Religion and Lack of Religion

[Music Dragon]

Complete lack of evidence... against what?

Well there you go, there's obviously nothing there.

Theism is much too broad for there to be a "complete lack of evidence".

No, not really. Theism, by definition, has to involve something supernatural (or divine, or whatever you want to call it).

 

[Karkat Vantas]

Well there you go, there's obviously nothing there.

No, I mean, what are you trying to disprove?

It's very difficult to disprove the existence of a supernatural being. You can disprove the existence of one particular supernatural being (and fairly easily). When you believe that there is a supernatural being(s) as I do, individual arguments have no effect. We can prove that the universe was not made when God said "LET THERE BE LIGHT SEVEN DAYS etc etc", but can we prove that the accepted scientific explanation for the creation of the universe was not triggered by a deity? We can't, and since I view the Big Bang as slightly illogical that's what I personally believe.

 

[Coroxn]

You are minimizing. People don't have to die for religion to be imposed on them.

Kids are raised with religion, told that they are religious. They are sent to religious schools and indoctrinated. Whether they are killed if they stop believing doesn't matter - they have little choice of whether to believe or not, because religion is what they are taught. Since, as was pointed out, very few people who are taught religion from birth learn otherwise? It's basically imposed on anyone who is in a religious family. And you know what? People are killed because of religion, because people believe others do things that religion says is wrong. Also, Westboro Baptist Church says hi.

And since religion is such an institution, it is imposed on humanity. Nothing can get away from it. There has never been an American president who was not religious. To suggest otherwise, as it has been for several, is considered an insult and something that they had to avoid. If anyone who ran for president were an atheist, do you think they'd get elected?

And then people use religion as an argument for things. Against homosexuality, against being sexual in general; against anything they want, they will find it in their religion. The thing is, ideologies give people a reason to do things. Those things can be good or bad; with religion, it is often bad. When it is institutionalized, and it's bad? There is no excuse for it to continue.



For fuck's sake, christianity is not the only religion. And why do you insist on using improper grammar after you have acknowledged that it is improper?

Whether it is many or a few, it is still erasing to pretend we don't exist. I'm not sure what the rest of that paragraph is supposed to mean.

Okay. I agree that some branches of Religion are wrong. And by Christian, I meant Theist, and for that I apologize. I aknowledge that religion has reeked havoc with people, damaging their phyche and forcing upon them ideoligies they don't want, but it's not all bad. Not every religous family forces it's kids to be religous. Those you talk about are extremes. They are not few, and thye are not to be ignored, but they are extremes. There are plenty of religous families that are fine with Atheist children, mine and my best friend's among them. Religion is not uniform, it varies in extremety from famly to family.

I never claimed you 'didn't exist' and I'm not sure what you mean by that.
And as for my poor grammer, I don't have any reasons whatsoever. I choose to write Thesit and Atheist partly because I can, and partly because it highligts the word which is principle to the argument.

 

[Music Dragon]

No, I mean, what are you trying to disprove?

I was joking.

It's very difficult to disprove the existence of a supernatural being. You can disprove the existence of one particular supernatural being (and fairly easily). When you believe that there is a supernatural being(s) as I do, individual arguments have no effect. We can prove that the universe was not made when God said "LET THERE BE LIGHT SEVEN DAYS etc etc"

No, you can't. How exactly would you do that?

but can we prove that the accepted scientific explanation for the creation of the universe was not triggered by a deity? We can't, and since I view the Big Bang as slightly illogical that's what I personally believe.

Of course we can't disprove it, but we shouldn't have to. Burden of proof and all that jazz. There's no way to disprove the existence of God, or of leprechauns, or of Santa Claus, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to believe in any of them. Why would you consider the Big Bang slightly illogical but not the existence of a deity?

 

[shy ♡]

Okay. I agree that some branches of Religion are wrong. And by Christian, I meant Theist, and for that I apologize. I aknowledge that religion has reeked havoc with people, damaging their phyche and forcing upon them ideoligies they don't want, but it's not all bad. Not every religous family forces it's kids to be religous. Those you talk about are extremes. They are not few, and thye are not to be ignored, but they are extremes. There are plenty of religous families that are fine with Atheist children, mine and my best friend's among them. Religion is not uniform, it varies in extremety from famly to family.

Religious families usually raise their kids religious. If the kid grows and chooses to be an atheist, that is a different matter; they are taught, when born, that they are religious. That is indoctrination. They are factually not born as a religion so the parents are indoctrinating them into the religion. If they were not being indoctrinated, they would not be told 'hey, you are a theist', they would be told 'there are these religions', and perhaps that the parents believe in this religion, and that the child can make up their own mind when they want to.

But, that doesn't happen in most cases, and that is because religious parents believe their religion is right everyone must believe it and in fact religion often tells them they must have kids and pass on their religion. This is not an extremity, this is the normative. The extreme to this case would be a parent forcing their children to be religious, and if the child rebelled, kicking them out of the home.

I am not saying religion is 'all bad'. I am saying lack of religion can't be bad, whereas religion can be and often is. And because of that, I see no reason for religion to exist in the first place.

I never claimed you 'didn't exist' and I'm not sure what you mean by that.
And as for my poor grammer, I don't have any reasons whatsoever. I choose to write Thesit and Atheist partly because I can, and partly because it highligts the word which is principle to the argument.

To pretend that because there aren't many atheists who were theists means that we don't exist at all or that we don't have to be qualified is to erase us. It would mean that there is no backlash of children who are indoctrinated into theists and then grow up and get angry about it.

You know, using bad grammar just because you can? Really not a good reason.

 

[Coroxn]

Okay let’s do this

If you’re protesting quote mining, say you’re protesting quote mining! Don’t wrap your protest in a convoluted cloth of loaded examples, and then complain that people are responding to the examples, much less examples that you continue to defend as accurate portrayals of reality! I too feel that constructing and then knocking down strawmen is not a productive activity.

I'm not protesting against quote mining as such. All I wanted to do was to point out the fact that people using filmsy pretexts to attack people of differing religous views helps no one and does not improve or add to the argument.

Okay let’s do this
There is a world of difference between Jesus living and Jesus performing miracles. Evidence that Jesus lived is not evidence that Jesus performed miracles. It is evidence that Jesus lived. There is no evidence to support your miracle-performing, divine Jesus.
Divine Jesus and the leprechaun are the same.. The leprechaun is a mythological figure. Jesus as the son of God is a mythological figure whom has a debatable historical basis. You can believe in both, but they are beliefs. They are not backed by reliable evidence.

First off, it is not my miracle performing, divine Jesus. I am not theist, I have no over belief in God, I'm just trying to defend them against injust attacks. And I am not calling these people's responses attacks, and I'm sorry if I seem aggresive in any way, I am just responding to them as well as I am able.

Okay let’s do this
Are you telling me to ignore people that I know are wrong, because they are wrong? Are you saying the refuting of claims needs to be done in sugar-coated terms? Are you suggesting that there is some sophisticated meaning behind the arguments frequently advanced by theists that are going unappreciated, and it’s up to me to decode them? What are you saying?

I'm saying don't discredit anyone simply becase they are Theist. That's all.

Okay let’s do this
I'll keep this short by discussing only things that happened this week!
Damon Fowler is fleeing the state. His school was violating the separation of church and state by having official prayers at graduation. He complained, so the administrators condemned him, the students condemned him, the townspeople condemned him, and his parents condemned him. He is receiving death threats for pointing out that the practice is illegal. His parents have disowned and robbed him of his possessions and he is hiding with his brother in another state. The graduation this year happened and a prayer was done anyway. Meanwhile, atheist bloggers raise some $10,000 so he can go to college. Convert or die?

Catholic Charities of Rockford ceases arranging adoptions because it can't legally refuse gay couples children anymore. The Catholic church is nearly legendary for its willingness to damage human lives in the name of its ideology and deny any responsibility for the damages it causes. This is why the Catholic church tells African women that condoms cause aids. This is why the Catholic church allows its priests to rape children and not suffer any punishment, but instead transfers the priests to new parishes with new children.

Until religion isn't being constantly used as a justification for doing evil, I am going to keep complaining about religion.

You've written a lot of words but I'm still not sure what you're arguing for.

You have a right to complain about religion, and the evil it causes, because yes, it does wrong. People are using religion as an excuse to do evil, but it doesn't necessarily mean the organization as a whole is evil. It means people are using it as an excuse.
I have written a lot of words, all in response to people responding to me. But my main point, despite the diversions responses are taking me, is that people are completely ignoring fact, belief and everything inbetween to attack others with differing religous views.

 

[Dannichu]

Maybe I live in a sheltered bubble, but I don't think I've ever met a person who uses their religion to justify any kind of negative action against someone else. Actually, pretty much all the religious people I know are absolutely wonderful (to be fair, I think most people are wonderful), and being raised with a religious faith has having given me a huge network of people that I love and who love me. Despite whatever my actual views on God, etc. are, I still really like going to church because it gives me a time for peaceful reflection that I don't usually have in a week, and reminds me how much I'm part of a big community.

It's sad that so many people have had such a bad experience with religion, but it's not bad for everyone.

 

[hopeandjoy]

Exactly. My split was clean too; I hold no ill will against religion. When people and organizations do dumb shit and then claim it was for their religion, don't blame the religion (because most of the time they're using things that aren't even in their religious text), blame the people who do it.

 

[Butterfree]

Is anybody here seriously discrediting people solely for being theists? Personally, less-than-sound arguments irritate me whether they're for or against religion, simply because they're wrong. And I doubt anybody here consciously approves of poorly thought-out arguments against theism just because they happen to be atheists. Meanwhile, everybody else here seems to be deciding to misinterpret Coroxn's comments as being some sort of an attack on atheism itself which they really weren't.

 

[Tarvos]

I gave two examples, one being creationists poking holes in stratigraphy, stating that anything dated with it is incorrect, whilst turning their backs on an exhibit explaining Radiography. The second was Atheists using an out-of-context quote to mock Theists. Ignoring the full story when presenting it is bias. It matters because presenting only some of the facts gives you a corrupted world view, no matter how you look at.

Nice dodge. My point is that some evidence is clearly right and wrong. You can "present all the evidence" you want, but here's the deal: it's not bias if you don't present stuff that isn't true. Now that's what I'm getting at. There is no other side to this story. Christianity has no evidence.


There is no historical evidence to support your green leprechaun. Christians,

however, have the documents of Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonis, all respectable non-Christian historians with no connections who wrote about Jesus, all accounts fall in line with the gospels (without naming him the Son of God or miracles or suchforth).

There's plenty books written about leprechauns. Furthermore Jesus existing as a person (which I don't think implausible) is something else than performing miracles and being the son of God. Nyuu pointed it out

And secondly, the basis for the two are completely different. One is a mythological creature which we here in Ireland would have seen by now and has no believers. The other is a religion which cannot be disproved without the aid of a time machine, but cannot be proved by anything short of divine.

Prove to me that leprechauns don't exist. And I am sure I can find someone who believes in leprechauns for you. You cannot disprove the non-existence of leprechauns as much as you cannot disprove the nonexistence of God, or Jesus. They are exactly the same.

Once again, I'm pointing to the Atheists who attack for the hell of it. Refuting is all well and good, but how many times have you heard someone online say 'Why do stupid Christians still believe in God'? How many times have you read the words 'Atheists, don't you know you're going to rot in hell?'? They are unbearable, just a endless wash of people making fun of the other side with little or no basis for their proposals.

People have common sense. If I see a post like that then I'm bound to ignore it, unless I'm writing it out of pure sarcasm or something

Okay, so some Christians have proposed arguments that are ludicrous. Discard them. There is more than one sensible Christian who is capable of talking sense. Don't discard anything Christian on sight-just be sensible about it, read the text or listen to the argument before you voice an opinion on it.

I don't discard Christian opinions on everything, just their views on God, and since most Christians use God as a basis for their life and worldview, I am incompatible with a lot of Christians. But some of my best friends are Christians and so I don't see your point here. If you're saying "judge an argument by its merit", then I will, but that also involves rejecting Christian dogma.

And rejecting their dogma is not insulting. It's my good right as a human being. It's time Christianity (and other religions) stopped demanding respect and earning it. We've become accustomed to letting faith do its job and "believing in belief". Faith is harmful! If the religious did nothing wrong and were morally just as acquiescent as the rest of us then there'd be no problems. We shouldn't just accord faith respect because that's what (majority religious) society tells us to. Just like we ridicule stork theory.

What's insulting is the fact that they ripped a section of the quote out of context to mock theists.

How is it insulting? They didn't rip it out of context either.

I'd like to point out these aren't my opinions, they're the opinions of the quoted.

Then why did you bring them up as your own?

I'm sorry, but when was the last time someone was put to death for heresy? When was the last time someone said 'Convert or Die'? The Catholic church has changed it's stance hugely, and it is now far more open to other religions and far more able to respect them.

It's changing for the worse again. They only want really devout people. The priest my mother used to know and that taught her French was one of those liberal catholics - problem is that that type of religious breed doesn't really go to church anymore and a lot of them naturally deconverted (this is what happened to my parents as well). I see the religious strictening their stance. It's not 100 years ago, but changing from really shit to moderately crappy really isn't hugely an improvement in my eyes.

I accept that lives, childhoods and psyches have been destroyed by religion, but not by the believers-religion isn't something you can stab at by stabbing the people who believe, because often enough they were pretty much forced to, or took the opinions from their parents and the priests everyone respected to heart.

Religious indoctrination occurs day by day. I can't even believe you're saying this. Parents are so crucial in a child's development. And it's the believers who do it unwittingly - they actually think it's for the best. That's why it's so destructive.

I don't believe for a second that the majority of people are just asserting qualms and don't care, I think that the inverse of what you have said is true. Certainly from my (admittedly limited) experience, the majority of non-believers in my classroom couldn't care less, and are just trying to look cool, pick on the Christian kids or cause trouble. Maybe this peters out in the adult world, maybe not.

Minorities and "strangers" are always picked on, xenophobia exists in every society. You happen to be unlucky that way but trust me if that's your experience then be happy because for most atheists it's the other way round

 

[opaltiger]

People are using religion as an excuse to do evil, but it doesn't necessarily mean the organization as a whole is evil. It means people are using it as an excuse.

Except it's the Pope who's saying that condoms cause AIDS. So you can argue that that's him using religion as an excuse to do evil, but where exactly is the line between the head of an organisation doing evil things and the organisation itself doing evil things? I see your point in general, but if you think there's nothing wrong with the Catholic church as an organisation you've led a sheltered life indeed.

Maybe I live in a sheltered bubble, but I don't think I've ever met a person who uses their religion to justify any kind of negative action against someone else.

Neither have I, actually! It must come from living in awesome countries. :D

 

[shy ♡]

Maybe I live in a sheltered bubble, but I don't think I've ever met a person who uses their religion to justify any kind of negative action against someone else. Actually, pretty much all the religious people I know are absolutely wonderful (to be fair, I think most people are wonderful), and being raised with a religious faith has having given me a huge network of people that I love and who love me. Despite whatever my actual views on God, etc. are, I still really like going to church because it gives me a time for peaceful reflection that I don't usually have in a week, and reminds me how much I'm part of a big community.

It's sad that so many people have had such a bad experience with religion, but it's not bad for everyone.

I have met these people, and I live in a country led by these people, and I live with and was raised by these people. So I do have a somewhat biased point of view towards religion. :|

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

Neither have I, actually! It must come from living in awesome countries. :D

Yeah, I think Europe is pretty good for that.

 

[Coroxn]

Except it's the Pope who's saying that condoms cause AIDS. So you can argue that that's him using religion as an excuse to do evil, but where exactly is the line between the head of an organisation doing evil things and the organisation itself doing evil things? I see your point in general, but if you think there's nothing wrong with the Catholic church as an organisation you've led a sheltered life indeed.

Right, I agree with you there. And it's not that I have a fault in seeing the flaws of the Catholic church (indeed, with every history class, they seem to assert themselves deeper and deeper into the wrong). And the Pope has given no defenses for this behavior at all? No reasons to attackers, no excuses to questioners, he just condemns condemns as evil, AIDs inducing things?

Wow. I'm not questioning his lack of morals, but this seems just unbelievably stupid, even ignoring the horrendous lack of ethics, just purely from a PR point of view, it's almost as if he's purposely killing his own Church. It's difficult to fathom just why he's making these claims-what good in it is there for him? How can more pregnancy, more AIDs possibly help the Church?

It's political suicide.

 

[Coroxn]

Except it's the Pope who's saying that condoms cause AIDS. So you can argue that that's him using religion as an excuse to do evil, but where exactly is the line between the head of an organisation doing evil things and the organisation itself doing evil things? I see your point in general, but if you think there's nothing wrong with the Catholic church as an organisation you've led a sheltered life indeed.

Right, I agree with you there. And it's not that I have a fault in seeing the flaws of the Catholic church (indeed, with every history class, they seem to assert themselves deeper and deeper into the wrong). And the Pope has given no defenses for this behavior at all? No reasons to attackers, no excuses to questioners, he just condemns condemns as evil, AIDs inducing things?

Wow. I'm not questioning his lack of morals, but this seems just unbelievably stupid, even ignoring the horrendous lack of ethics, just purely from a PR point of view, it's almost as if he's purposely killing his own Church. It's difficult to fathom just why he's making these claims-what good in it is there for him? How can more pregnancy, more AIDs possibly help the Church?

It's political suicide.

 

[Pwnemon]

You are minimizing. People don't have to die for religion to be imposed on them.

You're exactly right. When you pray in China, you sometimes aren't killed, just your hands chopped off.

 

[Vladimir Putin's LJ]

Right, I agree with you there. And it's not that I have a fault in seeing the flaws of the Catholic church (indeed, with every history class, they seem to assert themselves deeper and deeper into the wrong). And the Pope has given no defenses for this behavior at all? No reasons to attackers, no excuses to questioners, he just condemns condemns as evil, AIDs inducing things?

Wow. I'm not questioning his lack of morals, but this seems just unbelievably stupid, even ignoring the horrendous lack of ethics, just purely from a PR point of view, it's almost as if he's purposely killing his own Church. It's difficult to fathom just why he's making these claims-what good in it is there for him? How can more pregnancy, more AIDs possibly help the Church?

It's political suicide.

The current Pope was elected because of his 'conservative' viewpoints, and if you're considered conservative by Vatican standards, you're pretty conservative. He wants to bring Catholics back to a 'simpler' time or whatever, so he goes on these huge rants against whatever he's trying to put down, whether it's by comparing heterosexuals to trees (and implying homosexuals are deforestation or something - it was a very convoluted metaphor), randomly insulting Mohammed, saying atheists are the root of all the evils in the world or, in this case, telling African people not wear condoms because they cause AIDS, since contraceptives are apparently more sinful than lying and indirectly causing the deaths of thousands, if not millions of people.

And he also protected all those child molesters but that's something else.

Regarding religion in the China, I've been there, and they really don't have any sort of problem with religion tbh ._. if anything people I met were disappointed that I wasn't a Christian and one girl even talked about how she's going to convert to Christianity (reason: it sounds cool).
You also have the muslim ethnic minorities (descendents of the Silk Road tradespeople) who actually get more rights re: housing and children and I saw a couple of churches with big ol' crosses so er

 

[Pwnemon]

Oops, I guess that's my b. Either way, the point is that oppression doesn't only happen from the religious on the non-religious.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

Oops, I guess that's my b. Either way, the point is that oppression doesn't only happen from the religious on the non-religious.

Eh, I'm pretty sure the hand-chopped-off thing was because Mao Zedong was being paranoid that since Christians believe in 1)afterlife and 2)the existence of someone more powerful than everyone's favorite Chinese dictator, so Mao thought that he didn't have enough control over the Christians.

But now Mao is kind of not in power anymore, and Things Got Better.

 

[Pwnemon]

Well, on a similar way, Russia. There haven't been that many radical communist states, but if there were more, I'm sure i would have more examples.