Turns out economic dogma is worse than religious dogma — Xtrix

Religion is just a crude form of ideology, the master ideologies of the world do not reveal their presence so easy. I always try to tell young atheists not to feel like they accomplished something by escaping religion, there is no congratulations here, religion is but the dumbest and lowest slug on the ideological tree.

We already have had peak conventional oil. So we've seen quite well what it is like.

And I really believe that killing people doesn't make the World a better place.

Been tried a lot of times. Hasn't worked.

Religion is just a crude form of ideology, the master ideologies of the world do not reveal their presence so easy. I always try to tell young atheists not to feel like they accomplished something by escaping religion, there is no congratulations here, religion is but the dumbest and lowest slug on the ideological tree. — JerseyFlight

It depends on what we're calling "religion," of course. More or less a matter of definition, but the typically acknowledged religions -- Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc -- are themselves so varied and range from one moral extreme to another that it's difficult to lump them in to "dumb" or sluggish or whatever.

Master ideologies are often right in front of us as well. I view beliefs about capitalism to be pretty in-your-face, especially in the US, yet few escape it.

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc -- are themselves so varied and range from one moral extreme to another that it's difficult to lump them in to "dumb" or sluggish or whatever. — Xtrix

Not true. Man is only religious in his psychology. Reality is material, religion is not. You are here thinking about religion absent from meta-cognition, instead of comprehending it from the inescapable reality of materialism you are interpreting it through culture, which makes you, in one sense or another, duped by it.

Master ideologies are often right in front of us as well. — Xtrix

Depends on what you mean by, right in front of us? If you mean they are "obvious," this is false. Man validates the administered world as reality, until he achieves a critical capacity he has no power to separate himself from it. And part of the tyranny a master ideologies is that they foster conditions to promote critical poverty, thus making use of religion while consciously standing above it.

Subtle ideologies do not begin with the assertion of phantom deities. This could not be cruder or more stupid. Subtle ideologies usually begin with socially normative precepts, trying carefully to avoid all criticism regarding the intelligence or fairness of such activity, working to reinforce the status quo.

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc -- are themselves so varied and range from one moral extreme to another that it's difficult to lump them in to "dumb" or sluggish or whatever.
— Xtrix

Not true. Man is only religious in his psychology. Reality is material, religion is not. You are here thinking about religion absent from meta-cognition, instead of comprehending it from the inescapable reality of materialism you are interpreting it through culture, which makes you, in one sense or another, duped by it. — JerseyFlight

You don't know what you're talking about.

First of all, the assumption that reality is "material" has a long history -- and no one yet, certainly not you, have shown this to be the case. In fact no one can tell us what "material" is. There was a conception of it in the mechanical philosophy of Galileo, Descartes, etc., but was abandoned shortly after Newton. There hasn't been a technical notion of "body" since then, or material. If you want to be "duped" by scientism, and a dogmatic belief in materialism, that's your business.

Secondly, my statement is factually accurate to anyone who's made the slightest effort to understand what is typically called "religion" (itself an amorphous term) -- namely, that they're diverse, varied, difficult to categorize (are the tenants of Buddhism "religious"? No god, often no mysticism, etc), and often very moral indeed. In fact we wouldn't have modern science without religion.

For the record -- your sophomoric accusations aside -- I'm as non-religious and atheistic as they come, nor do I ever give quarter to supernaturalism or evidence-free appeals to faith.

Third and lastly, to criticize "interpreting it through culture," while prior to this saying that materialism is "inescapable," is truly embarrassing. If you still can't see why, there's no sense in talking.

Subtle ideologies do not begin with the assertion of phantom deities. This could not be cruder or more stupid. Subtle ideologies usually begin with socially normative precepts, trying carefully to avoid all criticism regarding the intelligence or fairness of such activity, working to reinforce the status quo. — JerseyFlight

Again, in attempting to make authoritative assertions you come off sounding like a high school student who's just read some Karl Marx.

The equating of religion with the assertion of "phantom deities" is really not even worth the effort here.

What I was correctly saying, and which should be obvious, is that today's ideologies (take neoliberalism, which is a variant of capitalism) are all around us. They're not hidden. They are indeed "obvious," but in being so are that much more overlooked -- in the same way it's "obvious" we're breathing, yet we very often overlook this fact. You want to restrict "religion" to invisible deities and myth-like creatures, but what is truly harmful in religion is dogmatism. Yet this shows up in politics and economics as well, and in many ways has been far more damaging. Examples abound.

In some cases focusing on environmentalism indirectly brings wars. Wars release alot of carbon monoxide and other chemicals into the atmosphere. Some believe abortion is murder and population control politics can lead to that. Abortion is forgivable according to the Bible.