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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[origamiscienceguy]

lol, the title.

[TempAcc]

The answer to everything is in my sig.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Nah, there's definitely been a little anti-religious stuff from... Dwarfy? Maybe Descan? I dunno, I can't really remember. Not salty, just thought it was funny in contrast with D4E worried about coming across jerkish.

I'm anti-religious for sure.

[Shadowlord]

There are good things and bad things about religion. It's not black or white.

Pope Francis is the obvious example of a good thing, but I'd rather point at the rehabilitation of people in prison occurring through religion (by helping them 'find jesus'). Maybe it's a shortcut with repercussions (magical thinking), but it can't be denied that it works.

[Arcvasti]

Well... I've attacked religion before.  Or, argued that it's dangerous in all forms.
(Sometimes I've argued that very harshly and in a rambling way)

Though I wasn't against the idea of believing in unproven things, or spirituality.  I believe in fairies for flip's sake.  Just organized religion.

And I try to keep a lid on it, but living in Southern USA I do really fear it a lot :/  I'm sure my perspective would be different if I was on the receiving end of missionary aid instead of legal oppression.  In other words, Christians here are incredibly political and I worry that that's innate and inevitable with organized religion.

The thing is, power is hard. Organized religion[Or even unorganized religion, to a lesser degree] has power. Point or direct that power the wrong way and some pretty horrific shenanigans can ensue. Even when I was more religious, I never liked the fact that the Church as an institution had power. Pope Francis is generally pretty chill and them trying to use their influence to help combat climate change is good, but I dislike the fact that they even HAVE that influence, even if its being used for good. This isn't so much a dislike of organized religion as a dislike of organizations and one person having authority and power over another under any circumstances.

[origamiscienceguy]

That's basically why the reformation happened.

[Frumple]

Pope Francis is the obvious example of a good thing, but I'd rather point at the rehabilitation of people in prison occurring through religion (by helping them 'find jesus'). Maybe it's a shortcut with repercussions (magical thinking), but it can't be denied that it works.

He kinda' ain't, heh. Better at jawing than the last few popes, and largely much better at downplaying or lowballing the shitty parts of the catholic messages, but still very, very catholic, with the negatives that entails. Positives too, for what it's worth, but I'd call 'im good only in relation to, well, previous popes. He could probably manage better if he didn't have the yoke of his organization around 'is neck, ha.

The rehabilitative effect is also... somewhat overplayed. Often. It can't be denied it works, perhaps, but it very much can be denied it works well, or consistently. There's similar problems involved with alcoholism "treatment" -- there's a very heavy religious aspect to AA, in the states, as a representative example, and it... doesn't work too well. Just about any good that can manage on that front, can be managed significantly better with, y'know, a proper psych-founded treatment regime.

[That Wolf]

The pope is a tool of satan, he supports gays.
GAY IS WRONG!
MUHAHAHA THE POWER OF JESUS FLOWITH THROUGH MY INTOXICATRED BODY!
the god of zombies all hail jesus who rose from the grave! He shall grant us eternal unlife.

Religion sucks and will always fall behind in morals and relevance.
Go eat some fruit

[origamiscienceguy]

The pope is a tool of satan, he supports gays.
GAY IS WRONG!
MUHAHAHA THE POWER OF JESUS FLOWITH THROUGH MY INTOXICATRED BODY!
the god of zombies all hail jesus who rose from the grave! He shall grant us eternal unlife.

Religion sucks and will always fall behind in morals and relevance.
Go eat some fruit

Source??

 

[That Wolf]

No thanks my buns are juicy enough.

[penguinofhonor]

[origamiscienceguy]

FAKE!!

Everybody knows the devil doesn't have horns.

 

[That Wolf]

An angle of music would have plenty of horns, ffs

Thats just obtuse

[Rolan7]

[snip]

Yes that

But also, Pope Francis did say some relatively progressive-ish things.  Even about homosexuality: “If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
Actually here's a whole article: http://time.com/3975630/pope-francis-lgbt-issues/

Basically Francis has said a whole bunch of relatively nice things about gay people.
...  But, as far as I know, little of substance.  I mean, even that quote is easily interpreted as "God will judge, not me."

I think he's better about other progressive issues, which is again (relatively) cool.

[Shadowlord]

His encyclical sounded like a pretty serious call for action to me. It's helluva long so I never got around to reading it myself, though.
NYT article about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/world/europe/pope-francis-in-sweeping-encyclical-calls-for-swift-action-on-climate-change.html
Actual encyclical (NYT says it's 184 pages): http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

There's similar problems involved with alcoholism "treatment" -- there's a very heavy religious aspect to AA, in the states, as a representative example, and it... doesn't work too well. Just about any good that can manage on that front, can be managed significantly better with, y'know, a proper psych-founded treatment regime.

I completely agree with you about AA, mostly because I've read articles about it already. Alcohol is pretty addictive, and their design isn't science-based and apparently isn't terribly effective.

I'm not so sure crime is the same. This might seem like evidence that religion can't do anything helpful, but, I get the impression that crime is often the result of structural failures in the system (e.g. you can't get a job because you've been arrested or convicted, or you lose your job because you miss work because you can't pay bail when you get arrested for walking while black in a bad neighborhood, which you happen to live in, etc). Other times it's the result of addiction (to drugs), feeling that you need to find a way to get more.

Perhaps it isn't just the religious conversion that helps. If I were going to speculate, I'd wager that their church connections help them find a home and job, and give them a support network willing to help them out: Fellow church members, their pastor / preacher, people they're introduced to through that network, etc.