Times when you should question your religious belief!

it was moses came down from the mountain with the commandments i think and got mad about the golden calf(a false deity)

monkeyfudge

Rob_l wrote: »

busy leaving man with free will on earth in all that entails

Yeah... but man didn't invent this thing on his face... God would have come up with that bright idea, if he was real... wouldn't he?

Mossy Monk wrote: »

Where was his God when that thing started growing on his face.

Never mind that, what did he think he was playing at when he created the disorder in the first place?

monkeyfudge wrote: »

Yeah... but man didn't invent this thing on his face... God would have come up with that bright idea, if he was real... wouldn't he?

god came up with all ideas according to biblical sources yes but anythying that can be done on earth to man is not within his realm anymore as we were left to our own devices, so to these people who believe this stuff god created disease and illness to test mans faith and now we are dealing with those tests

Rob_l wrote: »

it was moses came down from the mountain with the commandments i think and got mad about the golden calf(a false deity)

Yeah I know, she was accusing people of having no clue of their religion and then talking balls.
THats why I said that was my favorite part of her rant.

Did anyone see the Futurama where Bender meets God?
Best representation of faith ever. What God said really made sense to me.

monkeyfudge

Rob_l wrote: »

so to these people who believe this stuff god created disease and illness to test mans faith and now we are dealing with those tests

God sounds like a right c*nt to me.

jester77

whoah, talk about picking the wrong cult to follow :eek:
Should have went with one of the more mainstream ones!

kickoutthejams wrote: »

also made statements saying all evil is done in the name of religion while ignoring people who have done good in it's name and ignoring atheistic crimes.

What is an atheistic crime? Who commits crimes because they don't believe in God? Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of atheists who commit crimes, but I doubt that the fact that they are atheist has the slightest thing to do with it. Religion on the otherhand is far too often used as justification for immoral acts.

"Without religion a good man may do good things, and a bad man may do evil things. But for a good man to do evil things you need religion."

bleg wrote: »

What?!

Is that actually a serious argument? You think that the same sections of the brain would be "lit up." What has that got to do with anything?

Have you got any evidence to support what you think?

Well until you do I'm not going to accept what you think might be happening in the brains of a theist or atheist.

Much in the same way that I'm not going to believe in a supernatural being without any evidence to support such a belief.

I don't have any evidence on hand, I'm sure I've heard it in the past though. It's like kickoutthejams says, atheist can be just as narrow minded and almost militant in forcing they're views on people they believe are stupid and misguided. They're no difference IMO between a fundamentalist Christian, Muslim or Atheist.

I'm none of them and would consider myself all religions and a believer in human knowledge and sensibility.

monkeyfudge wrote: »

God sounds like a right c*nt to me.

he giveth and he taketh away

Depeche_Mode wrote: »

What is an atheistic crime? Who commits crimes because they don't believe in God? Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of atheists who commit crimes, but I doubt that the fact that they are atheist has the slightest thing to do with it. Religion on the otherhand is far too often used as justification for immoral acts.

"Without religion a good man may do good things, and a bad man may do evil things. But for a good man to do evil things you need religion."

Pol Pot/Stalin regimes?
Oppression on theists based on their belief by an atheist?

Religion is often used as a justification but usually it's just nutjobs who are psychos regardless. They just use religion as an excuse.
If you read the bible, it's filled with progressive things about tolerance, love and understanding. A "good" man who commits evil in the name of religion is hardly good. He might think he is but it's important to remember the times the bible were set in. Especially in the old testament things like eating pork and circumcision are far more to do with desert surivival than with following God.

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't have any evidence on hand, I'm sure I've heard it in the past though. It's like kickoutthejams says, atheist can be just as narrow minded and almost militant in forcing they're views on people they believe are stupid and misguided. They're no difference IMO between a fundamentalist Christian, Muslim or Atheist.

I'm none of them and would consider myself all religions and a believer in human knowledge and sensibility.

even supposing this were true this would be simple to explain obviously you would use the same part of the brain when arguing about the same topic. eh

yes, no?

bleg

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't have any evidence on hand, I'm sure I've heard it in the past though. It's like kickoutthejams says, atheist can be just as narrow minded and almost militant in forcing they're views on people they believe are stupid and misguided. They're no difference IMO between a fundamentalist Christian, Muslim or Atheist.

I'm none of them and would consider myself all religions and a believer in human knowledge and sensibility.

i agree with you, extremism is never acceptable and i dislike it as much as the next person. i don't have much of a problem with moderate religious people at all. i do think that religious extremism in the USA and middle east is quite worrying.

Overheal

Winters wrote: »

Always question Religion. Never take what you are told for granted. Seek out your own answers.

not just religion: everything.

Actually I saw a brilliant argument in favor of atheists yesterday lemme load it...

EDIT blarg cannot find it it was embedded in another article... basically theres a growing atheist movement in the US now and the argument theyre flying with is they ask people to name as many horrible things/people as they can that used religion as a lever (hmmm.... George Bush, Hitler, Jihad Jihad Jihad, etc etc)

and then they ask how many horrible things have been done by atheists/without religious reasoning.

pwnt.

kickoutthejams wrote: »

Pol Pot/Stalin regimes?
Oppression based on people's religion.

It is true that Stalin and Pol Pot were atheist, but the fact that they have this as a common denominator does not automatically mean that it was the root cause of their atrocities. I would argue that it was instead a combination of their almost religious adherence to dogmatic Marxism and their paranoia in positions of total power which led to their actions, and that arguing that just because they didn't believe in God made them do it is far too simplistic.

Dudess

monkeyfudge wrote: »

God sounds like a right c*nt to me.

Heh, one of those most sensible things ever posted on Boards!

It was AJ Ayer or Kierkegaard who made an excellent point ( i forget who)
It was along the lines of:

It is pointless to talk about God existing or not, we have no evidence for or against so we must make a leap of faith in deciding what we think of him.

kickoutthejams wrote: »

It is pointless to talk about God existing or not, we have no evidence for or against so we must make a leap of faith in deciding what we think of him.

Do you make a leap of faith when it comes to disbelief in Santa Claus or Leprachauns?

Rob_l wrote: »

even supposing this were true this would be simple to explain obviously you would use the same part of the brain when arguing about the same topic. eh

yes, no?

There is a specific part of the brain dedicated to religious/spiritual/meditation thinking, this part of the brain can be overactive in some people.

kickoutthejams wrote: »

It is pointless to talk about God existing or not, we have no evidence for or against so we must make a leap of faith in deciding what we think of him.

Have you got a better explanation for how it all got here? Isn't it just as likely some highly intelligent life form started off the universe as not. Especially now scientists think they could do the same thing given a strong enough power source.

Depeche_Mode wrote: »

It is true that Stalin and Pol Pot were atheist, but the fact that they have this as a common denominator does not automatically mean that it was the root cause of their atrocities. would argue that it was instead a combination of their almost religious adherence to dogmatic Marxism and their paranoia in positions of total power

Religion as the opium of the people is an aspect of marxism, which both followed. They oppressed people who were religious for no other reason than they were religious, rather than they were bourgeois or capitalist or whatever.

The point is, they were atheists who had an intolerance of religion, and as such persecuted theists in much the same way Christian states persecuted Jews and Atheists in previous times.

Depeche_Mode wrote: »

arguing that just because they didn't believe in God made them do it is far too simplistic.

Please do not put words in my mouth. I never said they did it purely because they didn't believe in God. They were not balanced men and had the idea that religion was a bad thing to have and were personally atheist. They used their power to oppress as they were not sane, amongst those they discriminated against were theists.

However, a Christian or Muslim who thinks he is doing God's law by murdering innocents is acting in direct contravention of his holy book. An atheist has no such work directing him and cannot be accused of being a hypocrite. Rather he is just being a bad person.

ScumLord wrote: »

Have you got a better explanation for how it all got here? Isn't it just as likely some highly intelligent life form started off the universe as not. Especially now scientists think they could do the same thing given a strong enough power source.

HOld up there mate, I was quoting a philosopher. I'm saying it's too hard an issue to dogmatically adhere to a single issue when it's such an awesome concept. We have no authority here except what we ourselves believe.
I could use Aquinas' cosmological argument or Paley's Teleological argument for God's existance but I'm an open person.

kickoutthejams wrote: »

They oppressed people who were religious for no other reason than they were religious, rather than they were bourgeois or capitalist or whatever.

I would say they oppressed people who were religious because the religious institutions oppossed their Communist regimes and were a threat to total communism.

They were not balanced men and had the idea that religion was a bad thing to have and were personally atheist.

I agree with you here. What we had was:

Psychopaths + total power + atheism = mass murder.

I would argue that it was the psychopaths in power aspect of the above sum which was the problem. I would think that had balanced minded atheist been in the same positions there would never have been genocide and mass murder.

However, a Christian or Muslim who thinks he is doing God's law by murdering innocents is acting in direct contravention of his holy book. An atheist has no such work directing him and cannot be accused of being a hypocrite.

Here I would disagree, I am sure with a little research I could come up with plenty of murders and genocide commited on the instructions of God in the Bible.

Depeche_Mode wrote: »

I would say they oppressed people who were religious because the religious institutions oppossed their Communist regimes and were a threat to total communism.

Religion still functions other COmmunists dictators- Castro, End of century Soviet Union.
These man had paranoia and were atheist. Other control freaks still allowed religion to function under them, but Stalin for example was was an atheist who oppressed theists.

Depeche_Mode wrote: »

I agree with you here. What we had was:

Psycopaths + total power + atheism = mass murder.

I would argue that it was the psychopaths in power aspect of the above sum which was the problem. I would think that had balanced minded atheist been in the same positions there would never have been genocide and mass murder.

Agreed,
balanced minded atheists or theists wouldn't have resulted in genocide. The important thing is people who commit these crimes are psychos first, and theists/atheists second.

Depeche_Mode wrote: »

Here I would disagree, I am sure with a little research I could come up with plenty of murders and genocide commited on the instructions of God in the Bible.

Different times back then mate. I'm a Christian, I studied the New Testament, and there's almost no hate or sanctioned murder there.
The Old Testament is more important to Jews and I'm no expert on that, but it's important to remember that a lot of it was a survival guide for the desert and for tribes back then. Peace in a tribal system would be hard pressed to work, whereas the New Testament takes place in more civilised times. But I can't defend the Old Testament as I follow the New Testament more and am very ignorant about the old Testament.

froosh69

As a science student I'm basically studying how to prove that God never existed, that how everything you see around you was a complete accident and how to find cures for diseases that were at one time uncurable because "God was angry at you..."

However, I don't believe that it was all an accident and there is a very helpful little phrase that I use in arguments like this:

"Science prolongs and improves life,
Religion deepens it..."

froosh69 wrote: »

As a science student I'm basically studying how to prove that God never existed, that how everything you see around you was a complete accident and how to find cures for diseases that were at one time uncurable because "God was angry at you..."

However, I don't believe that it was all an accident and there is a very helpful little phrase that I use in arguments like this:

"Science prolongs and improves life,
Religion deepens it..."

I don't think it was an accident that solar systems, planets and life formed it's an inevitable result of the big bang. At this stage we could probably predict what course evolution would take should climates change again.

MagicMarker

I wouldn't like to be there when he cuts himself shaving.

But in all honesty, the guy is a moron. Not for his beliefs, but for being a burden on his family who have supported him his whole life with him doing **** all about his condition (until now).

Wacker

ScumLord wrote: »

Have you got a better explanation for how it all got here? Isn't it just as likely some highly intelligent life form started off the universe as not.

Well I personally would not jump to a conclusion, especially one that is as circular as citing a God as the starting point of everything. I don't know how 'it all got here' - why not just admit that and not bring irrationality into the equation?

Dudess

I love this bit:

Unable to find work or a girlfriend

It's nice of the Telegraph to confirm he can't get a girlfriend for those who might be wondering...

I respect the guy's conviction - to put himself through that much misery he must have one hell of a faith. At least he's not a hypocrite like so many "devout" followers. I find the cases where parents refuse to consent to blood transfusions for their sick children difficult to stomach because another person is at risk. But not in this case.