Religion...

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That is so very true.
There's a big difference between acting in God's name and acting as God's will directed, mostly that the former gives you enough leeway to do some pretty nasty stuff.
Which, to return to the original topic, shows that at least some religions could be used to permit atrocities, but religion itself is not the problem.
It's people that are the issue, especially the unscrupulous ones who will use any means to further their own goals.

 

Good points, Letharon, and ones I have made in other threads in the past. I do belong to a church, but we don't put up with what you call Churchianity. Christianity isn't about religion, it is about a relationship with Christ.
At the same time, however, while the Bible does call us to spread the word to the whole world, it doesn't call us to force it down people's throats. We are only called to be witnesses. It is up to the person to believe or not.
Organized religion has in the past, and likely will in the future, been cause of both great good and great suffering. It is only through organization that we can gather and distribute money, send aid to those in need, train, fund, and support missionaries, and perform many of the other actions we should do as faithful followers of Christ. At the same tme, however, organized religion can be used to oppress people, to brainwash masses, and to generally do evil in the name of God. Like the American republic, the solution lies in us, the masses, being able to reason and think on our own, and to criticize teachings we see as faulty or unbiblical.

 

You guys are saying things like Martin Luther did. Are you Protestant, Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, etc? Can you specify which religion you are? Christianity is a broad term...

 

What I meant that the basic assumption that there is one/several beings in control of everything and which created the universe billions of years ago and are now micromanaging the life of sentinent beings on one tiny planet in one tiny solar system in one tiny galaxy among billions is rather implausable to me. I stand by my view that it is all a bunch of silly superstition and it continues to baffle me that intelligent people can fall for it. I reckon the comfort factor is enough for many people to ignore the rational part of their mind.

 

FWIW, joacqin, Jews agree with you.

 

But according to the Bible, isn't the earth only 8 thousand years old (or something far less than 5 billion), so if you believe in the Bible, that argument is sort of irrelevant. If you don't believe that the universe was created billions of years ago and is infinite, then Joacquin's point is... pointless.


However, I do agree with you. If there is even a God, what makes us so special? I'm sure He created plenty of other people to hang out with in this mightily vast universe...

 

5,766 years to be precise, Saber. However, most Reform Jews recognize that large parts of the Torah are allegorical and not to be taken literally. That doesn't mean that there isn't wisdom to be found within its pages, though, for those who care to look.

 

Okay, I've skipped pages 2 through 6, but I think this is another one of those bash the religiuos throwbacks story. I've been offline for 2 months with technical issues, and I see little has changed here.

From the original article quoted by BA, it sounds like another rebellious rant against a perceived moral authority. A pathetic attempt to use "big people words" to express a rather juvenile rejection of anyone telling them that they shouldn't do exactly as they want. On this, I believe there is a difference in how something is perceived. To the faithful, sex is sacred, and should only be shared between a man and his legally and lawfully wedded wife. To the world, sex is fun, and we should be doing it as much as we can. It is not about damnation, but about elevating the spirituallity.

While I don't pretend to speak for all religions, I will speak for Mormons, of which I am one. We have out prohibitions on drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. It is taught that these substances are harmful, and damage our bodies and souls. It states in the New testament that:

A) we are children of God (Acts 17:28-29)

B) our bodies are the like unto the temple of God, houses for this divine spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16)

Therefore, such commandments of purity (no booze, drugs, smoking, pornography, sexual sin) are about showing respect for ourselves, and elevating our minds and hearts to a higher purpose.

Those of you who do not believe would no like it if I came into your home, urinated on the carpet and dumped some foul smelling sludge on the kitchen table, would you? (I hope not...) You'd likely say it was disrespectful of your home. Just as the aforementioned sins are disrespectful of our bodies and souls.

As for blaming religion for wars? Religion has been used as a weapon (like someone said on page 1, but I forget who that was). You don't blame a gun when someone is shot, but the one who pulls the trigger. Likewise, don't blame religion for any such wars, but the ones who claimed that it was God's commandment to do these reprehensible things. The same book that states that "Thou shalt not steal" does not grant exemption for those who sacked Constantinople on their way to the Holy Land...

Another point of dispute seems to be the sanctity of life. While it is universally accepted that in general it is wrong to kill another human being, we seem to debate where that right to live can be denied. Whether it is unborn or infirm or greviously criminal seem to be the three categories where there is great disagreement. What is the difference between stating that a foetus is a lump of cells but not human and stating that Jews and blacks are just a lump of cells but not human. The former seems to be tolerated by the rules here, and defended by some respected members here, but the latter, were I serious, would be bannable, and leave me open to severe, well deserved flaming. The former championed by those who see it as a woman's right to have dominion over her body, the latter championed by the KKK and the Nazis in WWII. Hatred and intolerance are not products of religion, but of those who want to better their lot at the expense of those who are different in some way.

As for religion pushing it's way into the lives of those who do not believe, that's democracy, live with it. Democracy, literally translated, means people rule. As long as the majority are of a religious belief that does not tolerate something (abortion, homosexuality), then they will support politicians who oppose these things. If you don't like it, then go to some other country where the government style (and attitude) is more to your liking.

Basically, from what I understand of BA's article, it's finding fancy words to tell people who don't agree with them that they are stupid. I'm not sure whether to be seeing red or laughing my ass off.

 

This parallel between religions and guns is rather interesting. They can both bring a sense of security to a person. You can say it's not the guns/religion that kills people, it's the people using them, and on one hand that is true. However, without guns people could not get shot, period. Surely they could still get stabbed or strangled and so on, but that's a lot more difficult that shooting. Likewise, without religions there wouldn't be so much fuel to fire any holy wars. Of course there would still be conflicts and wars, but at the very least it would be harder for the manipulative leaders to ignite their people into a fanatic murderous rage over a cartoon and things like that.

 

Hey Gnarff, welcome back!

You may want to go back through some of those other pages. There were a great variety of topics brought up, some of which you are probably very familiar with. There was everything from the evolution of the Christian Church, the differences between Catholic and Orthodox, and even views on what the Second Coming will be like. I'm sure you have opinions on these topics, and at the very least might be interested in what some other people have to say. Quite honestly, despite your initial impressions, this is not a religion-bashing thread.

 

@Joaqin:
Ok, first of all, if you believe in the Christian God, then He's all powerful, omnipresent, and knows everything, so micromanaging a single world, not to the exclusion of any others, isn't such a problem. In fact, micromanaging the whole universe isn't really a problem. Also, God makes clear that humans are unique (at least on Earth) and that He thus values us conciderably over, lets say, Mars, as we understand it today. So, really, rationality all but requires that God, if He exists as Christianity supposes, pay such atention to us.

Age of the World:
Ok, there are a few problems with dating the world according to the Bible.
1.) As I understand it, the listing of creation in Genesis 1 is not a chronological list in the original Hebrew. It is a categorical list. Meaning the 'day' could refer to the process, it could refer to the beginning of the process (which may continue through the beginnings of other processes), or it could refer to a few other things. Whatever it refers to, Genesis 1 doesn't tell us how long it took to go from "In the beginning" to "and God said, 'Let us make man in our own image.'" If I'm wrong here, I'm sure someone will bring it up, but I was told this by a very trustworthy individual who should know what he's talking about.
2.) As I remember it (sorry, I don't have a Bible on me so I can't check), we don't know the lineage from Adam to Abraham, so we don't know how long THAT took, either. And no one quote to me where John (I think) gives the lineage of Jesus, because he skips quite a few generations. I.E. He says 'Well known person A, son of well know person B' when A was actually several generations removed from B, but everyone at the time knew that A was a decendant of B.
Thus, as far as I know, the Bible doesn't tell us how old the Earth is, and neither can science, really. We can make good guesses, but there are a lot of things that could have happened to change the time lines of the processes in question. Also, I've had a problem with science ever since they said the universe was ~8 billion years old, but then found a star they dated to ~10 billion, older than the universe. (I'm not sure about the numbers, but they found a star older than their estimate of the age of the universe)

For those who are curious, I am a Baptist.

Gnarff, unfortunately, there are a lot of people that do blame guns for killing people. Go figure.

 

AFI: I've missed SP. One of the problems of not wanting to over use the availability of another computer and not getting online until later at night. I wish I could have seen this thread from the beginning to address some of the things brought up for discussion.

Susipaisti: Exactly, in the abscence of guns, another weapon will be found. Likewise, in the abscence of religion, another motive would be found, and without religion, there would be less to teach people that they can be better than simple savages, so these motives would be less than admirable...

NOG: I live in Canada, I see that all the time, and our previous government blew over 2 billion of taxpayers money to register guns and their owners on a category of gun that is involved in very little crime compared to the ones that are already illegal. Like that legislation, I fail to see the logic behind blaming religeon or guns for the blood that is caused...

 

I'd like to add to this not-so-old topic that I am Jehova's Witness myself and if anyone has any questions feel free to ask ^_^.

Nakia is correct; we only have one "sacred scripture" (not sure if that's the right word to use) the bible. We have both translations and version, which are different.