samy_73 - 08 August 2011 01:45 PM
What I meant by the surgeon, they may decide to (I mean the proper solution have to be) remove, sacrifice, some part of the body, if it’s too bad, we call it in Arabic (ghargharena) for the sake of the whole body. If they didn’t remove the bad part the disease will spread in the whole body.
With the same concept the legal system may have to remove, sacrifice, some persons (prison or even killing) from the society for the sake of the whole people. if they didn’t that will be too bad.
While I agree with you, that we have to find the proper procedures to reduce the number of bad persons. Until then sacrifices has to be made.
Religions have a good concept in charity, justice, social work and community integrity. Or you like to exclude any thing about religions?
Some thing else, I think we have to survey the history to find the good examples and concepts to have more justice and happy society. and to reduce the number of sacrifices
My problem with religion’s moral outlook or their notions of social justice is that they are simply too contradictory or that people see in them what they want and ignore what they don’t want to follow. Within the Old Testament there’s the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” yet there are countless passages where the O.T. god either orders someone to kill or he himself does a whole lot of killing. Not only is it confusing Samy. but realistically there is no consistency at all. Even in islam, where leading up to the formation of the religion Mohammed had killed others and his armies slaughtered thousands, yet all this immoral behaviour is somehow sanctioned by those who do the killing and this includes “the prophet” himself.
Yes, some religions do have decent concepts of charity, justice, social work, and community integrity but these are all done with some imaginary higher purpose in mind. People are commanded to do good deeds but not for the right reasons. They are ordered to be good not because they are good, not because they respect others, not because they have compassion for others, but because they will personally be rewarded for behaving properly. There is a selfish motive behind these good deeds and the most selfish of these is the promise of an eternal existence with the very same supernatural god who has given these commands and made these rules for all people, all the time. You cannot hope to formulate a world of peaceful coexistence in the human realm when the underlying impulse to cooperate is a purely selfish one. The judeo-christian-islamic religions all offer the same sort of doctrine, and it is a doctrine that is bound to fail. And it will fail on at least two counts, 1) there is no such thing as a god - a supernatural being with intelligence, feeling, and rationality; and 2) you cannot construct a caring community by appealing purely to self-interest.
The only way to teach people to care for one another is to throw us godless to the authentic forces of nature in all their glory and misery. WHen you think of the great resourcefulness of humanity since the taming of fire and the invention of the wheel, why would anyone need to put their hope for our future upon the whims of an imaginary being who really doesn’t exist? When we are able to fully appreciate the depth of human ingenuity, only then will we be able to understand our collective situation in this universe, until then we are slaves to silly ideas and childish notions that only serve to divide us and continue to be enslaved by their promoters (largely the religious elites).
