|
It's more like some people are a load of shit in general and Religion is how they choose to show and justify it. Take it away and there's no guarantee they won't be just as closed-minded, huddling around some other whacked out ideology or another, and attempting to assimilate everyone around them forcibly. It seems more to be related to herd mentality or whatnot than religion itself per-se, though it's certainly convenient for them to pin it on religious grounds.
At least you can take away their "divine justification" and self-righteousness if you take away their religion, but honestly, I think social pressure for conformation will still exist in one way or another...an unfortunate side effect of human nature and society as a whole, though doesn't mean it can't be changed. I applaud this man for having the courage to stand up against the "herd" so to speak.
|
On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters.
These are poor examples, charity would exist without religion. What benefit do these religious charities bring that others don't, who's to say these people wouldn't be generous regardless?
Chances are these people would be charitable regardless of their religious beliefs, in fact I would venture to say religion harms charity more than aids it through discrimination. Christian organizations such as the Salvation Army refusing to aid homosexuals would be a good example.
|
On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters.
What the guy above me said and its also just common sense, religion has coused problems and chaos in the world since the start of it.
This story is a good example..
This student refused to say a prayer for obvious reasons and ontop of that it was even illegal...
The religious people ostracize him..
Teacher publicly demeaned him...
People threaten to beat him up and kill him...
His family threw him out on the street..
So was basically 'banished' for not wanting to pray to a 'god' ...
So this is "okay" to religious people ? ....
Yeah this was probably normal and okay 2000 fu*king years ago. But today in 2011 this is still going on and the soul reason for it is this brainwashing and pointless religion garbage that has haltered the world from being a better place to live in.
And if you pay attention to the media, storys like this pop up every day accross the world, not so long ago i read a story about a female who got dragged out of her house to the police by her neighbours and she was sentenced to be beaten unconcious infront of an audience like it was some fucking comdedy show..
And the reason ? She was seen with a man in her house who wasnt her husband before her divorce got finalized...
Dumb and pointless religion outrages like this are happening in the world every day and these individual storys are nothing compared to what religion really has done to the humanity and the world, Wars, Church scams, etc. There is literally nothing good about religion except for the fact that random people sleep better at night, thinking that they have a purpose in life.
Edit: I thank "god" (herpderp) every day, that i was born in one of the most non religious countrys in the world.
|
On June 01 2011 15:07 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. These are poor examples, charity would exist without religion. What benefit do these religious charities bring that others don't, who's to say these people wouldn't be generous regardless? Chances are these people would be charitable regardless of their religious beliefs, in fact I would venture to say religion harms charity more than aids it through discrimination. Christian organizations such as the Salvation Army refusing to aid homosexuals would be a good example.
It is from my own personal experience that religious organisations such as Churches have people who are more enthusiastic about doing things such as going to third world countries and volunteering for homeless shelters. I don't have statistics to back this up but just from my own group of friends I'd say 50% of my Christian friends are charitable and actively sponsor children/volunteer whereas probably 5% of my atheist friends care about greater issues such as poverty and its alleviation in third world countries. It is their belief in an imaginary God which drives their desire for charitable work. And what exactly is the direct link between AIDS through discrimination and charity? Because although groups like the Salvation Army, although discriminatory towards homosexuals, do not actively prevent other charities who would like to target those areas from doing their work. It just happens that their charities are the ones who are helping those in the community and people are complaining about how their charity isn't going far enough. That is the complaint - that they are preventing some from accessing their services. This is already more than people that do nothing. They are not actively doing anything to cause damage. It would be the equivalent of say you saying a doctor is bad because he doesn't help homosexuals but only helps straight people, however the fact that he is already providing medical care to straight people that you aren't. The doctor is helping straight people but not homosexuals, whereas the complainant helps neither straight people or homosexuals.
|
On June 01 2011 15:24 Liight wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. What the guy above me said and its also just common sense, religion has coused problems and chaos in the world since the start of it. This story is a good example.. This student refused to say a prayer for obvious reasons and ontop of that it was even illegal... The religious people ostracize him..
Teacher publicly demeaned him...
People threaten to beat him up and kill him...
His family threw him out on the street..
So was basically 'banished' for not wanting to pray to a 'god' ...So this is "okay" to religious people ? .... Yeah this was probably normal and okay 2000 fu*king years ago. But today in 2011 this is still going on and the soul reason for it is this brainwashing and pointless religion garbage that has haltered the world from being a better place to live in. And if you pay attention to the media, storys like this pop up every day accross the world, not so long ago i read a story about a female who got dragged out of her house to the police by her neighbours and she was sentenced to be beaten unconcious infront of an audience like it was some fucking comdedy show.. And the reason ? She was seen with a man in her house who wasnt her husband before her divorce got finalized... Dumb and pointless religion outrages like this are happening in the world every day and these individual storys are nothing compared to what religion really has done to the humanity and the world, Wars, Church scams, etc. There is literally nothing good about religion except for the fact that random people sleep better at night, thinking that they have a purpose in life. Edit: I thank "god" (herpderp) every day, that i was born in one of the most non religious countrys in the world.
If you look at my original reply - what I said was that it is ignorant to claim, as you do above, that there is "literally nothing good about religion". There is the good and bad, and to say that there is only bad is ignoring all the e.g. missionaries going into third world countries. It is more than helping random people sleep at night - there are countless examples of slums being developed into communities by religious groups that go over to help them set up basic agriculture/watering systems etc. Or religious doctors going to third world countries to provide medical care free of charge out of their belief in a non-existent God. The same goes for any other religion, such as Islam or Buddhism and the equivalent of their charitable work. I'm not saying prayers in school is right and religion is 100% good - but you are the ignorant one if you see things in black and white.
|
United States7483 Posts
On June 01 2011 15:34 BackHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 15:24 Liight wrote:On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. What the guy above me said and its also just common sense, religion has coused problems and chaos in the world since the start of it. This story is a good example.. This student refused to say a prayer for obvious reasons and ontop of that it was even illegal... The religious people ostracize him..
Teacher publicly demeaned him...
People threaten to beat him up and kill him...
His family threw him out on the street..
So was basically 'banished' for not wanting to pray to a 'god' ...So this is "okay" to religious people ? .... Yeah this was probably normal and okay 2000 fu*king years ago. But today in 2011 this is still going on and the soul reason for it is this brainwashing and pointless religion garbage that has haltered the world from being a better place to live in. And if you pay attention to the media, storys like this pop up every day accross the world, not so long ago i read a story about a female who got dragged out of her house to the police by her neighbours and she was sentenced to be beaten unconcious infront of an audience like it was some fucking comdedy show.. And the reason ? She was seen with a man in her house who wasnt her husband before her divorce got finalized... Dumb and pointless religion outrages like this are happening in the world every day and these individual storys are nothing compared to what religion really has done to the humanity and the world, Wars, Church scams, etc. There is literally nothing good about religion except for the fact that random people sleep better at night, thinking that they have a purpose in life. Edit: I thank "god" (herpderp) every day, that i was born in one of the most non religious countrys in the world. If you look at my original reply - what I said was that it is ignorant to claim, as you do above, that there is "literally nothing good about religion". There is the good and bad, and to say that there is only bad is ignoring all the e.g. missionaries going into third world countries. It is more than helping random people sleep at night - there are countless examples of slums being developed into communities by religious groups that go over to help them set up basic agriculture/watering systems etc. Or religious doctors going to third world countries to provide medical care free of charge out of their belief in a non-existent God. The same goes for any other religion, such as Islam or Buddhism and the equivalent of their charitable work. I'm not saying prayers in school is right and religion is 100% good - but you are the ignorant one if you see things in black and white.
Nothing good comes from religion, because whenever you base your decisions in a belief in utter nonsense, your decisions are tainted by bad reasoning and a complete lack of proper logic. Thus, your actions are tainted by idiocy.
If you would do good things without religion, without feeling pressured into behaving good because you fear a god or you want to be rewarded by a god, then and only then can you claim to be a good person.
This is an argument I first heard from Penn of Penn and Teller, and the conclusion is simple. Only an atheist has the potential to be a moral person, because a moral person is a person who does good for the simple reason that it is good, not because they fear some higher being.
For our society to advance, for mankind to continue to evolve and make leaps and bounds, and become greater than what we are, we need to move on from this superstitious nonsense and embrace learning, science, and most importantly, reason.
|
It is from my own personal experience herpder....
You can't compare the world to you and your friends and what you think that they would do in a certain situation...... Religion is a bigger subject than just your home town.
It would be the equivalent of say you saying a doctor is bad because he doesn't help homosexuals but only helps straight people, however the fact that he is already providing medical care to straight people that you aren't. The doctor is helping straight people but not homosexuals
This is probably the worst example ive ever heard -_-
You also forgot to mention that the doctor is not helping them because he hates the homosexuals and thinks they are representative of the devil, etc.
|
If you look at my original reply - what I said was that it is ignorant to claim, as you do above, that there is "literally nothing good about religion". There is the good and bad, and to say that there is only bad is ignoring all the e.g. missionaries going into third world countries. It is more than helping random people sleep at night - there are countless examples of slums being developed into communities by religious groups that go over to help them set up basic agriculture/watering systems etc. Or religious doctors going to third world countries to provide medical care free of charge out of their belief in a non-existent God. The same goes for any other religion, such as Islam or Buddhism and the equivalent of their charitable work. I'm not saying prayers in school is right and religion is 100% good - but you are the ignorant one if you see things in black and white.
You base your argument on that the "christians" would only do good and do what they are doing because of the bible/religion...
Who's to say that they wouldnt have even if they were athiests ?
If there were no churches, do you really think that NOTHING would replace them when it comes to charity and first aid and such ?
Im not really the ignorant one here bro.
|
On June 01 2011 15:40 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 15:34 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 15:24 Liight wrote:On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. What the guy above me said and its also just common sense, religion has coused problems and chaos in the world since the start of it. This story is a good example.. This student refused to say a prayer for obvious reasons and ontop of that it was even illegal... The religious people ostracize him..
Teacher publicly demeaned him...
People threaten to beat him up and kill him...
His family threw him out on the street..
So was basically 'banished' for not wanting to pray to a 'god' ...So this is "okay" to religious people ? .... Yeah this was probably normal and okay 2000 fu*king years ago. But today in 2011 this is still going on and the soul reason for it is this brainwashing and pointless religion garbage that has haltered the world from being a better place to live in. And if you pay attention to the media, storys like this pop up every day accross the world, not so long ago i read a story about a female who got dragged out of her house to the police by her neighbours and she was sentenced to be beaten unconcious infront of an audience like it was some fucking comdedy show.. And the reason ? She was seen with a man in her house who wasnt her husband before her divorce got finalized... Dumb and pointless religion outrages like this are happening in the world every day and these individual storys are nothing compared to what religion really has done to the humanity and the world, Wars, Church scams, etc. There is literally nothing good about religion except for the fact that random people sleep better at night, thinking that they have a purpose in life. Edit: I thank "god" (herpderp) every day, that i was born in one of the most non religious countrys in the world. If you look at my original reply - what I said was that it is ignorant to claim, as you do above, that there is "literally nothing good about religion". There is the good and bad, and to say that there is only bad is ignoring all the e.g. missionaries going into third world countries. It is more than helping random people sleep at night - there are countless examples of slums being developed into communities by religious groups that go over to help them set up basic agriculture/watering systems etc. Or religious doctors going to third world countries to provide medical care free of charge out of their belief in a non-existent God. The same goes for any other religion, such as Islam or Buddhism and the equivalent of their charitable work. I'm not saying prayers in school is right and religion is 100% good - but you are the ignorant one if you see things in black and white. Nothing good comes from religion, because whenever you base your decisions in a belief in utter nonsense, your decisions are tainted by bad reasoning and a complete lack of proper logic. Thus, your actions are tainted by idiocy. If you would do good things without religion, without feeling pressured into behaving good because you fear a god or you want to be rewarded by a god, then and only then can you claim to be a good person. This is an argument I first heard from Penn of Penn and Teller, and the conclusion is simple. Only an atheist has the potential to be a moral person, because a moral person is a person who does good for the simple reason that it is good, not because they fear some higher being. For our society to advance, for mankind to continue to evolve and make leaps and bounds, and become greater than what we are, we need to move on from this superstitious nonsense and embrace learning, science, and most importantly, reason.
Regardless of whether a religious person who is an idiot for believing in fiction is more moral or an atheist who doesn't, as I said, from what I've seen religious people tend to want to do good more than atheists do in terms of helping third world countries/homeless shelters. At the end of the day it's the results that matter, not the theoretical/philosophical implications of what the intent behind one's purpose is. I am an atheist, but I will be the first to admit that my religious friends tend to do more charitable work than I do (such as giving up their time volunteering for charity while I play SC2, for example). I'm definitely more intelligent than them because I don't believe in fairy-tales, but I'm not going to try and claim that I am a better person than them.
|
On June 01 2011 15:30 BackHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 15:07 Olinim wrote:On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. These are poor examples, charity would exist without religion. What benefit do these religious charities bring that others don't, who's to say these people wouldn't be generous regardless? Chances are these people would be charitable regardless of their religious beliefs, in fact I would venture to say religion harms charity more than aids it through discrimination. Christian organizations such as the Salvation Army refusing to aid homosexuals would be a good example. It is from my own personal experience that religious organisations such as Churches have people who are more enthusiastic about doing things such as going to third world countries and volunteering for homeless shelters. I don't have statistics to back this up but just from my own group of friends I'd say 50% of my Christian friends are charitable and actively sponsor children/volunteer whereas probably 5% of my atheist friends care about greater issues such as poverty and its alleviation in third world countries. It is their belief in an imaginary God which drives their desire for charitable work. And what exactly is the direct link between AIDS through discrimination and charity? Because although groups like the Salvation Army, although discriminatory towards homosexuals, do not actively prevent other charities who would like to target those areas from doing their work. It just happens that their charities are the ones who are helping those in the community and people are complaining about how their charity isn't going far enough. That is the complaint - that they are preventing some from accessing their services. This is already more than people that do nothing. They are not actively doing anything to cause damage. It would be the equivalent of say you saying a doctor is bad because he doesn't help homosexuals but only helps straight people, however the fact that he is already providing medical care to straight people that you aren't. The doctor is helping straight people but not homosexuals, whereas the complainant helps neither straight people or homosexuals.
You're argument was that religion was the cause or at least supported these charitable foundations, I pointed out that in fact many of them are HINDERED by it and would be more charitable and tolerant without it. You then say they are doing more than nothing, unlike us careless uncharitable atheists, and without it being predominantly Christian more people would be helped.
|
On June 01 2011 15:40 Liight wrote:You can't compare the world to you and your friends and what you think that they would do in a certain situation...... Religion is a bigger subject than just your home town. Show nested quote +It would be the equivalent of say you saying a doctor is bad because he doesn't help homosexuals but only helps straight people, however the fact that he is already providing medical care to straight people that you aren't. The doctor is helping straight people but not homosexuals This is probably the worst example ive ever heard -_- You also forgot to mention that the doctor is not helping them because he hates the homosexuals and thinks they are representative of the devil, etc.
Yes but the point is, he is a doctor in a third world country because he is religious. I have had several friends who, due to the influence of the Church, have decided to study subjects at university such as medicine for the purpose of being able to become missionaries. I presume that it is not just the Christians in my hometown that are like this, but many Christians worldwide who share such goals. Despite the fact that they are idiots for believing in a psychotic God who decides that killing babies of tribes that didn't believe in Him 6,000 years ago is a righteous act, they are still doing more to help the poor in poverty-stricken places than I am.
|
On June 01 2011 15:48 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 15:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 15:07 Olinim wrote:On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. These are poor examples, charity would exist without religion. What benefit do these religious charities bring that others don't, who's to say these people wouldn't be generous regardless? Chances are these people would be charitable regardless of their religious beliefs, in fact I would venture to say religion harms charity more than aids it through discrimination. Christian organizations such as the Salvation Army refusing to aid homosexuals would be a good example. It is from my own personal experience that religious organisations such as Churches have people who are more enthusiastic about doing things such as going to third world countries and volunteering for homeless shelters. I don't have statistics to back this up but just from my own group of friends I'd say 50% of my Christian friends are charitable and actively sponsor children/volunteer whereas probably 5% of my atheist friends care about greater issues such as poverty and its alleviation in third world countries. It is their belief in an imaginary God which drives their desire for charitable work. And what exactly is the direct link between AIDS through discrimination and charity? Because although groups like the Salvation Army, although discriminatory towards homosexuals, do not actively prevent other charities who would like to target those areas from doing their work. It just happens that their charities are the ones who are helping those in the community and people are complaining about how their charity isn't going far enough. That is the complaint - that they are preventing some from accessing their services. This is already more than people that do nothing. They are not actively doing anything to cause damage. It would be the equivalent of say you saying a doctor is bad because he doesn't help homosexuals but only helps straight people, however the fact that he is already providing medical care to straight people that you aren't. The doctor is helping straight people but not homosexuals, whereas the complainant helps neither straight people or homosexuals. You're argument was that religion was the cause or at least supported these charitable foundations, I pointed out that in fact many of them are HINDERED by it and would be more charitable and tolerant without it. You then say they are doing more than nothing, unlike us careless uncharitable atheists, and without it being predominantly Christian more people would be helped.
It may or may not be true that they may be more charitable and tolerant without the religious influences in their organisations, but the fact is they are doing more to help than those who do nothing. It is therefore up to us atheists and our non-religious charitable organisations to prove to people that we can do more help without religious influences (e.g. distributing condoms to homosexuals) than groups with religious influences. However at the present time all I am saying is that there are a lot of religious groups out there that help homeless/third world countries, etc. That are doing something good, therefore it is ignorant to say that religious is 100% bad.
|
On June 01 2011 15:07 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. These are poor examples, charity would exist without religion. What benefit do these religious charities bring that others don't, who's to say these people wouldn't be generous regardless? Chances are these people would be charitable regardless of their religious beliefs, in fact I would venture to say religion harms charity more than aids it through discrimination. Christian organizations such as the Salvation Army refusing to aid homosexuals would be a good example.
In Islam, donating to charity is an obligation if one is capable of doing so. As a result, even the least charitable people - if they are religious - will donate money that would otherwise have not been there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat
|
Yes but the point is, he is a doctor in a third world country because he is religious.
And here you go again(and pretty much every religion sided debater) with the religious people are good and athiests are bad argument, please dont.
Just like Olinim stated just above with his sarcastic note:
unlike us careless uncharitable atheists, and without it being predominantly Christian more people would be helped.
|
United States7483 Posts
On June 01 2011 15:48 BackHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 15:40 Whitewing wrote:On June 01 2011 15:34 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 15:24 Liight wrote:On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. What the guy above me said and its also just common sense, religion has coused problems and chaos in the world since the start of it. This story is a good example.. This student refused to say a prayer for obvious reasons and ontop of that it was even illegal... The religious people ostracize him..
Teacher publicly demeaned him...
People threaten to beat him up and kill him...
His family threw him out on the street..
So was basically 'banished' for not wanting to pray to a 'god' ...So this is "okay" to religious people ? .... Yeah this was probably normal and okay 2000 fu*king years ago. But today in 2011 this is still going on and the soul reason for it is this brainwashing and pointless religion garbage that has haltered the world from being a better place to live in. And if you pay attention to the media, storys like this pop up every day accross the world, not so long ago i read a story about a female who got dragged out of her house to the police by her neighbours and she was sentenced to be beaten unconcious infront of an audience like it was some fucking comdedy show.. And the reason ? She was seen with a man in her house who wasnt her husband before her divorce got finalized... Dumb and pointless religion outrages like this are happening in the world every day and these individual storys are nothing compared to what religion really has done to the humanity and the world, Wars, Church scams, etc. There is literally nothing good about religion except for the fact that random people sleep better at night, thinking that they have a purpose in life. Edit: I thank "god" (herpderp) every day, that i was born in one of the most non religious countrys in the world. If you look at my original reply - what I said was that it is ignorant to claim, as you do above, that there is "literally nothing good about religion". There is the good and bad, and to say that there is only bad is ignoring all the e.g. missionaries going into third world countries. It is more than helping random people sleep at night - there are countless examples of slums being developed into communities by religious groups that go over to help them set up basic agriculture/watering systems etc. Or religious doctors going to third world countries to provide medical care free of charge out of their belief in a non-existent God. The same goes for any other religion, such as Islam or Buddhism and the equivalent of their charitable work. I'm not saying prayers in school is right and religion is 100% good - but you are the ignorant one if you see things in black and white. Nothing good comes from religion, because whenever you base your decisions in a belief in utter nonsense, your decisions are tainted by bad reasoning and a complete lack of proper logic. Thus, your actions are tainted by idiocy. If you would do good things without religion, without feeling pressured into behaving good because you fear a god or you want to be rewarded by a god, then and only then can you claim to be a good person. This is an argument I first heard from Penn of Penn and Teller, and the conclusion is simple. Only an atheist has the potential to be a moral person, because a moral person is a person who does good for the simple reason that it is good, not because they fear some higher being. For our society to advance, for mankind to continue to evolve and make leaps and bounds, and become greater than what we are, we need to move on from this superstitious nonsense and embrace learning, science, and most importantly, reason. Regardless of whether a religious person who is an idiot for believing in fiction is more moral or an atheist who doesn't, as I said, from what I've seen religious people tend to want to do good more than atheists do in terms of helping third world countries/homeless shelters. At the end of the day it's the results that matter, not the theoretical/philosophical implications of what the intent behind one's purpose is. I am an atheist, but I will be the first to admit that my religious friends tend to do more charitable work than I do (such as giving up their time volunteering for charity while I play SC2, for example). I'm definitely more intelligent than them because I don't believe in fairy-tales, but I'm not going to try and claim that I am a better person than them.
An anecdotal argument is a poor one, for various reasons. From my personal experiences, the ones who go out of their way to do the most work toward helping others tend to be non-religious, but the ones who care the most about making it known that they help others are those that are religious. Then again, these are just experiences.
It's not a question of being a better person. It's a question of doing the right thing for the right reasons. Someone who is religious, and genuinely believes he needs to do the right thing because it's the only way to get into heaven, or avoid hell, or reach nirvana, or whatever else their religion might teach, is doing it for selfish reasons. They are tainted by the fact that they honestly believe that they will be better off after they die for having done it, therefore, it is in their best interests to do so. If an atheist goes out of his way to help someone at personal cost to himself, then he's not doing it because he hopes to make out well in an afterlife.
A requirement for being the best person you can be is that you do everything you do for good reasons, and it's not possible, logically speaking (if you agree with my premises, which you may choose to disagree with) for someone who is religious to do so.
My argument basically boils down to this:
A) To be the best person you can be, you must do good deeds simply because they are good deeds, and not because you want or expect a benefit towards yourself.
B) Someone who is religious has an expectation of benefits towards themselves in the long run.
C) Someone who is religious cannot be the best person they can be.
If A and B, then C.
EDIT: It logically follows that there is another step as well:
D) Someone who is religious could be a better person if they were not religious.
If C then D.
|
On June 01 2011 15:59 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 15:48 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 15:40 Whitewing wrote:On June 01 2011 15:34 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 15:24 Liight wrote:On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. What the guy above me said and its also just common sense, religion has coused problems and chaos in the world since the start of it. This story is a good example.. This student refused to say a prayer for obvious reasons and ontop of that it was even illegal... The religious people ostracize him..
Teacher publicly demeaned him...
People threaten to beat him up and kill him...
His family threw him out on the street..
So was basically 'banished' for not wanting to pray to a 'god' ...So this is "okay" to religious people ? .... Yeah this was probably normal and okay 2000 fu*king years ago. But today in 2011 this is still going on and the soul reason for it is this brainwashing and pointless religion garbage that has haltered the world from being a better place to live in. And if you pay attention to the media, storys like this pop up every day accross the world, not so long ago i read a story about a female who got dragged out of her house to the police by her neighbours and she was sentenced to be beaten unconcious infront of an audience like it was some fucking comdedy show.. And the reason ? She was seen with a man in her house who wasnt her husband before her divorce got finalized... Dumb and pointless religion outrages like this are happening in the world every day and these individual storys are nothing compared to what religion really has done to the humanity and the world, Wars, Church scams, etc. There is literally nothing good about religion except for the fact that random people sleep better at night, thinking that they have a purpose in life. Edit: I thank "god" (herpderp) every day, that i was born in one of the most non religious countrys in the world. If you look at my original reply - what I said was that it is ignorant to claim, as you do above, that there is "literally nothing good about religion". There is the good and bad, and to say that there is only bad is ignoring all the e.g. missionaries going into third world countries. It is more than helping random people sleep at night - there are countless examples of slums being developed into communities by religious groups that go over to help them set up basic agriculture/watering systems etc. Or religious doctors going to third world countries to provide medical care free of charge out of their belief in a non-existent God. The same goes for any other religion, such as Islam or Buddhism and the equivalent of their charitable work. I'm not saying prayers in school is right and religion is 100% good - but you are the ignorant one if you see things in black and white. Nothing good comes from religion, because whenever you base your decisions in a belief in utter nonsense, your decisions are tainted by bad reasoning and a complete lack of proper logic. Thus, your actions are tainted by idiocy. If you would do good things without religion, without feeling pressured into behaving good because you fear a god or you want to be rewarded by a god, then and only then can you claim to be a good person. This is an argument I first heard from Penn of Penn and Teller, and the conclusion is simple. Only an atheist has the potential to be a moral person, because a moral person is a person who does good for the simple reason that it is good, not because they fear some higher being. For our society to advance, for mankind to continue to evolve and make leaps and bounds, and become greater than what we are, we need to move on from this superstitious nonsense and embrace learning, science, and most importantly, reason. Regardless of whether a religious person who is an idiot for believing in fiction is more moral or an atheist who doesn't, as I said, from what I've seen religious people tend to want to do good more than atheists do in terms of helping third world countries/homeless shelters. At the end of the day it's the results that matter, not the theoretical/philosophical implications of what the intent behind one's purpose is. I am an atheist, but I will be the first to admit that my religious friends tend to do more charitable work than I do (such as giving up their time volunteering for charity while I play SC2, for example). I'm definitely more intelligent than them because I don't believe in fairy-tales, but I'm not going to try and claim that I am a better person than them. An anecdotal argument is a poor one, for various reasons. From my personal experiences, the ones who go out of their way to do the most work toward helping others tend to be non-religious, but the ones who care the most about making it known that they help others are those that are religious. Then again, these are just experiences. It's not a question of being a better person. It's a question of doing the right thing for the right reasons. Someone who is religious, and genuinely believes he needs to do the right thing because it's the only way to get into heaven, or avoid hell, or reach nirvana, or whatever else their religion might teach, is doing it for selfish reasons. They are tainted by the fact that they honestly believe that they will be better off after they die for having done it, therefore, it is in their best interests to do so. If an atheist goes out of his way to help someone at personal cost to himself, then he's not doing it because he hopes to make out well in an afterlife. A requirement for being the best person you can be is that you do everything you do for good reasons, and it's not possible, logically speaking (if you agree with my premises, which you may choose to disagree with) for someone who is religious to do so. My argument basically boils down to this: A) To be the best person you can be, you must do good deeds simply because they are good deeds, and not because you want or expect a benefit towards yourself. B) Someone who is religious has an expectation of benefits towards themselves in the long run. C) Someone who is religious cannot be the best person they can be. If A and B, then C.
And my reply to you is this - as an atheist, I agree with what you're saying in theory. Someone who does good works ought not to be doing it for the purpose of gaining benefits in the afterlife or because they feel like it would be the 'Christian' thing to do. However at the end of the day I am going by experience (like I say, I have no statistics to back it up, although I hazard a guess that religious organisations help a lot of people in poverty-stricken countries that would not have been helped had those religious organisations not existed).
To use an example - I am a part-time ukulele teacher to little kids. One thing I've found is that they are impossible to control and impossible to teach unless I give them incentives, e.g. I will give them a lolly at the end of the lesson if they sit and behave and practice. However if I don't, they'll just be lazy and hyperactive and don't bother. Religion is likewise the same. Even though those kids SHOULD be learning the ukulele properly so as to not waste their parents' tuition money, the fact is without giving them lollies they're just going to muck around. So with people in general - the fact that a fictional story about an imaginary being motivates/inspires them into doing things like becoming missionaries gives the end result of people in third world countries or people in homeless shelters an overall benefit that would not have otherwise been there. It would be nice to think that most atheists do a lot of charitable work - but it is from my experience, both being an atheist and having lots of atheist friends as well as religious friends, that atheists tend to do less than religious people. This may just be limited to my circle of friends, but I would be willing to bet that if you take 100 religious people and 100 atheists that the religious people would be more actively involved with charitable work. Again, this is just a presumption and I have no statistics to back it up so I could be wrong. But are you able to see the point that I am making?
|
United States7483 Posts
On June 01 2011 16:06 BackHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 15:59 Whitewing wrote:On June 01 2011 15:48 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 15:40 Whitewing wrote:On June 01 2011 15:34 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 15:24 Liight wrote:On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. What the guy above me said and its also just common sense, religion has coused problems and chaos in the world since the start of it. This story is a good example.. This student refused to say a prayer for obvious reasons and ontop of that it was even illegal... The religious people ostracize him..
Teacher publicly demeaned him...
People threaten to beat him up and kill him...
His family threw him out on the street..
So was basically 'banished' for not wanting to pray to a 'god' ...So this is "okay" to religious people ? .... Yeah this was probably normal and okay 2000 fu*king years ago. But today in 2011 this is still going on and the soul reason for it is this brainwashing and pointless religion garbage that has haltered the world from being a better place to live in. And if you pay attention to the media, storys like this pop up every day accross the world, not so long ago i read a story about a female who got dragged out of her house to the police by her neighbours and she was sentenced to be beaten unconcious infront of an audience like it was some fucking comdedy show.. And the reason ? She was seen with a man in her house who wasnt her husband before her divorce got finalized... Dumb and pointless religion outrages like this are happening in the world every day and these individual storys are nothing compared to what religion really has done to the humanity and the world, Wars, Church scams, etc. There is literally nothing good about religion except for the fact that random people sleep better at night, thinking that they have a purpose in life. Edit: I thank "god" (herpderp) every day, that i was born in one of the most non religious countrys in the world. If you look at my original reply - what I said was that it is ignorant to claim, as you do above, that there is "literally nothing good about religion". There is the good and bad, and to say that there is only bad is ignoring all the e.g. missionaries going into third world countries. It is more than helping random people sleep at night - there are countless examples of slums being developed into communities by religious groups that go over to help them set up basic agriculture/watering systems etc. Or religious doctors going to third world countries to provide medical care free of charge out of their belief in a non-existent God. The same goes for any other religion, such as Islam or Buddhism and the equivalent of their charitable work. I'm not saying prayers in school is right and religion is 100% good - but you are the ignorant one if you see things in black and white. Nothing good comes from religion, because whenever you base your decisions in a belief in utter nonsense, your decisions are tainted by bad reasoning and a complete lack of proper logic. Thus, your actions are tainted by idiocy. If you would do good things without religion, without feeling pressured into behaving good because you fear a god or you want to be rewarded by a god, then and only then can you claim to be a good person. This is an argument I first heard from Penn of Penn and Teller, and the conclusion is simple. Only an atheist has the potential to be a moral person, because a moral person is a person who does good for the simple reason that it is good, not because they fear some higher being. For our society to advance, for mankind to continue to evolve and make leaps and bounds, and become greater than what we are, we need to move on from this superstitious nonsense and embrace learning, science, and most importantly, reason. Regardless of whether a religious person who is an idiot for believing in fiction is more moral or an atheist who doesn't, as I said, from what I've seen religious people tend to want to do good more than atheists do in terms of helping third world countries/homeless shelters. At the end of the day it's the results that matter, not the theoretical/philosophical implications of what the intent behind one's purpose is. I am an atheist, but I will be the first to admit that my religious friends tend to do more charitable work than I do (such as giving up their time volunteering for charity while I play SC2, for example). I'm definitely more intelligent than them because I don't believe in fairy-tales, but I'm not going to try and claim that I am a better person than them. An anecdotal argument is a poor one, for various reasons. From my personal experiences, the ones who go out of their way to do the most work toward helping others tend to be non-religious, but the ones who care the most about making it known that they help others are those that are religious. Then again, these are just experiences. It's not a question of being a better person. It's a question of doing the right thing for the right reasons. Someone who is religious, and genuinely believes he needs to do the right thing because it's the only way to get into heaven, or avoid hell, or reach nirvana, or whatever else their religion might teach, is doing it for selfish reasons. They are tainted by the fact that they honestly believe that they will be better off after they die for having done it, therefore, it is in their best interests to do so. If an atheist goes out of his way to help someone at personal cost to himself, then he's not doing it because he hopes to make out well in an afterlife. A requirement for being the best person you can be is that you do everything you do for good reasons, and it's not possible, logically speaking (if you agree with my premises, which you may choose to disagree with) for someone who is religious to do so. My argument basically boils down to this: A) To be the best person you can be, you must do good deeds simply because they are good deeds, and not because you want or expect a benefit towards yourself. B) Someone who is religious has an expectation of benefits towards themselves in the long run. C) Someone who is religious cannot be the best person they can be. If A and B, then C. And my reply to you is this - as an atheist, I agree with what you're saying in theory. Someone who does good works ought not to be doing it for the purpose of gaining benefits in the afterlife or because they feel like it would be the 'Christian' thing to do. However at the end of the day I am going by experience (like I say, I have no statistics to back it up, although I hazard a guess that religious organisations help a lot of people in poverty-stricken countries that would not have been helped had those religious organisations not existed). To use an example - I am a part-time ukulele teacher to little kids. One thing I've found is that they are impossible to control and impossible to teach unless I give them incentives, e.g. I will give them a lolly at the end of the lesson if they sit and behave and practice. However if I don't, they'll just be lazy and hyperactive and don't bother. Religion is likewise the same. Even though those kids SHOULD be learning the ukulele properly so as to not waste their parents' tuition money, the fact is without giving them lollies they're just going to muck around. So with people in general - the fact that a fictional story about an imaginary being motivates/inspires them into doing things like becoming missionaries gives the end result of people in third world countries or people in homeless shelters an overall benefit that would not have otherwise been there. It would be nice to think that most atheists do a lot of charitable work - but it is from my experience, both being an atheist and having lots of atheist friends as well as religious friends, that atheists tend to do less than religious people. This may just be limited to my circle of friends, but I would be willing to bet that if you take 100 religious people and 100 atheists that the religious people would be more actively involved with charitable work. Again, this is just a presumption and I have no statistics to back it up so I could be wrong. But are you able to see the point that I am making?
I understand perfectly well what you mean, but I disagree with the conclusion that you intend: that it doesn't matter so much what they believe in and what their reasons are, but it matters more what their actions are. Yes, I agree that actions matter a lot, and that helping others is a great thing to do, but I do not agree, on the other hand, that reasons matter less than actions. Religion has enough negative baggage and problems that it causes, on many levels, that it negates much of the 'good' that comes from it. I don't know for sure that it's net negative by a huge margin, but just based on the fact that theoretically, sufficient scientific development would solve world hunger and many other serious issues, such as cancer and other diseases, and on the obvious hindrance that religion is towards that goal, and you can see why it's a clear net negative.
One only has to look at how religion hinders science, technology, and various other aspects of the growth and development of our species at every step of our history, and in modern day life, to see what I mean.
I've heard accomplished and highly respected scientists give what they refer to as 'conservative estimates' that for every year of scientific development we have made, we could have made 2 more years if it hadn't been for religion.
In the end however, we both agree on the theoretical part, so I'll drop it now.
|
On June 01 2011 16:12 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 16:06 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 15:59 Whitewing wrote:On June 01 2011 15:48 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 15:40 Whitewing wrote:On June 01 2011 15:34 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 15:24 Liight wrote:On June 01 2011 14:30 BackHo wrote:On June 01 2011 06:50 Liight wrote:
I gave up on humanity or caring about storys like this a long time ago, its 2011 and stuff like this (and way worse crap*cough*WBC) is still happening. I really dont see the point of religion when the Good/bad racio is so extremely in favour of the bad side (or well, pointless side)
All because of one age old harry potter book that was suppose to be the "rules of life" to try and get the people/world to be civilized, most of the storys in the bible just are metaphores and the commandments are just rules on how to behave....be nice, dont kill, etc.. its a basically just a childrens book.
But the average human is to stupid to realize and handle it, so they actually ''believe'' that the story was true.
Common sense, so rare its a godamn superpower. I agree that religion is a load of shit, but I'm not sure about the statement about the good-bad ratio being in favour of the bad side, when you take into account factors such as religious people sending missionaries to third world countries and volunteering at homeless shelters. What the guy above me said and its also just common sense, religion has coused problems and chaos in the world since the start of it. This story is a good example.. This student refused to say a prayer for obvious reasons and ontop of that it was even illegal... The religious people ostracize him..
Teacher publicly demeaned him...
People threaten to beat him up and kill him...
His family threw him out on the street..
So was basically 'banished' for not wanting to pray to a 'god' ...So this is "okay" to religious people ? .... Yeah this was probably normal and okay 2000 fu*king years ago. But today in 2011 this is still going on and the soul reason for it is this brainwashing and pointless religion garbage that has haltered the world from being a better place to live in. And if you pay attention to the media, storys like this pop up every day accross the world, not so long ago i read a story about a female who got dragged out of her house to the police by her neighbours and she was sentenced to be beaten unconcious infront of an audience like it was some fucking comdedy show.. And the reason ? She was seen with a man in her house who wasnt her husband before her divorce got finalized... Dumb and pointless religion outrages like this are happening in the world every day and these individual storys are nothing compared to what religion really has done to the humanity and the world, Wars, Church scams, etc. There is literally nothing good about religion except for the fact that random people sleep better at night, thinking that they have a purpose in life. Edit: I thank "god" (herpderp) every day, that i was born in one of the most non religious countrys in the world. If you look at my original reply - what I said was that it is ignorant to claim, as you do above, that there is "literally nothing good about religion". There is the good and bad, and to say that there is only bad is ignoring all the e.g. missionaries going into third world countries. It is more than helping random people sleep at night - there are countless examples of slums being developed into communities by religious groups that go over to help them set up basic agriculture/watering systems etc. Or religious doctors going to third world countries to provide medical care free of charge out of their belief in a non-existent God. The same goes for any other religion, such as Islam or Buddhism and the equivalent of their charitable work. I'm not saying prayers in school is right and religion is 100% good - but you are the ignorant one if you see things in black and white. Nothing good comes from religion, because whenever you base your decisions in a belief in utter nonsense, your decisions are tainted by bad reasoning and a complete lack of proper logic. Thus, your actions are tainted by idiocy. If you would do good things without religion, without feeling pressured into behaving good because you fear a god or you want to be rewarded by a god, then and only then can you claim to be a good person. This is an argument I first heard from Penn of Penn and Teller, and the conclusion is simple. Only an atheist has the potential to be a moral person, because a moral person is a person who does good for the simple reason that it is good, not because they fear some higher being. For our society to advance, for mankind to continue to evolve and make leaps and bounds, and become greater than what we are, we need to move on from this superstitious nonsense and embrace learning, science, and most importantly, reason. Regardless of whether a religious person who is an idiot for believing in fiction is more moral or an atheist who doesn't, as I said, from what I've seen religious people tend to want to do good more than atheists do in terms of helping third world countries/homeless shelters. At the end of the day it's the results that matter, not the theoretical/philosophical implications of what the intent behind one's purpose is. I am an atheist, but I will be the first to admit that my religious friends tend to do more charitable work than I do (such as giving up their time volunteering for charity while I play SC2, for example). I'm definitely more intelligent than them because I don't believe in fairy-tales, but I'm not going to try and claim that I am a better person than them. An anecdotal argument is a poor one, for various reasons. From my personal experiences, the ones who go out of their way to do the most work toward helping others tend to be non-religious, but the ones who care the most about making it known that they help others are those that are religious. Then again, these are just experiences. It's not a question of being a better person. It's a question of doing the right thing for the right reasons. Someone who is religious, and genuinely believes he needs to do the right thing because it's the only way to get into heaven, or avoid hell, or reach nirvana, or whatever else their religion might teach, is doing it for selfish reasons. They are tainted by the fact that they honestly believe that they will be better off after they die for having done it, therefore, it is in their best interests to do so. If an atheist goes out of his way to help someone at personal cost to himself, then he's not doing it because he hopes to make out well in an afterlife. A requirement for being the best person you can be is that you do everything you do for good reasons, and it's not possible, logically speaking (if you agree with my premises, which you may choose to disagree with) for someone who is religious to do so. My argument basically boils down to this: A) To be the best person you can be, you must do good deeds simply because they are good deeds, and not because you want or expect a benefit towards yourself. B) Someone who is religious has an expectation of benefits towards themselves in the long run. C) Someone who is religious cannot be the best person they can be. If A and B, then C. And my reply to you is this - as an atheist, I agree with what you're saying in theory. Someone who does good works ought not to be doing it for the purpose of gaining benefits in the afterlife or because they feel like it would be the 'Christian' thing to do. However at the end of the day I am going by experience (like I say, I have no statistics to back it up, although I hazard a guess that religious organisations help a lot of people in poverty-stricken countries that would not have been helped had those religious organisations not existed). To use an example - I am a part-time ukulele teacher to little kids. One thing I've found is that they are impossible to control and impossible to teach unless I give them incentives, e.g. I will give them a lolly at the end of the lesson if they sit and behave and practice. However if I don't, they'll just be lazy and hyperactive and don't bother. Religion is likewise the same. Even though those kids SHOULD be learning the ukulele properly so as to not waste their parents' tuition money, the fact is without giving them lollies they're just going to muck around. So with people in general - the fact that a fictional story about an imaginary being motivates/inspires them into doing things like becoming missionaries gives the end result of people in third world countries or people in homeless shelters an overall benefit that would not have otherwise been there. It would be nice to think that most atheists do a lot of charitable work - but it is from my experience, both being an atheist and having lots of atheist friends as well as religious friends, that atheists tend to do less than religious people. This may just be limited to my circle of friends, but I would be willing to bet that if you take 100 religious people and 100 atheists that the religious people would be more actively involved with charitable work. Again, this is just a presumption and I have no statistics to back it up so I could be wrong. But are you able to see the point that I am making? I understand perfectly well what you mean, but I disagree with the conclusion that you intend: that it doesn't matter so much what they believe in and what their reasons are, but it matters more what their actions are. Yes, I agree that actions matter a lot, and that helping others is a great thing to do, but I do not agree, on the other hand, that reasons matter less than actions. Religion has enough negative baggage and problems that it causes, on many levels, that it negates much of the 'good' that comes from it. I don't know for sure that it's net negative by a huge margin, but just based on the fact that theoretically, sufficient scientific development would solve world hunger and many other serious issues, such as cancer and other diseases, and on the obvious hindrance that religion is towards that goal, and you can see why it's a clear net negative. One only has to look at how religion hinders science, technology, and various other aspects of the growth and development of our species at every step of our history, and in modern day life, to see what I mean. I've heard accomplished and highly respected scientists give what they refer to as 'conservative estimates' that for every year of scientific development we have made, we could have made 2 more years if it hadn't been for religion. In the end however, we both agree on the theoretical part, so I'll drop it now.
Yes, true - like for stem-cell research. I look forward to the day where religion is completely abolished (i.e. viewed on the same level as children's fairytales, as it ought to be). My only concern is that if the Church is no longer seen as a valid place for education what organisation will pop up in its place as a driver of charitable-motivation in general. There are many atheist organisations in existence, but it is my belief that not as many atheists are as active (full-time) in charity as religious people. We generally tend to give the occasional donation or do the occasional annual bucket collection for the Red Cross or occasionally attend a live aid concert but less of us (for whatever reason) tend to dedicate our lives to becoming missionaries/charity workers for third world countries. Not saying there aren't any atheists that do it full-time, as of course there are, but I'm just saying, for example, at Church, pretty much every Christian is encouraged to become a missionary in order to spread the Word of God to third world countries like Africa. Usually it's the stuff like anti-homosexual or abortion marches that get reported in the news, but from my experiences in attending Church the majority of the preaching is about poverty whereas only say a few sermons per year are on issues like gay sex (although this is also dependent on the particular Church). Perhaps though, with scientific/technological advancement and capitalism, poverty in third world countries will solve itself due to mass-synthetic-food-production technology or something similar, without the need for people to become volunteers as much etc.
|
Sorry to be picky but there is good news to this debate:
"sufficient scientific development would solve world hunger"
We already have enough food to solve world hunger. The problem lies in the distribution of the food and many other economic and political factors. So for example many 3rd world countries are EXPORTING food to first world countries where they could be using that to feed themselves. When they export they do get money, but who gets the money and what they do with it usually does not benefit the starving and the poor. So this hunger problem is more of a social problem then a scientific one.
"One only has to look at how religion hinders science, technology, and various other aspects of the growth and development of our species at every step of our history, and in modern day life, to see what I mean"
This matters depending on the values that you hold or espouse, a western culture like one found in the USA typically values 'Change' as good, especially technological, where as other cultures value tradition and stability, and are more apprehensive to it, whether a cultural value is good or bad is very debatable because its based on our perceptions and biases. We like change and change has brought many things, good and bad. The things I like to point out though is that when we step into another culture, religious or not, they might not espouse the same values as we do, so to do something good without religious intentions in another culture would also have to entail that the culture you are doing the 'good deed' too, is deemed 'good' by them as well.
I can see that many people here conclusively agree that 'religion' might not be the 'best thing', but we live in a world that is full of it, and if we truly want to help those people, we may have to learn how to respect it for those people to accept the help that we give.
|
You do realize religion isn't to blame for anything here, just the entire town full of dumbshits who can't understand the most basic thing about it are the problem.
People feel the need for some sort of spirituality eventually in their lives.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
