religion, oh god... gods!

I dont believe in a god(s). But i do belive in natural forces (ghosts and stuff like that). I know karma exists (its hit me quite a few times). And i know theres somethings out there you dont wanna mess with. There is real evil and there is real god. I mostly have a problem with churches. Not buildings but groups. They feed you this and that about if you do this or you do that you will be saved or you will be damned or we will charge you extra on classes so you can belive we are your gods when in reality we are the economical Illuminati (yes im talking to you scientology!)

While i don't attend church, i am a liberal baptist. I believe there is a God that watches over us, and while i cannot begin to explain why, that things happen for a reason.

I believe that God is beyond our ability to fathom which is what makes faith difficult. Strangely, i find my faith grows stronger as time passes.

Completely nonreligious. Parents were practicing "lazyists" growing up and didn't really care about the matter. Consequently, I don't really pay any heed to religion either.

Religion is a crutch from the past; we needed it in the past, but I hope humanity will start marching ever onward under its own power in the future. I like secular humanism and the "Don't be a jerk" policy.

agnostic, so dont belive in any religions but thinks there is a higher power whatever it is

I was born and raised roman catholic and to this day that I joke that my confirmation name was John because i aspire to be a fictional writer. It wasn't John and i don't particularly care for writing. I just said it to rile up my teachers. 10/10 worked every time.

I chose Andrew since it was my great-grandfathers name and the name my family chose for me to honor him after WW2. You should have heard some of the reasons why people chose "Anthony" or "Grace". Yep, people were wondering why i picked it when they started saying "Andrew Andrew so-and-so (last name)". I'll leave it to you as to why i thought everyone was being stupid as they did this. But i digress.

Religion, for me is a BASE from which good behavior is derived. I don't consider myself catholic but i stick to the 10 commandments like glue because to me, it feels like common sense. Don't kill people? Sure. Don't steal? Do you know what they do to thieves in some countries!? I quite like my phalanges. They are useful for...things. I won't deny that religion played an important part of my life because without it, i'd probably be a god-hating heathen that lost his humanity years ago.

That all being said, I do not find religion to be a joke whatsoever. I do have a bad side of me that jokes around saying, "i'll convert to Islam if i'm promised 40 virgins when i die" But the little voice in my head asks, "Will they all be female? It's a no-go for me if that's not true".

What i DO find to be a joke is when bad things happen, and they blame it on a religion. People put on their blinders and they only see what's in front of them. Blame the media for this fuck up (Lookin' at you, Fox News). Religion didn't kill millions of people (yes even the Crusades), twisted religious "figure heads" drunk on power, did. Religion is a means to an end. It is a tool. And when it is wielded correctly, it can bring great joy or disaster.

Religion is man made, therefore the good behavior comes from us humans.

If good behavior comes from religion, where does bad behavior come from?



The first three are just god fearing rules, therefore useless.
4th makes some sense, it is going to effect your work if you work every single day, but to keep it holy, no. I don't even know what that means.
5th is ok, but if your parents physically and mentally hurt you, then it's not.
6,7 and 8th are obvious, a society where these are allowed would eventually self-destruct. The 7th is not as bad as 6 and 8 obviously.
9th is ok.
10th is a thought crime, which makes it wrong and tyrannical.



It is a joke for religious people to say that religion is never the reason for bad things when clearly it is.



You even yourself say it can bring disaster. And yes, the stupid ideas of religion are responsible for millions upon millions of deaths through out the history.

If we're going ahead and saying that religion provides us with the idea of good behavior from these rules that were set before us, then bad behavior would come from us humans choosing to not live by those sets of rules.



The first three are found in some form of every religious text.

I am your one and only God. -yep, gotcha.
Do not take the Lord's name in vain. -don't misuse my name.
Keep holy the Sabbath day. -Saturday is the best day of the week.
Honor your mother and father. -duh, you wouldn't be around if it weren't for them.
You shall not kill. -duh. We're at the top of the food chain, why bother?
You shall not commit adultery. -Sex changes things. Different discussion for another time.
You shall not steal. -duh. (Think about the phalanges!!)
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. -don't be an asshole.
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. -don't be an asshole.
You shall not covet your neighbor's goods. -don't be an assshole.

Seems like a pretty good list of guidelines to me and i don't sense a hint of tyranny. Think about it, if you got away with breaking any of these rules, the consequences are not physical. Need some peace of mind? Follow this list, simple. As Einstein said, "Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler." Now i don't necessarily follow the first one...I'm an atheist.





Let me say again this: religion is a tool. It all depends on how you're using it. Religion does not promote violence or peace - people are violent or peaceful, and that all depends on the person's politics, their social world. Examples that you can find in any religious text can be taken out of context when given the right opportunity. Religion is not the problem, people are.

This reminds me of this video from CNN that Reza Aslan was on where he continually throws down the simple arguments that the CNN idiots kept bringing up.

https://youtu.be/PzusSqcotDw

It's worth the 9 minutes, trust me.

But some of the rules provided to us by religion are inherently bad, therefore bad behavior comes from religion.



And every religion is man made, not god made, making the rules useless.



That is true, but that doesn't mean you have to respect them just for that reason.



If we are on top of the food chain, why is there religious rules to murder other people?

Most of the rest of rules are rather obvious if you want to live in a cohesive society, meaning we humans ourselves came up with the rules, we didn't get them from high above.



The first three are nothing but tyrannical, because all they amount to is fearing the big boss and to thought crime, which are punishable by eternal fire. Making things as simple as possible would mean that you get rid of all the stupid and useless rules, like demanding respect, forcing to believe.

Thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal, for sure those are good guidelines to live by, but so is thou shall not evade tax, thou shall not drive a car under the influence of drugs, but i guess the high mighty lord doesn't care about those since they are not part of the 'holy' commandments.




Those two statements contradict each other. I don't know whether you believe that heaven and hell exists or whether the biblical god exists, but if you don't, i don't understand why you would follow the first three for example, they don't have any meaning to an atheist. (Meaning that there is no lord whos name you can even take in vain).



Ever heard of 'No true Scotsman' fallacy?

If people act badly because of the 'tool', then the tool is to blame. Religion does promote both, peace and violence. I totally grant you that peoples behavior is also influenced by other factors such as politics, society, economics, so on and so forth, but to claim that the very ideology that people build their lives around has no effect on how they behave is far fetched at best. If the tool you use says that gay homosexuality is not ok and that it is merely an coincidence that christians, catholics and muslims hate or dislike them, i think that is simply not true. They dislike homosexuality precisely for that reason. If the quran said that 'to your best ability, make fun of the prophet muhammed, draw pictures of him as you wish' there would be no cartoon controversy about western cartoonist drawing pictures of prophet muhammed. If the bible said that 'love homosexuals as yourself, do not wish any harm upon them' there would not be as big opposition against homosexuals like there currently is (in USA for example). The cake bakers and pizzerias would have no problem making them cakes and pizzas.

If people act badly because of the 'tool', then the tool is to blame.



I somewhat know who Reza Aslan is and he does exactly what you do, blame everything else for bad religious behavior except religion. I recommend you watch some of Sam Harris debates, who is a neuroscientist and knows a little bit more about human behavior than Reza does.

That is an over generalization. Only "some" of the rules are bad, so that makes everything bad? That's like saying some of the effects of vaccinations in young children are bad therefore vaccinations cause autism. ?????

Rules are broken to meet a particular need. It doesn't have anything to do with religion. Every human has basic needs that must be met. Ever hear of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? While he ranked them in this order, i find that they are relative to every person's own situation. Cultures vary greatly and the order definitely depends on the person.

Physiological
Physical requirements to survive: food, water, clothes, shelter, sex (birth rates gotta stay up)

Safety
Personal security, financial security, health and well-being.

Love and Belonging
Interpersonal relationships and the sense of belonging.

Esteem
Self-esteem, self-respect, being accepted and valued by others.

Self-actualization
The desire to be everything that one can be once he/she figures out what their full potential is.

If a need isn't being met by your lifestyle you will do whatever it takes to satisfy that need. Religion is satisfying in that sense. The sheep flock to belong to something bigger than themselves and "finding God" satisfies that need. There are those who lead, and there are those who are led...You're either the hammer or the nail.



You seem to be misunderstanding these "rules" that say we should kill each other because of our religion. A piece of text out of every book will paint an incredibly vivid picture that belongs in a propaganda museum. A religion gives you a way of life, it isn't a slave's life. You aren't bound that whatever the book says, you're bound to the environment you are living in. Religion does not promote violence, people promote violence. No matter what religion, ideology, or world view you label yourself with, your living environment, your social lifestyle all play a part into whether or not you take the life of another, steal something or do some other unspeakable act.



Demanding respect, forcing to believe? Who? No. That is simply how you've interpreted the commandments to be. Catholics are not forced to believe and they are not being demanded to be respectful. They simply are respectful because they solemnly believe that God is the almighty power in their life. There is no coercion here. Now if you look from our perspective, of course the whole system seems silly.

Tax evasion is definitely something that man created out of necessity. God didn't create tax, the banks did. Driving under the influence is also another man-made condition. I think the discrepancy here is that you are attributing the rules to physical consequences, where the i think the commandments offer a more mental/spiritual relief. Whatever works for you. Saying "it must not be important to the high mighty lord" is silly considering these books were written in BC.



Sure they do. I'm an athiest who follows the 10 commandments and this is a complete coincidence. I was born and raised Roman Catholic, became detached even before confirmation but still hold on to the rules like a set a values. I did mention that i don't particularly follow #1 because of obvious reasons but i say i follow the 10 because they ultimately shaped me into the person i am today. Take it with a grain of salt. I'm not one of those rude athiests that give other athiests a bad rep for being an asshole.



Do guns kill people, or do people kill people? There are many denominations of religion that explicitly condone violence and hate for gays, muslims, even women and quite a few of them exist in the US. But these are not products of a silly system, these are products of shit humans that have twisted the words that came from religious texts. Is Catholicism the cause for the shitheads known as Westboro Baptist church? Just because there are some beliefs that are inherently bad, that doesn't mean all of them are. That bakery example is not a Christian problem, it is an Oregon problem. If there are bad Christians in Oregon, that doesn't mean there are bad Christians all over the US. If there are angry Muslims in France over drawings, there are countless Muslims that are more upset in other parts of the world that they are getting a bad rep because of violent people.

I've heard of Sam Harris and what he does. A lot of what he says, i also believe. However, you can't just get rid of religion and expect things to be okay. Take away God, Allah, Muhammad, Buddha, the Dalai Lama, and every religious figure head and people will STILL believe in something. People will still die for something ambiguous, intangible, and ideal. So long as humans exist, there will be conflict. Religion is not the main aggressor here.

Both the bible and quran are full of stupid ideas, sure there are some nice things there as well, but the amount of nonsense you find in those books triumphs the good parts. Maybe i just phrased it wrong.

Non the less, since we are not allowed to edit the books (even though anybody could do it), we are left with stories and rules which were written by iron age peasants and trying to live by them in 2015 is pretty absurd and obviously nobody does even though the most extremist try and try to force others to live by it too.



I guess it is time to make a confession. Personally i don't care what individuals personal beliefs are as long as they don't affect my life with it, as long as they don't try to control my life with it, as long as they don't try change the laws based on their nonsensical, unscientific, illogical and irrational beliefs. As long as you keep your beliefs to yourself and maybe to your in group, i am fine. You can believe what ever makes you feel better or what ever satisfies your needs. Just don't try to make me or others believe it without evidence.



Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

You should not let a sorceress live. (Exodus 22:17 NAB) (what ever the fuck that means)

"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

The list goes on and on. Very direct rules and orders to murder other people based on superstition. It is precisely a slaves life to a tyrannical dictator, you are told to live your life based on nonsensical rules, superstitious stories. You say you are not bound to these rules, which means all you do is pick and choose the lines that fit into your lifestyle, the moment one of the lines is in contradiction with your personal life, you don't believe in it anymore, which in my view means you never believed in it in the first place, and simply saying or promoting you do doesn't make much sense to me.



I can give you more quotes from the bible which do precisely that, promote violence. And i already granted you that for sure there are other factors that play into the human behavior, but trying to deny the very fact that what people truly believe also plays a role in human behavior is ridicules. And when the source of their believes are religious 'holy' books that promote violence, then religion is part of the blame.



If you don't follow the 10 commandments, you will be punished with eternal torture in hellfire (according to catholics & christians) and you dare to say it is not forced? "Yeah sure, i am not forcing you to do anything, but if you don't do as i say you will burn in hell for eternity. It is all up to you."



Mental/spiritual is how you take them, but there are millions and millions of people who take it literally and that is a problem. I agree that god didn't create taxes, because god didn't create anything, we humans created god. The first three rules regardless how you take them are useless, since there is no god or lord. 10th rule is also dumb and counter-productive since there is nothing wrong in coveting what you don't have.



People kill people, but they need a reason kill before they pull the trigger and religion gives them the reason to kill, therefore making religion responsible for a lot of horrible shit that goes around the world currently.



The shit humans are the product of shitty ideology which religion is. Obviously i am not saying every religious person is bad because of religion, and obviously religion is not responsible for everything, but there are specific evil things that people do and they do it precisely because their 'holy' books not only say it is ok to do it, but it tells them to do it.



I don't know which type of bible believers they are, but yes, the bible is the cause for their stupid behavior. It might not say specifically to go out and hold stupid signs at funerals and weddings, but the underlining issue is that they get their hatred for gay people because of their religion.



And i have made it very clear that i don't say that if you are a religious person then you automatically turn into jihad terrorist. The horrible things we read in the news and the stupid things people do are done by specific group of people, but the specific group of people is not the issue here, the issue is that their behavior is the result of truly believing what these incoherent books say.



Was this supposed to be an excuse to not do anything about religion? I do understand that certainly not in my life time will there be a time that atheist would even represent 50% of worlds population, that 'faithfull' people will always believe some type of nonsense, but that is not grounds to stop fighting against an existing problem that is hindering scientific progress, that is the cause of thousands of deaths every year, that makes the population less educated and more superstitious.

Actually these stories were written down by scribes and numerously translated into different languages so there's no doubt been translation error over so many centuries...Also, there's the old testament and new testament. Most of the gruesome stuff that's written, is in the old testament. More below.



So basically, what you're doing here is what you don't want others to do to you. By fighting to "get rid of religion" and trying to prove that the beliefs that people have are idiotic and a thing of the past, you are committing your own taboo. Everyone who is religious will say the same to you.



Oh and this evidence that you mentioned is a funny thing to those who believe in God. "Faith" is considered the only part of religion that cannot be explained through the empirical senses. Philosophy papers are plentiful arguing that faith isn't so complex but there are few arguments that cannot be topped. You can't disprove that someone "feels the Lord's presence" without actually being that person. And so the dance continues...




See, the problem here is that with the beginning of the new Testament, the Apostle Paul teaches you that we are no longer bound by the Law (The Old Testament).

All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” (Galatians 3:10)

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us. (Galatians 3:13)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

So...out with the old and in with the new. This is of course just for the Bible.



I agree, you can take more quotes out of context and it will definitely paint a violent picture of the Bible and it's teachings. See above.



Old Testament.



I do agree that taking things literally is a problem. According to you and I, there is no God, but to these people, He is a very real part of their life. You cannot prove them wrong by saying outright that there is no God and shoving a bunch of propaganda in their face. They'll believe what they want to believe. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink it. Where does the violence come in? The one's who preach (like you) verses that paint the bloodiest pictures so as to push the group's agenda. Indiana politicians pushed for this "Religious Freedom" bullshit not the texts. Those who flew planes in the twin towers committed sin according the Quran as Muslims are NOT allowed to harm someone who is innocent (someone who has done them no wrong). These radical teachings were twisted by the people pulling the strings.



Thank you for invalidating your No True Scotsman fallacy.




Religion doesn't teach to preach HATE. Haters hate.



Science isn't being hindered by religion, i'll tell you that much. We can already explain the creation of the galaxy and as seen from the debate Bill Nye and Ken Ham had in Kentucky, Creationism has holes all over the place whereas with science we have educated guesses to fill those holes. If anything needs to be done about religion, it's that its leaders need to just sit tight and wait until science disproves it completely. The Dalai Lama even once said that if science proves that a teaching of Buddhism is wrong, Buddhism will have to change.

So you're an agnostic deist?

What's the point? If you know your perception is not objective and your knowledge is limited like a true agnostic, why also say you "think" there is something out there? What is it that you thin it is? Why is it that you think it is? How do you think it operates?



But good behavior is something evolution kind of installed into us to increase our survival chance. Cooperation, compassion, love, egotism, all of those existed before any of the Abrahamic religions begun. Codes of ethics and morals were implemented local communities and in greater empires.

Have you questioned why some of these values are "common sense" to you? How about the people during the creation of these guidelines? Do you genuinely believe that they can't exist in the absence of belief in a higher power? Religious institutions were not the creators of the 10 amendments or common law, there were enforcers.





Only religion Fox news seems to be fond of bashing these days is Islam. But I wouldn't say they're completely false or trying to spin an untrue narrative. They did invite Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a feminist hated by the Islamic community for speaking out against Islam and female genital mutilation. I don't think she said anything out of line or factual incorrect, in fact she agreed with a sentiment you made in a later post about religious institutions having to reform.

You earlier joked about heathens (well I'm assuming it's a joke) but we still live in a world where religious traditionalist will lash men with whips or hackthem to pieces with machetes for speaking out and not believing.

You can blame the powerful for some hateful things done in the name of religion but you're not really addressing some common aspects brought up when it comes to the misdeeds of these specific ideologies and their idealouges. There are certain things that were acceptable in these ideologies that we as a collective, at least in most modern western nations, have decided to be unacceptable.


I'm rejecting your idea that religion provided the ideas, but only enforced certain ones. Bad behavior like slavery, was accepted in Christianity for the longest time, inb4 old testament, it's accepted in new Testament too. Both good and bad behavior came from things humans have found to be damaging and helpful, and those sets of rules were not perfect or absolute.

Mmm...

- Moral, what is good and what is bad was always being determined, and is still being determined, by the practical effects for wellbeing and survival. Slavery was deemed as good even for Christ because it was needed to sustain a civilization in a age where medieval agriculture didn't existed.

- To archive stability and peace, laws were made and enforced. On average those laws were made in quite random ways, using a myriad of different methods. Those who were useless to archive wellbeing and survival just ceased to exist because natural selection, so the actual codes that survived are very similar as they weren't too many effective ways to organize a civilization.

- Religions made, at some degree, also their laws, based on the current laws of their respective times. It was needed in some places as people wouldn't follow a law that weren't too against their current organizations because traditionalism.

- A prudent religion follow is actually considering why certain things were in certain way and adapt that to our modern times. This is called reformism and was and is still a practice that is constantly done to actually allow progress and evolution. In our modern constitutional societies, in a worldwide landscape and massive flow of information, pragmatism, the captivity from taking some bits of everything to make something better, is also required. Finally respect is also a must.

- You can still believe in whatever thing, but don't blindly believe on things parents or random people tells you, that is traditional fundamentalism, not an authentic belief. If you want to believe, then do it knowing and studying what are you believing for. Avoid traditional fundamentalism, otherwise you are just believing in your community's brainwash rather your actual belief.

That should wrap most of it.

Not only are there millions of people who don't view them as stories, but as descriptions as to how to live your life given by god. What is your point of 'most of the gruesome stuff is in the old testament'? Does that mean religious people can ignore the old testament? If that is the case why not just edit it out?



I have evidence, common sense, logic, rational and science on my side. Like i said, if you have evidence for this 'god' of yours i am all ears, if you have evidence for heaven and hell, i want to go to heaven. I am not breaking any taboos by trying to increase your knowledge of the world, i am not assuming anything. There is a reason why schools teach you what science tells us, not what religious assumptions are (or maybe in the USA they do teach the 'intelligence design' what ever the fuck that means). Also people don't have to listen/read what i say if they think what i say is bullshit, but i am not the one who goes into politics and tries to pass a law that denies gay people the right to get married and then justify that law by saying "god doesn't like gay people" or some other biblical nonsense.



Faith is the most useless thing humans have. Faith is precisely the opposite of evidence, it means you believe in something because there is no evidence, which i cannot fathom why. You can't disprove the people who claim they have been abducted by aliens, you can't disprove me if i claim that i can fly like a superman when nobody is looking. Not only is eye witness testimony and personal experience the worst type of evidence, science and evidence are not the only things we are talking about here. Common sense, logic and rational are also very important. It is illogical to believe in something without evidence, when at the same time reject all other claims that don't have evidence, it is hypocritical.



Aren't the 10 commandments in the old testament? If you are no longer bound to them by law, why care what the 10 commandments say? So is the entire old testament bullshit, you can just ignore it all together? Why not just edit the whole thing out? So you are under some mystical, magical curse right now?

And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. (Matthew 3:10)

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. (Matthew 5:17)

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. (Matthew 5:29)

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat (Matthew 7:13)

Want me to quote more cruel nonsensical bullshit lines that promote violence from the new testament?



I see, the books are only promoting violence because i interpret them wrong.

Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. (Matthew 18:8)

So when Jesus tells the people this nice and good advice to cut off their hands and feet if they offend his imaginary god, i am simply interpreting it wrong? It is not about what it actually reads, you have to read it in a clever way so you don't interpret it as violent?



Read above, why follow the old testament if it is invalid? Why not edit it out if it is invalid?



It is not propaganda, it is common sense, logic and rational, and for some reason people don't apply these to the human enterprise of religion, while applying them to every other human enterprise.

This is why it is very important to keep religion separated from to affairs of governments.



The violence comes in when a person truly holds a religious belief and acts upon it. The reason why politicians can't push for biblical texts because i think it says in the USA constitution that there will always be wall of separation between government and religion, but still now that law allows people to discriminate other people based on what their religious books say. The people who flew the planes in the twin towers also committed the will of their prophet, because according to quran the easiest way to get to heaven and get few virgins is to die in a fight with infidels and killing infidels (these innocent people you speak of) is ok according to the quran.

The fact that both of these books are incoherent and contradictory is not my problem. It is a problem for the religious people who believe what they say. That is why it is illogical and irrational to believe anything they say.



I didn't invalidate it, saying religious people don't do bad things because of religion not only is invalid, but illogical, nonsensical and counter to reality. I simply explained how religion is responsible for a lot of horrible shit that goes around the world currently.



But the underlining reason for their hate is religion.



Thankfully not anymore, at least not as much as it used to. If religion was as powerful as it used to be, we would live in the dark ages, we more than likely would still burn women alive for the imaginary crime of witchcraft, we would likely still believe planet earth was flat, so on and so forth. Even in recent times, stemcell research was almost completely halted because of religious lunacy, abortion is being banned all over the world because religious maniacs think it is same as murder, childrens genitalia are being mutilated almost 100% solely because of belief in religious books. The less religion there is in a society, the more educated the society will become.

Common sense alone should disprove religion.

I do not care about what rationalism or empiricism alone says. The only thing we have for certain is what science was able to grasp for the moment has come. Science is a combination of both, rationalism and empiricism, in conjunction with repeatable and controllable methods.

People can believe whatever they wish to fill the gaps. Actually, everyone, even Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin, did the same. We believe in people, sources and our thoughts for information, without previous and detailed scientific replication backing such knowledge most the time. This is what we deem as practical, because nobody can hold all the knowledge of the world in their lifespan, so we limit ourselves to a microscopic amount of such knowledge in our even more smaller lifespan.

Modern religion is by not mean the original religion back then. Modern religion is a combination of pragmatism and rational reformism that was required to adapt to the knowledge we were able to grasp with science. It didn't limited to it, but people, as believes are a practical things, also wished to make it something adaptable to what they deem as morally correct today. For this, there is a exquisite and ever varied interpretation of the old sources and modern thoughts, ignoring specific parts, interpreting others in radical ways and adding new meanings and words to make certain arguments make sense.

You can name it whimsical, but then I can also call your believe that such god doesn't exist because your "common sense" as whimsical as well. No science backing it, yours and theirs bark is the same, both are barking to the void and just losing time. The "not proven game" works for both sides.

Now, people can believe whatever they wish, but they can't do whatever they wish. Our modern laws and constitutions, backing the well being of most people (and hopefully in a future of everyone), being finally sustainable by our current technology (well, partially, we'll see it on the unavoidable oil crisis a few decades more). Any change must be a collective thought that is not just convincing for their town, but the whole international community. Only those ideas who can be agreed by most people in a confident way are the ones that will finally get the green.

The real problems comes about religious (traditionalist) fundamentalism, that is, mainly, a brainwashing of new generations. This make them to forgo pragmatism and reformism at some degree as they don't have their believe actually developed at all. They are just following it because a chain of people in their community is doing so. This should be prevented: faith is something that must be developed inside the person, not just a brainwashing since you can recall. This produce a lot of pain, errors and a sea of sad things. Make kids learn by themselves and take their own decisions rather forcing them to go to a church for reasons they don't even know at all.

Oh, yeah, intelligent design is fine I guess, but by not means Darwin's evolution principle should not be taught. Evolution is a scientific cycle that was be proven countless times, and repeated many mores. Now with DNA, not even the smallest gap was leaved behind. If now you want to believe that a god created everything to make evolution a thing and stuff, you're free to do so, but by not means make people think that evolution isn't science, because it is.

Theism and atheism are both beliefs who works around faith (in different aspects), deal with it.

All religions tend to point to the same thing from this point of consciousness. Virtually all religions' exoteric teachings for the masses are subjectively evaluated based what tunes most to them from texts, be it from animistic traditions to judo-christian to jainic-budhic religions; but what is received by followers of each of the exoteric teachings of the world's religions is Love.

Now you might be like: "WTF is this shit, love? get out of here mate." and i don't blame you i do the same shit too, we can't be ashamed of who we are. By love it's not the dualistic version of love that is love/hate, this different kind of love (universal compassion could be considered another term so are all the other words to describe the same thing)is received by the people in order to give meaning to their being in this plane of existence and this indescribable feeling trinkles down from person to person.(If someone says they are in direct contact with Source, God, Consciousness, Supreme Being; and they trying to have so-called "teachings" shoved down your wind pipe and some how makes it out of someone-else asshole then: 1. They fucked up and haven't learned the lessons themselves 2. You fucked up by not running in the other direction 3. Don't worry we have an eternity to figure this shit out)

From past experience for someone who was born a Mahayana Buddhist, I recall having my mom tell me that i should beg for whatever i want to the statue of the Buddha or a Buddha(Pretty ironic since exoteric Buddhism teaches us that this is a futile effort that keeps us down here in samsara(wheel of life and death))Point being that a standard of prayer is a magick of trying to bring something to our life for there is no will power to do anything about what we want ourselves.

So yeah, that's a slice of this experience's musings on exoteric traditions other than that i will not describe esoteric side of religions since i can not without parroting the words i read, besides, "You are that". In that i say search up Lao-Tzu's writing of the Tao, tantra techniques(wikipedia to get the gist if that is what is only cared for), or go read what ever religions text and replace the characters with yourself acting them out instead.

From this point of consciousness to my-selves living a different life, inner-peace V-_-V

Common sense, logic and rational are not as 'whimsical' as faith is. Faith is the belief in which you do not have any evidence for. My 'belief' of something doesn't exist, is the default position you have for everything which you don't have any evidence for. Therefore the lack of belief is not whimsical at all.



No it doesn't. If there is no science or evidence backing up a claim, it is illogical to believe in it. That is where faith comes in. My lack of belief in unproven claims is the default position human beings have for every claim. Calling it the same as faith is simply wrong.



Ideas getting the green light is not a matter of majority opinion, with this logic religion would be the best idea since it is the idea that majority of planet earth believes in. It is a matter of truth, and religion does not pass that.



Religious ideas in it themselves are the problem. Good people do as much good as they can, wicked people do as much wicked as they can, if you want to make good people do bad things, you make them religious.



Atheism doesn't deal with faith at all. Atheism is the default position you have without faith. There is no word for not believing in zeus, there is no word for not believing in poseidon, there is no word for not believing in unicorns. Why? Because today we take it for granted that those things don't exist. Atheism is just that, as long as there is no evidence for the belief in god, the rational and logical position to have is not believing in it, meaning atheism doesn't work around faith at all. Not believing in something that doesn't have any evidence for its existence has nothing to do with faith. Faith is believing in something.

I'll be refering to religion as a whole but I'll speak based on my personal experience with christianity. I am aware that much of what I say doesn't aply to most religions.

Well my parents never really introduced me to any religion when growing up, probably deliberately since my father really doesn's care about religion. As a result I grew up to be completely oblivious of what religion was. I knew some christian stories from the bible as we painted drawings related to them and celebrated Christmas and Easter, but I always thought that they were just stories and part of our culture and no one believed in them, much like the Ancient Greek Paganism that I came to know because of Hercules on Disney Channel.

When I got to 3rd grade though, one day, people were talking a lot about Sunday School and I had no idea what it was, so I asked my mom and she told me to give it a try. In the next two years I actually learned aout religion but soon stopped attending as I couldn't relate to the people in my class (because I joined it so late I was in a class with kids 3 years younger than me) and because I didn't believe in what they thaught.

I am an atheist, like I've always been For a couple of years I've been really passionate about going against religion because of its "ugly parts", but now I'm very laid back about the subject and much more tolerant about their beliefs. I don't care much about religion anymore although I really love the culture it left on society and I have no problem with religion as a whole.

In my opinion, religion, much like everything else, has positive and negative aspects, and was a necessity to maintain order and give explanations to the people in the past. The way I see it, it has more negative points than positive. But, fortunately, christianity is loosing authority on matters such as social rights and politics and is changing into a more tolerant religion as time passes and with the influence of great people such as the new Pope.

I was actually waiting or someone to bring this up.

I don't feel bad saying i agree that evolution played a part in how we act today, but it doesn't have me completely convinced. If you look at evolution at a macro level, survival of the fittest eliminates the need to act accordingly in a society. You only need to be able to pass on your genes efficiently. Being nice to others may lengthen your life span but seriously, when these rules were put into place, the life expectancy was not very long. Looking at how things are today, it's very easy to say that people can live without the presence of a higher power as many people do already.

But back in the days where Catholicism was the only accepted religion in many parts of Europe and what's now the United States, politics and religion were basically the same thing. During the first Council of Nicea, the only accepted form of Roman Catholicism was agreed upon and overnight, thousands of people became heretics. So to that, i would agree that religion institutions were enforcers.



They can't just edit it out because the old testament is the Torah for the Jews.



"I am not breaking any taboos by trying to increase your knowledge of the world". You are doing exactly that when dealing with people of faith and trying to diminish their own beliefs and shoving yours down their throats.

The intense lack of separation of church and state is a completely different problem. Religion is just scripture - words on a page. The bigots who take only certain pieces of the text and ignore the rest are the real problem.



...and yet a faith empowers a single religion of over 2 billion people claiming to all have the same experiences that science cannot touch. Faith is most definitely not useless, it is probably the most powerful thing that has ever been described. You can't possibly fathom something like this because you are bound by empirical evidence and outright reject the possibility of something else going on here. You and I are literally just pebbles being thrown into the sea and hoping that we'll make a splash that can be seen for miles. You claim that 2 BILLION people are all illogical and lack common sense, when a lot of scientists believe in some sort of higher power. That right there is a prime example of why Athiests get a bad rep. The funny thing about your argument is in your interpretation of the Bible's texts. You take them as literal fact and use them to bash on the religion. That's not Athiesm, that's Fundamentalism.



Yes, they are in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is STILL part of the Bible. The Old testament is not a collection of bullshit, and you cannot just edit it out. And if you read correctly, no, i'm not under a curse.



Tell that to the scientists and scholars that believe in some religion and provide meaningful criticism.

And? What the hell is that supposed to mean? If Jesus made everything in old testament irrelevant, what use is it? If evolution was disproved tomorrow, then we would change or edit the science books about evolution.



First of all, i don't even believe in any taboos so i can't break them.

Second, i don't shove anything down anybodys throat. If somebody publicly tells their opinions and ideas, i have the right to answer him/her with my own opinions and ideas and possible have a debate (just like i am doing to you currently). People who keep their stupid beliefs and ideas to themselves i have no problem with, but the people who publicize their beliefs and try to change society according to them, absolutely i can respond to that. There is nothing 'taboo' breaking about it.



The underlining problem here is still religion, because people take their incoherent 'holy words on page' more seriously than they do their countries constitution, and that happens on very high levels of government (in USA).



Without religious words on pages there would be less problems. The religious bigots who take the scriptures seriously would still more than likely focus their attention into some other stupid idea like tribalism, but without anybody taking religious words seriously there would be without a doubt less problems in the world.



Usually people who fall into the argument of popularity and numbers in the issue of faith and religion consider for some reason human beings to be some how highly evolved. Yes, in comparison to other species on planet earth we may be, but in general, i think not. What difference does it make if 5 billion or more people had this experience? All it would show is how illogical and irrational our species is.



I don't reject the possibility of something else going on here, i wait for the evidence before i claim something is there.



People who truly believe we are governed by an biblical or quranic entity, yes, they are illogical and lack common sense. Surely many of those are indoctrinated into the religion, so i don't fault them that much, because i know it is hard to let go a belief that has been forced down your throat before you could even walk.

If truth, logic and rational give you a bad rep, ill take it.



As a person who doesn't believe in the bible, all i can do is read it and interpret as it is written. The issue here is not that i take it literally, the issue is the magical and clever way how you and other religious people (i guess moderates) supposedly interpret the bible to be non-violent and non-dogmatic. In order for a literate person to think that the bible or quran are non-violent or non-dogmatic books, you have to purposefully read it like that and that raises the question, if you have to do all that clever juggling to interpret it as a 'nice' book, why read it in the first place?



I see, the books are only promoting violence because i interpret them wrong.

Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. (Matthew 18:8)

So when Jesus tells the people this nice and good advice to cut off their hands and feet if they offend his imaginary god, i am simply interpreting it wrong? It is not about what it actually reads, you have to read it in a clever way so you don't interpret it as violent?



So?? Jesus made the old testament irrelevant, why not edit it out?



Why not?



Being a scientist or a scholar doesn't make you immune to faith based beliefs.