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We're all raised differently and come from different backgrounds, and I don't think it's right to attack atheists as a whole, Christians as a whole, Muslims as a whole, or any group simply based on their faith or lack thereof. Every group has/has had people in them guilty of pushed agendas, mudslinging, and all sorts of crimes. They also all have good people who do good things, and try not to be as judgmental as some of their peers.
Religion and science alike don't answer all the questions of life, as religion only covers so much ground and science is constantly changing and looking for new answers. It won't happen, but it'd be great if there wasn't so much attacking between these different groups and we would all be accepting that people will believe different things. When it's not harming other people, the belief or lack of belief shouldn't be attacked so much. My two cents.
True. Asimov at least speaks in a nuanced manner. Unlike the Bible, a book condoning the stoning to death of women who got involved with other men, regardless of whether it happened of her own volition. And by the way, with that book, others are now trying to convince me that it comes from some Deity I am naturally supposed to follow, blindly I might add.
Interesting. Could you explain to me what humanism is, stands for and does, please, @Tokoloshe. I've never been entirely clear on this, so any help is much appreciated!
I salute you Sir. Hands down the funniest thing I'm going to read this decade.
Just for starters let's wonder at how much more great men like Copernicus or Galileo might have been able to achieve without having to sneak about trying dodge the suffocating straight jacket of the Church?
Indeed, and glad that you contributed this. You see, Christians believe the blood of Jesus was the New Covenant replacing all of what had went before in the Old Testament. Wasn't it Jesus that was involved in the flowing passage in the New Testament:
John 8:1-11New Living Translation (NLT)
A Woman Caught in Adultery
8 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
So why is the Old Testament still included in the bible then if Jesus' teachings replaced all of 'what had went before' (sic)?
Is the OT the word of the Lord or not?
You're definitely right that we owe a lot to religion as a society. Too bad for all the people who have also suffered because of it, but fine. However, there's a time for everything. Some things come too soon (like nuclear power IMO) and some things end up obsolete, like religion. Seeing the technological power we have obtained in recent times--again, maybe too soon--perhaps it's time to let go of all false myths and mass hysterias and to teach ourselves a new philosophy of life. Religion may have played its part, and should let go now. Say we do conquer space on day. Say we do probe even deeper into the mysteries of the cosmos. Say we do encounter other species. All of these events will then continue to destroy more and more of the foundations of many a world religion. People will then look back on the past and mockingly say, "remember when people thought the Earth was flat; when they thought the Earth was the centre of everything, when they thought the cosmos was ruled by some deity with a particular fondness of people?"
Well, how can I explain it in the simplest form to a mass audience? Just like the workings of law, some parts of the OT are overruled by the new covenant of Jesus' blood on the cross. That was the new covenant. It came along like equity did with the common law to remove injustices, inequalities laid down by the scribes (the lawyers of the day) and the self-righteous Pharisees referred to in the passage above. Just as in the constitutional law of the UK, no parliament can bind its successors, so it is in the New Testament that God's law is not bound by the law of man. To me that makes perfect sense.
"Love thy neighbor...unless he believes in something slightly different, then you should cut his head off!"
You have an extraordinary faith in humanity if you think that nothing negative would result in removing Religion from history. What is the use in another genius when we don't have the technology to make use of their discoveries?
Would you agree then that removing religion from history might bring some positivity to the world?
True, if you are referring to the Islamists of Isis and their so-called Islamic State. Remember good old 'Jihadi John'? Not true if you are referring to the recent actions of Christians worldwide.
This assumes that the only death directly related to religion is through the hands of Isis. History says otherwise.
Well, now. Are you thinking of the Crusades? Not exactly recent.
Being recent or not is irrelevant. I'm specifically talking about deaths and wars brought about as a direct result of religion. Doesn't seem like the godly thing to me.
As a modern-day Christian I wouldn't say it was godly either. It happened. We have to live with it, learn lessons from it and move on. I notice Hitler and Stalin get off easily while religion is blamed for all the world's ills. You'll note that both were atheists and responsible for the needless and cruel deaths of millions of people. But then that would show up a chink in your spurious argument.
Hush hush, now. That is sacrilege!
You're far more qualified than me to comment on this clearly but did the Troubles have absolutely nothing to do with Christian religion?
Good point. Better to imprison them as sorcerers and to suppress their teachings just in case the masses read their work and start to think for themselves.
You'd have gone down a storm in the Vatican circa 1500.
Well, in my opinion, the Troubles in Northern Ireland had nothing to do with a true interpretation of the Christian faith. It was a perversion of that faith, be that Roman Catholic or Protestant. Of course there was (and still is) sectarianism in Northern Ireland, but this is again largely political. Speaking hypothetically, if all sides were in favour of remaining in the UK or in an United Ireland, there would be no issue at all on mere religion. Rather, it seems to me, that each side in the conflict hates/distrusts the other not particularly because they are Protestants or Catholics but because of their entrenched and totally opposed political beliefs on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland. What the Troubles had to do with was politics - unionism/loyalism/conservatism versus republicanism/nationalism/socialism.
Of course, it was all covered over with the veneer of religion but I truly believe it was politics that made the IRA take up arms and bombs against the "Orange state" or the "black North" and the loyalist paramilitaries to kill. There are plenty of Catholics here in NI who are unionists, even with a small 'u'. In fact, many SDLP voters transfer to the more modern UUP. So, in my view, religion only papered over the cracks of the real motive - politics. It was a "war" of keeping NI British and part of the Union with the rest of the UK versus "Troops/Brits out now" and a united Ireland under Sinn Fein Trotskyite socialism. Please note, not a united Ireland per se, but a Sinn Fein ruled Ireland.
As one of the Protestant faith residing in Northern Ireland, I have no hatred of Roman Catholics just because they are Catholics. They are firstly human beings born into a particular affiliation of Christianity. Why would I hate someone for what is an accident of birth? Seems rather petty and deeply unfair to me. Catholics have to be allowed to live too, as do Protestants! What I do hate is the IRA campaign of violence and ardent Irish republicanism. Religion has nothing to do with it really. It's all about politics here and don't let anyone tell you any different!
Ofcourse, but it's the part where people think that all the benefits Religion took care of would have just come about of there own accord had Religion never existed. Eventually they would, yes, but not in the same timeframe. It would have taken centuries longer IMO. I'm fairly sure we would have lost some of the major wars, which would put the countries most responsible for scientific breakthroughs under regimes that prohibited scientific research. Then its basically a waiting game that until that regime gets overthrown, and hopefully by something better not worse, and on, and on.
'It was a perversion of that faith'
Now where have I heard that before?
On the whole though I agree with you. My only personal experience of the religious bigotry that must be rife in NI was our class going on a mini bus from our Catholic primary school in a tiny village in Staffordshire to use the swimming pool at the school in the next village and being told by classmates that we should be careful as the kids in this school were all 'proddys'. Obviously at the age of 7 I had not the faintest clue what they were on about but got off the bus only aware that these other children were something bad called 'proddys'.
Thinking about it now the other school probably wasn't even religious in the slightest just a bog standard state comp. I've no idea why 7 year olds in a village in England would be carrying this antipathy to children they had never met. Our class did have about 3 or 4 kids of Irish background, can remember if they were the instigators of this anti proddy stuff but it would hardly be a shock if they were. Or was it that the tie of religion meant that as Catholics they had more affinity with Irish Catholics than their fellow Englishmen?
Anyway the point of this little trip down memory lane is that how and why were these kids able to peddle this hatred at such an early age if not for their parents indoctrinating them? You could argue it's political not religious but I've yet to hear of parents inculcating their children with political philosophies when they are still in primary school but we all know that religion gets to work on them the moment the cord is cut.
Unlike people of faith I'm always happy to have my eyes opened so I'd be grateful if you could furnish me with some examples of religion playing a direct role in preventing wars.
The WBC is actually the most honest Christian Church there is.
People here know where I stand on God: I'm an atheist because belief in him has been so far unjustified.
Thank you for sharing your school story. Yes, I experienced similar things at primary school in NI.
While you may think it's religious, my point is it's the political thing that keeps the hatred and sectarianism in NI going on. It's vital that commentators and onlookers understand this simple fact.
Very true. They live and die by the word of the bible rather than constantly cherry picking the bits that suit them.
They are of course mental but at least they aren't afraid to stand by their beliefs.
Well, if that is true Christianity, I wouldn't want to be associated with them. Like modern-day Pharisees (see the passage quoted above) they are self-righteous zealots and nothing more in my book.
Well they base their 'God hates fags' schtick on
Leviticus 18:22King James Version (KJV)
22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Seems pretty unequivocal. No doubt you'll tell me that's one of the bits that got superseded by Jesus' new covenant?