How religion works

Evil lurks in the heart of all men. Nothing we create is free from that taint.

The streets are full of false prophets and people looking to be fooled.

Like everything in Genesis, it's a parable about our own nature.

Have you read Hume?

Bits & pieces.
All I need know is the relevant bit about his debunking of the whole idea of supernaturalism.

Religion appears to me to work by making bizarre and unnecessary assertions about reality; and then threatening those who refuse to sign up to them. Almost all believers make similar claims about theirs being the unique truth, dismissing others as "man made".

But not TOO bizarre.

Have you ever noticed how they take reality, but tinker it just enough that people can still believe it?
Even though when you actually THINK about it, it's still ridiculous.

A snake...except it can talk.
A donkey....except it can talk.
A burning bush...except it doesn't consume...and it can talk.

Now, seems to me, if you've got a talking donkey, it may as well get up on it's hind legs, and start telling jokes in Eddie Murphy's voice, and singing songs.
But, if you had that in the Bible, for some strange reason, people wouldn't accept that.
It would be too ridiculous or some reason.

Or, what if the talking tree looked like the ticket oak?
Silly, right?

There's a psychological phenomena behind that, I forget what the name of it is.
But, it's literally how this stuff can hack your brain's firewall.

You can strengthen that firewall with critical thinking, but the brain is equipped for accepting narratives that fit into reality, but one outlandish detail can be exaggerated, because that outlandish detail could be a tiger coming to eat you.

Hell, look at the movie "Ghostbusters".
If the marshmallow man showed up in the first act, it would be stupid, but, they get you there with the ESP experiments, then the PKA meter, then the ectoplasm, then the ghost, then lots of ghosts, then Gozer, THEN marshmallow man for the payoff.
Even Hollywood unconsciously knows how this works.

It's why the Christians on this board flinch when I toss around "invisible sky daddy", and "carpenter nailed to a stick", and calling miracles and supernatural what they are, magic.
It throws a monkey wrench into the non-counter-intuitive narrative.
And it's why I'm going to keep doing it.

I have to emphatically disagree. Traditional religious claims are way too bizarre to be believed absent brain damage or some sort of training from birth in accepting the patently ridiculous as true. People really do need to be indoctrinated to be conventionally religious. And, judging by behavior, even most of those claiming belief don't really believe. How many alleged believers do you know who celebrate the deaths of loved ones or who condemn poly/cotton blends with the same vigor with which they condemn homosexuality? How many christians do you know who do missionary work in Saudi Arabia for their instant ticket to heaven? People may want to believe and may believe they believe, but very few actually believe.

Because you're a critical thinker.

And childhood indoctrination plays a big part, yes.

And traditionalism.
The whole "argument from popularity", deal.

"Evil" isn't so much a useless word as it is a word that demands clarification. It is a word used in many different, yet related, ways, and some of those ways are actually useful, but without clarification of the definition being used equivocation becomes the norm. It's similar in a way to the word "socialism;" just because some classes of people equivocate freely, using it alternately to mean "things we don't like, no matter how inconsequential" and "severely oppressive measures that destroy human dignity and freedom" doesn't mean we should just throw the word out.

I like the Hitchens definition.
"That extra little bit you didn't have to do".
The holocaust fits that definition quite well.
We need something to call that, evil does the trick.

Although, I do agree, evil as most people use it day in and day out, is pretty sloppy.
Especially when they imagine it as this solid thing that floats around, or this black liquid that grows in your blood, and turns you into Mr. Hyde.
That kind of evil is bullshit, even in metaphor form.

Says the man who openly advocates war against other nations considered "bad" like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Okay, find a word that suits you to describe any violation of "If it harm no one, do what you will."

"Government"

Your employer's employer, you mean. Say that around the office much?

Seriously, were you asking to ask, or was that some little power game?

I was interested because few people I've met have actually read Hume at any length, and I find his texts among the most difficult I've dabbled in. So I wanted to know whether it was (perhaps a partial version of) his ideas, or specifically his writings you were referring to.

What would the power game be? "Look at me, I have read a philosopher you haven't"? I'd hope my more frequent "Look at this, I've found something interesting in a philosopher you might have not read yourself" isn't mistaken for that, which would be pretty much the opposite attitude. But I'm not going to deny, or apologize for, reading interesting stuff just to avoid false accusations of elitism.

*Puts guns away*

Oh, all right then...

Seems to me that incoherent gobbledygook is self-debunking. I've yet to see anyone articulate a definition of "supernaturalism" that distinguishes it both from "naturalism" and "attributing existence to things that don't actually exist." As far as I can tell the term "supernatural" and its derivatives are even less coherent than Deepak Chopra talking about quantum mechanics.

Yeah, now.
Hume was the guy who actually sat down and did the think-work.

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Nations and individuals are not the same Black Dove.

Actually, it is very much about Dayton. Does his religion fit the criteria mentioned in the OP, or not? I believe it does, thoroughly.

But Dayton just told us he doesn't expect to have any rights on blessings for his actions, nor to fair treatment by God. How do you reconcile that with your first claim?

By reading what he has posted many times. He says his Christianity is about being forgiven for his sins so he can go to heaven, not about changing his sinful heart. If he doesn't expect any blessings for "believing in Jesus," and doesn't have any "right" to eternal life, how can he have any expectation of heaven?

Do you honestly think there is no evil involved in the actions of those ed629 posted about in post #59? If so, then what would you call it?

So then you don't pass a value judgment on people prostituting their children, kidnapping and murdering other people's children, and generally doing everything they can to make others suffer for their own enjoyment? You really don't see a difference in value between helping those in need and killing others for your own advantage? Or are you really saying that any difference you might see is simply culturally ingrained, rather than a true difference between something that is innately good and something that isn't?

I must say that if you don't, then it seems to me that that makes you evil.

I think there are a pretty sizable number of actions that are inherently evil and will always be evil regardless of the standards of the times.

Though the famous Confederate raider John Mosby did point out regarding slavery that every man deserves to be judged by the standards of the time he lived in.

When people say things like "simply culturally constructed", I always think of "merely rocket science", "only a nuke", "plain freedom", or my favorite: "mere survival".

Having said that, I still think evil is a valid concept. Doesn't mean it exceeds cultural differences, though.

It has meaning, just not a concrete definition.
It's up to you to make the distinction.