religion
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- locustsloth0
For the people who believe in each, science and religion are answering different questions.
Science answers "What?" What is everything made of? What happens at an atomic level? etc
Religion (again, for those who believe in it) answers "Why?"
The reason some people need religion is because no matter how many "What?"'s you answer, the question of "Why?" will always remain.
Even when (and if) we discover all the mechanics of the universe, science cannot answer what it's purpose is. Science's answer will be "There is no purpose". Religion will ask "Why?"
Science will reply "Because that is the way it is"
Which has been Religion's answer all along.- lol... religion doesn't "answer" shit, it just makes guessesmonospaced
- FOR THE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE it answers quite a lot. You are arrogant to think otherwiselocustsloth
- ok, what does it answer, and why do you believe it?monospaced
- only the scared and pitiful feel there even needs to be an answer to the why... atheists simply accept there's no point in askingmonospaced
- religion for the common man is not designed to answering questions.. there are hidden mystical practicesyurimon
- ooooh... hidden mystical... I'm CONVINCED!monospaced
- Religion pretends there is a "why" when there isn'tukit2
- look for yourself but i doubt you ever explore anything non institutional.yurimon
- monospaced0
haha, all religions have a different answer to the "why?" and they're all conflicting and 100% pure ancient speculation with nothing whatsoever to back them up
- answers are the last thing a religion promisesmonospaced
- Morning_star0
If atheism is not a claim of any kind, then it is simply meaningless. It's no more than a mutual dick rub.
Alternatively, if an atheist wishes to claim that atheism is true, then that is a claim, and claims need to be defended, evidence provided and reasons given.
Hitchens said "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”, if it's true for theists claims it is also true for atheist claims.- the thing is, the only claim of atheism is that there are no godsmonospaced
- if that's so hard for religion to accept, they sure aren't providing much to back up existencemonospaced
- what do you study mono? anything?
you sound like a programmed jock..yurimon - I have degrees in Sociology (law emphasis), Visual Arts and Graphic designmonospaced
- but thanks for the insult and the denial of posting anything relevantmonospaced
- Ok. If your claiming that there are no gods, how do you defend that position and with what evidence? Because if you can't it's a belief.Morning_star
- mono has no evidence. he takes the literal European approach designed to dumb people down about the past.yurimon
- which is these stories are literal made by primitive people. not examining these stories on different levels or originsyurimon
- which is brilliant because this arrogance is self policing of knowledge, and where you appear cutting and rational, you are really backward and controlled human potentialyurimon
- are controlled human potential...self policing, just like Christians who dismissed anything different as demonic. no examination etc.yurimon
- examination with depth, just institutionalized indoctrination no different to what you appose.yurimon
- ok, how can you prove that the tooth fairy doesn't exist?monospaced
- you crazy? whos talking about a tooth fairy? we are talking about archetypes/ancient gods allegories of ancient stories.yurimon
- you believe in psychology mono?yurimon
- believe in psychology? yeah, there are psychologists practicing it and it's a degree, it existsmonospaced
- well frued and young got their knowledge interpreted from kabbalah and mythology. so you are mystic mono.yurimon
- that doesn't make sensemonospaced
- its true. they were afraid people would become occultist if everyone found out where they got their knowledge.yurimon
- holy shit you are the king of sidetrackingmonospaced
- just shows you are a left brain thinker.. nothing wrong with just you became over logical and imbalancedyurimon
- no side track. im giving you an example of how this relates to modern times.yurimon
- you dont believe in old mombojumbo but alot of great people have used it and transcribed into their work.yurimon
- and you believe some this though you can not recognize its pure form or origin.yurimon
- that's really not relevant and you're not "proving" i accept mumbojumbomonospaced
- kingkong0
religion is complete bollox if you're being objective about it.
I had a very religious upbringing but after a bunch of priests raped my school mates (which would skew your position) I kind of left it alone.
Funnily enough now my kids are at school I realised without trying that they are proper atheists as they just didn't know about jesus or any of that malarkey.
Neither my wife, nor here parents were baptised, (which is quite rare) coming from the humanist movement.
So when little Jonny came home from school, we had the 'dad what is Jesus?' question (aged 5).
Now I could of gone either way, but I went with 'a lot of people worship gods and deities, and one of the more popular ones is Jesus. He was a historical figure with some ideas about how we could all live together better.'
his response... 'Like president business from the Lego Movie?'
'yes pretty much exactly like that son'.
- response of the profane...yurimon
- question to either for kids to be sane or socially adjusted. most parents choose socially adjusted.yurimon
- ...and the best way to ensure both is to avoid religion.kingkong
- religion as belief system, but there is deeper examination that is more practical. depends how intune you want them to be..yurimon
- these days it seems for them to get along you need them as dumb as the rest of suppressing mediocrityyurimon
- Morning_star0
@kingkong
I hope you're putting religion, belief and the religious into some kind of context for your kids. Ignorance is not a good thing. I have kids too, and luckily we live in a very cosmopolitan city where we have the opportunity to experience a myriad of beautiful places to worship, celebrate Eid, Easter, Passover etc as part of a wider community and share in cultures different to our own.
It bothers me that part of the new Atheist movement sets out to polarise the argument when it's clearly a sliding scale. It's a shame that a minority of fundamentalists (on both sides) are setting the agenda.
- ukit20
I'm happy to say that I don't know what the answer is. But what does seems obvious is that the claims of organized religion are almost certainly not true.
I mean cmoon...you can clearly see from looking at recent religions like Mormonism and Scientology how a religion develops. I noticed that none of you are defended Scientology, but ancient religions are no different, just older and more successful. It's also easy to understand the psychology that would make people want to believe that everything revolves around them, and that life has meaning specifically for humans.
But this is such a short-sighted, self-serving view, similar to thinking the Earth is the center of the universe. If monkeys had religion they would probably worship a monkey god, but that wouldn't mean it was a credible theory that needed to be disproved.
There's no need to 100% conclusively disprove the existence of a human-like god because there's no good reason to believe it in the first place.
- locustsloth0
"There's no need to 100% conclusively disprove the existence of a human-like god "
i think this is the part i don't get about people who argue so vehemently against religion (outside of the context of specific instances where someone is actively foisting a religion on another person or group).
The whole "i'm right, you're wrong" thing is a quintessential component of most religions, yet these people take up the tactic as well.
Live and let live, FFS- Human like god
lol.******** - ukit's words, not minelocustsloth
- Not my words. Just read the Bible or any other major religious text.ukit2
- Would also make good name for a death metal band :)ukit2
- Humanish Lord.********
- Human like god
- Morning_star0
@mono
You can prove the tooth fairy doesn't exist by recording the 'myth' in action. It's very easy to unravel the mystery with a couple of strategically placed video cameras and a set of parents willing to upset a young child ;)
The case is not the same for beliefs, any of them. By definition 'faith' has no proof. Your claim that there are no gods, is still a claim, and one that requires substantiation, otherwise it is faith.
Atheists are not claiming that they just don't know. They are claiming that they KNOW that there are no gods. To understand that something doesn't exist you have to know the nature of what that something is. Do you KNOW what god is?- sorry, but the burden of proof is on those who are making the ridiculous claimsmonospaced
- additionally, nobody who is making religious claims can "record the myths in action' convenientlymonospaced
- That's because it's faith. And you are making a claim, so prove it .Morning_star
- It's a long standing principle that the person making the claim is the one who has to provide the proofukit2
- http://en.wikipedia.…ukit2
- Atheism is more of a minimalist viewpoint. It's not claiming to have all the answers, just that there is no good evidence for what religious people believe.ukit2
- what religious people believe.ukit2
- ukit understandsmonospaced
- kingkong0
@ morning star... I of course teach them about the context of religion, in fact I've sent them to a semi-religious private school where they do morning prayers, say grace before meals and do a decent amount of religious studies.
Pay or pray as they say in the UK.
I'm nothing if not a hypocrite.
I actually went to Jesuit seminary school as a teen (my Stockholm syndromy upbringing) and studied politics, economics and theology, before finding drink and women and going to art school. So I'm pretty well informed about all things religion, having gone to mass 3 times a week from the age of 4-18.
So these days I tend to teach my children the context of religion in terms of is cultural and historical place on this planet, which is why I love the 100,000 year info graphic a couple of pages back.
You sure as hell can't ignore it or isolate anyone from it. I certainly don't talk about it through rose tinted glasses. It (in it's broadest sense) is responsible for huge amounts of suffering, poverty and disease, and plunged the planet into a 1000 year age of scientific darkness. Early Christians crusaders made the Taliban look like amateurs.
In truth as a curious (and non-judgemental) type I love to read and understand as much as I can the reasons why the stones all over Europe had a religious significance, I love to read about the political motivations behind the modern church, which culminated in the Papacy and cathedrals all over the world.
I love to read about the British empire and how it became an evangelical empire in the mid 1800's after 200 years of profiteering, sending white folks to Africa and South America to 'civilise people'
Religion is just a part of the human story. Inextricably linked to the moment we had some sort of consciousness up until the fundamental islamists - it's a man made creation to validate ones existence, and explain the world around you. As we have become more intelligent so has the religion.
Also some interesting points have been made here as to how religion is politics on the whole and faith is personal on the whole.
Religions have tended to form into 'power groups' to run things, in that sense a church is like Communism, when the faith system was socioeconomic system structured upon common ownership. The organisation fucked up a pretty sound 'belief'.
People tend to be quite tolerant of other faiths. It's religions that tend to despise other religions... Religion is both a force for good and bad, much like humans. But I see it purely and simply as history.
But if I had to put my finger on 'me' I'm a little 'meh'. I don't 'believe' nor do I actively 'disbelieve. I'm like most people I meet; which is indifferent.
Indifference is killing off religion, not another religion or atheism. People when they are educated 'tend' not to care for it, which is why churches are closing at a rapid rate. When all the congregations (mostly ages in the 50s/60s') die off so will the Church in large swathes of western countries.
In fact, mostly they are kept alive through people going to them to get their kids into their schools. Once that gets stopped (which it will) they will disappear from the public consciousness over a few hundred years.
If there was one growth religion/belief system it's secularism. Once that pervades the rest of the world via the UN, IMF etc. Game over.
It (modern religions) will in time be replaced by something else, as other have always done. Jesus is no better than Zeus or Odin.
Just different.
If anyone hasn't there is a wonderful book called Flatlands written in 1884. It will maybe make you pause for thought (it's a key starter for 10 book in theology)...
A quick synopsis
"A classic of scientific and mathematical fiction, Flatland is the story of a Square as he journeys through new dimensions. He experiences Spaceland (a universe with three dimensions), Lineland (a universe of one dimension), and Pointland ( a universe no dimensions). This work of literature looks at the world through a purely mathematical lens to help us better understand the concepts of dimension as well as the sociological implications of hierarchies. Finally, the Square dares to dream of a land with four dimensions, an incredible idea which gets him banished from Spaceland."
Said my piece after a lot of pithy quotes...
- I read flatland when I was 16 and stoned. Blew my mind =)********
- doesn't sound that you went into it on more profound level at all. what this about the corrupt UN? to save us? lolyurimon
- Yurimon, you are a high priest of tools.kingkong
- Yurimon. Guaranteed to tell you more.,********
- i'm not tool teaching my future kin the exact philosophy they want you the mediocrity to believe.yurimon
- that makes no sense, much like everything else you write.kingkong
- king you know history right? Every empire teaches what it requires to perpetuate power over truth.yurimon
- well you live in an empire teaching such program. just different empire. im sure what you are teaching some one in the future is going think is propogandayurimon
- future will think it otter shyit. like your comment about british empire.
you chose gett along over truth or sanity to teach your childrenyurimon - understandable because people do well keeping close with those in power...yurimon
- copeash?yurimon
- As usual, not really.********
- I read flatland when I was 16 and stoned. Blew my mind =)
- ********0
I quite like the idea that there is a God but it just simply couldn't give two flying shits about humans.
Much like a piece of bacteria on Jerald, the autistic wheelchair bound kid, telling all of it's bacterial friends that the almighty Jerald will judge them on their actions in the afterlife.
- God simply meaning a far superior, far more intelligent consciousness.********
- id believe that if there were no such thing as freewill. Its people in collective action that perpetuates their slavery.yurimon
- your comment is relevant how?********
- that's all cute and nice, but no such god has been described by any major religionmonospaced
- What the fuck is your point ?********
- First, that your idea is a nice one but that it conflicts with all traditional descriptions of a creator.monospaced
- Your idea of a creator (greater intelligence) doesn't sound religious or dogmatic, in other words.monospaced
- It isn't********
- I didn't use the word creator, to be fair.********
- I like this idea. All hail Jerald the autistic handicapped kidukit2
- Thank you Jerald for this meal********
- hahainteliboy
- God simply meaning a far superior, far more intelligent consciousness.
- ********0
- come little brown and ginger babies, suckle upon my bewbage********
- come little brown and ginger babies, suckle upon my bewbage
- ********0
- ********0
