If you're Christian, Muslim or Jewish....
Discussion
...you are WRONG!
Grade A anti-religious rant. Thorny reading (sorry) but difficult to disagree with....
[i]There are a lot of people I love dearly and respect wholeheartedly who believe in religion. I hate to do this to them. But we have killed far too many people, wasted far too much time on this nonsense for us to keep going in this direction for fear of offense.
Jesus was a lunatic. God is not coming to your rescue. He hasn't come to anyone's rescue in thousands of years, including Jesus. Mohammed was a power hungry, scam artist and ruthless conqueror. Moses and Abraham were figments of the imagination of some long dead rabbi. He would probably laugh his ass off at all of you who still believe the fairytales he made up thousands of years ago. He probably wouldn't even believe it if you told him.
Did I mention Judaism? The chosen people? Come on, get off it. People walk around in clothes from 18th century Russia, thinking they have been chosen by God when they look like a bunch of jackasses. I'm tired of all the deaths because we did not want to give offense. Orthodox Jews are wrong and ridiculous.
As are the orthodox and fundamentalists of all of the religions. It says in the Bible that it is an abomination to wear clothes made of two different cloths or to eat shellfish. If you think God will hate you because you mixed wool and linen or because you ate some shrimp, you are insane.
How long are we going to dance around the 800-pound gorilla in the room? The world is run by madmen. It's not just Bush and bin Laden. It is the leader of all of the countries in the Middle East, almost all of the Americas and most of the rest of the world.
Have I offended you? That's too bad. Stop killing each other in the name of false and ridiculous Gods and I will stop ridiculing you. Trust me, your offense is much worse than mine. [/i]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/if-youre-a-christian-mu_b_9349.html
Grade A anti-religious rant. Thorny reading (sorry) but difficult to disagree with....
[i]There are a lot of people I love dearly and respect wholeheartedly who believe in religion. I hate to do this to them. But we have killed far too many people, wasted far too much time on this nonsense for us to keep going in this direction for fear of offense.
Jesus was a lunatic. God is not coming to your rescue. He hasn't come to anyone's rescue in thousands of years, including Jesus. Mohammed was a power hungry, scam artist and ruthless conqueror. Moses and Abraham were figments of the imagination of some long dead rabbi. He would probably laugh his ass off at all of you who still believe the fairytales he made up thousands of years ago. He probably wouldn't even believe it if you told him.
Did I mention Judaism? The chosen people? Come on, get off it. People walk around in clothes from 18th century Russia, thinking they have been chosen by God when they look like a bunch of jackasses. I'm tired of all the deaths because we did not want to give offense. Orthodox Jews are wrong and ridiculous.
As are the orthodox and fundamentalists of all of the religions. It says in the Bible that it is an abomination to wear clothes made of two different cloths or to eat shellfish. If you think God will hate you because you mixed wool and linen or because you ate some shrimp, you are insane.
How long are we going to dance around the 800-pound gorilla in the room? The world is run by madmen. It's not just Bush and bin Laden. It is the leader of all of the countries in the Middle East, almost all of the Americas and most of the rest of the world.
Have I offended you? That's too bad. Stop killing each other in the name of false and ridiculous Gods and I will stop ridiculing you. Trust me, your offense is much worse than mine. [/i]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/if-youre-a-christian-mu_b_9349.html
Heretic, stone him, stone him
Eric Mc said:
I think you'll find non-religious people have done a fair amount of killing. It's not religion that makes people hate each other, it's people.
Whilst I agree the sheer scale of enforced religious uptake does somewhat lead to at least an element of culpability within the imaginary best friend camp.
No it doesn't.
If religion NEVER existed, you would find that people would substitute some other reasoning process to hate other people. This happens anyway. Communism was "A-Religious", but the biggest wars fought since WW2 were to do with Communism. OK, it may be a belief system, which actually reinforces my point. People will substitute some other cultural, political or racial alternative to hate one another. Religion is just another handy recruiting tool.
If religion NEVER existed, you would find that people would substitute some other reasoning process to hate other people. This happens anyway. Communism was "A-Religious", but the biggest wars fought since WW2 were to do with Communism. OK, it may be a belief system, which actually reinforces my point. People will substitute some other cultural, political or racial alternative to hate one another. Religion is just another handy recruiting tool.
Eric Mc said:
No it doesn't.
If religion NEVER existed, you would find that people would substitute some other reasoning process to hate other people. This happens anyway. Communism was "A-Religious", but the biggest wars fought since WW2 were to do with Communism. OK, it may be a belief system, which actually reinforces my point. People will substitute some other cultural, political or racial alternative to hate one another. Religion is just another handy recruiting tool.
So what you are saying is the Crusades would have happened even if there were no religion?
Eric Mc said:
No it doesn't.
If religion NEVER existed, you would find that people would substitute some other reasoning process to hate other people. This happens anyway. Communism was "A-Religious", but the biggest wars fought since WW2 were to do with Communism. OK, it may be a belief system, which actually reinforces my point. People will substitute some other cultural, political or racial alternative to hate one another. Religion is just another handy recruiting tool.
But your point is primarily focusing on the last century. What about pre-1900?
Also, its not so much the idea that people will find a reason to go to war. There are many reasons people fight wars - power, money, commodities etc. But these are all palpable and real. Its the notion of going to war beacuse you think your imaginary sentient commander says that the other lots imaginary sentient commander spilt his pint that is absurd, to say the least. Hitler real. Jesus not.
The Communism argument would be a strong one if it didn't smack so strongly of religion itself. In both Russia and China, you had a leader figure that was essentially deified. Stalin was portrayed as the perfect man, who could do no wrong. There was a desire to spread their belief system and a belief in an eventual (workers) paradise.
The key thing that made Soviet and Sino Communism a pseudo-religion is that supporters were meant to have an unquestioning belief that communism alone was the correct way to live. It is this intolerance for other ideas or the idea that one might be wrong about something that is central to religion.
A leader who could do no wrong, an unquestioning belief in their own manifest destiny. Sounds like a religion to me . . . .
The key thing that made Soviet and Sino Communism a pseudo-religion is that supporters were meant to have an unquestioning belief that communism alone was the correct way to live. It is this intolerance for other ideas or the idea that one might be wrong about something that is central to religion.
A leader who could do no wrong, an unquestioning belief in their own manifest destiny. Sounds like a religion to me . . . .
neil.b said:
No it doesn't.
If religion NEVER existed, you would find that people would substitute some other reasoning process to hate other people. This happens anyway. Communism was "A-Religious", but the biggest wars fought since WW2 were to do with Communism. OK, it may be a belief system, which actually reinforces my point. People will substitute some other cultural, political or racial alternative to hate one another. Religion is just another handy recruiting tool.
But your point is primarily focusing on the last century. What about pre-1900?
Also, its not so much the idea that people will find a reason to go to war. There are many reasons people fight wars - power, money, commodities etc. But these are all palpable and real. Its the notion of going to war beacuse you think your imaginary sentient commander says that the other lots imaginary sentient commander spilt his pint that is absurd, to say the least. Hitler real. Jesus not.
Yup, at least if your country is invaded because it has lots of oil or something, you'll be fighting to defend your oil. It's real, there is a reason for them doing it.
Would be lots worse if you were invaded because your people believed in a pretend god who was not to the attackers god's liking.
1000's dead "just because"...
Suppose it's like modern wars though. We still send people to war over "imaginary" things. WMD's for example
Dave
johnny88 said:
Please shut this down PetrolTed, this thread is obviously not a sensible debate like i've seen in the past and is just downright offensive.
Who made you the keeper of the common good? Whether I agree with what the originator says or not, he has a perfect right to say it, as you have the right to argue in favour of your beliefs.
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