Do You Believe In God?

[Sparq]

Don't make me break out a little Bad Religion or Nine Inch Nails. The process of belief...

[Azalroth]

Battle of the religious/anti-religious lyrics?

[Sparq]

I think it's all mildly anti- here, unless I misinterperet Meg's post.

[Ravenous megin-sane]

yeah, they definately weren't pro-religion

[Azalroth]

I was leaving it up for people with pro religious lyrics (not that I expected any)

[Sparq]

...MAH SACRIFIIIIICE!

 

"Creed suuucks! I hate you! And I hate the bands you like!"

Edited July 31, 2007 by Sparq

[supercanuk]

hehehe Creed loves Jesus.

[garsk]

yeah, but does jesus love creed? if he has hearing, i am guessing not

[HoboFactory]

People seem to look at religion with a whole lot of double standards.

 

People say religion is oh so evil because it claims to be good, but does so many evil things, yet atheists have done their fair share of evil throughout history, especially recent history, so any idea of moral superiority for atheism is complete crap. Religion isn't inherently evil, and neither is atheism... the only thing that's evil is people. People can use religion to justify evil, for instance the Europeans used it as a justification in order to colonize the planet and enslave countless people, and people can use the cause of atheism to do evil as well, as seen with the Stalin regime, which sought to wipe out all religious people through the mass murder of tens of millions. It is not a question of whether there is a god to justify given actions with or something else entirely, people always find a way make what's right wrong, and what's wrong right.

[matrix]

Couldn't have said it any better myself.

[Doormat]

Once I challenged God to a match of solitaire.

 

Odds were: If I win one match, you don't exist.

 

An hour and a half later I won.

[wallOFfire]

Ack, people are always too loyal to their side of this arguement that it always ends up being a mess.

 

P.S. there is no god.

[Guest Prosis]

Well I don't see where this topic is a mess...;)

 

Anyhow, I agree it's not religion that's evil it's the people who interpret it in the way they want so they end up getting what they want.

 

But religion is also a form of interpretation as a whole. Every religion interpret how they see life, its creation and purpose, its creator, etc. But in the end they're all man made. Any organization who claims to have all those answers is wrong. No matter what we say we probably are all wrong. No matter our beliefs or our interpretation of life, we're probably all wrong. There are things we aren't meant to understand. But humans have a need to believe in something and so they do which is fine. But ultimately no one nowhere knows fuck all.

[heyrabbit]

anyone who frequents politics and debate knows my opinion on this. I'll summarize my position anyway

 

-faith is a real delusoin. every god is false

-religion is the worst philosophy you'll ever find

-faith was/is an ancient survival tool for primitive man. it was once necessary, although it has become a bane of the civilized world. it encourages, murder, homophobia, rape, slavery, etc.

-people are genetically and socially predisposed to faith. so faith is not necessarily a great indicator of lack of intelligence, although it is a sign of delusion, indoctrination, and naivety

 

also, the reason why people don't want to talk about religion is because religion can't survive conversation.

Edited August 3, 2007 by heyrabbit

[Guest Prosis]

-faith is a real delusoin. every god is false

-faith was/is an ancient survival tool for primitive man. it was once necessary, although it has become a bane of the civilized world. it encourages, murder, homophobia, rape, slavery, etc.

 

also, the reason why people don't want to talk about religion is because religion can't survive conversation.

Would you care to elaborate certain aspects of your post?

 

1- How would you know that?

2- How does faith encourage murder, homophobia, rape and slavery? Unless you're talking about faith in a religion and not just faith in something in general.

3-How can't religion survive conversation...isn't that what we're doing?

[Ravenous megin-sane]

coversations on religion just go in circles for me.

 

either you believe or you don't. i highly doubt a point brought up in a debate is really going to make you re-examine your life.

[Guest Prosis]

That I agree that most of the time it won't make one change one's mind...but that doesn't mean we can't exchange ideas. But what you said pretty much goes in the same vein as my "no matter what we say we probably are wrong".

[Ravenous megin-sane]

religion is just something for people to rest easy on. they can repent their sins and know that someone's got their back all they want. what they think isn't hurting anyone. i'm sure it's a very comforting thought.

 

it's not until they're so caught up in their beliefs that they treat others unkindly, or are in one way or anyother causing someone, or themselves, to not live their own lives that it bothers me.

 

it just doesn't make sense to me to live your life for someone else.

[Guest Prosis]

Yeah well that's why I tried very hard in this thread to seperate beliefs in a God(s) and religions which are both very different from one another.

 

Believing in a God doesn't mean you live your life for someone else. I believe in a God but I believe that everyone on earth has either something to do or something to learn.

[Lauren]

a lot of people wouldn't live their lives if not for someone/something else.

[heyrabbit]

Would you care to elaborate certain aspects of your post?

 

1- How would you know that?

2- How does faith encourage murder, homophobia, rape and slavery? Unless you're talking about faith in a religion and not just faith in something in general.

3-How can't religion survive conversation...isn't that what we're doing?

1. belief in false things is delusion. that's just what the word means.

 

I can say that I know that every false god is false because there's absolutely no evidence. science works by proving positives not by disproving negatives. the only requirement for "knowing" that god doesn't is exist is that you are born. nobody is agnostic about the existence of vampires or fairies. nobody is ever required to explain how they "know" that leprechauns don't exist. we know they don't exist because it's mythology and there's no evidence , just like god.

 

 

2. my problem with faith is that it's the antithesis of reason. and if reason is the highest virtue then that makes faith the greatest evil

 

you can't really dissociate faith about god from religion because they're the same thing. religious faith has not only condoned but specifically demanded homophobia,rape,slavery, murder etc.

 

if you want to talk about faith in general then I'd ask you what's wrong about being ignorant? what's wrong with knowing something without having good reasons for knowing it? the more credulous and ignorant a person is , the more likely they're going to hurt themselves or someone else. and so it's not surprising that when you look at instances in history where people have the same sort of religious-like adulation, without believing in a god, you get stuff like the k.k.k, Hitler,etc.

 

when you have an extreme faith in aliens and you try to become a doctor, you're laughed out of the room. and that's important. it's just as important for religious people to be marginalized from positions of importance in society but there's a double standard that allows for extreme faith in false gods.

 

 

3. if religion could survive conversation it wouldn't be completely taboo to speak about in public. religion's survival actually depends on people's ability to simultaneously submit to it and ignore it because as soon as you start to talk about it, it doesn't make any sense. it takes 2 seconds for most people to recognize a logical fallacy in religion. that's why religious people "don't want to talk about it".

 

 

also meg, religion has caused just about every major war in recent civilization. that hurt a few people

Edited August 3, 2007 by heyrabbit

[HoboFactory]

...

 

 

when you have an extreme faith in aliens and you try to become a doctor, you're laughed out of the room. and that's important. it's just as important for religious people to be marginalized from positions of importance in society but there's a double standard that allows for extreme faith in false gods.

 

 

...

Nonsense. The double standard here is the one you're using which pretty much states that anyone of faith or religion can do no right. Some people often say things like, "Look at Bush, he says he's religious, and he's a terrible president, therefore, religious people make bad presidents." Sure, Bush does claim to be religious, and he is a terrbile president, but somehoe people overlook that all of the best presidents have been religious people as well. People of faith have contributed a great deal to society and are capable of great advancements, for instance, Isaac Newton, or for a more modern example, the fellow in charge of the Human Genome Project. Yeah, how wonderful the world would be if they were all marginalized. You know, it's not hard to think of a few bad atheists as well.

[Guest Prosis]

And as far as science not being able to prove it, science was convinced that the earth was flat, that the whole universe revolved around it, that lobotomy cured mental illness, etc...

 

What I mean by these extremes is that, we don't know everything...humans have the worst habit of thinking "if it's not proven yet, it's not real"

 

We DON'T know everything no matter how brilliant a scientist might be. So science is not a valid argument.

[heyrabbit]

just because someone's religoius, that doesn't mean they're not intelligent. Everyone in Isaac newton's day was at the very least culturally religious. So that doesn't mean anything. although I can pin point religion as a common denominator of trouble.

 

 

Every bad person is an atheist. but that's also nothing special because every single person in the world is an atheist

 

 

we don't know everything, of course, but that's not a point in religions favor. philosophically I can't say a god I've never heard of doesn't exist, but I can say that jesus doesn't exist, and allah doesn't exist, and thor, and poseidon

Edited August 4, 2007 by heyrabbit

[silentshadow]

you can't really dissociate faith about god from religion because they're the same thing. religious faith has not only condoned but specifically demanded homophobia,rape,slavery, murder etc.

So you're saying one can't have faith that there is a higher power that created the universe, science, evolution, logic, and everything that exists without associating with religion?

 

How are religon and faith in a greater being the same thing?

 

I think they are seperate concepts.