discuss

Religions are all quite silly and pointless.

I only believe in IppE.

They're a good source of war, strife and hate.

It's better to believe without any religious shit.
True faith is deep inside the soul. But many people fight for their religion. And if they believe in good God, why do they do evil?

religion is an outdated concept. it was important in older times, because without lies nobody would seek for the truth, but now it's really just an old concept that brings more evil than it brings good things. you could argue that religion brings us important ethics, but ethics are deeply implemented in our culture, so we won't lose them if religion vanishes.

tl;dr

IppE wrote:

Religions are all quite silly and pointless.

People can believe what they like as long as it is not forced upon others, so they can believe in the fairy god mother and i will not care, but as soon as they start shoving that belief on others forcefully thats when i think fuck you.

There's nothing wrong in believing in something supernatural just because it brings you hope/internal peace etc. but if you speak about religions as organisations,mainly the most influential ones like Christianity and Islam,I'd say that there's absolutely no need for them,the only reason why they even exist is to rule the masses,just because 99,9% of Earth's population consists of intellectually deranged people which behave like sheep in a way,so it's pretty much easy to control them with something they couldn't possibly understand.
Gosh I hate my poor vocabulary,can't even properly explain what I wanted to say...oh well...

gurodoll wrote:

They're a good source of war, strife and hate.

You forgot money mate.

I don't think religion is inherently bad. People are just retarded for manipulating it and misinterpreting it. There are a lot of really cool religious people who keep it to themselves and are otherwise unbiased. Basically instead of blaming religion, blame the person for using it in a retarded way.

meanwhile: http://www.allout.org/en/actions/georgia

this thread will go very well I assure you my friend

Wojjan wrote:

meanwhile: http://www.allout.org/en/actions/georgia

Let's go back to the middle ages when people like those burnt people who weren't by their "standards"... where is this world going

Religion is only partly pointless but I can tolerate it as long as I'm not forced to believe something I deem false in my own personal circumstances. It's only meant to be a belief system, not a way of life. That may be a bit hypocritical coming from me as I have partly adopted the Buddhist life style, but that is personally what I believe; there is no way for me to go against how my mother feels about things unless it is out of hand.

Saṃsāra, my mind it wanders a dark forest.

fuck religion

The thing about religious freedom topics in a place like this is that everyone is going to say the same thing, generally: "religion is okay etc etc, but it shouldn't impose itself on other people etc etc, my mind wanders in a dark forest etc etc"

my mind wanders in a dark forest

All our minds wander in a dark forest

Wojjan wrote:

The thing about religious freedom topics in a place like this is that everyone is going to say the same thing, generally: "religion is okay etc etc, but it shouldn't impose itself on other people etc etc, my mind wanders in a dark forest etc etc"

Fine, I'll be a little controversial (to play a bit of devil's advocate) and say that religion is NOT okay, even if you keep it to yourself. Basically, unless you have solid evidence for your claims, anything that is not fact should not be believed and furthermore, can be potentially be dangerous. Simply going to church and representing the masses of people that the pope (or any religions leader) has managed to deceive is just continuing the destructive cycle that can lead to homophobia, lies, and manipulation. The number of people that become raised to believe that "fags should burn in hell" will increase if religion continues to grow; religions encourage and practically breed discrimination, and unless religion itself fundamentally changes this will never change.

Wojjan wrote:

The thing about religious freedom topics in a place like this is that everyone is going to say the same thing, generally: "religion is okay etc etc, but it shouldn't impose itself on other people etc etc, my mind wanders in a dark forest etc etc"

Hika wrote:

my mind wanders in a dark forest

Aurani wrote:

All our minds wander in a dark forest

<3

so much discussion going on already

Personally, I dislike religion. I can't help but get annoyed over it.

Oh dear, nothing good can come from this topic.

Religions exists because humans are stupid and need rules they can break to anger other humans to have an excuse to kill them <3

my mind wanders in a dark forest

mathexpert9981 wrote:

words

you've made me pull out my debate stick

Basically, unless you have solid evidence for your claims, anything that is not fact should not be believed and furthermore, can be potentially be dangerous.

you do this thousands of time a day every time you look at pictures, even ones of people and things you've seen before and are intimately acquainted with. hundreds of millions of judgements are drawn by your subconscious every day, made with nothing but instinctual earnest. you are a machine that disseminates and coagulates seemingly arbitrary patterns into things that "mean" something - all at the behest of a part of your being that you cannot even control.

Simply going to church and representing the masses of people that the pope (or any religions leader) has managed to deceive is just continuing the destructive cycle that can lead to homophobia, lies, and manipulation.

strawman it up, baby. clearly since homophobia has been insinuated with religion in the past, that means that all religions (ESPECIALLY CHRISTIANITY SNARL) are homophobic and thus are bad. first step in critical thinking is really important: correlation is not equal to causation. this will take you far in life - embrace it, and you'll laugh at silly notions like the one you're putting forward instead of being ridiculed by them.

The number of people that become raised to believe that "fags should burn in hell" will increase if religion continues to grow; religions encourage and practically breed discrimination, and unless religion itself fundamentally changes this will never change.

imperative assertions with absolutely no basis. do you know what we call things like this? we call them prejudices. blanket assertions about discrimination in large society groups is nothing new and by far nothing specific to religions, even if the ethos of some may ardently encourage it. i invite you to actually sit down and read some literature on human group formation in social environments, and you'll see that a lot of things are the way they are fundamentally because of people, not because of the structures and the grouping they create.

personally, for me, religion is a significant part of my life. i am not a regular attender to religious services nor am i particularly pious or devout, but i was raised by parents whom were struggling to escape from the clutches of the jehovahs witnesses and as such, had a very 'neutral' aspect of Christianity taught to me from a very early age. i was taught the core teachings, jesus died for our sins, so on, so forth, with none of the secular associational stuff such as the trinity or any other debated aspects. my father simply sat me down and told me how he saw and felt the world, and how his faith was a massive part of that. my father is very scientifically oriented - his faith has never once interrupted that. he once worked as an industrial chemist and still kindles a deep love for science and chemistry in general despite not being able to work in it anymore due to health issues. i have overarching conversations with him about many different developments in my own field (psychology) and ones I dabble in for shits and giggles.

from all those conversations, and infact, everything i've ever learned, one key aspect stays with me. how immeasurably complex yet startlingly specific almost everything in this planet and perhaps universe is. there are links upon links upon links and then more links where you wouldn't even expect to find links. everything ties itself to everything else in ways that defy belief. the world's systems are so unbelievably convoluted and unspeakably complex to the degree that they self-regulate passively with no intervention required whatsoever.

asking me as an intellectual individual to believe that this all arose from absolutely nothing and is completely a product of chance and iteration is ridiculous - significantly less ridiculous than the idea that another divine or otherwise supernaturally powerful entity created and designed the foundations of the incredibly complex organic systems that underpin our planet and our species' survival in an otherwise toxic and unforgiving universe to our form of life.

believe what you like about religion. i don't really care and the fact that i don't care probably won't matter the tiniest bit to you, and that's great. rail on it for people being stupid and using its bounds as a means to achieve their own means, the same way people argue about governmental structures and how they are often abused for the benefit of the few at the expense of many. rail on it for being a product of opinions and ideals thousands of years old in a world decidedly different and foreign from our current one in every way. rail on it for promoting prejudice, slaughtering kittens and stealing candy from babies because you are too dense to see past group markers like mostly everybody else and are too happy to continue with your kneejerk reaction to everything pertinent religion because you too, like the religious fanatics, are too caught up in their prejudices which seem "internally" correct to sit down and actively contemplate and discuss a matter in depth.

tl;dr - correlation != causation, group affiliation != individual attribution

I was going to say something but Eph did it better than me

religion is shit

There is worth to be found in the various scriptures / texts, some are quite beautiful and thought provoking. On the other hand, such teachings that directly encourage segregation and discrimination of others really have no place in the present.

Zarerion wrote:

my mind wanders in a dark forest

I've set up a bank account, just 20% of your income and an eventual relocation to our new church is all that's required for you to find the answers you need, the glimmer of light in the forest, obscured by earthy ignorance.

fuck anyone saying they're being oppressed. All agnostics, theists, deists, and atheists are hardly minorities. It pisses me off to see people insulting religion like this yet being too scared to come up to their parents, their peers, or whatever and saying it straight out.

Tanzklaue wrote:

religion is an outdated concept. it was important in older times, because without lies nobody would seek for the truth, but now it's really just an old concept that brings more evil than it brings good things. you could argue that religion brings us important ethics, but ethics are deeply implemented in our culture, so we won't lose them if religion vanishes.

tl;dr

IppE wrote:

Religions are all quite silly and pointless.

I find it to be a fundamental need, just like practicing arabesques is to the professional artist. While our culture retains certain ethics, it's still lacking things such as trust and love. Read Remembering, by Wendell Berry. It shows how our modern society's crumbled as far as how close people are with each other. As in, everyone's so shut in it's sad as hell.

Besides, I find that religious ideals are much better than the general populace's ideals, which tend to be bitter and cynical.

gurodoll wrote:

There is worth to be found in the various scriptures / texts, some are quite beautiful and thought provoking. On the other hand, such teachings that directly encourage segregation and discrimination of others really have no place in the present.

Throw me quotes, do it.

And if you link me to the skeptic's annotated Bible, you might as well go read the NET Bible (with notes), which already has every single note covered.

I don't care what religion others believe in as long as they don't intrude my way of life.

There are 2 things I hate the most about religion at the moment:

1) People interrupt an intelligent conversation with non-sense arguments like "earth only existed for a few thousand years," when the conversation wasn't even about religion.

2) Religious group come repeatedly knocking on my door bloody 8am Sunday morning, thinking that they're doing me a favour.

Ephemeral wrote:

mathexpert9981 wrote:

words

more words

I was also raised religious, and I still am religious, although I don't affiliate myself with any organized religion. I don't attend church or anything like that and I don't read any of those stupid outdated books, mainly because I don't want other people telling me what god should be and what I should think. Basically I think it's important to free yourself from these silly influences and believe what you want to believe.

And about that outdated point: I tend to agree with all organized religions today being outdated. Most of it just consists of people telling other people how to think, and I think that's why a lot of people don't like religion. However, I don't think theism in itself is outdated, it's only natural for humans to stipulate causes of our existence and how everything we know came about. That will never be outdated.

Kanye West wrote:

Ephemeral wrote:

more words

word festival

First of all, these aren't silly influences at all; they're all backed by generations of bright minds, from Boethius to C.S. Lewis. In fact, it'd be very close minded of you to ignore them. Many of "those stupid outdated books" make excellent points and even agree on several matters with each other. Several cultures around the world, from the Far East to the Iberian Peninsula have had their intellectuals, all making similar assertions: Socrates, Confucius, Christ, and Laozi among them. While they all disagree on the nature of God or how evil works, their ideas are still worth considering.

My point is that it's fine to believe what you want as long as you consider other ideas. For all you know you might be ignoring something you'd agree with.

I didn't become such a stubborn Catholic without having read Nietzsche or Dawkins a few times.

Wojjan wrote:

meanwhile: http://www.allout.org/en/actions/georgia

I'm concerned as to how I didn't know anything about this and I live in Georgia.



I was raised without religion so I never even knew about Christianity until we moved into the good ol' Bible Belt and kids seemed shocked that I didn't know who God was. Gotta say, I don't mind my upbringing. Though I'd rather have been sitting in church on Sundays rather than out in the hot sun weeding the fucking garden/yard/everything.



fuck weeds

Cuddlebun wrote:

Wojjan wrote:

meanwhile: http://www.allout.org/en/actions/georgia

I'm concerned as to how I didn't know anything about this and I live in Georgia.

I didn't even take this into consideration when I first heard it because I thought it was a joke. I didn't even notice a link; thank you for bringing this to my attention, Tode.
Well shit, even more of a reason to be angered about things like religion & homophobia.

*applauds Ephemeral*
Not that it did anything to prevent the steady trickle of troll posts.

Hika wrote:

religion & homophobia.

Not as much as I have reason to be angered at these two words being used in the same sentence. Sometimes I have to believe that right wingers are engaged in a perpetual smear campaign against religion.

I'll just say it. Homophobes are idiots. Young earth creationists are idiots. But they're not representative of Christians in general.
Religion doesn't start wars, people do, usually fighting over economic control of some region.
Religion isn't in opposition to science, it complements it, and must humbly step aside when science contradicts it.
Now carry on trolling and ignore everything I said.