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Re: Atheism/Theism thread
"Also saying there are plenty of bad things that came with religion, implying that religion is more "bad" than "good" is a somewhat simple position to hold. I guess you think the "bad" you consider that emanated from religion had nothing to see with the ignorance of some people or merely the social context around it and all ; most of historical facts have a STRONG historical context to it and I don't think things would have been less... "bloody" if people didn't believed in a supreme being, they believed the beliefs at the time because they had no other way around. All that was about having beliefs about how the world was functioning ;
Then people used religion to legitimate wars and genocides and some shit like that, it doesn't mean religion was essentially bad but that religion was usually used as a tool to serve the interest of the power that led a said country, region, etc." I used to argue that people are people, and if it weren't religion that causes wars, it would be something else, since the social context would bring it about anyways. I'm not so sure about that anymore, but I do think that that still might be the case, the zeitgeist and all, and I'm going to try and argue for that. Simply because there have been religious wars doesn't mean that removing the religion would remove the war. I mean, we still fight over ideas of morality and ways of life, and people in one geographical location have different values than another. Eg: Muslim extremists who pronounce their lives as becoming too "western". They aren't out to fight christians or even non-believers (seeing as they will kill and persecute other less extreme muslims.) They're out to get people who don't believe what they believe, period, Allah and Koran or no. It's hard to blame the religion for war when we easily see that within a religion there is one part that is harmless and one side that's full of self-righteous lunatics, even though it's very much a religious fight. I've heard it said that well yeah, but without the religion or belief in a supreme being who you can always bring out and say, but God says so so I'm right. That is true. But the same sort of people who will believe that God exists and is all that's good even if God's speaking to them in their dreams telling them to burn down their city, is the same sort of person who, because they were raised with 'traditional' values, won't be logical enough to see that, for example, homosexuality is not immoral. tl;dr It's not the religion that causes bad things, it's people, religious or not. On a completely personal level, I was a better person when I was christian. I was nicer. It's probably made me a better person now too, but I'm not as nice as I once was and I don't fall asleep feeling happy and close to God because I do good things. I have yet to really feel that connection to the world within myself since becoming atheist. I believe that touches one of jjtrixx's points that was sort of glossed over. Of course I'm hardly representative of all atheists. No one will say that it's stupid to find inner peace or love or whatever you want to call it, and religion offers that to millions of people. And I can't fully frown upon religion or beliefs (even if they're obviously not true) if I don't see religion as the cause for all the horrible wars/fighting that has happened. |
Re: Atheism/Theism thread
You're basically saying "guns don't kill people, people kill people." But a gun is the weapon that is used to kill the other person. The same can be said about religion. It's true that people do bad things sometimes without any religious motive, but there also exists people that do bad things because their religious doctrine commands them to do so. This is definitely a problem. A gun itself won't do any harm, but depending on how it's used it can be used for good purposes (protection/hunting etc), bad purposes (murder), and even self-detriment (suicide). I feel this is a very close metaphor to religion. Villains that commit gun crimes need to be stopped as do religious extremists who use their religion as an excuse to harm others.
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Re: Atheism/Theism thread
This is painful to my eyes.
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Re: Atheism/Theism thread
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One flaw of either analogy is because most religions that I know of, at least all major religions, have a built-in safety measure of putting love first. Anyone who's a christian who says such things like homosexuality is wrong and who hounds people about it or treats them as outcasts, I would say aren't really being christian. The enemy is not religion, but ignorance and failure to be objective and putting your own ideas above someone else so much that you feel you need to persecute them. A think pretty strong argument to what I've been saying I think would be that religion breeds ignorance and might cause people to be less empirical about ALL things, to start to place faith in things that are outside the scope of their faith. I could see that quite obviously causing serious lag in scientific advancement, which in a grand sense -and I think most people would agree- ends up causing a lot more strife. In the short term I think it's debateable what would cause the most hurt. However, the ideas of us versus them, protecting your sense of belonging, thrusting your ideals onto someone else in a small sense or a massive scale, and taking these things so far as to cause war, doesn't stem from religion and never has. Yet these are the things that so many atheists site as to why religion is bad and wrong. Religion helps cause wars as much as any culture causes wars. I'm not sure I see much of a difference in saying religion causes wars to saying (most) religion prevents wars by virtue of the harmonious values they all teach, in terms of misrepresenting the impact religion itself has on the world. I think that if you could magically remove, and keep removed, all religion you'd have more peace for about a generation before the world would settle down and create new, non-religious groups to become strongly associated with because that's what people do, and shit would hit the fan. |
Re: Atheism/Theism thread
Some mormon missionaries came to my house today. I was still half asleep when I talked to them, but now I own a copy of the book of mormon. Time to read this beast.
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Re: Atheism/Theism thread
@ rushy: I agree blind-faith isn't justifiable. My faith is based on knowledge, truth, and feeling, not because I am loyal to a religious establishment or human authority but because i understand what God is. The meaning behind God's true essence and message is more important then the actual term "God". A word is just a word. I do not believe in forcing ideologies of any kind on anyone because not only is it wrong, but it's uneffective. People must come to an understanding themselves(voluntarily), only then will they reach a higher plane in life.
What i find fascinating about most atheists is that they claim to be so intelligent and so superior to everyone else when really, this couldn't be farther from the truth. Atheists look down on people because they put themselves on a pedestal. They have yet to surrender their ego. It seems that they have an insecurity with authority in general, not just a Godly-authority, but any authority for that matter. For this reason, it's harder for them to understand the importance of putting others before themselves. They don't believe in God because they do not understand God. They have not found God because they do not search for God. They might have searched at one point and gave up searching(maybe due to a drastic dissapointment or unfortunate experience in which they put blame onto God), or just don't care enough to do so. This doesn't mean that God does not exist inside of them. God exists in everyone. Do I think atheists are bad people? Absolutely not. Do I think they are currently lost? Absolutely. I try my best not to judge others for what they believe or what they do, but when i understand a certain truth, it is my obligation as a 'good' human being to help and share this truth with others so that one day they may come to a realization for the better. I will share what I know and those who chose to listen, will do so. Those who chose not to listen, will do just that. This is everyones God-given right to freedom: freedom of choice. I will still love you either way because you are all my brothers and sisters. Atheists are just one step behind because they look for 'what they think' is definitive evidence and 'their idea' of detailed science to answer all their questions and to fill their empty void. One day they will realize that all of it comes from God. God is the evidence and the science. Everything in all corners of every dimension within the universe was created by God. God is the ultimate Creator. When you become closer to God, the rest will fall into place and everything will make more sense to you. I understand that atheists and theists are the same because they all came from the same source. We were created as equals and in Gods image with the incredible gift of free will. Free will is what creates the illusion of individualism and it is only through faith can you become one with the source. We will never know everything, and we were created that way, not to know everything. You can learn mass amounts of information every day, more so then the most knowledgable human on earth, and still you will only know but a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the amount of information known in the universe. This is why faith is not only beneficial, but necessary. Do not confuse blind-faith with knowledge-based faith. The good will come with the bad, as do the highs with the lows. Open your minds and you will see. Seek and you will find. Ask, and you shall recieve. Think with your minds and feel with your hearts. Then, will you be guided onto the path of the highest level of consciousness. -I agree with everything Cavernio has said in posts #161 and #164 and she claims to be an atheist. |
Re: Atheism/Theism thread
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ps "I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." |
Re: Atheism/Theism thread
My apologies to Cavernio, I meant "she".
Choofers, what do you mean by "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods..."? I can't dismiss that which I do not fully understand. I have not studied any one religion to the fullest to be able to discredit or dismiss any God associated with it. I am a monotheist, and if multiple religions are also monotheisms, then maybe they all believe in the same God but worship that God a different way due to conflicting practices brought up by different cultures. People of different religions always dispute on the semantics of God because most religionists are loyal to their particular religion and aren't open to listen to other beliefs if it doesn't perfectly coincide with thier own. That's not to say that all people of that religion are this way. Nobody is perfect, so there will always be a handful of those that are part of a religion that do things the 'wrong way'. And because those 'wrong-doers' are associated with a particular religion, the naive put the blame of that one person onto the entire religion and make that religion look horrible or 'wrong'. This going back to what Cavernio was saying, It isn't the religion that causes the deaths of countless people, but the people are the cause of their actions. Rushy also touched on this by mentioning that guns don't kill people, people kill people. This is exactly the case. The guns aren't to blame, for the guns are inanimate objects. The people who(with clouded moral judgment) used the guns to kill are to blame. Not to be funny but this why you never see a 9mm being prosecuted in a court of law stand trial before a judge waiting to be anounced its verdict. Instead, it is always the man or woman behind the shooting of the 9 mm that is put on trial. Besides, all I have spoken on was the position of atheism and theism, which is the focus of this thread, is it not? I believe, nay...I know a true theist is closer to the answer in life he/she is looking for then a true atheist is. Although neither is any better of a person then the other is. Another thing to point out that we all can agree on is that atheists have much less restrictions then theists do. Think about that....i will expand on this statement upon request if need be |
Re: Atheism/Theism thread
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You're a Christian, so I'm assuming you believe in Yahweh? Why don't you believe in, say, Allah, or any Hindu gods? Is it because your faith requires you to believe in the single Christian god? Or is it for some other reason? And this works inversely for any other religion. If you believed in the Islamic god, you would not believe in the Christian god. Not every monotheistic religion believes in the same god. If you were to walk to a Muslim and say that your Christian god is the same as their Islam god, they would most likely be offended. |
Re: Atheism/Theism thread
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Lots of good points were offered to you earlier and you disregarded them completely. That's going to upset people who are interested in having an honest debate. Quote:
I'd argue that if you're acting moral to others only because of your religion (as opposed to something intrinsic to simply getting along as fellow humans), that's a notch below ideal par. Quote:
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Re: Atheism/Theism thread
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this is probably what they are going to do now: since they planted a BoM on you (and probably gave a pass-along card that says mormon.org/faq on it too) they will come back again in like a week or so to follow up and ask if you read anything or have any questions hopefully these guys are all star missionaries that have studied hard so they can answer all the tough questions you probably have as well as they can. also protip: make them do service for you. sometimes during my mission my companion and i would get really bored while knocking doors and getting turned down that we started volunteering to mow lawns or to wash cars or something. even if the person wasn't interested in the message, we were still providing service and that's what was fun. |
Re: Atheism/Theism thread
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Atheism is nothing but a lack of a belief in a higher power, which in and of itself is just as harmless as theism. They are nothing but concepts, and everyone who has an opinion for a certain concept does not think the same way. It should be obvious to anyone that just because you have a stance on a certain idea, that everyone else who shares that similar stance is not a mere clone, and that judgements on people should be on a case by case basis. It really doesn't help either party to judge each other just by the beliefs they have on a single concept, if anything, it just pulls people apart. |
Re: Atheism/Theism thread
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Re: Atheism/Theism thread
lol, complete bullshit, dude
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Re: Atheism/Theism thread
Oh God, this thread.
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Re: Atheism/Theism thread
I didn't do any more than barely glancing at this page.
Whether or not a deity actually exists has no impact whatsoever on whether or not people choose to behave morally, which is what actually matters. All the other ambiguities about how you're going to define morality aside. What that argument is actually about then is that believing in a deity (presumably, your deity in particular, in the general sense and not actually calling someone out) causes people to act morally. This is something akin to pascal's wager, where we should choose to believe something for utilitarian benefit. As soon as you introduce the ambiguity of what is 'moral' into this question, all the problems with pascal's wager apply here. The easiest ones being: 1) belief is not a conscious choice, 2) utilitarian benefit to a belief does not render it true |
Re: Atheism/Theism thread
Believing in a deity has been used as a justification for more immoral behaviour than enlightened self-interest ever did.
And even the positive moral choices that people adopt because of religion aren't being done out of a sense of understood rightness, they are being done because they have been threatened with damnation if they don't follow the rules. |
Re: Atheism/Theism thread
devonin cite your sources, I'm surprised at you
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