Our planet cannot afford religions. We cannot afford their cruelty, their bigotry, the indifference they have shown to hunger, suffering and pain. We cannot afford their control through fear, their cencorship, their ignorance. Religious fanatics sacked the renowned Alexandrian library in egypt and put to death, in unbelievable horror, noncomformist thinkers when the Christian Age of Faith turned out the light on intellectual inquiry. So many libraries were lost, books burned, pagan learning gone. We can't afford their oppposition to progress in science and medicine, which they set back 1,500 years by suppressing any discovery, any idea, and thought that didn't agree with priests and prophets. We can't afford their overpopulation that cases famine, infanticide, cannibalism. We can't afford their wars. We can't afford to make up taxes they don't pay on churches, temples, mosques. We can't afford what they do to children, offering blind belief instead of curiosity and questioning minds, obedience instead of critical thinking and the joy of discovery.
kids shouldnt be introduced to religion untill they are in their teens, and can make up there own mind about it. the reason so many people are so crazy about it, is because since they were 2 years old theyve been pumped with "facts" about god. by the time they are old enough to think on their own... god is as factual to them as their own name. thats when the problems start, when you dont question, you just blindly force opinions on other without listening to the other side.
could not agree more. the biggest, largest threat to human survival, not to mention prosperity and new discovery, is religion. this virus on human society gotta go. blind faith is dangerous. it's emotion without control or remorse in a time when we need cool heads and ability to forgive.
Religion does not provide anything good for the mankind in general or lead us to the future, just take a look at the time when church and religion ruled the people, it was called the dark age, no kind of progress happened for 200 or so year, peopl were tortured, murdered and burned because they weren't like the "majority" of people, leaders got richer and lived in palaces and mansion and majority of people were beggin on the streets and dying.
Nobody forced you to come to this thread..so how about you go have a j and stop worrying...let those of us who wish to debate said things do what we wish
nubbin it is easy to see that people who have been involved in religion have done terrible things, but thats JUST as ignorant as saying people of a certain race have done terrible things so the whole race is bad for mankind. it is just plain wrong and that is not debatable. it is not the fault of religion that those terrible things took place, but rather the fault of misguided people who were brought up to be arrogant and aggressive. religion is irrelevant. you might say that if there was no religion, people wouldnt fight each other over religious ideals, but that is not true either. if not for religion, people would always find SOME differences to hate each other over. religion is a beautiful thing, whether it be organized or whether it be an inner religion that you share with nobody but yourself, and theres really no point in insulting religion as a whole. i am shocked by the close-minded intolerance of all these "i hate all religions" threads.
woah there. step back and look around for a sescond dr jammin.... this aint a "i hate all religions" thread at all. as for the war thing... 95% of all wars were religious. even you cannot deny that that statistic is pretty damning. you are correct, its not religion to blame, its religious followers. usually spearheaded by a crazed extremist zealot. the thing is... with organised religions, you already have a team, and all ya gotta do is get them rattled up enough to fight and they will. and its NOT the same as race at all. its is an idealogical clash thing. Dr Jammin.... you remind me of NRA gun nuts who say "guns dont kill people, people kill people". just as a gun makes it SO much easier to kill somone, so too does religion make it SO much easier to start a war.
but so does race and individuality for that matter. wouldnt it be nice if all of our thoughts and feelings were the same too? i dont think so.
what sets religious differences apart from more mondane political differences is tolerance and respect. case in point: during the cold war, the US and USSR had a great deal of respect for eachother as adversaries. they did not like eachother in a system kind of sense, but on a personal level neither the russians or americans had any trouble getting along and beeing tolerant to eachothers view. that is why the cold war never got hot. now on the other side, you got the religious debacle. between the trenches in that fight, there is no such thing as respect and tolerance. only blind fanatism fueled by ever increasing agitation of the more meek masses that follow one or the other religion. i'm not saying that every religious follower is a warmonger, but they are part of the system that condemns the "infidels" on the other side of the conflict. as such, the zealots win ground by ever increased hostility, hardening the lines so to speak. and gain more support amongst the more moderate of their flock. take israel as an example, where now over 1/3 of the population is in favour of assasinating Arafat... what will that lead to. people in religios fervor just stop thinking, they follow the momentum of their zealot leaders. and it's not rational. that is the danger. if there was some kind of rational way to bypass the conflict, without all the religious mumbujumbo getting in the way, a lot would be much easier. but souch is not the case.
all of your guys arguments are the same. religion causes conflict so we just shouldnt have it at all. but every thing that makes humans unique causes conflicts. differences of religion lead people to hate each other. sort of like other cultural differences, sexual orientation, and political beliefs. what do you guys suggest we do to change it so that there is no religion? it is part of humans' instincts to believe in a god. should we dope up the masses to change humans natural instincts? its basically like saying we should brainwash gay people into being straight because differences in sexual orientation cause conflicts. what you guys are basically wishing for is a perfect world, which makes sense. but if the world were perfect it would also be a very uninteresting, soulless place.
The reason that conflict is inherent in organized religion isn't because it natrually leads to violence but because the practitioners of any particular religion often have this dangerous sense of righteousness that allows them to go to extremes to get their way. Often these people are lead by those who would stand to gain by simply doing what no one else is willing to. It can lead to genocide or self destruction when left unchecked. But you can't just try to stamp out religion, it won't work that way. If you give them a common enemy you'll only empower them. What needs to happen is that people should be taught to rely on conscience and common sense rather than words in a book. Personal faith is fine but micro managed indocrinization is never good. If people would simply come to understand that no one should have the right to kill another a lot of problems would be solved. The key to all of this is education and a bit of compassion. Force of any sort will only keep it going.
religion can't be compared to anything, expect maybe extreme patriotism, yes maybe it isn't bad on itself, I don't do it but my mum does and he's ok, but it just is that when you truly believe that you're absolutley right and on the right side you'll do anything to prove the opposite wrong, and if they have an whole different thing going than you do? well that's a problem. And what about religion stepping in to politics? astronomy? etc. religion should be religion, it shouldn't be a way to handle more groundly stuff like boarders, is the world flat or not, does this and that political or economical decision go hand in hand with the holy book, is that and that OK, can a people who looks like that be tolerated inside our community? I'm not making a point here but I just don't think that religion should be part of anything else than religion, and BTW people don't have a basic need to believe in something, it just is that we're all raised to believe in something, it starts at the moment you're babtised.
well i agree with all of u,dr.jammin i know what ur sayin and feel the same way to point. u all have good points and i couldn't even begin a debate, u guys know way more than i do and are firm on your beliefs.i was raised RC, but i dont follow all their beliefs, i don't follow any certain religions belief. i have my own i guess. nubbin, ubik, dig and adambc has some very good points that stopped and made me rethink a few things. and i agreed with alot of them.
Digit, you shouldn't be talking about this NRA bullshit, you have a problem with the united states justice system opposed to our laws allowing the people to have guns. In scotland maybe you have strictor gun laws than us, but you shouldn't judge what you don't live within. If people don't have guns to kill themselves with, believe me they will find something! For example in northen ireland a girl was stoned to death by protestants just because she was catholic. I've heard you in other threads saying things toward america, and the way it is. And if someone can get stoned to death in europe, considered to be no less primitive than the u.s. smaller maybe but nevertheless, than it can happen all over the world. But just consider what not judging parts of the world you don't live in or maybe even understand. Your not one of us so you wouldn't personally understand what goes on around here, it is isn't simple, it isn't barbaric...and it makes perfect sense why you don't understand.
i'm still deciding on whether or not i want to get into this debate... well, i do have a few things to say. the wars you speak of regarding fanatic religious zealots... i agree totally. they shouldn't have happened. but keep in mind, those that truely follow the Bible... the ones that don't make up their own rules and such, have never been involved in any of those wars. these wars were done by corrupt churches (namely the Catholic church with it's crusades). as far as children being brought up in religous homes... if they see no proof of what their parent's are telling them is true, they won't belive it. i know many, many people who were brought up in religious homes who rebelled, and don't believe a word of what they've been taught. BUT if they proof of what's being taught, they tend to believe their parents. if this is true, then why does 95% of the world's population believe in a higher power? you can't tell me that THAT many people would believe in a higher power just because they were raised to.
I'd believe it. If you think of it in terms of something else..say..racism.. just a few decades ago it was the norm to be brought up in a racist household...kids see what their parents do, and instinctually mimic their actions without thought...only to come to their own conclusions later on in life when they've already grown past their most impressionable years as children
there ya go. "only to come to their own conclusions later on in life..." they mimic their parents at first, but eventually come to their own conclusions. same could be said with a belief in God. they will eventually come to their OWN conclusions, and with that being said, most conclude that there is some form of higher power.
... those conclusions they come to later on in life have been tainted by biased views which theyve been brought up to believe... sure..there are exceptions, but for the most part, if you bring a kid up telling him the sky is made of jello, hes gonna believe it for a loong time, even if he's shown facts to show otherwise. Just like you can bring up a kid to believe that all muslims are terrorist, or all americans are the embodyment of satan... the key word in my last post was "impressionable"
yeah, but there's also a difference between bringing a child up a certain way, and brain washing (ie, that all americans are the enbodyment of satan). i'm not saying they're not likely to hold on to those ideals for a long time. but eventually they will come to their own conclusions. whether it be when they're 15 or 90, they will eventually make up their own minds on any given subject.