Is Religion The Root Of All Evil?

You know really, what parents should and shouldn't impose on their children could be a whole different discussion too, because there are lots of conflicting ideas on that.

I love how all of our ideas for new threads start in here.

Kurtni:

Anji:

I'm sorry, but I don't think you understand.

Perhaps that's because you keep changing what you're saying. When I first replied to you, you said the biggest threat to religion was atheism because morals wouldn't exist. You said nothing about universal morals or objective morals, had you I wouldn't have even started this discussion with you because I don't care about universal or objective morals.

Universal morals is an implied subject because we are talking about religion and a 'god' or 'gods' who are all imposing. I assumed that because religion is meant to be objectivev, so would its morals.

NeoSteph:

Anji have you ever read 'much ado about nothing'' There's a character in it called Dogberry who to appear nobel uses highly elaborate language however because he does not understand it he only manages to confuse others.

Your argument is sort of coming across like that, you need to remember your audience when discussing......dumb it down

no disrespect to anyone else i just think there's a lack of communication in this debate and it needed to be addressed.

I've studied it. I know my syntax...word-ordering often obscures my meaning, so I am currently taking private lessons to learn how to write more consicely. Believe me, I do only use language to the extent of my understanding, otherwise I obviously would not use it. I study English, and I assume too much. I assume that there is an adaquate level of understanding of simple philosophical theories, and there generally is. I assume that anyone who wouldn't understand my points will research what I am trying to say if they would like to continue to debate with me. I have spent three years so far studying literary geniuses and trying to imitate their concision in their writing and mimicing it, what I write is acutally already stripped the the bare minimum basics of language. I try not to use compunded words, instead try to find root definition words.

When I studied English, I had a teacher who didn't give me enough credit for general knowledge, language, and anything really. Maybe I'm giving too much credit to people on these threads then, I disagree though.

Further discussion should probably be done in the languages thread.

my right clicky button on my mouse doesn't work to i can't copy past into the language thread so just leaving a note so people don't think i'm a nutter if i reply to you in that thread.

can someone give me directions to the thread?

Bleach:

Anji:

Atheists believe none do because they don't believe in God and a god-like figure is needed to create objective morals in order to eliminate human subjectivity.

So... all atheists are moral-less, bad people? Because we [or they, I guess] don't believe something? Come on man, you don't need to follow another person's rules to be a good person. I don't really believe in 'God' I just believe that nature controls everything.

I have never been religious, and I must say that I have much better morals than my peers. A higher power has nothing to do with it.

You don't understand my arguement.

Morals aren't necessarily good or bad. That's the point of there being subjective morals, that means that subjectively to you, someone's subjective morals are either good or bad, however, because it is subjective others may or may not disagree. So morals are neither good nor bad, they are only necessary for justifying your actions.

Having said that, as an atheist, it's generally accepted that God doesn't exist, meaning that objective morals do not exist because in order to remove human subjectivity from objective morals, you need something beyond human, i.e. a god.

Now, for you to consider yourself a good or bad person, you must then have to creat your own subjective morals which are influenced by society (similarly to religion which is why you may also believe that it is wrong to kill, etc.), your family, friends, your environment. You so happen to be more pantheistic in your views, so your environment influences your morals more.

NeoSteph:

can someone give me directions to the thread?

I have no clue where it is...should be a few pages back at least.

bjtp:

I think we're moving off the point here, from religion, to morals.

NO! We were just talking about the relationship between them and God and stuff. Totally on topic!

Found it. http://www.geekstinkbreath.net/board/topic/51891/

Anji:

Universal morals is an implied subject because we are talking about religion and a 'god' or 'gods' who are all imposing. I assumed that because religion is meant to be objectivev, so would its morals.

But that's all in theory and irrelevant to any discussion about reality. We don't have one objective religion for a discussion like that to be of any value, we have many. We have many moral variations. I don't see how you can consider that implied.

Kurtni:

Anji:

Universal morals is an implied subject because we are talking about religion and a 'god' or 'gods' who are all imposing. I assumed that because religion is meant to be objectivev, so would its morals.

But that's all in theory and irrelevant to any discussion about reality. We don't have one objective religion for a discussion like that to be of any value, we have many. We have many moral variations. I don't see how you can consider that implied.

The implication comes from religion itself. Each individual one obviously preaches that their path is the correct path to heaven/enlightenment/happiness/peace, whatever. When conflicting morals are presented as is the case with the 'Holy War' that Osama Bin Laden and his Islamic community thinks is happening against Christians and Jews, either one religion can truely be objective in their beliefs, and so correct in their morals and actions, or none of those religions are objectively correct. The implication of this being that it is necessary then, should religious objective truth fail, to find like 'inner truth' i.e. subjective morals to create and follow.

they say religion will be the thing to cause the world to end

CountMikeulasNextVictim:

they say religion will be the thing to cause the world to end

I don't think so, somehow. I just think it'll be a superpower war...possibly with some extra-terrestial (I hope) help.

But hey, that's just me.

Anyway, I don't really think religions are a bad thing but they can be misinterpreted, like some music can be...well...all music, really. I mean, religion is like art. People take different opinions on it. What could just be a cute little picture to me could be a strong statement against poverty to you. Religion definately hasn't the same power that it had before - particularly in medieval times where The Church would go modern on your backside - although in factions it can still be as strong.

Tbh, I agree with whoever said it (I forget) that if Osama was a white American Christian, with all his twisted ideals as they are, he'd probably be President by now.

One of the smartest things about religion is that doubt is required in order to have faith. This means that it is fine if you may not believe or even agree with every aspect of a religion, you could still have faith in it.

Anji:

One of the smartest things about religion is that doubt is required in order to have faith. This means that it is fine if you may not believe or even agree with every aspect of a religion, you could still have faith in it.

What is the difference between faith and belief? How can you 'have faith' in something you believe to be false. Why would you want to?

If its true that it doesn't matter if you believe or not, why do religions spend so much time and effort trying to guilt people into believing?

Believe in me and you shall be saved..

I am the way..

We will all be judged, and those who are unknown to God will burn in Hell.. etc. etc.

The messages are plastered all over the outside of every church you pass.

I don't think it's possible really to believe in something so abstract like God without a little bit of doubt, even for the most devout.

The thing about a 'leap of faith' is that you fully acknowledge the possibility and likelyhood of what is false, and yet choose to accept whatever religion anyways. It means that you're not doing it because you think it's right. It goes deeper than that, a 'leap of faith' involves belief and instinct.

I think that religion COULD be great, some people go too far with it.

If you look at the holocaust, the only reason all of the jewish people were killed was because they were Jewish.

I watched a documentary on Hitler, and it said that part of the reason that Hitler killed the Jewish people was because he looked at himself as if he was the saviour of Germany (because at the time, germany was going through an economic slump). He saw a relation between himself and Jesus (jesus=savior of the world, Hitler= saviour of Germany), and pointed out that Jesus was constantly being ridiculed by the Jewish Isralies. Because of this, he felt threatened by the Jewish people, and felt the need to kill them. He also did the same thing to homosexuals, because it states clearly in the Bible that same sex relationships are frowned upon by God.

Was there a way that we could have avoided all of this? If there was no God and no Jesus, this could have [i]probablly[/b] been avoided (Of couse, this wouldn't have stopped him from killing gypsies and blacks, but that's beside the point.). The Jewish and homosexuals wouldn't have been ridiculed.

It's the same with any other religion. No matter what religion you are, you are going to be discriminated against. But the question is, if there's so many conflicts involving religion, why do we keep practicing it? I think there's an obvious answer. because we are scared of what happens after we die, and as humans, we also just want to be identified as part of a group We want to be able to put people in a certain group so that we can give them a label. We want to be able to go up to someone, and ask them their religion, and then mentally slap on a few stereotypes to go with it. Why? because we are scared of non-conformers.

Despite everything I have siad in this post, I DO think that it would be great if everyone in the world could live happily and be comfortable with each others religions; but I don't see that haappening any time soon.

Sometimes, i wish that everyone in the world would just drop the whole religion scandal and live as one joined nation without any religious boundaries.


Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine by John Lennon

I sure as hell can imagine a world like that, and that world is alot better than what we're living with right now.

''because it states clearly in the Bible that same sex relationships are frowned upon by God.''

clearly? wut

Okay, well not clearly.
I don't really have a Bible with me, But I can probablly find one around the house (I come from a Catholic family) for reference.

But it states in one part, that Jesus or God says "Men shall not lay together." And it says the same thing about women. I'm not sure if it says that word for word because, as I already said, I don't have a Bible with me. But since it states that phrase in the Bible, homosexuality is frowned upon in the Roman Catholic church. I personally think that the only reason that people are so against homosexuality is because some fictional character by the name of God has a severe case of homophobia.

I think its evil in the aspect that people use it as an excuse to hate. I mean there are murderers who claim god spoke to them and told them to kill. And a lot of hate crimes are commited because of gods way of teaching that homosexuality is bad, somehow. I think religion has a hold on people where it plays on their hope and faith, where it has ultimate control over what we think. Causing people to think without morals, but under the will of god.