Bill Murray - Religion
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zachary.stucki 10 years, 9 months ago
It wasn't religion that set these things back, or killed millions. It was selfishness, intolerance, and the lust for power. If people would take the time to really learn what Christ taught they would understand that he taught: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire... Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matt. 5:21-22; 43-45). People just need to live it.
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caffeinius 10 years, 9 months ago
Your 4 posts seem to indicate you have an issue with faith.
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Mattlockhart 10 years, 9 months ago
This aught to clear things up.
http://aspapparel.com/2011_Site/WebGraphics/Atheist-Skeptic-Quotes-IndexMenu.png
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icelind 10 years, 9 months ago
Hmm, makes me lose respect for Bill Murray. If actual "religion" then I agree with the statement. I would define religiousness as an indoctrinated set of rules that if you should follow them, you will be in the good graces of God (as if you could convince God you are a 'good' person). Faith in the God of the Bible is knowing that despite our best efforts, we still fail daily and need the sacrifice Jesus made. Athiest leaders in history have killed just as many, if not more than those claiming to do the work of God: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2091670/Hitler-Stalin-The-murderous-regimes-world.html Also to note, the church was the first institution to begin education and the progression of science (establishing the first universities, etc).
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Mattlockhart 10 years, 9 months ago
Why would you lose respect for him for simply expressing his opinion and making a valid point? Why does he no longer deserve your respect?
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ben.terry 10 years, 9 months ago
I don't think it needs "clearing up", and yes thank you for using “religion” in this one, instead of “faith”
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inkgoeswild 10 years, 9 months ago
"organized religion"
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Mattlockhart 10 years, 9 months ago
Religion IS organized. Is there a such thing as UNorganized religion?
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inkgoeswild 10 years, 9 months ago
Sure. Religion between individuals and their god; not the state religions, etc, that can have political power and form armies. Hinduism is not an organized religion.
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Mattlockhart 10 years, 9 months ago
A relationship between an individual and their god is not a religion. Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to the supernatural, and to spirituality.
By the way, Hinduism actually is a religion, buddy. Just so you know.
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tinman97030 10 years, 9 months ago
many people get confused by the word Christianity, there is so much history, good and bad. It really means follower of Christ. The relationship with Jesus is intensely personal and not meant to be codified into a set of rules. Just like in Narnia, where Aslan is not a tame lion, there is a wildness, an unpredictability involved that scares a lot of people. They are much more comfortable with God in a box. But the Creator of the universe, who loves each and every one of us does not stay in a box. If we do not have and maintain the Personal relationship then we miss out on so many gifts and so much fun! I have found very little more exciting than working with Father daily. I am learning more of his heart as I grow older.
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tinman97030 10 years, 9 months ago
Hinduism looks pretty organized to me, hundreds if not thousands of gods, that would take a lot of organizing, don't you think?
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Gentleshy 10 years, 9 months ago
Now dont come up with anything clever, just answer the friggen question.
God, he, she , it is one of two things and there is no way around this. Remember, no clever answers, just an answer to this.
EITHER ABLE BUT NOT WILLING
OR WILLING BUT NOT ABLE to stop the pain and suffering and injustice.
Either way, our so called GOD just simply does not exist and you my friend are on your own plain and simple.I need nor want something else to believe in simply to feel good about belonging to a group or to validate my existence.
I am very happy with the fact that I have lived this life. Loved, had children who I adore and adore me, laughed, traveled extensively, helped others and only at the age of 48.I have MUCH more to live and do for the next 20-30 something years.I harbor no ill will for those who do believe,nor do I make fun of them.So stop harboring ill will and disgust for those of us who do not. I wish you all well.
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Rynomyte 10 years, 9 months ago
I fail to see where those are the only two options.
I see God as willing and ready, but hasn't been asked to stop the pain and suffering.
As for injustice, who is the Judge and Jury?
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Mattlockhart 10 years, 9 months ago
You honestly think God hasn't been asked to stop the pain and suffering??? Those people affected by war and violence whose friends and family members lie lifeless among the rubble in the streets - you don't think they are asking god for an end to the pain and suffering?
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jball 10 years, 9 months ago
Who causes war? God? Nope. WE do. I have a medical book of over 10,000 known medical conditions. The fact that you or I do not have more than maybe a couple of these conditions tells me that God is more involved in our well-being than we tend to think.
I am sure that it pains God terribly to look down on us and see all of the pain and suffering that we bring upon ourselves. However, this life is not just some random event. It is a school. We are supposed to be learning down here. God gave us the commandment to love one another, and we can't even do that. I think we should stop blaming God for all the bad that we add to the world.
One of the most important parts to life's plan is agency. We have to have the ability to make choices for ourselves, but we can't be foolish enough to ignore the law that you reap what you sow. We can't be so foolish to think that we can lie, cheat, steal, murder, and generally do evil and then expect that we will magically avoid the natural consequences of those actions.
One of the greatest benefits of my religion is that I now have meaning to my pain. I understand why we go through some crap. If you don't know bad, you will never appreciate the good.
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Filadog 10 years, 9 months ago
Agreed, jball. As a medical provider, my back ground in science has actually strengthened my Faith God. Too many things ended up being just right. If we are just one big cosmic accident, then we are the ultimate under dog story. Everything from the shape of Earth's orbit and distance around the sun to the catastrophic collision millions of years ago that gave our planet a moon resulting in a daily tide that has such an affect on all of our daily lives. *shrugs*, but hey, if we Christians have it wrong, we'll never know. But, if the atheists who spend their entire lives bashing the old man upstairs have it wrong, then they better pack for a warmer climate than they are normally accustomed to.
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Mattlockhart 10 years, 9 months ago
I choose to think of god as a part of everything; a piece of the ebb and flow and cyclical nature of the universe. Your two "options" are therefore inconsequential for god is in the suffering and injustice just as he is in the beauty and love. God is a part of everything and we are a part of god. I feel it is quite simplistic to imagine god as anything at all like us - making decisions, balancing options, willing or not willing to do anything at all. People seem to understand that god is this "all-powerful" ruler of all things, but then attach all these flawed humanistic qualities to him. It seems so outlandishly ridiculous to me that people can think this way.
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squeej 10 years, 9 months ago
What you choose to think about God is inconsequential. You can't prove that God does or does not exist. However, if you do not believe in a supreme law-giver and authority then you have no logically consistent and objective basis for decrying the "immoral" acts of religion. You don't like what religion does...my response is, so what? Why do you care? There's no objective for religious followers to do anything other than exactly what they want to. You don't like it, but you have no authority over them, and atheism doesn't have the authority either. It's not your business what they do or don't do. Why do you care?
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squeej 10 years, 9 months ago
*objective REASON for religious followers...
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Mattlockhart 10 years, 9 months ago
Wait a second. If someone doesn't believe in god then they can't denounce immoralities paraded by a group of people that do? Where's the logic in that?
I like how you think you know me, by the way. Talking about things I don't like. I honestly don't know what it is you're arguing here.
I believe 100% that we are free to do, say, and be whatever we want. Rules and laws are created by man to sustain society. A community is a group of people who share common values. Outside of common basic civility, we are able to do and are capable of anything.
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squeej 10 years, 9 months ago
Totally right...I don't know you...I'm just trying to follow the logic of the Murray post. You believe we are free to do, say, and be whatever we want, and that rules and laws are a product of society. Well, societies change, people change, communities change. How can we know who (objectively) is right and who is wrong? What is the moral authority on which Murray bases his disdain for religion?
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squeej 10 years, 9 months ago
waiting on a reply here...
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DirtDoc 10 years, 9 months ago
Squeej - morality as lived by humans has always been decided by humans. Humanists argue that morality should be constructed to allow all rational beings, (currently, that's humans), to live with equal dignity and respect, and with equal opportunity to live a peaceful, free, and productive life. It requires things like bodily autonomy, freedom of thought and speech, and property rights, among others. It will require debate and discussion and individual commitment to hammer out.
The truth is, whatever you believe to be the divinely mandated morality is equally arbitrary. It has, in recorded history, been wrong somewhere for some reason for some religion. Its basis is "the thing with with most power says so", which does not explain why, just that questioning it is done at one's own peril. I never believed much in the physiological argument for God.
Finally, what the moral authority mandates changes throughout history. 400 years ago we, (or at least me, since as far as we can trace my people have been European peasants), were bound by God's command to be subservient to the will of the monarch. I feel like that wouldn't sit well with you. It certainly doesn't with me. I understand that whatever morality you profess now makes much sense to you, but how can you argue to me, an outside observer, that your current morality will not be rendered obsolete by the next newest revelations?
I was never one to disparage faith as an argument for personal beliefs, but you must recognize how little it means to someone who doesn't share your particular faith, or even brand of Christianity, (forgive me if that's presumptuous of your religious beliefs).
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squeej 10 years, 9 months ago
For right now I'm just addressing Murray's statement in which he basis his disdain for religion on the false premise that it is "the worst enemy of mankind". It most certainly is not, and that's a logically indefensible statement. Secondly, your statement "Humanists argue that morality should be constructed to allow all rational beings, (currently, that's humans), to live with equal dignity and respect, and with equal opportunity to live a peaceful, free, and productive life" is fundamentally based in faith as well. From what objective source do we derive these to be absolutely true and worthy of following? "Should" necessitates an objective standard, which humanists (really naturalists) don't have. They can observe that one moral standard is different than another, but they cannot claim that one is superior to another, their naturalism doesn't allow for it. It is the difference between "is" and "ought". Naturalism does not allow for an "ought" only an "is".
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DirtDoc 10 years, 9 months ago
Sqeej - these comment asides are getting too small. Perhaps we should start a new set?
I see your point about the relative indefensibility of Murray's statement. As for naturalism/humanism - there is no objective morality. It doesn't come from anywhere. My above was a statement on goals for society that I believe that most humanists would agree with. But its only there because we agree with it, because people come together to support those goals, not because it exists a priori.
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tinman97030 10 years, 9 months ago
Ah, one of several great mysteries. I love this one: How to understand a personal and loving God, )Father, the nicest person I know), and why he does not wipe out all pain and suffering in the world? There are several reasons, due to space i will touch on one: simply, He did not create all the pain and suffering in the world. Most of the pain and suffering is caused by people, greedy people, wanting something not rightfully theirs. Granted there are natural disasters that are pretty painful also. But by and large, we get to enjoy the consequences of not just our own choices, but also the choices of others.
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yennikd 10 years, 9 months ago
Let's see, now..."no SINGLE war (emphasis added)... has killed as many people as religion has." The statement might be proven true IF you stay within the parameter of "no single war." But then, the debate would not be just or fair. Consider atheists such as Mao Tse Tung: The conservative count of deaths historians attribute the chairman is around 49 million...Adolph Hitler- 6+ million, Pol Pot-1.7 million, Joseph Stalin-7+million. As far as science, history is full of scientists who led the way to discovery, invention and knowledge. Copernicus, Mendel, Bacon, Pascal, Newton, Kelvin...even Albert Einstein, though not a Christian, argued for the existence of a God.
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egro 10 years, 9 months ago
Hitler falls under the category of christian, by the way.
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tinman97030 10 years, 9 months ago
not really, not by my definition for sure, he was into spiritualism granted, but only as another war front or as a weapon. He did realize there are spiritual entities, he tried to control them for his own uses. Fail every time, at the last
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egro 10 years, 9 months ago
Uh, by definition he was for sure. For a good synopsis of why he was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler
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DirtDoc 10 years, 9 months ago
Tinman - this is a classic cause of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Basically, the opponents argument (i.e. Hitler) is attempted to be rendered moot by declaring him not a "real" christian.
But if the argument is valid, then basically any argument ever is moot. If it works for Hitler, why couldn't any atheist argue that Stalin and Mao don't count as atheists, since when they say "atheists" they actually mean those atheists which follow a rational humanism which respects the dignity which should be granted to all rational beings. And so on, ad nauseum, until every example both sides bring is knocked down until there isn't any argument to be made.
Simply put: you cannot decide, post fact, that someone who professed the Christian faith was not a Christian. I too know Matthew 7, 15-20. But it is irrelevant, then, if you can only know if a person is Christian when you look back on their historical actions. It removes Christianity, (or any religion or lack thereof) as a predictor of morality, which negates your point.
Every group and every nation has examples of people who've done horrible things. Instead of attempting to whitewash the blemishes out, we should be trying to build and promote a good world in such a way that that legacy outshines the blemishes.
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tinman97030 10 years, 9 months ago
Interesting point Dirtdoc, however, i can not agree with your 3rd paragraph. There is no other way to decide, post fact, if a person was a Christian. If personal actions are incongruent with major tenets of the faith that person claimed, then that person is not a follower of that faith.
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DirtDoc 10 years, 9 months ago
Let me rephrase. The argument is classically that the deity in question, (because this extends beyond Christianity), is the basis or provider of the moral code. Stating that one is a follower of the religion is the most common way one professes their belief in one deity, as Hitler did. However, Hitler's belief did not in anyway mitigate his evil. Therefore, professing faith in any one religion or deity (or any collection) is not a predictor of the morality of the individual. While this is a distinct argument from where morality must or can originate, it means that, in the real world, one being religious or not has no basis on whether that person is a moral person.
Functionally, it removes religion or faith as an effective basis for morality, even though individuals may develop good morality from their faith. Throughout history, faith and/or religion has been an unreliable predictor.
Sorry if that came off asshole-ish. I meant to be precise, and that often comes off like i'm being condescending, but that is not my intention.
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tinman97030 10 years, 9 months ago
Dirtdoc, you are great! you remind me of an old friend who almost got a doctorate in Philosophy, from UNY I think. He is so precise that he leaves me choking in the dust sometimes.
I think you and i are using some of the same words, but your understanding of those words is on a different level than mine.
What I understand you saying in the last post: Some people do a better job of living out their faith than some others. Is that close?
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DirtDoc 10 years, 9 months ago
Tinman - No just not living it out well, but that some peoples, in spite of or because of their faith, do evil.
That doesn't mean faith is invalid as a morality source, but for an outside observer, it means faith isn't a solid predictor of morality.
A bit aside from your original point about Hitler - it means that when people come to the public stage declaring their faith as an appropriate source of morality for the general public, people who do not share that faith have reason to be skeptical, and to support alternate sources for their morality.
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Filadog 10 years, 9 months ago
Scientists were also responsible for things like mustard gas, chlorine gas, endless military tech and the atomic bomb.
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skilletboy 10 years, 9 months ago
Only if you don't count the atrocities of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot - ALL ATHEISTIC REGIMES.
But who cares about details!
http://www.scottmanning.com/content/communist-body-count/
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egro 10 years, 9 months ago
Hitler was Christian.
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theycallmechad 10 years, 9 months ago
In most cases, neither faith nor religion has responsible for most of the deaths Mr. Murray is referring to. Feel free to look at the history of Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims, or whatever religion you can think of and find a single point in their doctrine that promotes violence and murder. In the correct context, you won't find any When these things are committed, even if they may have been committed by the majority of those in a particular faith at a particular time, they are not committed because of their doctrines and creeds. Rather, they are committed because they are bad people doing bad things. Religion becomes their justification, even though what they are doing is denies the very faith they profess to believe in.
The real enemy of mankind: power. People will do anything to get it. Once they have it, they will do anything they can do to keep it. Only a small handful of people, I would submit, are capable of holding such power without allowing themselves to betray everything they hold dear, even their religion. I cannot claim to be one of those in this "small handful."
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Mattlockhart 10 years, 9 months ago
Well said!
It's like they say: "guns don't kill people, people kill people."
I think an underlying thread to this whole argument is that we as humans need to get back to a place of love and acceptance. Historically, religion has been used as a pathway to power. There is a lot of death and destruction that can be attributed to the church. "My god is better than your god." "My beliefs are right and yours are not." These are the atrocities I see with religion. It tears us apart rather than bringing us together. It's an identity thing. We want to belong to a group so we claim a given religion. We are all humans. We are all living on the same little rock spinning through the same space. Why have religion at all?
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andrewmoe 10 years, 9 months ago
Hi Mattlockhart,
Religion per se is not the weapon. In Catholicism, religion is understood as the virtue by which we render God His due through thanksgiving and adoration. It would be difficult to argue that prayer, the Mass, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, etc., are weapons of mass destruction.
It is true that practitioners of various religions, even the Catholic Church, are guilty of atrocity. The Church herself admits this, and begs pardon. But it is not true to say that religion is the cause of death and destruction. It is far more accurate to say, as others have noted, that those guilty of causing pain and suffering generally do so in spite of the tenets of their faith. (This arguably includes even the much-feared Islam.)
Where Christianity is concerned, the Gospel urges us to reach out to our neighbor who disagrees with us, not with force or anger, but with joy and concern that they come to know the truth, not be killed or made to suffer for not acknowledging it. Because the only reasonable reason for claiming a given religion or having religion at all is that it is true, and people are made to live more fully by knowing and living it.
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jball 10 years, 9 months ago
Now this I agree with. As humans, we think in terms of categories and for whatever reason we notice differences much easier than similarities. We all have different histories, ideas, looks, and beliefs, but one thing is common among us all: We are human. And that fact alone should mean that all of us are naturally deserving of respect (or as our Founding Fathers put it - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). We do need to be working toward a world in which we treat each other well, despite the differences we might have.
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squeej 10 years, 9 months ago
Not all religion is truth and worthy of following. I believe in the God of Christianity because it is the most likely to be true of all the available options for existence and reality. "Why can't we all just get along" is overly simplistic and naive. Everyone can't be right about God, as something can't be both true and untrue at the same time. It's not logically valid.
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jball 10 years, 9 months ago
I agree with that as well. Not all religion is truth. But why should that have anything to do with how we treat each other as human beings. Does belonging to the right religion give you any right, whatsoever, to treat other people unkindly? No. And if you are saying that Christianity is your religion of choice, then you should know that Christ taught that the greatest commandments are to 1) love God with all your heart and 2) love thy neighbor as thyself. It seems pretty clear that Christ tried to teach us to "just get along". It's not naive. It's not simple either, though. But it's the commandment.
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squeej 10 years, 9 months ago
Yes, those were the commands of God. My point is that naturalism does not support such a standard, at least not without being logically inconsistent. A naturalist (which Murray seems to belong) adheres to a philosophy of morality that is logically inconsistent. They want to remove an objective (not subject to time or space) standard of morality, while at the same time hold onto an objective standard of morality (that religion is bad). They can't have it both ways. Either admit an objective standard of morality exists, or shut up and leave the discussion to those of us who believe that an objective truth exists.
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Filadog 10 years, 9 months ago
The Muslim Quran contains many, many verses promoting violence against nonbelievers or "infidels". See also, "jihad". Just throwing that out there.
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theycallmechad 10 years, 9 months ago
The Qur'an indeed speaks of violent things. Likewise, the Old Testament also speaks of violent things. The problem, though, is that people take these "violent things" out of context and use them as justification for the evil things they do. Religion is not to blame. The books, creeds, and doctrines are not to blame. Evil people are to blame for the evil things they have done. Though you can read it in both books, both books teach overwhelmingly of peace, love, and acceptance and preach against murder and violence.
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cjmotz 10 years, 9 months ago
Perhaps Mr. Murray harbors some animosity against religion because each of the major world religions would frown upon his scandalous infidelities and two divorces. Not to mention a few of history's most brilliant scientists have been devoutly religious. Some haters just gotta hate.
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bean 10 years, 9 months ago
My own faith started with a simple pondering of Paschals wager:"I'd rather live life as if there was God and find out there wasn't one, than to live life as if there were no God and find out there was one" Sobering and thought provoking.
Also God doesn't believe in athiests... wait for it... wait for it... ;)
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bean 10 years, 9 months ago
And I don't have to be able to fit the vast awesomeness into my pea brain... ya know, God doesn't account for much if I can contain Him
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egro 10 years, 9 months ago
But how did you know which god to wager? Of all the gods that people believe in (or used to believe in), what if you wagered on the wrong one?
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swhitman 10 years, 8 months ago
I would wager on the one who said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me". And in that point, he's "liar, lunatic, or Lord" (CS Lewis)
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tinman97030 10 years, 9 months ago
Well said, Bean.
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mhes 10 years, 9 months ago
Why should I care what Bill Murray says about religion. He is an actor, someone who can memorize lines and show emotion on command, that is all. He is a typical product of Hollywood, not an expert to influence my feelings.
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Mattlockhart 10 years, 9 months ago
Why do you care?
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ZapBranagan 10 years, 9 months ago
Let me play Devil's advocate for a moment. I don't necessarily subscribe to what I am about to say, but if Bill can be simplistic and shortsighted, so can I.
What is really so evolved about seeking equality as a humanist? You believe in nothingness beyond consciousness, you aren't accountable to or for anything save for civic laws, which are just illusions of governance designed by other humans, mostly from ruling classes even when operating under the guise of "democracy".
You can parade justice and equality all you want, but you are still nothing. And you never will be anything under your belief, so you cannot attack with any sort of merit those who do not support equality and justice as immoral because the only equality that truly exists under your logic is that we are equally nothing, all bound by only ourselves and our corrupt societal governance. So those who would support injustice could never be immoral because immorality doesn't exist, at least not with an absolute value. The worst a supporter of injustice could ever hope to be is unlawful. (By the way, justice can only be used to relate to human law under humanism, because if we are nothing, there no justice either).
Anyway. This is a lot to type on a phone. It just seems to me that humanist who seek equality and justice have no real ground to stand on. A very good argument can be made that they are evolved, selfless beings. But an equal argument can be made that they are foolish and weak. And nothing matters, so neither is right, neither is wrong.
If you follow atheism and humanism to the root, it cannot have morality. Only fleeting opinions and relative truth.
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tico1998 10 years, 9 months ago
I guess I will put in my two cents.......When I am out in the wilderness and I look around. I can't deny that there is a God or a greater being ;)
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squeej 10 years, 9 months ago
DirtDoc...we can continue here...you do state correctly that the only real standard of morality for the naturalist (previously described as humanist) is mutually agreed upon standards. However, morality by consensus is not morality...it is coercion. We do what we all agree we should do is a terribly dangerous standard of living and reduces the highest good to those that are powerful enough to enforce it. If a large enough portion of society were to agree that we should kill all of a certain ethnic minority, does that make it morally defensible? I don't think that they would say it would, but that is the only standard that naturalism allows.
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swhitman 10 years, 8 months ago
"According to the Encyclopedia of Wars (Phillips and Axelrod, Facts on File, December 2004) of the 1,763 major conflicts in recorded history, only 123 of them were classified as having been fought over religious differences. That’s just under 7 percent. The encyclopedia also explains that the number of people killed in these conflicts amounts to only 2 percent." - http://www.jonsorensen.net/2012/09/18/is-religion-really-the-number-one-cause-of-war/
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