaviors and heal one’s scars from suffering such abuse—but ditching belief in a supernatural world is the first big step in a healthy direction.) Leaving religion behind disabuses [pun intended] one of the notion that these sorts of abusive behaviors are normal, tolerable, healthy, and commonplace.

As a gay man, I suffered all of these abuses, and I know many more gay men who suffered these, emotional abuses like these, and more, all at the hands (mouths and minds) of religious parents. In the gay community alone, this maltreatment leads to high levels of alcohol abuse, drug addiction, self-harm, and lifetimes of mental and emotional trauma.

You touched on suicide among LGBT people and a study linked to by the Trevor Project shows that the number one indicator of whether or not a gay teen will attempt suicide is the acceptance or rejection of that teen’s family when they come out. Religion, overwhelmingly more than any other reason, provides parents with justification for their homophobic rejection of their children.

I thought your post came close to these things, yet I felt I could add to your list of religious harms and expound on a couple topics you only grazed.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557#comment-26906 Fri, 30 Nov 2018 00:31:49 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=14557#comment-26906 In reply to colonialist.

There is no such thing as a DNA virus.

Science is not mumble jumbo.

Calling scientists cranks is what cranks do.

And chemistry has been 100% reduced to atomic and quantum physics.

And biology has been 100% reduced to chemistry.

And there is no evidence of anything else involved; and all the evidence so far accumulated is against anything else going on.

That’s the status of the science.

Denying science, makes you a crank.

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By: colonialist https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557#comment-26904 Thu, 29 Nov 2018 09:59:35 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=14557#comment-26904 In reply to Richard Carrier.

A virus is composed of either DNA or RNA genome.

‘Mindless atomic-chemical causation’ is bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo signifying nothing, and those who espouse it are the same cranks who refer to ‘spontaneous’ events where there are holes in their understanding.

‘Chemistry occupies an intermediate position between physics and biology’ and frequently leans towards one or the other.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14557#comment-26900 Wed, 28 Nov 2018 23:52:43 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=14557#comment-26900 In reply to colonialist.

“Has no emotions” is not saying “is not living.” You are startling to resort to verbal con artistry here. Viruses don’t have emotions. They therefore have no desires or drives. They are simply chemical machines that respond to chemical sequences of causation. This is well established science. Anyone saying otherwise is a crank.

Also, viruses have no DNA. Viruses are RNA molecules. They replicate solely by mindless atomic-chemical causation. This is well established science. Anyone saying otherwise is a crank.

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