Mankind Would Be Better Without Religion

aammondd wrote:

I was taking your statement a bit further. Language can be more plasitic in its text form because emphasis is so much harder and people have their own connotations around specific uses of words.

True enough. I know I've gotten in some pretty hot water for making a statement that to me was perfectly innocent, but without inflection was taken the wrong way by the person I was talking to.

Musikaman wrote:Religion is the primary source of anguish in the world. It is used to justify atrocities, violate human rights, and control the masses. While there have been a number of times different religious sects through the years have helped to improve quality of life, this is nothing which a secular system couldn't have done, and likely more effectively.

Further, faith is the antithesis of reason and is the greatest single problem with religion. Faith stops people from questioning and using reason to solve problems in life.

Discuss, my pretties.  

Disagree.  Evil people who do evil things are evil from the start.  Religions is simply something they hide behind to justify their bad behavior.  Religions is simply a convenient excuse.  It's the same as saying "videogames" are evil!  It's because some random guy decided to have a good time killing someone with a butcher knife after playing grand theft auto.  Just my few pennies.

edit: crap! just read what aammond wrote (he's so much better at it than I am, lol).

rainshadow wrote:I had some girl with a Jesus sign approach me on my way to a football game yesterday try to hand me a flyer. I pleasantly said "No thank you" and was in turn told "your life is empty".

As if she really has any idea who I am and what kind of life I lead.

Apparently being polite is for the devil.

I don't mind if people want to worship something. They can praise the little droppings left floating at the top of their toilet bowl water, for all I care. I will be perfectly accepting of them so long as they don't try to push their faith on me. But don't tell me MY life is empty. You're wasting your time and embarrassing the human race to do it.

As a pastor this is one of those things that bothers me about Christianity as it is practiced today. Not only are the things you said about her true and the presumptions accurate but also she is not truly living up to some of the tenets of her beliefs. She is supposed to love her neighbor as herself. To make cold hate filled pronouncements because they do not wish to listen to your opinion is at best degrading to the other person and more likely a result of her need to lift herself up above you.

I would apologize for her but I do not believe in blaming or assuming blame for an entire group based on the actions of one or even a few. Which I guess would answer the original post to some degree. Blaming religion for all the atrocities that some of it's adherents committed is like claiming atheism causes people to become mass murders based on the action of the likes of Jeffery Dahmer or Pol Pot.

Where did I mention ever or all?

Musikaman wrote:Where did I mention ever or all?

Fair enough, you did not use the word all in your original post. You did, however, claim religion to be the "primary source of suffering" in the world. A claim which you then backed up by pointing out the use of religion (in general) to justify the atrocities committed by it's adherents, even if their is evidence of others within the very same religions who disagree with the assertion of the ones committing the acts.

I must at this point assert that the mere existence of persons who use religion as a crutch to blame when they commit horrible acts does not necessarily commute to the cause of said acts being their religious beliefs. As such religion is not necessarily the primary source of suffering in the world. It is more likely just one more thing on which a person can blame their actions. This is the very reason I used Jeffery Dahmer in my example, although poorly I admit. Jeffery Dahmer was once quoted as saying “if a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?” He claimed their being no God as his reason for being fine with killing without any guilt. It would be no more correct for me to claim that a lack of belief in God causes immoral behavior as it is to claim that religious systems are to blame for the immoral acts of their adherents. To do so removes responsibility from the person and places it elsewhere. I do not believe this. It is my opinion that Jeffery Dahmer is a horrible person who committed horrible acts and whether or not he was an atheist had nothing to do with the acts he committed.

Except that you're comparing apples to oranges. A lack of belief in god has no rules, no teachings, no dogma. The same cannot be said for, as far as I know, any religion... of which the sects of the god of Abraham are certainly the most widespread. How many different sects and denominations are there now?

Regardless, my primary attack was on one of faith. Faith creates a foundation which makes it easier to control people by acclimating them to making decisions without reason.

Musikaman

In many ways I agree with you but I don't think its truly Faith that creates that foundation I think it simply gives many an excuse to not do the hard thing a think for themselves.

I think mankind can be divided into two broad categories irrespective of religion. Those who prefer to be ruled and those who prefer to be free. Within each of these categories are varying degrees of tolerance towards things. For the ruled class the struggle is to maintain enough individualism to be able to identify when the ruler is in error. For the free man the struggle is in having enough humility to submit himself to others in order to learn wisdom. In the extremes of both groups you find the truly frightening. When those who take no responsibility for their own lives are led by those who feel no accountability you have the makings of a group that can and will do anything. Religion, or the promise of some "unearned" utopia becomes the vehicle by which many historical atrocities are committed. Reality demands both observance and deference and the aforementioned group is capable of neither.

One thing I'd like to point out: theism and religion are not the same. You can have non-religious theists.

Dinwar wrote:One thing I'd like to point out: theism and religion are not the same. You can have non-religious theists.

I agree but in the context religious persons are by default theists. I suppose there is some imprecision in my earlier comments. I did say they were broad categories

Musikaman wrote:Except that you're comparing apples to oranges. A lack of belief in god has no rules, no teachings, no dogma. The same cannot be said for, as far as I know, any religion... of which the sects of the god of Abraham are certainly the most widespread. How many different sects and denominations are there now?

Regardless, my primary attack was on one of faith. Faith creates a foundation which makes it easier to control people by acclimating them to making decisions without reason.

I must respectfully disagree with your assessment. Every Philosophy has rules, dogmas and beliefs, even the Philosophies that are not Theistic in nature. To even hold a Philosophy about life is to adhere to some rules about existence. For example if you are espousing reason as your only guide you must first accept your own existence and without any way to verify your existence outside of yourself. This is a statement of faith. You believe you exist and are incapable of observing said fact without your own existence. Basically you cannot say you exist and then go about proving it. You have faith in your own existence. Everything after that is based on this one faith statement and the rules of your existence will fall into place to either confirm or disprove your belief. So in it's very essence whatever belief you choose to allow yourself to hold comes with it's own set of rules, teachings and dogma. Theist as well as Atheist have multiple avenues to follow but each makes a decision about existence. A Theist main faith statement must be God exist therefore I exist. An Atheist must begin with I exist therefore..... In both though an initial belief in existence must occur.

As to the number of different Theistic views and denominations I take that as evidence to the contrary of your belief that we are somehow conditioned to believe without thought. The very fact that we can disagree and find different avenues to follow our God shows an inordinate amount of thought being given by any number of faithful. Perhaps there is more reasoning going on than you believe in the community of Theist/Religious persons and making blanket statement about our ability to reason and question may not be a very fair assessment. Just as Atheist are not pleased by being accused of total immorality because of a lack of belief in God, Theist are not pleased with being accused of "making decisions without reason" just because we have a different level of faith.