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Forums - General - Why try to disprove/disagree with religion?

EdHieron on 24 January 2013
timmah said:
I'm starting to think some of you atheists feel threatened by people of faith... why is this? There's not another good explanation for the way you attack. It's quite ironic that the atheists seem to be the most intolerant against opposing views, when us 'religious people' are supposedly the intolerant ones.


We want the Christians that want to make everyone else in the world adhere to the tribal moral codes contained in an ancient book of fiction to stop trying to make other people have to live by the tribal moral codes contained in an ancient book of fiction.

That's the only group of people we want to change.

On the other hand Christians that really want everyone else to adhere to the teaching contained in that ancient book of fiction want to control how everyone else in the world can live their lives.

That's far more than intolerance of only one group of people.



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EdHieron on 24 January 2013
timmah said:
Runa216 said:
timmah said:
dsgrue3 said:
timmah said:
You say they made him up, I say He revealed himself to specific individuals Hknew had a good heart. Self hypnosis? Really? C'mon, that's not even close to what I'm talking about. Why do some atheists have to be so blatently militant about their beliefs?

If I knew everything about how and why God works, I would write a book about it and become rich.

Yep and the mental ward patients didn't make up their imaginary friend, the friend revealed him/herself to them. I hope you know how ridiculous you sound right now.

Only ridiculous if you don't belive God exists. We're speaking from two completely different worldviews here.

Confirmed:  Timmah doesn't know how ridiculous he sounds right now. 

I'm fully aware of how ridiculous that sounds to an atheist. I find it ridiculous how you feel the need to obstinantly attack views that don't line up with yours. I find it ridiculous that you completely write off any possibility of something existing beyond what humanity's extremely limited senses, mental capacity, and observations can prove. Even Abert Einstein (whom you like to quote) believed in some form of God, albeit not a personal God, and I'm sure he would have been much more open-minded and tolerant in his methods of communication in the subject.

I don't know how he's attacking views since he's only stating what the evidence with by far the greatest amount of scholarly evidence behind it says is the truth.  Are you trying to say that stating the truth is an attack on Christianity?



Scoobes on 24 January 2013
timmah said:
the2real4mafol said:
timmah said:
the2real4mafol said:

I personally just don't see the point in any religion. It just seems no matter what there books say, all religions are used as an excuse for hatred and bloodshed, especially when governments start to get over run by religious nutcases who base their policies on their beliefs rather than what benefits the whole nation. Just look at the numerous religious wars in Europe that have occurred over the last 300 to 1000 years, was all that necessary? If there was a god, surely he didn't want those wars to happen, the bible wanted peace right? 

I agree with you on that point, though without religion, do we really think they wouldn't have found another excuse? The Chinese government does a lot of awful things and they are completely non religious. Maybe the problem isn't the misused tool, but the holder of the tool?

Yeah i don't doubt that religion wanted any conflict at all, but government clearly use to get what they want. Without religion, the political ideology of the day is used to get what government wants, just look at the USSR or North Korea

Yep, not to mention racism, nationalism, or any other 'ism' that can convince people they are superior to another group. Humans are a messed up bunch... you only need to turn on the news for about 30 seconds to know that.

Whilst this is all true, I would argue that religion holds a particular power over people, more so than any of the 'isms' you mention above. For one thing, religion is one of the few beliefs that seems to hold from one generation to the next. From birth, if you are raised in a particular religion, in all likelihood you will keep that religious viewpoint into adulthood. No other belief system is so ingrained from generation to generation so the same mistakes and "traditions" kept being made.

It's only through debate, argument and protest that this eventually gets changed, but when the same beliefs (no matter how backward) are being passed down from generation to generation, this takes a ridiculously long time.




Get your Portable ID!

dsgrue3 on 24 January 2013
timmah said:

Not necessarily saying what he believed was theistic in nature, but you're saying he was personally an atheist. Since atheism is defined as "the doctrine that there is no diety", that is unlikely, especially since Einstein purposefully rejected that label on multiple occasions. We could debate all day on the nature of his personal beliefs, but the nature of his quotes on this throughout his life indicate that he had his own internal struggle with the notion of 'God', and that he was far more humble about his opinions than you are. Atheism is something he denied outright on multiple occasions, so don't sit there and make it out as what I'm saying is 'laughable' when you're suggesting he was something that he flat out denied with his own words. At this point we're just debating semantics.


I don't know what's so difficult to understand here. Einstein made public statements about his beliefs - agnostic, and private statements to friends about his beliefs - atheist, he rejected the label because of the stigma associated with it at the time and definition people used at the time which was the certainty that God does not exist. Obviously, being an intelligent person, he could not use atheist as a label although his personal beliefs were that no God existed.

The difference between stating that God does not exist and merely believing God does not exist is paramount to understanding his theistic input. Perhaps you're incapable of separating the public einstein from the private. I think you're allowing your religion to guide you in this...which has clouded your judgement to objectively analyze his quotations.



miz1q2w3e on 24 January 2013
NintendoPie said:
miz1q2w3e said:
It means more people will know how ridiculous religion is --> hopefully less people will remain religious --> less crimes in the name of their beliefs, one less reason to hate and discriminate, less bigotry...etc.

The world would be better without things like religion. I wouldn't care if it was just harmless nonsense, but it isn't harmless.

Religion isn't usually the thing that kills people, people kill people. (Classic arguement, but it's true.)

It's scary to think that someone believes something so hard that they're willing to kill and die for it. Not only that, but they believe that it's their duty and that they will be rewarded for it in the afterlife. Now take a similar situation, except take out the religion part. Someone hears voices, and they tell them to kill other people, sacrifice themselves for their purpose...etc. What do you call that person?

Nothing else besides religion would cause an otherwise sane personto do this. The really scary part is that they don't even believe they're doing anything wrong. Each one believes they are on the side of "good", and the other side deserves it.

haha you reminded me of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmwBPsB0oaE



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timmah on 24 January 2013
EdHieron said:
timmah said:
I'm starting to think some of you atheists feel threatened by people of faith... why is this? There's not another good explanation for the way you attack. It's quite ironic that the atheists seem to be the most intolerant against opposing views, when us 'religious people' are supposedly the intolerant ones.


We want the Christians that want to make everyone else in the world adhere to the tribal moral codes contained in an ancient book of fiction to stop trying to make other people have to live by the tribal moral codes contained in an ancient book of fiction.

That's the only group of people we want to change.

On the other hand Christians that really want everyone else to adhere to the teaching contained in that ancient book of fiction want to control how everyone else in the world can live their lives.

That's far more than intolerance of only one group of people.

You clearly have no understanding of the words of Jesus if that's what you think Christianity is.



timmah on 24 January 2013
EdHieron said:
timmah said:
Runa216 said:
timmah said:
dsgrue3 said:
timmah said:
You say they made him up, I say He revealed himself to specific individuals Hknew had a good heart. Self hypnosis? Really? C'mon, that's not even close to what I'm talking about. Why do some atheists have to be so blatently militant about their beliefs?

If I knew everything about how and why God works, I would write a book about it and become rich.

Yep and the mental ward patients didn't make up their imaginary friend, the friend revealed him/herself to them. I hope you know how ridiculous you sound right now.

Only ridiculous if you don't belive God exists. We're speaking from two completely different worldviews here.

Confirmed:  Timmah doesn't know how ridiculous he sounds right now. 

I'm fully aware of how ridiculous that sounds to an atheist. I find it ridiculous how you feel the need to obstinantly attack views that don't line up with yours. I find it ridiculous that you completely write off any possibility of something existing beyond what humanity's extremely limited senses, mental capacity, and observations can prove. Even Abert Einstein (whom you like to quote) believed in some form of God, albeit not a personal God, and I'm sure he would have been much more open-minded and tolerant in his methods of communication in the subject.

I don't know how he's attacking views since he's only stating what the evidence with by far the greatest amount of scholarly evidence behind it says is the truth.  Are you trying to say that stating the truth is an attack on Christianity?

It's not the fact that he disagrees, I've had many good conversations with people who disagree with me. It's the way he disagrees.



NintendoPie on 24 January 2013
miz1q2w3e said:

It's scary to think that someone believes something so hard that they're willing to kill and die for it. Not only that, but they believe that it's their duty and that they will be rewarded for it in the afterlife. Now take a similar situation, except take out the religion part. Someone hears voices, and they tell them to kill other people, sacrifice themselves for their purpose...etc. What do you call that person?

Nothing else besides religion would cause an otherwise sane personto do this. The really scary part is that they don't even believe they're doing anything wrong. Each one believes they are on the side of "good", and the other side deserves it.

haha you reminded me of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmwBPsB0oaE

The whole point of my post was to tell you that that is not true for most people... 

Besides, I wouldn't call it "voices." The people that kill other people in the name of their religion are usually thinking wrongly in the first place.



miz1q2w3e on 24 January 2013
NintendoPie said:
miz1q2w3e said:

It's scary to think that someone believes something so hard that they're willing to kill and die for it. Not only that, but they believe that it's their duty and that they will be rewarded for it in the afterlife. Now take a similar situation, except take out the religion part. Someone hears voices, and they tell them to kill other people, sacrifice themselves for their purpose...etc. What do you call that person?

Nothing else besides religion would cause an otherwise sane personto do this. The really scary part is that they don't even believe they're doing anything wrong. Each one believes they are on the side of "good", and the other side deserves it.

haha you reminded me of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmwBPsB0oaE

The whole point of my post was to tell you that that is not true for most people... 

Besides, I wouldn't call it "voices." The people that kill other people in the name of their religion are usually thinking wrongly in the first place.

But you admit it's true (for some). That's really all it takes for bad things to happen.



EdHieron on 24 January 2013
timmah said:
EdHieron said:
timmah said:
I'm starting to think some of you atheists feel threatened by people of faith... why is this? There's not another good explanation for the way you attack. It's quite ironic that the atheists seem to be the most intolerant against opposing views, when us 'religious people' are supposedly the intolerant ones.


We want the Christians that want to make everyone else in the world adhere to the tribal moral codes contained in an ancient book of fiction to stop trying to make other people have to live by the tribal moral codes contained in an ancient book of fiction.

That's the only group of people we want to change.

On the other hand Christians that really want everyone else to adhere to the teaching contained in that ancient book of fiction want to control how everyone else in the world can live their lives.

That's far more than intolerance of only one group of people.

You clearly have no understanding of the words of Jesus if that's what you think Christianity is.

Yeah, but if you look at the millions to billions of deaths and the rights being denied to minorities today and the rampant child molestations caused by those that believe themselves to be Christians since Constantine made it the official religion of Rome then one must either come to the conclusion that those that believe themselves to be the staunchest followers of Jesus either don't understand the words of Jesus or that there must have been something wrong with the words of Jesus himself.

Very few 'Christians' venerate the 'Gospel' of Thomas' which most reputable modern scholars think comes as close or closer to capturing the actual words of Jesus than any other Gospel.  Heck, it didn't even make the official version of'The Bible' approved by the Roman Empire that almost all "Christians" follow today.