Is religion rational?

[Raven's Nest]

What percentage of reigious people have strapped a bomb to their chests and threatened to blow people up

a higher percentage than non-religious people, i'll be willing to bet.

That statement is almost irrelavent. Suicide bombings are not limited to religious people. Find me a religious text which states thou shalt blow thyself up in the name of God? Whilst your at it. Why don't you recite some more lines from the Torah or the Qur'an. Oh I'm sorry you probably don't know jack about them. I hear those buddhists are blowing up cars on a weekly basis now? And those Hindu's, yeah their fucking brutal...

[How many wars have been caused and lives lost through time have there been due to religion?

The answer is nowhere near the amount that have been fought in the name of politics, land or resources.

Those things are real though. Politics exist (we created it), land was definitely there last time I checked and I've got a box of Frosted Shreddies downstairs, so resources are definitely in the 'real' column as well.

Just because they are real does that make them right or justified? Fighting for a religious ideal is no different to fighting for a political idea. There is more blind faith on soldiers behalfs to fight with. And they have considerably bigger guns...

 

[SonicKoala]

I'm a Catholic and heres my stance on this. Is loving thy neighbour irrational? Is doing unto others as you would have them do unto you irrational? Is being generally peaceful irrational? Is not murdering, not stealing, not cheating, not lying and just not being very nice in general towards anyone irrational? Because those are the basic teachings of all religions, and if you call that irrational you need to take a long hard look at yourself.

Got any good slaves lying around?

my mum wore clothing made of two types of cloth, do i have to go home to help her be burned to death, or can my father do it?

My friend wears glasses, why is he cursed to hell?

How were your crusades?

What is that about a Jihad?

and what is with all that ethnic clensing in the gaza strip?

And how many people have died of aids in Africa that would not have if your pope had not convinced them that condoms are the cause of aids, instead of a preventive measure?

The things you just sited are not, by any means, part of religious teachings. They are the result of people misinterpreting and exploiting religion for their own personal reasons. Everything you sited is a by-product of religion, but that does not mean that religion itself is an inherently bad concept. Capitalism is a good idea - a by-product of capitalism? Poverty and death.

Exodus 35:2
kill people who do work on Sunday


Leviticus 21:20-21
if you wear glasses, have a hunchback or are a midget, you are unworthy of god

Are you denying that the bible endorses slavery?

and that wearing clothing made from two fabrics is a killable offence?

How is religion a good idea?

I'm not going to deny that the Bible has these rather outrageous ideas in it, but you have to keep in mind that these examples you sited are not practiced by modern-day Christians. Today, people with disabilities (AND EVEN GLASSES!) are aloud into Churches, and people don't get killed for wearing clothing made from two fabrics or working on Sundays. Your claim is incredibly biased, and you're blatantly ignoring all of the positive messages that stem from the Bible; instead, you sight these obscure passages which aren't practiced by followers of the religion, anyway.

As for this "slavery" bullshit you keep yammering on about, yes, the Bible MENTIONS slavery, but you have to look at it in a historical context. The mentionings of slavery are very matter-of-fact, because slavery was a common practice at the time. Also, this is by NO means the slavery practiced by early American settlers. The slavery in the Bible is mostly of the indentured servitude variety, and it took place on a term basis. Often, these "slaves" were treated as members of the family, and many of them were paid. The bible NEVER outright endorses comprehensive, permanent slavery.

 

[Heathrow]

What percentage of reigious people have strapped a bomb to their chests and threatened to blow people up

a higher percentage than non-religious people, i'll be willing to bet.

One of the practical upshots of not believing in an afterlife is being more appreciative of life itself, which is why you don't see atheists strapping on dynamite vests and blowing themselves up: "In Dawkin's name!"

 

[SonicKoala]

What percentage of reigious people have strapped a bomb to their chests and threatened to blow people up

a higher percentage than non-religious people, i'll be willing to bet.

One of the practical upshots of not believing in an afterlife is being more appreciative of life itself, which is why you don't see atheists strapping on dynamite vests and blowing themselves up: "In Dawkin's name!"

Atheists have done some pretty fucked up things too, which include blowing themselves up or going on shooting rampages, etc. More often than not it has little to do with their beliefs, and more so to do with the fact that they're batshit insane.

 

[Raven's Nest]

You are half right, i don't take these threads too seriously. but i am not a troll.

i have seen so many of these threads, and i am yet to see a single pro religion post worth reading. Religion is fake. somebody just made it up. and the shear stupidity of people still believing it in the 21st century pisses me off.

I haven't seen a pro religion thread full stop. What I see are lots of oppurtunities to have interesting debates about religion. So far you've almost been the only person to consistantly flame in this thread. Religion might seem stupid and fake to you but for a lot of people it means a great deal. And you have no right to assume you are better than them and flame them for believing in something which you either do not understand or cannot tolerate. It's racism pure and simple.

So what if someone just made it all up? What isn't made up these days? Apparently the government thinks that by staying in school and going to university we can all become astronaughts and game developers and ballet designers or whatever you want to be. Realistically this won't happen. Apparantly our votes will make a difference how our countries are run... Will they fuck, we just know that we knew who to blame for things going wrong. We can't all be beautiful or talented but still we let reality tv shows and MTV convince us that we can be. It's all fake man, but I'm sure I don't have to lecture you on this.

Just try and be tolerant and respectful dude, that's all I can ask. If you see a thread like this and you don't like the idea of it, just move on instead of filling it with negativity. You've been around here long enough to understand that doing that keeps the forums as good as they are.

 

[Heathrow]

What percentage of reigious people have strapped a bomb to their chests and threatened to blow people up

a higher percentage than non-religious people, i'll be willing to bet.

One of the practical upshots of not believing in an afterlife is being more appreciative of life itself, which is why you don't see atheists strapping on dynamite vests and blowing themselves up: "In Dawkin's name!"

Atheists have done some pretty fucked up things too, which include blowing themselves up or going on shooting rampages, etc. More often than not it has little to do with their beliefs, and more so to do with the fact that they're batshit insane.

Of course, batshit insanity is the great equalizer affecting the religious and the non religious alike. My point, however, was that you don't see atheists killing themselves over causes-at least not nearly with the same frequency you see religious zealots doing it.

 

[Raven's Nest]

you just admitted that your argument is wrong.

How? I've never advocated the point of view that religion was true or proven. Of course it's made up, the holy scriptures of each religion didn't write themselves! If you had read any of my posts you'd realise that I'm not even religious... I'm an anti-anti-thiest who holds some spiritual ideas of my own.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Is constantly hanging around internet forums attempting to convert other people to your own religion rational?

Note: Rational atheism is not a religion. Fanatical atheism is a devotion to a creed, so is as good as a religion.

 

[Kubanator]

You are half right, i don't take these threads too seriously. but i am not a troll.

i have seen so many of these threads, and i am yet to see a single pro religion post worth reading. Religion is fake. somebody just made it up. and the shear stupidity of people still believing it in the 21st century pisses me off.

You're pissed that people are happy being ignorant?

 

[Dorian6]

but believing in something just because there's nothing to disprove it is just....retarded.

Thats why its called faith, you need it. Your betting on the underdog these days, when it was founded it probably made the most sense, but now its a bit harder (or at least its being made harder by the religions themselves).

like i said. Retarded

also i'm fairly sure that when people started making outrageous claims about the spherical nature of the earth, they had evidence to support it.

I hope they did, but they still got mocked. The point is for a species that occupies such a tiny space in such a huge universe we make allot of assumptions about knowledge.

mocked and persecuted primarily by the church, in their constant campaign to ignore the world around them in favor of an antiquated book.

 

[Dorian6]

[


instead of "turning it around" as you put it, you just made yourself sound foolish by exposing your lack of understanding of the scientific method.

And by flaming a subject matter that you don't support makes you the perfect judge of foolishness?

Do me a favour...

if you try to refute a point of view, it is often wise to take the time to thoroughly understand it first. It appears you haven't done that

 

[Raven's Nest]

[


instead of "turning it around" as you put it, you just made yourself sound foolish by exposing your lack of understanding of the scientific method.

And by flaming a subject matter that you don't support makes you the perfect judge of foolishness?

Do me a favour...

if you try to refute a point of view, it is often wise to take the time to thoroughly understand it first. It appears you haven't done that

Umm... What?

 

[Pegghead]

You're being selective. For example, the hate of gays is not rational.

Of course the hate of gays isn't rational, I'm all for gays and believe me most people I know are too, many of whom are Catholic. They haven't outright said to me at any service or Religion lesson something along the lines of "If people love people of the opposite sex they are instantly bad people", I think the origin of that sterotype that we (As in us Christians) all hate homesexuals is born from the insane rants of people brought up being taught things like white superiority and to get married and pop out as many babies as you can, and sure its coincidence that these people are normally force fed the bible which to me is kind of sad and even a bit creepy, but hey, don't throw out the whole carton because of a few rotten eggs *Uggh*.

Got any good slaves lying around?

No, slavery is an evil old tradition which most people religious or not were practicing for thousands of years, mind you your mum is in black leather and strapped to my bed, so does that count?

my mum wore clothing made of two types of cloth, do i have to go home to help her be burned to death, or can my father do it?

The bible was written thousands of years ago, we've come a long way since then so naturally it's riddled with teachings that are fairly barbaric, but last time I checked my local priest doesn't inspect peoples clothes and burn them if theres more than one kind of cloth.

My friend wears glasses, why is he cursed to hell?

My father wears glasses, my local priest requires spectacles, again we've come a long way since then. Should I judge Americans because they once made black people slaves, should I be unforgiving to any country that has gone to war with Australia in the past, of course not. Again, they don't teach garbage like this in religions anymore.

How were your crusades?

How should I know, I wasn't there. You're really beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel for ways to be racist towards over 5 billion people (Religions of the world) if you're bringing up an ancient war that occured thousands of years ago primarily driven by people seeking opportunity and originally fueled by attacks from rebel groups on Christian traders from the age when people believed there were seamonsters in the oceans and that witchcraft was a serious threat. And yes you're probably going to dig at me saying "Oh but you believe in an invisible man in the sky who makes it rain" just know that most religions nowadays just aim to spread good morals, and teach good ways of life.

What is that about a Jihad?

Look up the term "Extremist" and you'll know.

and what is with all that ethnic clensing in the gaza strip?

See my prior response.

And how many people have died of aids in Africa that would not have if your pope had not convinced them that condoms are the cause of aids, instead of a preventive measure?

I don't know where you got your facts from there buddy, but just as a random sidenote condoms can save lives, I should know I went through about five of them last night with your mum.

No, this is entirely a rational moral stance in life. But when it comes down to it, you dont need a religion, or a "God" to figure out these are nothing more than -common sense-. Dont get me wrong, the moral's pointed out are not irrational. It is the way people use religion as a means to an end, or an ultimatium to all things without proof, and try to force it upon other people (ie. Fundamentalism). Personally, I believe to believe in something without any shred of proof or reason other than "it is right", is to delusion yourself to reality around you. That isnt saying the person is delusional, or is insane, just.. doesnt make sense to me.

People are going to beat the dead horse to proverbial annihilation on this controversy between believing and non-believing, and it will only continue to feed hatred and violence for the other in its redundancy.

Now that is spot on what I believe, except for the fact that I'm proud to be Catholic. But yes I completely agree, people shouldn't treat religion as "The one true way to live" and because of this like you said some morons just use religion as an excuse to be ass holes to each other (Toaster: So what else is new?). And you're totally right, I think people should be allowed to make up their own minds about their faith, I can't stand people constantly trying to recruit members for a church.

 

[Biosophilogical]

No. It's based in faith. Faith is believing without knowing for sure and believing in something with no proof is not really rational. Still, having no faith in anything in life will leave a person a sad empty husk. Which is worse being called irrational and having peace or being rational and having emptiness?*immediately scorched by flames*

Edit: The flames only make me stronger. Also, I really believe that someone with no faith in anything, be it religious or not, is a very sad person. Why wake up in the morning if there is nothing to hope for?

I have no faith, and I am obscenely cheerful all the time. Wanna know why??? Because I know (or I do providing nobody provides evidence to the contrary) that life is meaningless. I also know that people place far too much stock in needing a 'purpose' on this earth (BEYOND REPRODUCTION YOU SILLY PEOPLE). I also know that purpose and fun can be, quite easily, mutually exclusive things.

And to answer your question at the end of the quote.
...
...
...
For shits and giggles.

 

[Pegghead]

Ok, i don't really like my mum, but if you are into obese 54 year old women with arthritis, have fun.

aren't condoms forbidden by the pope himself? so much so that the catholic church convinced literally millions of Africans that condoms cause aids.

If you really want to spread morality, why do you use the threat of god and hell to back yourself up? many people do not need god to be good, and figures show that non religious people break the law far less often the religious people.

You appear to be a reasonable person, and i agree with you on many levels. If religion was not so aggressive, insisting that it should exert control and is worthy of influence in secular matters such as government, science, education and marriage laws, then non-religious people would not have a huge problem with it. As it stands today though, mythology still claims relevance in everybody's daily life. claiming credit for all morality, and denying their bigotry as "divine will". Running educational facilities, brainwashing children to reject rational thought and standing in the way of science.

Religion needs to back down, and stop attempting to influence modern civilization.

Yeah sorry about all the digs at your mother, I just really needed to uh...blow off some steam (Mind you She was blowing me off all night lo... BAD PEGGHEAD BAD!)

Well I must admit I had no idea about that whole condom fiasco (Mind you is that coming from John Paul or Benedict, frankly I much preffered Pope John Paul). And if that did happen, it's pretty silly of the Pope now isn't it. But then again, nowadays what with the rates of things like teen pregnancys skyrocketing, there are actually alot of services put forth by the Church to teach safe-sex, and when this Catholics legal he's gonna be strapping on the rubbers and giving a big "Up yours" to any people in the Church opposed to condoms (Yes, I am fairly young, so I don't think I'm the right person to see when it comes to life philosophy).

I may be a Catholic, but I can't even remember the last time I went to a sunday service so maybe I'm not the right kind of guy to be standing in defence of it, mainly because of my lack of really dense knowledge concerning my religion. Like I said before most of us Catholics take everything with a grain of salt, considering how far we've come as a society since the days the church was first established. For instance most of us accept the theories of evolution and the big bang rather than stories such as the Garden of Eden (Trust me, I actually find the work of men like Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins to be fascinating, belief shouldn't come in the way of knowledge right?), and deep down we know that there are probably no such things as God, or heaven and hell, but who can prove with positively certain information what happens after you die, it boggles your mind really. And sure, now its common sense to just do good things, but the teachings of religion have really helped people if they're struggling with that. Though I'm not really sure where you got those statistics from, but in the defense of religion there are about 5 billion mebers of religions worldwide, and about 1 billion people worldwide part of groups opposed to religion. I think people, regardless of religion are gonna commit crime, because frankly wherever you go and whatever you do you should keep watching the skies there are going to be idiots willing to commit crime. And then there are religious extremists so you do make a good point, but like I said before some people are just idiots.

You make a great point there, even I can't stand it whenever religious groups try to stick their nose into alot of areas, frankly I think people should just be allowed to believe whatever they want and not have people trying to convince them what to do all the time. And yeah religion could definitely be alot more open to change and different ideas, but it's like trying to get Grandma Auntpaw to stop making such awful gravy just because "It's a family recipe". But I think that last part you said about brainwashing children goes a bit too far, I've been educated in Catholic schools my whole life, and these past few months in science we've been learning about theories such as the big bang theory(And to satisfy your curiousity, not all the answers to our tests are God did it.).

As I said before, all groups need to back down, telling people what to do and not letting them decide (Watch the welcome to Rapture video, you'll see what I mean...hehe), but when you think about it for the past two thousand years religions been a big part of all societies, sure sometimes it's been a bad thing because of idiots who take the rein, but hey, you can't forget how much it's been a good thing.

Sorry to create such a mass wall of text, I'm not trying to convert people here, but I'm just so sick of people having digs at what I've grown up being taught (Though it's not like religions some HUGE THING in my life) and thinking they can get away with it. So how about all of us here on the escapist just CHILL THE FUCK OUT, leave that quote button where it is, let people have their say without givng your part to their statement and who knows, these flamewars may just become a bygone memory (And I'm talking about the people who start the fires, not the people who try and defend their house from the flames of mindless argument with buckets of defense).