I highly doubt that a grifter whose entire business is largely based on trafficking webcam girls and selling that lifestyle to his audience is going to 'use Islam to follow a much more positive path'. The more lucrative path adheres more towards that of the Saudis or other Gulf State families. This is a path that for him will more than likely lead towards slavery.
More to the point, religion is never really an identity or morality, it is a justification for your identity or morality. That is why lost men and boys cling to conservative faith as though it were a bouy in a storm. A valiant effort, but capital has already drowned all the gods of men.
(This goes for conservative 'freethinkers' as well. An asshole Christian makes an asshole atheist in my experience.)
Agreed to disagree. I have seen too many people who change their religion or sect but retain their fundamental ideas of morality and identity. I have seen very moralizing Christians become very moralizing New Age hippies, guilty Christians become guilty atheists, 'logic' atheists become 'logic' Christians.
The religion is just so much window dressing, but there is something else forming their morality and sense of identity in my opinion.
Doesn't this affirm what Heaven_and_Earth is saying though? That these people's morality is informed by these earlier religious beliefs, and despite converting later they retain those same moral principles unexamined?
I feel like you are not really in disagreement, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument.
No, because those earlier beliefs in morality are not actually tied to the 'religion', unless you are attempting to claim that something like Sunni and Shiite Islam are both not actually Islam. The morality and form of ethics exists regardless of the religion.
It's kind of the old metaphysical canard of 'Are things good because God says they are good or were they good before God identified them as good?'. I am saying it's the latter. Forms of morality are not inherent to religion otherwise sects wouldn't occur. Therefore, morality precedes religion and religion is simply it's disguise. You can believe whatever you want, though, there is no way to truely definitely prove this stuff.
I highly doubt that a grifter whose entire business is largely based on trafficking webcam girls and selling that lifestyle to his audience is going to 'use Islam to follow a much more positive path'. The more lucrative path adheres more towards that of the Saudis or other Gulf State families. This is a path that for him will more than likely lead towards slavery.
More to the point, religion is never really an identity or morality, it is a justification for your identity or morality. That is why lost men and boys cling to conservative faith as though it were a bouy in a storm. A valiant effort, but capital has already drowned all the gods of men.
(This goes for conservative 'freethinkers' as well. An asshole Christian makes an asshole atheist in my experience.)
People raised in a religious household do form their identity and morality from their religion
Agreed to disagree. I have seen too many people who change their religion or sect but retain their fundamental ideas of morality and identity. I have seen very moralizing Christians become very moralizing New Age hippies, guilty Christians become guilty atheists, 'logic' atheists become 'logic' Christians.
The religion is just so much window dressing, but there is something else forming their morality and sense of identity in my opinion.
Doesn't this affirm what Heaven_and_Earth is saying though? That these people's morality is informed by these earlier religious beliefs, and despite converting later they retain those same moral principles unexamined?
I feel like you are not really in disagreement, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument.
No, because those earlier beliefs in morality are not actually tied to the 'religion', unless you are attempting to claim that something like Sunni and Shiite Islam are both not actually Islam. The morality and form of ethics exists regardless of the religion.
It's kind of the old metaphysical canard of 'Are things good because God says they are good or were they good before God identified them as good?'. I am saying it's the latter. Forms of morality are not inherent to religion otherwise sects wouldn't occur. Therefore, morality precedes religion and religion is simply it's disguise. You can believe whatever you want, though, there is no way to truely definitely prove this stuff.