Science has way too many unproven theories that are just accepted as the definitive truth so he makes a great point in the fact that people believe these theories with the same if not greater faith that religious people have.
That said this is a conversation that we are by no means capable of arguing objectively or able to provide proof for on either side which ultimately makes both atheism and religion pointless as they are both faulty by nature with the only major difference being that Christians have a stricter view on their own morality for fear of going to hell which causes them to act with more decency than atheists as they have absolutely no reason to be either a good or bad person.
English
-
I'm in the religion of "I don't really care" right now, atheists can be nice. It is only a common courtesy to be nice. You don't have I live for something to decide if you are going to be nice or shitty to someone. That's what I hate about religious people, try think that their shit don't stink. I hate how some of them are homophobic. Let people do what they want and live YOUR own life. Don't corrupt this site with this bullshit this is a forum not a religion proving ground.
-
Edited by Xeno Prodigy: 9/1/2014 2:57:43 AMAgain, let's nip [url=http://notjustatheory.com/]this[/url] in the bud right quick. As a Humanitarian, I believe that we do not need religion to dictate to use how to live our lives, I believe that humans are capable of common decency and morality, without the teachings of religion. Ever hear of the golden rule?
-
Also let us not mention the major holes in evolutionary theory which in turn keep it a theory.[spoiler]just looked at the link [/spoiler]
-
Edited by TunnelSnakesRule: 9/1/2014 3:22:11 AMEver hear of Hitler? Ever hear of the Holocaust? Ever hear of Stalin? Ever heard of Mussolini? Ever heard of the Kim Jong dynasty? Ever hear of ISIS? Ever Hear of Al Qaeda? Ever hear of murder? Ever hear of ra[u]pe[/u]? Ever hear of extortion? Ever hear of greed? Ever hear of power? Ever hear of money? I've barely scratched the surface and you would have the audacity to tell me that Religion which actually brings some good things into this world like charity, faith, and comfort is useless. All because of a golden rule that 99% of the population on Earth ignore if they think they can get a situation to benefit them regardless of the cost to others. Are you serious? I genuinely think that you need to reevaluate your thinking process.[spoiler]I'm sorry if this comes off as a tad hostile but know that I've no intention of insulting you, so let's keep it civil shall we. [/spoiler]
-
Edited by kj2177: 9/1/2014 6:07:24 AM[quote]Ever Hear of Al Qaeda?[/quote] you're joking right...i mean you do know that these people do what they do because of their belief in god...right?
-
Edited by TunnelSnakesRule: 9/1/2014 6:09:40 AMI was just listing off all the bad things to give a full picture as we do know ISIS and Al Qaeda are religious nuts and I'm mostly defending Christianity
-
have you had a chance to study the Christian crusades? And you should consider this. An atheist is driving down the street and an old lady is crossing, (always gotta be the old lady...lol). Anyway, he just notices her and has no chance to think but slams on his brakes to avoid her. Why? He didn't have the chance to think about self-preservation and not wanting to go jail or protecting his car. And I would argue that a Christian wouldn't have the chance to consider how god would perceive him hitting the old lady. His chest is pounding...why? Because it was his instinct not to hit her. It was part of a larger built-in morality that is with us since birth. When you have children you will see that before they know right from wrong they don't really have a desire to harm other living things in general.
-
I'll just direct you to my reply down below that's practically an essay. Also I would point out your example has nothing concerning motive in terms of committing the immoral dead whereas both true morality and immorality stems from a desire and a goal to ascertain. Now while most generally humans don't like to be evil for no reason at all (even hitler had his reasons) we are most certainly corrupted by our desires and experiences.
-
I would just suggest that you make it clear that you are talking about trying to defend Christians in particular only because there are so many points you make that can be invalidated by religious suicide bombers for example. If money, power and greed are their motivations then suicide bombing achieves none of those. And to the point of Christians specifically, (and don't let anything I say come across as an attack on Christianity itself), do you feel that they are less susceptible to sinful behavior than any other group?
-
Edited by TunnelSnakesRule: 9/1/2014 7:04:15 AMYes I do feel Christians in general have a better morality aside from some minor discrepancies but I do think the same can be said of similar religions like Buddhism Mormonism and so forth as those that choose to subject themselves to those particular religions also subject themselves to a required morality in order to gain their ticket to the preferred afterlife and it does ultimately promote good acts over evil ones. Atheists/Agnostics however are only able to use their personality as their guideline to morality and those that lack integrity will not be held back by a belief that a higher power is watching because they have no such belief and will feel like they can get away with it. Now I'm not saying every Christian's a saint and every atheist is evil because bad eggs come from both sides (obviously) but I do feel that those with Christian beliefs are generally less susceptible to committing immoral acts.
-
Do you mean they are less susceptible to sin or that they are less likely to sin? (sin being used in lieu of "bad acts). Because I would think that you would believe we are all equally susceptible to sin, but that the Christian religion allows Christians to combat those susceptibilities into less likelihood of following through with a bad act. I personally believe that their are good people and bad people regardless of religious affiliation or anything else, and that those good people will generally do good things and vice versa. However, as I have seen people turn their lives around after "finding god' or some other similar religious experience I will grant you that for some finding a new set of beliefs can be a positive change in their life. It just seems to me that for instance Christianity and religion are two different things. As in Christianity is a set of beliefs and religion is kind of the extrapolation of those beliefs by the humans which ascribe to them. I understand what you are saying a little better now, though, having had you kind of explain some of it.
-
It's really hard to actually argue one way or another whenever you take everything into account everything as even Christianity alone is extremely diverse with the Roman Catholics, Catholics, Protestants, and Presbyterians, and too a certain extent Mormons all with their different interpretations of the bible. Ultimately I feel that religions similar to Christianity (80% of all religions) just brings so much good into this world even though I don't necessarily think it's plausible to actually claim knowledge over how the universe was created. However like anything regarding morality on this Earth it's all subjective to the situation, and religion just like anything else can be corrupted in many instances although that seems to happen less often it actually does.
-
First. I never planned to make this uncivil. That comment was unnecessary. Religion in my opinion, is the scorn of humanity. Yes, it does some good, and it does much bad. It brings far more misery to the world than good. It's human nature, hell, its the nature of any living thing to improve it's own life before the life of another, but we evolved to develop empathy, and sympathy, religion doesn't instill that in us. It's in us from birth.
-
Edited by TunnelSnakesRule: 9/1/2014 7:09:02 AMNo we as humans have "evolved" to put ourselves first and our feelings of sympathy and empathy are isolated to individuals who learned them through experience and in many cases we simply decide to ignore them because we are selfish by nature and desire material or non material things. Let's also take a look at some of the other emotions we develop as a product of our "evolution" like hate, lust, greed and to an extent love. All of these emotions are more powerful than sympathy/empathy with the converse of those emotions, happiness most likely being a product if a desire gone right usually coming from greed, lust and so forth. These emotions are what lead up to many bad things like autocracy, oligarchy and soviet style communism, because someone at the top of all that is going to be happy with what he has accumulated and he usually won't even care about those he wronged to get what he has. Now let's talk about sadness anger and loss, which also overpower sympathy/empathy. When ever you are sad about something or another do you really care about sympathies? No you are withdrawn into your own personal bubble thinking upon what has made you sad. What about anger? Anger usually comes from something going wrong I.e not your way which again is a selfish desire. Now this usually leads to a revenge of some sort if what was committed is heinous enough and the act of revenge is usually met with blood. Now after that has happened somebody else will be drawn to revenge once more and the cycle repeats over and over as is yet again human nature. Now what about religions role in all this. You see these Holy wars that you hear about those are actually a minority if all wars fought. In fact humanity craves war as there was literally a war over one girl. So what makes up the majority of all wars? The answer is Money, Power and Land. War is the usual means of trying to build upon land and put more subjects under a government this gaining that government more power to take on other governments and take even more land, gain more power which in itself leads to more economic opportunities. So now what else does religion do wrong? To that end it depends on the religion but the majority of the world embraces some form Christianity and the only other thing that religion does wrong is, not accepting gays or giving the impression of not accepting gays which is ultimately minor as it doesn't condone even them being harmed. So what does religion do good? To that end it scares those individuals who lack empathy/sympathy into being decent people if they truly believe the religion. It also brings faith which translates to optimism and comfort giving many people what they feel is a reason for actually being on Earth. And let's not forget Charity which was originally a Christian concept that is born of those emotions you hold so dear sympathy/empathy. Some of the best people we have ever known are Christians which they believe to be the foundation of their charitable actions and some of the worst are atheists(Stalin, Kim Jong dynasty and so forth). This is why you have a misguided opinion of religion because your arguments at its core ignore basic human instinct and conflict.[spoiler]forgive my previous spoiler I've had many debates devolve with someone telling me I should kill myself calling names and so forth so I was not expecting a civilized debate [/spoiler] Edit: This does not include insane religions like Islam