Religion is for cowards and pedophiles of childrens minds

Since to many agnostics god is something entirely personal to them the only way to ask for proof is to discredit there belief.

So what makes your god so special?

 

Are you comparing teaching a child the alphabet and basic phonics to teaching him about literal supernatural and brain dead ideology's?

If so your way off mark.

 

What would be more likely a divine favor or a hay wired brain?

If you would kill because a perceived god told you to you have been fooled by your own mind.

Or you have let someone else fool you.

Which if someone was predispositioned to fanciful and supernatural thinking probably would not be hard.

 

It was for O.J.

 

Not any more

Explain why. I will be paying close attention to your justification. Why is a god any more "supernatural" than the giving of meaning to a sound or a shape? What right do you have to even say "THE alphabet", far less teach it as fact?

And that suggests to you that that is what you must do, rather than that doing so would be a fool's errand?

0% APR.

 

A sound and shape are based in reality, and as such are open for any interpretation that a sentient being is capable of.

Certainly when a dog see's or smells a tree it interprets it differently than you or I would.

Another way to put it would be to say that sounds and shapes are not "supernatural" as you may or may not think they are.

Since there is no proof of a god or the supernatural to interpret or to misinterpret it leaves no evidence of it's existence.

That's why you can feel a dollar bill but you can't "feel" god unless you were being tricked either by yourself, someone else or hallucinating.

 

Except when someone tells you what they mean, or rather, chastises you for failing to identify the "correct" (i.e. widely mutually agreed) meaning.

So?

The sounds and shapes exist. Their meaning is a human invention. The shape of the word "red" is evidence only of that shape. It is no evidence that the shape means a specific colour/range of colours, and yet we persist in believing this and telling our children the same.

There is no proof that any wordshape or wordsound has any meaning. The only evidence we have that a word has meaning is that those around us seem roughly to agree that it does. We do not analyse this evidence consciously, and for the most part come to believe in the meaning of words solely through our parents and other authority figures.

We learn of and believe in a god we can't see in much the same way. Confirm or deny?

A dollar bill is not a word. But the value of a dollar has as little tangible connection to a dollar bill as a planet does to a god or a wordshape has to a meaning.

 

The reason you think of the color red when you see the word red is because you have been taught to read.

At some point in history grunts of our simian ancestors became more distinct than the growl of a panther or the chirp of a bird.

A philosopher named Terrence Mckenna believes this may have happened do to primates eating psychoactive vegetation or fungus.

http://rotten.com/library/bio/mad-science/terence-mckenna/

All written language and all thought that has ever been recorded and found on this planet has all originally came from a human being.

All the stories of gods are just that stories made up by people who insist there is a supernatural god and cant just say they don't know.

And then they say it is possible understand the mind and intentions of these so called gods and sway there attention in your favor if you only do and say and get others to believe the nonsense in there ridicules books.

To claim to be agnostic is to submit to the same primitive fantasies of an eccentric preacher who was hung on a cross and died never to return all those years ago.

 

No. I do not think this because I have been "taught to read". I think this because I have been shown wordshapes and heard wordssounds and it has been expected of me to associate them with a particular meaning. Learning to read implies that reading is discovering the meaning of words. Whereas for the most part we simply recite them, parrot-like, until we accept them as meaning whatever we're told they mean.

I am aware of Terrence Mckenna, and strongly suspect that he is a kook. I'd argue that anyone credulous enough to give serious credence to his views would be in little position to lecture anyone else on what they should or should not believe in, and certainly should not be allowed to criticise others for believing things without hard evidence unchecked.

All of which supports my argument that language is an invention of man, and that the meaning we attach to wordsounds is as much of a construction of power as any god legend. Notice that when a weak person invents a god or a word, it is not recognised. Notice that when a powerful person invents a god or a word, it is accepted.

And what makes your meaning so special?

 

So what is your stance?

You do not believe in anything because it is all subjective?

You won't accept that the reason you think red when you see the word red is because you were taught to call it that?

Would you rather say it in a different language общ?

What do the equivalent of high class animal sounds have to do with an omnipotent literal supernatural force telling someone how to live there life?

 

I have a stance?

I have not said this.

I have not said this.

What difference would that make? Why would "общ" be any more meaningful than "red"? (non-rhetorical question, btw).

Nothing.

I would have thought this was obvious, but I was making this argument purely to discredit yours. You reject religion and accept language because language is more useful to you than religion. That would make total sense, but you do not seem to grasp that the reason that religion might not be useful to you has NOTHING to do with something as utterly insignificant as whether the existence of a god can be proven scientifically (I mean, seriously, what kind of tool would try and do that?).

Language is similar to religion in the way it is imparted to children. The child is taught rules that "just are", they learn that words and shapes have certain meanings because they "just do", and most never go so far as to question why "red" means red to them.

There is no scientific method of proving that the word "red" means red any more than the word "blue" or "phone" or "flatulent". It is written down somewhere and has at some point been agreed on, but there is nothing inherent to the sound or shape that points to a meaning. You as much as identified this by pointing out that it can be said in another language. We only know the meaning of a word through a combination of habit and indoctrination. Neither you nor I could ever prove that "red" means red. If neither of us could prove it, we certainly couldn't prove it to a child, and thus, in order that the child be able to communicate with his fellows, we would have to make him believe what even we ourselves could never prove. See where I'm going with this?

Again, I do not consider teaching a child a language a form of abuse. And for the same reason, I do not consider teaching a child a religion a form of abuse either. But I would argue that, if you consider ONE of them child abuse, you HAVE to consider the other child abuse. The fact that one form of child abuse might be useful to the child later in life seems to me both irrelevant and crucial. If we arrive at a point where a form of child abuse is only bad if it doesn't have positive consequences, then does it really make sense to call it "child abuse"?

I know this might seem strange. But it is my belief that the argument you were initially making was foolish. You could easily argue that religion can be bad when it obstructs a child's ability to function. But instead, you seem obsessed with this idea that religion is inherently worse because of its connection to the supernatural. I think that's very foolish, and apart from anything else, it completely misses the mark regarding why religion can be so destructive.

The truth is, far more lies have been taught in the name of communication than in the name of religion. We judge those lies as acceptable ONLY because we find them useful.

 

Religion is the belief in the literal supernatural

Many religious people value death over life and teach there children the same philosophy, what a negative way to look at the infinitely rare experience that is life.

Many say it's not until death that the fun really starts.(for good or bad)

You say communication has "taught" people more lies than religion, that statement is stupid allow me to explain why,

"Lies" are just a form of communication "religion" is just a form of communication.

By "communication" did you mean what the scientific community would call evidence?

 

Lol "many".

Pretty much every religion has some law against suicide, specifically to try and prevent this from being a problem. For the most part it works: even those who firmly believe that there is a better world waiting for them in the next life seldom choose to end this one well-ahead of time. Of course, free will being what it is, there will be exceptions to this.

Actually no, they're not. They are subjects that one may communicate about.

When someone told you what a word meant, they were lying to you. Every single time. If they'd explained to you that that is what the word meant to them, they'd have been honest, although only to the same degree as someone who states an opinion that has been handed down to them by religious indoctrination.

No, I don't, nor have I said anything to imply this.

I am 90% certain that you do not understand anything that I've been trying to say.

 

So what are you trying to say?

That it's ok to tell children lies that preach bigotry and superstition and present it as if it were the truth?

I really would like to know.:bigear:

 

In the O.T. the Politicians for better worse were speculated about over a cup of Tea for What they were supposed to do and What they didn't do. Soon, they, the politicians, would have to account for what was expected of them. When the account was made up to justify that He the particular politician really did the apporopriate action for the honest but incorrect BUSINESSMAN, the opposition politician would scream, "Liar!!".

Nowadays, we the people concern ourselves with our directly contacted objective concerns. Money then did the talking.

 

yeah....that's totally the point he is trying to make....

 

I'm saying you should take a lie on its merits, rather than insisting that no lie is ever acceptable (while ignoring the useful ones, like the fact that all communication is based on faith rather than Science).

I'd say this was especially true in your (apparent) belief that any lie involving the "supernatural" is automatically worse than any lie (or truth) not involving the "supernatural". You've as much as said that it's more acceptable to lie to children about things that are real, as long as they're not what you'd consider supernatural.

I doubt I'll ever persuade you, but religion is not the greatest evil in the world, and merely citing a minority of instances where religious people are exploited for their religion proves nothing. People are constantly exploited and manipulated through their language, and you don't apparently have a problem with language.

Why not just complain about the negative effects of the lie as and when they occur? I know it sucks that we can't prevent people from becoming murderers or whatever, but even if you could establish a causal link between someone's violence and their faith, I could tear it to shreds in seconds. You really would do better just letting go.

 

Language is not a LIE, it is a set of agreed sounds and symbols required for communication. I don't believe there is any group of 60 Million people teaching their Kids to hate people who call the color red 'adom' instead of red and anyone who doesn't agree that red is RED is sub-human. I do guarantee you there is far more than 60 million Islamic children being brainwashed to hate Jews every day of their lives. Language is not ignorance and lies when you know what and why it exists. Religion IS ignorance and lies, organized ignorance IS exactly what religion IS.

 

Is this a lie though? The cause of poverty in ghettos is the people's fault; it occurs when there is a prominent form of racism.

 

I believe it is wrong to lie for any reason and therefore see no excuse in someone trying to only find merit in lies that have been taken out of context.

You ask why I don't wait and complain about the "negative effects" of lies after they occur, is that how you live your life?

You continue to site the example of language in itself being a lie, why I have no idea.

So why is it you disagree with me when I say religion is a safety blanket cowards use to trick themselves into some kind of illusion of immortality AFTER death?

You ramble on about the subjectiveness of the human language and dodge questions.

Telling children lies about the reality they live in is wrong, when someone goes on to say that the child will burn forever or that there are literal demons from hell waiting to seduce and trick the kid it should be called child molestation.