In all truth and honesty, I have to disregard science in many cases.

[Seanchaidh]

I would have to disregard science too if I believed so many false things.

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

You... do realize that Christianity is younger than ALL of the religions that you listed... right? Also, Christianity borrowed A LOT from Zoroastrianism. Like, everything that distinguishes it from Judaism.

 

[gavinator93]

not having read alot of this topic aplogies if im restating some peoples posts.

science will be always proved wrong until it is absolute fact but until then science will be along the right lines, for example the idea that the sun rotates around the earth was proven wrong by the dicovery that the earth rotates around the sun, but was along the right lines as it acknowleged that something moves.

probably a bad point, but then again havent ever really been able to get alot of my points across in the way i intended

 

[grimsprice]

There are just so many things wrong with the OP that I can't be bothered to rant about all of them.

This...the largest flaw in your arguement is you trying to state somehow all religions came from Christianity or Judaism.../sigh

Yeah, the romans invented a time machine to fight the Raptor Jesus, they sent people back in time to set up the evil pleasure worshiping societies like the Egyptians 4000 years before Raptor Jesus was born. Just so 2000 years later, evil, blood orgy loving scientists could try and test the Christians faith, and sway the Christians away from God.

Maybe that seams like trolling. I'm sorry, i just agree that the OP is missing a lot of information on history. The Egyptians (i think) are the oldest society we have a lot of knowledge about, the Babylonians and Somarians can go cry in a corner, we don't know much about them. Any ways, the Egyptians are thousands of years older than even the Jewish faith.

 

[gavinator93]

Religion is what people use to explain the unknown because they're scared of not knowing. All religion is just conjured up out of thin air and people believe it because it makes them feel like life isn't over at death because they're too afraid to face their own mortality. I would choose to face a unsettling truth rather than submit myself to a false promise.

That is ridiculously ignorant and you are clearly basing that statement on Christianity/Judaism/Islam.

There are many reasons for being religious, as an atheist you have no place telling people why they may or not believe something.

As much as I dislike discussing my personal views; I am an agnostic before you start telling me I am deluded for believing in whatever you assumed I did after reading the last 2 sentences.

Well, as an atheist, I think we're are the best qualified to assess the pros and cons of religion, seeing as we aren't biased.

Atheists aren't necessarilly anti-religion, we just don't believe that there is any sort of higher power.

But speaking as someone who has studied religion, I can safely say that it is a harmful influence. Even Eastern religions. Did you know that Buddhists believe that non-Buddhists aren't technically human? That makes it okay to kill us. More-over, Buddhists believe that there will be a worldwide holy war, and at the end of it, Buddhists will rule the world.

the ony way i can se buddhists ruling the world from a holy war is that all the religions in the world wage war against each other that kills everyone except the buddhists because they are non violent, would not have taken part. 'Buddhists believe that non-Buddhists aren't technically human? That makes it okay to kill us' i dont remeber learning about this could you show/tell me where you learnd this because as far as i know buddhits see all life as sacred like hinduism and islam and generally you see more groups trying to help their fellow man rather than kill/hurt

 

[Legion]

Religion is what people use to explain the unknown because they're scared of not knowing. All religion is just conjured up out of thin air and people believe it because it makes them feel like life isn't over at death because they're too afraid to face their own mortality. I would choose to face a unsettling truth rather than submit myself to a false promise.

That is ridiculously ignorant and you are clearly basing that statement on Christianity/Judaism/Islam.

There are many reasons for being religious, as an atheist you have no place telling people why they may or not believe something.

As much as I dislike discussing my personal views; I am an agnostic before you start telling me I am deluded for believing in whatever you assumed I did after reading the last 2 sentences.

Well, as an atheist, I think we're are the best qualified to assess the pros and cons of religion, seeing as we aren't biased.

Atheists aren't necessarilly anti-religion, we just don't believe that there is any sort of higher power.

But speaking as someone who has studied religion, I can safely say that it is a harmful influence. Even Eastern religions. Did you know that Buddhists believe that non-Buddhists aren't technically human? That makes it okay to kill us. More-over, Buddhists believe that there will be a worldwide holy war, and at the end of it, Buddhists will rule the world.

All religions are the same: Scare people into following you, promise them something amazing that you will never actually have to deliver, and assure them that they're better than everyone else. Rinse and repeat. That's it.

Sorry, but your whole post was a joke.

Not believing in a God is completely biased when it comes to assessing religion because your opinion would be "I am right they are wrong". That is bias. Agnostics are in a more non-bias position because they are in the middle (pretty much the definition).

Buddhists may believe that, but that doesn't mean they condone murder. Their religion preaches tolerance more than any other. They may believe Buddhists will be left but that is not the same as ruling/

The fact you claim to have studied religion then say that in the end is fucking insulting, not all religions even have an organised system.

Paganism has no organised church/group, they are against trying to convert people, they are even against sharing religious belief to other people because of intolerance.

Seriously, for that last paragraph alone you got reported.

 

[Simriel]

*eye twitches* I... I am so annoyed by this utter lack of any sense or acceptance of fact I cant even rant about it. This guy has to be a troll...

 

[Lord_Seth]

*sigh*

To the OP: First, this is history, not science.

Second, claiming you have to disregard science because science supposedly backs these parallels is like saying "I have to disregard science because science backs young earth creationism and I don't like young earth creationism." (which is patently untrue, because science most certainly not does back young earth creationism) No, history does not back these parallels, because when people try to argue for these parallels the parallels they bring up are either made-up, exaggerated, or rely on sources that were more likely influenced by Christianity than the other way around (due to said sources being from after Christianity got well-known).

 

[A Weary Exile]

Religion is what people use to explain the unknown because they're scared of not knowing. All religion is just conjured up out of thin air and people believe it because it makes them feel like life isn't over at death because they're too afraid to face their own mortality. I would choose to face a unsettling truth rather than submit myself to a false promise.

That is ridiculously ignorant and you are clearly basing that statement on Christianity/Judaism/Islam.

There are many reasons for being religious, as an atheist you have no place telling people why they may or not believe something.

As much as I dislike discussing my personal views; I am an agnostic before you start telling me I am deluded for believing in whatever you assumed I did after reading the last 2 sentences.

Tell me then, what reason is there to believe in God(s)?

The honest belief that there is more to life than what we know for a fact should be the obvious one.


The knowledge that we still have no idea why life exists or even managed to exist. Science can prove/disprove many things but nobody can say with certainty how life began because humans didn't exist when it happened. Unlike evolution and gravity we have no real way of testing it or any idea of how to.

Why humans have free thought. It doesn't make evolutionary sense for a being to develop the intelligence to call it's own existence into question. Although evolution makes sense to a degree, there are many factors it can't explain (note: I am not saying evolution doesn't exist, rather that there is more to the way life works, it is not the only theory) especially as so many species act in ways that do not make sense from an evolutionary perspective.

You are also making the mistake again that I pointed out in my first post, in that you are showing your ignorance of religion, not all religions believe in a God.

While I personally do not believe in Heaven or Hell in the Christian/Jewish/Muslim sense I am not so arrogant to claim it is a "false promise" because I have absolutely no evidence to say otherwise. To my knowledge I have never died, so any claim to know the "truth" is nothing more than stupidity and arrogance.

Nice to see someone who just doesn't say "You're wrong!" outright and actually gives reasons, I applaud you.

I'm not saying I know the absolute truth I'm saying I refuse to believe what others have said is the secret of life based on no facts, just on the argument that I can't DISPROVE it. I can say that the universe was created by a giant lobster named Steven and say it's true because you can't disprove it. You know in school when you take a test and the teacher says "If you don't know a question just leave it blank and come back to it later." that's what I'm doing, religion is just filling that answer in with whatever crazy notion enters your brain.

I don't see why there has to be a "Why" life exists, there is certainly a "How" life came about but I don't believe in a higher purpose or "Grand Scheme" it's just another way to make people feel like death isn't the final destination and that they're more important than they actually are.

 

[MalevolentJim]

BAAHAHAHHAHAAHHA!

Science has done more for the human race than Relegion ever has,otherwise we would still be stuck in the Dark Ages.

 

[Legion]

Nice to see someone who just doesn't say "You're wrong!" outright and actually gives reasons, I applaud you.

I'm not saying I know the absolute truth I'm saying I refuse to believe what others have said is the secret of life based on no facts, just on the argument that I can't DISPROVE it. I can say that the universe was created by a giant lobster named Steven and say it's true because you can't disprove it. You know in school when you take a test and the teacher says "If you don't know a question just leave it blank and come back to it later." that's what I'm doing, religion is just filling that answer in with whatever crazy notion enters your brain.

I don't see why there has to be a "Why" life exists, there is certainly a "How" life came about but I don't believe in a higher purpose or "Grand Scheme" it's just another way to make people feel like death isn't the final destination and that they're more important than they actually are.

Which is fair enough, religion in general does have some huge gaps. I can understand why people would not believe in God or anything like that, I was an atheist since around 8 (I am seriously not kidding) and only in the last few years realised that for all the evidence to say God/the afterlife or whatever doesn't exist, I cannot possible know which is why I am agnostic.

For some reason, no matter how hard I try I can't convince myself absolutely that there is nothing more to life than what science claims. Partly because of what I said before, and partly because science also has some huge gaps in it as well.

 

[Captain Blackout]

As a spiritualist and a Taoist Christian working for greater understanding between differing beliefs, I think the original post should be shot with a flame thrower and the writer shot with a chicken chucker. Seriously, thanks to this guy I'm seeing crap in this thread from believers and non-believers. I know for a fact you can reconcile Christianity with science but nooo, let's never let that happen!

/facepalm

 

[grimsprice]

BAAHAHAHHAHAAHHA!

Science has done more for the human race than Relegion ever has,otherwise we would still be stuck in the Dark Ages.

Why do you think God forbade Adam and Eve from partaking of the tree of the fruit of knowledge. Its because religious leaders didn't want their flock thinking. And history is awesome by the way. The OP doesn't seem to know much about it.

 

[roger_pearse]

I've been reading into the supposed parallels between Jesus Christ and all the other myths and fables which he is compared to as of late. There is one for Buddha, Horus, and even this Greek God named Dionysus. Each and every one of these is from my mentioning and perspective, a rather far fetched view of someone trying to persistently incur that Christianity is fraudulent. The only true comparisons is that Jesus had a mother and these other characters had a mother.

True. It requires very little knowledge of Egyptian and Greek mythology to learn that the descriptions of deities from these pantheons in these lists of supposed "parallels" with Jesus are often simply untrue or else thoroughly misrepresented. There are copious refutations all over the web, in atheist and other sites.

Science has for itself, has, can and will be only proven in the eyes of man to a certain extent. What is now considered to be accurate information will one day become something that will be shunned and proven false. Even further on into the future THAT itself will be proven false, and so on and so on.

Nothing wrong with science. It's conclusions are provisional, and refined over time, but that's fine. But to use it as a religion is something only non-scientists do.

I firmly believe that Christianity originally started out, then all of these other beliefs sprouted from that exact religion. All the ancient Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian even, contain some reference or similarity to a tale of early Judaism and contain characters that resemble Christ down to the core, yet become tainted figures in their worship of sinful devices and pleasures.

You probably mean Judaism rather than Christianity (although it makes no difference for your argument). There is a lot of ancient argument about this. The great antiquity of Moses, compared to Greek religion, is something a lot of the ancients comment on.

But there is no real reason to deny that we see paganism recorded in literary and archaeological records before the bible exists. I think that perhaps you are thinking of a theological idea, that God and his teaching existed before the world, and were revealed to people in the beginning, but that men preferred convenience. This may be so, and is a view often expressed in antiquity; but the archaeology is lacking for us to know it today.

Thoughts, opinions, yatterings?

Only a mild concern about pigs and swine. Are you sure that you should be posting this stuff here?

Edit - I also have to contest whether or not the dates of certain past religions are accurate as well.

Good call. People are very, very ignorant online about these things.

Now onto the response:

i recomend tat you look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras to see where christians got the dates for there festivals from

Um, would you really rely on the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" on a subject of intense religious controversy? I wouldn't! Think about all those pages where Greeks and Yugoslav-Macedonians fight each other...

No, it's best to seek out the primary sources. It's not that hard; most are online in English.

I'm not quite sure which of the rather fanciful myths you are alluding to here. Some comments:

No festival of Mithras is recorded as being at any set time; and the cult probably came into existence later than Christianity anyway.

The late Roman state sun cult Sol Invictus came into being in 274 AD, when the emperor Aurelian founded it. The Chronography of 354 AD records a state festival of the anniversary of the consecration of the temple of Sol Invictus on 25 Dec. By about 400 AD people in the East presume that Christmas is celebrated on 25 Dec. to replace this festival. There isn't actually any evidence.

We need to be sceptical; there's a lot of rubbish out there around these sorts of "pagan christs" stuff, and it does no-one any good, surely, to get the raw facts wrong? Opinions we can roll for ourselves, of course, whatever they are; but this stuff can be looked up.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

 

[Indiscrimi]

Religion is what people use to explain the unknown because they're scared of not knowing. All religion is just conjured up out of thin air and people believe it because it makes them feel like life isn't over at death because they're too afraid to face their own mortality. I would choose to face a unsettling truth rather than submit myself to a false promise.

That is ridiculously ignorant and you are clearly basing that statement on Christianity/Judaism/Islam.

There are many reasons for being religious, as an atheist you have no place telling people why they may or not believe something.

As much as I dislike discussing my personal views; I am an agnostic before you start telling me I am deluded for believing in whatever you assumed I did after reading the last 2 sentences.

Well, as an atheist, I think we're are the best qualified to assess the pros and cons of religion, seeing as we aren't biased.

Atheists aren't necessarilly anti-religion, we just don't believe that there is any sort of higher power.

But speaking as someone who has studied religion, I can safely say that it is a harmful influence. Even Eastern religions. Did you know that Buddhists believe that non-Buddhists aren't technically human? That makes it okay to kill us. More-over, Buddhists believe that there will be a worldwide holy war, and at the end of it, Buddhists will rule the world.

All religions are the same: Scare people into following you, promise them something amazing that you will never actually have to deliver, and assure them that they're better than everyone else. Rinse and repeat. That's it.

Sorry, but your whole post was a joke.

Not believing in a God is completely biased when it comes to assessing religion because your opinion would be "I am right they are wrong". That is bias. Agnostics are in a more non-bias position because they are in the middle (pretty much the definition).

Buddhists may believe that, but that doesn't mean they condone murder. Their religion preaches tolerance more than any other. They may believe Buddhists will be left but that is not the same as ruling/

The fact you claim to have studied religion then say that in the end is fucking insulting, not all religions even have an organised system.

Paganism has no organised church/group, they are against trying to convert people, they are even against sharing religious belief to other people because of intolerance.

Seriously, for that last paragraph alone you got reported.

If you're going to get so worked up at hearing a contrary opinion, you shouldn't be involved in a religious discussion, of all things.

While it is true that I may have overlooked a few of the less common religions, I stand by my statement in general. And Buddhists do, in fact, believe that they will rule the world.

 

[KiiWii]

Man invented God in his own image to explain what he couldn't understand. Replace 'God' with 'Magic' and you get pretty much the same effect.
I'm going to force this down your throat, as its my opinion, but you imposed your ideas on me so it at least had to be brought up.

We can all have our own opinion, and you're free to burn forever in the hell you've created for yourselves, just my opinion is fact. =D

 

[Kiutu]

Because science always proves itself wrong is why it is better. Science finds out they were wrong and corrects themselves. Most religions prefer to ignore the new facts and stay wrong.

 

[Alex_P]

Thoughts, opinions, yatterings?

Okay, see, there's having faith, and then there's making up nonsense to feel better about your faith. Right now, you are doing the latter.

Don't do down that road. It doesn't end well.

-- Alex

 

[the_unseen]

Right now it seems like I'm trying to rip apart a puddle of blood that was once a person, but it is worth mentioning that Christianity has evolved, there probably once was a single religion that was christian but over time it branched off to many beliefs, Catholics (of which there are many kinds), Protestant, Orthadox, the list goes on. Basically they are both constantly changing, so science and Christianity are parallel in that respect.

PS: It just occurred to me that you haven't said which form of Christianity you are defending, or whatever you are trying to do with it, perhaps you should say which one you are.

 

[the_unseen]

As a spiritualist and a Taoist Christian working for greater understanding between differing beliefs, I think the original post should be shot with a flame thrower and the writer shot with a chicken chucker. Seriously, thanks to this guy I'm seeing crap in this thread from believers and non-believers. I know for a fact you can reconcile Christianity with science but nooo, let's never let that happen!

/facepalm

See now you are one step closer to your goal, I mean believers and non-believers alike are beating his online persona to a bloody pulp together, making us that much closer.