Richard Dawkins

I haven't heard him speak much about the bible, but hey, if you have, thanks for that warning.. I'm starting to read his book.
He one time said that religion was created as a way to answer questions. People wanted to know why the grass grew, and why the sun goes up and down, and so they created this god [or gods]
in history class last year they said the first religions involved worshipping bear skulls. It could also come from the use of psychedelic plants, such as a iboga root. Which I think is actually quite reasonable, consideringhow much they're used in certain [spiritual] rituals.

gotcha. That is dumb. I do think he is exaggerating on religion and its evils.

Yes, I know. I didn't nessecarily think about race. I'm just saying religion is something you can get rid of, it's just another reason for violence. as can many other things. peopel may not like other people because of a sports team they like, or their political views. obviously not to the point of killing, but you get the point.

 

I've read, albeit breifly, some Levi-Strauss. He didn't stick in my mind as much as Otto or Eliade has however. Freuerbach had an interesting take on God as well. Pre-Freudian projection, interesting stuff.

Do you mind explaining the turtles though, that escapes me.

 

I guess it is not much the bible per se, but religious scholarship in general. http://www.faithfullyliberal.com/?p=869 This site goes deep, but quick detail.

OK, thanks.

 

Dawkins <3

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qR_z85O0P2M&feature=related

 

didn't work for me.... what's the name of the video

 

Again you off handily dismiss the idea of 3000 people being murdered because of the defense for the belief in the idiotic.

You call me a fascists on the basis of my idea to spread scientific knowledge and discoveries through EDUCATION to the entire world.

You call me a coward and spineless for NOT wanting to FORCIBLY take away religion, why is that your ultimate unsaid solution or something?

You look out your window or watch CNN and see that religion where YOU live is annoying but far from dangerous, in some heavily populated areas of the world religion is VERY dangerous.

You are not capable of as much empathy as you claim if the thought of religious honor killing's, genital mutilation, child abuse, child molestation, suicide bombings, the proliferation of racial and sexual bigotry and all the other horrors that come along with religion don't make you instantly realize that the belief in the supernatural and the belief in EVERY religion that is based on the absurd is for fools.



Religion and ritual are for fools.

You have been fooled if you believe in them.

 

And yet greater minds than yours have been religious,

not meant to sound demeaning, just a fact.

There is nothing wrong with trying to teach what you perceive to be truth, through rational argument and education (in the true sense of the word, rather than simply indoctrinating children with the currently fashionable orthodoxy).

I think however it is a mistake to think that the proliferation of scientific knowledge would bring about an end to human conflict, and pointless murder. Because Intelligence and Wisdom are not synonymous. People with very high IQs are capable of doing the most monstrously stupid things.

This is the fundamental point where I tend to disagree with thinkers like Dawkins.

I think the spread of scientific knowledge can be both good and harmful but like religion, is not inherently good or evil in and of itself

 

So you believe the proliferation of a lie is fine?

Even if it kills people?

And if you say that it doesen't kill AS many as it helps could you give me the number of religion influenced murders the world over it would take before you thought enough nonsense?

Those who believe in the supernatural (NOT THE POSSIBILITY OF) are fools.

Those who defend them are at best mistaken, and at worst profiteers in some way from the mayhem religion creates.

 

If you able to prove that religious leaders are lying then by all means do so

Religion does not have a life independent to humans, humans kill people, religion does not.
Plainly, the fact that everyone you expose to religion does not go on a killing spree is fairly strong evidence that it is something other than religious belief that motivates murderers.

The sort of people that would kill over religion would just as soon kill over nationalism, or communism, or racism, or patriotism.
You are using emotionally charged rhetoric, as opposed to reason, to argue your point, and have more or less completely ignored the content of my post.
Why not address what I have actually said, rather than trying to throw bodies at my feet.

And yet a great many of them were greater minds than you, so I suspect there are worse fates.

I am a profiteer from religion. It brings me great happiness. Something that seems to evade your average materialist if evidence is to be believed.
Even Dawkins has conceded the fact that religious people tend to be more psychologically balanced in terms of happiness than those with no spirituality.

(Edit: preempting a request for some sources on that one:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/Story?id=435412&page=1
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/03/are-religious-p.html
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08031807.html )

Why not calm down, and debate me reasonably, rather than assuming some devious ill-intent on my part.
If you think you can prove that religion is inherently evil, than by all means do so.

 

What "mayhem" has any other religion than radical fundamentalist Islam created lately? I don't see Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Quakers, or Amish, not to mention Buddhists and Ba'hai committing murder and mayhem, and in fact they help to overcome it by preaching love and kindness--not to mention operating charities and hospitals. Isn't it then a logical fallacy to say: Some religion promotes violence, therefore all is bad? Yet you resist the syllogism that some atheists (Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao) were mass murderers of religious people in the name of an atheist ideology, therefore atheism leads inevitably to mass murder. Why is that?

 

I'm an atheist, but I find Dawkins to be kindof an ass.

The only atheist book I've ever enjoyed is Carl Sagan's "The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God," which is absolutely kickass and I highly recommend it.

 

There are probably thousands (maybe millions) of religions who have had a follower commit murder among other things that's like saying people with long hair are more likely to murder.

So you look at people like Pol Pot or Stalin and accuse them of being some kind of "anti-iconoclast" to atheist beliefs.

I'm not saying ALL religions turn people into mindless drones but I am saying that ALL religions based in part with the BELIEF of the supernatural are a lie.

So as I have said before, "the belief in the supernatural NOT THE BELIEF IN THE POSSIBILITY OF THE SUPER NATURAL" is for fools.

Why do I say this?

To my knowledge no one in the history of mankind has made a claim at the actual supernatural and shown any proof of it.

Now you can look at this two ways.

1.They were MISTAKEN do to lack of knowledge as to an explanation for an event.

2. They are just telling a lie that either they themselves created or they were once told. They are either being FOOLED or attempting to fool others.

Religion is for fools.

 

I don't believe in good or evil per say, I just think some people are BIGGER assholes than others.

So I can't prove that religion is totally evil.

But if you believe in good or evil I can tell you how to convince someone that religion is totally evil.

Is a lie that murders people do to it's existence evil?

Religion with any hint of the supernatural involved in there literal "teaching's" is a lie because it has never been proven to be true. In essence you are either telling a lie or being fooled. Religion is for fools and of course Charlestons.

 

Well again, you seem to be implying that religion has an existence independent to it's believers.
Lies do not murder people, people murder people.

You're also massively over-simplifying religion in your definition, most religions are massively more complex then their auxiliary "supernatural" elements.

It seems to me, that you're actually saying "belief in the supernatural is evil", which in the first instance is not the same as religion, and in the second, is a fairly spurious statement.

Belief in the supernatural does not make people into murderers. People that believe in something you would deem supernatural are many in their number, and yet your average joe-public seems to be able to get through most days without flying a plane into a skyscraper.

The argument is fundamentally flawed, because if the underlying cause of atrocity is not to be found inherently in supernatural belief, then it must be conceded that removal of supernatural belief will not remove the human capacity for atrocity.

Now onto "lies".
A lie as I understand it is a deliberate mistruth. This is not the same as taking something on faith, we do this all the time.
If all faith is to be rejected as a "lie" then so to must the majority of human interaction. Man cannot live on deductive reasoning alone

So are the religious fools for taking leaps of faith?
Well many people that do so have remarkably high IQs, and are responsible for lots of perfectly good science, many of them live highly succesfull lives, evidence suggests that the majority of them are actually happier than their alleged non-fool counterparts.

The best you could say, is that in this one respect you believe the religious are acting foolishly.

But to brand them wholesale as fools, disregarding every other facet of their nature, seems to me, rather foolish.

I think self-identifying by the things you don't believe in (ergo Atheism) is foolish, but I would not say "Atheists are fools" because the statement is clearly a false generalisation.

Ultimately, human nature, not religion, is responsible for the worst of human ills, and the removal of supernatural belief cannot be shown to remedy that.

Dogmatism, fundamentalism, blindness in faith, refusal to accept evidence, hatred, bigotry, these are all negative human qualities to which you could attribute atrocity. But these qualities are not inherent qualities of religion

 

Belief in the supernatural not the possibility of the supernatural is detrimental to society.

If we somehow peacefully removed belief in the literal supernatural from civilization (I know this wont happen) there would be quite a few less reasons for humans to brutalize and murder one another.

Don't we have enough as it is? Do we really need to make up false reasons to murder each other?

 

I do believe in an ultimate evil and an ultimate good. Prove to me, as you say you can, that religion (not people) is totally evil.

People who believe that aliens do exist based on probablility: are they being fooled or lied to? They have not been proven.

PS- I believe the word you are looking for is charlatans.

 

Lol so does my belief in karma, or Rebirth, give me any particular reason to murder you?
Me and my fellow Buddhists would tend to say that it gave me a fairly good reason not to murder you.

The assumption that I'm criticising, is your claim that supernatural beliefs precipitate atrocity

I don't think it can be fairly demonstrated that it does.

For starters, a great many religious atrocities are actually committed regardless of their teachings, not because of them.
The crusades run entirely contrary to the teachings of Jesus, and yet were justified on "religious" grounds.

It was not a belief in the supernatural that caused the crusades, but a pervading attitude of ignorance and xenophobia, greed and the love of power.
So strong were these things, that people deliberately ignored the primary facets of their supernatural beliefs in order to perpetrate them

It's not what you believe, but how you believe that makes you into a violent person.
A person who is dogmatic about a fact, is just as dangerous as someone who is dogmatic about a fiction.

 

If there was no religion you're right people would have to put more thought into something like strapping a suicide vest on and detonating it within a crowd of people.


So instead of shouting "Praise whomever, I'm going to be at peace and all my doubts proven wrong."

They would have to say any number of other things all of which I assure you with the absence of religion can not GUARANTEE eternal life after death.

Religion's based in the supernatural are for fools, if your stating that you believe in one on a supposed atheist thread I'll have no choice but to say you are either a fool or someone trying to fool others.

There are no ghosts.

 

As I once stated I do not believe in "total evil" you disagree I respect your opinion but would like a description of "total evil".

Do you think there are some people who exist only to do "total" evil?


Can you give me an example of ultimate evil or do you just believe in the possibility of it and are yet to hear or bare witness to it yourself?

Are you starting to doubt?

I believe there is alien life elsewhere in the universe, I can't prove this so I don't attempt to pass it off as fact if people disagree I can give reasons as to why I think they are wrong but I can't prove it.

I don't say aliens exists without a doubt because it can't be proven.

Again the belief in the SUPERNATURAL is for fools.

Given time everything can be explained, that doesen't mean it's going to be, and thanks to human superstitious idiocy we will always be creeping along as a race when we could be running.

 

If you truly are a theist of some sort and in the future want to "zing" an atheist on his proposal of logic I give you this.

"It is known that there is an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the product of a deranged imagination."


Douglas Adams - Atheist, among other things