A God We Know Nothing About

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

“ God belief has always done much more harm than good. While chance circumstance could have some individual incidents different, overall believing things without evidence is harmful. ”

I think you'd be very hard-pressed to prove that. Not only was religion a completely natural development - it's hard to imagine civilization not developing religion of some sort - but it's contributed towards some of the greatest art and achievement in human history. I agree that certain pockets of the developed world are ready to move on and leave it somewhat in the dust, but I don't believe a quick transition is possible or helpful.

“ Bullshit. ”

Well that's an impressive argument. You're certain to win respect and an open mind from theists when you speak with such elegance.

“ That fine, but I'd like to point out that there wasn't any choice before. The places which had brief flowerings of independent thought, like Greece, made huge contributions while when religion was its strongest, like the dark ages, much of what had been known was purposefully destroyed and lost.

I think it no longer has a purpose in first world nations because we finally have a choice. ”

Religion was unbelievably strong in democratic Athens. So strong that the rabble were whipped up enough to slaughter Socrates largely over his questioning of gods. It was not, however, religion that closed off the democracy - rather it was military loss and the cities perceived need for more focus on army and strength.

I'm not suggesting that some cultures may be moving away from religion now. Just that it's foolish to think such a thoroughly ingrained aspect could be removed like a band-aid.

You cannot show that religion has done more good than harm. Religion has contributed some to art & other achievements yet it's been much more of a hindrance, to say the least. Religion has been & is the reason and/or excuse for most wrongs humans do to each other. It is severely lacking in logic & compassion. It has time & time again stunted & stalled & retarded science & attempts to gain knowledge of & understanding of life, the universe & everything. The morals of Abrahamic religions are ghastly. The notion that anyone should suffer horribly for eternity simply for not believing the "right" thing is the most evil idea ever conceived & must be mindwarping to those who believe it. Teaching unquestioning godbelief & illogical blind faith to children is abusive.
Let me know if that is not enough for you & your illconceived notions of religion being good.

My "Bullshit" comment was as impressive as the bullshit it referred to. You made absurd sweeping statements declaring what I & everyone else MUST believe.


If religion was unbelievably strong in Athens, how can you believe it??? Ancient Athens was not a democracy.

======================

I just noticed the quote doesn't show who made which comments. I hated when someone else did that!
Some may even think Tyler said things I said. I apologize.
I'll try to fix it next time I'm online.

 

[scifes]

Thank god.

yup..cuz then your head'll explode..
.
.wait a SEC..."Thank god"..?..SO YOU'RE A THEIST???

You are so full of inane absurd crap.

so like..what am i supposed to say??
aren't we all?...that's why we're called humans..lol

and again i thought you misspelled "insane".. but it turned out to be another word..although same meaning..i guess you're just lazy to type the s..

so do i take from this that logically (and not ego-wise) that god exists??

 

[swarm]

SO YOU'RE A THEIST???

So you haven't got far enough in your studies to grasp irony yet.

and again i thought you misspelled "insane"

I would strongly suggest you stop wasting your time poorly representing islame and go work on your grammar and vocabulary. Even a college that would accept you is going to expect actual sentences and knowledge of common words like "inane."

Here is a quick trick to get you up to speed rather quickly. Pick some one noted for writing well, like Frances Bacon, and then copy something he wrote out long hand. Do at least a page a day for a month and you will have a marked improvement in your spelling, word choice, essay construction and grammar. The "everyday" part is key to the process. Doing seven pages on Friday won't work nearly as well.

Bacon is a very good choice because he was a noted essayist and practically invented the simile, and school writing is 99% essays of one type or another. Ralph Waldo Emerson would be another excellent choice with a bit more modern vocabulary.

Some others you might try: Matthew Arnold; Hilaire Belloc; William Cobbett; William Hazlitt; Hugh Hood; Samuel Johnson; Michel de Montaigne; Joyce Carol Oates; Katherine Ann Porter; Bertrand Russell; Lytton Strachey; Voltaire; Rebecca West; E. B. White; Virginia Woolf

I know you'll blow me off right now because you think you can skate by like you did in high school, but print this out and keep it and when you start having trouble pull it out and it will save your ass.

You can use this same technique to pick up the style of a field once you pick your specialization. Just pick noted authors in your field and do the same thing with their writing.

This will teach you more practical writing skills in a month than a year of English classes.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

Why you devil suggesting Bacon, Montaigne and Russell he or she will end up with more than just 'practical writing skills'

 

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

so like..what am i supposed to say??
aren't we all?...that's why we're called humans..lol

and again i thought you misspelled "insane".. but it turned out to be another word..although same meaning..i guess you're just lazy to type the s..

so do i take from this that logically (and not ego-wise) that god exists??

No. I'm not.
You're supposed to stop making unsupportable ignorant arrogant insults.
Tho they can be related, inane & insane do not have the same meaning.

 

[Tyler]

You cannot show that religion has done more good than harm.

Neither can you show that religion has done more harm than good! Either task would involve adding up the moral value of all actions that were the result of religion. Either is plainly impossible to prove.

Religion has been & is the reason and/or excuse for most wrongs humans do to each other.

I hate to use Sam's own point, but...
Mao and Stalin combined have a higher murder total than I believe all other dictators of at least the last 200 years.

It is severely lacking in logic & compassion.

Many religious texts put forward a great amount of compassion. Why do you insist on having such an insanely Abrahamic-centric view of the world?

It has time & time again stunted & stalled & retarded science & attempts to gain knowledge of & understanding of life, the universe & everything.

This I agree with. Though again, you're talking mainly about Abrahamic faiths here. And even then you're focusing mostly on Christianity. Islam is not in it's proudest moment right now, but during some of it's golden years in history it was one of the world's major centers of science and arguably the greatest center of philosophy for a good long while. Similarly, the most I can see in 3000 years of Chinese history of religion 'interfering' with science is that there were a whole bunch of alchemists.

The morals of Abrahamic religions are ghastly.

Some of them, yes, I agree. But I would call Kant equally as disturbing in many instances. Yet I doubt you reserve such scorn for Kant.

The notion that anyone should suffer horribly for eternity simply for not believing the "right" thing is the most evil idea ever conceived & must be mindwarping to those who believe it. Teaching unquestioning godbelief & illogical blind faith to children is abusive.

I agree with every word.

Let me know if that is not enough for you & your illconceived notions of religion being good.

Let me know when you win over any theists with such tone.

If religion was unbelievably strong in Athens, how can you believe it??? Ancient Athens was not a democracy.

You specifically said Athens was one of the brief periods of intellectual freedom. That exact time happened to be one of the most religious periods in Athens' history.

---
The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the source of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms -- this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religion.

 

[S.A.M.]

I would strongly suggest you stop wasting your time poorly representing islame and go work on your grammar and vocabulary."

This is typically the attitude that non-English speaking students face in western countries. Note that swarm does not recognise that Islam is a proper noun and uses sarcasm to emit bigotry by consistently spelling it as islame. Then he wonders why a non-native English speaker does not get hislame efforts.

 

[Tyler]

N.B. I apologize, you said Greece. I assumed by 'free Greece' you meant Athens. My bad.

 

[(Q)]

like gravity and quantum mechanics?

A lack of an education on your part is clearly acknowledged.

 

[scifes]

A lack of an education on your part is clearly acknowledged.

i wish i can put this more nicely..but a lack of thinking before posting is clearly lacked from your part too..

i don't mean that i know more than you..just that i know what i'm talking about and you don't..

 

[(Q)]

i wish i can put this more nicely..

..just that i know what i'm talking about and you don't..

You didn't put it nicely when you insulted my intelligence with your ridiculous statement, which was based on a lack of education.

And no, you have no idea what you're talking about, that is the point.

 

[scifes]

I:wallbang:

lack:wallbang:

COMMUNICATION:wallbang:

i wish i can put this more nicely..but a lack of thinking before posting is clearly lacked from your part too..

i don't mean that i know more than you..just that i know what i'm talking about and you don't..

did i really say that??
i really meant no offense.. i just blurt what comes to mind and click submit..if i'm lucky i look back and correct my mistakes, otherwise i just leave them as they are...

pleeease forgive me for what i said cuz i didn't mean it..lol look at me:

but a lack of thinking before posting is clearly lacked from your part too

so you lack the lack of thinking..meaning you think well..(!)

careful rewording results in:

A lack of an education on your part is clearly acknowledged.

maybe..but you guys lack giving the new guy's stumbled thoughts and POVs their fair share of thought and consideration too..

better?

 

[scifes]

So you haven't got far enough in your studies to grasp irony yet.

no i've gone far enough to just let it go..and
:roflmao:
when it goes back to it's initiator..with him wondering what happened..then trying again lol
having said that..i guess i won't be able to enjoy acting dumb any more..: (

I would strongly suggest you stop wasting your time poorly representing islame and go work on your grammar and vocabulary. Even a college that would accept you is going to expect actual sentences and knowledge of common words like "inane."

Here is a quick trick to get you up to speed rather quickly. Pick some one noted for writing well, like Frances Bacon, and then copy something he wrote out long hand. Do at least a page a day for a month and you will have a marked improvement in your spelling, word choice, essay construction and grammar. The "everyday" part is key to the process. Doing seven pages on Friday won't work nearly as well.

Bacon is a very good choice because he was a noted essayist and practically invented the simile, and school writing is 99% essays of one type or another. Ralph Waldo Emerson would be another excellent choice with a bit more modern vocabulary.

Some others you might try: Matthew Arnold; Hilaire Belloc; William Cobbett; William Hazlitt; Hugh Hood; Samuel Johnson; Michel de Montaigne; Joyce Carol Oates; Katherine Ann Porter; Bertrand Russell; Lytton Strachey; Voltaire; Rebecca West; E. B. White; Virginia Woolf

hey..you actually cared for me enough to write all that?? thanks..really..

I know you'll blow me off right now because you think you can skate by like you did in high school, but print this out and keep it and when you start having trouble pull it out and it will save your ass.

no need to print..i read the whole thing 3 times and won't forget it inshaallah..i know i'll thank you for it one day..
and i got the highest score in english in our preparatory year..out of 1600 students

You can use this same technique to pick up the style of a field once you pick your specialization. Just pick noted authors in your field and do the same thing with their writing.

This will teach you more practical writing skills in a month than a year of English classes.

thanks a million.. really appreciate it..

 

[Carcano]

Is there anybody here who believes in God(s) and yet is quite prepared to leave it at that.

"Understanding is a necessary pre-condition for believing."
-Marquis De Sade.

 

[PsychoticEpisode]

"Understanding is a necessary pre-condition for believing."
-Marquis De Sade.

A contradiction of terms. More than likely deliberate.

 

[lightgigantic]

A contradiction of terms. More than likely deliberate.

perhaps for one who entertains that belief and reason are incompatible.

(aka "long live fideism")

 

[PsychoticEpisode]

perhaps for one who entertains that belief and reason are incompatible.

(aka "long live fideism")

Who? Me? lol

Reasoning should never lead to an untestable belief. Bad Karma.

 

[lightgigantic]

Who? Me? lol

Reasoning should never lead to an untestable belief. Bad Karma.

so why on earth did you send that strange elderly woman a mother's day card in the complete absence of any dna testing?

 

[PsychoticEpisode]

so why on earth did you send that strange elderly woman a mother's day card in the complete absence of any dna testing?

in response to...

Reasoning should never lead to an untestable belief. Bad Karma.

MY mom is fine. At least you used reason to arrive at your conclusion. It's very testable. Thanks for proving my point.

 

[lightgigantic]

MY mom is fine. At least you used reason to arrive at your conclusion. It's very testable. Thanks for proving my point.

what tests have you carried out to determine that the strange woman is actually deserving of such correspondence?