Religion

[Vgr]

Now, I really want any moderator or admin to close that thread. This discussion is going nowhere and, moreover, it will result in massive re-re-re-re-re-re-re (etc) posting, endlessly and so on. We all have our own opinions, and it is good to share them. Now, we don't share them, we try to defend them because we think this is the only good one. I'm sorry I started that way. It's my fault...

 

[Mako]

Now, I really want any moderator or admin to close that thread. This discussion is going nowhere and, moreover, it will result in massive re-re-re-re-re-re-re (etc) posting, endlessly and so on. We all have our own opinions, and it is good to share them. Now, we don't share them, we try to defend them because we think this is the only good one. I'm sorry I started that way. It's my fault...

WHAT!? I agree with Kudi Bagel Tax comment! Why you gotta ruin it! :3

I officially removed Vgr from my ecard mailing list

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

For someone who just says what's on his mind, you sure do say things virulently. And yes, I stand by my words. When people accept each other's differences, their different beliefs, things do not evolve into violence. Meanwhile, it's people who want to force their beliefs into others, that lead to massacres.

Which is one of the reasons why religion is bad. The two biggest religions in the world are all about forcing their beliefs upon others, and many people have died because of it.

You seem to be under the impression that I'm trying to force my beliefs on others. Could this interpretation of my actions be the result of your guilty conscience?

Because after all the talking, if the person you're arguing with still doesn't agree that his religion is "bull", what happens ?

Then I have a good laugh at him.

Will you bring him to the nearest annihilation camp just to get rid of the problem ?

Nope, public humiliation will suffice.

It's still peace.

It's a peace that precedes a much bloodier war, Mr Chamberlain

On the other hand, the behavior you preconise encourages an even stronger response of the believers. "Let's settle this. In blood".

I'm of the opinion that insulating people from criticism causes them to overreact when some criticism finally comes this way.

I said before that religion gets protected, but you can still insult it. However, there is one exception, especially in north-western Europe. There is one religion that can't be criticised, because of colonial guilt and because many of its followers have an "explosive" temper (I made a funneh!)

I think that one of the reasons that members of this religion get so buttfrustrated when someone writes a crappy novel or draws a cartoon is because they receive so little criticism and so don't learn to deal with it. Instead, the world confirms their belief that their religion is sacred. There was once a time when blasphemy against Christianity would lead to getting sodomised with a red-hot poker, but that is no longer the case. One of the reasons for this is because Christians have just had to get used to some degree of criticism. They're thin-skinned, certainly, but you won't see leaders of Western countries ordering all Christians to kill people who defame the religion.

Islam has not had to learn to deal with criticism in the same way, so should we be surprised when Ayatollah Assaholah gets buttmad and orders fatwas on blesphemers?

I am rather of the opinion that giving offence is good in itself. It teaches people to toughen up. Theo van Gogh would still be alive if his film had not been the only one of its kind.

Now, I really want any moderator or admin to close that thread.

In that case, I have screencapped the thread. This is all too lulzy, and the current modus operandi at these forums is to remove and censor all evidence of anyone saying anything silly (see the situation with all of Hermoor's posts), so I must archive it!

 

[Mako]

Kudi you could supply a whole website! Called The "Qhimm Archives" uncencred and un-abridged!

 

[Armorvil]

Yeah I know of Godwin's law, so I edited my post just after posting it. But not fast enough, I guess

Which is one of the reasons why religion is bad. The two biggest religions in the world are all about forcing their beliefs upon others, and many people have died because of it.

I agree.

You seem to be under the impression that I'm trying to force my beliefs on others. Could this interpretation of my actions be the result of your guilty conscience?

Oh lawlz. My conscience is perfectly clean, thank you.

especially in north-western Europe

That makes me think that many people in the US thought France was an islamic country, or that it was in North Africa. It's not an islamic country... ...yet *shivers*
Somehow, my views of the future are pretty grim.

Anyway, continue KM. Like Mako, I enjoy reading you (you write nice English and make good points).

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

Kudi you could supply a whole website! Called The "Qhimm Archives" uncencred and un-abridged!

I could join forces with Mirenheart. He made an achive of the lulzopedia somewhere. ;D

That makes me think that many people in the US thought France was an islamic country, or that it was in North Africa.

Africa is anything that's both south of the English Channel and either west or south of the Rhine.

It's not an islamic country... ...yet *shivers*
Somehow, my views of the future are pretty grim.

Good. For a second I was worried that you were one of those people who criticises Christianity but goes all multicultural about Islam and calls it a beautiful faith.

Anyway, continue KM. Like Mako, I enjoy reading you (you write nice English and make good points).

If you're using my posts to help you with your English, I'm going to have to charge! £25 per hour, or whatever the equivalent is in that doomed currency you use down there in north Algeria.

 

[DLPB_]

I have no doubt that Mother Theresa was stronger in her religious belief than Osama Bin Laden, but few would say her mind was sick

Had she been Islamic she would have been a suicide bomber.  Don't let em read the Koran, they may learn too much.  Mein kampf has some serious competition!

 

[obesebear]

More people are killed daily by mindless murder and greed than ANY religious beliefs.  People are going to kill each other no matter the reason.

But even if we play make-believe and say religion is the main cause of deaths, well good.  Maybe no one else has noticed but the worldwide population is absolutely out of control.  We cure diseases constantly and are always finding new ways to prolong life.  We NEED something to kill us, and unfortunately natural disasters just aren't happening quickly enough.

 

[Mako]

YaaaY Obesebear is on my side! Were is my gold star? Also I believe I collected enough to get a tee shirt or somthin'
*Cough* size 5 *Cough*

 

[Jaitsu]

i was raised to be christian, but i never fully could go along with it.

i believe almost everything in the bible is a medaphor, and also that some of it was not originally there, the bibles been around for a looooong time, long enough for some greedy leader of a peoples to decide "fuck this, i wanna change that".

for instance, can you honestly tell me that a man who does evil all his life but believes in god and on his death bed makes a little prayer for forgiveness goes to heaven... but a man who has spent his entire life doing every thing he could to help people, is probably the greatest person on earth but has difficulty believing in a being he cannot see or speak to is going to hell. i don't.

i believe that it is our actions that define where we end up, not our beliefs.

i also believe if you go around in the wee hours of the morning knocking on peoples doors and trying to convert them, you should be strung up and forced to watch a thousand ultimate warrior promo's.

 

[The Seer of Shadows]

But even if we play make-believe and say religion is the main cause of deaths, well good.  Maybe no one else has noticed but the worldwide population is absolutely out of control.  We cure diseases constantly and are always finding new ways to prolong life.  We NEED something to kill us, and unfortunately natural disasters just aren't happening quickly enough.

I like where this is going.  Let's discuss.  So what are we gonna do about it?  Find the Black Materia? ;D

 

[DLPB_]

Birth control works better....

 

[xLostWingx]

Does it?  Maybe for like...idk, 800,000,000 of us.  But what about the billions without access to birth control?  While I agree with the idea that the earth is becoing overpopulated, I don't think going on a "diet" is going to make it better.  We need to hit the Reset button.  It is funny though...any one of us could just have easily come into existence as a fucking beetle, or an aboriginee (sp?).  The industrialized human perspective is in the minority on this planet.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

Had she been Islamic she would have been a suicide bomber.  Don't let em read the Koran, they may learn too much.  Mein kampf has some serious competition!

I read somewhere that someone did a survey of the two books and found that the Koran had more antisemitism than Mein Kampf, so it's possible that Mein Kampf has lost the battle.

Mind you, it was the kind of study that one has to take with a pinch of salt.

More people are killed daily by mindless murder and greed than ANY religious beliefs.  People are going to kill each other no matter the reason.

It doesn't matter if religion is not the only or even the biggest cause of the killing around the world. It's one of the major ones, and that's enough reason to oppose it.

But even if we play make-believe and say religion is the main cause of deaths, well good.  Maybe no one else has noticed but the worldwide population is absolutely out of control.  We cure diseases constantly and are always finding new ways to prolong life.  We NEED something to kill us, and unfortunately natural disasters just aren't happening quickly enough.

As other people have said, condoms can do something about overpopulation too. In Russia, abortions have also had a big effect on birth rate (too big, actually).

Now then, a lot of people in the poorest, most overpopulated parts of the world don't use condoms. I can't really think of why they wouldn't...oh wait! Their priests and pastors and imams tell them not to!

If you look around the world, there's a startling correlation between a country's birthrate and its religiosity. Europe and east Asia have the lowest birth rates, and these places tend not to be very religious. Africa and south Asia have the highest birth rates, and they're possibly the most religious places. Obviously there are probably of lot of factors causing this*, but religious edicts against condoms and in favour of big families must be an influence. And it isn't just Catholicism that forbids it; lots of religious leaders around the world have a problem with birth control.

Don't you think its profoundly evil to tell impoverishes, scared, illiterate people who believe your every word and who live in countries where AIDS and starvation are rife, that birth control is a sin and that condoms don't prevent the spread of HIV? And isn't it profoundly hypocritical to make patently absurd claims about HIV and then preach about "thou shalt not bear false witness"?

*I'm saying this for insurance, since experience in these debates tells me that someone is going to accuse me of saying that religion is the only factor affecting birth rate. One of the most amusing things about religious debates is that you can tell someone until you're blue in the face that you don't believe that x, but they'll still say that you believe x and try to build a counter-argument around this claim. It's impossible to stop people from doing this, but you can have a good laugh when they do.

 

[Jaitsu]

i agree overpopulation is a serious issue that needs to be adressed, but that gives no one, be it a man, a god, or animal, the right to take anothers life.

 

[DLPB_]

I read somewhere that someone did a survey of the two books and found that the Koran had more antisemitism than Mein Kampf, so it's possible that Mein Kampf has lost the battle.

Mind you, it was the kind of study that one has to take with a pinch of salt.

No that's the laugh, it almost certainly IS true

But history has shown that appeasement only brings temporary peace. By tip-toeing around crazy beliefs, you only encourage them.

This is also sadly true...  The more you appease the worse it gets until one day it is too late to do something with minimal casualties.  Many before WW2, including Churchill said to attack Hitler long before he was able to amass a huge army and had the planning for war.  But few listened.  The public didn't want another war, and the politicians decided instead to appease.

All that did was cost us 50 million lives.  Well done to the appeasers.  Today Islam is the main issue, and is not too different to Nazism (hate, war mongering, antisemitism, world dominance) ... everyone is running around appeasing it.  Despite insurmountable evidence that it creates death and war and intolerance and that most Islamic countries are far from democracies, people bury their heads in the sand.

Now we have the "religion of peace" propaganda, "you are racist", "every religion has a few nutters".

And when push comes to shove, we will have to confront this ideology head on and it will be too late to do it relatively peacefully I am afraid.  Appeasement is the language of a fool.

 

[Mako]

It doesn't matter if religion is not the only or even the biggest cause of the killing around the world. It's one of the major ones, and that's enough reason to oppose it.

What we are trying to get through to you Kudistos is that, it does not matter. If religion was wiped out people would still kill,
in-fact I can say this with certainty. It is my belief that killing would actually go up by record breaking amounts.


You are also looking at the glass half empty. Here open door missions and the salvation army feed millions of people everyday. They also contribute to humanitarian need's around the globe. Most volunteer hospitals (were people get the medicine they need) are funded by some religion or another. Even the largest blood donation group Brandix is from [/size]Sri Lanka and they are mainly [/size]Buddhist.


I know I will never change your mind Kudi, thats just who you are. But please think of ALL the repercussions of removing religion good and bad.

 

[Cupcake]

What we are trying to get through to you Kudistos is that, it does not matter. If religion was wiped out people would still kill,
in-fact I can say this with certainty. It is my belief that killing would actually go up by record breaking amounts.


You are also looking at the glass half empty. Here open door missions and the salvation army feed millions of people everyday. They also contribute to humanitarian need's around the globe. Most volunteer hospitals (were people get the medicine they need) are funded by some religion or another. Even the largest blood donation group Brandix is from [/size]Sri Lanka and they are mainly [/size]Buddhist.


I know I will never change your mind Kudi, thats just who you are. But please think of ALL the repercussions of removing religion good and bad.

But you shouldn't need religion to tell you to help those in need.  That should be something one is willing to do on their own, without the threat of a lake of fire.  I also thought we established that Buddhism was a different situation, as it is more of a philosophy than a religion.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

in-fact I can say this with certainty. It is my belief that killing would actually go up by record breaking amounts.

You can indeed say with certainty that you believe that.

It still won't be true.

You are also looking at the glass half empty. Here open door missions and the salvation army feed millions of people everyday. They also contribute to humanitarian need's around the globe. Most volunteer hospitals (were people get the medicine they need) are funded by some religion or another. Even the largest blood donation group Brandix is from [/size]Sri Lanka and they are mainly [/size]Buddhist.


I know I will never change your mind Kudi, thats just who you are. But please think of ALL the repercussions of removing religion good and bad.

The claim that religious people are more charitable comes up very often, but I have a hard time believing it. I haven't personally noticed religious people being any more charitable than non-religious people, and it must be noted that atheists tend not to organise themselves around atheist causes in the same way that religious people do.

Christians who set up a charity will generally be very keen to point out that their religious belief is what caused them to set up a charity and will often declare their charity to be a religious one. Atheists, for obvious reasons, will not generally assert that their charitability is motivated by their stance of whether or not God exists and will rarely organise a charity around their lack of religion. You won't see any atheist charities because few atheists see charity as an atheist thing; they see it as something that should be open to all.

Actually I can't help but wonder whether atheists (or rather, secularists) are better charity workers. It's certainly the case that most of the biggest charitable or humanitarian organisations around the world are secular. Even the Red Cross, despite its name, is a secular organisation. Furthermore, secular charities tend not to have ulterior, proselytising, motives. They also tend to be more equal in their distribution of aid; even the Salvation Army, an otherwise highly admirable organisation, has had controversies regarding discrimination against homosexuals.

There might be an argument, although there are many counter-arguments, that a small amount of charity workers and donors might be motivated by some religious belief (although, as I said, the biggest organisations tend to be secular and America's biggest philanthropist, though not an atheist, disliked organised religion), but people without religious motives might just do a better job of it.

EDIT:

I just remembered: there seems to be an astonishing correlation in the Western world between the amount of aid given relative to a country's population and the irreligion of its population. Although Americans tend to be at least as wealthy, if not wealthier, Western Europeans seem to give more aid money, especially the ones from the least religious countries.

 

[xLostWingx]

Many facts.  There could be millions of them shot back and forth.  Clearly the answer is we don't know what the world would be like without religion because it is such a major influence.  If minor events can change the world in drastic ways, surely something as major as religion is responsible for so much that we can't create any hypothetical reigion-free world with any accuracy.  *edit, It's not like it would be the same world we live in, simply without religion.

Without religion what other reasons would arrise to murder each other.  In the absence of religion, many people who would otherwise not murder, would start to.  Too many factors to accurately predict.  Maybe, as some seem to believe, we would have a wonderful world full of happy, disease-free, fed people.  Or, we could have a world with more powerful and more oppressive empires than ever.  Maybe everything would be pretty much the same.