TL;DR: READ IT! DO NOT VOTE BEFORE READING OR I WILL RIP YOUR BALLS OFF WITH MAGMA!
No discussion here. I just want anonymous opinions on whether there is the slightest chance of religion being wrong.
What I mean by this, "Is religion a sin?"
Does religion bring evil to this world or good?
A few points:
Notice that atheists aren't automatically evil because they are not constrained by fear of hell. Atheists are naturally altruistic because they do it because they want to. Not because some scripture or clergyman tells them to.
Religion has spouted a few good people. Martin Luther King. George Washington. (And all the founding fathers if you take it up a notch.) Etc. These people did what they did not because it would redeem them or it would save them from damnation. They did it because they believed in it and wanted to change the current, wrong, system.
Hitler was, officially, an Atheist. This is not a valid point to label Atheism as evil. But I refuse to label him an Atheist. His beliefs were pretty religious to me. Not all religions have a god. (Buddhism)
As education, technology and science progressed, the number of Atheists and Agnostics rose significantly. This can easily be attributed to more people thinking instead of blindly accepting whatever the clergyman told them.
Most religious people defend the existence of god by saying "You cannot disprove the existence of god" Well by that logic, prove to me that the Greek pantheon, Roman pantheon, Pagan gods, Nirvana and all that other stuff, doesn't/don't exist. Because that's what your religion believes. What if I told you there was a giant flying dragon that is completely undetectable by humans. Would you believe in it merely because you cannot disprove its existence?
Most religious people ask Atheists to prove god doesn't exist. I'm going to quote Pat Condell's FAQ (
http://patcondell.net/) here.
Q: Prove God doesn’t exist.
A: That’s a tough one. Show me how it’s done by proving Zeus and Apollo don’t exist, and I’ll use your method.
No matter on your stand-point, you must agree that nobody has the right to enforce his beliefs on others. An Atheist should not be allowed to convert a crowd not willing to listen. Nor should a religious person. But here's the crunch. What about children? The belief of a child depends to whom he is born. Those parents may instill horrible values in that child and indoctrinate him to be equally closed minded until eventually, through many generations, the offsprings start to think for themselves instead of seeking easy pre-packaged solutions. Kids are constantly being subjected, against their will (Technically) to the beliefs of their parents. Now we know, psychologically, a human believes the first thing he learns about a subject. If you were a newborn baby and I told you that fire is hot because magical imps dwell in it, you would believe that and preach that until you found proof otherwise. But it would be damn hard for you to accept that proof or even make room for the possibility that maybe your knowledge is wrong.
As I mentioned before, I want NO DISCUSSION about religion WHAT SO EVER. No discussion AT ALL.
I want NO FLAME WARS. NO CONVERSIONS. NO SELF-RIGHTEOUS CRUSADES.
I DO NOT CARE IF YOU ARE AN ATHEIST LIKE ME. I will not be a hypocrite here. I wanted anonymous opinions and I will get them.
I do not want you to justify your opinion. I just want it. I do am not going to preach about Atheism and logic here. If any replies occur, I want them to have nothing to do with religion. You may ask stuff such as "Why make this poll?" "Do you seriously expect this thread to not be locked?" Etc.
I think I'll write a small FAQ here.
Q: Why make this poll?
A: I want the opinion of the Bay 12 masses. I will cross-examine the poll results with my experience here to determine the open-mindedness of Bay 12.
Q: Do you seriously expect this thread to not be locked?
A: Yes. This is why I am taking these preventive measures. To the moderators, (Toady and ThreeToe) I mean no offense here. I just wanted to gather anonymous opinion. I do not seek to spark flame wars or divide the forum into mindless babble. If you find this thread unacceptable, delete it at your will. Do not lock it. Delete it. Do not ban me for my pursuit of knowledge and understanding.
Q: Why do you care if you're an Atheist?
A: Religion is a big issue. I must care if I want to understand it. I know the history of it and how it came to be. Now I need to know, what mostly reasonable people, think about it. If you want to label me, I am a scientist. I seek knowledge and understanding. Regardless of personal opinion.
Q: What if I believe in an evil religion?
A: You mean a belief system that glorifies evil? Well then I guess you should vote no. Because for you, the religion is a good thing.
Q: Why do you get up from bed in the morning if you believe that all you accomplished on this mortal plane and your entire existence is meaningless?
A: I don't believe my entire existence is meaningless. I am the product of some process and I have a goal to fulfill. From an evolutionary standpoint, my goal is to make children and make sure they prosper. Religious people seek the same but with different means.
Q: What are your favorite Pat Condell FAQs?
A: I will copy paste them here now.
Q: What do you think of Buddhists/Hindus/Sikhs/Jedi etc.?
A: I have no problem with any of them, as last time I checked they weren't trying to take over the world.
Q: Why shouldn’t I be allowed to raise my kids religious if I want to?
A: The same reason you shouldn’t be allowed to beat them with a knotted rope.
Q: By antagonising religious people, aren’t you making it less likely they’ll agree with you?
A: I don’t want them to agree with me. I want them to shut up and maybe see a doctor.
Q: How do you vote in elections?
A: I usually vote for the fattest candidate, on the basis that they'll take up more room on the House of Commons benches, thereby giving me more democracy for my valuable franchise.
Q: Why do you attack Christianity when Islam is a bigger threat?
A: Because our indulgence of Christianity has encouraged Islam to claim equal status and threaten our freedom.
And of course,
Q: Prove God doesn’t exist.
A: That’s a tough one. Show me how it’s done by proving Zeus and Apollo don’t exist, and I’ll use your method.
Q: Pat Condell sounds like a closed minded evil Atheist person.
A: You'd get that impression just from reading his FAQ. Watch a few of his videos. I'm sure you'll agree with at least some of them.
Q: Are you a liberal?
A: Yes. But unlike most labels, I don't buy completely liberal ideas. I find some of the liberal ideology wrong. For example, I think Nuclear energy is perfectly reasonable. I think guns are a vital part of maintaining our freedom. Those are just a few examples. If you'd like more, try to have a discussion with me by PM.
Q: Do you believe in god?
A: Your short answer would be "No" but your proper answer would be "Not as defined by most religions." I believe more in the scientific method than Atheism. God has yet to be proven OR disproven. He is not a scientific fact. But from logic, I'd assume if he exists, he's not omnipotent, he's not omniscient and he's not benevolent. If anything, he is evil and sadistic. Or just not giving a shit.
Q: From looking at your profile, I see you live in Israel. Isn't it hard to be an Atheist in a country filled with self-righteous religious people who believe this land was promised to them by god? Not to mention Jerusalem being there...
A: It is hard. People here refuse to accept any logic that is contradictory with their beliefs. They outright refuse to think. They would sooner rather believe the rantings of a self-righteous clergyman than the philosophical debatings of a philosopher or scientist.
Q: Do you think yourself to be a philosopher?
A: Well the word philosophy means "Love of wisdom" so yes. I am a philosopher. But am I a philosopher by the common definition? Yes. I love to think about things. I love to ponder. I love to seek fallacies and find the core truth. But I am a staunch supporter of the scientific method. No Aristotle for me, thanks.
Q: Why make such a long thread on such a simple topic?
A: Because I don't want any room for misunderstanding. I'd also prefer that only people with the patience to read all of this would vote. Because their opinion matters more to me. It carries more weight in the sense that they care about this.
Q: What do you think about YouTube comments?
A: About 95% of the time I see them, I can't help but say "YOU ARE ALL WRONG!"
Q: Why make a big FAQ like this?
A: So less questions get asked in replies.
Q: Why did you spoiler tag the whole post?
A: So that people wont have to face the inconvinance of seeing this thread every time they check up on it.
Q: This isn't a small FAQ like you planned.
A: No. A lot of questions popped into my mind that I thought I should answer.
With that FAQ out of the way, Id like to mention again.
I want no religious discussion in this thread. This whole thread is for poll purposes only. On some forums, you can start "No reply" threads. I cannot here. But I will take this opportunity to answer some of Bay12's questions about this poll. Sorry for the massive scrolldown.I thank you for your patience and intelligence. I am going to use this final chance to give a few words to the good admins of this board. Toady and ThreeToe.
I have used countless measures to get this post to bend to forum standards. I do not want to make flame wars. I'm doing this to expand my knowledge. To know what people think. Is there anything wrong with asking people their opinion?
Like I said... Delete this thread if it is inappropriate. I will completely forget about it and never mention it again. If I have done a wrong here, I'm sorry. But surely you can see I have done my best to prevent flame wars and degeneration of the topic into mindless insults.
As I press the "Post" button, my thoughts start to race. I am risking my posting privileges on my favorite forum. I do not want to lose them. As I stated, it's not necessary to ban me. I went over the forum rules and could see nothing wrong with asking an innocent question. I did all I could to keep it clean. This is not some 5 minute post. (It took me half an hour to write this. Appreciate it a bit.)
Department of redundancy department: Do not ban me for seeking knowledge. I am not here to cause unrest.
I hope nobody feels insulted by this thread. I REALLY do not want to be banned for this. I've said it 3 times up to now. If this thread is inappropriate, delete it. No banning necessary. Just tell me that it's inappropriate and I will never do something like this again.
Yes, it has dawned upon me that I should have asked Today and ThreeToe for permission to post something such as this. But frankly, I was too fearful of them outright rejecting it out of fear for forum unrest. So I am presenting this under fair conditions.
I promise you this: If I find a reply that could lead to flame wars, I will lock this topic myself. Even if that means losing the poll I desire so much. The integrity of this forum is more important to me.
Poll
16 (39%)
Author
Topic: Religion poll (Read 2206 times)