I said none, but that also isn't exactly true, but for the purposes of this it is.

I view absolutely all religious scripts and origin stories as most people view fairy tales (seriosuly, I dare you to come up with a good argument how the qoran or the bible are somehow different than king arthur, make my day). I am however interested as to how and why peop[le in different regions came to believe in these tales. It is obvious that different cultures and different geographical areas have their own tale, but I'm curious as to why the tales are so different at times. Furthermore I'm interested why some folowers of a given tale are considered more successful than others. Though that last one is not as hard to see.

Things like environment play a role in creating religions. Also the reason why some religions fail and some don't are usually political in nature.

I was thinking of a bit more deeper nature, like why some people have many gods the others one.

Edit: Even better, is afterlife. The default afterlife for the Aztecs was hell. Only if you died in a few specific ways would you end up in a heaven type of afterlife, some forms of sacrifies were one type which is why it was so prevalent. That's different than other religions. Why?

@pizzahut451:

Would you be expressing someone else's opinion?

It doesnt matter. The question is, would that be considerd Ok on these forums?

I've heard Christians arguin that killing is OK, right on these message boards. I don't know what exactly all those religious writings wanted to say, but they should've been writtin in a more specific manner, as people seem to be interpreting them as they like.

So? There are people who support killing in every community in the world. That doesnt prove anything. I heard atheists saying people should nuke Vatikan.And christian religious writings are largerly incomplete, because when Rome accepted Christianity, Romans cherry picked the stuff they wanna publish and preach about so they can easly control people and send them to war. Thats not the fault of Christianity, thats the fault of people.

Yes, that could explain why Chrisitans decided to destroy education in the Medieval period.

Wrong. The Church decided to disable education to most people. Lots of educated and smart christians got burned and killed by the church for not supporting church's claims on the world (for example that earth is not in the centre of the universe) got persecuted by the Church during the Dark Ages.Thats why there are so few known christian scheintists that are known from the Middle Ages.

Organised religion is only as good/ as bad as the people who run it. personally, I dont think a religion shouldnt have a ''leader'' (except for their God) becuase humans are sinful, and a sinful person cant guide another persons belief system. But of course that depends on religion itself.

I agree with this. I'd actually go as far as to say that a god is as good as the people who worshipp it. I don't beleive in the existence of sin though.

http://english.hotnews.ro/stiri-archive-1750740-candidates-for-top-job-romanian-orthodox-church-accused-collaboration-with-former-communist-secret-police.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_collaboration_with_Communist_secret_services#Romania

I could link you more, but lots of them are in Romanian. This is a well known thing over here in Romania.

Fine, but the point stands, theats not the fault of Otrhodoxy in the slightest. I dont even know how can those people look themselfes in the mirror and why wasnt their church banned yet.The comunists used church to get to people. They penetrated it and tricked people.

Well, in the case of the Reconquista the Christians were the bad guys. Doesn't mean that Muslims weren't bad guys in other situations.

They were retaking thier land that was taken from them by violence. Not in any way, shape or form were they the bad guys, and you know that pretty well. You even adited it on some level.

Believe it or not, I get this a lot actually.

Than, chnage the name of your capital !

I'd say Christian missionaries are terrible and immoral with their behaviour. Obviously money and wealth were big incentives. But you can be surte that the Conquistadores were using the fact that the natives were pagans to make themselves feel better (and I doubt priests were discouraging them).

It doesnt chnage the fact that Christianity had little to nothing to do with mass enslavement and killings of South American people. And yes, giving people shelter, food and education sure is immoral. They help people in need and show the best, most amazing way to spread a religon.They are very good and kind people.

I was using Russia as an example of what would happen if a Chrsitian majority country would no longer be secular. And what more proof do I need then the fact that the Chruch participates in the governing and there's a law that says it's illegal to insult "Christians"? Situations like these only exist in Islamic theocracies, countries where Christians like to complain that they're being persecuted. I'm starting to see that you're a hipocrite.

Ugh, you do know that Russia is a secular country, right?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_secularism#Europe  The religion has nothing to do with running the country of Russia. The Russian Christians are in general bit of un-tolerant at people of other beleifs (but they in no way, shape or form persecute them) but who could blame them, after what has atheist Stalin and the atheist state of Soviet Union did to Christians before USSR collapsed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union

In a democracy civil rights>>>choice of the people. And religous freedom is a civil right that can only be protected by secularism. Of course Russia's hardly the example of a democracy, but it's the closest thing to a Christian theocracy that we have (if you ignore the Vatican that is).

In democracy, people have the right to choose if their country will be secular or not. A stat religion does not in any way go against human rights

Yes, because Germany is a democracy, and like any self respecting democracy tries to protect religious freedom, freedom of speech etc. Now personally I think there should be harsher immigration laws, and certain behaviours should lead to expulsion, but that's another issue. Still, making an insulting drawing of Jesus/Mohammed/Buddha whatever should not be illegal.

Just because Germany is a democratic country, doesnt mean the german people must tolerate the behaviour of muslim immigrants there. And I agree that drawing shouldnt be illegal, but yet many western country have to ban that, because of fear. Yup, such a fine democratic secualr states filled with religious equality, right?

Here are some better links on the subject:

In the first link there were actually some Muslims from Spain mentioned.

In the second link it's important to note they say that in the Early Middle Ages the West was cut-off from the works of Greek philosophers, and that education was limited to strictly clergymen. Most people were illiterate and ignorant, and knowledge was certainly not enocuraged. The link actually awknoledges that there was a Reneissance in the High Middle Ages thanks to contact with the "more knowledgeable Muslim" Europe. Reneissance first started in Italy and it was later spread on rest of Europe. Here are the orgins of Reneissance in Italy, the first country to adopt it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Renaissance#Origins

As far as I could tell, italians adopted Reneissance on their own.

Knowledge that was going against the church's answers about the wolrd were prohibited. Thats why people know so few christian scientists during the Middle Ages. Lots of great thinkers werent allowed to present their knowledged to the world, because they would get burneed alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_translations_of_the_12th_century

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_contributions_to_Medieval_Europe

And hen we're talking about who's superior and who's not, we should also talk about the whole society, not just some elite clergymen. Do you think the averege Chrsitian peasant had it better than the averege Muslim commoner? The Muslim commoner went to school, learned to read and write, while the Christian peasent couldn't even take a bath.

Neither you or I can answer to that because time machine is not invented yet. Again, just because a christian had a very limited freedom of knowledge he was allowd to share with the world doesnt mean the Muslim was in any way smarter and more advanced than him.

Watch the documentary I reccomended (like a million posts ago).

You'd have to genuenly prove me wrong, which you haven't.

I did, most of arguments we are arguing now, have nothing to do with wha we were argueing about, 3 pages earlier. You took some parts from my posts and quoted them, ignored the others (no answer?) you also did lots of word and subject twisting, which is why we are arguing something that wasnt part of our debate before.

Yes, but they don't really prove your points if you read them carefully. Plus I also reccomended a documentary and can reccomend books if I ever decide to ask my Uni professor (though I think I have a lsit of required reading for my class somewhere).

They do, as long as you dont cherry pick the words and take them out of context.

I certainly don't think Muslims are that great now. And they certainly did do some bad things throughout history. But I dislike it when Chrisitans judge them, considering all they've done (and things like the Inquisition, what happened to the natives from teh Americas etc, are hard to beat)

You started judging christians first, by mentioning stuff SOME of them did 600 years ago (Inquisition) than saying they were the bad guy for trying to reclaim thier land (Reconquista) and acuse thier belief system of somethingits not guilty of (The coolonisation of Americas)

You have to realize I am not arguing that Christians were superior and better in Middle ages, I am arguing they werent inferior and worse.

Overall Christian society<<<Muslims society back then.

Ottoman Empire ( 85% of muslim world back than) says hi.

ah fuck this VGC quoting system, i clicked outside of quoting screen and now my whole post is gone. I will respond tomorrow, im just posting to put this thread on top of my hot topic menu

@pizzahut451:

Probably not, though it's been so long I don't remember what exactly it was.

You dissapoint me, spaphis snake...

Yeah, but the people are pretty much the religion.

No, the people can be the followers of religion. There are righteous ones and there are corrupted ones. But the ones who use it for diffrent corrupted goals do not represent it. There are bad people in every community and you cant judge  the community based only on few of them. or in this case what the corrupted ones did 600 years ago...

What did I say? Was it not the same thing?

You said Christians were uneducated because Christianity forbidds freedom of thinking. I said, it was the corupted church that forbided it, beauseit feared someone might see the how wrong they interpret the Bible and with what kind of un justice they treat their people.

The religion itself depends on the people and how they choose to interpret it. I'm against organised religion myself though.

The religion itself depends on the message its delievering to the world, how many corrupted and evil people choose to twist it and use has nothing to do with thre religion itself. You'd think logic like that would have been obvious. How can Jesus Christ be responsible for the deeds evil people did in the name of his religion.

Considering that that Church has over 80% of Romania's population as followers, I don't see it gettign banned. And I wouldn't say the commies used the Church. The Romanian Orthodox Church would do anything to have some sort of political power.

Well, I was talking about the church in the time of communism. I dont beleivechurch in romania is doing those things now, when communism fell apart, do they

Their land was the land they had in the North.

Their land was Visgothic Kingdom that was take from them by violence, and they were fighting to retake it back from the invaders that took over Iberia(which was 100% thier homeland before it wa taken away by violence and fell to the invaders) Seriously I cant believe iIm still argueing this with you. Didnt you already admited you were wrong on this matter?

Ugh, you do know that Russia is a secular country, right?  The religion has nothing to do with running the country of Russia. The Russian Christians are in general bit of un-tolerant at people of other beleifs (but they in no way, shape or form persecute them) but who could blame them, after what has atheist Stalin and the atheist state of Soviet Union did to Christians before USSR collapsed?

A secular country doesn't make blasphemy illegal, nor does it allow religious leaders to participate in the State's affairs.

Exactly, it doesnt. So the Christianity has no word over running the country of Russia. And blaspehy can be illegal when its considerd as a hate crime/speech in some cases.

In a democracy there are certain limits imposed by the Constitution, to keep it from becoming the tyranny of the majority. A state religion pretty much goes against the principle of freedom of religion.

Yet, there are secular countries in the world (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen...) and as far as I heard they dont persecute Christians or jews or anything.

Well, fear is not a good reason.

It might not be good reason, but its THE reason.

I don't think so. You're basing this on what? Your dislike for Muslims?

The simple well recognised historic fact that when another religous empire conquers your own, you are pretty much forced, one way or the other, to convert to the specific religion. And considering the Spanish were forced to convert to islam, there are high chances they were Europeans.

That sure doesn't make Christians look good, does it?

That doesnt make the Church and the people who only call themselfes christians, yet they did everything agisnt Christ's teachings look bad. Why are you so narrow minded and about this subject? Is it hatred for Christians or just ignorance?

Most Christians were illiterate, most Mulsims weren't.

Proof...? I higly doubt you can find it.

You started judging christians first, by mentioning stuff SOME of them did 600 years ago (Inquisition) than saying they were the bad guy for trying to reclaim thier land (Reconquista) and acuse thier belief system of somethingits not guilty of (The coolonisation of Americas)

How are they not guilty of the colonisation of the Americas?

I didnt say they werent responsible for colonisation of Americas, i said their religion, Christianity, had very little to nothing to do with it. Dont twist words

Not in the Middle Ages. And I was talking about the Moors.

Ugh, you are aware that Ottoman empire existed even in the Middle Ages, right? And you said ''muslims'# so I was assuming you were talking about muslims overall.

Also, what happend to my other points? Are you finally letting go of this debate? :)

You haven't responded....