Is religion useful?

[NBVegita]

There is no point to religion'.'

The only function it serves is to control.

 

There should be no need to "encourage good" in people. It's each person's responsibility to do what they can to advance their society and avoid causing detrimental effects.

 

Based on your last sentence you could substitute religion with government, law, or any other form of control.

 

As stated previously:

 

Ultimately anything that people can have faith in, that can help them in a time of need is more than useful.

[Bak]

by that definition drug gangs are useful since they can help you in a time of need. the real question deals with the trade-off between the good that religion does and the bad.

 

 

case 1: you're a monk your whole life always sacrificing earthly pleasures but your last few hours are better off because you've deluded yourself into thinking your going to be with zeus and the other gods

case 2: you're an nonreligious person who has a decent life but is scarred for two hours right before you die

 

which one is better off? obviously these are extremes, with real religious people falling somewhere in the middle.

[»D1st0rt]

There should be no need to "encourage good" in people.

There are a lot of things that should be, but are not in our reality.

[Sass]

It's each person's responsibility to do what they can to advance their society and avoid causing detrimental effects.

 

In our minds that sounds great, but philanthropy is nothing more than hot air. Good ideas are robbed by scrupulous back-stabbing business men, hard work is shunned, and the lawyers incriminate to pay their bloated mortgages.

 

Life is non-sense without Faith.

[NBVegita]

The problem is Bak that the initial account you use is an extreme. Plus the difference is that religions are normally based on the concept of good, where as the gang you're talking about is based completely against the morals of society. (How those morals are dictated is a different discussion for a different topic)

 

Yes religion has done bad things throughout the course of history and that is all, most specifically, non religious people ever focus on. It is very easy for someone who is non religious to simply look at religion as someting stupid, controlling and utterly unneccesary. It is very much like the government, we as a people love sensationalization. If the government does 1000 "good things" for the people, the one thing that gets the most publicity is the one bad thing done. In the media, if a druggie finds "God" and recovers, that doesn't make the news. When a serial killer is delisional and kills in the name of god, that does make the news. I mean just look at the publicity that Islam has gotten. It's at the point where for the majority, of at least Americans, Islam and radical are interchangable. Which is utterly not the case.

 

Believe me, I am in no way religious, but I see the good religion can do in peoples lives, people who need, what they view as a positive outlet in their lives. Am I excusing all of the religious transgressions that have happened in history? No. The thing is power corrupts. Every government in history has been corrupt some way. It just so happens that relgions have out lasted all of these governments, thus giving you more ammunition for attacking their validity.

[SeVeR]

Are you telling us that if the immediate psychological impact of deluding yourself through religion is satisfying, then this is a good thing?

 

If you lose a loved one then religion will tell you they went to a better place and not to fear your own impending doom. So you feel better, but at what cost?

 

1. Your own fear of death decreases, which decreases survival probability.

2. You don't deal with your pain, and therefore you don't learn to deal with pain in general.

3. The satisfaction of resigning to a religious answer encourages the use of religion in other instances of one's life, encouraging one to sacrifice rationality and therefore productivity. The negative possibilities are endless.

 

Maybe this wasn't your example, but there are plenty of negatives that I don't think you've considered.

Edited April 30, 2009 by SeVeR

[NBVegita]

First why is religion delusional?

 

Simply because you don't have proof that god exists makes it delusional? So I supposed anyone believing in gravity was delusional...until it was proven? Anyone who believed we could fly to the moon was delusional...until we flew to the moon? In fact under that definition, anyone, who has ever had belief in something that is not yet proven is delusional. Not saying that God will ever be proven, or dis proven, but it is a far stretch to call people who believe in god delusional.

 

So I would argue that the belief in religion is not delusional, or shall I say, no more delusional than in science where something is not proven. Before we go further arguing this, you must believe something is true/exists in order to try to prove it. For example, if no one believed we could fly to the moon, no one would have tried it.

 

I would argue that a fear of death does not give you a greater survival probability. As many people react many different ways to fear. Some people if a car loses control and heads towards them will dive out of the way. Other will be frozen in place by that same fear. There is the fight or flight instinct where under immense stress different people will lose common sense and fight in a hopeless situation, or run like the blazes. Also the belief that you are heading to a better place does not remove your fear of death and you still have the fear, or sorrow, of leaving your loved ones behind.

 

I disagree that you are not dealing with the pain. Everyone copes with any situation in a different way. Just using death as an example some people may turn to drugs, use alcohol, run a marathon, go to the gym, pick a fight with someone, listen to music, drive for hours, cry for hours, talk with friends, talk with family, bury it inside, ect. Religion is just another mechanism to help people through strenuous situations. People who are religious don't ignore their problems any more than those non religious people do. The only difference is that for person A, beating a punching bag makes them feel better at the end of the day where person B feels better praying to God(s).

 

I disagree that you must sacrifice rationality and/or productivity with religion. First off there are many levels of religion. Some people are fanatical, some people are casual. In radical cases do people lose rationality? Sure. But you name me one radical group where people don't? Radical activists, radical politicians, radical religions...well shoot radical people in general will always lose rationality and thus productivity based on the foundation of their radical beliefs. So I will state that you must sacrifice rationality and productivity concerning a strong belief in anything radical. Also rationality is a relative concept. To you, believing in God is irrational because you cannot prove God. Another man may believe that with all that science can speculate on, and that which it can't, it is irrational to believe that there is no God.

 

On the extreme everything has endless negative possibilities. If you look at just the negative effects of every social or political institution, especially on a radical scale, as you are with religion, you will find the majority of your comments are paralleled in each of those institutions. I'm not stating that religion is infinitely good, wonderful or any of that. Furthermore I appreciate the negative aspects of religion, thus why I don't formally believe in organized religion, but in the side of the argument I am presenting I am posting the cases in which religion is useful. Even though I don't personally follow an organized religion, I have studied many religions and can thoroughly understand and appreciate the usefulness of religion in peoples, of all statuses, lives.

[SeVeR]

Personally, I think you are disagreeing with every point raised just for the sake of having an argument, but I'll play along.

First why is religion delusional?

 

Simply because you don't have proof that god exists makes it delusional? So I supposed anyone believing in gravity was delusional...until it was proven? Anyone who believed we could fly to the moon was delusional...until we flew to the moon? In fact under that definition, anyone, who has ever had belief in something that is not yet proven is delusional. Not saying that God will ever be proven, or dis proven, but it is a far stretch to call people who believe in god delusional.

I'll tell you why its delusional in the proper context: that of the example i raised. A suitable analogy would be if you are stranded on a desert island and you have faith that a boat will sail by and save you, or you believe you will find a bottle of water in the middle of the desert, or you believe that losing all your money on the stock market is OK because Bill Gates will donate you a million dollars. Sure, none of this has happened, and it could happen, but having faith in something just because it makes you feel better is delusional when there is no rational reason for it. In the example I raised, believing in God served an immediate purpose while not being rationally justified.

 

You talk about science, but science is all about rational reasons for belief. If science predicted that a mysterious blue blob far away in the universe is actually an alien life form then it would be ridiculed as delusional if there wasn't some reason for that belief. There would have to be certain molecules detected through spectroscopic measurements. It would be delusional because the claim would be seen as a means to the purpose of worldwide fame through the media interest that would be generated.

 

Wishful thinking without rational explanation is defined as delusional.

 

delusion

 

in psychology, a rigid system of beliefs with which a person is preoccupied and to which the person firmly holds, despite the logical absurdity of the beliefs and a lack of supporting evidence. Delusions are symptomatic of such mental disorders as paranoia, schizophrenia, and major depression and of such physiological conditions as senile psychosis and delirium. They vary in intensity, extent, and coherence and may represent pathological exaggeration of normal tendencies to rationalization, wishful thinking, and the like. Among the most common are delusions of persecution and grandeur; others include delusions of bodily functioning, guilt, love, and control

 

1.

I would argue that a fear of death does not give you a greater survival probability. As many people react many different ways to fear. Some people if a car loses control and heads towards them will dive out of the way. Other will be frozen in place by that same fear. There is the fight or flight instinct where under immense stress different people will lose common sense and fight in a hopeless situation, or run like the blazes. Also the belief that you are heading to a better place does not remove your fear of death and you still have the fear, or sorrow, of leaving your loved ones behind.

The fear of death is an evolved attribute for the purpose of aiding survival by avoiding life-threatening events. Whether you can find specific examples to the contrary is irrelevant because we simply wouldn't have a fear of death if it wasn't selectively beneficial. Are you claiming that leaving your loved ones behind is an incentive not to go to paradise? I could say that seeing your loved ones that have already died before you is an incentive to go to paradise. So what is the bigger factor? You haven't made a point. Not wanting to leave loved one's behind is the natural state when you believe in the unknown, so it doesn't change a thing, but wanting to see dead loved one's in paradise is actually an incentive for people to remove their fear of death.

 

2.

I disagree that you are not dealing with the pain. Everyone copes with any situation in a different way. Just using death as an example some people may turn to drugs, use alcohol, run a marathon, go to the gym, pick a fight with someone, listen to music, drive for hours, cry for hours, talk with friends, talk with family, bury it inside, ect. Religion is just another mechanism to help people through strenuous situations. People who are religious don't ignore their problems any more than those non religious people do. The only difference is that for person A, beating a punching bag makes them feel better at the end of the day where person B feels better praying to God(s).

So you're saying that there is no difference between crying for hours and taking drugs? You don't see the negatives in the latter? What i'm saying is, by taking drugs or using the wishful thinking of religion you don't deal with your pain in a non-destructive way, which leads onto the third point.

 

3.

I disagree that you must sacrifice rationality and/or productivity with religion. First off there are many levels of religion. Some people are fanatical, some people are casual. In radical cases do people lose rationality? Sure. But you name me one radical group where people don't? Radical activists, radical politicians, radical religions...well shoot radical people in general will always lose rationality and thus productivity based on the foundation of their radical beliefs. So I will state that you must sacrifice rationality and productivity concerning a strong belief in anything radical. Also rationality is a relative concept. To you, believing in God is irrational because you cannot prove God. Another man may believe that with all that science can speculate on, and that which it can't, it is irrational to believe that there is no God.

So your example seems to hinge on there being only two types of religious people (radical/casual) separated from one another distinctly. What separates them? Wouldn't it be far more sensible to say that there is a continuum of radicalisation, including your definitions and everyone else in between. That would suggest that every religious believer sacrifices rationality based on the degree of their radicalisation.

 

Rationality as a relative concept makes any kind of rationalising irrelevant, and all beliefs as deluded as others. So is it equally rational for a man detecting protein molecules in a distant blob to believe it is alive, and for a man seeing his wife die to believe there is an afterlife paradise for her? One is wishful thinking with no logical basis and the other is a logical deduction. Is this what should be equal in your relative rationality?

 

This is the whole reason i used a psychological definition of "delusional" earlier. If you desire something to be true then believing it is true, coupled with an absense of logic, is deluded and not rational.

[Requiem.]

by that definition drug gangs are useful since they can help you in a time of need. the real question deals with the trade-off between the good that religion does and the bad.

 

 

case 1: you're a monk your whole life always sacrificing earthly pleasures but your last few hours are better off because you've deluded yourself into thinking your going to be with zeus and the other gods

case 2: you're an nonreligious person who has a decent life but is scarred for two hours right before you die

 

which one is better off? obviously these are extremes, with real religious people falling somewhere in the middle.

What makes you think we'll die scared?

Ass.

 

Also, what makes you think religious people won't die scared?

I'd think you'd be pretty afraid of seeing god / finding out your going to make it into heaven after you die

Edited May 4, 2009 by Requiem.

[NBVegita]

[LeftsideChaos]

I haven't read much of this thread, but I do have a little to contribute.

 

Religion should have no place in politics or science.

If you want to be religious, don't press it on other people.

Same goes for atheism, don't press it on other people.

Scientology isn't a religion, it's a money-based cult.

 

Tolerance is the key, and alot of people see past that.

Edited May 5, 2009 by LeftsideChaos

[Requiem.]

I haven't read much of this thread, but I do have a little to contribute.

 

Religion should have no place in politics or science.

If you want to be religious, don't press it on other people.

Same goes for atheism, don't press it on other people.

Scientology isn't a religion, it's a money-based cult.

 

Tolerance is the key, and alot of people see past that.

How do you push on someone else atheism?

 

"if you don't believe in what I don't believe in your going to a place that doesn't exist to me"

 

LoL

 

Note SeVeR

 

A big problem you and many others on this forum have is that you are so absolute in your stance that you cannot see, or even if you see, you cannot appreciate the other side of a belief. You seem to feel that if a belief is logical, or inversely illogical to you, that it must be that way for everyone. It's much easier to go through life that way, never having to consider both sides of the coin, but that in itself is illogical. It's illogical that you can't understand the concept of religion, of faith, even from what you've posted, of hope, so that means it's not useful? Religion has had its share of atrocities in the world, but it has been undeniable helpful to man for millennia. Even in this case here, you are posting the black of an argument while I'm simply trying to argue the gray. No arguments are black and white, just the concept that you're trying to argue a near absolute, that is based on the fact that you believe there is no God, is illogical.

 

This is exactly what I was trying to say :\

Edited May 5, 2009 by Requiem.

[SeVeR]

Requiem:

Even in this case here' date=' you are posting the black of an argument while I'm simply trying to argue the gray.[/quote']

First off there are many levels of religion. Some people are fanatical' date=' some people are casual. In radical cases do people lose rationality? Sure. But...[/quote']

Wouldn't it be far more sensible to say that there is a continuum of radicalization' date=' including your definitions and everyone else in between? That would suggest that every religious believer sacrifices rationality based on the degree of their radicalization.[/quote']

 

Who's in the grey...

 

Look Requiem, jumping on a broken bandwagon tells me only one thing, that your argument has become personal.

[NBVegita]

lol?

 

Did you not read:

 

"First off there are many levels of religion."?

 

Lol.

 

Simply because I did not list out all of the degrees of religious following inbetween fanatical and casual does not mean I'm saying its only one or the other. Note the SOME in my sentence. Note how I didn't state "Some are fanatical and the rest are casual".

 

further more I then posted:

 

I again state that everyone is irrational based on degrees of radicalization in every part of their lives.

 

Thus further clarifying that I don't believe it is one or the other. Nice try at cherry picking.

 

And as for passing athiesm on, its very easy to do. Just as someone can pester you with the concept of being one with God, someone can pester your belief in God.

[SeVeR]

Yes that would be delusional...but that is not how religious people think. If religious people thought that way why don't they all sit and home and just believe that someone will give them a million dollars?

Religious people believe they and their loved ones will go to heaven. That's the point of an analogy. If there were a money-religion for stock brokers then maybe they will sit at home and believe they'll get a million dollars from Bill Gates' date=' and that would be their delusion. Do you know what an analogy is?

 

How is this not how religious people think? You just defined a white to my black, so at least justify it.

 

My example was simple enough to understand yet you have distorted it by trying to apply it to all religion in all cases. Let me spell it out for you again.

 

1. The act of becoming religious may be in response to losing a loved one because the religion offers an afterlife paradise.

2. This is quite clearly wishful thinking, and without any evidence for an afterlife it therefore becomes a logical absurdity to reach a belief in the afterlife in this way.

3. This is [i']defined[/i] as delusional.

 

One, real life example, of how faith can help you survive just happened in Florida with those football players. They went out fishing, their boat capsized. 3 of the 4 players let go because they new the statistics on their survival after being out at sea for such a period of time and figured it wasn't worth fighting for, based on their low chance of survival(mind you this is what the one survivor stated). The one man who survived said he kept praying to god that he'd be rescued and for the very fact refused to let go of the boat.

The NFL football players died from hypothermia/exhaustion and drowned after passing out when they were pulled too far from the boat. To say they didn't fight for life is a little insulting. What are these statistics that they knew about? One of them tried to swim for safety. That isn't fighting for survival? And perhaps the crux of the argument, what makes you think the players who died were not believers? Perhaps they let themselves die so easily because they believed in heaven?

 

Also on the rationality front, you cannot prove there is no God. You can't even provide strong evidence as to infer there is no God. So, with that stated, if someone chooses to believe in God, the only way that belief can be irrational is if you can prove that there is no God.

So it's rational for me to believe the tooth fairy is married to a leprachaun and they are living happily together in the centre of the Sun with a pot of Gold made out of baby teeth. You can't prove otherwise so my belief can't be irrational?

 

Look, your condition for rationality is missing something key: evidence. You need evidence for holding a belief.

 

Having said ALL of this, it is not delusional to believe in God outside of my example. You have taken it upon yourself to make this my argument. This is how you always argue, by distorting the other argument into something you can argue against. What i originally said was all in my original example, which i have re-produced again at the start of my post. For something to be delusional you need the requirement of wishful thinking or desire. If desire for a truth is what pushes you to that truth then you are deluding yourself.

 

God is a 50/50 concept when absent of all Earthly assumptions or interventions. My Leprachaun example wasn't, but it still fit your criteria for rationality.

 

To go with my concept of the belief in God, there are examples, miracles are just one of the things that science cannot account for, that would make the belief in God at least as rational as any scientific theory, yet to be proven. There are many things that cannot be explained by science, or at least fully explained that could hold for rationalizaiton of religion.

So the absence of any answer provides evidence for one particular answer? God? I'll give this a go:

 

1. I'll create some super being with the power to perform miracles. Let's call him Basil.

2. Basil could be responsible for all the things we don't have an answer for.

3. Therefore it is perfectly rational for me to say Basil performed all these things as miracles.

 

This is rational to you? It is utterly absurd.

 

Lets say Stephen Hawking wrote this unknown manuscript on stellar physics because well.... he is capable of doing that isn't he? ... and i didn't even give him these attributes lol.

 

Also note that in all of the examples of your definition, religion isn't listed. Ironic about that eh?

Which is exactly why I'm saying you've distorted my words. I never said religion is delusional. I said becoming religious through wishful thinking is delusional.

 

Lol you've just quantified 6.6666~ out of 6.7 billion people in the world. If you didn't, you would be a robot. People should always have hope, no matter how dire a situation is. There are thousands of examples I could post on this, but I don't feel I need to elaborate.

Another distortion of words. Hope is not belief.

 

We wouldn't have a fear of death if it was beneficial? 99% of phobias, which are debilitating fears, have no benefit. How is being afraid of a mouse beneficial? How is being afraid of the color green beneficial? How is being afraid of big leaves beneficial? I mean I could keep going. Fear, like any emotion, can be beneficial, or detrimental, depending on the person and how they react to it. Not to say that the fear of death isn't beneficial, but to make a statement that why would we be afraid of death if it wasn't beneficial is just not a smart statement.

Being afraid of vermin is beneficial to prevent disease. Being afraid of the colour green, if that is even possible, would no doubt be a non-congenital fear. We are born with a fear of death. It is in our genes. So nice try, but you missed the point. For example I am afraid of wasps and i trace this back to when I was three years old and got stung on the ear by one. It is not an innate fear and has no useful basis. We have an innate fear/disgust for the smell of feces for instance, and this is to prevent disease. We have an innate fear of death.

 

This was a nice example because you started with an insult about not making sense, yet here you are completely missing the point. Is this the grey area you were talking about? You must have been pretty certain to start in the way you did.

 

Now with that being said, I elaborate that only the vast minority of radicals are not afraid of death(this goes religion, military ect.). You go survey any soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan today. I bet that they are religious and afraid to die. The concept of Heaven eases your mind when you are about to die, and helps ease your mind with others you care for die. No where, in any way, does it make you unafraid to die.

ROFL and here is another failure to see the grey area. You don't flick off the fear switch when you reach a certain state of religiousness lol. How about the fear of death decreases with increasing radicalisation? Wouldn't that make sense, and wouldn't it also make your point irrelevant? The more religious you are, the less afraid to die you are.

 

Why is it that so many people have sacrificed their lives for their loved ones? Doesn't that completely counter your argument?

It adds to my argument, surely you see that?

 

I bet if you held a gun to almost any parents head in the world and asked them to pick one to die, them or their child, the child wouldn't be the one dying. Ironically there is nothing rational about that.

Continuation of your genetic material in the species is VERY rational.

 

what is the side effect of religion?

Already told you in the original example. Sacrifice of rationality and productivity, decreased fear of death etc. Another side effect is decreased response to normal biological stimuli such as sexual imagery and natural phenomena. If God becomes the answer to everything, then why bother looking for a different answer.

 

I again state that everyone is irrational based on degrees of radicalization in every part of their lives. Based on your political views, based on how emotional you are, and even based on how strongly you believe in science. Just the fact that people believe science can explain everything, when it very much can't, shows irrationality.

Do people actually believe this? It would be quite unscientific to believe with certainty that science can explain everything. lol.

 

Even better, there is no rationality for a firefighter to run into a burning building to try to save a perfect stranger.

Altruism is rational.

 

Basically as an Agnostic, in your heart you have some belief in a God, yet you're either afraid to admit that, or choose not to admit that and fall behind the fact that you can't scientifically prove that there is a God for you to stay neutral.

As an agnostic I have no belief in God whatsoever. As an agnostic it is my imperative to argue the "grey" in debates of God's existence. As those who presume certainty in any particular direction are usually Christians, I often get mistaken for an Atheist when i vehemently criticise their faith in the black or white of the argument. Christians usually have the biggest problem understanding that I am not their opposite.

 

Every post you make you talk against those who do believe in god.

But i see you've fallen into the same assumption.

 

I have no belief in God. I have no belief in the non-existence of God. I am agnostic. All scientists should be agnostics. Why would i believe there is no God?

 

Look at it this way. If i BELIEVE that there is no answer to the question of God's existence then I am going to criticise those who subscribe to an answer. An Agnostic has plenty to argue about. So I will attack beliefs in God as irrational (not delusional unless arrived at through a desire for such belief) because I see no evidence for them. On the big faith debate i criticised Atheists, don't you remember that? Any subscription to certainty on God meets with my criticism.

 

You seem to view Agnostics as a wishy-washy "accept all and criticise no-one because we're not sure" kind of a people. I am fairly sure that there is no evidence out there to suggest God does or doesn't exist, so I am going to debate with those who say otherwise to learn why they think otherwise. It is interesting to me because I think desire plays a role in most beliefs, and the psychology of religion is my greatest interest at the present time.

Edited May 5, 2009 by SeVeR

[SeVeR]

lol?

 

Did you not read:

 

"First off there are many levels of religion."?

 

Lol.

 

Simply because I did not list out all of the degrees of religious following inbetween fanatical and casual does not mean I'm saying its only one or the other. Note the SOME in my sentence. Note how I didn't state "Some are fanatical and the rest are casual".

 

further more I then posted:

 

I again state that everyone is irrational based on degrees of radicalization in every part of their lives.

 

Thus further clarifying that I don't believe it is one or the other. Nice try at cherry picking.

 

And as for passing athiesm on, its very easy to do. Just as someone can pester you with the concept of being one with God, someone can pester your belief in God.

You imply that casual religion is distinctly different from these "radicals" you talk about. You talk about radicals as if they are a specific class of religious person. Then in your next post you say this "Now with that being said, I elaborate that only the vast minority of radicals are not afraid of death" as if there is some dividing line between those who fear death and those who don't. How is the fear of death completely removed or completely unremoved NBV? Lets have some grey between this black and white please.

[NBVegita]

[SeVeR]

[NBVegita]

In the first line of my first post (in our recent discussion) I talked about the "immediate benefits" of religion. If this is not setting a basic initial acceptance of the good side of religion then I don't know what does...

 

Ok, instead of going into another painful quotation and dissection debate, I'll take that statement as you are presenting it, thus effectively ending my involvement in the argument. From my initial post I've simply been arguing that religion is useful. If you accept positive aspects of religion, then you also have to accept the positive effects it has on its followers, thus meaning that it is useful, to some degree, for some manner of time. Thus you concur with the fact that I believe religion can be useful.

 

The rest of the tangents we've been on really have little or nothing to do with that basic argument, so with that said I'll ask that this stays on the topic of "Is religion useful".

 

I apologize for taking this so far off topic, and if you want to continue the above debate sever, we can start a new topic.

[SeVeR]

Yes, things were getting a little bit too diluted.

 

Although let me add something. The positive aspects of religion cannot be had without the negative, and I am firmly of the opinion that the negative outweighs the positive (otherwise I wouldn't have posted so much). Religion is useful if one concentrates only on the areas where it can be useful; but from looking at the whole picture, which may not always be consciously acknowledged (and religion by it's nature suppresses the whole picture), it's clear to me that religion is a detrimental force.

[Requiem.]

Meh. I think I'm naturally biased AGAINST religion SeVeR.

 

All of the kids at my school in the I.B. Programme no less ( a program made to open the minds of kids ) act like being atheist is a crime.

I told off some kid for a comment he made about it because it was disrespectful to what I believe in and that I don't go around making fun of other religions.

He just laughed in my face.

 

 

I hate people like that D:

[SeVeR]

Yes, there probably are always reasons for why one has come to believe the things they do. Religious people either inherit it or come to a belief in God during times of desperation where such a belief provides immediate comfort. It could come through respect for another believer, or an evaluation of selected evidence, or through a combination of all these factors.

 

If you can pin your atheism/agnosticism down to a single moment, then you can understand its origin and do something about it. Perhaps believing that their actions were a symptom of childhood rather than of religion would help remove the bias.

 

I cannot personally pinpoint any specific cause for my agnosticism, or my criticisms of religion. At maybe 16 years old I came to the opinion that my previous schools had been trying to convert me with Bible readings and hymms about Jesus. I was read the story of Cain and Able in a Bible class when I was maybe six years old. I wonder what life would have been like if I had accepted their explanations. They threatened all that I am, all that I potentially could be, they wanted to take it away and make me a drone. When i see what religion has done to some people, I am more than just glad that I didn't accept it. Accepting religion would have been little more than death itself.

[Requiem.]

Yes, there probably are always reasons for why one has come to believe the things they do. Religious people either inherit it or come to a belief in God during times of desperation where such a belief provides immediate comfort. It could come through respect for another believer, or an evaluation of selected evidence, or through a combination of all these factors.

 

If you can pin your atheism/agnosticism down to a single moment, then you can understand its origin and do something about it. Perhaps believing that their actions were a symptom of childhood rather than of religion would help remove the bias.

 

I cannot personally pinpoint any specific cause for my agnosticism, or my criticisms of religion. At maybe 16 years old I came to the opinion that my previous schools had been trying to convert me with Bible readings and hymms about Jesus. I was read the story of Cain and Able in a Bible class when I was maybe six years old. I wonder what life would have been like if I had accepted their explanations. They threatened all that I am, all that I potentially could be, they wanted to take it away and make me a drone. When i see what religion has done to some people, I am more than just glad that I didn't accept it. Accepting religion would have been little more than death itself.

Don't get me wrong. Being Atheist is my path and will be my path until I see fit for it not to be.

I was saying that I am against christianity becuase just about everyone who is christian is a jerk to people who isn't.

Edited May 13, 2009 by Requiem.

[»Lynx]

Hrmm, I can't recall fighting fire with fire ever being a good thing.

 

Apart from Metallica songs.

[Requiem.]

Hrmm, I can't recall fighting fire with fire ever being a good thing.

 

Apart from Metallica songs.

I agree. I usually just ignore most comments.