Religions are fairy tales for adults. Should we encourage them to grow up?

[billvon]

Only if they cannot justify their bigotry. That would be them showing immaturity.

Bigots have justified their bigotry since time began. Blacks are stupid and genetically inferior; there is "hard proof" in the form of IQ tests. Jews are all greedy; they have their "proof" by looking at relative incomes in New York City by religion. Gays deserve to die; they point to HIV, a disease that "gays invented by having sex with monkeys" as the justification for that.

Our biases and bigotries are there to protect us. We should always examine those though and use/apply them wisely.

You can certainly keep your religious bigotry - at least until you decide to re-examine your intolerance and start treating others as you wish to be treated.

 

[Greatest I am]

Bigots have justified their bigotry since time began. Blacks are stupid and genetically inferior; there is "hard proof" in the form of IQ tests. Jews are all greedy; they have their "proof" by looking at relative incomes in New York City by religion. Gays deserve to die; they point to HIV, a disease that "gays invented by having sex with monkeys" as the justification for that.


You can certainly keep your religious bigotry - at least until you decide to re-examine your intolerance and start treating others as you wish to be treated.

I will. Thanks. It is against homophobes and the misogynous and that is treating others the way I would like to be treated if I was of that ilk. It would make me more moral if I accepted it.

You might try it.

Regards
DL

 

[spidergoat]

Sure. You can despise Muslims because some Muslims blew up the WTC. You can despise blacks because some popular black media icons say outrageous and hateful things. You can despise Jews because you believe that all they care about is money. You can despise women because you think they can't handle what men can, but demand the same rights.

And all those are bigoted positions.

Are you a bigot if you hate what Nazis DID? No. Hating an action is quite different than hating a group of people for actions they did not perform.
Are you a bigot if you hate the Neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn because of what some OTHER Nazis did? Yes.

I didn't mention religious people at all, but religion itself. And Nazism itself. Yes, I'm intolerant of certain religious ideas, if tolerance means ignoring their presence and influence in society. I believe in engagement with ideas that I find abhorrent. I am certainly not bigoted against religious people, as few people I know in real life are also atheists.

 

[spidergoat]

It is a description of a state of mind wherein someone is intolerant of a creed, belief or opinion that they don't hold themselves.

According to that definition, one is a bigot if they are intolerant of Nazi ideas. And that's ridiculous.

 

[billvon]

I didn't mention religious people at all, but religion itself. And Nazism itself. Yes, I'm intolerant of certain religious ideas, if tolerance means ignoring their presence and influence in society. I believe in engagement with ideas that I find abhorrent. I am certainly not bigoted against religious people, as few people I know in real life are also atheists.

If you tolerate them having their beliefs while keeping to your own - that is the very definition of tolerance.

 

[timojin]

Religions are fairy tales for adults. Should we encourage them to grow up?

My mind set is close to Daniel Dennett as far as what religious people / theist should become after they grow up.

Personally, I like a lot of the social functions and appeasement of our need for fellowship, hivishness and tribalism offered by religious institutions.

So I do not want to kill all religions but just encourage them to be more moral, tolerant and give equality to women and gays.

Having said the above, People and recent trends to read scriptures literally have cause many to forget that religions were invented as theatre and myth and were never meant to be read or taken literally. They were designed to seek God, not to find one.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."

Please listen as to what is said about literal reading.
"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, "God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning."

As you can see from the following, religions and temples have always been about entertainment and fellowship.

If Christianity and Islam could return to the old way of seeking God instead of idol worshiping false Gods, perhaps jihadists and other fundamental believers might chill and get along the way they have at some points in our past history.

Religions are fairy tales for adults. If this is a truth, we should encourage Christianity and Islam as well as all other religions to grow up and return to their better past of seeking God instead of idol worshiping Yahweh and Allah. Both of them are mythical and manmade Gods.

To just leave Christians and Muslim idol worshipers to continue as is means that we may never rid ourselves of their institutionalized homophobia and misogyny. The kind and moral thing to do is to try to correct our immoral religious friends to recognize their myths as fairy tales for adults. Do you agree?

Regards
DL

Most of the time if not always you post against religion yet you seams well versed in the Bible , why are you so antagonistic against what people want to believe . Are you getting paid for preaching anti religion ?
If people are happy believing in God , why you want make them unhappy . I suppose you belong to some organization or club could you tell us.

 

[Greatest I am]

Most of the time if not always you post against religion yet you seams well versed in the Bible , why are you so antagonistic against what people want to believe . Are you getting paid for preaching anti religion ?
If people are happy believing in God , why you want make them unhappy . I suppose you belong to some organization or club could you tell us.

I am a Gnostic Christian but do not belong to any group.

I do not like homophobes and misogyny for starters and what follows expands on the reasoning and shows examples of why I do what I do.

For the evils of religion to grow, read any scripture literally.

Any and all harmless beliefs are allowed by Gnostic Christians. We know that any myth can be internalized for good results and as esoteric ecumenists, we enjoy knowledge of all the myths that man has created about Gods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR02ciandvg&feature=BFa&list=PLCBF574D

When there is a victim is when that view changes. Then you see why Christianity annihilated Gnostic Christianity. We do not let the evils of forced literalism go unopposed. To a tyrant like Constantine, we were poison. One of his first commands to his new Church was to kill off the free thinkers and of course, his new tool, his Church, did as bid. It was quite a ride for free thought for the next 1,000 years.

How can a Gnostic Christian, --- and any other free thinking moral person, --- not judge other's morals when seeing someone hurt other because of the same Church's teachings today?

Can you ignore such things if you have decent morals? Impossible. Especially with Islam pulling the same murderous, freedom stifling ****.

We must discriminate and judge constantly. Every law is a compulsion on all of us to judge.

It is my view that all right wing literalists and fundamentals hurt all of us who are moral religionists, --- as well as those who do not believe. Literalists hurt their parent religions --- and everyone else, be he a believer or not. Literalists and the right wing of religions make us all into laughing stocks. Their God of talking animals, genocidal floods and retribution has got to go. So must beliefs in fantasy, miracles and magic. These are all evil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2zhlDbMfDg

They also do much harm to their own fellow adherents.

African witches and Jesus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlRG9gXriVI

Jesus Camp 1of 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LACyLTsH4ac

Death to Gays.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyuKLyGUHNE

For evil to grow my friend, all good people need do is nothing. Fight literalism when you can. It is your duty to our fellow man.

Regards
DL

 

[spidergoat]

If you tolerate them having their beliefs while keeping to your own - that is the very definition of tolerance.

No, I'm trying to change their beliefs.

 

[Bowser]

Teaching is not commanding is it?

Regards
DL

If I had my way, I would have never spent so many days in school. Though we might not recognize it's value at the time, authority has value.

 

[Greatest I am]

If I had my way, I would have never spent so many days in school. Though we might not recognize it's value at the time, authority has value.

Yes but it is not teaching which was my point. Authority also has draw backs.

IE. It is an insult to freedom.

Regards
DL

 

[Oystein]

I wish the future was something like Arthur C. Clarke described in his novel Songs of Distant Earth, where a new civilization is started (from "seeds") and religion and all religion-related art and literature was left behind. I can dream . . .

 

[Greatest I am]

I wish the future was something like Arthur C. Clarke described in his novel Songs of Distant Earth, where a new civilization is started (from "seeds") and religion and all religion-related art and literature was left behind. I can dream . . .

We need either religion or government as tools of social control and manipulation.

Either can be good or evil.

Humans are basically rule following machines and we need one or the other.

Both are an insult as they show how man cannot live with man without a keeper of rules to tell us what to do.

If we did not have either, we would have to invent one. All animals need an alpha to keep all the rest in their place.

Regards
DL

 

[Oystein]

Oh, Greatest You Are. Thank you for your great response. It is so great I am lost for words because I am not even close to greatest . . . I'm not. Sincerely, your humblest greatest I am not. You must surely be the alpha and the omega.

 

[timojin]

We need either religion or government as tools of social control and manipulation.

Either can be good or evil.

Humans are basically rule following machines and we need one or the other.

Both are an insult as they show how man cannot live with man without a keeper of rules to tell us what to do.

If we did not have either, we would have to invent one. All animals need an alpha to keep all the rest in their place.

Regards
DL

You must be a product of 2010 because you are not aware of 70 + years of Mao zedong and the Bolshevik period , I guess you are trying to reinvent So called Communism were all are intellectual brain washed with anti religious freedom meaning stop man having freedom of choice

 

[Daecon]

Some people think that without their religion telling them what to do, it'll be okay to go around stealing, raping, and murdering, and that society will be okay with them doing that.

If these people ever outgrew religion, we would have a lot more criminals to deal with. They seem to imply that their belief in their religion is the only thing that's keeping these innately evil and immoral people from running riot in our civilized society.

 

[Greatest I am]

Oh, Greatest You Are. Thank you for your great response. It is so great I am lost for words because I am not even close to greatest . . . I'm not. Sincerely, your humblest greatest I am not. You must surely be the alpha and the omega.

Nice that you could not find fault with what I said and decided to just throw insults instead of an intelligent agreement or unintelligent argument against.

Quite the character trait.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

You must be a product of 2010 because you are not aware of 70 + years of Mao zedong and the Bolshevik period , I guess you are trying to reinvent So called Communism were all are intellectual brain washed with anti religious freedom meaning stop man having freedom of choice

I guess that you did not see this in my reply. Either can be good or evil.

How you got the rest that you put from what I wrote I have no idea.

Communism has never worked and I am not interested in implementing a failed political system.

If you wish to explain what you were thinking I put to have you think I did, I am here to correct you.

Regards
DL

 

[Oystein]

Nice that you could not find fault with what I said . . .

How could fault be found with someone who posts as "Greatest I am"? Not possible. And I most definitely did not "insult" the greatest -- God would strike me down for that.

Are you greatest in all endeavors?

 

[Greatest I am]

Some people think that without their religion telling them what to do, it'll be okay to go around stealing, raping, and murdering, and that society will be okay with them doing that.

If these people ever outgrew religion, we would have a lot more criminals to deal with. They seem to imply that their belief in their religion is the only thing that's keeping these innately evil and immoral people from running riot in our civilized society.

To your first.
I see few who are that stupid be they religious or not.

To your last.
That seems like a belief only a fool would believe.

I have little to no respect for the mainstream religions but they are not stopping anyone from doing whatever they like in terms of sins like divorce or crimes.

Look at the U.S. that touts itself as a Christian nation yet jails more of it's people than most other countries. let's not even look at t5he abortion rates.

Regards
DL


Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

How could fault be found with someone who posts as "Greatest I am"? Not possible. And I most definitely did not "insult" the greatest -- God would strike me down for that.

Are you greatest in all endeavors?

Are you Oystein in yours?

How old are you child?

Regards
DL