how very enlightened to tar all religion and religious belief with the same brush.
and anyone who thinks there would be peace and we’d all be holding hands and having a massive love-in if there was no religion is quite frankly mad.
people will kill other people for whatever reason, if it wasn’t because of religious beliefs it would be for something else.
grow up.
Aids… Since the beginning of the epidemic, almost 70 million people have been infected with the HIV virus and about 35 million people have died of AIDS. Globally…
Typhoid… 21 Million…
Black Death… 43 Million…
Oh and Religion related war death toll… 809 Million… All three combined are not even close…:laugh:
+1
Human beings are by their very nature teritorial and wary of difference, jealously and greed will feed conflict whatever the underlying cause, be it religion, territory, wealth, hardship. You could list just as many wars fought on these grounds as you could religeous conflict. How many of those religeous conflicts are a front for forced aquisition of wealth?
Forced acquisition of wealth? hmmm I wonder how rich churches are and how they got that money…
Look no doubt that all faiths have a well-meaning message of being good to others but to suggest that without religion humanity would have degenerated into a horde of ruthless murderers is preposterous. In fact you could argue that without religion we would have evolved to be much more advanced scientifically given the conservativism and backwards views of most organised religions, particularly when it comes to medical procedures, issues of equality, sexuality and race. Remember that ancient greece had some great minds and theories around the evolution of the universe that weren’t tha far off of what we still think today yet all those were nearly wiped thanks to the advance of christianity.
The issue at hand is not a question of faith but of faith through organisation and manipulation. We have been manipulated into believing that the only way to find God is through holy picked individuals - I’ll call them ‘experts’. However by doing that we have allowed ourselves to be influenced by their own human downfalls and therefore have allowed ourselves to be taught things that are stupid, ridiculous and downright dangerous as well as all the good things.
Anyhoo, you want to believe in a deity, fine by me. But don’t tell me that you need to attend any sort of organisation that dictates how people should behave based on teachings of thousands of years old that have refused to evolve alongside humanity.
The other thing is that we commonly mock mystic meg and card readers and everything else. But are they that different than any organised religion? Not really, they are offering false hope for money. It’s the oldest trick in the book 
I’d like to invoke the cosmic teapot. Hard to improve on this analogy imo.
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age, or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.” B.Russell.
I agree, I like the cosmic teapot analogy.
But, that is my belief, I beleive that the world was created as a result of the’ big bang’ and the confluence of a great number of natural forces to provide the coincidental means to support microbial life billions of years ago and henceforth evolution. There are billions of people on this earth who don’t share that view, most of them reasonable intelligent human beings, who are no more prone to conflict as you or I. There are those in the world prone to fundamentalism, who fight for their views, regardless of what they are based upon, religion or political standpoint. Conflict will result as a consequence of human nature, not as a consequence of religion. Religion is simply the reasoning behind it, in many cases the conflict would likely result as a consequence of the human condition regardless. Billions of God fearing peole live their lives entirely in peace.
My agreement with an earlier post was to emphasise that to tarnish all religion with such broad sweeping statements, is as crass and ignorant as the very views that are being contested. simply, that I am right and you are wrong! I prefer, I beleive this and if you chose to believe something else based on your own reasoning, then that’s fine by me.
Clearly english history proves your point to be defunct…
Clearly english history proves your point to be defunct…
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Really? and all those invasions had nothing to do with greed and empire building, or the creation of the state led Church of England nothing to do with a despotic King having his own way and as a result forcing all those who didn’t agree with him and his views into hiding or face punishment of death?
Despite that, my point still stands, as it is not based on History, purely that such a view is as fudamentalist as the religious views you vehemently oppose
I’ll give this thread my attention later on when I’m properly drunk. 
I like to refer to this first paragraph as a large cosmic fart of which humans are the follow-through 
I agree that religion is a way to accept things you cannot explain but I would rather ask questions than accept a truth by others who have tainted lenses. But there are still thousands of people dying because of their misguided religious beliefs. If this was death because of company negligence through false promises, the church would have paid out more than all companies put together.
The thing is that you actually can say religion is wrong because religious belief is built on no evidence whatsoever. Yet it expresses a view of the world that is the one true view and it is sure in this view.
You remember in Geography class you had case studies, like Barton on Sea for Erosion or Slapton Sands for installing veins? Well I was taut the story of Noah’s ark as if it were a case study at school and at home. Poor kids with that up bringing don’t have a chance, it takes a long time to free your mind after all that. Hardly fair on the person who doesn’t have a choice and is subjected to it all. Mind you, I got off lightly compared to some poor kids who’se parents implicit (blind) trust in the church put them in danger.
Not to mention those schools that have banned the teaching of evolutionary theory as it goes against their belief system! Some folk sadly dont have the benefit of being able to choose for themselves.
The French are right about some things.
The monetary system is why the term (POOR) exists in the first place, Brought over by romans along with there religion, Neither work without suffering!
Really? and all those invasions had nothing to do with greed and empire building, or the creation of the state led Church of England nothing to do with a despotic King having his own way and as a result forcing all those who didn’t agree with him and his views into hiding or face punishment of death?
Despite that, my point still stands, as it is not based on History, purely that such a view is as fudamentalist as the religious views you vehemently oppose
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Blah Blah Blah waffle…
Go back a little further mesolithic- neolithic… You might get a little warmer??
The idea that religions “all have a basic element of be nice” is not really of any relevance.
You not going to go far spouting rubbish about being horrible to everyone, because people would see through it. The old adage of actions speak louder than words seems to hold more meaning for me.
As to Waxy saying tarring everyone with the same brush. Yes.
Listen to the piece posted up from Marcus Bridgstocke, he is specifically speaking about those “moderates” of a religion who by their tacit silence and acceptance embolden the extremists.
An example is simple to give.
David Icke says…I believe lizard people are ruling the world.
Is this any more ridiculous or unbelievable than…there is an invisible guy in the sky who created us and is watching over us?
Well no, both are rather far fetched, unlikely, unproven and frankly ludicrous.
David Icke is singled out for ridicule and laughter, made to be a laughing stock.
Now let’s give him ten million followers, 1% of whom are willing to blow stuff up to protect this ridiculous view and the other 99% are more than willing to go along with it, and not leave when that 1% blow stuff up.
Still think he would face the ridicule that he does?
No.
So you are all to blame. You are all to blame just as much as the extremist who actually blew something up.
IF you don’t like people blowing stuff up. Leave your organised religion. Then those extremists are just a small group of people who are liable to be singled out as nutters and locked up.
If you don’t want to leave your organised religion (and this is not the same as giving up your faith) then you can expect to be tarred with the same brush, and rightfully so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X4hwQzTTL4&feature=player_detailpage
This will show you how it is possible to live with out religion and how it is possible to live with out a monetary system…
The two go hand in hand for the sole purpose of control and profit, I find it sad that some people think killing one another is human nature, wake the **** up.
Just watch the documentary… If you cant be bothered then yes ignorance is bliss or just turning a blind eye to corruption, Poverty, and a brainwashed false environment.
What I find interesting is that nearly everyone dismisses cults as dangerous, subversive and outlandish but they forget that every religion pretty much started out as one… There is absolutely no difference between a religion and a cult, apart from the years it has acted.
So as per Icke’s theory, religion is a load of croc… pardon the pun
Thought so…
Well that’s another two hours of my life I’ll never get back…
It was ok though…
The premise is that money corrupts and is inherently part of an unjust system of differentiation between individuals who are otherwise to all intents and purposes exactly the same as each-other (when considered with reference to the totality of existence).
The aspiration appears to be that the evolutionary perogative of natural selection within the human species could be short-circuited by a mass rejection of the tenets of the theory in favour of an ‘all-in-it-together’ mentality in which equal weight would be given to all people, animals, plants, atoms of the universe etc.
This revolution would of course require an act of Faith bigger than any seen before in human history…
…except perhaps that seen in Religion.
I’m all for it but let’s be realistic…
If you watch the last 5 minutes of the film you will notice that the recommendations stop short of the one thing necessary to make such a fundamental change like this actually happen…
…and that one thing could be summarized as…
Empathy…that’s the word I was looking for…
All those in favour say…
‘Ok’
