You know, its nearly insufferable to deal with these arguments. I don't care for religion in the slightest and I love Hitchens and Dawkins, I've seen their interviews, and watched their speeches and I agree whole heartedly.

But then I get people, as I have here that make arguments against religion with the same amount of facts and logic as those they argue against. Such poorly thought out ideas such as "well if God is all powerful why doesn't he just blah blah blah."

And I think, the idea of God is foolish, but more foolish is the idea that something like God would be able to be understood by people in general. One wouldn't suspect that Beatles could possibly dictate our actions given our evolutionary advantage. Wasps, while nest builders wouldn't have the concept or architecture. So to suspect that because you've seen some half-assed intellectually bankrupt film and therefore you're smart enough to dictate what God would do should he exist is far more foolish than turning up in heaven with 70 virgins.

Way to miss the point.

So when do the controversial views start in this thread ?

This just looks like every other 'I hate religion lolz' thread ever posted here.

I'm a scientologist.

Time to break out the torches.

answering questions with more questions
 

Perhaps Christianity is targeted because it IS the largest world religion with close to 2.5 million members.

But as a Christian myself (Catholic by denomination...don't bite me, heh) I question how many people are ACTIVE Christians. Just because someone is raised Christian and identifies with the beliefs of Christianity doesn't necessarily mean they live by the bible. For instance I haven't been to Church in AT LEAST 6 or 7 years.

For me my religion is not a literal interpretation of the tales of the bible, I don't live by every rule it dictates. I just see the religion as a set of examples of how to be a better person. Do I agree with everything? No. But it is the system of values that I agree with the most. If I could edit the religion and create my own I would...but it would probably be considered a cult and they'd think I was crazy. Do I know if Jesus existed? It's possible but who the hell knows. There was a time where I believed in nothing but events in my life have given me faith, as corny as it sounds.

So I guess you might consider me secular. It is impossible to blame the actions of a few powerful fanatics on 2.5 million members. To say religion does more harm than good is a strange assumption considering there are people who do a great deal of good in the name of religion. Like I said, there are a few powerful fanatics who tend take things way to far, but these exist in every religion.

Shall we also consider there are a great many evils committed which are anti-religion, for instance the Holocaust. This crime against humanity was perpetrated by an group which showed no loyalty to any particular religion.

Also, check this out. According to a website MB will not let me post the hyper link to (pm me if you want it!), Atheists are the 3rd largest "religious group" and if we are judging how much good any group has done shall we examine what non-religious people offer to the world as well. The larger the group, the more influence so Atheists -- start influencing! As a former Atheist and self-proclaimed secular humanist myself I know you all are intelligent and have great ideas of how to improve society it is just that sometimes these secular groups lack the unity in order to create great changes.

I guess the point of my long-winded nonsensical post was that the sooner we stop separating and judging people by their religious affiliations the sooner we can create a society that is better for everybody to live in. Nobody is more wrong or right or entitled to their opinion than anybody else.

And I think it is interesting that the movie you cited, claims astrology is the basis of Judaeo-Christian faith. Most religions are. I consider astrology valid because it considers the movements of the sun and the Earth. Now that's cool. Talk about intelligent design, lol.

I already addressed this but I'll do it again. The statement of God existing is a falsifiable one, therefore God is not an abstract. Either he exists or he doesn't, so someone is right and someone is wrong. No evidence points in his favor and depending on how we choose to define God some even points against him. If we define God as "Some being or thing that made things" than it is plausible he exists and it is a valid belief, if we define God as strictly the God of the bible than I'm fairly certain even the bible proves he is a farce.

Unless of course you're willing to believe in an all loving, melovalent, all knowing, yet somehow lacking knowledge of the future (see free will) being who is against murder yet has no qualms flooding the world killing many innocents. Not to mention his love is so grand his son had to die for you to be forgiven. Going a step further you also have to believe in a world transcending zombie jew who you must keep a relationship with via telepathy. So to even prove the biblical God plausible you first have to prove telepathy exists in the natural world.

Then what if it turns out to have been the wrong religion and you end up in hell? Hmm?

I was under the impression that Islam was the worlds largest religion?

If that is your logical argument then your conclusion can be that atheism is more probable to be the truth than religion. This doesn't not mean you have proved atheism 100% correct. It just means atheism is the more logical choice.

The reason people want people to prove he doesn't exist is because in order for religion to be 100% wrong I don't think just not being able to prove his existence is enough. While it is a logical argument to prove that you can't prove a god to be real, logic is flawed. What I mean by that is that even though you logically prove that you can't prove God to be real, and logic would say he isn't real, the fact that you can't disprove his existence says something. While you can give me burden of proof bull****, I am a seeker of facts and would like to understand this relationship more. So who is actually more logical, the person ignoring the relationship or the person seeking to understand the relationship?

I didn't understand your post very well. I don't know if that second comment was sarcasm or not.

Won't you for being an atheist as well?

The person ignoring the non-existent relationship in favor of actually looking for facts.

You are sort of there...Sort of


If we were to assume God exists;

* A benevolent all-knowing God only has one option in any situation which is the option that causes most good. Therefore an all knowing God has no free will.

* Since God is omnipotent, he knows even before something happens what he will do in that situation. He is unable to then change what he will do, like the above point this proves he has no free will. A being who has no free will cannot make morally correct decisions. God has no morals.

* If God was all good he would have created a Universe that would also be full of good.

* Since God is omnipotent, even before creating Satan as an angel he would have realised that he was going to turn bad. God therefore intentionally created a being full of evil.

* Babies who die go to heaven, therefore there is no essential point of life, or no essential reason that we have to go through suffering.


The Bible & Christianity in general

* Christianity grew out of a mixture of Mithraism, Judaism and Roman sun God worship.

- *"During the 1st century BC, a cult of Mithra, made much progress in Rome, after enduring persecution, when some Emperors adopted the religion... Mithra became very popular among the Roman legionaries and later even among the Emperors. The worship of Mithra was first recognized by Emperor Aurelian and he instituted the cult of "Sol Invictus" or the Invincible Sun. Emperor Diocletian also a worshipper of Mithra, the Sun God, burned much of the Christian scriptures in 307 A.D.

This enabled Emperor Constantine to merge the cult of Mithra with that of Christianity that was developing much. He declared himself a Christian but at the same time maintained his ties to the Mithra cult. He retained the title "Pontifus Maximus" the high priest. On his coins were inscribed: "Sol Invicto comiti" which means, commited to the invincible sun. This new blend of the two faiths, he officially proclaimed as Christianity. Christianity spread all over the Roman empire and Eastern Europe by massive persecution and brought and end to a variety of religions that flourished there. [...]

Until the fourth century, Mithra and Christianity were distinct but after Constantine, the two cults were blended to form the new faith that was to conquer most of the world."

*In the second and third centuries there were Christians who believed in one God. There were also others who believed that there were two. Some said there were a dozen, some thirty........

-------------------------------------
God being all powerful;

* If God exists for a logical reason then logic was created before God, is more powerful than God and restricts him.

* If God however is existing for no logical reason, the universe is probably too. Therefore t'would require no creator.

* Why would an all powerful and GOOD being create paradise then give us a set of rules to follow to get into it while giving no actual proof of it existing? Seems like the work of an evil being taking on the form of a good one.



F-F

Why would ignoring data be more logical? I don't understand...

There is no data that supports a deity's existence. So the real question is, why create fake data in your head?

To the OP: I love it when atheist's like you bitch and moan over other religions and complain that religions force their views upon other people, but what are you doing right now? You are telling everyone who believes in god that he does not exist and it is stupid to even do so. So who is the bad guy here? I see here a self contradicting moron who seems to be doing the exact same things as the people he despises and has yet to provide anything worthy of an argument. I suggest you do your homework a little more, and be a little more opened minded on situations such as this, because your argument failed from the start. (I'm Atheist btw.)

That isn't what I am saying though. I am talking about examining the relationship between anything where you can't prove it's existence, but you can't disprove its existence.

Assume neither and do an unbiased study.

Three points to address. First I agree the argument failed because it didn't make any valid points.

Second "forcing" atheism doesn't work on a political spectrum. Of course you can't literally force anyone to believe anything so politically forcing would involve enforcing policies and ideaologies, right? Well atheism is secular and without inherent policy or idea. If you force secularism all you've effectively done is force the right for them to believe whatever they want and practice it within reason. If you force any religion you've taken those freedoms away.

Lastly it isn't harmful to educate people and provide proof of where they're wrong and why they're wrong. Being open to education is a good thing. We should challenge all faiths openly. Intelligence is a good thing and we shouldn't shy away from it.

I didn't say to assume anything. I said that the relationship should be explored.

But you don't have to devote your life to religion.

Didn't Dante say something or other about Virtuous non-believers simply going to a calm plain when they die?

To be honest it's not where you go at the end of life, its the journey through life that matters. You don't need religion to have morals. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle didn't have a religion persay, just a philosophy on how to live. All you need is reason and intelligence.

So whether there is or isn't an afterlife, I'm still going to uphold those virtues (or at least try), not because a doctrine says I should, but because I want to. I know some people won't do the same, but who cares otherwise.

If that's the case, then I don't have to worry about believing in the wrong religion.

I think if Catholicism, Protestantism and all other Christian denominations and sub-movements are added together, they dwarf the population of any other faith by a margin of at least a billion odd.