I'll disclaim this at the start that I don't follow any of the world religions, do not believe there is a God, but have no evidence to prove one does not exist.
I want to present an alternative view of the history of the world, because the Christians are getting a hell of a lot of stick recently, and I think that's a bad thing for the world.
Survivorship bias: Pagan religions didn't die out because their Civilisations died out, their civilisations died out because their religions were suboptimal at keeping them alive.
Taking a look at the religions that have survived today, and in no particular preference, cherry picking a few of their values, when taking the religion to a fairly strict level.
Oppression of women
Unable to eat pork/shellfish
Banning contraception
Banning homosexuality
Dont murder anyone (unless they don't do what your religion says they should do),
Don't steal
Anyone can convert into it,
If you leave it (apostasy) you die.
You should convert people to it by spreading the word.
Roasting in hell for eternity if you don't join.
Cheap to do.
Being rich is against God's will.
Religion passes through the mother
One God
I'll go through each of these points as to why they're almost a requirement of a surviving religion.
Oppression of women, banning contraception and banning homosexuality: If I wanted to build an army, I need numbers. These 3 are easily the best way of churning out numbers with no questions asked (God said so, remember?).
Unable to eat pork/shellfish: Shelf life of shellfish is bugger all, and pork was, until relatively recently riddled with tapeworm. This will cause illness and death in a community. Ban it = better health.
Don't kill or steal. To operate a more efficient organisation, you need it enshrined in afterlife law that not only do I not want you doing that, but God doesnt either.
Acquiring wealth is also a nono. You are also far less able to mount any form of uprising or insurrection without funding. Keep people poor and you keep them in line, and also in dire need of a God. Correlation between poverty and religion is not coincidental.
One God: Simpler and also means you dont waste time praying to many Gods. You can sort out your religious duties in one place for a few hours a week.
Belief goes through the mother: No doubt as to who the mother is. Guaranteed child of the faith.
Now the main ones. Don't convert to my religion, I have to kill you. Convert and you live, and you upgrade your afterlife, significantly. That's not a hard choice, especially given the theatrical deaths the hardliners took when they refused to abandon their faith. If you leave, I kill you.
Cheap: Not a huge burden on your resources to sustain. Case in point in Malaysia, people have converted to Christianity recently as the cost of sacrifices and lengthy rituals to many Gods,
So how does this all fit together? These religions have created a culture which is more effective than other cultures in creating numerous devoted zealots who will die for their cause. These cultures, combined with human nature will spread and overrun anything that stands in their way.
So why do we need Christianity? It's the least restrictive of the surviving religions, and we need something to resist the conversion to other belief systems. It's readily attacked because it doesnt fight back unpleasantly. This incessant assault by the atheists is weakening its position. It's the lesser of the 2 evils that we face, and we could do with a few people on our side that will die to defend the culture. Not only that but when we do find an alien civilisation, we'd best hope we outnumber it, outgun it or some combination of the two. Looking at the progress of the Christian nations compared to the others indicates that it is better suited to ensuring the survival of the human race than others.
Hope this doesnt start a ****storm, probably will though.
In before shit storm.
Probably going to turn into a shitstorm of "in before the shitstorm"
Also in before shitstorm and other similar occurrences
Short answer is "we don't need christianity". The least restrictive religion is akin to the least dangerous gun.
Religion breeds an ethos of superiority and intolerance. At the extreme you have what most of us would refer to as "terrorists" or violent religious zealots.
I was hardly surprised when I learned Tim Tebow, someone who traveled as a missionary and even performed circumcision in the Phillipines, grew up with a learning disability. An inability to think for yourself and question what was written by others who had an agenda of controlling the masses and centralizing power is the learning disability he should have divulged.
I don't know why but I have the sudden urge to give you money.
You get an SB for shitting on Tim Tebow
You missed the crux of my argument, and the worrying thing is you got upvoted for doing so. I am not questioning which of the arguments is right, i clarified at the start I'm a strict atheist, but all other factors being equal, a religious civilisation that believes in wiping you out is the right thing to do, vs. a civilisation based on tolerating everyone and everything will result in only one civilisation left standing as t tends to infinity.
I wanted to demonstrate through history, that the best suited to survival religions caused their civilisation to survive, those that weren't would be wiped out. An atheistic world would be far nicer, but you'll never get there. It's a theoretical dream, and of the religious civilisations that I could tolerate living under (read would not impact my life), is the Christian one, simply based on the impact on our lives. Proof would be looking at the top rated countries by any metric in the UN rankings.
I'll just say this: while the religious were boycotting rainbow oreos and going out in droves to buy artery-clogging chicken, scientists landed a rover on Mars.
Curiosity and reason are the greatest enemies of faith. Anti-intellectualism will get us nowhere.
to the atheist, praying even to one God is a waste of time.
Dude. No.
OP's argument is total non-sense. What is even the point of this?
The fact is, human nature at its core is incredibly evil. It doesn't matter if it's atheism, Christianity, Islam, etc. Those in power will use religion or "anti-religion" as a way to foment hatred. Very few societies have been run by atheists/atheism, but those handful demonstrate that religion isn't the problem; rather, it's human nature. Look at Communist China under Mao (and even today), Pol Pot, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba. These are or were despotic, murderous dictatorships that persecuted people of faith. The French Revolution would be another example of a pseudo-atheist dictatorship (Robespierre was trying to found a new religion, so it's not fair to attribute his brutality to lack of belief in god, per se).
In any event, human nature is the catalyst for barbarism, despotism, persecution and oppression, not religion or atheism. Whether someone abuses the teachings of Jesus Christ (he did say the greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself, including your enemies), Muhammad or Darwin (the Nazis were not atheists, but they were pagan Darwinists) or no religion at all (Soviet Union), the truth is that their own lust for wealth, power or superiority is the driving force--the thought processes that they use are merely tools for their personal corruption of character.
i think we are forgetting the burnings of heretics and heterodox believers by the calvinists of geneva, the inquistion in the iberian states, and the insane slaughters of the thirty years' war initiated by protestant and catholic doctrinnaires.
and we are also forgetting that joe stalin was a trained seminarian who used the methods learned in his brutal tutelage in the church for his cheka and NKVD. hitler was a lapsed catholic as were many nazis and used medieval church ghettoization methods (down to yellow stars and caps) for their holocaust. i'll give you mao, he was a godless fucker from the start.
now atheists have hardly had power until the 20th century, and if you can say that all the 10000 years of human history behind that when religion was the dominant force of nearly all societies was massacre and atrocity-free, we'll have to agree that we are living on different planets.
Wow.....
Did, umm, did you even read a word I said? I said people of all beliefs have committed atrocities in the name of their belief systems, be they spiritual or humanist belief systems. I said that it's apparent that human nature--and not atheism or religion--are the catalysts for wicked. Not sure what you read...
My advice is to re-read what I wrote.
Virginia Tech- it doesn't seem like we agree on much, but this was spot-on. People love to cherry-pick and point out the behaviors of groups they already have a bias against (and conveniently ignore those that don't support their argument) when the underlying condition is the human condition. No religion or set of principles (no matter how nobly conceived) can restrain the moral decay of man and his (or her) lust for power, fortune, or pleasure.
given that religions are human creations, is this not a self fulfilling prophecy, and also perhaps that we've set the "nice" bar quite high.
If you read the history of finance, you'll notice the first organized lenders weren't actually banks, but rather the churches, in Italy I believe. Of course, the entities they lent money to, the kings and rulers, used that capital to finance wars that they of course lost, thus defaulting all over the place in a bloody mess. And yet the money kept coming into the churches. So...wasn't always so cheap!
So you don't believe in god or religion, but you think society needs it? I don't buy it.
Why start a debate in religion on WSO ? Isnt their enough of that in the media.
If you are a christian good for you dont hate on others and if your pro life cool
If your athetist good for you dont hate on others if your pro choice - dont just hold that position because your an athetist.
Civilizations fail because of rulers not religion. Many christian empires have fallen only to be replaced by other christian empires from europe
Maybe this is just the nihilist in me coming out, but why would a true atheist even give a shit what happens to society? You're born, you get shit on, you shit on a few other people, and then you die. Do you really care what happened before you or what's going to happen after you? Serious question.
first valid point i've read. I feel I owe a duty of care to the planet, the human race and to me (in reverse order of priority), mainly because I treat people in a way that I would like to be treated by them. Therefore it is a logical conclusion, and I'm also grateful that I haven't grown up under a hugely oppressive regime.
ie, the categorical imperative
religion was invented when the first scoundrel met the first fool.
History shows us that all religious affiliations or no affiliations at all can be associated with wicked acts. I would agree with the poster that Christianity along with Buddhism and Hinduism are the most liberal/libertine of the major world religions. I'm always amused that liberal humanists so quickly embrace Islam when they feel someone has done something unfavorable to the faith, or has unfairly persecuted the faith. The cognitive dissonance is amusing. Would humanists rather live under Americanized Christianity where a gay person can get married, but it just can't get recognized by the government or under Islam where a gay person can be executed?
And to cast off the Soviet Union onto Stalin's Christian upbringing is breathtakingly absurd. The Soviet Union was the first nation on earth whose stated mission was the elimination of religion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union
So we're trying to point to religion as the reason why certain civilizations overcame the encumbant "dominant" civilization? You think the white dudes won the Crusades because they were rooting for baby Jesus? And I'm sure the Israelis are running up and down the Gaza Strip because that shit Moses wrote on the stones helped them build a better tank than Mohammad ever could have.
I'm arguing that religion adds an entirely new reason for human cruelty that is entirely separate from all the reasons for which we kill each other. I am also arguing that "atheist" societies aren't as atheist as you say: stalin and hitler were tutored in the methods developed over centuries by their churches, and exploited religion-based hatred of minorities (jews killing jesus, etc.) in their rise to and exercise of power.
You are saying that people kill each other to pillage, rape and destroy, and religion is only a cover for that in certain cases. i don't disagree, but i am saying that in certain cases, religion is the main motivatior.
i refer you to the experience of mormons in america, anabaptists during the counterreformation and calvinist purges, jews pretty much anywhere, etc. we are talking about people who are of the same race, are neighbors, who suddenly turn on each other because of some silly religious difference.
i recognize that religion gives millions comfort. whether it is true or not does not change that fact. far be it from me to take away that comfort, but this is not a freebie for mankind: it has some costs, and those who are not religious are merely pointing that out, and resent the suggestion that somehow the rest of us non-christians/non-religious "need" the religious.
In other religion news, there was a surprise screening of The Master last night and it apparently got rave reviews:
http://www.showbiz411.com/2012/08/06/scientology-movie-the-master-gets-…
http://www.youtube.com/embed/fJ1O1vb9AUU
Imagine how great the world would be if we all got "clear".
Is it bad if when I think of The Master, I think of the guy from Dr. Who? Do I need help?
Who really cares. Believing in God can lead to good and evil, just as not believing can. The way a person acts out their religious beliefs is more of a reflection of themselves than the religion.
For every "Christian" KKK member you have someone trying to do good works in the Lords name. And for every tolerant atheist you have a dick head that does nothing but sneers at other people for their presumed intelligence.
And if you are going to be all rational and science based you better understand the theory you believe in. I've met too many people that crap on religious people for being sheep to only find out they blindly believe in scientific theory that they cannot explain past a rudimentary level.
It is much easier for someone who is charismatic and intelligent to manipulate religious believers into doing things that are evil than it is without religion.
God hates (insert target here), therefore you should too (pitchforks and mass hysteria ensue).
That is the fundamental problem with religion.
Or the fundamental purpose?
winner winner chicken dinner
.
Yah, sure. Only religious people get manipulated. Tell that to those who supported Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etc.
Plenty of people who have no understanding or true religious beliefs to hate others. It is human nature to be violent or dislike things that are different. Blaming it on religion is a cop out.
it should be self-evident that people who reject scientific reasoning are more manipulable.
But suddenly I viddied that thinking was for the gloopy ones, and that the oomny ones use, like, inspiration and what Bog sends.
And people who accept scientific reasoning aren't able to be manipulated? Unless every atheist has a PhD and can do their own research they are still just average intelligence individuals accepting something that someone else tells them.
Just go on Reddit and you will see the swarms of hive minded fools.
There are two types of atheists.
1) People who need proof, who think religion is made up and who want to live an analytical life based on science and evidence.
2) People who just want to do whatever they want and are as dumb or dumber than any religious person.
I tend to think the atheist crowd is made up of a lot more of #2 than #1.
Religion was and is still very valuable. It is a prepackaged ethics system, unifying and orderly. Just like we need rules, laws and government to keep things running, so does having organized religion. Some people don't like it, some do, to each their own. But to cast religion in a horrible light just because of some people who distort religious teachings is very unfair. Plenty of scientific theory has been distorted for evil also, but that doesn't make science bad.
First one has to do with sexism, not religion.
Second is a dietary restriction, which is a health issue and not inherently a religious one.
The ban on contraception has more to do with being grateful for one's blessings, which any society that has a high death rate among children would consider important.
Sexism and the previous point have a lot to do with homophobia.
What does murder and stealing have to do with religion? You saying an atheist society wouldn't have these things? If they would and such restrictions are universal, what's your point? I think the executioner has always been the greater deterrent.
The next three relating to conversion/apostasy are found in nationalism, fascism, etc.
You are an idiot if you can say 'correlation between poverty and religion are not coincidental' and think you said something remotely intelligent.
Yes, because a religion that wants people to be poor and not have the desire of becoming rich should also want their people to be as productive as possible and not worship more than one God. If you are going to hawk your pseudo-scientific claims around here, at least try not to contradict yourself.
Still missing the point. I'll repeat it once again. The SURVIVING religions SURVIVED because the culture they create are inherently better at SURVIVING than other beliefs that were around at the same time. The traits described in my original post are ones that give that culture an edge. It's not whether its right or wrong, it will win. Child abuse and eugenics are pretty nasty traits, but it worked for the Spartans. The whole purpose of this thread was to illustrate that you need something to fight back at the extremists with, so use the lesser of the 2 evils. This is about results, not ethics.
tell me about this thriving spartan civilization today.
Hey guys. Quick question. How come no love (or hate) for the eastern religions? Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Baha'ism, et cetera. These religions have lasted plenty of years, don't have many of the usual "survival" traits, don't really have well defined plans like the western varieties, mostly pretty tolerant, and some even promote scientific inquiry. Shouldn't they at least be acknowledged in the convo?
That's all I had folks. Carry on.
buddhism doesn't have a deity, and is more of a philosophical system. same with taoism. these are less attractive options for the fanatical.
This topic is starting to bore me.
I love everyone hyping science as if the majority of people can understand anything beyond bio 101.
When you believe something a scientist tells you without a clue on how to understand it you are simply putting your faith in a man with a white coat instead of a dude in the clouds. Blind faith is just that.
And yes, two types of atheists. People who can comprehend a theory and decide and people who just believe whatever scientists tell them.
Go check out the Milgram experiment. People are sheep, whether they believe in God's divinity or Human ingenuity. Atheists are just as much sheep as religious people.
To my knowledge they never controlled in that experiment by religion, but it would be really really interesting to see the results if they did. Though I'm gonna hypothesize that non-religious people tend to quit sooner than the overly religious.
FWIW, the experiment does show why we trend towards religion if you think about it, but I don't think it every controlled for it.
And I love how religion is attributed as this creator of intolerance. One only has to look at "enlightened" Europe to see bigotry and xenophobic behavior exists regardless of faith.
Oh wait, I mean Hitler didn't talk about the scientific superiority of the Aryans or use eugenics for his cause. Or Stalin. Or Mao.
People are bastards, religious or otherwise. Everything else is just noise and bickering.
Well religion or any perceived authority figure. A guy in a white coat telling you something is a perfect example. Any IMO, if you just blindly follow anyone, pastor or scientist, you are still a sheep.
What I meant was after the person finishes the experiment, see if they are religious or not. I'd be curious to see if the results aren't significant or if being religious makes you more/less likely to listen to the authority figure.
lol
please tell me of one human society where the common folks take scientists nearly as seriously as their local chaplain or imam or priest or whatever
don't forget Guru
So religious people 100% reject all science? I think you are confusing a small number of absolutists for the majority of people. Religious people accept what doctors tell them, what "experts" tell them, and what scientists tell them all the time. Same with non religious people.
Milgrams test looked at peoples propensity to obey an authority figure. This is found in tons of places outside of religion (military, financial services, gangs, etc).
I think Pascal's Wager is interesting. Basically says religious belief is more logical than non-belief...simple probability folks...
Just addin' some fuel to the fire here
I also find Pascal's Wager very interesting but probably for a different reason. Think about how blatantly and undeniably retarded his argument was, and the fact that somehow it gained notoriety. It's just a testament to the irrationality and need for constant deferral that human nature requires. His premise is essentially you lose nothing for betting on God and being wrong, and gain "everything" if you're right... while if you bet against God, either way you lose.
Ok, cool. And the argument here is that a rational person would then always want to hold belief in God. Let's think about this for a second. First of all, if the only reason you're believing in God is because you've worked out Pascal's fucking Wager in your head and decided it's the only non-lose-lose situation, I doubt "He" will want you up in his everlasting wonderland any time soon. Second, Pascal argues that this is the rational thing to do? How irrational is what you're betting on? Paradise in the sky - dafuq? But this, one would argue, defeats the purpose so I'll skip over it. The last argument I'll make is that living your life according to your own value set results in a more enjoyable life than forcing yourself to follow the principles set forth in whatever religion you've decided is the "right" one, and this enjoyment outweighs the benefit of "going to heaven" times the probability that it exists (the expected value of heaven... lmao, theoretically should be infinite though I guess?).
Either way it's just hilarious because we give credit to it in some circles.
Sweet, fire sufficiently fueled and stirred...
Not saying this necessarily reflects my beliefs, but I think this is where your argument stumbles (as you've admitted). The expected value of heaven or some sort of divine afterlife is infinite as long as the 'bliss' is infinite and the probability that such 'bliss' can exist in an afterlife is greater than 0. The present life is finite, that much is known, and the enjoyment you can derive from the present life is also finite, but no one is capable of comprehending the enjoyment (spiritually of course) that could exist outside of the present life.
That raises an interesting question - should you be rewarded for doing good actions if your motives are ultimately selfish? Cuz one could argue that pure altruism doesn't exist...
yes. pascal's wager is completely craven. i suspect if christianity didn't promise/threaten, mafioso-like, the stick and carrot of hell and heaven, 90% of christians wouldn't be christians.
At least read something about Pascal's Wager before you decide to bash it. He didn't say to simply claim belief in God. He said to actively pray to God and ask God for faith and that this would create genuine belief and faith, which is what all religions tell you to do anyway. You pray for faith, it doesn't always just come to you.
For a more interesting subject, I refer you to
How come you gotta pick only one? Can't you diversify?
This is what I'm hearing from the non-religious or the anti-religious on this thread--"ok, yeah, well, mankind will act evil with or without religion--I'll grudgingly give that to you--but religious belief makes people worse than not having a religious belief does."
I mean, the evidence from communists in the 20th century simply does not back up this belief (ironic use of the word). There is absolutely no evidence that believers act better or worse than non-believers. Every piece of historical evidence points to the fact that every person in the history of earth has acted with poor character, and people of all religious and non-religious beliefs have committed atrocities, sometimes in the name of that belief (or non-belief) and sometimes in in spite of it.
There is no evidence whatsoever to imply the existence of a theistic god. Literally ZERO evidence. At best, you can make (mainly philosophical) arguments for a Deist god or a universe as a computer / pandeistic / pantheistic god.
But, no arguments with ANY merit will get you to a theistic god. Let alone the god of the Bible.
The nuts that exist today who hold insanely devout or radical Christian / Muslim beliefs are:
1.) Insecure about their beliefs (hence the need to throw them in everyone's faces and force their beliefs on others)
2.) Holding on to their beliefs mainly because of their fear of death. We all fear death, but more and more of us don't need the crutch of eternal salvation through a cheat code to deal with it.
Also, yes, atheists are absolutely capable of doing evil things. No one should even attempt to deny this.
However, there is not one single GOOD act that ONLY religion can compel someone to do that a non-religious person would not do. I can, however, name horrible, evil acts that religion can compel someone to do. In short: good acts do not require religion. But, religion can lead to evil acts. (i.e. atheists and religions people can both do charitable work, but atheists won't kill someone in the name of god or blow themselves up in to get 40 virgins.)
Atheists can kill people for believing in a god, which religious people can't (only the wrong god). In fact, atheists did do this for the large portion of the 20th century. I mean, we can go around in circles all day if you want...
This is a legitimate question: when did they do this? My understanding was that the National Socialist Party promoted Catholicism (or at least Christianity), and although the USSR actively campaigned for atheism I don't know if they were killing people en masse who were not professing their atheism (correct me if I'm wrong). I can't think of any other potential atheist bloodbaths from World War I or II, or any other 20th century atrocity but then again I'm not well-versed in history.
I think you may have not gotten my point. I was emphasizing that one does not need religion to do good. i.e.) religion cannot compel someone to do something positive that they cannot otherwise be compelled to do without religion.
In short: religion is not necessary for good. More often than not, it has been a force for evil (i.e. the crusades, anti-intellectualism / burning of heretics / surpression of science and reason, against using condoms amongst those in Africa with AIDS, etc.)
With that said, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, there is no reason for someone to be a hardcore devout Christian or Muslim or whatever when their ancient holy books are so incredibly filled with errors, falsehoods, and rules that no serious moral person could ever follow.
But, again, people are going to do whatever they can to ignore the facts of the matter so that they can comfort their own fear of death.
I believe in unicorns, I would like to see someone here prove they don't exist.
To add: killing people who believe in things without evidence (i.e. theistic gods, unicorns, that jorts are fashionable), while awful (since killing people is, generally speaking, awful), is a LOT different from the idea that killing oneself along with others will lead to eternal paradise.
There is no guaranteed reward of eternal paradise from killing someone if you are not a theist. If you are a theist, you may do evil things in the name of a reward of eternal paradise...despite there being no evidence for it.
Same result--death. Not sure why you and the other virulently anti-religious people here are trying to make some sort of dichotomy between murder in the name of religion and murder in the name of non-religion. Murder is murder. The cognitive dissonance in this thread even led to a poster blaming the Catholic Church for the Soviet Union's anti-religion policies. It's mind boggling that you guys are so anti-religion that you can look at truth in the face and laugh at it.
Focus on this point:
You don't need made up stories to be a good person. I won't even get into the other stuff.
Further, I don't really care if people believe in total non-sense. You can worship Jesus or Zeus, it makes no difference to me...as long as it doesn't effect public policy or the rights of others. Gay people can't get married in a ton of states because a bunch of people subscribe to cherry-picked bronze age non-sense, and I'm honestly sick and tired of shit like that.
Actually, gay people can get married. They get married every day in my home state of Virginia. The state simply doesn't recognize the union. Virginia also doesn't recognize polygamist marriages or bestial marriages or marriages between people under the age of 14 without parental consent. That doesn't prevent anyone from getting married.
"The state simply doesn't recognize the union."
In other words: they can get married...just they don't get the same treatment as straight married couples. So, separate but equal. And we have religious non-sense to thank for that.
Also, did you really drop "bestial marriages?" Seriously? Animals can't enter contracts. You cannot be serious with this crap.
With that said, if you can provide proof of the theistic god of the old testament, I'll go along with banning gay marriage (in the eyes of the state.)
This is where I start to get really pissed off. Nobody here is going to kill anybody whether they're religious or not, however there are plenty that will use an old book to justify beliefs that are out of touch with reality.
I've said this before, but I'll say it again: the gov't should have never allowed anyone to get married in the eyes of he law (gay or straight). Marriage is a contract that confers certain benefits including inheritance, custody of children, health care decisions etc. The government should only grant domestic partnerships and leave marriage to the churches. It invites too many nut jobs to protest that their book disagrees and is therefore wrong. Often this criticism comes from a guy with 8 kids from 4 different women. Hypocrite much?
Also, don't even get me started on the 'debate' about evoluton. There is no debate. How ridiculous. Gravity and magnetism are theories too, I guess we should teach the other side of those debates as well?
Also, if we're really going to have "traditional" marriage as described in the bible, does that also mean that rape victims must marry rapists?
Or, what about all of this: http://i.imgur.com/ouZce.jpg
That a thinking person could buy into any of this either means they are deceiving themselves or are truly delusional.
As an additional aside: I want to be clear that I am not a full-on atheist. I am very much an agnostic / pantheistic type of person. However, I find myself driven towards a sort of anti-theism because of this kind of crap.
Is that 50 shekels nominal or in real terms from when the rule was made? Cuz if not...
I'm going to marry my hp12c. Such a loyal companion.
i totally reject this false dichotomy that somehow, science tells us more about how the world works, and religion does a better job than anything else at telling us about morality and ethics.
the formerly lutheran and calvinist countries of north and western europe now have whorehouses within moaning distance of the oldest cathedrals, and have almost completely tossed their religion aside. they still manage to treat each other with decency and kindness.
like ANT, that's my final contribution to this thread.
melvvvar, it's worth pointing out that atheist don't wholly subscribe to science, so ANT's point about everyone being equally acceptable to coercion is probably accurate. While some atheist rely on science to support their theory that no god or gods exist, many atheists just don't believe for other reasons, such as 'How could a loving god let an innocent child die of cancer? He must not exist.", etc. So, while I get the point you are trying to make, and it does have some legs to stand on, the premise that all atheist (read: non-religious) are atheists because of science is certainly not true.
TheKing...we've certainly been around this bush before but VTech is right. The act is truly what matters, not the personal justification for it, thus murdering someone because they believe in a different got is really no different than murdering someone because they believe in any god, or gods. And you are right, non-religious people can do 'good' in the same way that religious people can but the real defining factor isn't about what they do, it's about at what rate they do. Religious people far out pace non-religious people in the giving of time, blood and money...and that's verifiable fact. So yeah, while non-religious people donate time, money and blood, they just don't do it anywhere near the level that religious people do.
I think the real question is whether religion is a net benefit to society in the long run. Organized religion has been the justification for many horrible atrocities throughout history but it has also been the genesis of some wonderful things as well. People just have to determine whether the good outweighs the bad.
Regards
That's the thing, I don't deny that tons of religious people do a lot of good things, just as a ton of non-religious people do a ton of good things. I just wish that the organized religions would evolve as evidence shows that much of what they believe is not true. Additionally, so much of organized religion's time and effort goes into political causes that push their views on others and try to make second class citizens out of others (i.e. gays today, blacks in the 50's and 60's.)
And don't even get me started on the Catholic Church! Hahaha.
Whatever. We have been down this path before. All I really ask is that people look deeply into what they believe, or what they think they believe, and judge it based on evidence and reason. At the very least, we'd have a more peaceful, less extreme, world if people did that.
That is a direct counter to the point of religion, how would it evolve consider the Bible, Koran, Torra...and other holy books were written in ancient times. It isn't that can be "updated."
I see both sides of the argument.
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