Topic: Religion?

Lmfao, eventually it will equal 1500 posts or so... but I doubt that will ever happen :P

Can I has seeds?

Now?

Hindu

I too got that achievement the other day, Sakura :)

I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone else claim Pastafarian.

"Touched by his noodly appendage."

Humanism!

Rcraft,

I was waiting for that one... I too was touched by His Noodly Appendage.

What a coincidence. I ate noodles just half an hour ago.

'Pastafarianism' is fucking gay and childish. I can't believe it's even considered a real religion.

ŠanɃ, you'll regret your blasphemy in the afterlife, while the elect are enjoying our beer volcano and the stripper factory.

The same could be said of any religion. That's the whole point of the idea in the first place. No religion is purely logical, and yet they're all treated as fact. To work in such absolutes is to ignore the ambiguous nature of reality itself.

All we can really do is admit that we have no idea. Even atheists are taking it too far; as much as it may be more logical to believe in nothing than in any supreme being, there is no real way of knowing, so you cannot say with any more certainty that there isn't than that there is.

Agnostics may have no guts, but in saying they don't know, they are guaranteed to be right. It's the only purely logical answer. No faith required.

That was aimed at Dan, of his "fucking gay and childish remark", if any of us were unclear ... though I can't say I approve of his choice of adjectives.

PS I do sincerely hope he was just being facetious.

Yes, I believe that religion is the cause of a lot of the worlds problems. Just think about how many conflicts have started because of it. And I agree with you that agnosticism is the only logical choice. And I'm sorry if my choice of words offended you, it's just I do not find words offensive, after all they are only words. I just think of 'profanities' as ways of describing things.

:) ☮
Edited by <ŠĪ> ŠanɃ on 10/20/10 at 1:23:06 am

I would have to disagree with Dan here, I believe religion is one of the sole reasons that our society flourished in early history. Religion was a means to control and regulate the masses, and with out religion we would have been in the dark ages.
Now, however, I believe that there is no real place for religion in society except to ease the grieving minds of people and give them promises of eternal life.

Also, agnosticism isn't the only logical choice, thats like saying believing in fairies is more logical than believing in the tooth fairy. Although I will say that believing in "something" is more realistic than believing the very specific outlines in most wide spread religions.

I didn't mean that I was offended, only that those wouldn't have been my choice.

One reason for that being that calling something "fucking gay" is itself quite "childish".

Steve, you realize the dark ages were caused by religion, right? So all you're really claiming is that with or without religion, the dark ages would have been a reality.

I do agree with that to some extent, though.

Religion was one of the main reasons our society flourished in early history, but not for the reasons you mentioned. Religion was one of the earliest incarnations of philosophy, something which gave birth to all of the sciences. (So it would really be more accurate to say that philosophy was the reason we flourished, not specifically religion.)

In any event, you claim that regulating the masses was the perk of religion, but I say that was the drawback. When someone is given true power, there is an incredible temptation to exploit it for their own gain, and with such a massive and easily manipulated system as religion, this leads to holy wars, inquisitions and the dark ages. I agree that any system of beliefs could have been used in such a way, so yes, with or without religion, the dark ages would have come to pass.

People crave answers, and religion was one of the first. Unfortunately, we have been set back by our unwillingness to let go of tradition, which has been so encouraged by those in power.

Also, you don't seem to understand agnosticism. To be agnostic is to not commit to any system of beliefs, and that includes atheism. It's not a matter of fairies over the tooth fairy, it's a matter of the possibility of fairies over the tooth fairy. It is infinitely more reasonable to say "I guess that might be possible" than to say "this is the way it is", with an absolute certainty that you couldn't possibly have. Remember, you don't have to believe in something to admit that it's a possibility.

infinite possibilities is in no means more realistic than the null possibility.
The null state of the universe should be assumed to have no creator and then should be proved otherwise.
Science shouldn't be proving to agnostics that there is no god of some sort, religions should be convincing atheist that a god exists.
The way I see it, I take the null outlook until I am convinced otherwise.
And I must add, I do not believe agnostics or theist are wrong in any sense, i just feel that more evidence is needed before I begin to put any faith an any higher power.
also, with respect to religion holding back the answer, of course I know that has occurred, but my point is more regarding that without the regulation and gathering of masses then the discovery of most things would not occur.
For example, can any one person make a computer mouse from start to finish? Well, I would have to say, not a single person on earth currently can make a mouse by them selves. This is because you need oil rigs to get the oil, processing plants to process it into plastics, you need miners to get the electrical materials and then you need refineries to refine the metals. It is quite obvious that a sing person could not do all of these things by themselves. True human knowledge is from the collection of knowledge within individuals (just like scientists say, 'we can only see as far as we can because we stand on the shoulders of giants')

Now explain how such a vast collection and collaboration could occur without direction and gathering that in our history was caused by religion?

That's called a double standard. Both religion and atheism are equally unproven, so why should agnostics side with atheists and only expect proof from religion?

Agnostics have no faith in anything, higher power or otherwise; they expect both sides to provide proof before they'll commit, but the thing about agnostics is you can't be wrong if you don't make up your mind.



I'm not trying to say you're wrong about religion having been a good thing, in fact, I claimed it was a necessary step in the progress of our society. But when you put it into words, it comes out all wrong ... or so I think.

As I say, it's not regulation that allowed progress; it was the ability to agree. Gathering is right, in the sense of unity, but don't say regulation. Regulation leads to abuse of power, which leads to everything wrong with religion.

Religion allowed people to agree on one answer, and build upon it. Progress came from religion. In that sense, gathering is exactly what helped us to flourish; but again, that's philosophy, not explicitly religion.

Any system that is completely regulated can be exploited, which will impede progress, but any system that allows philosophical common ground will encourage it. Religion did both.

You're posts are causing me headache