Religion..... any point to it?

Religion is a bunch of crap for ignorant retards. It's nothing more than a dangerous mass delusion. The world will be a better place when it's gone.

 

You give some examples, where christians belive this and muslims do that. So, do I REALLY have to remind you what EVIL comes when atheism becomes a state-level rule (what you seem to aim for)? Really?

Then, accept Soviet Union and other communist countries as an example where state atheism lead to THOUSANDS of victims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism

Why don't just let people believe what they want? Why just don't accept freedom? Thinking that when people are just like you, the world becomes a better place is a first step towards totalitarism.

 

There's plenty of wars going on that have been raging for decades or longer that are down to religion and nothing else. I don't believe in God or any other fictional characters for that matter. Other people are welcome to believe what they want, it's when people try to force their beliefs onto other people that conflict inevitably results. Unfortunately some people take their religious beliefs to such a level that they feel everyone should believe what they do.

 

Religion makes no sense to me at all. I'm OK with people believing whatever they want, although I am also puzzled how they can believe in invisible spirits in the age we live in now.

I'm an atheist through and through, although I usually get along quite well with people of non-evangelical faiths. I've even attended public speaking events of the Dalai Lama out of curiosity and a desire to better understand people of different backgrounds and belief systems.

Unfortunately, I see religion used as method of descrimination against others rather than tolerence. I wish Christians actually read their Bible and tried to emulate Jesus' behavior rather than pretending to and only actually going to church for show and blindly following what the church wants them to believe. It's also very curious that when Christians and atheists are tested on knowledge of Christianity, atheists generally destroy them.

 

Do not mistake religion and faith.

Faith means you believe in God, Absolute Being or whatever you call it. Religion means that you express your faith in a fixed manner.

Faith itself is good and only good, as is love, kindness and all other good emotions. And just like with expressing even good emotions in a wrong way, some people tend to express faith in wrong way - it's not necessarily that Christianity or Islam are bad but rather - SOME people who are Christians or Muslims are bad, just like some atheists are bad, some white/black/man/woman/... are good and others are bad because they express it in a wrong way.

And suggestions that war come from religion is a mistake, at least to me. War almost always is about MONEY, the religion is only an excuse, just like human rights, democracy, protection of minorities are examples of other common excuses for wars but it's always about money. Even Crusades were about money, although you can claim it's been because of the religion.

Also, of course there are Christians who are not smart but only follow what church says them to do but let me give another, similar example using your logic.

You see, there are people who follow a guy called Barrack Obama, they also tend to not to think on their own but rather go to wars and kill other people. Does it prove anything?

Do all Christians blindly follow church? No.
Do all Americans blindly follow Obama? No.

Then, what's your logic to give all Christians as an example of something bad while you have so many of similar examples?

In my opinion, your example is just wrong. You are generalizing. Yes, I could even agree that probably a lot of of Christians who get the religion in a wrong way but probably also a lot of Americans (Poles, Germans, ...) do get their patriotism in a wrong way.

And still, it doesn't prove that religion / patriotism are bad.

 

Well since I've already broken one of my rules today (never dicuss politics on the internet) I might as well have a go at the other one right?? (never discuss religion on the internet)

I like to think I'm the most religious here btw I don't care who I 'offend' by that remark either really :| after all what are we talking about? religious extremists right? In a way religion IS extreme either your extreme or your not really religious at all. The only question is how one would translate that. Some obviously take 'extreme' to the EXTREME!! Me, I just think it's a word. To me EXTREME is an adjective, it doesn't say what you'll do, it just says whatever you'll do your gonna do it 150%!

SO... some ppl think of their Bibles or Tomes or Scriptures or whatever as their RELIGION these are what they will take to EXTREMES. Others take sports or video games as their religion. Yes some of you are just as 'guilty' of being religious as me .

Anyway I'm just saying Religion is just a word. Nothing else. Sure wars are fought in the name of 'Religion' but that's really just a farce, an excuse to force your beliefs onto someone else. For instance this Catholic who was attacked by the Protestant, this is how I see it (as a non-denominational Christian... in other words I don't feel the need to choose one of the various Christian 'sides', another word for denomination) as one man attacking another. Maybe, yes, it was because this Catholic person was spreading his 'misguided' seed. I really don't understand WHY THE HECK one would be so SOLD to one side like that, but... Just from my POV, his reason is valid, but, just as an unbiased detective might say, it doesn't justify his response. I have my doubts that such vile behavior can even be attributed to Christianity at all. If you know anything about Christianity it's that we (all) teach that being a good Christian is loving EVERYBODY. Do we get annoying? Yes. Are there points when love may mean locking some fool up and extracting information out of his rotten, blasphemous (liar) mouth? At some point yes. But like any extremist view one might have (celebrating the death of Bin Laden for instance?), there's a right way and a wrong way around it. And most likely this perp took the wrong way.

Look, Christianity and other teachings with such a following are, and SHOULD REMAIN as spiritual devices. The moment it is manifested in a physical form it becomes something else, something that MUST be justified.

Sure Jesus was a physical real man with his actions in question by non-Christians (and some Christians too ), but Christians only worship Jesus because they need a 'thing' to worship. AFAIK one would just as soon proclaim Jesus' actions as Holy... but c'mon, that just wouldn't be legit. Seriously

Now you have to question this man's real intent. Maybe he just didn't like the way the Catholic guy was coaching. He didn't do it in the name of religion, he did it because he thought it might improve the team. It's just much cooler to say he did it because of some religion... at least that way he could pit the blame elsewhere.

And by elsewhere I mean possessing Angels/ Demons and so on. They do exist.

 

Christianity is a faith based following. There really IS no studying up for that. In fact the more studying you do, the further away you get. Most intelectuals fall into this unfortunately. I'm not saying Christianity is just for non-thinkers... it's just the less you think of it, the more you just believe and let manifest, the better off you are.

Christianity is not that deep, Theology is... but Christianity is purely a yes or no question. If you polled 100 Christians I'd bet you'd fine a very small portion of them to be intellectuals. Christianity is 'made' to be accessible.

 

@AKS

Exactly. I have no idea how intelligent people can still believe in this nonsense in the age of science and technology. It's embarrassing.

My stepmother is an evangelical Christian and used to drag me and my brother to some very over the top church services with people talking in tongues, and sermons that amounted to little more than a lot of hatred and paranoia, and I think that put me off religion from an early age. More recently, my father has sort of calmed her down, and they go to a pretty tolerant, non-denominational church. But it's too late. I've been put off religion for good.

Unfortunately, the crazy did rub off on my step sister. She went to Bob Jones University, and lives in Arizona with the other religious nutjobs. She believes rock and roll is the devil's music, and is home schooling her kids because she doesn't want some liberal infecting their heads with nonsense like evolution. Her older daughter is a pretty smart little girl, but she's becoming sheltered and weird, and I worry about her future.

 

Shouldn't the people that supposedly frame their very lives around the Word of God know as much or more about it than those who don't believe in anything spiritual or religious?

And I'm sorry, there's no way I'm buying that learning what's in The Bible isn't important to Christianity or that reading The Bible somehow is distances you from God. That doesn't make sense.

 

Faith is stupid too. We have literally no evidence of the existence of god, and the idea that some old dude is sitting up in the clouds determining your fate is silly and superstitious. Ancient people had a lot of stupid ideas that have been proven wrong, and I'm not sure why this one persists.

 

The bible is a badly written, hateful, often self contradictory pile of bullshit, and reading it is the fastest way for an intelligent person to become an atheist.

 

It drives me insane that so many Christians claim to read their Bibles daily. After they claim to have spent decades of reading and re-reading their own holy text, supposedly daily, many still have no clue what's actually in it.

 

I think a lack of education is part of the problem. I notice that most Europeans aren't religious, but on average they're far better educated than Americans. And I don't think they have curricula that teach superstition like creationism alongside fact like evolution.

 

We have RE (Religious Eduction) classes but all that teaches is what different religions believe. When I was a kid we sang hymns in assembly but I am not sure if this is the case anymore, especially with there being so many kids of different faiths.

These days I think it will only be specific faith schools that have any kind of religious teachings.

 

Torq, I am very disappointed in you. Just because Stalin was an atheist, and his rule terrible, doesn't immediately suggest that an Atheist state is one of evil. That's an atrocious extrapolation from the data you provided and one that a PhD holder in mathematics such as yourself (I believe you said that) should NEVER have made.

 

In general you don't really get preachy atheists who try to ram their beliefs (or lack of) down people throats whereas there's loads and loads people from religious groups who try to convert people and say simply ludicrous things like "God will save you". From what exactly? And why doesn't he get off his cloud and help people suffering from natural disasters? You don't normally see atheists defending their choice of faith (if you can call it that) with violence but there's plenty of instances parts of religious groups doing exactly that. Catholics vs Protestants and Shi'a vs Sunnis are two that immediately spring to mind. You can also pin most cases of terrorism down to religious fanatics. I am of course not saying that all religious people are bad and we should abolish it, I'm just saying they should practice what they (literally) preach. All religions teach tolerance to some degree to all faiths and walks of life but I find (call this a gross generalisation if you must) most properly religious people are the least tolerant people going.

 

Actually, I find atheists to be just as preachy and possibly bigger assholes than religious fanatics. However, the key difference is that atheists are correct, and religious twats are completely 100% wrong.