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Forums - General - Is religion still relevant in modern society?

RolStoppable said:
Andrespetmonkey said:

I actually had a good conversation with him once. He is really coming off as an arsehole in this thread though. 

In padib's defense, there are bad atheists. Like me. I am a racist, sexist and homophobe. I usually have these things under control though.

Well, aside from the rampant sexism. But since there aren't any females on this site, it doesn't bother anyone.

Not saying there aren't bad atheists. I'm saying religion isn't the only thing that can guide morality and soceities do just fine without religion, actually, they do better than fine without religion, excluding the commies (although some would view communism as almost making the government a form of religion), they excel.



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Andrespetmonkey said:

Hitler was catholic, he had strong ties to the catholic church and constantly referenced lord Jesus Christ and God in his writings and speeches. 
He thought he was "doing the lord's work" in exterminating the jews.


Also, there was strong anti-jewish sentiment abound in catholicism and christianity at the time.



i personally could careless about religion but it serves its purpose. i won't dispute its need or relevancy but its not needed.

it an excuse for a lack of better or more harsh words. i would either stick with greek or Roman myth.



Andrespetmonkey said:

Not saying there aren't bad atheists. I'm saying religion isn't the only thing that can guide morality and soceities do just fine without religion, actually, they do better than fine without religion, excluding the commies (although some would view communism as almost making the government a form of religion), they excel.


You know what I find funny?  Is that when a person can't tell that he is the crazy one in the room no matter how many times you tell him.  This isn't the twilight zone or anything... How many people have to tell the same guy that he is saying crazy stuff? 



BOOM!  FACE KICK!

Jexy said:
Andrespetmonkey said:
padib said:
Jexy said:
. But yeah, if you could somehow wipe everyone's minds clean of religion on earth, every war, every ongoing genocide, would cease to be.

 

even if done it wouldn't do much good for several reasons but the main reason would be mans thirst for power.





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MARCUSDJACKSON said:

even if done it wouldn't do much good for several reasons but the main reason would be mans thirst for power.




I said every war now.  Not every war ever or in the future.  It's the undisputed number one thing people are fighting about in the world today, and if you take that out, then there would be at least a temporary peace, and most likely less wars in the future.



BOOM!  FACE KICK!

Runa216 said:
Marks said:
Seriously? So its only religious people that harm others, are homophobic, are sexist, etc? I know you're like the most anti-religious guy on the site but even you can't say that with a straight face. 

What do Hitler, Stalin and Mao have in common? All strongly anti-religion. Not saying atheists are killers or anything, all I'm proving is that violence and religion don't go hand in hand. 

And do you seriously think homophobia was invented by religion? Yeah the bible is anti-gay but only in the Old Testament (before Jesus and everything). I know so many people that hate gays but none of them are due to religious beliefs, its just because gays are different. People will always hate those that are different. If homophobia ever goes away then it will just be replaced by some other form of hatred. I don't see hate in general ever disappearing from humanity. 

And just like I said with homophobia, sexism I'm sure wan't invented by religion either. Yeah I guess some religions like Islam say that men are more important than women, but do you really think sexism is suddenly going to disappear overnight if religions disappear overnight? I doubt it. 

All I've said is that religions can teach kids good values, I didn't say kids can't learn good values without religion. Big difference between those two statements. 

Ladies and gentlemen, hypocrisy 101.  I didn't say Atheism was pure or anything, I didn't try to proclaim that being an atheist would make you a perfect, flawless human being (after all, a lot of modern corporate greed has nothing to do with religion.)  all I said was that it's a logical fallacy to assume in any way that religion is in any way the source of morals, or that it 'teaches kids ethics'.  See, the bible may teach some good things, but for every good lesson they can get, there are three bad lessons to negate it, so since you're gonna be picking and choosing what morals to pass down, why not eliminate the part of the equation that assumes an invisivle man in the sky brought down rules from the heavens?  seems a bit extreme just to teach some kid not to steal. 

 

You please tell me what motivation is there for a person who has adopted the non-theistic world view to have any morals at all?

As I see it, with no value assigned to consciousness, any person who adhere's to some sort of morality is the real hypocrite. You are then the one who falls for your emotions time and time again even though such a person believes them as nothing more than electro-chemical impulses.

'' why not eliminate the part of the equation that assumes an invisivle man in the sky brought down rules from the heavens? ''

We had an interesting discussion in class today. The topic was a the future of nuclear reactors (just hang in there for a minute)... Anyway, he's from Germany where the government has recently put a complete halt on the nuclear industry. Problem is ,the people making those decisions are incredibly short-sighted and simply following the whims of the social demands presented by the public. So he made the statement:

''Once people have made up their mind about a certain belief then it's nigh-on impossible to get them to even consider an alternative''

Clearly you fall into this category. Now this doesn't mean you are wrong, BUT it does mean that there is no point for you to go into these discussions (with this attitude) since neither you nor the other party will gain anything from them.

Not to mention that you haven't studied any philosophies beyond the (admittedly limited) presentation of theism presented in the Bible.

So if you want to go along and assume yourself so great that you can deny the beliefs that many adhere to (where many of these people are certainly more intelligent than you), even though you have a very limited understanding of modern science then what's your motivation for coming in here and acting so self-righteous?

Science itself is a disappointment if one is looking for a coherent explanation of the universe and life. It's quite simply not a proper explanation.



Also, look at how it hampers research and technology. People don't want to use medicine to help them or help their children because of "religion". People don't want to do all sorts of helpful scientific research because of "religion". Whether they like it or not, we aren't going back to grass huts and living off the land individually anymore.



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Andrespetmonkey said:
Xen said:
theprof00 said:
sapphi_snake said:
RolStoppable said:
sapphi_snake said:

That's neglecting the huge corruption that existed in Eastern Europe, especially the Balkan region, way before Communism. You'll actually find that less religious states (e.g. the Scandinavian ones) are also less corrupt than more religious ones (e.g. Greece, Turkey, Romania).

Doesn't surprise me in the least. I have always thought that nothing good ever came out of Romania.

Ouch. Well, for sure nothing that ever came out of Romania can compare to a certain moustached dictator.

Which one? Now that I think about it, every dictator from wwii era came out of strong religious countries. Russia (Orthodox church), German Catholicism/Christianity, Italy and the Vatican (which actually supported the Reich).

Also they all had mustaches.

Commie Russia? Strongly religious?

News to me.

Not to mention that Hitler was pagan, and Stalin, an atheist.

Hitler was catholic, he had strong ties to the catholic church and constantly referenced lord Jesus Christ and God in his writings and speeches. 
He thought he was "doing the lord's work" in exterminating the jews.

Is that why Hitler gave the church hell, made efforts to contact spirits of the germanic kings of old (one in particular, though I forgot the name), and admired pagan Himmler?

@prof: By the time Stalin came to power, religion was already heavily stumped in the USSR. It was nothing like the good ol' Russian Empire.



Jexy said:
MARCUSDJACKSON said:
 

even if done it wouldn't do much good for several reasons but the main reason would be mans thirst for power.




I said every war now.  Not every war ever or in the future.  It's the undisputed number one thing people are fighting about in the world today, and if you take that out, then there would be at least a temporary peace, and most likely less wars in the future.

i'm going to give you more credit for this post then anyone else posting in this thread, but the only way to stop wars is for man kind to be programed.

i'm also glad you said temporary peace, and likely less wars. i hate to think no matter what: someone somewhere in the world would be left out nothing will ever be equal and this has nothing to do with religion.