Practical Benefits of Religion

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As someone who was never baptised - doesn't the act of baptism automatically make you a Christian, good or bad, practising/devout or not?

I believe that's how Catholics understand it, which would explain why the concept of being a lapsed Catholic exists. I don't think I've heard the same attitude in Protestant churches, and haven't heard anyone described as a 'lapsed Protestant' or similar.

Anabaptists would insist the only baptism that matters is the one you agree to as an adult, and that logic is appealing even if it doesn't change the way most churches view the topic.

So at one point you were not as respectful/considerate but a conscious effort caused you to become more so to the point where it no longer takes much effort? Just wondering if it is something we are brought up with or whether it is something we can significantly change at a later age.

Technically I wasn't brought up at all - I grew up in the system, in what was called back then a "children's home". So I was a blank page in a way, I didn't have many preconceived ideas or prejudices but wasn't given anything resembling a moral compass either.

The advantage was that I didn't have to challenge or reconsider any "inherited" values, the disadvantage was that I had to start from scratch.

If you were brought up that way you put in a significant effort, just very early so it's easier to overlook. The longer you wait, the more effort it will take, but you can always improve.

You're suffering from a total breakdown of logic here. I never said someone DID become a cop. I simply asked whether dressing up like a cop makes you one. Do you honestly believe wearing a uniform is enough to make you into what the uniform represents?


What genocide?


What genocide?


Slavery is objectively immoral because it strips the enslaved of their agency. Where in the New Testament does Jesus Christ command His followers to enslave others?



Clearly they ended up on the better end of the deal. They now have autonomy on the reservation and as American citizens (they CAN actually leave the reservation and move around as they like), plus they are guaranteed the same individual rights as those so-called "invaders," and they are protected from foreign invasion by one of the most powerful military forces on the planet. In what way have Native Americans suffered, again?


It IS objective. It is based on objective reality. The usual human inclination is to protecting human life. The usual human inclination is to protecting individual agency. Logically, the ideal world is achieved when all people act together peacefully. The exercise of one's ability to create wealth results in greater freedom, resulting is a higher quality of life for the individual--which enhances one's ability to protect himself and provide a life for himself that is, to use your words, more fulfilling and more rewarding. It's only logical that one would choose such a life for himself. If someone lives in the United States, he most certainly should be grateful for the opportunities he has.

Speaking of schools on the rez... Despite the living conditions of many on the rez, I once caught wind of a music teaching job on the rez and thought about going for it. The average teacher salary on the Choctaw reservation is obnoxiously large because it is independent of the state minimum and the typical district supplements. I didn't think that was really the job for me...so I ended up teaching the underserved minorities in the Mississippi Delta for a while and more recently the troubled kids that end up at the Catholic school. Go flippin' figure. I dare say they have it easy as they are taught their native language and attract the best teachers. The rez school is niiiiiiiice, too. I've seen suburban 5A schools that weren't that nice. Those kids have opportunities the wealthiest kids don't even have.


Whining? I'm just waiting for you to prove those alleged perpetrators actually were Christian. I'll ask again: Please explain to me, where did Jesus tell us to subject others to abuse? If Jesus instructed us otherwise, to be kind and NOT abuse others, then people who abuse others hardly qualify. It's not me being dishonest. It's me pointing out your position is illogical. But if abuse is in keeping with Jesus' teachings, then your point is valid. So if you have a logical thought in your head, you can easily prove that Jesus taught abuse as the order of the day IF He did. Otherwise, concede that you're wrong and that those people who did those things were not Christians.


Inasmuch as you are individuals you are perfectly capable of managing your own affairs. The instance that I'm aware of having grown up within a stone's throw of a rez was a matter of corrupt leadership and nothing more than that. I regard corruption as immoral, don't you? And I think our Choctaw people deserve better from their "elected" officials, wouldn't you agree?


What genocide?


What the heck are you talking about? The Choctaw people are alive and well near Philadelphia, Mississippi. You should come down and pay them a visit sometime. Every year they have the Choctaw Indian Fair featuring live music, traditional ritual dancing, folk art, the works. They even sponsor a 5k run around part of the rez to attract people to see what goes on out there along with youth stickball tournaments, a beauty pageant (Choctaw girls are gorgeous, btw), etc. It's really, REALLY cool, and in some ways is like stepping back in time. They're proud of who they are and we love them. So I really have no idea what you're talking about here.


What the heck is this??? Every Choctaw I've ever met has the same civil rights and due process as any European-American. More so, even. The Choctaw man who murdered my brother only got 30 days and as far as I know is still a free man. Or dead--that was over 40 years ago. Second-class nothing. They're practically royalty. And...honestly, that doesn't even bother me because, yes, I AM aware that they were badly treated at one point in American history and having been here first SHOULD have their own place if they don't want to integrate into our society. However, where individual natives do continue to suffer has been existing in a collectivist society that discourages achievement. They live in nice houses but are unable to care for their property due to a legacy of tribal policy that discourages individuals from accumulating wealth. The same exact thing happens in the Mississippi Delta, and we're not talking about Native Americans here. Here you have frighteningly similar things happen, and that's where incest and sex trafficking come into play.

Sociology was a fun study in college, but it takes a whole new meaning when you see it in your own backyard. It's hard to turn on the news or listen to political debates come election time because these people really have no clue what's actually happening out here.


Well, sure, people were harmed. You can't ignore the trail of tears, Wounded Knee, etc. But I contend that the roots of those tragedies lie in aggressions committed by both sides. Even in the worst-case rez scenarios quality of life is much better than pre-European times and they are well-protected. So...what harm?

Improved life is improved life, and Native American life is much better compared to what it has been in the past. And significantly better. The plight of the Indians in America was facilitated especially by their vulnerability. It was exactly that vulnerability that invited the atrocities that they ultimately faced. The American people were watching and pressured our legislatures to put a stop to it. The Indians have well-armed rez police along with the same support from law enforcement and military every American has. If England and France get together to kill Indians, they have the entire United States to get through before they can fire the first bullet at one. Foreign invasion is not something Indians ever have to fear again.


Exactly what harm are you talking about??? The natives I know have better schools than most of us do, aren't faced with homelessness, whereas my family and I HAVE been on the streets before, and on top of all that STILL have the same individual freedoms and protections we have...and in some cases have even BETTER protections. We're white, and not even Elizabeth Warren-mixed to the best of our knowledge. I keep hearing about this "white privilege" I'm supposed to have, but the only things I have are those things I worked to have, as opposed to natives who seem to have the best of both worlds with their own measure of justice. As I said before, I'm ok with that--it's their business, not mine. I'm still waiting to hear how exactly it is the legacy of colonialism has made them worse off today when in many aspects they have a much easier life than I do.

Oh, and from what I understand, each tribe is self-governing. So I don't expect that what I've seen personally with the Choctaw people as necessarily representative of other tribal nations. The welfare of each tribe will be at the discretion of their leadership where some will thrive and others won't. But that kind of political system wouldn't be any different in spirit than what they had prior to the arrival of Europeans. Natives could have been just as capable, if not more so, than Europeans at wiping each other out. Coexistence with the federal United States government effectively prevents any such thing from happening and protects the rights of tribes to exist, yet another example of how natives have benefited from colonists over time.

These would be the schools I'm referring to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_ ... ng_schools
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_ ... ool_system

This genocide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_ ... n_Genocide

Your ignorance on this topic is staggering and really undermines any attempt at actually discussing it with you.

The Choctaw are one nation, but you seem to assume that your judgment that things are good for them means things are good more broadly.

A specific example of being a second-class citizen was that in Canada until 1960 one couldn't vote and retain Indian status. The idea being that one couldn't retain treaty rights AND participate in Canadian democracy. A woman who married a man who lacked status had hers revoked, children born to women with status didn't receive it if their father didn't. The overall goal was to make as few people eligible for treaty rights, with the long term goal of extermination or assimilation.

Anyways, I'm done hijacking this thread; you're welcome to research this topic further if you wish to have valuable opinions on it.

If I whooped you with a t-ball bat for 20 minutes and then insisted everything was fine because I had stopped, would you feel that was an unreasonable expectation on my behalf? Making the excuse that some of the abuse has stopped doesn't make it no longer an issue. There's another community who might wish to have a word with you on this matter.

Last edited by funeralxempire on 18 Feb 2020, 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

What schools?




I repeat: What genocide??? Most of the responsibility for decline in Native American population lies in disease. Calling that genocide is a stretch to say the least.


Oh, please... Try educating yourself. Start with actually reading your own sources. The wiki's you quoted are flimsy to say the least. You're effectively saying that violence wiped out the Indians when your sources admit most losses were due to disease rather than direct violence. Sounds to me what you're describing is at worst a Canadian problem. What Canadians did to their own people is not a part of my own heritage. If you have a problem with it, take it up with the Canadian government, not me. Besides that...do you even read what you write? Right here you just said "until 1960." Do I correctly understand that to mean that the problem has been resolved and this is now a non-issue? And if genocide happened, how do you explain the continued existence of American Indians? Indians can't have protected status if there aren't any Indians to protect. So I'll ask again: What genocide?

If you executed violence on me, then that's a personal and possibly legal matter between us. Whether I initiated that fight or you did is irrelevant, and I would expect our children would respect each other, disregarding the sins of the past for the sake of their own peace without discarding the lessons learned. In any case, the results have been that Native Americans are much better off than they were before.

Not all religious practices are looking towards the afterlife, or see being good today is buying a place in a heavenly chorus.

Quakers rely primarily on the good that can be done in this world, and the connection with God/Spirit/whatever in this world. Roughly speaking, it is what gives practicing Quakers their sense of groundedness and peace. (Not perfection, mind you. We are all human.)

I think there are other religious practices as well that do not rely on an afterlife.

Clearly you've yet again missed the point.

If I harmed you severely it wouldn't matter that I've stopped adding to the harm, you'd still be left to deal with the effects - me no longer adding additional harm wouldn't fix the harm already inflicted, or the long-term consequences resulting from that harm.

Guess what, that doesn't just apply on an individual level.

As for the question of if we are better off or not, you might want to ask some indigenous people how they feel, even better if you could speak to a broad sampling instead of merely representatives from one band. While I can't speak for more than one indigenous person, you can't speak for any indigenous persons and just repeating the same ignorance over and over again won't cause it to become true even if you'd really like it to be true. You sound just as ignorant as someone insisting that the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was beneficial to the descendents of those taken as slaves. You're welcome to make that argument, but you'll be labelled as a racist and it will be fair to apply that label.

Ok, but consider most, and if I’m allowed to be generous we’ll just say around 90%, of indigenous deaths were from disease at a time colonists had no clue about nor had any reason to suspect nor had any way to prevent. The damage was done the first time an Indian coughed and got a fever.

If no European EVER established a colony, but perhaps trade was established respecting Indian right to the continent, you honestly don’t think any disease could possibly have taken hold and spread? Or even if we never discovered America, you don’t think some virus or bacteria could have evolved and jumped species? Maybe a prion disease running wild in buffalo? You honestly don’t think something could have happened without European presence that would have totally wiped out the Indian population? What makes you so sure keeping Europeans out wasn’t only delaying the inevitable? Then you’d be blaming Europeans for not intervening, especially if it happened after antibiotics were discovered. Those who survived history as we know it proved resilient to disease AND now have the advantage of modern medicine. Natives most certainly have benefited from Europeans and enjoy a much better quality of life than they would have.

Your fantasy scenarios are a pathetic attempt at distraction. It doesn't matter what could have hypothetically happened if it didn't happen, what matters is what did happen.

Repeating the same ignorant motto at the end of every post won't make that true either, no matter how badly you believe it to be true. You're not even wrong when you spew your ignorance, because in order to be wrong you'd need to at least have a grasp of what you're trying to discuss. Just because it flies at a Klan meeting (or wherever else you get your 'they should be grateful' nonsense) doesn't mean it will fly among the people you're trying to speak for.

You are not entitled to speak for us. Your opinions on how we should feel are misguided at best and would be highly offensive to many of the people you're attempting to speak for.

Native Americans actually do have their own space that nobody else is allowed to touch. Native Americans cannot be held on reservations like some concentration camp. They have individual rights and can come and go as they please. They have access to the same opportunities as anyone else in America. They benefit from special federal protection in addition to any revenue the rez generates,, something many of us do NOT have. They benefit from the same or better health care and education as any of us do.

Are you saying, then, that the opposite--no access to medical treatment, no education that helps us understand our world better and improve our lives, no money AT ALL with which to get things easier than they could themselves, rampant poverty and disease, possibly even EXTINCTION as a civilization--is preferable than these protections and improvements? I'm trying to see the logic in why anyone would reject a better life.

I suppose you could point to the Amish and the Mennonites, who see technology as a threat. But I don't see that view as logical, either.

Please don't attempt to condescend to me on a topic you're this ignorant about. You're aware that land set aside for that purpose was typically land that settlers didn't have any use for and that if this situation changed it would often result in removal and forced relocation?

Why wouldn't a nation wouldn't distribute earnings that it generates to members/part owners? Alaska does the same thing for all residents (gas and oil royalties). That's not 'oh, they get special treatment from the Feds' that's 'they take care of their own'.

As for 'benefit from better health care and education' that's objectively untrue if you're comparing rural reservations with urban areas. Please Google either 'indigenous access to healthcare in the US' or 'indigenous access to healthcare in Canada' and you'll find both news articles and scholarly papers discussing this matter in a way that objectively demonstrates your opinion is misinformed.

Please stop embarrassing yourself.

The Choctaw rez in Philadelphia sits at the intersection of two busy highways. There's a water park that attracts thousands of visitors along with a spectacular golf course. And I haven't even bothered mentioning the two casinos on either side of highway 16. Gee, I wonder what "the settlers" might have done with that land... Hey, how about we turn it into casinos, a golf course, and a water park and boost the economy with tourists? Except we didn't. The Choctaw people did. Because it was THEIR LAND that "settlers" would have had no interest in, anyway. And yet, many of us "settlers" keep flocking to the area to give the Choctaw people our money.

In their case, the land was, and IS, highly valuable land. So your point that the rez land was throwaway land isn't exactly valid. Oh...and Philadelphia and Carthage (my hometown) are not exactly large population centers, certainly not compared with Greenville where I live now, which is HUGE and disproportionately impoverished. Philadelphia is no Shangri-La, but it's a good example of how tribal activities had a tremendous collateral influence on the community outside the rez, not the other way around.


Assuming they actually HAVE oil and mineral rights. There have historically been companies and powerful lobbying groups that really have cheated Native Americans out of profiting from what they have sitting right under their feet. That deeply offends me, but that's a different argument.


I have nothing to be embarrassed about. It IS objectively true. Such things were actually NON-EXISTENT, what, just a century and a half ago? Once those things were made available, yes, Native Americans OBJECTIVELY benefited from medicine and other services. Education efforts were attempted by different people with different goals with varying degrees of success. That's just a matter of being blind to the culture.

By the way...I'm actually AGAINST compulsory attendance. Education IS important, yes, and skipping school is out of the question for my children. But public schools are not necessarily in the best interests of every child. It should be up to parents whether they want that for their children. But a side effect has been a number of Native American intellectuals who wouldn't have been there had they not been a product of the education system. In terms of medicine and education with versus without European settlers, Native Americans are OBJECTIVELY in better shape than they were.