Is religion a good thing?

[bigbull29]

What's to say if our perceptions and knowledge - as grand as we make they are - are only wired for finite understandings for here on planet Earth? Wonder if a higher power makes that way? No one disprove anything, no matter how unlikely it seems with our most finite of knowledge.

No matter how much you hate the Catholic Church, no organization has done as much to help alleviate poverty around the world. Nothing even compares. It's not an argument, however, whether or not the Church is flawless with all the horrendous suffering it caused during religious wars and abuse scandals. This latter fact takes away nothing from the first fact in sentence one. It is what it is.

 

[lonesome_boy1980]

Islam probably doesn't advocate posting your dick pics online but what do I know.

That might be right!
I am officially a Muslim, but I never consider myself a Muslim!
I am a Muslim because my national ID card says that I am a Muslim!
In reality I have a type of religion that is unique to myself and can't be called anything!
There are Christians who go to church every Sundays, and there are those who don't do that (as i know)...
In my opinion, there are many types of Muslims:
1. Those who are true believers in Allah (real Muslims) and they are committed to do all they must and they keep their religion to themselves and they are so harmless and innocent!
2. There are those who are just trying to commit to a more moderate version of Islam! (Almost 90 percent of my country's population)
3. There are those extremists in countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan (still minorities) who think they are Muslim and should change the world using terror and violence!
4. And there some other versions in between the above versions!!!

So I am officially a Muslim but not in reality! So I guess I can have my nude album!!!

PS: Special thanks to the friends here who sympathized with me about me being sorry as a Muslim!!!

 

[Calboner]

AquaEyes, you say this in reply to Jason:

Those "five proofs" are basically arguments from incredulity, which are logical fallacies. Essentially, those "proofs" amount to "this is out there, and since I can't think of any other way for it to be so, god did it." The universe doesn't conform to how some people are able to comprehend things -- and just because some people can't understand how something happened without god, that doesn't prove anything about the existence of gods. It merely proves that some people aren't able to understand things without the injection of magic and the supernatural.

But you say this in reply to Levi101's question, "What intellectually honest proof would you accept that did confirm the presence of a supreme being/intelligence?":

2. One such "proof" would be the accurate and unambiguous bit of knowledge or prediction which could not have been known at the time of writing but has been found to be true. That ancient religious texts are rife with incorrect information about the natural world which was nonetheless believed at the time of writing speaks more about human authorship than divine. Apologists do have interpretative skill in bending ambiguous text to fit modern discoveries, so I do not include such as "proof." Such practice is more an exercise of confirmation bias than any "wisdom of the ancients."

The second statement is inconsistent with the first. If would-be proofs of the existence of God are fallacious appeals to ignorance [correction added after posting: I just re-read and noticed that you said incredulity, not ignorance; I think I could rewrite this to take account of that, but I'm just going to leave what I first wrote], then so is what you describe in your second statement. Actually, I do not agree that all of the five proofs given on the page cited rest on the appeal to ignorance: in particular, the ontological argument does not. But I grant you that the other four do. My point is that the same is true of the possible proof that you suggest in your reply to Levi101. If we found something in an ancient text that constituted an "accurate and unambiguous bit of knowledge or prediction which could not have been known at the time of writing but has been found to be true," provided that there was no room for doubt of the authenticity of the text or the accuracy of the interpretation, then that would compel us to conclude that either the writers of the text made a lucky guess or that they had some access to the knowledge in question by means unknown to us. Even if the first option (the lucky guess) can be ruled out, nothing whatever follows about a supernatural cause, much less a deity.

 

[Bardox]

What's to say if our perceptions and knowledge - as grand as we make they are - are only wired for finite understandings for here on planet Earth? Wonder if a higher power makes that way? No one disprove anything, no matter how unlikely it seems with our most finite of knowledge.

No matter how much you hate the Catholic Church, no organization has done as much to help alleviate poverty around the world. Nothing even compares. It's not an argument, however, whether or not the Church is flawless with all the horrendous suffering it caused during religious wars and abuse scandals. This latter fact takes away nothing from the first fact in sentence one. It is what it is.

When confronted with the numerous horrors that religion has propagated over the centuries religious apologists always say "Well that was then. This is now. Look how friendly we are now." which is like a stalker saying "I know I broke into your home, killed your dog, and took pictures of you while you showered, but that was last week. I'm really a nice person as is evident by the puppy I sent you today."

One of the symbols of Catholic Charity work was Mother Teresa, who I have talked about earlier in this thread. She is the creator of "The House of the Dying". A place where people with illnesses that were killing them would go and her Nuns would care for the base needs until they died. Sounds good until you see what actually was going on in those places. People kept in empty warehouses on cots being feed bread and water until they died from one illness or another. In several cases, they were deceases that were curable. They had the money for cures and treatments for many of the "patients" due to mother Teresa's traveling around the world on fund raising tours, but not a dime of that money was ever used for the sick and dying. No drugs, no medicine, not even proper beds. Many of the "patients" laid in their cots wearing little more than a diaper wasting away in their own filth. The money was used to buy or build more locations to house more desperate hopeless people.

Do not come to me speaking of charity work. I volunteer at soup kitchens during holiday seasons. Last year I brought one of my friends along. They were all too happy to have us until they found out he had a boyfriend. They kicked him out on the spot. Why? I shall quote the priest "Because, as is taught by the scriptures, he as a gay man is an abomination. Unfit to help good christian poor folks gathered here today for the glory of our lord and savior." Charity work does not require religious affiliations, but to get that kind of bigotry directed at someone who simply wanted to help, THAT you need religion for.

I don't hate the Catholic church nor any other religious establishment. I just find what they teach to be morally repugnant. Muslims who say "The Quran doesn't teach violence." Yes, Yes it does. In several different passages it commands violence on those who disagree with the profit. If someone tries to leave the religion the Quran tells Muslims they should kill that person. For Christians and Jews how say "The scriptures don't advocate violence." Yes, Yes they do. In several passages it commands you to do violence on those who do not live in the way your religion says god wants them to live without ever showing any evidence that this god exists or any proof that what they say about this god and his deeds are true.

Good people will do good things for the simple fact that they are good people. Bad people will do bad things for the simple fact that they are bad people. To get a good person to do horrible HORRIBLE things, you need religion for that. Only with religion can you get an otherwise rational reasonable person to believe something that only a mentally ill person could come to believe on their own. Religion stops you from asking questions about things you do not yet understand by crediting it god and tells you that if you question this truth then you are a bad person.

Religion is bad for you.

 

[AquaEyes11010]

Calboner -- I was thinking along the lines of an intricate explanation of something which could be confirmed via technology available today but not at the time of the prediction. Yes, I suppose someone could say it would have been a "lucky guess" if it was something simple. But I was thinking along the lines of someone from thousands of years ago perfectly diagramming the makeup of an individual cell, or drawing a map of a part of the universe (and labeling them as such), neither of which can be seen with the naked human eye. Yes, it's all a bit of a magical "what if?" but such would be required as evidence that magic exists. Would it be absolute? Probably not, but at least it would be the first coherent bit of evidence that knowledge came to humans from beyond this planet -- even if it turns out to be "ancient aliens from elsewhere in the universe" rather than a supernatural being.

 

[Calboner]

When confronted with the numerous horrors that religion has propagated over the centuries religious apologists always say "Well that was then. This is now. Look how friendly we are now." which is like a stalker saying "I know I broke into your home, killed your dog, and took pictures of you while you showered, but that was last week. I'm really a nice person as is evident by the puppy I sent you today."

Look, everybody--puppies!

Karen Armstrong has been arguing against this sort of thing for years and now has published a book devoted to doing so. This article is either an extract from it or a précis. Her main contention, as I understand it, is that the idea of a separation between religion and politics is a recent Western innovation which did not exist through most of world history and still does not exist in most of the world. So, according to her, we can't say that the causes of mass violence before or outside of the modern West are specifically religious rather than political: they're all religio-political. If you say that there wouldn't be so much mass violence in religio-political causes if more people got religion out of their politics, I think she would point to instances of mass violence in non-religious political causes, such as the revolutionary terror in France, the dispossession of the natives of North America in the US, the Communist terror in the USSR, National Socialism, etc. I'm not certain what to make of her arguments.

Good people will do good things for the simple fact that they are good people. Bad people will do bad things for the simple fact that they are bad people. To get a good person to do horrible HORRIBLE things, you need religion for that. Only with religion can you get an otherwise rational reasonable person to believe something that only a mentally ill person could come to believe on their own.

The statement in your third sentence seems to me dubious. I believe that there are plenty of instances of such behavior without religious causes. Any total worldview that breaks drastically with common sense and common decency will do the same thing, whether it is religious or secular.

 

[bigbull29]

When confronted with the numerous horrors that religion has propagated over the centuries religious apologists always say "Well that was then. This is now. Look how friendly we are now." which is like a stalker saying "I know I broke into your home, killed your dog, and took pictures of you while you showered, but that was last week. I'm really a nice person as is evident by the puppy I sent you today."

One of the symbols of Catholic Charity work was Mother Teresa, who I have talked about earlier in this thread. She is the creator of "The House of the Dying". A place where people with illnesses that were killing them would go and her Nuns would care for the base needs until they died. Sounds good until you see what actually was going on in those places. People kept in empty warehouses on cots being feed bread and water until they died from one illness or another. In several cases, they were deceases that were curable. They had the money for cures and treatments for many of the "patients" due to mother Teresa's traveling around the world on fund raising tours, but not a dime of that money was ever used for the sick and dying. No drugs, no medicine, not even proper beds. Many of the "patients" laid in their cots wearing little more than a diaper wasting away in their own filth. The money was used to buy or build more locations to house more desperate hopeless people.

Do not come to me speaking of charity work. I volunteer at soup kitchens during holiday seasons. Last year I brought one of my friends along. They were all too happy to have us until they found out he had a boyfriend. They kicked him out on the spot. Why? I shall quote the priest "Because, as is taught by the scriptures, he as a gay man is an abomination. Unfit to help good christian poor folks gathered here today for the glory of our lord and savior." Charity work does not require religious affiliations, but to get that kind of bigotry directed at someone who simply wanted to help, THAT you need religion for.

I don't hate the Catholic church nor any other religious establishment. I just find what they teach to be morally repugnant. Muslims who say "The Quran doesn't teach violence." Yes, Yes it does. In several different passages it commands violence on those who disagree with the profit. If someone tries to leave the religion the Quran tells Muslims they should kill that person. For Christians and Jews how say "The scriptures don't advocate violence." Yes, Yes they do. In several passages it commands you to do violence on those who do not live in the way your religion says god wants them to live without ever showing any evidence that this god exists or any proof that what they say about this god and his deeds are true.

Good people will do good things for the simple fact that they are good people. Bad people will do bad things for the simple fact that they are bad people. To get a good person to do horrible HORRIBLE things, you need religion for that. Only with religion can you get an otherwise rational reasonable person to believe something that only a mentally ill person could come to believe on their own. Religion stops you from asking questions about things you do not yet understand by crediting it god and tells you that if you question this truth then you are a bad person.

Religion is bad for you.

One should go and live like Mother Theresa for about 2 years. I wonder then if he or she would have such criticism for her. I don't see any average Joe or Jane in this country making .00001% of the sacrifice she had made for the poor. Today, volunteering in a soup kitchen with your Mercedes parked out back makes you hero (that said, a good deed is a good deed, but...). Charity isn't a tax write-off, either, Bill O'Reilly. So, she and her sisters couldn't save a lot of people, and perhaps they made wrong decisions from time to time out of thinking they were doing the best thing. But who are we to judge nuns who made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of helping the poorest of the poor? Her religious order could only do so much to alleviate the suffering - they weren't God for cryin' out loud! Nor did they always have the support of the local governments, etc. No matter how well-intentioned and saint-like a human person, he or she will have great limitations for virtue of being human. Be careful when judging someone who makes the ultimate sacrifice to help those who mean nothing to the world.

I've heard Evangelical Protestants claim that Mother Theresa wasn't even a Christians as she wasn't "born again." The greatest of ignorances!

 

[Grower82]

Hi Bardox,
You are a hate monger, and you will find people get tired of that, real fast.

The bottom line is your view on religion is not superior to anyone else's.

You're vehement preaching about it is no more welcome than other people's vehement preaching to convert others to their religion.

And besides, its not an effective way to get people to come over to your way of thinking, if that is what you want.

And, on an "adult community"? Come on, your topic is a little ridiculous. People just want to show off their dicks, make some friends, and have a good time. You are a joke. Please just chill out.

When confronted with the numerous horrors that religion has propagated over the centuries religious apologists always say "Well that was then. This is now. Look how friendly we are now." which is like a stalker saying "I know I broke into your home, killed your dog, and took pictures of you while you showered, but that was last week. I'm really a nice person as is evident by the puppy I sent you today."

One of the symbols of Catholic Charity work was Mother Teresa, who I have talked about earlier in this thread. She is the creator of "The House of the Dying". A place where people with illnesses that were killing them would go and her Nuns would care for the base needs until they died. Sounds good until you see what actually was going on in those places. People kept in empty warehouses on cots being feed bread and water until they died from one illness or another. In several cases, they were deceases that were curable. They had the money for cures and treatments for many of the "patients" due to mother Teresa's traveling around the world on fund raising tours, but not a dime of that money was ever used for the sick and dying. No drugs, no medicine, not even proper beds. Many of the "patients" laid in their cots wearing little more than a diaper wasting away in their own filth. The money was used to buy or build more locations to house more desperate hopeless people.

Do not come to me speaking of charity work. I volunteer at soup kitchens during holiday seasons. Last year I brought one of my friends along. They were all too happy to have us until they found out he had a boyfriend. They kicked him out on the spot. Why? I shall quote the priest "Because, as is taught by the scriptures, he as a gay man is an abomination. Unfit to help good christian poor folks gathered here today for the glory of our lord and savior." Charity work does not require religious affiliations, but to get that kind of bigotry directed at someone who simply wanted to help, THAT you need religion for.

I don't hate the Catholic church nor any other religious establishment. I just find what they teach to be morally repugnant. Muslims who say "The Quran doesn't teach violence." Yes, Yes it does. In several different passages it commands violence on those who disagree with the profit. If someone tries to leave the religion the Quran tells Muslims they should kill that person. For Christians and Jews how say "The scriptures don't advocate violence." Yes, Yes they do. In several passages it commands you to do violence on those who do not live in the way your religion says god wants them to live without ever showing any evidence that this god exists or any proof that what they say about this god and his deeds are true.

Good people will do good things for the simple fact that they are good people. Bad people will do bad things for the simple fact that they are bad people. To get a good person to do horrible HORRIBLE things, you need religion for that. Only with religion can you get an otherwise rational reasonable person to believe something that only a mentally ill person could come to believe on their own. Religion stops you from asking questions about things you do not yet understand by crediting it god and tells you that if you question this truth then you are a bad person.

Religion is bad for you.

 

[AquaEyes11010]

I think much of the criticism of Mother Theresa stems from her perspective -- it was "god's work" to tend to the poor, but not necessarily to get them out of their dire situations. She said things to the effect that being around the suffering brought her close to god. In effect, it was as though she was fetishizing suffering, rather than seeking to end it. Sure, she didn't necessarily cause the suffering herself, but in other aspects, her celebrity reminded me of a person with Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. And, of course, there's the questions of where all that money came from, and where did it go?

 

[Bardox]

One should go and live like Mother Theresa for about 2 years. I wonder then if he or she would have such criticism for her. I don't see any average Joe or Jane in this country making .00001% of the sacrifice she had made for the poor. Today, volunteering in a soup kitchen with your Mercedes parked out back makes you hero (that said, a good deed is a good deed, but...). Charity isn't a tax write-off, either, Bill O'Reilly. So, she and her sisters couldn't save a lot of people, and perhaps they made wrong decisions from time to time out of thinking they were doing the best thing. But who are we to judge nuns who made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of helping the poorest of the poor? Her religious order could only do so much to alleviate the suffering - they weren't God for cryin' out loud! Nor did they always have the support of the local governments, etc. No matter how well-intentioned and saint-like a human person, he or she will have great limitations for virtue of being human. Be careful when judging someone who makes the ultimate sacrifice to help those who mean nothing to the world.

I've heard Evangelical Protestants claim that Mother Theresa wasn't even a Christians as she wasn't "born again." The greatest of ignorances!

Live the way Mother Teresa did? You mean spending your life worshiping a deity you don't believe in? As was addressed in a previous post, the woman didn't believe in the god she was cheer leading for. She didn't alleviate suffering. Her "House of the Dying" caused a good deal of it though. She gave them a diaper, a cot, and a slice of bread and watched them suffer and die long agonizing, (and in many cases) unnecessary deaths. She told girls not to goto school, but to instead become a nun and spend their life serving the church. She told people in AID's ridden countries that they shouldn't use condoms. It's not that she couldn't save these people. With the massive resources of the Catholic church she damn well could have for some of them. She never tried. She took in hundreds of millions in donations from all around the world and none of it went to the people she was "sacrificing for".

And what ultimate sacrifice exactly? Are you under the impression that she died helping someone? She died from being old. Her heart gave out. She had heart trouble for years prior to her death. Even had a pace maker put in. The first time she was hospitalized for heart trouble the church performed an exorcism on her because the Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, said she was being attacked by the devil.

 

[Bardox]

Hi Bardox,
You are a hate monger, and you will find people get tired of that, real fast.

The bottom line is your view on religion is not superior to anyone else's.

You're vehement preaching about it is no more welcome than other people's vehement preaching to convert others to their religion.

And besides, its not an effective way to get people to come over to your way of thinking, if that is what you want.

And, on an "adult community"? Come on, your topic is a little ridiculous. People just want to show off their dicks, make some friends, and have a good time. You are a joke. Please just chill out.

I don't claim to have a "superior view" nor am I "preaching" hate. Not liking a fact doesn't make it hateful or less true. I'm not trying to convert anyone. I asked a question that the thread has veered away from several times now. Is religion a good thing? I want to know peoples opinion on it and why they hold that view point. I think it's bad for people and have been making arguments for that.

 

[Calboner]

One should go and live like Mother Theresa for about 2 years. I wonder then if he or she would have such criticism for her. I don't see any average Joe or Jane in this country making .00001% of the sacrifice she had made for the poor. Today, volunteering in a soup kitchen with your Mercedes parked out back makes you hero (that said, a good deed is a good deed, but...). Charity isn't a tax write-off, either, Bill O'Reilly. So, she and her sisters couldn't save a lot of people, and perhaps they made wrong decisions from time to time out of thinking they were doing the best thing. But who are we to judge nuns who made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of helping the poorest of the poor? Her religious order could only do so much to alleviate the suffering - they weren't God for cryin' out loud! Nor did they always have the support of the local governments, etc. No matter how well-intentioned and saint-like a human person, he or she will have great limitations for virtue of being human. Be careful when judging someone who makes the ultimate sacrifice to help those who mean nothing to the world.

"Living like her" in the sense of providing sick poor people with nothing more than a place to die while seeking only the best medical care for oneself? In the sense of taking in millions of dollars that have never been accounted for, beyond the fact that she saw to it that they were never spent on facilities for the poor and sick? I suspect that your knowledge of her is highly selective. I'm not saying that she should be identified with the worst things that she did, but to suggest that she was doing the best that she could for people is at odds with the facts of her history.

 

[Grower82]

Ok, thanks.
Just worry about yourself though.
Get your life totally in order, and when you do, then you can think about telling everybody else what they should believe. Do you think that would work?

I don't claim to have a "superior view" nor am I "preaching" hate. Not liking a fact doesn't make it hateful or less true. I'm not trying to convert anyone. I asked a question that the thread has veered away from several times now. Is religion a good thing? I want to know peoples opinion on it and why they hold that view point. I think it's bad for people and have been making arguments for that.

 

[bigbull29]

I know it wouldn't be hard for any of you to take care of the dying poor on the streets of Calcutta, being the poor chaste souls you are all. I'm sure you could do it a lot better than Mother Theresa. Seriously. I just want one of you to make the ultimate sacrifice and show the humility and holiness of your dear souls. Why sit back behind a computer screen and write it all. Just put those words into action and put the Catholic saints to shame. You're almost there anyways - computer screen to Calcutta is only a stone's throw away. A rich atheist can do it like no other, too. Hell, even Bill O'Reilly is a major humanitarian like MT, even though he believes in a god. He's ready for canonization, if you didn't already know.:biggrin1:

 

[Bardox]

Ok, thanks.
Just worry about yourself though.
Get your life totally in order, and when you do, then you can think about telling everybody else what they should believe. Do you think that would work?

Have I told anyone what to believe? I've asked why someone believes a particular thing and said why I do or do not share their viewpoint. When did I tell anyone to believe anything?

 

[Bardox]

I know it wouldn't be hard for any of you to take care of the dying poor on the streets of Calcutta, being the poor chaste souls you are all. I'm sure you could do it a lot better than Mother Theresa. Seriously. I just want one of you to make the ultimate sacrifice and show the humility and holiness of your dear souls. Why sit back behind a computer screen and write it all. Just put those words into action and put the Catholic saints to shame. You're almost there anyways - computer screen to Calcutta is only a stone's throw away. A rich atheist can do it like no other, too. Hell, even if Bill O'Reilly is a major philanthropist like MT, even though he believes in a god. He's ready for canonization, if you didn't already know.:biggrin1:

O'Reilly is a pompous ass that doesn't know what causes the tides. Not sure he thinks he's going to become a saint, but wouldn't surprise me. Subject for another thread though.

 

[AquaEyes11010]

I know it wouldn't be hard for any of you to take care of the dying poor on the streets of Calcutta, being the poor chaste souls you are all. I'm sure you could do it a lot better than Mother Theresa. Seriously. I just want one of you to make the ultimate sacrifice and show the humility and holiness of your dear souls. Why sit back behind a computer screen and write it all. Just put those words into action and put the Catholic saints to shame. You're almost there anyways - computer screen to Calcutta is only a stone's throw away. A rich atheist can do it like no other, too. Hell, even if Bill O'Reilly is a major philanthropist like MT, even though he believes in a god. He's ready for canonization, if you didn't already know.:biggrin1:

Jimmy Carter, another religious man, also helps the poor. The thing is, his goal is to help them out of their situation, to improve their lives. So he helps build homes through Habitat for Humanity. Mother Theresa "aided the poor" in ways that kept them poor -- she was against birth control, education, proper medical treatment (for them, at least), etc. She followed the "give a man a fish" method. Others "teach a man to fish." Yes, it's admirable when people have the motivation to do "something", but not all "somethings" are equally effective.

 

[bigbull29]

Jimmy Carter, another religious man, also helps the poor. The thing is, his goal is to help them out of their situation, to improve their lives. So he helps build homes through Habitat for Humanity. Mother Theresa "aided the poor" in ways that kept them poor -- she was against birth control, education, proper medical treatment (for them, at least), etc. She followed the "give a man a fish" method. Others "teach a man to fish." Yes, it's admirable when people have the motivation to do "something", but not all "somethings" are equally effective.

Jimmy Carter is another millionaire giving money under the guise of charity. His help is all tax write-offs...blah blah blah... It's not real charity, even if it's a nice gesture. Sure, his efforts may help improve the lives of the less fortunate (better than nothing), but he's not making the ultimate sacrifice as I've been describing - far from it! He goes back to his maid-filled mansion at night for a good night's sleep. He's doing just fine.

Part of life is embracing suffering, not running from it. Mother Theresa showed us that.

 

[Calboner]

Something common to Bigbull29 and Grower82 is that they offer no arguments whatever on matters of substance in this thread. They have, so far, offered only instances of argumentum ad hominem (trying to deflect the force of someone's argument by changing the subject to the person himself).

 

[AquaEyes11010]

Part of life is embracing suffering, not running from it.

I'd rather aim to end -- or at least diminish -- suffering, rather than gather it together for an "embrace." And that's a criticism of Mother Theresa's methods -- her acts did not diminish suffering, or do anything to decrease its spread. She may have been drawn to "embrace suffering" but perhaps because she somehow found it attractive, as a way to "see god." As such, she gathered the suffering around her, and tended to them, but did nothing to improve their situations. She thought that the poor and miserable were to be most rewarded in heaven, so to take them out of their station would be to deny them that reward. Rather than provide medicine for their illnesses, she gave them cool damp towels for their foreheads.