God is not great: How religion poisons everthing

manfriday · Post by **manfriday** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 9:00 pm

You don't see atheists going door to door trying to convince people to give up god.

really?

The main goal of christianity, is to make everyone in the world a christian. That is why they must be stopped.

The problem is that we atheists have shut our mouths for too long. Now we are not going to take it anymore.

Bingo is frustrated because by now you would think we would have made more intellectual progress. We want to be in the modern world yet people for the most part are not able to discard superstitions and pointless tradition.

While you are not going door-to-door it certianly seems like you are doing your best to sell your religion to people...
The only difference is that why you do it you tend to sound rather hateful.

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 10:49 pm

While Creamware does have specials for the birthday of jesus, I hope that a jesus edition of the minimax in the shape of a cross will not be on the horizon but from some of these posts I'm thinking it might be possibly in the works.

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 1:37 am

braincell wrote:While Creamware does have specials for the birthday of jesus, I hope that a jesus edition of the minimax in the shape of a cross will not be on the horizon but from some of these posts I'm thinking it might be possibly in the works.

http://www.jesusonic.com/

manfriday · Post by **manfriday** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 4:51 am

/While Creamware does have specials for the birthday of jesus, I hope that a jesus edition of the minimax in the shape of a cross will not be on the horizon but from some of these posts I'm thinking it might be possibly in the works.

I think a parallel could be be drawn between the ressurection of Christ and the ressurection of Creamware..
I think Christ was only ressurected once though..

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 5:44 am

If you were a mormon, surely you would know the fact that christ was reborn twice:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Chri ... merica.jpg

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 6:14 am

stardust wrote:sometimes it looks to me that you simply need a clear shaped enemy to define yourself in this world.

What would happen if you dont feel dragooned, but freely live your life and enjoy diversity for your benefit ?

Could you tell the same thing to a dear friend of mine who was not allowed by the law made under Vatican's dictate to freeze her fertilized ovocites to have more chances to get pregnant without risking cancer for repeated massive hormonal treatment, or to the guy that has been killed in Iran because he was gay or the one in Pakistan because decided to leave Islam? They really needed those clear shaped enemies, didn't they?

I tried to make clear a point, I don't have anything against any form of supernatural belief, so religious people who pray and hope for eternal life are not my enemies, I have some very good ffriends amongst them and some are really special, like few are. But I'll defend mine and their freedom to believe what we feel to and anyone who tries to negate these rights is an enemy for me. I'm not what I am because these are my enemies, but these are my enemies because they want to steal my freedom.

And really, I don't even thnink that the cause of their violence is in their religious belief, but somehow the opposite. I think the weakness of their faith is what makes them untolerant of those who believe in different things, because the simple existence of this difference threatens their weak certainties.

The problem is that of these people there is plenty and i don't really need them, believe me, don't banalize what I say with some Sunday magazine's psychology, please....

Post by **garyb** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 10:03 am

actually, Alfonso, the people who do the things to others that you mention use religion for purposes of power, but this has nothing to do with whether god is real or imagined, nor does it have anything to do with the faith of the perpetrators. these guys you describe have a special god that they worship in secret, believe it! rule #1 in this "brotherhood"? "Do what thou wilt".

confusion anger, fear and outrage are the intended results of the actions. once again, some of the names for the game: "divide and rule" and "order out of chaos". that second one? see how many times you can find "officials" using that phrase(like during hurricane katrina when the president said "we're doing what we can to bring some order out of this chaos").

the vatican is the seat of the imperial roman religion. istanbul, which was constantinopal, was the seat of the imperial islamic religion and before that, the imperial byzantine(eastern half of the roman empire) religion(greek orthodox). naturally, these operations have an imperial streak to them. naturally, they want to rule men's lives! still, this has nothing to do with god. it's the work of men and...

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 1:42 pm

stardust wrote:
You identified the politics as the bad guys in your sunday magazine analysis, which I wouldnt share in that simplicity. But certainly this is up to you to see and spread it that way.

I...........

peace and love

I didn't mean that....it should be clear that I like politics, I mean that I want to be a part of my community (humanity) who takes his responsibility to have a position and ideas on all the matters of public interest and partecipate as much as I can.

I wanted to say that when the priests make politics that's dangerous, because democracy is based on mutual consent and to be friend of freedom it must never forget that its rules are historically determined, so potentially changeable. Religion is based on absolutes, it should be kept out of politics, otherwise those bad things happen.

-------------------------

Gary, I know that this has nothing to do with god, I never talk about god because I have no idea of what it is. I simply have bad experiences with many of those who use that word to steal my freedom. That's my only concern.

And this doesn't mean that I'm not keen to loose some of my freedom for the good of other people. I'm happy to do it everyday, but I want to do it just for them.

I'm not against any god, I'm against the political use of it.

Post by **garyb** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 2:08 pm

alfonso,
i agree.

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 4:00 pm

Slightly OT: Did "Jedi" make it as an official religion anywhere yet ? I know in some censuses there is a provision that any nominated 'religion' becomes official after it receives a certain number of entries on a census. There was certainly a push in Australia during our last census.

In the end I think I wrote "pagan" instead, just because the last three Star Wars movies were so lame.

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 8:52 pm

I think jedi, or the star wars universe in general, has the parts needed to get a religion started. Whether that gets voted officially as a real religion is a different story. The jedi way is by and large based on bushi-do, which Lucas amongst other things,f was interested in at the time. (hence the dogi looking outfits, the sword fighting, "the sword is a sophisticated weapon" mentaility)

Looking at bushi-do, it's much less a religion than a principle of life. Obviously, those who were of the bushi rank (ex: Samurais), or were born into bushi families, lived according to the bushi way. It's almost like a karma system. So is that a religion? Hard to say, since your'e born into it or not. But still, it functioned like a religion, dictating the general do's and don'ts of every day life, creating a strong push to live life in a specific way.

But then again, you return to the fundamental question. Is everyghing that dictates the way you live your life a religion? Definitely not. It's just a belief, and religion helps create those beliefs.

These days, it seems to me that the term "religion" mainly focuses on the legal rights and benefits of being officially classified as a "religion". The tax work differently for religious organizations, and that seems to be the primary focus for any religion becoming a "legal religion". Can religions be too legit? Well, the ones that make lots of money are.

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:00 am

Clearly to be a religion, it has to be organized. Some people or person in here keeps trying to say that atheism is a religion. A religion involves praying and the supernatural and imaginary beings.

manfriday · Post by **manfriday** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:24 am

no, it only requires a bunch of people adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices.

Liquid Len · Post by **Liquid Len** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:29 am

Well it's just a matter of word definition. Buddhism has long been considered a religion, but some people think that because it lacks a specific supernatural element, it's not a religion but 'a way of life'. I would more or less agree with this way of defining words, but disagree that a religion has to be 'organized'. The supernatural element is what defines it.

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:36 am

What about reincarnation? You obviously don't know what you are talking about but this is what I would expect as 93% of the public think they are never going to die but live somewhere else when the body decays or is burned.

BREAKING NEWS:

WE ARE MORTAL. WE CAN NOT LIVE FOREVER!

Liquid Len wrote:Well it's just a matter of word definition. Buddhism has long been considered a religion, but some people think that because it lacks a specific supernatural element, it's not a religion but 'a way of life'. I would more or less agree with this way of defining words, but disagree that a religion has to be 'organized'. The supernatural element is what defines it.

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:45 am

I agree that the chances of living forever seem vanishingly small (a good thing too), but you don't need to believe in (a/the) God(s) to accept the possibility that consciousness can survive in some form after the death of the body.

I've had enough "supernatural" experiences in my life to at least convince me that scientific theory has many gaps to fill.

Edit: It's just struck me how appropriate "spirit" should argue this position versus "braincell"

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 8:15 am

I think it's just a mean to an end. The whole re-incarnation thing gives reason to why you shouldn't do bad things to other people. If it helps to believe that people's souls literally do live for ever in an endless cycle, then that's that. If it helps to understand the re-incarnation bit as a metaphor and use that as motivation to do good things, the that's that. I don't think it's always down to the word. It's just a bunch of reasons and incentives to do what that specific religion wants you to do.

Religions use abstract examples that can be taken literally, or not. Most of the time, to me, the examples seem to be simple images that people can understand. It's a method of communication I think. If it reaches the end result, of causing peace, or having lots of sex with young ones, then anything is fair game, from interplanetary galactical super beings, to invisible demons that live under ground with 3 tails and 5 eyeballs. (some religions like numbers)

I think religions can co-exist as long as the followers remain goal conscious. It's when the details come into question that friction occurs. Then you go back to think about, it's no longer a question of HOW you reach the goal, if fighting about it breaks the goal. It doesn't matter how the walls of Jericho came down, or exactly why the dude who started Mormon got chosen, or if you really re-incarnate, or why you have to have sex through a holy sheet witha hole in it.

In the end I think all people want is something to help sooth emotional pains, overcome fears, deal with stress, someone to point a finger to when things go wrong. (although, apparently you're not suposed to) Religion is a construct that helps people in those situations. It might not be the only support that people rely on in bad times, but since it's just a conceptual framework, it can exit on its own, and not be dependent on chance. (like a friend) And most importantly, it can be internalized, and learned. It's a method of coping with stress. If that can be achieved, I'm all for ANY religion. And if our spirits really do fly out somewhere after we die? That's even cooler.

The bigger problem is dealing with real world problems that cause the need for religions. I'm sure the homeless guy asking for change to buy food for the homeles shelter prays for a better life. Do you pray a better life for him? Or do something about it. Back in the days, that's all people could do, pray, wish, wait, or whatever. Religion helped them re-direct everything to "better times", whether that's the next life, life after death, or whatever. Now we don't have to wait. We're in a much better situation to do things that make things better. Religion has changed from a necessity, to a luxury.

Liquid Len · Post by **Liquid Len** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 9:47 am

braincell wrote:What about reincarnation? You obviously don't know what you are talking about

Hehe, don't hold back, tell me what you REALLY think.

Reincarnation I think would implicitly acknowledge the supernatural, wouldn't it?

Post by **garyb** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 12:15 pm

according to einstein, E=MC2, or more simply energy=mass(times a really big number) spirit=stuff

sorry, but in a 4-50 dimensional UNIverse, nothing happens, noone dies. just because you only see 3 dimensions and ONE POINT of the fourth always moving forward to the next point, the phenomonological world seems to exist. it's mathematically provable to be an illusion, and by definition, this is easy to prove, but it's too much trouble to prove it in type(print). still, i'll go quickly over it.

remember, it's a uni-verse. a whole. the word dimension means, "a measurement of spatial extent", in other words a line segment. by definition a line segment is made of an INFINITE number of points, all connected and ordered in a direction. a point, by definition, is a position locator, having NO dimension. humans see in three dimensions(height , depth, width), but also experience directly a fourth, time(another measurement of the extent of SPACE). time however, is only seen as one point moving to the next point along a direction we call forward. EVERY POINT IN THAT LINE IS CONNECTED TO EVERY OTHER POINT! if you saw what you REALLY look like, you'd see that you are a squiggle, that goes round and round and right up into your mother's womb. your mother is the same(follw this mental image and you'll see the thing they used to call "the tree of life", or as Jesus was rumored to have said, "i am the true vine). if you possesed the organ of sight needed to see in four dimensions you'd see the physical connection between you and everything else, and you'd see that you aren't even you, you are a part of the whole, of which no part is dispensible. THIS is where morality comes from(since you and i are really the same creature, it is insane for me to cause you harm, because then i'm harming myself!). you'd SEE that when you touch something, you're always connected directly to it. this is where ancestor worship and ideas like voodoo come from(a nail clipping never seperates from the owner, it just ooozes off onto the floor...

) of course, mathmatics shows at least 50 dimensions to exist(the futrure has infinite possibilities, many of which are never realized). no one dies, nothing happens and the universe is complete in reality. in this limited experience that we CALL the "real world", things happen we are happy and we suffer and people live and die. in the ACTUAL world, the past is still here, the future with ALL it's possibilities is right here and nothing happens, nothing is lost and nothing is gained.

i don't expect anyone to meditate too deeply on such an unuseful idea(ideas that give one the sense of accomplishment are more fun

). it's just a clue for those who have the capacity to think beyond the usual rhetoric...

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 4:09 pm

Do you read that in the sanskrit translated Mahabharata, or the Ramayana? That's sounds exactly like what was breifly described in the English text, but as in many ancient texts, many details are lost in the translation.

I found that text so inspiring. Vishnu actually hung out with the mortals, and explained to them the cycles of life. Jainism is the extreme version where they won't even swat a fly, for it's a part of the life cycle.

An astonishing segment was where the author describes a war on Earth, as well as the firmament, where humans and Gods were on both sides ! It was Nuclear !! They described exactly what a mushroom cloud looked like, and how the trees were bent over. This took place north of India in the Gobi desert 5000 years ago. Funny thing, when archeologists dug down to where the land level once was, they found charcoalized soil, just like we have at the Mercury test site north of Vegas, where all of the underground testing is done for the DAE, and Area 51 is just 48 miles north of there.

I didn't know you were so well versed in so many philosophies, and Religions.

Hats Off,