First, if you think religion should be continued, then flag and star right now.
I'm not going to post links and sources, because this is just a statement that I firmly believe in.

I just sat and watched the Bill Maher movie "Religulous" about religion, and although I know he hand picked the wackiest of all people to put in his film and did some creative editing to boost the point, the bottom line is that Bill Maher is using a satiric movie to bolster his anti-religious rheteric.

War, Policy, and pretty much everything else that effects the growth of man as a species is driven by people who don't use religion to direct them(Unless you are speaking of some mid-eastern countries, of course). I don't see President Bush or the PM of England using religion to direct anything they do. The idea that they would is just fanciful whimsy.

Religion must continue, end of story. Logic and common sense are fine when you are faced with a problem, but when religion is used correctly and sincerely it can greatly help with life's problems and how one deals with them.

Oh and guess what, logic tells me I just got a whole bunch of people angry... or at least one person in particular. I, unlike some, have no problem discussing this with anyone... after all this is a forum if I remember correctly, not just a place to spout one's illogical ideas and then run away. Disagreeing with people is fine as long is it is done in a logical and respectful way.

So If you don't like what I have to say... that is fine because that is your God-given right.

I'm sorry if some people hate religion because they didn't get that red tri-cycle they asked God for when they were 8. I will be the first to agree that many people use religion to benefit their own ends. However... when used correctly and sincerely religion actually helps the world. Let's give some examples that my friend didn't bother to include in his rant.

Missionaries, church goers, and others who give of their free time and money to help others who are worse off then others. Good Samaritans who help others less fortunate in their God's name. Yes, I know there are those that kill in their God's name.. but that is wrong. I'm talking about the good people who do good because of what they believe in.

What I truly feel is occurring here is that people are using religion as a scapegoat for their problems. WTC? Religious fanatics. Our countries' financial crisis? Must be those religious nuts again.

I'm here to tell you that the basis of all religion is the betterment of one's self through the helping of others. This can lead one to heaven, nirvanah, or whatever you wish to call it. When religion is perverted it is used as an excuse to terrorize and hurt others. Those people are wrong, of course! However, it is my contention that religion, in and of itself, is a good thing.

So all I ask is not to persecute all religious beliefs. I know mine are quite simple and it actually hurts to hear people hating religious people so much. Without religion I would not be the caring and helpful person that I am... and humble (LOL)... sorry, trying to make a point here so I am putting humility aside (I'll be the first to tell you that I fail at being good quite often... but I keep trying).

So let's hear what you think my ATS friends. Both good and bad... that's ok. Just remember... don't tear me apart to harshly.. I bruise easily.


[edit on 23-12-2008 by Alienmojo]

Okay you wrote a novel and I shall have to read it later but I will respond to the title you chose for your thread...

I have watched documentaries and read scientific papers that have described a religious or spiritual part / parts of the brain, if this is true it either has a purpose or it doesn't and in my opinion very spiritual people are capable of some cool stuff ( I don't mean Benny Hinn or Jerry Falwell or whatever) I mean yogis and monks and true spiritual warriors. I think it is the next evolutionary step, and if not and it's an old part of our brain the knowledge it has will be or should be passed onto the part the will continue in evolution should it be phased out.

Either way, religion and it's progression or regression will be a major part of our development as a species and as a planet.

With that being said I don't believe religion is the mass advertised garbage it has become today... real religion is hard to come by these days or should I say religious followers.

[edit on 12/23/2008 by PuRe EnErGy]

I don't see, how any religions, can allow humanity to move forward.
It keeps people where they are, and doesn't allow them to go outside the boundaries to do new things.
I think having a belief system that everyone is supposed to believe in the same way and do the same thing, is not good for humanity and only keeps it back and controls it.
However I am not saying that people shouldn't have individual religious beliefs.
But organized religion has proven itself over a long time to be a bad thing.

Religions are fairy tales with a moral code or lesson.. why not just skip the fairy tale and still be good?

There is no need to believe there is a god called Odin who lives with other gods that look like humans in another place. There is no need to believe in made up characters. Everyone can make up a character and say he exists.. but what he "said" and commands is always gonna be made up by someone.. its not true.

There's no reason to think they ACCTUALLY exist. Even though the lessons they they teach are nice.

So cut the middle man, and just believe in beeing nice. And stick to what is real for everyone. Read some fact-books and believe, read some fairy tales and be entertained.

reply to post by PuRe EnErGy

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I can certainly understand how people can become anti-religious with our world today full of Jerry Falwell's and terrorists... I just feel that there are more out there doing good in the name of religion, then doing bad. I also feel because of this that religion is a good thing and needed. Thanks for your input.

I can see your point as you look back in time and see how the church wanted to stop the great thinkers from putting forth new ideas, such as our solar system being sun centered, rather than earth centered... as an example. But we still did move forward.
Personally, I'm with you where I have been against organized religion... but I feel there is still a need for it. It took me as a mature adult to realize my path didn't rest within organized religion, but outside of it. However...had it not been for organized religion I would never have gotten onto this path in the first place... so in that case it is a good thing. I hope that makes a little sense. Thanks again for your input.

Hi Daniem, I see what you are saying and I hate to get into it about mythical characters in religion because of everyone's extreme views. To me my God is not a mythical character, so there is a need to believe. I don't believe Him to be made up and can show factual material stating He does, in fact, exist... although many disagree with it.

I guess my feeling is that if you lead a better life and help humanity... does it matter if your God is real or not... as long as it is real to you? I do disagree with those who use their God for evil purposes such as killing, torture, or other perverse things. Thanks.

Whatever works for you brother.

After reading some articles by Amitakh Stanford I have great difficulty believing ANYTHING written in the Bible.
If God is pure love, then God can not be vengeful and hate. And that is what the Bible is full of. "Fear God" Why or how can I fear something that is supposed to be true and pure love? The Bible is a corrupted book with some truth in it.

www.xeeatwelve.com... For some very interesting reading.

[edit on 23-12-2008 by Muundoggie]

[edit on 23-12-2008 by Muundoggie]

[edit on 23-12-2008 by Muundoggie]

Many people view the Old Testament that way and I completely understand what you are saying and why. I however, completely disagree with it and I'll tell you why.

Remember, the Old Testament God WAS vengeful because the people of that time needed a vengeful God. After Christ came the time for a vengeful God was over with. Now God showed his Love for mankind by sending down his only begotten son. Mankind had matured to the point that they didn't need to be punished to learn. Look at it like we were children learning from our Father in the Old Testament and as children we were punished. Then as we grew more mature and older we no longer needed punishment to learn and thusly we could learn thru love.

I hope that helps a bit.

[edit on 23-12-2008 by Alienmojo]

reply to post by Alienmojo

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But mankind has not learned LOVE. There is just as much hatred and murdering going on as ever.
Please read some of Amitakh's article with an open mind. See if what she says makes any sense to you. Granted, the things she says sound far fetched at first but the more I read the more sense it all made to me.


[edit on 23-12-2008 by Muundoggie]

[edit on 23-12-2008 by Muundoggie]

Although i believe in a higher power (or GOD for lack of a better word)
I think that religion actually holds people back from God. For example as a child i was too preoccupied with what the preacher was preaching, I was trying to dissect his words but in the end i got nothing more then "you should obey gods word". I think we need to put an end to religion as an organized belief system and just let people follow God however they want to. Give people a basic background of god (ie. 10 commandments, the trinity, and good vs. evil etc.)

How can you say mankind has not learned to love? Are you saying that I am living a lie? I know I'm a romantic... I want everyone to love each other and help each other. It gets me in a lot of trouble here... I don't care... I love ya all anyway.
Its easy to look at this world and say that we don't know love... but you know why? Because its the hate that makes the news. You rarely see news about the good things that happen... but they do! Look at Brad Pitt building homes for those people who lost them in New Orleans, look at the people who send X-mas cards to a little girl they don't even know... just so she feels better (anybody read that post?).
Love is out there my friend, I promise you that. For if we did not love, this planet would not exist. Love fosters life and hate destroys it... we keep growing so I say love is here. I have my days when I feel there is no love... but it is there everytime someone helps someone. That is why I stop to help someone whose stranded or just to give a smile to someone at the grocery store... its there brother... its there.

[edit on 23-12-2008 by Alienmojo]

I agree that most religious individuals are living a quiet life of devotion, contending with their own issues and behaving in a peaceful way. The problem is that the more pernicious factions of the faithful are much more vocal and truly impossible to ignore. They pose a real and present threat to humanity. It is not reasonable, in my mind, to suggest that the presence of kind, peaceful religious adherents is enough to overcome the presence of adherents of the hand-grenade variety. Mind you, this is excluding any consideration of the religious who are peaceful but still manage to dramatically shape our social and political systems.

HOWEVER, I think it is foolish to suggest that vanquishing religion will be any sort of solution to humanity's ills. I am an atheist and I believe that religious beliefs spring from the minds of men. Accepting this, it follows that the source of such a harmful force in the world is very much a part of our minds. We know ourselves well enough to understand that we can create any monster to serve our needs. Would it be so difficult to imagine an equivalent tool appearing to usurp the place of religions if they were eliminated? Religions and their many stories only become burdens when used in concert with our more sinister ambitions (hence the immutable issues with religious beliefs). Our very essence as humans is the culprit. We will always find the proper tool to facilitate achievement of our goals. Eliminating religion will not address the core issue (which, IMO, cannot be successfully revolved by any one of us). To all of you who suggest that religion be prevented from further practice and propagation, do you believe that it is a permanent or impermanent solution?

Hi Adevvv, I'm with you there where you talk about your experience in church. I also questioned things. Though I'll tell you something... I had to laugh when I read an epistle from Paul to one of his churches praising them for not just blindly following, but questioning things and doing research. There was nothing wrong with what you did. Its natural for human beings to question. I don't think we need to end organized religion, but we definately need to refine it some. We need to go back to the basics. Christ taught about love and compassion... that is what we need to follow... less important, I think, are the formalities of how and where to pray...what to wear... that kind of thing. We need to teach our children to love and care for others and this world.
Remember how Christ would anger the Sadducces by sitting with theives and prostitutes? That's how we should be... LOVE is what is important... not ceremony.

I think people, possibly you OP, though I don't mean it as an insult, could stand to see that there is a LOT of "Grey ground" between the huge organized religion we have now and absolutely killing off man's beleives in higher powers and gods.

I am opposed to organized religion. I am also opposed to trying to tell people they shouldn't beleive what they want. I think both of these threads are a bit silly.

I suggest the OP watch Religulous

www.imdb.com...

reply to post by Alienmojo

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I dont agree, especially with the assertion that mankind does not grow and has wars because they dont use religion. Religion is the very CORE of wars and hate and violence because ALL of our wars are over religious reasons.

Example 1. The middle east peoples. They believe that their "ALAH" is bigger then the Christian God, thus follow the belief that all who oppose ALAH is not worthy of living, thus fight for their belief.

Example 2. The inquisition. Basically Christians going around and declaring anyone who did not believe in the Christian faith and did the slightest thing outside of their perfect little vision was either hanged, burned at a stake, dunked into rivers and drowned, or stoned to death.

Example 3. The current wars. Every single war today, including those in recent past (WWII, WWI) were over religious ideals and social beliefs. The so called "reborn" Bush pounded into everyone's heads that our God is bigger than their God, thus war is justified. This has been going on for 8 years and may even continue with going into Iran.

So if anything, religion has caused mankind to be held back, continue to be primative, and fight tribal warfare over religious beliefs, doctrines, practices and prayers.

Mankind cannot learn LOVE when there are so many different religions. Quite simply because one religion does not allow for love of the fellow mankind who happens to not believe in the same religious belief, but in fact teaches to HATE and KILL those who do not believe.

And no, its not "end of story". Sorry to say, but thats quite a very limited look at the whole picture..ie the world. Saying it should continue when there is centuries of evidence that it does not work is hardly any justification to say "end of story". However, what IS true and what that saying can be applied to is in fact humanity has been held back by religion...end of story.

Our story has not changed in eons. We continue to fight over religious beliefs, wage wars, kill innocents, try to impose beliefs onto others, and for what?.....religious reasons.

You say to help others is the way to heaven. What exactly is heaven? That mystical white filled room with golden gates and white pearl pillars where angels reside flying around and there sits God upon a golden chair?

I dont suppose that the Buddists have their vision of who sits in that chair? The Islams too? The Chineese? The Arabs? The Africans? The Indians?

And do every one of these different societies see the same thing in that golden chair my friend?

NO.

There is no magical mystical white filled room where everyone is lined up at golden gates. All of that is primative pagen stories with absolutely no hard evidence of its exsistance. What is hard proof and has centuries of hard evidence, is the history of mankind and its tribal warfare ways that continues today...all for the sake of "My God Is Bigger Than Your God".

If there was only one God, then there would not be any reason to have all these different religous beliefs that each member of each one of these religions will fight to the death for.

If there was a God, God would not be allowing for all the division in his creations to be fighting over so many different beliefs when there is supposed to be only one true God. If God exsited, innocents would not suffer, especially the children of this messed up world. He would not allow starvation, poverty, death and distruction. He would have appeared on several occaisions and not wait 2000 years or more and just come in spirts and allow all those innocents over 2000 year spans to be killed and go hungry. God would fix the problem, solve for the needs and start acting like the loving caring and forgiving God he is preached to be and not sit idle up on that golden chair watching innocent people and children die over wars about faiths and beliefs.

Religion MUST stop so that mankind can grow up out of its infancy and its need to believe that he cannot do anything without believing in a fairy tale.

Dispite everything that is written in the bible, not a shread of it has absolute hard evidence because all of it was written by man, not God. It is a compilation of stories, fables and tales written by a people so primative that they needed something to lead their way..hence the sheep and the herder..exactly as written.

Well today, mankind is NOT primative..so much to a point where we dont need to be like sheep to be led by a herder. But unfortunately, religion keeps most of mankind from seeing outside of the halo of false premise and false reality, like a sheep pen, keeping the flock locked in a pattern of one huge circle leading to nowhere except the same thing, over and over again, and will continue to do so unless mankind grows up and comes to realize that it is mankind himself that has and forever will determine his own destiny, not some faith and relic religious belief.

The proof is righ there, documented, easily found and easily seen all around. The only thing mankind needs to do is simply wake up out of the trance of the religious control.



Cheers!!!!

Well, I try to ignore those that are more vocal, such as evangalists on tv. They are just noise to me.

My father was an atheist. I didn't learn this until I was 26. I have 3 brothers and one sister and we went to church each Sunday WITH our father. I found out after he died that he took us because he felt it was better for us to believe than not to believe. I admire him for that, I don't know if I could have done it myself. To me it shows the reason why religion is needed... because it enriches our lives and makes us better people in return. Not everyone experiences this, of course, but I think most do... at least the ones I have experienced.
Yes, we can create monsters... but we can also create love and understanding. It all depends on the person... their beliefs... their understandings. Are we all Dr Frankenstein's and Dr Jeckels'? I don't think so... although the possibility for both exist. It is only ourselves that can determine which way we will go. For me, it is religion that keeps me balanced on the good side.