Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Glowcat]

Beliefs are sociological tools. If you do not think of beliefs as types of tools you do not understand basic sociology.

Funny, but a false equivocation with regards to 'tool'. A belief is something that ingrains itself in the entirety of a person's outlook whereas a tool can be separated from the outlook rather easily. A tool that develops a life of its own is no longer a tool in the sense that it can simply be controlled like an on/off switch.

As I said before, if the benefits of religion can be replaced by other means then regardless of its merits, religion is obsolete. This would be obvious if were to use another car analogy comparing an old gas guzzler with an electronic car that was just as effective but didn't cause the pollution. I could take it even further, and compare the moral benefit said to be found in religious texts with that of humanist philosophy. You get all the good fuzzy feelings without the condemnation of homosexuals as unnatural sins against the order established by our Lord On High. Yet it is only belief-powered human behavior that can thwart both obvious answers and arrive at the conclusion that destroying our world is in the best interest of humanity. For Apocalypse hopefuls, literally.

People are capable of compartmentalizing extremely well, but when they are serious about a foundational principle of their entire life outlook it will seep into every idea that ever pops into their head. When I was still religious my entire outlook on morality and how the world worked was contingent on some very frail pillars that made inane nonsense such as "unnatural acts" or "fetuses are people" make sense within my mental framework at the time. It is the complete and utter distortion of reality which is religion's greatest evil, and it is one embedded at the concept's heart.

It's ironic because by arguing in defense of religion you are relying on the ability for humans to come to an understanding that doesn't depend on Faith alone. If your assumption of an argument and the ability to change peoples mind's with reason is so necessary to prove your position, then how could its removal be considered a good thing?

We don't need religion, and it is, by itself, harmful. Magic thinking, is harmful. Protecting religion or helping people go through their lives without their ideas being challenged, is harmful. Obviously going around killing religious people would be even more harmful, but that's going into the how of removing religion, not the truth value of its status as a negative effect on humanity.

Note: I do not speak of things that are religion in name only. The essence of religion I address is a collection of traditions which place supernatural value on themselves and the ideas therein.

[Realmfighter]

Note: I do not speak of things that are religion in name only. The essence of religion I address is a collection of traditions which place supernatural value on themselves and the ideas therein.

Are you against Traditions?  Are you against anything that places Value on their Ideas over another's?

Your saying that Religion is Harmful, and then Saying Religion is the traditions of people! No Shit they hurt people, because thats what people do! Hurt People! If you define Religion so Vaguely, then you are essentially against Humankind.

I rage at this Topic. Religion is like a gun. Religion has never killed anyone. People Have killed people and Justified themselves with it, but its not like there aren't Millions more!

[Angel Of Death]

Note: I do not speak of things that are religion in name only. The essence of religion I address is a collection of traditions which place supernatural value on themselves and the ideas therein.

Religion is like a gun. Religion has never killed anyone. People Have killed people and Justified themselves with it, but its not like there aren't Millions more!

Except religion isn't made to kill.

[Realmfighter]

Except religion isn't made to kill.

Yes, My Metaphor is Shitty. Most Metaphors are.

(Religion as a Metaphorical thing technically never was created. I was using the Gun Metaphor because it being a Metaphorical thing up for interpretation literally cannot kill someone, while still able to be used as a tool by people to create pain.)

[thobal]

THERE IS NO GOD, NOW LETS ALL BE NICE TO EACH OTHER AND ENJOY OUR LIVES

[Nadaka]

I'm not even sure where to start, other than telling you that you're just as biased against religion as I am against Iranian copper bowl makers.

what do you have against Iranian copper bowl makers?

Bias? Why?
I come from the far extreme of religion being a bad thing, I also come from the far extreme of absolute unwavering tightly bound faith. My biases should cancel each other out?

Do you have any idea how hard it was to break out of that nightmare and express free will? To become anything other than an exact copy of the only two templates I knew? An enduring helpless victim or a blood thirsty monster? To form an independent rational thought? It took years of effort. And first step for me was not to run away from faith, but to attempt refuge in it. I knew what other Christians said was good and believed in. I read the bible, cover to cover as fast as I could. I saw it all, laid bare before me. I didn't find the goodness they claimed. I saw that god himself did horrible things and I saw the praise and glorification of evil.  I saw all the pain, darkness, violence and hate I was raised in, that I was raised to be. The benevolent aspects of the common christian religion are a shallow veneer over a fundamentally corrupt core that most of the "good" believes never bothered to look at too deeply. That was the start. From there I started looking at other religions (I briefly entertained the idea of Hinduism, that is where my username comes from). What I found was that every major religion is fundamentally screwed up. That is when I decided to abandon religion and I threw myself into learning everything I had been missing out on for all my life and I realized that I didn't have to be conflicted. Religion was not only wrong, but false. You can not imagine how liberating that felt for me.

I never wanted to believe that religion was evil. But after looking at it for a long time, there really seems to be something about it that is fundamentally corrupting in it. Faith itself is corruption. It creates a twisted logic of its own that can justify almost any depravity or crush any fleeting independent reason. It makes people rigid, but easily manipulated. Irrationality, by definition limits your capacity to reason, to think, to be creative. It crushes will and stifles your mind.

[Willfor]

Bias? Why?
I come from the far extreme of religion being a bad thing, I also come from the far extreme of absolute unwavering tightly bound faith. My biases should cancel each other out?

You basically just proved his entire point with this statement. The fact that you have never been anything but extreme makes you unsuitable for rational debate unless you're willing to look past your personal experiences. Everything you pull up is reactionary to your former situation, and thus you're a person lashing out at a former life.

[Bohandas]

Beliefs are sociological tools. If you do not think of beliefs as types of tools you do not understand basic sociology.

Don't you mean that people who believe  in things are tools?

[Criptfeind]

It's late. I am tired. I am just going to cherry pick my arguments. Screw anyone who disagrees with that.

As I said before, if the benefits of religion can be replaced by other means then regardless of its merits, religion is obsolete.

Can it? Maybe. Will it? Maybe. Is it now doing so? No.

what do you have against Iranian copper bowl makers?

IEDs.

[Bohandas]

Has anybody else noticed that most Athiest websites all seem to be really racist? Its true! They pretty much focus exclusively focus on disproving the Christian God, with any mentions of other religions being more-or-less accidental side effects of the places where the Christian bible overlaps with the Torah, the Tanakh, and the Koran. No mention is ever made of Brama or Shiva or Vishnu, or Ahura Mazda, or BOB Dobbs, or Avolikiteshvara, or Amaterasu, or The Wiccan "Triple Goddes", or Shakpana, or Shango. Occasionally one of them will mntion L. Ron Hubbard, but that's about it.

[Nadaka]

For most American and European atheists, the religion we left and still have to deal with every day is Christianity. It isn't so much racist as it is the fact that you are most likely looking at English sites made by Americans or Europeans. I've definitely specifically rejected Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu specifically before giving up on all religion in general.

[Glowcat]

Are you against Traditions?  Are you against anything that places Value on their Ideas over another's?

Your saying that Religion is Harmful, and then Saying Religion is the traditions of people! No Shit they hurt people, because thats what people do! Hurt People! If you define Religion so Vaguely, then you are essentially against Humankind.

It was late and I edited in "supernatural value" as a hasty attempt to clarify. It doesn't seem to have been enough.

It isn't wrong that people place value in things, what's wrong is when they do so without any real evidence that their position has merit on its own. Instead they must resort to claims of transcendent value which cannot be verified or reasoned except through unevidenced assumptions about the universe. This allows them to make conclusions that would never be justifiable when acting on the real world alone. People could still make mistakes or cause harm, but they wouldn't do so for reasons inspired by magic nonsense or outdated understanding that should have died long ago.

[Strife26]

So "Morality has value because it's what Jesus wanted" is somehow always going to be worse than "Morality has value cause Morality has value"?

[Glowcat]

So "Morality has value because it's what Jesus wanted" is somehow always going to be worse than "Morality has value cause Morality has value"?

I'd say that formalist morality like that is indeed always going to be inferior to morality built to ensure a more fulfilling human society. It is not enough to simply do, but to understand the reasons for morality. Otherwise we get tripe in our dialogue, such as visions of people going off on hedonistic binges of destruction after people realize there is no invisible master watching them 24/7.

Not understanding morality except as a binding proclamation also leads to acceptance of things based on proclamation alone. When that proclamation (or a similar behavioral endorsement) is itself harmful, and generally accepted throughout a society, it is extremely difficult to get rid of its influence in government.

[ArKFallen]

Nadaka I've got a question for you.
What would you say isn't corrupt?

I'm honestly interested. Because when I try to look at things similarly all I see is debasement and corruption with these descriptions. Yet I see no examples of what any of these things were before they were corrupt. What say you?