Religion, better off without it?

gimme5minutes wrote: »

"IF" people kept to the teachings. Like I said, in theory it sounds good but in practise, after 2000 years, it has been shown that people don't stick to the teachings, or interpret them indifferent ways, and use their 'beliefs' to justify all sorts of disgraceful crimes.

I believe we can keep to the teachings of Christ if we as a church sort out our organisational structure in a way that allows for us to be a people of equals in a Christian community. I think the first century church of Paul and the Apostles is the perfect example of this.

gimme5minutes wrote: »

What are you talking about 'blame atheism'...thats just an attempt derail the argument. Wars that are fought for non-religious reasons are not fought 'in the name of atheism', the vast majority are fought due to disagreements over territory, it has nothing to do with atheism.

Stalin persecuted Christians, Muslims, and Jews so that his ideology could take first place. He supported state atheism so that he could be numero uno in Stalinist Russia. I don't blame atheism, but atheism was involved to an extent. There are others like the Albanian Hoxha who carried out similar crimes in Europe.

gimme5minutes wrote: »

And again my point is that, it doesn't really matter what the Bible says in theory because in practise, which is what matters, there have been loads of wars fought for in the name of religion. And if there was no such thing as religion, those conflicts wouldn't have happened. Or course there would always be war over something, thats the nature of mankind, but getting rid of wars due to religion would be a great idea.

I'd argue that it does matter what the Bible says and it matters how Christians encourage people to read it for guidance.

These wars were never motivated by Jesus Christ or His ideology, they were motivated by corrupt men.

Actually if there was no such thing as religion wars would have happened based on ethnicity, race, social class, amongst other typical identity classifications.

gimme5minutes wrote: »

What are they doing exactly? What are they doing that outweighs the millions of people that have died and been oppressed due to religion? Lets start in Ireland, what exactly have the church done that outweighs raping and murdering thousands of children?

Building AIDS hospitals, assisting with recovery of leprosy. Building orphanages for kids, providing for education for kids who have no other means of doing so. Giving people hope where there quite frankly is none otherwise. Helping drug addicts, feeding the poor, helping prostitutes. Many things like this happen because of Christians in the world.

My question to you however, is what are atheists doing to outweigh the millions of people killed through State atheism? I don't see that these people died because of atheism, but rather of the abuse of atheism for other motives. Just like people died from the abuse of religion for other motives. I and other Christians who advocate what Jesus Christ taught us 2,000 years ago don't need to pay for the corruptions of the past by other people who used it as an excuse.

gimme5minutes wrote: »

If there was no such thing as religion, the whole thing wouldn't have happened in the first place. Yes there will always be abuse going on but not nearly as bad as what happened. A situation where celibate frustrated men who thought they were above the law (and it turns out they were right) in control of defenseless children would not have occurred if religion never existed in the first place.

Those celibate men should have never been celibate in the first place. Only a very small proportion of people have the patience to remain celibate and only a small proportion of people can do so their entire lives. Just my opinion on the Catholic policy on celibacy.

gimme5minutes wrote: »

Where do the Church get their money? Are they out working on building sites or are they slaving over a computer all day in an office? Eh no, they are getting handouts from the public. They have taken far more wealth from the people than they've ever given back. And my initial point stands that for whatever good they do, it doesn't come close to outweighing the bad.

I don't need to account for the finances of the Catholic Church. They should be publishing where every cent of the money goes to however. I think it's a bit disingenous of you to comment on the finances of the Catholic Church without actually having their accounts to hand. As a non-Catholic, I don't think I can explain where their finances go to. I do know where the finances from my own church go to however.

gimme5minutes wrote: »

They cannot wear whatever they wish. If a woman goes outside without wearng the hijab in Saudi Arabia she will won't make it across the road before the police pick her up and fling her in jail. There is huge injustice to women across the Islamic world, they are 100% second class citizens, if you don't see it as such then maybe you need to take a look at your own attitude to women. Are you sure want to get into an argument where you are making the case for a religion such as Islam?

I said "in the West". Mind you in many Arab nations you can not wear the hijab if you wish. States such as the UAE, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and as far as I recall, Bahrain, Iraq, the Palestinian Territories, Yemen, and no doubt many more that allow people this freedom. In Iran, Saudi Arabia, parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan you are clearly right though.

I do think this quote from Muhammad is quite poignant though: "There is no compulsion in religion". Nor should there be compulsion to wear the hijab.

Do I want to get into a discussion about Islam and the rights of Muslims to follow it? If you demonstrate that you do not know about Islamic teachings concerning certain things, surely I can correct you?

I don't advocate Islam. I do advocate the right of people to be free to choose whatever religion they please.

gimme5minutes wrote: »

I'm all for freedom of the indiviual. If they want to believe stories that originated from superstitious people who existed 1500 years before people even realised the earth wasn't flat, Ive no problem with it. My point is though if wind the clock back 2000-3000 years and do it all over again with no religion, those last 2000-3000 years would have been alot more pleasant for mankind.

We actually don't know that. They could have been just as horrific as human nature still exists.

gimme5minutes: The Nazis had plans to destroy Christianity after destroying Judaism:

In 1998 documents were released by Cornell University from the Nuremberg Trials, that revealed Nazi plans to exterminate Christianity at the end of World War II. The documents cover the Nuremberg trials of leading Nazis and demonstrate the deliberate genocide of Jews during the Holocaust, in which some six million Jews were killed. One senior member of the U.S. prosecution team, General William Donovan, as part of his work on documenting Nazi war crimes, compiled large amounts of documentation that the Nazis also planned to systematically destroy Christianity

You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"

In 1941, Hitler praised an anti-Christian tract from AD 362, neo-platonist and pagan Roman emperor Julian the Apostate's Against the Galileans, saying "I really hadn't known how clearly a man like Julian had judged Christians and Christianity, one must read this..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_beliefs

gimme5minutes wrote: »

Do you not get it, if there was no such thing as Judaism or Christianity he wouldn't have been fighting a war to destroy them would he?

You clearly don't understand WW2 history do you. Hitlers primary motive was to expand the Lebensraum of the German people, and after having done that to purify the land from what Hitler determined to be unclean people.

Your post is utterly ridiculous in the respect that people would identify culturally or ethnically if it wasn't for religion. Are you suggesting that if people didn't have any beliefs at all (not just religion) the world would be a better place? Fortunately I live in the real world, and I accept that people have rights to believe whatever they want.

gimme5minutes wrote: »

We wouldn't have heard of Hitler in the first place if religion didn't exist as he and the Nazi party wouldn't have risen to such power and wouldn't have been so insistent on wiping the Jews out if the jewish religion (or any religion) didn't exist in the first place.

Yes we would have heard of Hitler for being one of the most formidable leaders against freedom in Europe. We would have heard of Hitlers wars against small nations such as Czechoslovakia, or weaker nations such as Poland in which armies went up to tanks on horseback if you look at some of the early videos of the German invasion. Hitler wasn't just a monster for the fact that he killed millions of Jews (although that is extremely notable), but he was also a monster for his denial of freedoms.

Edit: If there was no such thing as atheism there would be no abuse of atheism. If there was no such thing as race, there would be no racial hatred. If there was no such thing as ethnicity there would be no ethnic hatred. These things exist, and are not bad in themselves, it's what people can do with them that is bad.

I voted no. I'm not religious either. Here's my take.

Religion, regardless of if it's completely true or complete bollocks, helps millions of people. Some will say it's merely a comfort thought and they could well be right but so what? Some to to mass on a sunday because they want "save their soul", but others go so they can get a little peace and feel better. If they want to sit silently and believe that someone above is listening to their problems they need help with, let them! If they walk out of the church feeling better, it's worked for them! So for that reason i voted no on the poll.

However, their are aspects of religion that i stongly disagree with and detest. These are the aspects of it which i believe have caused so many problems, certainly the "save the heathens souls." This mission some take on board to spread the word of God and shove it down your throat. The papal infallibility, creationism etc... i hate. That's when religion crosses the lines from being a form of meditation and prayer into being a cult. That's when things get dangerous and this manic mission of "spreading the word" takes on a violent form.

So i can see both sides. But i do wish that many aspects of it didn't exist.