I used to believe that highly religious people are *better* than the rest of us.

[mwb970]

Of course, that was when I was young and naive. (I also thought Ringo was a great drummer.)

Years went by. After interacting with very religious people at college and in the workplace, I realized that I had been wrong. Hyper-religious people aren't better than us, I decided. They're no better or worse than anyone else, they just have a different perspective on life. (I also discovered that Neil Peart is a better drummer than Ringo.)

More years went by. I continued to observe overly religious people in action in my own life, in my reading of history, and in the news. In time I was forced to reach the conclusion I still believe in today. The conclusion is that religion is a corrosive, destructive force that does some good for some individual people but becomes a terrible danger when it is used by groups of uneducated people to fanatically press an extremist agenda, which for some reason it almost always is.

Now, after a lifetime of observation, I feel that highly religious people are in fact worse than the rest of us. Much, much worse. And much more dangerous.

A Final Note: I am talking about religion, not spirituality. I am the most spiritual person I know. But I want nothing to do with religion or with hyper-religious people. Oh, and I'm back to admiring Ringo.

[armyowalgreens]

1. Having such blind faith in epic fairy tails is bad

Believing that God exists is illogical at best. But I'm not going to bash someone for believing in God. I think it's odd that they wish to believe in a god that has allowed such horrible things to occur.

But following modern religion is just plain bad for everyone. Whatever benefits religion provides is vastly outweighed by its poisonous effects.

The world would be a better place without religion.

[Buzz Clik]

2. What you should have learned (and did not) is to avoid making broad generalizations.

Humans are flawed creatures. The highly religious are no better than the rest of us and no worse. Just people.

[moobu2]

11. They should be held to a higher standard

As long as they claim to be better than the rest of us, which most of them do.

[Buzz Clik]

12. Sure, that's reasonable for those who claim to be superior.

[sendero]

3. The reason religious people hate commies..

....so much is that they nailed it. "Opiate of the masses" - Shakespeare could not describe it better.

[saltpoint]

4. I like Ringo, too. It's hard not liking him. He's affable and fun. Peter Best also

holds my attention. Likely a better musician, Peter Best. A wayward twist of fate made one of those two folks wealthy and famous and the other kind of a footnote. Odd thing, the omelet of fame and talent.

Agree with you on the idea that a lot of the very religious folk claim a higher moral ground than others by dint of their religion. Or by dint of their belief in their religion. Their pastor tells them they are following the Way and they feel, I guess, that they have a right to feel superior to people who are "lost."

Off-topic, I just want to add that people who claim Jesus as their "personal Savior" are bothersome. For one thing, it suggests that Jesus has more accounts than he can reasonably handle and for another it reduces the catharsis of faith to a drive-through relationship. It's a form of gossip. High-profile name-dropping. Product placement. "Jesus loves me better than he does you. I'm holy, you're wicked, and look how the fish symbol on my van shines in the noonday sun."

In its extreme form we get the smarmy televangelists in their several-hundred dollar suits braying like jackasses on the stages of megachurches. We get crystal cathedrals and censorship. Assassination, as the quotation goes, is the extreme form of censorship. Enter Scott Roeder, stage Right.

The garden variety fundies don't like being challenged on the contradictions of their own faith generally and on the hypocrisies of the way they practice that faith especially. I find that many of them have not read the New Testament and have no clear idea what their own pastors are referring to. I sometimes accuse them of being unlicensed to practice their own faith.

There are a whole lot of secular humanists out there who know the New Testament better than these garden variety fundies. And some liberal Christians as well, among them Barack Obama.

[ixion]

5. I think that fanaticism of any kind is counter-productive and dangerous

when a person believes their way is the One And Only Way, that's when belief becomes a problem for the rest of us. This is true of any institution, political, religious or otherwise, IMO.

[get the red out]

7. That's absolutely true

It isn't what one believes or doesn't believe spiritually, it is if someone wishes to force their belief system on others. The Soviet Union forced people into their version of communism, their political belief system, at the cost of countless lives. The Catholic Church did the same in the middle ages. Islam has done the same. There is a pattern and it has less to do with a spiritual idea, or lack thereof, than it does people forcibly imposing their will on others.

It goes from taking people's rights to killing them to keep them from complaining about it. Very slippery slope.

I am afraid of anyone who needs to make me believe as they do, I avoid those people and view them as a threat.

[marmar]

6. As someone who attended religious schools through 12th grade....

.... I KNEW that wasn't true.

[islandmkl]

8. ask any drummer about Ringo...well, any drummer with chops, anyway...

Ringo enjoys a well-earned, well-deserved reputation for being the SOLID beat of the Beatles...for those of you too young to remember, or know...the BEAT of the British Invasion bands was the big change in rock and roll...many early songs at that time were 'covers' of American songs (first Stones album was ALL covers except one song)...but the SOUND was SO DIFFERENT...

Ringo was bedrock...not unlike Charlie Watts...and, personality differences notwithstanding, Keith Moon (keeping Pete Townsend on pace...what a job...)

John Lennon loved Ringo...and loved to 'pimp' him...when asked if Ringo was the best drummer, John replied, "He's not even the best drummer in The Beatles!"

(by the way, my favorite John Lennon quote: "If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'.")

some advice from Ringo: "Ringo: The future will never come, it will all soon be over tomorrow."

[raccoon]

9. I used to believe highly religious people were better than the rest of us too.

I used to believe a person who exhibited extreme religiosity was very "good." Now I know there is such a thing as religious addiction, and such a person is sick as any substance abuser.

One of my uncles was married to a woman who CLAIMED to be real religious. She was an abusive, hateful bitch.

I've heard it on DU that being religious doesn't change what a person is to start with; if they are a kind and compassionate person, they'll still be one; if they are fundamentally an asshole, they'll still be an asshole.

And many people think it's OK to hate or kill other people in the name of religion.

I still think Keith Moon was a great drummer. :-) And Ringo's a nice person, I think.

[imdjh]

10. What it really is, is time for a change. The question is: Will the new religion be better?

Wy religion gets a pass is beyond me. The idea that this one area of philosophy is somehow off limits is absurd. Judaism especially gets a pass. It get treated as this quaint amalgam of quaint traditions and borscht-belt humor when in fact it's the parent of Christianity and Islam, albeit an unwilling parent.

The bottom line is that Judeochristoislam is a very old religion and it's time for it to die. Religions rarely die willingly or on their own. Neither Judaism, Christianity, nor Islam rose to power through harmless evangelism- all of these religions were established, spread, and enforced with violence. We jump through hoops to contain this view of religion, so as to not offend people we like whom we view as peaceful and harmless practitioners of modern forms of these religions. This is not the way to kill a religion, and it's not politeness in reality. It's just another form of fear.

Central to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (and Scientology for that matter, but let's not get distracted) is that members of your religious group are superior to those who are not. It is. It is. It very much is, even if they stand there and deny it for eternity, it is. The most ridiculous thing going is the idea of pantheism or ecumenicalism because, as a fundamentalist Christian pointed out to me as I tried to take this easy way out: Why would you believe in your religion if you didn't believe that it was the one true religion? He was right. If you believe that Islam is as good as Christianity, then you must believe that Christianity is as bad as Islam. You cannot believe that both of these religions are true, or that they are simply different ways of seeing things. Both of these religions have REQUIREMENTS, even if some of their members ignore them.

HIstorically, religions die hard. They have to be helped along the way. They have to be killed through mockery, social and government disapproval down to the "na na you're still an idiot" level. But historically they are also replaced with another religion. It's hard to imagine that we could come up with one worse than Islam presently is as an international force of oppression. But it's possible. Certainly trying to revive old religions that we only view as benign because the modern practitioners are making it up as they go along and wrapping it in New Age mush isn't going to cut it. It's as silly as anything else in this regard.

So that only leaves one viable candidate at present- what Jerry Falwell called Secular Humanism and what most of us call Reason. Reason sounds great, but as soon as you start to see it as a religion, it starts to grow doctrine and ritual. This can be easily observed in "first world" nations. Iran's chador police may be primitive by comparison, but having some flower child slap you with a fine for an inappropriate bumper sticker isn't going to be much better.

Which leaves us with no answer. The world truly cannot imagine itself without religion of some kind. The only question is which one will be next.

[timtom]

13. Two things:

Any group of people is a microcosm of all people. You will find among them some distribution of good, bad, and indifferent.

If Ringo did the drumming on "A Day in the Life", then he is an exquisite drummer.

[rocktivity]

14. Religious people are still just PEOPLE, after all.

And religion is like liquor--it works best when used in moderation.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[msongs]

15. religion is superstition and fairy tale, Ringo is real (oops, he's actually Richard) nt

[Bonhomme Richard]

16. I always thought they were more hypocritical than the rest of us. n/t

[dorkulon]

17. Ringo WAS a great drummer! But yeah, wrong about the other thing. /nt

[rocktivity]

19. People think you have to play like John Bonham or Neal Peart to be "great"

Ringo gets overlooked because what he played was so "simple." Or was it? Here's very wise advice from Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres (who lists Ringo Starr among his influences):

Q: ...With Bon Jovi, you tend to have to remain in the more pop-oriented time signatures. Do you find it challenging to remain creative within those confines?

TORRES: I think it's just as hard to play 4/4 as it is 7/8. To get that simplicity--and to me, simplicity can be genius--to lay that straight beat in is th3 basis of every time signature. Playing 7/8 is really just playing 4/4, but you're stretching it...I also think it's hard play 4/4 if you don't feel it...it's the basis, the foundation, and from there you can go anywhere you want.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[L. Coyote]

18. Was that before you knew about mental illness?

The more religious the society, the older we are when we learn about human delusions. :rofl:

[TrogL]

20. Neal Peart is the better technical drummer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF-k4wg70rg

...in the jazz, jazz rock, prog rock world this would fit right in.

I hardly see Ringo running off the rails during a Beatles tune. That's not the style.

Force Peart to just keep the beat during a pop song and he'll start killing people.

[Dorian Gray]

21. A person is a person

capable of good and bad, regardless of religious beliefs. For some, religion may help them strive to be better people while for others it might justify their bad behavior.

I don't care if someone is religious or not. I don't like when people are judgmental, but that's another issue.