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On June 01 2011 16:59 jacknory wrote:
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.
Yes, that's why I wrote "e.g. mass synthetic food producing technology." There is also the argument that if everyone in the world adopted a vegetarian diet, then there would be enough food to feed the world many times over due to the fact that the majority of the food in the world that is produced is going to feeding livestock, so we are in fact actively wasting food by reducing the total amount (by recycling it first through animals, that would not otherwise exist if not bred for the purposes of meat consumption). However at the end of the day, like you say, political factors have to be taken into account. That is why hopefully science will one day make the total cost of producing food so minimal that to distribute it widely to third world countries will cost hardly anything.
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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. 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.
Only reason people care to be "good" beyond the point of going to jail if they're not is religion sadly. If you take it in a rational way you have absolutely no reason to go in some disease wrecked country to help some randoms you don't know. Why would you give a shit? I know i don't.
Religion preaches how good will return to you 3fold and other things like that, and it's there that people get these things in their culture. At any rate religion brings forth a great deal of good things, it's just the people that make it look bad by misinterpreting it. If they weren't religious zealots they'd just find some other stupid shit to do.
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Stop saying "religion" when you mean "christianity"
None of these conversations are relevant. The government can't endorse a specific religion, and that is a good policy to have. If your conversation isn't about that, you misunderstand the whole problem.
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United States1231 Posts
Yo, don't pray in my school, and I won't think in your church, forgot who's sig had that but yea. That is totally wrong, can sunday school may you pray? f'ed up.
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On June 02 2011 00:02 Eknoid4 wrote:
Stop saying "religion" when you mean "christianity"
What the fuck?
Christianity (from the Ancient Greek word Χριστός, Khristos, "Christ", literally "anointed one") is a monotheistic religion[1] based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings.[2] Adherents of the Christian faith are known as Christians.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity
–noun, plural -ties.
1.
the Christian religion, including the Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox churches.
2.
Christian beliefs or practices; Christian quality or character: Christianity mixed with pagan elements; the Christianity of Augustine's thought.
3.
a particular Christian religious system: She followed fundamentalist Christianity.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/christianity
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=james 1:27&version=NIV
Edit: No-one really gives a fuck if most mainstream Christians today prefer the term 'relationship' rather than religion, it's the same old imaginary-being-worshiping bullshit.
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Wait, I may have misinterpreted your post. But at the end of the day who gives a shit if one calls it religion or Christianity, all religions are pretty much the same.
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On June 02 2011 00:33 BackHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2011 00:02 Eknoid4 wrote:
Stop saying "religion" when you mean "christianity"
What the fuck? Christianity (from the Ancient Greek word Χριστός, Khristos, "Christ", literally "anointed one") is a monotheistic religion[1] based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings.[2] Adherents of the Christian faith are known as Christians.[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity–noun, plural -ties. 1. the Christian religion, including the Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox churches. 2. Christian beliefs or practices; Christian quality or character: Christianity mixed with pagan elements; the Christianity of Augustine's thought. 3. a particular Christian religious system: She followed fundamentalist Christianity. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/christianityReligion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=james 1:27&version=NIVEdit: No-one really gives a fuck if most mainstream Christians today prefer the term 'relationship' rather than religion, it's the same old imaginary-being-worshiping bullshit.
Nice to see you can argue semantics and just not understand what i'm saying.
People say "religion" but the only religion most of them are talking about is Christianity. There are MANY religions that don't promise any of the things the post i quoted purports "religion" to espouse.
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United States7483 Posts
On June 01 2011 16:59 jacknory wrote:
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.
The logistical problems inherent in distributing the food to those who need it is sufficiently difficult that it will require a technological breakthrough to fix, that's what I was referencing when I mentioned it eventually being solved. As for your argument regarding change, cultural relativism is wrong, for various reasons. It doesn't matter at all what they value as good or bad, it matters what is logically good or bad. Strict adherence to tradition is a terrible thing as well, one should never follow tradition simply because it is tradition, you should have other reasons for doing it.
Logically, technological development is always a good thing, I literally can't think of any situation where people are worse off for the existence of better technology.
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On June 01 2011 17:09 Cyba 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. 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. Only reason people care to be "good" beyond the point of going to jail if they're not is religion sadly. If you take it in a rational way you have absolutely no reason to go in some disease wrecked country to help some randoms you don't know. Why would you give a shit? I know i don't. Religion preaches how good will return to you 3fold and other things like that, and it's there that people get these things in their culture. At any rate religion brings forth a great deal of good things, it's just the people that make it look bad by misinterpreting it. If they weren't religious zealots they'd just find some other stupid shit to do.
Sorry, but we do have an understanding for how altruism came to be without religion. Altruism benefits groups. It promotes the survival of the species rather than the survival of the individual. The survival of the individual is great, but if it is at the cost of the survival of the group/species it's not a very good trait now is it?
There are plenty of examples of altruism in animals as well, do they need religion?
You claim religion "brings forth" good things. I would argue religion is attributed to good things just the same as religion is used to justify atrocities but religion is not the cause.
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On June 02 2011 01:53 Whitewing wrote:
Logically, technological development is always a good thing, I literally can't think of any situation where people are worse off for the existence of better technology.
Tell that to people who have been shot or lost body parts due to explosive devices.
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On June 02 2011 03:29 MozzarellaL wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2011 01:53 Whitewing wrote:
Logically, technological development is always a good thing, I literally can't think of any situation where people are worse off for the existence of better technology. Tell that to people who have been shot or lost body parts due to explosive devices.
And can thus hope for better days with the assistance of technology (prosthetics) and medicine.
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On June 01 2011 17:09 Cyba 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. 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. Only reason people care to be "good" beyond the point of going to jail if they're not is religion sadly. If you take it in a rational way you have absolutely no reason to go in some disease wrecked country to help some randoms you don't know. Why would you give a shit? I know i don't. Religion preaches how good will return to you 3fold and other things like that, and it's there that people get these things in their culture. At any rate religion brings forth a great deal of good things, it's just the people that make it look bad by misinterpreting it. If they weren't religious zealots they'd just find some other stupid shit to do.
I fear more the man who needs a god to do good, than the man who has no god.
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Real Christians would not and should not harass/bully other people. WHAT ARE THEY BEING TAUGHT IN CHURCH!!! CHURCH DIDN'T TEACH ME TO abuse someone cuz of therir religion! And its Parents' responsibility to care for him. Shame that it happened.
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On June 02 2011 03:54 Precipice wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 17:09 Cyba 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. 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. Only reason people care to be "good" beyond the point of going to jail if they're not is religion sadly. If you take it in a rational way you have absolutely no reason to go in some disease wrecked country to help some randoms you don't know. Why would you give a shit? I know i don't. Religion preaches how good will return to you 3fold and other things like that, and it's there that people get these things in their culture. At any rate religion brings forth a great deal of good things, it's just the people that make it look bad by misinterpreting it. If they weren't religious zealots they'd just find some other stupid shit to do. I fear more the man who needs a god to do good, than the man who has no god.
Yeh i'm sure the ancient azztechs were heading off to do some charties after they sacrificied some children. Modern society is pretty much cemented in christian values, as is our sense of morality.
I may be an atheist but i'm not naive when it comes to that. You don't need to believe in god to do good nowadays but you wouldn't if the notion never existed to beginwith.
Also remember i'm talking about charities, it's one thing helping somebody you know or who's right there next to you and needs help and a completely different thing to run off in the middle of nowhere to help out some people you've never seen before and only know about their ordeals from the paper just for the sake of helping.
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On June 02 2011 03:36 EdaPoe wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2011 03:29 MozzarellaL wrote:On June 02 2011 01:53 Whitewing wrote:
Logically, technological development is always a good thing, I literally can't think of any situation where people are worse off for the existence of better technology. Tell that to people who have been shot or lost body parts due to explosive devices. And can thus hope for better days with the assistance of technology (prosthetics) and medicine.
You mean live the rest of their days as a cripple as opposed to not a cripple?
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On June 02 2011 04:40 Cyba wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2011 03:54 Precipice wrote:On June 01 2011 17:09 Cyba 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. 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. Only reason people care to be "good" beyond the point of going to jail if they're not is religion sadly. If you take it in a rational way you have absolutely no reason to go in some disease wrecked country to help some randoms you don't know. Why would you give a shit? I know i don't. Religion preaches how good will return to you 3fold and other things like that, and it's there that people get these things in their culture. At any rate religion brings forth a great deal of good things, it's just the people that make it look bad by misinterpreting it. If they weren't religious zealots they'd just find some other stupid shit to do. I fear more the man who needs a god to do good, than the man who has no god. Yeh i'm sure the ancient azztechs were heading off to do some charties after they sacrificied some children. Modern society is pretty much cemented in christian values, as is our sense of morality. I may be an atheist but i'm not naive when it comes to that. You don't need to believe in god to do good nowadays but you wouldn't if the notion never existed to beginwith. Also remember i'm talking about charities, it's one thing helping somebody you know or who's right there next to you and needs help and a completely different thing to run off in the middle of nowhere to help out some people you've never seen before and only know about their ordeals from the paper just for the sake of helping.
You should get out of the country you live in and get a realistic view of the world if you think you're not naive.
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Been pretty much everywhere exept africa so far, your point is ?
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On June 02 2011 05:02 Cyba wrote:
Been pretty much everywhere exept africa so far, your point is ?
So you still think Christian values are the primary moral influence in places that had morals and religion and laws before christianity even existed?
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I was refering to the western part coupled with christianity yes. However every culture in the world has a religion and they all have similar teachings. It's easy to imagine in today's world that something like charity could exist without religion because NOW it can.
Don't forget that untill just about the last century the bigest part of what we consider right/wrong was enforced by religion. Even though it only reached us through our parents, media, school etc, those were still infused with the notions that religion was preaching a long time before we ever got there.
While it may be obsolete in many ways nowadays, commoner kids used to go to "school" at churches and temples before the public schools came to be. It's hard to generalize this to everywhere, but it's pretty much the same mechanism at work everywhere in the world.
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On June 02 2011 05:57 Cyba wrote:
While it may be obsolete in many ways nowadays, commoner kids used to go to "school" at churches and temples before the public schools came to be. It's hard to generalize this to everywhere, but it's pretty much the same mechanism at work everywhere in the world.
No they didn't. Commoner kids didn't go to school, they apprenticed themselves out or took up the family business. Rich families hired tutors, or bought smart slaves, and as time went on, colleges and academies were established by super smart dudes and adolescent men came to them to learn. In America, children were taught by their parents; in larger communities, by 1 or 2 women specifically hired for the task.
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EPT
