************************************************************************ The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers, which is available to all those who subscribe to the printed magazine, International Viewpoints. Home Page: http://home8.inet.tele.dk/ivy/ - with extensive links to FZ! Note : there is a correction at the end. ************************************************************************ X-Authentication-Warning: gem.lightlink.com: majordom set sender to owner-ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com using -f Received: from mx.lightlink.com (mx.lightlink.com [205.232.34.15]) by gem.lightlink.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id DAA18377 for Sun, 8 Sep 2002 03:28:03 -0400 Received: from imo-r06.mx.aol.com (imo-r06.mx.aol.com [152.163.225.102]) by mx.lightlink.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id DAA24602 for Sun, 8 Sep 2002 03:28:01 -0400 From: PJSpickler@aol.com Received: from PJSpickler@aol.com by imo-r06.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v34.10.) id q.24.2b2b5186 (4584) for Sun, 8 Sep 2002 03:27:59 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <24.2b2b5186.2aac55ff@aol.com> Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 03:27:59 EDT Subject: IVySubs: Historical, or hysterical, reflections on religion To: ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0.1 for Mac sub 85 Sender: owner-ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com Precedence: bulk ** ivy-subscribers relaying ** Hello, anyone! I have been more than a little pleased to read the interesting commentary on the subject of religion that has recently graced the IVy list from the pens of some of my fellow listers. In fact, I confess that their words have inspired me to contribute to the discussion. Earth has been blessed or cursed with quite a bit of religious activity, and over the millennia, no matter what part or place on this planet one might look, in groups large or small, there is almost always some activity going on that might be described as religion or religious in nature. Some histories have it that religions have arrived on this planet from extraterrestrial sources, and that these religions arrived in the form of an implant -- something that got inserted into the human mind without conscious knowledge of the recipient that causes said person to feel as though all the thoughts and ideas and sensibilities contained in the implant are really natural or native to the person. Well, that very well may be the case; but whether it is or not, many religions soon take on the character of being an implant, whether they started out that way or not, and generation after generation of folks, with the help of the ministers and priests and other officials of religious bodies, ensure that children, as soon as possible, have the notions and feelings of the religion pretty well stuffed down their throats long before they reach the age of freedom of choice or decision. Some folks, in spite of the efforts of their elders, coupled with religious bodies, somehow manage to escape the earthly religious implant and remain free to think and decide and choose as to what beliefs or conclusions one might reach regarding creation and its source or sources. It has been mentioned on this list that once great ideas or practices are turned into that which we call "religion," much of the hope, the promise, and the validity of same is lost or gets so mucked up as to finally become something far different than the earliest and best possibilities. The little church of Scientology, one of my favorite whipping boys, has, in a very short period of time, provided us with a textbook example of what happens to great potentials that become strangled through the creation of an organized religious body. Yes, in just a few decades, something that appeared to have and hold great promise and that had been created and designed not to fall into the erring ways of other wisdom schools that had gone the way of religious evolution, managed to take on in this short period of time many of the worst charactistics, attributes, and operating principles of some of the older and more mind-numbing religious bodies that frequent this lovely and formerly sylvan planet. Papa Sigmund Freud, who re-introduced the idea of the un- or sub-conscious mind to the western world that had been suffering from a severe bout of denial regarding such possibilities, was kind enough to point out that religion was/is the opiate of the masses. One might in response to that ask, "Why do the masses require an opiate?" And this could possibly be answered by an examination of just how religion may have come into existence and also why it is so damned pervasive. Pre-scientific human beings, just as post-scientific human beings, were greatly troubled by a fairly large number of things that affected their lives, over which they had no control, things of tremendous intensity that took place seemingly out of the blue that killed and destroyed and made great misery for human beings, both individually and collectively; the sort of things that come under the heading of "overwhelm". And when human beings get overwhelmed, they generally attempt to find answers or reasons or attempt to achieve some degree of certainty about that which has happened so they aren't running around as victims of fear, uncertainty, and confusion, with no stable datum or certainty on which they can depend. So we have natural disaster for human being-type experiences, such as earthquakes, flooding, hurricanes or typhoons, tornadoes, electrical storms with giant bolts of lightning; we have little things like ice ages, droughts, famine, and a large variety of frequently fatal or disabling diseases, not to speak of periods of time when human beings were preyed upon by animals that looked upon the human species as a lovely delicacy. So as you can easily see from these few examples, humankind, in various ways and at various times, has been and still is much the effect of things, of causes, that are determined from outside human control or cause, and that as previously mentioned are quite overwhelming. Many of those things mentioned do not offer the opportunity to fight back, to defeat, to overcome or diminish these other-determined causes, which if it were possible to do so would have greatly improved the human condition. I find it quite easy to see from this that both the origins of religion and science are to be found in the human necessity to find certainty and help for enormous feelings of inadequacy in the face of natural disaster in the form of religion and the never-ending efforts of science to observe, to explain, just what these phenomena are all about, and to some greater or lesser degree make it possible to harness these forces, to create structures that are capable of minimizing the effect of natural phenomena, and even in some cases overcome the ravages of a pretty fair number of diseases. I propose that an earlier human being, faced with many causes for which said human being had no answer, invented or fell naturally into the notion that there was or is some higher force, invisible perhaps but present, creating and throwing these awful things at human beings, and that if one were able to acknowledge whatever or whoever was doing this thing and learn what the needs and wants of such a superbeing were, and to placate and propitiate such a being, the being might decide to be kind to the human beings who were wise enough to treat it properly, and that as time went by it was realized that this superbeing had actually created human beings, and that they mustn't ever forget that and must remain eternally grateful, and that things would go a lot better. And once this sort of thought permeated human beings' nature, what has followed in religious development is not hard to understand, and classes of people arose who had special connections with that which came to be called the deity, and they could express the thoughts of the deity to others and could develope a whole system of keeping folks "in good standing" with the deity and his or her religious organization. In return for this came the promise of eternal life, freedom from real death, and the knowledge that you could depend upon the deity to look after you as long as you kept your nose clean, even when it seemed like he wasn't being that nice. And so here we get the "opiate" idea which the completely addlepated, implanted, and hypnotized human being can now, and genuinely, feel safer and more looked-after in the same way that a child feels secure and safe in the arms of those deities called Mother and Father. And so we can go on being children, God's children, and since human beings have an unfailing proclivity, especially with the rise of moral law and the punishment or consequences that come from disobeying it, to acquire a built-in idea of assigning cause outside themselves in other words, giving up their own willingness to admit cause (one of the definitions of responsibility) and to assign their responsibilities to other-determined agencies until some folks arrive at very low echelons of responsibility and feel, when they're first getting audited, that all real causes come from something outside themselves like God or the Devil or perhaps one's employer or spouse. But anyhow, here's a possible picture of the origins of religion and science, and it's interesting to note that religious history is extremely bloody and violent, and continues to be right into present time; and the wonderful creations and inventions and harnessing of forces, whether it be the design of the sword to the hydrogen bomb, have become useful to religious institutions and those perceived to be counter to these religious viewpoints in making religious history what it is today, even though most religions claim to be loving and peaceful. Well, whenever I hear that, and at the same time flash on religious history, I usually fall to the floor and froth with laughter until it feels like my sides will split and my stomach will explode. This is especially in evidence when I think of what a peaceful group the Church of Scientology is -- speaking of which, some of you may not remember that around 1949 or 1950, L. Ron Hubbard wrote an article in which he said, and I paraphrase, "If you want to make a million dollars, start a religion." And sometime between 1950 and 1955, Ron, to the horror of almost all Dianeticists and many of the new Scientologists, did, whilst in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, create a religious corporation; and leaving out all the details of this bedtime story, he did make a million dollars, in fact he made hundreds of millions of dollars. But, to quote from another religion's aphorisms, "What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world but in so doing lose his soul?" Well, that's enough of the humor for tonight -- I'm really just starting to get warmed up, so look forward or backward to hearing more from this source. Fare thee well -- Phil ** Originations, comments, to the list, send to ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com ** ************************************ From: PJSpickler@aol.com Received: from PJSpickler@aol.com by imo-d07.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v34.10.) id q.a.24bf9a18 (3956) for Sun, 8 Sep 2002 14:09:07 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 14:09:07 EDT Subject: IVySubs: Imaagine my surprise............. To: ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com ** ivy-subscribers relaying ** Yes fellow subscribers.......... just imagine my surprise when i received not one but two rather irate E-mails , one from Karl Marx and the other from Sigmund Freud castgating ( re-proving ) me for in- correctly guoting one and attributing it to the other............well my faces are really red for indeed it was Karl Marx not Sigmund Freud who said that religion is the opiate of the masses...........phew.... very sorry about that........... Just what Sigmund Freud said about religion will soon be , and I hope correctly , mentioned in another post. On the other hand I was thrilled to hear from these worthies, and especial thanks to whomever it was on Ivy-subs for letting the chaps know of my gaff. It seems as tho' in cyber space resurrection of not just every thing ........but..... best of all everyone.............has occurred............... Good day Phil ** Originations, comments, to the list, send to ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com **