Religion should be outlawed or strictly controlled

You cannot punish the people who know what religion truly is because of the mistakes others have made towards and about religion. Most religions are corrupt and forced down your throat but that is just majority of said religion. There are those who know what they are talking about and have a greater, more sensible view about the religion. These same people also do not hold your mouth open and pour it down your throat.

 

some wise words of Richard Dawkins from "The God Delusion" said, in more elegant terms, that:

you can't classify a child as a certain religion. you can only classify them as a child to whatever religion their family practices. no kid is jewish. no kid is catholic. no kid is whatever religion they're born into - until they're an adult and make a decision for themselves.

still, though - you listen to a lot of what your parents and family say - and God is like the ultimate example of fear-based decision making. people are afraid of God. people restrict themselves and go to ridiculous extents sometimes @ the cost of lives..

there's just so much wrong with religion - i'll be posting in this thread for like 2 years and still not be half done saying what i wanna say lol.

 

Did you not read my post? I realize that and obvious stated my realization. I even went as far as to say it is the majority of most, if not all, religions. But the majority cannot result in the minority suffering.

 

Creationists raising their children to believe that the world is under 10 000 years old IS the equivalent of parents raising their children to believe that the Holocaust never happened. It's not quite criminal, but it's so goddam close...

Religious people, generally, aren't a bad lot. There are many crazy, fucked up religious people, but there are many harmless religious people.

That said, religion is a vile spectacle that has lead to intolerance, oppression and genocide. I certainly would be happy to see it utterly obliterated.

 

Hell, while we're at it, let's ban just about everything else that can have a negative effect on children; including cartoons and video games.

I don't know of any creationist telling their children that the world is 6,000 years old. I don't even know anyone that follows that Christianity cesspool in that regard. I doubt any of you do either, so come off that better-than-thou anti-religion bullshit.

You hate religion? Fine. Hate it all you want. I don't like it either. But don't go trying to force your views on someone else. That makes you fuckin' fools no better than them.

 

Man, it's worse than parents telling their children the world is 6000 years old... that's taught in SCHOOLS in places in America under the name of 'creation science'. Look up 'flood geology', this is a 'scientific theory' taught in school to explain the fossil record and geographical features of the Earth around Noah's Ark. To give a bit of a rundown, they believe that the fossil record can be explained as thus;

Fish died first as the waters turned brackish. Then amphibians, who were drowned by the salt water. Then the reptiles all died because they were slow and could not outrun the water. Then came the mammals, and finally men, who were smart enough to climb trees and employ other methods of escaping the water. This is why fish fossils are found consistently in older rock stratum and human fossils are found in 'modern' rocks.

This steaming hunk of bullshit is, let me repeat, taught to children in schools as scientific fact, despite the fact that it can be debunked with the simple observation that even if this were true then it would still only be stastically more likely that mammals would be found in younger rocks than reptiles - this, of course, is not the case at all, you will NEVER find a fossil dog in the Devonian stata, for example. Anyhow, doesn't that disturb you? I mean, I'm all for religious freedom and letting people believe what they want, but teaching kids that shit in school is so, so, SO wrong man.

 

Dont you realize that you would be creating less freedom and imposing more control by outlawing religion? Heck, all those "laws" are a religion itself if you really think about it.

Maybe youll realize it when you have to watch every little thing you do because you give the government that power.

 

Blaming religion itself for the undeveloped people who can't live by their religions actual teachings, is like blaming the condition of the houses in the ghetto for killing. Killing is not necessary for making money to survive in the hood, killing is a result of greed and savage behavior. There's third world people living in this country.

The way religious fanatics act has nothing to do with the religion itself, it has everything to do with their level of spiritual development. Jesus taught to love everyone as yourself and that only one without sin can judge the sins of others. Where exactly in that teaching, which is the basis of how to treat others in Christianity, do you see reason to outlaw it?

It would seem the OP is just as judgemental and spiritually undeveloped as the fanatics he wishes to persecute.

 

Do you honestly believe that religion has nothing to do with how religious fanatics act? More often than not they are spewing versus from the Bible to back up their ridiculous claims, and maybe if the Bible were only filled with teaching from Jesus I wouldn't have such a problem with it. As it stands, however, the Bible is filled with instances where oppression, murder, and slavery are all condoned so don't pretend that the Bible as some paragon of virtue.

 

That's another major problem. As humanity moves forward and evolves, our religion/spirituality reaches higher and higher levels. The old testament is from thousands of years ago, it is outdated, far too outdated to be taken literally as if it is still the law today. Another big thing is the bible and all religious texts are not written to be taken literally, the real teachings are 'between the lines" but the masses have not unfolded the soul enough for their Spirit to shine through, and so we have theology. There is 1000 sects of christianity, this just goes to show how many different ways an undeveloped soul can interpret something, yet there is only one truth in the teaching that can only be grasped by the spirit.

The new testament is a bit more recent, so I can see that being followed a bit more closely. But the old testament is ancient and as a whole the human race has moved far far beyond it's literal teaching in terms of our current spirituality.

I would advise modern christians to read the most modern version of christianity, it's a book called "A course in miracles" and it is an up to date version of Yeshua (that's Jesus) teachings. Also we need to recognize that we're english speaking, Yeshua is Joshua in english, it's Jesus in latin, but we don't speak latin. His name is Joshua son of Joseph.

and honestly, alot of the Old testament teachings HAVE been outlawed. Slavery isn't legal anymore is it? Nor is animal sacrifice.

The true teachings, the teachings underneath the allegorical stories, are timeless as they are Whole Truth. Anything that is not whole, even 99.99% truth, is technically still a lie.

 

How do you know it wasn't written to be taken literally? In the past it was, and it is only because of our advancing intelligence that we realize a lot of the Bible is bullshit. How do you know where to draw the line between allegory and fact?

 

Religion isn't a crime. Religion shouldn't be monitored or controlled.


If people were more educated at a younger age and parents left out religion until children were old enough to think for themselves then we wouldn't have nearly as many problems as we do now.


I strongly think that religion is something that should never be controlled or regulated, it violates a certain freedom that we should all be able to exercise...

 

Exactly. Instead you have people in here doing the same thing religious extremist do. Which is shoving their ideas of evolution down your throat because this animal and the animal did this in that in this region or that region so it has to be right. Then they go on to talk about what is taught in schools when all ideas of how the world is here, created, made, et cetera is outlawed.

They're just as extreme with their stories about how fossils prove this and that. Bottom line is that both sides of the debate were not there and that makes their evidence invalid. None of it is a primary resource so both sides are wrong. They're beliefs and that means a completely different direction of debate for this thread. However the same kind of debate takes place.

It takes education without religion at a young age and then the introduction of all religious possibilities before one can decide what religion they are, if any at all. This doesn't happen unfortunately.

 

Just because we didn't physically witness it means very little. Consider this. There's a murder case, someone has been killed and their body is found on the sidewalk. No one was there to witness the death. Does that mean we say "We weren't there, it's totally improvable and any evidence we have is invalid because we simply weren't there?" No, we put on our detective hats and dust for fingerprints, do an autopsy report, investigate the persons personal life to find a motive etc...

We have an overwhelming amount of evidence in favour of evolution, which is a falsifiable scientific hypothesis. It's the most likely, probable one that we have, one that is supported by geology, chemistry and biology. The religious position, on the other hand, is NOT scientifically falsifiable - it's a faith position that can never be proved one way or the other. Evolution, as I've said, can be. If we found fossil rabbits in the Precambrian (that's a well worn but wonderful quote), then evolution would be INSTANTLY blown out of the water. If that day ever came around, we would be forced to admit that it's evolutionarily impossible and thus the theory of evolution is wrong. But that day hasn't come, and I'd safely bet all my life savings that it will never come.

On top of that, we HAVE witnessed evolution right before our very eyes. Look into the Lenski experiments. If you want, I'll even go to the effort of typing out a few pages from a book about such things for you, it truly is absolutely fascinating - not to mention it's one of the most gracefully thought out scientific experiments ever to be conducted in my view. Simply marvellous, and a brilliant example of evolution 'right before our eyes'.

 

I am as atheist/materialist as you can get. I also believe that religion can be very dangerous. The idea of outlawing it or regulating is patently absurd. People are free to live as they please. If a group or even an entire religion is hurting others and or abusing children, then the CRIMINAL, not RELIGIOUS behavior needs to be punished. Some people need that shit man, they need to feel connected to a higher integrating power, to feel that life will not just end with no meaning. I get why people need and long for that, even if I don't need the same. In the realm of ideas and debate where a religious person can exercise control I'm all for trying to change them, but to legislate that they cannot practice religion is a gnarly crime on par with some of the heinous shit they pull.

 

The different is that someone was there and did witness it. In your murder story, no one did but there is indisputable evidence. In this case of natural born theories and religious theories, the evidence that is said to be indisputable is always able to be questioned because of the expansive time gap and many other factors.

Those are simply your opinions on the so called evidence. Some don't even classify what you describe as evidence at all. We also cannot tell if religion is scientifically falsifiable. That is one of the factors for evidence, as I stated before above. Really only your opinion, and the opinions of people in agreement with you, are scientifically proven. It can be seen from ten other lights.

Some people choose to believe in religion and the evidence provided and some choose to believe in naturalistic theories and the evidenced provided with it. Neither can be considered right or wrong unless there's primary source of someone who was there. In evolution, a primary source is fossils and carbon dating of findings. While in religions, a primary source may be a scroll, tomb, or bible of some sort.

 

There are a few things I will point out here.

The first is we can tell if religion is scientifically unfalsifiable, with the following question; "What would it take to disprove the existence of God?" If it were scientifically falsifiable, we would be able to say "Well, the following hypothetical scenario would disprove God..." But we have nothing that can objectively disprove God - God is not scientifically falsifiable. Evolution, as I have said, is - just like the theory of gravity could be falsified if we all started floating in the air, evolution can be falsified if we found fossils in the wrong geographical strata.

The second is that, while you raise a valid point about 'types of evidence' and the signifiance we attach to them, this isn't a reason to not teach evolution as we could say the same about any other scientific theory. We could say that the 'evidence' for the theory of heliocentricity (that the sun is the center of the universe) is evidence that some people wouldn't consider evidence at all. The evidence is overwhelming and I'd think it very foolish to dismiss it so lightly, but you could dismiss it if you really wanted. Does this mean that it's any less of a solid theory, one that should be taught as scientific fact? It doesn't, and I think anyone and everyone would think it outrageous to not teach children that the sun is the center of the universe because some people disagree. Same applies to evolution.

The third point is that just because we don't have eye witnesses isn't really that big of a deal - you affirmed this when you said that though no one witnessed the murder, we have 'indisputable evidence'. Why should we consider this 'evidence' to be universally correct, and true? Because the science points to the most likely murder scenario. The blood found on/in the body was found, through scientific testing, to be the same as that on the murderers clothes. You see where I'm going with this. It doesn't matter if we didn't witness it, the evidence gathered overwhelmingly points to a certain scenario as the most likely one. Besides, eye witnesses aren't a very good source of information anyhow. There's a study out there where a heap of people were asked to count the number of times this group of people tossed a basketball to eachother. After it, the man in charge of the study said "How many of you saw the gorilla?" - for a man in a gorilla suit wanders right in the middle of the basketballers, beats his chest and walks off. Amazingly, a huge amount of them (2/3 from memory) said they didn't see it - they were too busy focusing to even notice. The human mind is just that, it's human. Eye witness evidence could be bungled by a trick of the mind... or it could even be a lie, a false testament. Scientific evidence doesn't have this issue, there's no room for human error.

The fourth point is that evolution by natural selection is the most likely theory. People dispute the details and even deny it, but the fact is that we have no theory that more efficiently explains the origin of life and mutability of species. If there was a theory with as much scientific weight, then we'd have to teach both. But there isn't. Evolution has holes and is debated, but the simple fact is that it's the best answer we have. Until something better comes along, shouldn't we teach it as just this?

The fifth point is that it's great to be having this kind of discussion with you after our ugly little flare up in the other thread. I say that genuinely, I'm sure both of us prefer to discuss things rationally like this instead of hurling around slurs and such. So, good work man, I respectfully disagree with your opinion but I'm always ready to hear it and comment on it