Religion is stupid
- Thread starter Mr. Hamtastic
- Start date
I'm afraid I'm not making myself clear. As I read the passage, morality is endowed (somehow) by God. I believe that whether or not you (as an atheist) acknowledge that is irrelevant---some aspects of morality are universal, for example, you can read the secular humanist webpage. Most of the bullet points on that page can be justified with Bible verses, if you want. I would say that this concept of universality of some core moral values exist because of God, and you would say that they exist in spite of Him. At the end of the day, is there really a difference?
Your contention, therefore, that
is not right. The reason it is not right is because ``religious people'', is too broadly defined. (You should say ``wackos in Kentucky'', or something.) The way I see it, there are some universal aspects of ``morality'' which we agree are good and necessary for a civil society. You would agree, for example, that loving your neighbor and treating him as an equal are good things---you wouldn't reject that outright because it's also something that Jesus might have said. These things are universal, whether you're Ruth Bader Ginsberg or Hamurabi.
The New Testament was written when Christians weren't in charge. In my opinion (and the opinions of most sane and rational Christians), the Bible presents a loose set of guidelines by which to live your life. There are some things that are different (and it's not clear whether those guidelines are addressed to specific sets of people at specific times---I believe that they were), but mostly the moral guidelines that are presented in the New Testament are pretty universal: love your neighbor, seek to do good things, etc. etc. Even the Old Testament code is pretty universal: don't kill, don't steal, don't willfully insight strife among your neighbor by doing his wife or stealing his donkey.
So it must be a limited set of experiences that you are working on, or some broad generalizations. But, I get the feeling that most Christians in the world are not in favor of imposing the sort of Draconian restrictions on freedom that seem to be in your mind. Just like most Muslims are not in favor of the ``kill 'em all and let Muhammed sort 'em out'' philosophy that some radical clerics seem to preach.
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My hypothesis on that would be that as soon as humans started living in groups for easier survival, that the question of where they came from/who created them came up. Since the sun was the biggest, warmest thing in the sky, I guess they automatically assumed that it was the 'giver of life'. Then once their beliefs were in place, their culture followed.
I'm not anywhere near sure of this, I am just speculating.
Sure, as soon as you move to an Islamic capital city like Riyadh, Kuwait City, Islamabad, Male (the Maldives), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Tashkent (Uzbekistan). 
I'm perfectly fine here, where I can still choose to live without religion and still raise my children without it.
I'm perfectly fine here, where I can still choose to live without religion and still raise my children without it.
I object to secular humanism as well, because it's still very much a religion with it's own belief system.
I am saying that there can be a moral code regardless. With or without, not in spite of.
Are you saying that religious people do not have a problem with atheism? I think for the most part, there are atheists who rally against religion and religious people who rally against atheism, but I am in neither camp. I simply am, and a God or Gods has nothing to do with it either way. It does not influence me, not because I reject it but because I don't accept or reject it.
The sun is a sustainer of life, no need to 'believe' in it. I was highly culturally indoctrinated before I ever wondered metaphysically why I was here and the question of where from what is here came up was when I was introduced to science/technology. personal experience doubled with rememberence, but is that a study of when how this develops over broad populations?
He got as far as making a tape of one of the Bible stories, the one where someone gets their head chopped off, narrated by native Pirahas. They enjoyed listening to it, and would laugh histerically when the head chopping occurred. The basic problem was that no one alive was there to witness the events, so they couldn't relate to it. They didn't like that Jesus wanted them to stop drinking and take only one wife forever.
What's wrong with a crutch? If a man has polio, should I expect him to walk? Should I look down on him in smug self-righteousness because he is crippled?
Who deals with reality very well? Atheists come here to criticize religion. What are they expecting besides sympathy and support from other atheists? :shrug:
Dude...
sex...
is better when your partner drives you into a frenzy of worship...
Could you site the passage where Jesus himself wants people across the board to not drink alcohol at all; i.e. stop. In fact Noah very happily got completely drunk after he found land. One of the first recorded things he does, i remember, though it had some bad consequences of sorts. And that is before Jesus.
Sounds like this mr everett had a little jungle fever with drinking, promiscuous sex and violent tapes!
No he didn't drink, and he was with his wife. Piraha frown on sleeping around, but they do have provisions for it in their culture. If you go away for a bit, and then come back with a different woman, you are considered married to that one instead of your original one. If you return to your original wife, she can pull your hair and hit you with a stick for a day, and you are supposed to take it as penance. Drinking isn't prohibited in the Bible, as far as I know, but for some reason devout Christians avoid it. I do remember one bit where Jesus said he went to town and found all of them intoxicated, but none of them thirsty (for spiritual knowledge).
If you could demonstrate that separation and your gods existence, I'd probably have faith in that religion, too.
And, you might then just change religion from being stupid.
There is an interesting statement
BG 5.4 Only the ignorant speak of yoga [or practice of religion , as you put it ... eg rules and regs] being different from sankhya [or philosophy that takes the seat of deep learning]. Those who are actually learned say that he who applies himself well to one of these paths achieves the results of both.
IOW if one is rightly established in religion, the natural consequence is a philosophical outlook that accurately reflects intelligent existence in the world, and if one is properly established in philosophy, the natural consequence is to adopt behaviour that falls in line with being religious.
Now of course I am sure a ton of atheists will jump to the straw man band wagon and bring up a host of examples of religiosity that is obviously out to lunch philosophically or by practice ..... but the point is that despite a host of bad examples, there still remains a means to determine the validity of theism by examining the symbiotic relationship between issues of its practice and philosophy.
This is the means for determining where or even if institutions exist on the henological ladder.
(IOW the legitimate discussions on "who is a true christian/muslim/hindu/etc" have their basis in an examination of the philosophy and practice ..... as opposed to "my god will persecute you for your thought crimes" or some other position of faithful hyperbole)
we're social creatures.
We can form a sense of community over anything from oil prices to the underwear of Paris Hilton.
The means, circumstances and expression for displaying worship may change, but the act doesn't.
Even in social communities that feel they have successfully deconstructed the notion of the worship of god, they can't help but feel spontaneously attracted to those things that possess exceptional quantities of wealth, fame, renunciation, knowledge, power and/or beauty (which are celebrated as the 6 opulences of god, that grant him a status of spontaneous worship)
I guess I objected to the phrase ``religious people believe...''
I was trying to point out that the important thing is the existence of some universal core definition of what is ``right'' and what is ``wrong''. You would deny that that is God-given, while I would not. At the end of the day, does it matter, so long as we agree on some basis of what ``right'' and ``wrong'' mean?
The Bible does not specifically say you must take one woman forever, it is against the intention of marriage under God, but you would not necessarily be damned for it.
I like the pulling hair and beating with a stick part for a day! pretty civil society!
Still waiting on China, Vietnam, Soviet Russia, and so forth.
Or what your definition of a successful society is.
Is it one where people get beheaded for leaving the majority religion? Maybe we define "successful" differently.
Religion isn't stupid, the people who follow it are.
One, I use 'crutch' as a metaphorical term. And two, theists' apparent 'mental/delusional' handicap does not warrant any sympathy AFAIC.
Not very many people do, but how you deal with reality also says a lot. I see more sense in someone taking anti-depressants to deal with reality moreso than I can in someone worshipping a deity whose existence they can't prove.
I once got flamed and then banned from a forum for saying the exact same thing from your title. But yea that's all it is. It is stupid. Belief in a higher power - More sensible and fair enuf. But believing in some funny stories and learning a bunch of prayers and kissing popes hand(or was it something else) can give them a ticket to heaven - its as true as Santa. But then its to be expected.
It does matter when that moral code is used as a weapon against others to shame, humiliate, discriminate and even injure or cause the death of others. I matters because religion makes it near impossible to have a universal set of right and wrong, and that the debate itself causes wars and strife for billions of people.
At the end of the day, most religious people can not agree to a set of rights and wrongs because of their God. They simply cannot distinguish between a universal right and wrong, and the rights and wrongs set forth in their holy texts. And they will always fight to change the rights and wrongs to fit their God or Gods will, because in their mind, it's better for all people to believe and adhere to their religion. Their intent isn't malice, but if they can convert the non-believers they are "saving" them from their own destruction, and it's their job as a believer to save as many people as they can. It comforts and elevates them, so everyone should be involved.
There cannot be a universal set of morality because religion gets in the way. Religion stunts world progress because of dogma, fear and shame. It oppresses the rest of the world with it's man-made directives that are taken as the Word of their God or Gods. So the rest of us peons here who aren't believers are second-class citizens to most religious people, because we don't get saved at the end of things. We will perish for our non-belief no matter how right or wrong we were. Right?
Until we get away from religious belief and myth, we will be detained to fail to unify in any way shape or form. Religion divides us all and places values on individual human beings according to individual adherence and belief. There is no way that unification is possible or even a common universal goal. And as long as we have people in power dictating according to their religious ideas, it will continue to crumble and we will continue to suffer being different from everyone else.