Yet Another Religion Thread

[St.GeorgeMickeyMouseFlynn]

A billion wars, exaggerating a little aren't we?. Yet, religion also provides charities, relief services, mission stations, and more. Makes up for the wars.

Well, obviously. But there's still something like a couple of hundred wars caused by religion: the Thirty Years' War, the French Wars of Religion, the Crusades, the Second Sudanese Civil War, the Lebanese Civil War, the Ethiopian-Adal War, the Buddhist Uprising of 1966, the Dungan Revolt, the Panthay Rebellion, various Nigerian conflicts, the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, various Irish conflicts, the Spanish Inquisition, the War on Terror...I could go on and on (with the help of a bit of research, of course. ).

And as Scarred4Life correctly stated, the good things religion provides can be provided for outside of religion. Furthermore, a couple of charities cannot 'make up for' countless wars in which thousands, sometimes even millions of innocent civilians were killed.

Props for realizing sarcasm . Most people I know don't. Of course the atheist Communists killed millions of people too.

[Goliath]

Personally, I think there would be the same amount of pain and misery in the world whether or not religion exists. People will always be cruel and selfish. Religion's just a common excuse.

Not entirely untrue... but that also means it's only partly true, too.

Yes, there are many other causes for human beings to start killing each other or inflicting pain on each other. Take the case of Rwanda, 1994; or Kenya, 2007; or... I'm sure there are many other examples of massive violence and bloodshed caused by conflicts based on tribal rivalry, especially in Africa. Somehow, the fact that your neighbor, who looks and talks the same as you is of a different tribe or ethnic group is reason enough to slit his throat. Look what ethnic conflicts did to the Balkans in the 1990's. Nationalism/racism/xenophobia are also prime motives for violence amongst men. You're partly right: religion is not the only reason that hostility ensues between humans.

But.

To say or suggest, like you did, that therefore there would be just as much suffering in a world without religion, is a big falsehood. Because religion is not, like you said, an "excuse" for doing harm. Religion is the *cause*. That's a key difference. Religion is the cause for Boko Haram to blow up hundreds of people in Nigeria because they want to establish an Islamic state, based on Sharia (= religious) law. Religion is the cause that extremist evangelicals feel justified in killing an abortion doctor. It's not an "excuse"; it's not like those people would have committed those killings even without religion. They would not have had any incentive to do so without religion.

So, the point the Doc and me were making still stands.

Of course the atheist Communists killed millions of people too.

1. They didn't kill people because they were atheists, so wrong analogy.
2. How does that make religious killing better?


A question for Super A. and enigmawing (at whose post I was very surprised): why would a God create the universe, including us, without ever meddling in it again? What's the point in having a God when he doesn't judge about good and wrong?

[Dr Frankenollie]

Of course the atheist Communists killed millions of people too.

Like the perpetually correct Goliath accurately states, the Communists didn't kill millions because they were atheists. However, you can be sure that many Christians/Muslims/Sikhs/Hindus et cetera have killed others because of their religious views.

[St.GeorgeMickeyMouseFlynn]

Of course the atheist Communists killed millions of people too.

Like the perpetually correct Goliath accurately states, the Communists didn't kill millions because they were atheists. However, you can be sure that many Christians/Muslims/Sikhs/Hindus et cetera have killed others because of their religious views.

So I can be sure that other religions kill others only because of religious views? But atheists never do?

[Dr Frankenollie]

So I can be sure that other religions kill others only because of religious views? But atheists never do?

Don't twist my words. I never said that religious people only kill others because of religious views. I said that they 'have' killed due to religious views (which is A FACT), but I didn't say it was always because of their religions.

And yes, maybe a few atheists have killed due to a lack of their religious views; however, it's highly unlikely and I've never heard of any cases of it.

[Goliath]

So I can be sure that other religions kill others only because of religious views? But atheists never do?

Are you dumb or just pretending to be?

Religious people kill other people in the name of their God. Because the people they're killing don't worship the same God, or because they feel those people are not following their God's rules appropriately. So they act violently because of their religion. Now, when you say "atheist communists killed people too", you're referring to people killing other people because they didn't agree with them politically. Not because the people they killed weren't atheists.

How hard is that to grasp?

[Super Aurora]

A question for Super A. and enigmawing (at whose post I was very surprised): why would a God create the universe, including us, without ever meddling in it again? What's the point in having a God when he doesn't judge about good and wrong?

I'm not God or a god so I can't 100% answer that however I could ask you this:

I create a piece of beautiful sculpture or mask(african whatever) for either myself or someone else. I make the art that is made to be display or to create something out of it. But will I meddle or get involve again to fix something I already designed? Most likely no. So why would I create such a piece to begin with one may ask.

Also this is a God we're talking about. Not humans or anything thing else. The reasons of God can't most likely be same level of reasons human has. Also you ask what's the point in God when he doesn't judge about good or evil.


Who to say that a god's role is to judge or even do so upon a human or any sentient being? This is a God. Why would he feel the need to judge someone. Since you and I know evolution is proven fact, since we evolved from apes, why would a god suddenly need to judge us of our actions once we become evolve as a homo sapiens? because he have develop a higher function brain? That's part of the nature evolution. We are still abound by many laws of nature and physic just like animals do.

-we kill like animals do
-we reproduce our populace like animals do via sex
-we fear or get threaten like animals do.
- our body applies and bounds too same physical laws like animals do.
-we share similar social "rules" to many animals
-we die like animals do

and I could go on.



To us deist, we only believe one mono God before creating anything, has set up the laws of nature and physic in place and then when universe starts(however it may be, big bang whatever) let the rest take motion in it's course. To us, it a way if thinking how nature and physical laws are foundation with that affect the universe around us. It's way to perceive how science and supernatural supreme entity could possible coexist without contradictions.

One biggest question is how existence began, and how laws of science been implicated without any of the shit in the bible or any other religious sources. This is one way we possible see it as. is it true? who knows.

[Dr Frankenollie]

^ I don't think even a non-interventionist God is responsible for the universe's creation and possible to exist, unless this 'God' is the end product of some other-wordly type of evolution and was not the first thing in existence. God would have to be an infinitely complex being, so s/he must have evolved or come from something much simpler.

[Super Aurora]

^ I don't think even a non-interventionist God is responsible for the universe's creation and possible to exist, unless this 'God' is the end product of some other-wordly type of evolution and was not the first thing in existence. God would have to be an infinitely complex being, so s/he must have evolved or come from something much simpler.

Why would a God need go through an evolution? Not saying it's not possible but this is a god not human.


And I'm pretty sure most people see God as an infinitely complex being.

[Dr Frankenollie]

Why would a God need go through an evolution? Not saying it's not possible but this is a god not human.

Perhaps not 'evolution', but God can't be infinitely complex without having changed over time (that's where the complexity of life comes from, which Richard Dawkins outlines in Chapter 4 of The God Delusion) and having come from something simpler.

Basically, God can't be the origin of existence for this reason; furthermore, who created God?

Anyway, does anyone else find the Bible both hilarious and grotesquely abhorrent? The book of Deuteronomy alone has enough material to warrant it being banned from schools.

Just a couple of gems from Deuteronomy:

21: 10-14..."When the Lord your God gives you victory in battle and you take prisoners, you may see among them a beautiful woman that you like and want to marry. Take her to your home, where she will shave her head, cut her fingernails, and change her clothes. She is to stay in your home and mourn for her parents for a month; after that, you may marry her. Later, if you no longer want her, you are to let her go free."

22: 28-29..."Suppose a man is caught raping a young woman who is not engaged. He is to pay her father the bride price of fifty pieces of silver, and she is to become his wife, because he forced her to have intercourse with him. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."

[Super Aurora]

Why would a God need go through an evolution? Not saying it's not possible but this is a god not human.

Perhaps not 'evolution', but God can't be infinitely complex without having changed over time (that's where the complexity of life comes from, which Richard Dawkins outlines in Chapter 4 of The God Delusion) and having come from something simpler.

Basically, God can't be the origin of existence for this reason; furthermore, who created God?

But you could also ask yourself how does any thing in and itself begins.

Anyway, does anyone else find the Bible both hilarious and grotesquely abhorrent? The book of Deuteronomy alone has enough material to warrant it being banned from schools.

Just a couple of gems from Deuteronomy:

21: 10-14..."When the Lord your God gives you victory in battle and you take prisoners, you may see among them a beautiful woman that you like and want to marry. Take her to your home, where she will shave her head, cut her fingernails, and change her clothes. She is to stay in your home and mourn for her parents for a month; after that, you may marry her. Later, if you no longer want her, you are to let her go free."

22: 28-29..."Suppose a man is caught raping a young woman who is not engaged. He is to pay her father the bride price of fifty pieces of silver, and she is to become his wife, because he forced her to have intercourse with him. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."

Yes that's why I find the bible pretty crazy and unneeded to follow in this day and age. The bible was product of it's time.

Also Islam has those same exact rules you mention. Especially the second one.

[Disney's Divinity]

In response to the comments about the post I made: I don't believe that religion can "cause" anything. The various religions are only representations of the belief systems of those who created them. There will be people who still have racist, anti-abortion, anti-semitic, etc. etc. beliefs--that result in violence--regardless of religion. Most of those beliefs come from an instinctual fear of difference, fears that even some athiests have (I've met many athiests who don't like homosexuals, for instance). Also, I can't believe that religion is the "cause" of anything if, at the same time, I believe that people are capable of making their own decisions.

[Goliath]

In response to the comments about the post I made: I don't believe that religion can "cause" anything. The various religions are only representations of the belief systems of those who created them. There will be people who still have racist, anti-abortion, anti-semitic, etc. etc. beliefs--that result in violence--regardless of religion. Most of those beliefs come from an instinctual fear of difference, fears that even some athiests have (I've met many athiests who don't like homosexuals, for instance). Also, I can't believe that religion is the "cause" of anything if, at the same time, I believe that people are capable of making their own decisions.

You didn't read what I wrote. I specifically acknowledged that, yes, even with religion gone, there would still be bigoted, racist, hateful people out there to harm others. But, like I said,

THAT

doesn't negate the fact that religion causes a lot of suffering that comes ON TOP of what I mentioned previously.

The case you're making is absurd. You're saying: a member of the Boko Haram would still hang himself with explosives and blow himself up among hundreds of people, if he had no reason to do so; if he had no ideal of establishing an Islamic government and Sharia Law? He would just do it for the fun of it?

If there was no religion, he would not blow up himself because it wouldn't serve any goal.

[Disney's Divinity]

If there was no religion, he would not blow up himself because it wouldn't serve any goal.

Except most religions would say he won't get anyothing out of blowing himself up, so there's still no reason to do so with religion.

[Goliath]

If there was no religion, he would not blow up himself because it wouldn't serve any goal.

Except most religions would say he won't get anyothing out of blowing himself up, so there's still no reason to do so with religion.

Are you insane?! If a muslims blows himself up for an islamic cause, he becomes a "martyr" and will be rewarded by Allah in the afterlife (most commonly named are the 72 virgins).

[Disney's Divinity]

Are you insane?! If a muslims blows himself up for an islamic cause, he becomes a "martyr" and will be rewarded by Allah in the afterlife (most commonly named are the 72 virgins).

According to some, who most Muslims say misinterpret the text.

[Sotiris]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what Disney's Divinity is trying to say is that religion, as faith in isolation, is not the cause for all of these misfortunes but the religious institutions behind them. Religious texts as all texts are subjects to interpretation; it is the religious institutions which impose a certain meaning on them. And it's people's fault who chose to accept and follow those meanings uncritically.

There are people (although a minority) who chose to interpret the texts of their religion positively and not accept the inherently negative and biased meanings that religious institutions have imposed on them.

[Heartless]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what Disney's Divinity is trying to say is that religion, as faith in isolation, is not the cause for all of these misfortunes but the religious institutions behind them. Religious texts as all texts are subjects to interpretation; it is the religious institutions which impose a certain meaning on them. And it's people's fault who chose to accept and follow those meanings uncritically.

There are people (although a minority) who chose to interpret the texts of their religion positively and not accept the inherently negative and biased meanings that religious institutions have imposed on them.

I understand that, but the faith that caused those interpretations is still there. If that faith wasn't there in the first place, those interpretations would never happen and these misfortunes wouldn't have taken place.

Interpretations cannot be "wrong" or "right," (especially when it comes to a subject like religion). Because a group interpreted a certain part of religion in one way and acted, does that make it solely the people's fault if they believed they were doing something their religion asked of them? The fact that religion is causing these interpretations in the first place puts at least a portion of the blame on religion itself.

[Super Aurora]

but also in case with Christians, most don't even read or know as much about their own bible compared to non-religious people.

Take the example Dancing Crab posted in Abortion thread.

Even in the bible, they stated that a human isn't a human until it breathe. Yet most people find abortion evil even when it's on a fetus claiming it's human and such.

In other words, people use religion as an excuse in order for them justify their purpose or something they don't like.

It's a collective mentality thing.

[Dr Frankenollie]

But you could also ask yourself how does any thing in and itself begins.

I do, but God is not the answer. I personally think that the existence of a potential 'God', an omnipotent, all-powerful, infinitely complex being, is much more difficult to explain than the existence of the universe.