Religion makes you crazy - Islamic evidence.

As I always say, I think all religions are as stupid as each other - war, leaps of faith, blind following etc etc. So if you're going to flame me flame me for that, not for being anti Islamic.

Whilst listening to Radio 4 this morning they were discussing the Bibi blasphemy story, there is a thread here.

One of the translated speakers was giving narrative about what happened to Asia Bibi on that day.

Those who have read my rants will know that I don't like religion forcing people to think certain things, I don't like religion to manipulate people's minds. It smacks of forced control and most of these things religious people are coerced into thinking because of their religion are quite extraordinary.

A common example I use is the old Christian thing of how you must hate gays.

Back to the point... A sentence from the narrative struck me and flabbergasted me:

Asia Bibi was collecting water from a well or sink into a bowl (I think), she of Christian faith touched the water. The Muslims verbally attacked her because due to her being a Christian the water was now dirty - because she touched it. I imagine then Bibi had a go back (the radio conveniently missed this part) and blasphemed against Mohammed.

So... it is completely acceptable in the eyes of religion to believe that someone of a different faith touching water makes it dirty. Not only that, the people (female Muslims in this case) clearly believed this lady had made the water dirty!

Can anyone see how utterly crazy that is? It's like at school when the dirty kid touches you and you wipe it off on someone - like the American cooties!!

Yet another example of religion making people crazy. Actually crazy. If you believe she had made the water dirty you are a fool!

My kids are Christian.
Now I know why the shower and sinks get dirty.

Don't you think religious sanction is often just a way of legitimizing various nasty kinds of behaviour that people like to indulge in, and may also believe are necessary in order to forestall perceived threats of various kinds? In other words, it isn't that religion is making people crazy, it's that religion is designed to give people an excuse for being crazy.

I too listened to the report on R4 this morning. The whole story is about the rise and rise of religious intolerance. In some countries ignorance breeds ignorance. With ignorance comes manipulation and fear. This leads to zero tolerance of difference.

It is a terrible shame. I hate to focus on Muslim nations, but in most of those countries minority groups are becoming increasingly persecuted, even minority Muslim denominations are brutalised, as exemplified by the blood-letting between Sunnis and Shias. In these counties, you'll end up with no difference and full compliance. These countries will stagnate and just become crap for the population, if they are not already crap.

Regards

originally posted by: Astyanax
Don't you think religious sanction is often just a way of legitimizing various nasty kinds of behaviour that people like to indulge in, and may also believe are necessary in order to forestall perceived threats of various kinds? In other words, it isn't that religion is making people crazy, it's that religion is designed to give people an excuse for being crazy.

Not a bad wrap-up...

I myself feel like religion isn't so much of an excuse, as a way of life that is so mislead because people over-analyze it, and often times that misinterpretation can lead to extreme beliefs that would infringe on the rights of others.

It's not very frequent that you'll find a religion that is supportive of all other religions; regardless of their good or bad qualities. To me, this would be a piece of the foundation of a religion that serves everyone equally positively.

I believe that the only real solution is for religion to be accepted for what it is - beliefs that have transcended generations. That's all it is; and sometimes a belief that has transcended thousands of years of people, is so outdated and misconstrued in its structure and implications, that people will use it as an excuse. Not that the religion is an excuse, but that people will find an interpretation that serves their purposes. To me, in this respect, it is an excuse.



Good thread OP. Ought to be thought provoking.

a reply to: and14263

Religions have set beliefs and set parameters.

These effective belief 'rules' restrict thinking and rational thought which obviously has an effect on the mind and brain function of those applying it to their thought processes.

Imagine inspirational thoughts appearing and again and again those neural pathways being closed deliberately by imposing religious 'rationale'.

Imagine how the brain and thought processes would be conditioned into not thinking.

Imagine how this would affect subsequent generations upon generations, both as a society and as a gene pool.

Result: Eugenics by mind control.

a reply to: and14263

Your statement that Christians must hate gays, is a very bigoted statement, an ignorant statement and demonstrates how atheists are as bigoted, prejudiced as any "religious" person.

I can only speak to Christians, because I am one.
We are NOT obligated to hate anyone at all.
Christ commands us to love everyone, no matter who they are or what they do.
That is the command put forth by Christ himself.
Anyone who says differently is sinning in my opinion by going against the very command of the one we worship.

I don't care what you may quote from the bible.
There is only one command that comes from Christ himself, it is to love your neighbor as yourself. (no caveat as to who the neighbor is or what they do or don't do).

It is the ultimate in ignorance and bigotry to assume that Christians must hate gays,
Christ himself said that his command supersedes everything else (yes even in the Bible)
this one command is only second to
Love God
everything else in the Torah or in the Bible is null and void if it goes against this simple statement
Love your neighbor as yourself.

I remain silent on the rest of your OP because I am not going to make an ignorant and bigoted statement like the one presented in the OP about Christians.

The OP statements are rife with hatred toward other people and demonstrate how dangerous atheists can be when they try to stamp out religious people in a form of verbal genocide, and many actually promote genocide of religious people as a way to improve the world.

a reply to: and14263

All ____ people are ______.

originally posted by: grandmakdw
a reply to: and14263



The OP statements are rife with hatred toward other people and demonstrate how dangerous atheists can be when they try to stamp out religious people in a form of verbal genocide, and many actually promote genocide of religious people as a way to improve the world.

Genocide by definition would mean killing religious people. I think the point most atheists are getting at is that some religious interpretation of holy writings and certain old tribal beliefs can cause a lot of chaos and violence, not the average religious person in and of themselves.

You state many atheists "actually promote genocide of religious people" I as an atheist have never known of any movement to bring about your "genocide" Please provide some proof for me to investigate. (I am meaning a group movement not the words of a crazy individual atheist ... as you said "many atheists" For example, one crazed Christian isn't a big problem either) I don't say this as a jerk. If true, this is important information and needs outed.

a reply to: igloo
The proof is the support for science and technology that provides new ways to kill in the name of protection.

originally posted by: igloo

originally posted by: grandmakdw
a reply to: and14263



The OP statements are rife with hatred toward other people and demonstrate how dangerous atheists can be when they try to stamp out religious people in a form of verbal genocide, and many actually promote genocide of religious people as a way to improve the world.

Genocide by definition would mean killing religious people. I think the point most atheists are getting at is that some religious interpretation of holy writings and certain old tribal beliefs can cause a lot of chaos and violence, not the average religious person in and of themselves.

You state many atheists "actually promote genocide of religious people" I as an atheist have never known of any movement to bring about your "genocide" Please provide some proof for me to investigate. (I am meaning a group movement not the words of a crazy individual atheist ... as you said "many atheists" For example, one crazed Christian isn't a big problem either) I don't say this as a jerk. If true, this is important information and needs outed.

listverse.com...

www.conservapedia.com...

politicaloutcast.com...
current quotes from atheists who want to kill Christians to rid the world of religion

Is a blog entry from the Director of American Atheists good enough for you?

In a shocking blog post at atheists.org, Al Stefanelli, Georgia State Director of American Atheists, Inc., calls for the eradication of "individuals who abide by fundamentalist Christian and radical Islamic doctrines." "They don’t respond to lawsuits, letters, amicus briefs or other grass-roots campaigns and they must, must, must be eradicated," he writes.

www.examiner.com...

a reply to: grandmakdw

What rubbish you spout, Granny.

Your first link is to a meaningless list of 'nasty atheists'. Some of them were tyrants and some of the tyrants killed religious people — along with atheists. None of them are representative of normal, peaceable atheists.

Your second link attempts to prove the tired old claim that 'Communists and Fascists are atheists as well as mass murderers.' Well, it won't wash. Fascism is not atheism; much of the support for Fascism in its heyday was drawn from the extreme conservative-religious right, particularly the Catholic Right. And Communism is a religion — it has its God the Proletariat, its Heaven the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, its Bible Das Kapital, its Creed the Communist Manifesto and its Messiah Karl Marx, whose sayings, like all of the foregoing, are articles of faith to doctrinaire Marxists. The persecution of members of other faiths by Communists is simply another kind of religious war.

Your third link is a deliberately deceitful attempt to conflate religion with religious fundamentalism, and to make a mountain out of a verbal molehill.

Your fourth link is a straight misrepresentation. A lie, to put it bluntly.

Fundamentalist fetish-Christians, like all nasty people, believe the world is out to get them. There's always a grain of truth in the belief, because they are so obnoxious to others. But it's only a grain; in fact, it's the fundies who do all the killing and maiming and blowing things up. And giving ordinary religious folk a bad name.

a reply to: grandmakdw

I wouldn't kill Christians to make the world a better place. That's what religions tell us to do... kill for peace.

Yet another mind boggling concept only accepted by religious followers and those in love with money.

a reply to: Astyanax

Wow your reply, the rhetoric. Sounds like that of a fundi-atheist. And so filled with anger and hate are the statements, just like the OP.

Why would anyone want to follow such a hate filled doctrine towards their fellow man as has been espoused in the reply. Yes, fundamental or radical if you prefer, atheism is a doctrine, because it teaches people to hate those who have religious viewpoints and to make fun of them at every opportunity and to deride them at every opportunity, calling them such things as ignorant and lumping all religious people in with mass murders and haters.

Atheism taken to extremes is quite dangerous because it has no moral compass. The only moral compass is what any individual or group thinks is right and moral for the moment. I personally would not want to rely on pop culture as my moral compass.

Without a moral compass. Anything can be justified and called good or moral (even eradicating religious people). It justifies being angry and hateful toward humans whose only crime is having a few weirdos in their group. There is no group of humans who do not have their outliers,even atheists.

No I did not lie. I read the quote of Al Stefanelli, American Atheists’ Georgia State Director. He did write that Christians should be eradicated, even if he backtracked later. That is what he wrote in his blog on his societies website. It is there and it is quite clear, no matter how he tried to "clear it up". He did write these words, no matter how hard you try to deny it.

But the underbelly of fundamentalist Christianity and radical Islam does not operate in the legal system. They don’t respond to lawsuits, letters, amicus briefs or other grass-roots campaigns and they must, must, must be eradicated.

This is an example of how atheism has no moral compass. It is ok to eradicate religious people? For the good of society? Sounds a great deal like a call to genocide to me.

I know that not all atheists want to eradicate the religious. This man's statements were a Freudian slip, a bad one, from which he has tried desperately to backpedal. But he did write it in a blog for the entire world to see, and no, it is not taken out of context, he said many more awful things about the religious in the blog.

Every group on the face of the earth, because they are made up of humans, have their weirdos, outliers, fanatics, etc.

To say all Christians are..... because of what a few fanatics do or because of what some people did hundreds of years ago and never repeated is well, bigoted and prejudiced at it's core.

I do not hate gays, my philosophy is live and let live, I just don't want them to flaunt in my face what they do in the bedroom (that is rude and crass for anyone to do).
I do not hate people who get or give abortions, that is between them and their conscience, and or their God if they are believers.
I do not hate atheists, I do however, get insulted and angry when called ignorant and a hater just because a person assumes that "all christians" are whatever; it is like saying "all black people" are _____(name your ignorant prejudiced statement).

What has been espoused here is dangerous and ignorant and prejudiced hatred toward all religious people, because of the few radicals and fanatics,
and you have failed to acknowledge,
that radicals and dangerous fanatics can also be atheists.

It seems to me that radical atheists do not want to allow people to live and let live, but wish to "convert" everyone to atheism, because they see it as the ONLY right way of thinking.

a reply to: and14263

Please read my reply to Astyanax, as it applies to your OP as well as to his statement. And to your bigoted and prejudicial statement that "Christians...kill for peace."

a reply to: grandmakdw

Wow your reply, the rhetoric. Sounds like that of a fundi-atheist. And so filled with anger and hate are the statements, just like the OP.

There's no rhetoric in my post, only statements of fact. However, your misapprehensions are quite consistent with the delusion that Christians are under some kind of threat from atheists. This is religious paranoia, you know.

Actually, it is your reply that is full of anger, rhetoric and hatred. It's barely coherent, it's frothing at the mouth so hard.

And your last quoted statement was a lie, just as I said it was. Nowhere in Stefanelli's piece did he say that 'individuals' need to be eradicated. Those are words a fundie paranoiac put into his mouth. He was talking about fundamentalist attitudes.

As to that, it would be great if we could eradicate fundamentalism, but as long as there are stupid, angry people in the world, that is impossible, so we just have to live with the hatred and paranoia, and contain its worst manifestations as well as we can. Sometimes, regrettably, that will mean we have to eradicate fundamentalists. You know, the McVeighs and Bin Ladens of this world.

originally posted by: and14263
So... it is completely acceptable in the eyes of religion to believe that someone of a different faith touching water makes it dirty.

I understand your point, and how you are describing it and such, and it makes a cohesive argument in the follow-through, except in this case, it ISN'T completely acceptable in the eyes of religion to believe that someone of a different faith touching water makes it dirty. Islam makes no such pronouncement.
The woman did, but people will hate on other people for whatever reason they can think of.

a reply to: babloyi

Yes a valid point I missed to note - the heresay from a tale is obviously not representative of the whole religion.

originally posted by: grandmakdw
a reply to: and14263

Please read my reply to Astyanax, as it applies to your OP as well as to his statement. And to your bigoted and prejudicial statement that "Christians...kill for peace."

So you are honestly telling me that all the wars that have been due to religion are just? That they create peace? That having a war for peace makes sense?

It's sad and pathetic that beliefs get in the way of REAL LOVE and compassion for humans. Makes me sick.

If you can say that it's all sensible and just then you are as sick as those murdering in the name of religion.

(I said religion btw I didn't focus directly on Christians in that sentence).

That's what religions tell us to do... kill for peace.

And what the hell is this? :

I do not hate gays, my philosophy is live and let live, I just don't want them to flaunt in my face what they do in the bedroom (that is rude and crass for anyone to do).

When was the last time you had a gay couple bu***ng each other in your face? When and where in the world do gays flaunt in our faces what they do in the bedroom??

Jeeeeeez Louise you're a great advertisement for the church.

I'm not an atheist or a believer, I don't team up and take sides - I'm confident enough in myself to not have a label or to have a group of people telling me what to believe, how to act, making up morals for me.