Originally posted by robwerden
I am not alone in my general feeling that somehow religion damages society more than it helps it.

That is an awfully broad statement. I would tend to think that the person(s) behind the religion(s) is/are the one(s) who can damage you, not the religion itself.

Religion, like I said before and is my belief, represents hope. It is something to put faith into when all else has failed you. If anything, maybe it helps to motivate you to do the right things and make it through tough times....etc. I base this on me myself believing in God but I am not a member of any church. I am more like a religion of one and I am the only member of my religion...does that make sense?

Here is my answer to what I think you are saying:

I think a few of the current popular religions are corrupt and breed this corruptions in their followers.....but what do I know? I am no scholar of religion.

Originally posted by robwerden


War, Policy, and pretty much everything else that effects the growth of man as a species is driven by people who use religion to direct them.

Religion must stop, end of story. Logic and common sense are the only things you should look to when you are faced with a problem.

Religion is being used as a TOOL for political and personal gains, that is the negative side to it. BUT religion is NOT the real problem. Because it's simply the tool. It's the man behind the tool that's the problem. Therefore getting rid of religion will not help, actually it might be way worse, people will just use other means for their politcal and personal agendas. (and you might hate it WAY more than religion)

The source of the problem IS the individual. People ALWAYS find things to argue about(e.g look at youtube and imdb lol), things to go to war with. It's human nature not religion.

Lastly religion will NEVER end, you cannot stop freewill. Even if it did end, thinking the world will be better off doesn't seem like common sense. Because like I said, religion is only a small part of the problem, the real problem is within certain people.




[edit on 23-12-2008 by _Phoenix_]

Why has secularism killed millions more than anything associated with religion?

Just look at the 20th century!! 10's of millions killed by humans with secular philosophies.

look at the middle ages, maybe 10's of thousands killed over hundreds of years, and most of that was because of governments (even if they were "christian" governments.)

Am I way off?

the greatest achievement of institutionalized religions like atheism or vatican is to make the sheeple believe that religion have no essence.
(that a part of the sheeple believes life is suffering is just business as usual for such institutions that have ultimately nothing to do with religion, well what it is in essence what it is before some wise guy decide to use it to control mass)

sheeple,

you are just throwing the baby with the (dirty) water of the bath : the opening post of this thread is highly obscurantist and ignorant.

(if tomorrow some other wise guys manage to use arts -as example- to enslave people, you'll be all asking for abolition of arts as donkeys run after a carrot!)

[edit on 23-12-2008 by ::.mika.::]

Originally posted by robwerden
Religion must stop, end of story. Logic and common sense are the only things you should look to when you are faced with a problem.

thats only if you want to live within the system, for those who want to ascend further, well figure it out for yourselves

Personally I could care less what people believe (or choose not to believe), as long as they respect my right to believe (or not believe) what I want to believe and practice (or not) that belief. But regarding the OP's recommended method to "abolish" religion - choosing not to associate with people of faith.

What on earth do you expect that to accomplish? WHO are you that you think people will willing turn their backs on their faith to be by your side? What makes you and your associates so great that you think you can encourage people to abandon their beliefs so they can associate with you folks?

I would suggest that this gross egotism and megalomania you display is a main reason why you have been attacked so fiercely. Basically your argument boils down to a very juvenile way of thinking - grade school politics at best. Ostracize the ones you don't like unless they roll over to appease you so they can join your very exclusive clique....gee - nerds vs jocks all over again!

Imagine an anti-gay person (whether a person of faith or not) decides that he won't associate with anyone who is openly gay and practices that orientation publicly. Or that a Democrat tells any Republicans he knows that he won't have any thing to do with them until they renounce their current political views and become Democrats. So, do you really think those sorts of actions will eventually get people to turn their backs on their beliefs (or gays, or members of a particular political party?)? All I gotta say is good luck.

That's your prerogative - if you don't want to be around people of faith, then do as you like and have nothing to do with them. But I doubt very seriously if you end up changing any minds - even if you are as wonderful of a specimen of humanity as you put on to be.

Yes, it is rather hidious when looked upon, wars in the middle east, people even blowing themselves up in order to kill others. But the real question lies here: was it really their true beleif in God that made them do such a thing or did some people just fall short of the discipline and true practice of their beleif when they committed such an attrocity like that? There lies the underlying truth. Christians are instructed to strive towards justice and fairness in the act of business, but then alot of them fall for acts of greed and selfishness. And it was not the bible or the religion that caused them to do that, only their own falling from the honor towards their God.
Also, we are not aware of all the attrocities that have gone on in the middle east. Many many many innocent people have been killed there due to the war and many people are very angry. International corruption has spread around there and they dont like it. And out of curiosity, I have browsed through a copy of what they call the Holy Koran and I have failed to find where it says to go out and kill any and all christians. What was real funny was when I read something in the Koran that seemed to rank Jesus as the highest of all the rasools including Mohammad who was the inspired messanger of the Koran! But I failed to find anything that said to hate chriatians and jews. It did say something about how many christians and jews were claiming to follow the way of God but were hypocritical but to forgive them and go on one's way. Only in the protection of the church did Jesus get violent. So much for religion being the cause of distruction. I think true religion is the opposite.
NEVER THE LESS,,,,,,, I DO NOT APPROVE OF IMPOSING RELIGIOUSLY BASED MANNERS OF LIVING AND OPERATION ON ANYBODY. Forcing homosexuals apart from each other is not going to save any souls! Closing down bars will not stop a person from sinning! Banning guns will not stop a murderer from being a murderer! And it wont save a soul. Athiests and satanists have every right to live and have a good life and enjoy life as long as their way of living does not afflict other's lives, and religious people have every right to live and have a good life and enjoy life as long as their way of living does not afflict other's lives. Allrighty now.
Wars still do happen because of economic reasons and the mistakes made by humans. We are all imperfect and must strive for the best humanitairian operation possible. No, I never beleived in killing anyone who did not beleive in the same religious or nonreligious way that I do, but at the same time, I dont want anyone to kill me solely on account of the way that I sincerely beleive. I have every right to beleive on what I beleive in, and I never ever heard any voices in my head saying "Hey, go kill that person". Common sence and logic is included in my beleif and I have a right to beleive in what I beleive, it hurts no body but it seems to really help me. I just dont want to be thrown into a concentration camp because I beleive in what I beleive in.

Being an atheist gives one a unique perspective to look at religious people and institutions objectively. Although I am simply amazed that people can buy into the world's oldest fairy tales, I have to agree with the religious folks in this forum and say that on the point of war, etc. abolishing religion will not fix the problem. I do agree that religion is used as a tool to gain support for a particular policy, war, or other idea. However while religion might not be the direct cause, the entire idea that one should suspend individual thought and accept interpretations of 2000 year old texts or suffer eternal damnation or lack of eternal bliss is the very thing that allows religion to be so easily used as a tool to justify an agenda.

I do almost see this as a chicken/egg problem though. Are people so unintelligent that they are willing to accept whatever myth their parents injected into their heads when they were young and impressionable children? Or has the nature of organized religion, the idea of having faith or suffer a consequence, dumbed people down to a point where they will follow anyone that claims to champion causes in the name of their faith? I would think it's a combination of both as some people simply follow because they always have and some people search for a religion that makes the most sense and provides the most comfort in providing an answer to everything.

To those of you that would like to see religion abolished, I think eventually your wish will come true. Humans used to worship the sun, the moon, the stars, etc. then on to polytheism, then like a math formula someone simplified it to monotheism. It's only been a few thousand short years in this current stage of religious evolution. And if you look at the world now compared to 1500 years ago, it contains significantly more atheists and individual spiritualists. The churches of the world are at their weakest points ever. Throughout this evolution and the formation of self governance humans have realized that moral philosophy is the positive component of religion and coupled with self-governance can address the needs of society while the myths of supernatural supervisors in the sky are largely outdated.

Having said that there are still a significant number of people that do believe their religion is the correct and true way and will push it with all of their power. However these people will continuously trip up on their own hypocrisy and the world will eventually marginalize them to a point where they no longer matter to the rest of society.

In other words the problem will eventually solve itself and if it doesn't it's because we destroyed ourselves over a number of ridiculous reasons before it could.

Mankind's use of religion has caused all the troubles on earth.

God hasn't, Jesus hasn't, Allah hasn't, and whichever god you can think of hasn't.

I agree, ban religion the way man has interpreted it.

The problem is those men in power, not religion.

Religion have been suppressed many times in history with some succeeding, but guess what happened??

The men in power in those times, elevated themselves to a status of a God and demanded worship and absolute obedience from their subjects or face severe punishment. They created a religion revolving around themselves.

So the problem is not religion but man himself. I've seen this behavior right in ATS forums. Some member here have discarded the idea of God, but claimed that they can be Gods in their own right.

The idea of 'you are your own God' is disgusting because the word God is often associated with oppression, intimidation, and slavery. You can't be a good God, but you can be a good friend.



[edit on 24-12-2008 by ahnggk]