[Xujhan]

Originally Posted by dr2005

I did say I was going to stay out of it, but once again Fletcher throws a curveball. Damn you.

Love you too.

Originally Posted by dr2005

That's a rather unsubstantiated claim in its current form, and does call for these reasons to be stated and an explanation as to why they are more divisive (which is the implication) than mere politics, geography or sheer human nature.

First, quickly: I made no comparison to politics, geography or human nature, so I'm not sure why you're mentioning them. The simple answer though is that those are things we cannot escape: we cannot help but be human, we cannot live on any other world (yet), and if we're to have any society at all we cannot escape politics. Certainly they do all cause harm in some ways, but that harm is unavoidable; these things simply cannot be helped. Religion is not similarly a mandatory part of our existence.

As regards my claim about religion being a blight on the world: I think you've challenged me on this once before, and I still say that there's no way I can do the subject justice in one forum post, or even many forum posts. If you like though, consider this a very, very abridged summary:

- Moderate religion does not generally provide any particular comfort that is missing for someone who has grown up outside religion.
- What good ideals are promoted by moderate religion are just as easily promoted by secular ideologies.
- Extreme religion is exceptionally damaging.
- The existence of moderate religion creates and protects extreme religion.
- Religion necessarily teaches people to be satisfied with claims unsupported or unsupportable by evidence.
- Institutionalized religion is a fiscal drain on society.

Originally Posted by dr2005

Surely if it had that message and no other, your objections to it should be zero? That is after all preaching love and peace in its purest form, and the fact that you would retain objections infers that you're not being entirely straightforward about the bar you are setting.

Calling something a religion still implies some claim about a deity or supernatural force, which means it's still at least indirectly advocating acceptance of something without evidence, which I unequivocally object to. So, "God wants only for us to love and be at peace", admittedly a very minimalist religion, I would object to on those grounds. "We should all love and be at peace" is something I have no objection to, but that would be called an ideology, not a religion.

Originally Posted by dr2005

This is an analogy which has come up on a number of occasions, and it remains a flawed one. All of the above have in their very nature observable criteria which fall within our frame of reference - physical characteristics such as a unicorn's horse body and forehead horn, leprechauns' size and other characteristics, Zeus' beard and robes, Thor's beard and hammer and the architecture of Atlantis. (I'm omitting the others because including characters from explicit works of fiction is a bit of a smoke-and-mirrors ploy in trying to convince people religion is fiction) All of these thereby leave markers which are observable to us and would indicate their existence; while there is some spurious evidence that suggest somewhere like Atlantis may have existed (and spurious is definitely the word), no evidence for it or the others has been found which meets the required standard and could reasonably be expected given their depictions. As such, the lack of evidence can specifically count against their existence as depicted. In contrast, Yahweh (to use your example) has no such characteristics which are observable in the same way - the Torah contains no description of him, nor does the Bible, and Islam forbids any depictions of him so you won't find any there either. Whatever form Yahweh may take exists outside of our Universe and thereby outside our frame of reference, and while that provides no proof for his existence it does make the comparison you posited a flawed one.

You've made this argument before, and I have the same response: being unfalsifiable is not a point in favour of a hypothesis. If we're to be technical, I suppose we should say that the lack of evidence for unicorns is a reason to doubt that they exist, but the impossibility of evidence against Yahweh is reason to not even take the claim seriously in the first place.

Secondly, while there is no physical description of Yahweh in the bible, there are descriptions of his character that are entirely human, and descriptions of actions said to have been taken by him which can be shown to not have happened (the Flood comes most immediately to mind). Finding that there was no global flood a few thousand years ago is akin to finding that there in no pantheon on the crest of Mt. Olympus. Sure, it could just mean that Zeus and friends are elsewhere, but that's ad hoc reasoning.

Originally Posted by dr2005

All I will say is that I would not advise holding your breath on that. For one thing, you tend to suffocate which is never advisable...

I have no doubt that Christianity will outlive me, to be sure, but I'm quite confident that Jesus will one day take his place beside Zeus and Thor.

Originally Posted by mIssIng:no

Then you are straight retarded, I can name one of the biggest charitable oraganizations off the top of my head and guess what, its Christian. How many Churches open up their doors for homeless people to sleep, how many have free meals for homeless people. I'd say thats a pretty good reason to think that religion increases the amount of love and peace in th world, and it took me about 3 seconds to think of that, I could easily do more but why?

None of those are reasons to think that religion is causing good in the world unless there are reasons to think that those things wouldn't exist without religion. People who give to charity and help the homeless would still do those things if they were not religious. The things you describe are as they are because our entire society was Christian until very recently.

Originally Posted by mIssIng:no

People have different opinions on what they want to believe, I'm not going to think someone is less intelligent because of it. I may not agree with it, but they have every right in the world of believe what ever the hell they want. Its not a good message, but thats only in "my" view. Also, i'd be inclined to agree that Humanity needs punishment.

Yes, people have the right to believe what they like. You'll note I'm not advocating making religion illegal. Certainly there are intelligent religious people and there are dumb atheists, but overwhelming I find that atheists tend to be better educated and more intelligent/intellectual as a group than the religious. As for humanity needing punishment; I pity you. I think that would be a very depressing mindset with which to live.

Originally Posted by mIssIng:no

I didn't mean "him" directly, although "I despise religion, it causes so much pain and is responsible for stifling free thought to an unpresedented degree. It stands for the banishment of reason and critical thinking" pretty much shows he thinks religion brings peoples ability to think for them selves and unable to think logically (or critically as he put i) which is pretty much saying that religion equals lack of intelligence. and also. You haven't heard/met anyone who's made this claim, so it has no merit, but since you've heard Fundamentalists says Atheists are immoral it makes it true? So YOU have to hear something personally for it to be true? Damn, how far is your head up your ass if you think thats the case?

This seems to be a common misunderstanding, but an attack on religion is not the same as an attack on religious people. I completely agree with him that religion stifles progress and reasoning. That doesn't mean that all religious people are incapable of reasoning well, it means that those who do, do so in spite of their religion. "I think religion is evil" and "I think the religious are evil" are not the same statement. I know many atheists who say the former, or some version similar, but I know almost no one who seriously claims the latter.

Originally Posted by mIssIng:no

I used the whole proof/no proof thing just to show that its stupid when people think someone is "less intelligent" for following a religion. Its like saying someone is stupid for saying a sports team is going to win the championship before the season even has began, there is no real way to make the claim either way, only can you piece the little bits of evidence you have together to make an decision on what you want to believe (Its obviously on a much, much larger scale)

Sauron is from the lord of the rings, Narnia is from a series a books with a related title, Klingons are from Star trek. Atlantis actually is a possibility as there is sunken areas of the world, Unicorns are just a stupid fairy tale, along with Faeries and Leprechauns. And yes, Yahweh is a more sensible claim because there has been more evidence pointing towards the possibility he does exist (whether the evidence is legit is up for grabs, but there still is) The fact that Faeries and such are just folk legends in most parts of the world, while any "diety" has information that can point towards a "real" existence, but I will agree with you, it does take blind faith for someone to accept it completely.

Also, stop grasping at straws, Sauron, Narnia, Klingons? Cmon man, also, No one worships anything else that you put there (unless you count Zeus and thor, but you yourself said no one follows) so once again, this was a grasp at straws considering it has nothing to do with the current topic, no one is following the word of the unicorn and claiming it to be the "right" religion, so once again no real point there, i understand that you gotta be sarcastic to stay edgy but really you can do better than that.

I'm not being sarcastic. From where I sit, these things are more or less equally fictional. You yourself point at all these things and say "These are just from folk tales, myths and stories", and yes, that's my point! Thank you for understanding. Yahweh is also just a myth, albeit one that has tragically outlived its stay. The only importance difference between Yahweh and Zeus is the era in which they were each taken seriously. These are all things that were written in stories by people.

Originally Posted by mIssIng:no

I'm not even going to bother though. The fact that you'd even bring fictional characters into this argument shows that you just want to bash religion at any chance you get with pretty dumb claims.

I'm not even religious and I'd hate to call my self an atheist if it meant being group with people like you. I can understand wanting proof of something to believe it exists (i.e a greater being), which is why I personally don't my self. But you have to be very, very narrow minded if you believe that religion (ANY religion) does not do a huge amount of great in the world.

Forgive me for being flummoxed by this, but I don't understand how you can be making that accusation. I've deliberately gone out of my way to differentiate between attacking religion itself and attacking religious people. As I keep saying, hating religious does not mean hating religious people. "Hate the sin, not the sinner," as the saying goes. And while I really don't like pointing fingers, I don't see how you can reasonably claim that I've been uncivil, particularly considering how you've been speaking yourself. In one post you've managed to accuse me of being (very) narrow-minded, retarded, petty, and of having my head firmly planted within my buttocks. How am I the uncivil one?