09-13-2012, 10:09 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-14-2012, 03:08 AM by FireIceTalon.)
(09-13-2012, 09:25 PM)kandrathe Wrote:(09-13-2012, 08:34 PM)shoju Wrote: I hope you don't think that I'm an anti-Christian bigot.You might not realize how it comes across...
If I say, "There was a gang shooting on the south side between two 17 year olds." as opposed to "There was a gang shooting on the south side between two black 17 year olds."
Why did I need to add the word black? Is it definitive to the crime? Nope, it reinforces the stereotype that gang crime is black crime.
Now you sound like a Marxist
Anywhoo, regarding religion; I am by no means an expert on the forming of each of the major individual religions around the world, or the cultural circumstances that they are manifested by. But religion as a whole is probably the oldest form and best example of Idealism. The reason I am Atheist is because I am a Materialist - Idealism and Materialism are diametric opposites. Almost all Materialists (Marxist and non-Marxist alike), are Atheist. Nationalism, of course, is also a form of Idealism, though much newer obviously and thus not a good example to use for understanding the origins of Idealism, or religion.
The development of religions and Idealism are probably quite parallel. Idealism was developed during a time when material conditions of society had no legitimate scientific method or inquiry, and thus history could not be analyzed or explained through such a basis. Man could not properly explain the material or social phenomena that was constantly changing around him, and therefore the development of abstract thoughts, Idealism, was formed as the basis for analysis. I would suspect that the belief in a sort of deity to explain phenomena was the oldest form of Idealism.
Idealism is a tool always used by the ruling classes in various societies through history to manifest their interests, though it was by no means something they actually devised. So while religion probably was not originally devised to control people, it nevertheless has been used to do so, very often, and still is in a number of societies.
Materialism holds that matter precedes thought in a continuous, ongoing, dynamic and indefinite process. It is completely grounded in scientific method and analysis. Any thought or idea that gets in the way of material force, is ultimately destroyed and replaced with something else. Human interaction is influenced by ideas to be sure, but the minute any material condition that necessitates such an idea is altered or expired, that idea is done away with. Ideas cannot do away with the existence of material conditions. Society doesn't exist to adjust to human consciousness or existence, but the opposite rather.
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"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (addressing the bourgeois)
"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (addressing the bourgeois)