Religion

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Re: Religion

Postby UnHoly Bible » Tue May 23, 2017 1:26 pm

Himuro wrote:As for your response to Unholy Bible, I'm not sure what good you think a society without religion would do. Only 7% of the worlds wars are started due to religion. It would be naive, especially after the 20th century, to think that getting rid of religion would solve anything, especially since that very century showed how powerful and good a force religion is and can be (civil rights movement for instance). Today's social movements are predicated upon a foundation of secularism and yet they treat humanity as nothing more than labels. You're a snowflake if you're a Trump supporter; you're a racist/misogynist/whatever if you're not. In all of this, we have forgotten the Golden Rule and this truly shows what a secular society can achieve: a society where everyone is all about getting theirs and nothing more. I personally find the shallowness of today's society to be endemic to its secularism; religion stands as the one alternative.


The link you posted was an interesting read, thanks.

If I came across as thinking society would be good without religion it was accidental. I'm very bad at expressing my views, cause I rarely communicate them with anyone. I don't actually think its possible in a long term aspect to have no religions in a society, and if it were, wouldn't do much for any sort of greater good. There's a lot of people out there who seem to require a basis for knowing what is "good " and "evil", given a certain psychological temperament, and some people don't. This requirement can come up in someone's life at any time, if something horrible enough happens to them, they've done something that caused horrible things, or maybe not even horrible, but just an experience of a life-changing nature. Those who do require that basis and don't have it suffer greatly and do damage to others and/or themselves in their lives without it. This is why religion is fine, and necessary if we want to help lessen the suffering of great numbers. The people who teach these religions really need to understand it though, and stress the thought and practices involved in finding the source of one's own morality and suffering in the context of their own experiences, and quit telling folks to follow the morality some dude found for himself a million years ago. If people in religion are taught not why/how to live, but how to figure out why/how to live, throw in a some messages of hope and whatnot, it's great. Maybe one day with sufficiently advanced science, there'll be a quick fix to this path through the irrationality of ourselves, but there isn't yet.

Does this make sense?
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Re: Religion

Postby Himuro » Tue May 23, 2017 1:39 pm

I was talking to shredingskin. He suggested that it's possible for societies to be without religion. As if this will fix humanities problems.
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Re: Religion

Postby Bluecast » Tue May 23, 2017 2:06 pm

Not forming an opinion on this. Just thought it was interesting. Religion is slowly dying out in the US.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... e-God.html
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Re: Religion

Postby Himuro » Tue May 23, 2017 2:24 pm

Bluecast wrote: Not forming an opinion on this. Just thought it was interesting. Religion is slowly dying out in the US.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... e-God.html


This isn't shocking given the division in my country right now which is the result of rapid secularism.
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Re: Religion

Postby south carmain » Tue May 23, 2017 3:37 pm

Himuro wrote:Anyways, the point of Carmain's argument isn't just evolutionary morality. It ties into the fact humanity has an intrinsic, universal sense of morality that we betray. Humanity knows what's moral, as we betray that sense of morality. Christianity explains the reason why.

Pretty much this, I was showing that morality itself isn't subjective and that different societies reinterpret it in regards to the vice that we also all have within us intrinsically. I don't believe that morality is an evolutionary trait because morality itself has never evolved, no matter how many generations pass within a certain moral environment a person can always learn how to reinterpret their moral instincts because those moral instincts stay the same. In the case of animals they don't have any sense of right or wrong, when a dog appears to have guilt it isn't guilt at all just an instinctive reaction that can benefit it in a certain situation. The whole basis of moral framework humans have programmed in to them is something that is exclusive to humans and in many cases counter-evolutionary as it doesn't serve our interest.

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Re: Religion

Postby Himuro » Tue May 23, 2017 3:49 pm

Yeah, I'm not seeing the evolutionary benefit to how I felt before Confession the first time. I felt like I was going to throw up from the guilt as I sat waiting outside the confession room. What is the evolutionary benefit to this exactly? To feel so terrible for your wrong doings? To realize you're a bad person? To try to correct those wrongs? Only religion has an answer to these questions and religion is best suited to dealing with them.
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Re: Religion

Postby RootyKazooty » Fri Aug 25, 2017 6:25 pm

To me "god" is either an idiot test or a mental health test and we should challenge the lie wherever possible.
The one silver lining to the whole charade is that it gives believers the chance to identify themselves. When I meet a believer, my response is somewhere between contempt and pity - depending on the individual. But by that point I'm usually backing away slowly.

The contradictions, inconsistencies and evils of the bible are well documented, so I'll just say a bit about my own experience with religious people:

I was raised by christian parents. I hated church with a passion. Some of my earliest memories are of the weirdness that went on in the church, where absolutely everything seemed to be "Washed in the blood of the lamb".

I remember grown men regularly going up to the pulpit, crying their eyes out and saying how "the devil" was making them beat their wife (amongst other crimes), then being applauded as they stepped down.
They used to tempt us kids with "film night" where they showed truly horrific and bloody American christian-made horror movies to scare us into giving ourselves to "jesus". I had recurring nightmares about one film where they chopped off the non-believers heads in a guillotine.

Everybody in the church used to speak in tongues and shake about, which as a young child really made my skin crawl. I would prickle and sweat all over as they lurched about talking nonsense. It gave me the fear and really freaked me out.
For those who don't know, speaking in tongues is when god is supposed to be speaking through you, and you make gibberish sounds. I still remember some of these non-words like it was yesterday: "kohobara shunderie undie".
I've never felt so afraid or alone.

When my dad spent over a year in hospital, not one single member of the church visited him. Despite him being a member for decades, supporting them financially, and canvassing for them in rain, hail, sleet and snow.
When he came out for my sisters wedding, I asked the pastor why nobody had visited him.
He replied "We're just people of the earth".

So for me, it's either stupidity or madness. The burden of proof is on the believers. And there is not one single shred of proof. Epicurus said it best:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then where does evil come from?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

But I'm also with Dylan Moran:

"Don't ask me to see the fairy.
Don't ask me to let it into my heart.
I wouldn't let it into my f*cking garden.
I'd shoot it on sight".

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Re: Religion

Postby dbzruler88 » Sun Aug 27, 2017 6:00 pm

There are too many things that are wrong with religion. There are over 4000 religions and all of them are convinced they are the one true religion.

As Richard Dawkins said, "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

I also agree with a post shared on the Athiest Republic and that is that we are all born atheist until somebody starts telling us lies. Those of you that identify as Christian would believe an entirely different story if you were born in Pakistan. It all starts with indoctrination.

It is also a problem when politicians use their position to push their religious agenda (ie. Stem cell research, abortion, birth control, lgbt rights, etc). Especially since any evidence that is scientifically proven is scoffed at if it doesn't support their beliefs. This makes it very difficult to get anything done in a Republican controlled Senate.

I have to live in a country that calls people pushing for political correctness snowflakes, when they themselves can't deal with a red Starbucks cup because it doesn't show something about Jesus.

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Re: Religion

Postby elfshadowreaper » Sun Aug 27, 2017 6:31 pm

Monkei wrote: ^ I feel sorry for you. And you're creeping me out. I guess you didn't have many options being raised that way, but I still hope you'll manage to see through those things someday.


Sorry, I have a habit of posting and then leaving for a while.

Anyway, if I'm creeping you out you shouldn't give me that much power over your life. I didn't have any options being raised the way I was. I can tell you when I was a kid the last place I wanted to be was church. It seemed boring. I would much rather be watching tv or playing video games. But my parents loved me enough not to give into my protesting. I know you think I'm just some brainwashed drone but I'm not. I have doubts about the big picture sometime. I wonder if God really exists. But I always go back to my own life and how I've experienced God's grace and mercy.

You talk so condescendingly about how you "hope I see through those things someday." I'm telling you honestly that I have times of doubt about God's existence. So can you honestly say you never have doubts that you're wrong?
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Re: Religion

Postby Thief » Sun Aug 27, 2017 6:59 pm

I always find it funny when atheists talk shit about religion. Faith in materialism requires its fair share of believing in silly shit. Such things like uncaused causes within time/space or supposing infinite universes to avoid the mathematical impossibility that ours arose by chance. Atheists supposedly rely on science but their "science" is often the result of an attachment to a materialistic ideology and not from an unbiased inference from the observable evidence. I just laugh watching atheists desperately trying to find a materialistic explanation for the universe, proposing one stupidly silly thing after another, and then watching them act all smug at those who propose something spiritual (despite their supposedly "scientific" propositions leading towards nothing). I find most atheists rely on faith even more heavily than a lot of Christians. If you a materialistic atheist, that's fine, but you're not smarter or better merely on the basis of having your belief. You're not some enlightened person amongst the spiritual plebs. Nine times out of ten, I find that atheists are just uneducated and believe in materialism entirely on faith alone. A bit ironic lol.
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Re: Religion

Postby dbzruler88 » Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:08 am

With evidence, faith isn't necessary.

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Re: Religion

Postby Thief » Mon Aug 28, 2017 4:18 am

dbzruler88 wrote: With evidence, faith isn't necessary.


Faith is necessary for every belief.

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Re: Religion

Postby shredingskin » Mon Aug 28, 2017 5:22 am

So trying to understand how the universe works is the same as saying "god did it lol" ??

Do you understand that there's not a "mathematical impossibility that ours arose by chance" ?? There are things that are mathematically improbable, for example you/me existing, if I had to grab one of the millions of sperms your father had and I had to choose "you" would be really hard to predict, but you still exist, you're not impossible.
There are still many gaps to understanding the universe, but thanks to not sticking to "lol god did it" we found out about higgs boson, quantum fluctuation, dark matter and dark energy ??

The difference is that science can formulate verifiable theories of how physics work (that's how they eventually found higgs boson), meanwhile with religion you just set a goalpost and stick to it, the reason of why everything must be created but god doesn't need a creator is just "god lol", and no one needs to stick to any theory and no one believes on faith, some theories are more verifiable than others, and some are just more popular and can't be falsified right now because lack of evidence/tools. And no one does say "hey this is 100% what happened", they just show theories of how, according to our understanding of the physical realm, MIGHT have happened, and most people are fine with saying "we don't know" except religious people that go 'yeah, the biggest mystery of all, that requires bast knowledge, I know it's god".

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Re: Religion

Postby Thief » Mon Aug 28, 2017 1:05 pm

People can be scientists and believe in God. Science is compatible with God. The entire scientific revolution was started by people who believed in God—a God who did not undermine, but rather supported, their empirical evidence. One can, and often does, come to the conclusion that a God exists from adhering to observable evidence, and even further, some can do bad science because of a rigid ideology and unwillingness to accept the possibility of anything other than materialism. Good scientists do not start their science with their ideology—they are unbiased. Good scientists first observe, and then come to a conclusion based on the observable evidence. One should not start with the conclusion "God exists", but neither should one start with the conclusion "no God exists". There is no "science vs God"—not if the scientist is being unbiased.

"No [atheist] believes on faith" is simply untrue. Atheists assert the inexistence of God. This is what it means to be an atheist. They have no definitive proof that God doesn't exist. They believe on faith. Their faith is supported by the evidence they find in the world, just like those who believe in God. Those who believe in God merely have a different faith than those of atheism. They were convinced by different arguments. In my experience though, atheists tend to be those who can't respect the conclusions associated with one of a religious faith. Often atheists don't respect religious people entirely on the atheist's assumption that there is nothing other than a materialistic world—a viewpoint they believe on faith.

This is not to say that religious people are perfect. They are not perfect. They are guilty of annoying bullshit as well, but atheists tend to annoy me more with their bullshit. This is because I find atheists to usually be smug or think they're really smart for having their faith, when often, the atheist is not even properly educated on the arguments for/against atheism. This is why it's ironic, because most atheists I come across are uneducated idiots who believe almost entirely on faith. Faith in science that they haven't researched and do not understand. [I am not speaking for all atheists, or even necessarily anyone in this thread]

If you want to believe in God, or not believe in God, understand why you have come to this belief and respect those who have been convinced by different arguments. Theists are not stupid on the basis of being religious, and atheists are not stupid on the basis of being unreligious.

Anyway, regarding the "mathematical impossibility of chance", I was merely mentioning this because pretty much no modern scientist believes that the universe arose by chance. The chance is so incredibly unlikely that mathematicians consider it to be a mathematical impossibility. This does not mean that it literally is impossible, just that it's so incredibly unlikely that most scientists have chosen to believe or suppose alternatives. Such as: a universe by intelligent design or an infinite number of universes (just to name the two most popular). My original point was that both of these suppositions seem to be inherently silly (as in odd to everyday life), and that one shouldn't discredit religion merely on the basis of believing in odd (to everyday life) things, when materialistic ideologies must do the same.

I'm not pushing any side here, to be clear, just that atheists (and also theists) respect those who have come to different conclusions.
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Re: Religion

Postby MiTT3NZ » Mon Aug 28, 2017 1:30 pm

Pretty sure I've already mentioned this, but not all who believe in a god are religious and not all atheists are anti-theists.

And btw, all your arguments are absolute shite. I was kinda hoping this topic was a bit of a hornet nest kicking exercise, but instead it's been a stand-out example of how boring and frankly idiotic your typical atheist vs theist debate is.

The worst thing that comes from anything where skeptics are involved is just how much people's opinions of you are lowered. Whether it's the dismissive nature of a valid point, the over-romanticism of the human experience, or the comprehensive misunderstanding of subjects used in order to strengthen one's argument.

This topic is an abomination and should be left to rot. I think I preferred it when everyone was moaning about Donald Trump.
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