and i don't mean propaganda, but teaching people not to be selfish, to care for others and consider others needs, to contribute to the betterment of society. to have compassion, remove prejudice, etc.
if these values were taught in schools, then the next generation would make better choices and they would know better and vote for better infrastructure.
Oil and car companies' futures depend on continued public support for free parking, more lanes and housing far away from destinations. It's in their interest to manipulate people into opinions that are beneficial to their bottom line, and they will continue to do so.
People vote completely the opposite on things like nuclear energy, wind energy, defense spending, etc all while thinking they are bettering society.
Getting everyone consistent on those requires full on propaganda and forced “re-education” whenever people critically examine things.
a consistent vision is that everyone has a right to live their live according to their own ideas, as long as that doesn't affect others. but this vision requires an understanding that we all are contributing with good intentions.
it is the good intentions that we need to instill in everyone.
Look at the abortion debate. One side is about the rights of the woman and the other side is about the rights of the fetus. When people see the fetus as a baby, it suddenly becomes murder. There isn’t much nuance there for a compromise.
what are current religions for you? i do not want to promote a particular religion on this site, but there are options out there that you may not yet have considered.
i also believe that while peoples behavior reflects their religion, the religions do not control or limit anyones ability to examine things critically. if you are in a religious community that does that, i'd urge you to get out as soon as possible.
Look at the abortion debate
that kind of feels like moving the goalpost. just because there is one topic where a compromise is difficult, if not impossible, doesn't mean the whole idea of finding a solution that works for everyone is not possible.
i am not american, so i am observing the debate as it happens there only from the sidelines. one of the primary criticisms i see against the anti abortion crowd is that they don't consider helping parents with resources they need to raise the baby. where i come from this is mostly a solved problem, because parents, including single mothers, receive plenty of support to raise children.
but more importantly i have a problem with the major religions being obsessed with punishing people for breaking god's laws. as humans we need to concern ourselves with those crimes that actually cause problems in our society, and leave the punishment of breaking god's laws to god.
the compromise is to recognize the needs of the mother as well as that of the unborn child.
Religious leaders mostly disagree with you, and in religious societies, their beliefs are reflected in public policy.
for starters, better education will also affect future religious leaders and make them better leaders. but the religions themselves also need critical examination. examples for a better model for religions exist. we need to look at them and adopt some of their ideas.
this discussion shows how the process works. we identify a problem, look for potential solutions, and in the process we find other problems that get in the way, so we work on those problems, until we find issues we can actually fix. and once fixed earlier found issues can be fixed as well, and so on. every step along the way we are making the world a little bit better than before.
Of course, you're looking at this as an outsider who doesn't believe the religion, so you don't see it this way, and you have entirely different goals in mind. You're probably thinking about people living together in a pluralistic world or something like that, but that's not a concern to a True Believer in a religion, where anyone who disagrees with the religion either needs to stay out of the way or be killed if necessary.
i am a religious person, btw. and i absolutely believe that religion needs to change and advance just like everything else on this planet. the purpose of religion is to address the problems a society faces in its time. as our society advances, so must religion, to be ready to address the problems of a modern changing society. if it can't do that it needs to be replaced by another. this is exactly what jesus did, and the reason why he came to earth. and it is the reason why he promised to return. it is the purpose of all of god's messengers to advance and reform our religious beliefs.
Absolutely, yes, if you ask the religious people who did those things. Of course, non-religious people (or people of a different religion) disagree, but that's simply a difference of opinion.
>have you not noticed how christianity has changed over time?
It's changed in many ways, and depends on which group of Christians you're looking at. Are you looking at the Mormons, the "supply side Christians" that are popular in American mega-churches, the rather liberal Presbyterians, or what?
>is everything religious leaders and people do in the name of religion today backed by their holy scripture?
I'm pretty sure it is. You can interpret that scripture an infinite number of ways, so they always seem to find some way of supporting their claims.
>there is room for improvement.
"improvement" is your opinion only. For them, your idea of "needed changes" are anathema.
>this is exactly what jesus did,
Jesus specifically said (if you believe the quotes in the bible are true) that he did NOT come to replace anything. Of course, the teachings attributed to him are quite different from the religion he claimed not to be replacing. And of course, there's no real evidence to support any of this, either his existence, the words claimed to have been said by him, the previous religion the people in that region followed, etc.
Jesus specifically said that he did NOT come to replace anything
but he did come to reform. with the sword.
there's no real evidence to [...] his existence
historians beg to differ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
and as for the words, well, the bible is authentically almost 2000 years old. so someone must have said the words that the people in the bible report. of course, given how the bible was written it is hard to find real evidence for that. so i am not faulting you for not believing it to be real.
to me that doesn't really matter. whether religions are of divine origin or a fantasy, they clearly have a strong influence on the world, and therefore we must subject them to criticism and to reform if they want to keep their relevance in the world.
alternatively, it's time to look for their replacement. it is possible that jesus already came back and the majority of the world missed it.
Why do they need to stay relevant? If you're willing to accept they're fantasy, then it'd be better for everyone to read Lord of the Rings instead. At least it actually promotes wholesome values and thinking, unlike the Bible which promotes rape, slavery, and genocide. The god of LotR is consistent, whereas the god of the Bible seems to be narcissistic, sociopathic, and worse, schizophrenic (somehow going from directing his followers to commit genocide, to later reproducing somehow and then promoting peace and tolerace, but only sometimes).
And at least with fantasy epics, everyone knows they're not real, so no one is setting up theocracies based on their interpretations of them and committing atrocities to support these.
they don't need to stay relevant. reform is what they need to do if they want to stay relevant. otherwise they will soon stop being relevant. however as long as they continue to have a strong influence, we need to keep an eye on them and look for their replacement
If that sounds ridiculous to you, it’s not. It’s what all of the other religions that don’t stem from Christianity think of it.
This is why “education” will not fix any of this. There are very fundamental rifts in what the truth even is.
the legitimacy of the bible or of christianity has also been confirmed in the koran as one of the religions of the book.
i agree with you that this book and others are not suitable for our modern day society. hence the need for reform or replacement.
but the interesting part is that the replacement has been announced in the bible itself. in it jesus states that he will return.
and in the past 200 years some people have made the claim to be the return of jesus. it is now up to us to investigate these claims and find out which of these, if any, is genuine.
the primary goal of education here is that everyone needs to learn and understand that they need to critically investigate and search for the truth. all of us. and that search is not done as long as there are conflicting ideas of what the truth is. so we need to keep searching.
It’s not shifting any goalposts at all. All it takes is one example to show how the idea fails and that’s what I provided.
education means teaching people that it is desirable and beneficial to cooperate, and that it is necessary to put aside our differences in order to achieve that.
you assume that current religious doctrines trump any hope of achieving that. but i beg to differ. every religion in its core is based on love, and therefore any form rejection of non-believers is already a failure of the core beliefs of every religion.
and for every claim that their rejection or hatred is backed by their holy scripture, we can find another member of that same religion who disagrees. i have been participating in interreligious dialogue and i know that peaceful coexistence and cooperation among religions is possible.
The divine teachings are intended to create a bond of unity in the human world and establish the foundations of love and fellowship among mankind. Divine religion is not a cause for discord and disagreement. If religion becomes the source of antagonism and strife, the absence of religion is to be preferred
The establishing of the divine religions is for peace, not for war and the shedding of blood. Inasmuch as all are founded upon one reality which is love and unity, the wars and dissensions which have characterized the history of religion have been due to imitations and superstitions which arise afterward. Religion is reality and reality is one. The fundamentals of the religion of God are therefore one in reality. There is neither difference nor change in the fundamentals. Variance is caused by blind imitations, prejudices and adherence to forms which appear later, and inasmuch as these differ, discord and strife result. If the religions of the world would forsake these causes of difficulty and seek the fundamentals, all would agree, and strife and dissension would pass away
Come on.. you're better than that. Compassion, empathy, etc are found almost anywhere.
Do people need to be shown it could work? Yes. They don't need to thought of as deficient people.