Religion is, as it has been, the main cause of most of humanity's failings. I believe, in earnest, that the world would be a much better place if people had never invented religion as a means to "explain" when they didn't understand.

It was never meant to "explain" anything, it was always a tool of oppression a way to keep the masses from thinking for themselves

indeed~

That's not really accurate. I mean, that's certainly what it turned into, to be sure, but not what it started out as.

How would you explain fire if you didn't understand combustion? How about lightning, if you didn't understand electrons? Even the sun itself? I don't doubt that a few powerful men twisted religion into a means of controlling the masses. There's very little arguing that point.

But I don't think that's how it started.

I suppose if you go far enough back you may be right, I expect the corruption would be almost immediate though, it would take only one smart Neanderthal to figure out how to use these new stories to control the others.

Protohumans actually had about 25% more brain capacity than we do XP

So, no, it probably wouldn't have taken anyone very long to figure it out. As a matter of fact, it likely didn't. Protohumans were believed to have performed various hunting rituals and things of the like. More than likely religious in nature.

Mm hmm, and then one of them declares that he is the defender of the rituals, maybe later on elaborates claiming he can hear messages from the spirits who want to work through him, the voices can tell him to change the rituals in subtle ways, maybe now he is called a priest, perhaps the voices could declare that all the others in the tribe have to give up some of there personal possessions for his comfort. When its not enough and he wants to expand his control, the voices will order them to start wars to spread the word and increase the wealth the priest receives for himself. Pretty much the same pattern every religion has taken.

LOL...actually you just nailed the history of religion almost perfectly. I took it in college as a minor study & you've got it in a nutshell. It bloomed from "Thank you sun god for our warmth" to "And we shall destroy nations that do not worship our sun god & follow the word of the Divine Light Priest."

Only in mass. It's not actually the brain mass that makes a species smart (else whales would dominate), nor even the proportion (or rats would dominate). It is, in fact, the number of interconnections and individual neural ganglia.

I agree. It's far too tempting to attach modern context to ancient times. There wasn't academic or logical context, nor the luxury for most people to think about such things.

Historically, and to some extent even now, religion provides a basic moral compass, and frankly I think society benefits from having one. Enforcing it was a matter of both political and religious pressure, and fear was an incredibly common technique in that era.

I'm not saying that justifies things like burning at the stake, but does anyone see Catholics like Franciscan monks or Mother Teresa burning someone alive?

Whether divine or terrestrial, the original concept was a great framework for the basics that let people figure out more for themselves, but the latter has been in essence done away with due to a powerhungry minority that corrupted a good thing.

Not unlike American democracy. :P

Once you have corruption absorbed into an institution, it's hard to get rid of it without looking radical.

I coulda told ya that homie...

As a believer in evolution, I feel the causes of humanity's failings come from things other than religion. Religion only gave us a new means of failing, abusing, being cruel, etc.

/chomps on a crunchy leg
idk what your problem is...this is fuckin delicious! /continues eating...

It would be good with the right bbq sauce of course!

I call Bullshit....

As a Cathloic, I can readily admit to our fair share of loonies and many others in differnt Christian faiths....


This just smells of major BS to me.....

That is possible, the original site is dead and this was reposted by some OTHER religious group that probably has an axe to grind, I know how different churches love to fight and slander one another.

HOWEVER, whether this was planted or not, the arguments for burning people illustrated here, do actually make perfect sense from a religious point of view, "burning a few heretics to save the souls of many more" is logical in a cold hearted kind of way. Which leaves me with my original concern, and that is the fear that through religion (not to pick on Catholics specifically) you can justify anything.

Not really. The sad thing is like so much else in life. What is Christianity and Cathloicism today resembles NOTHING of either's origins.

I like to think at least the Christianity I practice is closer to the original intent. I guess I will find out when judged....

I don't think the god who wrote the bible is moral enough to judge anyway, but thats another topic entirely!

It's the same philosophy that gets a woman stoned to death in Iran for revealing her face.

If you think thats bad you should see the parts of the bible that say its okay to sell your daughter into slavery, people who work in the sabbath should be killed, and disobiediant children should be stoned to death. And I'm not making any of that up.

What about the bit about rape? In that case the victim is forced to marry the rapist. Good morals!

Its all bullshit either way.

I happen to think that it's not necessarily bullshit, just out of date. The bible has needed a revamp for a good 1000 years as well as an open minded approach. To bad there's so many idiots in the world that can't think outside of the tiny box that is perceivable reality.

To a degree the age could be an excuse, but the book is Pro-Rape Pro-Slavery, Pro-Genocide, theres simply nothing moral about it.

That's part of the revamping and idiocy. There's a lot of hidden meaning, especially when you take into account that it's been translated about 12 times before it reached modern terminology. For all we know, some parts of the bible may be completely different from the way it was a long time ago.

Then why would we need the bible at all? It may be interesting from a historical point of view, and possibly worthwhile rebuilding the lost information with new translations.. But as far as a moral compass, frankly we figure that stuff out on our own just fine, and modern western societal values are far superior to anything available in any bronze age holy book written by barbarians.

You make it sound so harsh. I just haven't seen, myself, a any evidence that states that Christians are as morally corrupt and blindly loyal as most atheists make them out to be. I happen to believe I've seen the best side of religion, so I can't, through my experience agree to some of your opinions.

I was raised Christian in a Christian town in the Canadian Bible Belt, I was pretty much completely emerged in Christianity for the first half of my life, so Im not speaking blindly. Now the average Christian is going to be a good person, and thats because most of us are "good" people, a true prick is actually pretty rare in the world. The truth as far as I can tell is most believers do not actually know what is in their precious bible, They quote a few verses here and there, a couple pleasant bits they cherry picked that makes them feel good inside.

Most Christians are against Slavery, Genocide, Rape, Racism, the bible supports all of these universally condemned concepts. Most Christian parents would discipline their children in a reasonable way when they misbehave, They are unaware that the bible demands children who are Disobedient must be taken to the center of town and killed.

So Hence my point, Christianity is not a source of morality, if a Christian is moral it is because that person is inherently moral just like the rest of us, and it did not come from that book.

Well, that is agreeable, truly.

Re: Morality: That's true today in our relatively civil society... though I'd dare say not so true 2000 years ago in Jerusalem or Egypt or whatever, IMO. :)

I tend to think 2000 years of having "love your neighbor" and "turn the other cheek" beaten into people has made some difference in shaping the western culture we know and love today, but maybe I'm deluding myself.

In either case I agree with both of you on this... as of today, the need for religion as a moral guide is iffy, since society has enough momentum to handle it on its own. Also the bible is woefully in need of renovation, but here's my favorite topic of meditation: how do you re-write a holy book without looking like a heretic? :) Despite the fact that I may be just as "inspired by God" to re-write it as the original authors were when they penned it in the first place.

Im not sure I agree, Religion loves to take credit for everything good about humanity, but it is not warranted. Im pretty sure kindness is something we are naturally born with, its basic human solidarity and our species never would have survived to evolve as far as we have without it.
If this was not true 2000 years ago it may be because religion was corrupting our better nature, with bizarre rules about who to hate, what to eat and who to sleep with instead of true ethics, not to mention the mixed messages regarding murder (Though shalt not kill)
while in the same book the same god orders genocide against innocent people several times.

It seems to me in recent centuries our advances in civil liberties where always accompanied by the furious objections of religious interests.

Slavery in America had justification in the bible, Segregation was largely a Christian idea, Equal rights for women was fought on religious grounds, Antisemitism and the consequent holocaust would never have occurred without religion to inspire them, And today the exact same kind of people are fighting against gay rights. So I disagree, I don't think religion has ever been a moral guide, historically it has always been on the wrong side of progress and more than likely it has been a hindrance to us bettering ourselves.

You should write your own bible from scratch and claim it was divinely inspired, you may be surprised how many followers you wind up with.

Yeah, it's sort of an academic argument, given that we'll never really know what the last 2000 years "would have been" like. Sort of like how all the additional measures at airports are keeping us safe from more terrorism. ;)

As per the discussion above with the number of literal translations of the bible, let alone the utterly irrelevant social context from which it was written, I think misinterpretation of the bible by people who fail (deliberately or accidentally) to get its message is more to blame for the things you cite than "the teachings of Jesus"™. Case in point, I don't remember Jesus saying "kill everyone who doesn't believe like you do."

From that perspective, I'll agree that organized religion, as it is implemented, has a lot of issues... although I stick to my opinion that it is a problem with human interpretation of it, and not inherently of religion itself. Of course, at the end of the day, how it is run in real life matters a lot more than the theory behind how it should work.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not exactly a "religious" person in the organized sense, although I do find it philosophically interesting. For example, why did some books get into the bible and others not? And what makes those people "divinely inspired" and others not? Etc.

Maybe I'll try the approach you suggest, but only if you agree to do some illustrations. ;D

If you dint mind pornographic illustrations :)

That's the idea. Heck, need a little ritual in there, right? :D

Yes, quite, friend.

I didn't really want to get involved in any of the discussion here, but I will add this: witches do exist, but not in the way most people think. Originally way back when, a witch was a poisoner, not a spell-casting devil-worshiper that most seem to think they were.

As such, to kill that which is skilled in liquid and powdery killings. So at least this one belief of the religion makes some sense.

"And the more you know..."

I'm trying to reduce my participation here, but I can't help but wonder on this one. I don't remember the bible very well, but I'm always up for learning, so I would appreciate if you could tell me where Jesus is said to have supported things like stoning children, burning witches, or killing lawbreakers.

Somehow I came away with the notion that Jesus directed people to love thy neighbor, regardless of their shortfalls, transgressions, beliefs, etc.

I think you might be confusing "the bible" with "the teachings of Jesus", and in many cases the two have little to do with each other. That's what I was getting at above, when I was talking about the paradox of who would be "divinely inspired enough" in the church's eyes to write a modern holy book, otherwise we're forever stuck in a deadlock of whose interpretation is more correct than another's.

In any case, I'd have to agree that most "open" atheists do seem to have a very overtly anti-religion bent, not just for themselves, as you'd expect, but also being very vocal about how particularly Christians, and often believers in any kind of "mystic power", are just living some kind of useless fairy tale. Everyone is welcome to their own opinions, but I find openly bashing others' beliefs to be the sign of not being a "good person."

[Which, don't get me wrong, exist in any theological system.]

To me, regardless of who is on either side, "bashing" (emotional, self-righteously debating) is not what a "good person" does to try to arrive at an agreement. Challenging beliefs in an openminded, unbiased way, however, can be pretty rewarding for both sides.

Being only semi-Christian, I'm not an expert, so I would still enjoy seeing some links to support your assertion about Jesus agreeing with all of the Old Testament, despite what I recall as his claims contrary to it. :) In fact, just talking about stoning, off the top of my head, I recall his saying not to kill people, which would seem to contradict stonings, and in fact even said "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" when they were going to stone the adulteress. So, eh. Certainly I don't know a single Christian who considers living according to, say, Leviticus, a necessary part of Christianity.

Perhaps I go too far toward tolerance. If someone believes in the flying spaghetti monster, first church of simba, etc, it doesn't matter to me, provided that person takes away from it what we call "goodness" above, and that they don't push their beliefs on me (via laws, door-to-door visits, etc), why should I care how they formed their opinions? I would never say they couldn't get the same benefit out of other religions, or even just "communing" weekly in a conference hall, but the bottom line is, they get it from a way they chose, and who am I to invalidate it? Though I do think some structure and sense of the divine helped with this in the bygone centuries.

I really respect your passion, and I can agree with some of your logic, if not always your points. Unfortunately a lot of that gets undone by the statement considering yourself the "adult" surrounded by naive "children" who believe otherwise. Maybe I misunderstood, but that sounds pretty arrogant and condescending to me, regardless of who the "children" are. Nothing personal against you, it's just how I understood it.

Anyway, at least we can embrace the common ground of liking furry porn, which admittedly Jesus probably would not approve of. ;P

This is a very complex subject with too many interpretations to ever discuss in it's entirety. All I can say is that most of the Christians I know (like my mother) are kind, accepting people that view the Bible as guidelines written in allegory and metaphor and should not be taken literally.

I'm not a theologists, but I do know that the Catholic Church has a small army of theologians to interpret the bible, meaning that they believe it requires a type of interpretation. So in a sense, the Catholic Church (at least) is trying to strike a balance between the core values of their belief, such as the existence of Jesus and God and a heaven, and the metaphorical understanding of the various books that make up the bible. Maybe your trying to say that it's rediculous for the Church and it's members to be heritics to their own religion as per the text, but smart people can (not saying they always do) see past the superficial tradition of following something someone wrote word for word and strike a balance in their practice.

It's SCIENCE! Wonderful interpretation. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Are you a professor or something?

I do understand. But the point of religion is not the specific of it, it's the faith aspect, believing in something. But that's not what we where talking about. Anyhow, you're very logical and precise. I'd love to see you argue with logical christians (believe it or not, they do exist).

I never said one must believe in something higher than themselves or supernatural. I simply said people need something to believe in. I'm afraid you've assumed too much.

I should not have said "must."

While the whole thing stinks of fruitcake, the following catches my eye:

"Lastly, the inquisitions were not only not bad, but were good. Why? Because they were an advancement over the mob violence and vigilante justice that proceeded them."

... Isn't that exactly what the Crusades were, except the "mob" was the Church?

it doesnt count as a mob if some guy in a castle wearing a big hat tells them to do it.

... I need to get a HUGE hat then

Ah religion, for the evil at heart : ) Religion the ancient family heir loom that nobody has the guts to throw away.

Made for men by men to control men and women. I try not to touch the stuff, unless it's to discourage it.

any single god religion can be proven wrong simply by pointing out the existence of other religions. (A) God - "For THIS group of humans I think we'll do human sacrifice... for THIS group... let's have them worship THIS way... Now for THAT group, ha, No fucking pork for THOSE retards"

But yes, that up there is an example that you really can justify anything, no matter how horrible, with religion.

To me it was always trying to maintain their power over there followers.

One thing I'm still scratching my head over is why did they make it a point to force religion into SCIENCE CLASS?!

I msut have missed that part.

I didn't.

But yeah, religion these days is about as relevant as saying Windows is better than everything else.

Science and religion stem from the same desire to understand the world around us. It would be best if they could be studied hand in hand, but without an actual influence on one another. And I don't mean religion as in Christianity, like most people immediately assume, I mean religion as a whole.

Religion should be studied as a psychological phenomenon.

lol Texas?

I can't remember which state it was.

A well respected monstrosity is what he is.

Just one of the MANY, MANY despicable acts all done and commanded by the bible and the "god" who wrote it.

Kinda like bible-thumping maniacs who assault people by whacking them with their Bibles, and when the police come to whack them with a billy club they say "Oh because God says to strike these sinners, so I'm doing his exact orders to the letter."

Of course, that excuse fails most of the time.

Is it ordered in the bible? Its been a while for me, but I have read it cover to cover several times throughout my life, and I do not remember "burning to death" mentioned specifically as a suitable method of execution.. aside from the old testament reference, something along the lines of Passing your children through the fire to Moloch, but that would only make sense for Moloch worshipers and I seriously doubt there are any left.

I don't know, that's pretty much how war works too, isn't it? :) Murder and torture that's justified by a corrupt leader's interpretation of the right thing to do? :)

I guess I'm missing how Christian zealotry was responsible for the US being in Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, or any of the numerous lesser conflicts in between (Panama, Bosnia, etc). It wasn't responsible for the cold war, nor the huge buildup of nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons, etc. But it is a part of many people's lives, so maybe there is bleed-over.

Ultimately it seems to me the real enemy is ego-/ethni-centricism and the inability to solve differences civilly. And not that I'm big on Christianity, but combating pride, greed, and wrath are some pretty basic tenets of what it tries to do. :)

It's just that many Christians (and I say that inclusive of Catholics) give Christianity a bad name, for reasons much more to do with human nature than Christian theology.

You missed the bit where old flunk, W., rallied Christian America with some throw-away zealous speech when the Iraq war started up? It was minor and quick, but he did go there, and the target-audience heard him.

Weeee, paying attention to religious discussion on FA in the beginning hours of today, it must be time for bed.

The world has so many nut-cases like this, the part that honestly scares me though is when people listen and follow them. Which generally is the case with religion sadly if you are in any position of recognition you can convince your followers that you are a saint... even if you are the next Hitler.

That is the source of my unease, No matter how insane or evil the beliefs, it seems to be extremely easy to build up massive followings.

yeah :S

The world will never run out of hate, thats a given, these days people cant do anything the conventional way without getting in trouble for being mentally insane or an outright murderer. That seems to be where religion comes in because us as a society made it so that many normally frowned upon or borderline illegal things are all thrown into this basket of "religious freedom" but they love trying to push the envelope on what they can get away with under that banner.

Heresy and death is preferable to spending eternity in the presence of those whose nonchalant discussion you linked us to, HammyToy.
Such is the monstrosity of traditional religion.

I often thought hell would be preferable to spending an eternity in a never ending church service.

Men like this enjoy the deliusion that they are on the side of ultimate right, unconditionally and incontrovertibly. These are Catholics after all; they are taught the Pope is possessed of infallible judgement in all matter of church teachings.
This is the power of belief and faith: no evidence is required, no examination of history, no frank appraisal of actions past, present or planned. Just *believe* you're right, and voila'! you're right.
I once heard a wonderful definitive comparison between "idealist" and "fanatic".
An idealist is one who would suffer for their beliefs.
A fanatic is one, who wishes others to suffer for their beliefs.

This is why I dont agree with the majority of people who claim "Faith" and "Belief" are good things.

Best description of a fanatic id ever heard!

Well said.

Aye, well said.

Religion is scary when taken like that.

religion <3

without you wed have no wars or racisim and other such ignorance....we NEED religion to thrive as evil beings of harmful idiocracy ^.^

More sins have been commited by these for words

In the name of God.

Pure religion = Medieval ages
Pure science = Brave New World

Maybe I missed the point, but as I saw it, Brave New World seemed to be about a basically utopic society where people were happy to be in the social status they were, and how one person had a "defect" and unsatisfied with his situation. I personally don't have such high regards to "freedom / sentience" that I disagree with the world depicted in BNW.

Besides: we only believe / act according to what we've lived, been thought and how our genetic code is assembled. How free are we really?

I assume you mean "Brave New World" as a concept, and not the film :D

Actually, I was talking about the book...I didn't even know they made a film.

Im mixing it up with something else, "birth of a nation" Not sure why, the titles aren't even similar.

Reposted from my last.fm profile...

Personally, I think organized religion is for the weak minded and for those who cannot think for themselves, hence I do not follow any type of theist religions. I follow two things: Common sense and Thinking for yourself. It's not hard to do, really! No need to follow failth to show and tell me what I should do with my life. In addition to this, I will not believe in a God or gods unless there is concrete physical proof, THEN I will acknowledge they exist but still won't follow religion just because I'm a free thinker. Feel free to tell me about <insert religion here>, but please don't push it/preach and attempt to convert or persuade me..that I don't like. If I want to be a faith follower, I will do it on my own, thank you very much. Lastly, I will respect people who keep it cool like this and don't try the above on me. :)

On the topic of Islam, it really bothers me that those who take things to extremist (Al Qaeda) or hardliner levels (Think Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia) that think they are the better religion out there. They seem the same at most. I do not hate this religion, I only hate the hardliner wackos like King Abdullah of SA and the clerics who praise violence, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism among those listening to them. These folks clearly make the rest of the followers of this religion get shitloads of flak and other negative press, especially those who are open to talk about things without getting down your throat on how great Allah is and X/everything else is wrong.

Sadists will be sadists, no matter what they believe, though the Inquisition did give an awful lot of them a free pass to act out.

True, However Religious fervor can cause otherwise decent people to become Sadists, at least for short periods of time.

But is that endemic to religion, or to all systems of authority?

Based on Milgram's work, I'd say the latter. You can have a completely secular authority that has all the endemic problems of a large, politicized religion because the vast majority of people will surrender their free will to someone who commands them.

If organized religion were gone tomorrow, we'd still have a culture where certain people can rise to positions of authority, and we'd still have people willing to follow them blindly.

It could be argued that secular authorities can become a religion themselves, Fuhrer worship is the most obvious example. though in that particular case the authority still used traditional deity based religion as a tool, North Korea, Stalinist Russia, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge could also be examples of state religions, basically the same mechanism the Catholic church has used for thousands of years, the main difference is God is replaced with a Human leader who has reached nearly God like status.


"If organized religion were gone tomorrow, we'd still have a culture where certain people can rise to positions of authority, and we'd still have people willing to follow them blindly. "

True, however it would be far more difficult to convince decent people to commit horrible crimes when you cant say "God says so"

Small point: despite the "Fuhrer cult" in Nazi Germany, the official religion of the Third Reich was actually a Nordicized Christian sect called "Positive Christianity."

Keep in mind that I'm not defending organized religion or its crimes, but I'm highly skeptical of Utopian thinking. Any time someone implies "without X, we'd have peace" I have a hard time buying it because it sounds overly simplistic and reactionary.

It is overly simplistic you are right :)
The real motivations for war is still there, Lust for power, greed, the same old crap, they would have to come up with new excuses and some other way to work everyone into a hateful frenzy...

Even if its not a perfect solution to all the worlds problems, I do think it would be a great victory for humanity to remove this very important tool from the tyrants.

YOu mean like a social club?

In post-revolutionary France they had the sect of the Supreme Being, which was basically a church-without-the-religion kind of deal. The "supreme being" was supposed to be the embodiment of revolutionary ideals of equality, fraternity, and liberty.

Within a generation, France had become a military dictatorship. They didn't count on the human factor.

I... really wish I could get incensed or shocked about this. But I'm not surprised at all.

Hooooooooooooly shit, did you read all the stuff on there?

"Lastly, the inquisitions were not only not bad, but were good. Why? Because they were an advancement over the mob violence and vigilante justice that proceeded them. Everything was usually by the book, carried out by the due 'controlling legal authorities'. If a man was executed, you can at least be sure that the accusations against him were true."

Is that guy for real?

I hope hes not real I really do

Well, not being one for practiced religious, but rather spiritual, I think many people overlook some of what their own religion prohibits in an attempt to keep with the times as people do with things that are acceptable. It's not really surprising to see people that are a bit overzealous like this, however. Even though it's using religion though, some of the points aren't only within religion, but could be attributed to overall human morals and values, depending on the culture and whatnot. One of the points you mentioned in a prior comment to "slay a few heretics to save the souls of the many" goes to the greatest good belief. It's just scary how people have figured out how to twist things to not only condone some wrongful behaviors but to manipulate people as well.

An interesting exercise, would be to think of the most horrible crime you can imagine, and then try to find a religious excuse for it, you may be surprised how easy it is :)

I wonder if people would then revert to human sacrifice again.

If it helps save many by keeping the crops healthy, then sure!

Aw, humans make me guffaw in shame sometimes.

I'll just share a quote I stole from an unrelated forum, but sums my opinion perfectly: "I find religion abhorrent. I think it is a weakness of the imagination, and a shackle for the mind." 'nuff said.

you nailed it!

Then again, humans are animals- naturally, they're prone to acts that ethics and morals label as "Evil". Regardless of religion, the human mind still has what the psycologist calls the "Id". So the bad things you hear about people doing, isn't just religious fervor- it's what is human. Not to say taht religioun is either bad or good, but it sets a model for the preservation of life... most of the time.

Everything you say makes sense to me, except for "Religion sets the model for the preservation of life" part, im not entirely sure what you mean :)

Well, in almost all religions, life is considered valued; in short, it's bad to kill people. Strong protect the weak, etc.

Well... there seems to be very little hesitation in killing people from competing religions.

Of course, but that came with blind following. Let me put it in an example- We're cavemen (But besides the obvious), and one clan is fighting another for some reason. One person, we'll call him bob, says "I don't like this fighting-it's wrong," and so thinks of a way to stop it. Of course, the best way is to tell the lemings that they will have the wrath of Lord Wanu upon them if they continue the bloodshed. That's what religion is for, really; moving beyond it, and having a REASONABLE desire to preserve life is what might come next, but the world may never know.

I think we are naturally reluctant to kill :)

In a nature vs. nurture aspect, we are in the nurture sense... if you weren't told that violence was bad, then it obviously isn't either way. But humans, being animals, have it built in to be willing to protect themselves.

But its good to protect yourself, turning the other cheek is not a wise philosophy :)

Hey I agree 100% with you on that. Humans are animals too. The only differance that separate and other 'animals' is that we can walk up right, build computers, etc. But we're barly out of the jungle on this planet. as far as religion goes, i still think it was made to keep the sheep in line, if you catch my drift.

If Sarah Palin is like that, then I'd imagine you're upset that we have someone who is like that as President, right? I mean, I haven't seen Palin's preacher, but I'd imagine that Wright would be a hard one to beat. Not to say that they haven't had their share of burnings, but it was sort of in reverse of what's brought up here.

There are nondenominational churches. Quite a few up here, actually. Though for the most part, they're just a blanket Christianity-type thing.

With influence from all religions, including atheism, it's probably end up as more of a tangled mess than any other. Mentioning anything from one would almost certainly offend someone else. But the ones around here do seem to be rather humanitarian oriented, somewhat libertarian.

I mean, as soon as you do something for one religion, you'd almost undoubtedly alienate another.

The wonderful thing about Christianity is that the great majority of the followers ignore the great majority of what would be considered bad.

Though, this does make a pretty good case against big government.

Yeah psshh stake-burnings are like so 1692. Guy's gotta get with the program. I propose the merits of burning him at the stake. He must be a heretic to someone. Lets call it a trial run.

I think it's less about people backing stuff up with religion and more an example of how human beings are capable of doing basically anything you can possibly imagine, no matter how sick or depraved.

Yessir, we're a cheery bunch, us homo sapiens.

burn them all, burn the world.

There are "loud" practices in every religion, But it does seem a bit extreme that any man with a series of impressive letters before their name would be one of those "loud" people.

Yoy can call yourself a phd and dr. If you have a doctorate in theology, its a trick they use to try to add credibility to themselves

Even if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhai.....nti-theologism

That was great, HammyToy! How do you find such gems?

From contradictory premises, you can draw any conclusion you want. Logic will not help you in that case. (I was going to say more here, but others have already said it.)

I stumbled on it reading about the Tudor family history

http://www.imagebam.com/image/b98d01107460891

This makes me so sad:(

8C

Religion is not fit for the 21's century, during the lifetime of the human race religion has led to many war's, suffering and death. and over the decades most of humanity has gained an understanding on how precious life is, and that we must preserve it. Way back then the Pope had a more, violent agenda then today. the pope could be described as more of a brutal dictator than a holy father. Ho god. There are still people in this world today who put religion over the value of life. Muslim extremists *cough* I don't want to point any fingers but rest assured religion can be a dangerous thing.

It's disturbing to thing somebody can despise you for something as small as defying their religious beliefs. It's unfortunately true. though not everyone is like that, it's often the people causing the trouble that we hear about the most.

EITHER WAY, I've decided to stay away from joining any religions, anyway if there was a god, I'm sure they would be disgusted in the way the human race treats each other for such pity conflicts.

"EITHER WAY, I've decided to stay away from joining any religions, anyway if there was a god, I'm sure they would be disgusted in the way the human race treats each other for such pity conflicts."


And I would be disappointed if the supreme being of the universe turns out to be so unimpressive that he would actually give two shits about anything we do on our little planet.

I would hope he would be somewhat beyond that level :D

YES, some of these religions need to realize that there's over 400 billion starts in the Milky Way alone, and there's billions of galaxies in the universe . It's just hard to comprehend how many other stars and planets might be out there. AND OF COURSE, people here on earth act as if we're the most important beings in the universe, but we're just a unimaginably tiny speck in the grand scheme of things.

I think you broke the internet with this post, all the replies are showing up out of sequence now. :)

But yeah, "Amen to that" as far as your comment on "if there was a god, I'm sure they would be disgusted in the way the human race treats each other."

You mean how they want to burn people who are from a different religion, but violent pedophiles get protected and hidden?

I personaly don't mind people having a 'belief'. Some people here believe they have animal spirits living in them. Others like myself believe in the guy in the sky. One of the issues is that any belief is based on faith which means there is no real evidance other than the belief fills a hole in one's life therefore what right does any person with a belief have to push their belief on others. 'Religion' is the worst culprite as it is a tool to control people who have a belief. I grew up a Catholic and later my family turned Penticostal. I swear in eash case the people that went to church never took the time to think for themselves or check up on what the preacher/priest taught us. They would read a passage then spout some garbage that never even applied to what they read and everyone jsut took it thinking 'hey, this guy must know what he is taking about cause I sure as fuck don't understand the bible.'

I used to attend a saturday evening singles meeting at church and I had lots of questions for my paster. I showed him scriptures and asked why his church taught something contradictory to what I was reading. He said 'that is the Penticostal doctrin and we are not allowed to deviate from it.' I even asked him about the Gay issue. He showed me the chapter that talked about it being a sin for a man to lay with another man as a woman. He said the entire chapter was geared around the importance of not getting sick and spreading disease in the desert where there was no doctors or hospitals. It had nothing to do with morelity since it was okay for a guy to fuck another guy (just not get fucked by one) or even for a man to lay with an animal (that was just confusion not a sin). So now that we have proper medicine and protection it is not a sin since the context of the passage is removed. So i asked why then do you condemn the gay lifestyle and he said, (in a nut-shell) because it's the Penticostal doctrin.

So when it comes to 'religion' I agree that these organizations are evil. When it comes to individuals having a belief in whatever, I am totally cool with that, so long as they use that belief to better themselves and not use it as a means to lift themselves up higher than anyone else (something my mother took pride in doing) or as an excuse to do horrible things. My belief teaches me to respect the beliefs (or the choice not to believe) of others and to tolerate and not to be judgemental. I don't always suceed but I try.

Anyway, that's just my experience and 2 cents on the matter. :)

Islam is the same way, the ban on pork was originally intended for health reasons, now that those reasons are obsolete they cling to it as doctrine, Images of the prophet Mohamed where initially forbidden to prevent idolatry, now the ban itself has spawned a kind of Mohamed worship , We would all be so much better off if people just used their own minds instead of depending on doctrine.