Comments on: Church of Scientology convicted in France

By: Psychology: Religion for the New World » Culture » One Higher Power

Psychology: Religion for the New World » Culture » One Higher Power — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:04:32 +0000

[...] the inner workings that drive people to do what they do, and let our religion stand as simply a personal choice for emotional and social [...]

By: Vincent

Vincent — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:19:34 +0000

Over here there is an amusing attempt by “science” (as if it were a movement, rather than a profession) to tell government what’s right. government appointed a committee of volunteer scientists to report on drugs - cannabis, ecstasy and so on. Scientist, head of one of these committees, said they are probably less dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol, so government should downgrade classification. government refused. Scientist said that is stupid. Scientist (Professor Nutt) sacked from committee from meddling in politics - publicly speaking against government policy. Now scientists ganging together to demand government listens to their “evidence-based truth” (as opposed to politicians’ politics). I feel like saying “Shut up scientists. We are content to complain about government. We need it but we dislike it. Interfere like this and we’ll complain about you scientists too. And then you won’t have jobs. Because we don’t really need you.”

By: Vincent

Vincent — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:12:46 +0000

Well, I think we oppress ourselves, partly with consumerism. We need jobs to earn a living, we need to consume all the manufactured stuff in order that wealth be distributed. Most people would not find advertising and propaganda oppressive, perhaps. I do. Together with government propaganda, opposition propaganda, religious propaganda. I would prefer silence and peasant simplicity: birdsong whilst we work the fields and so on. I look forward to the downfall of technological civilization, but of course won’t do anything to encourage or hasten any revolution. We have to find a way to live in the environment we find ourselves in. This is the animal’s quest. We are animals.

By: Timothy

Timothy — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:02:24 +0000

I can see the similarities in that trend. Perhaps this time, science, rather than religion, will be the oppressor’s tool of choice.

By: Vincent

Vincent — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:00:18 +0000

I like the way you have observed these phenomena and described them so coherently.

I think I would like to post on some similar subject, on my blog. Was thinking about it in the bath. But the focus would not be on religion especially: more the changing landscape of life-support mechanisms, in the broadest possible sense.

I think I would compare what’s happening today, and is mistaken for “freedom”, with the turbulence in Europe in the first millennium AD, and continuing until some arbitrary cut-off, perhaps the emergence of Martin Luther and his 95 theses. In those times, religion was almost simultaneously an instrument of individual liberation and mass oppression. I think it must be difficult for historians to know, and then to depict, what it was really like to live in those ages.

It’s the same today, in the sense that it’s impossible to generalise what’s going on.