Losing my Religion
Shoutwire is awesome. Here's a short article I'd like to talk about.
I love religion, I really do. Especially the occidental ones; they hold themselves to be morally superior to everyone else, when their history says otherwise.
The first thing I take issue with is his rational behind what being an atheist or agnostic is. You don't need to have scoured the universe and eliminated the possibility of their being a God to be atheist. Dictionary.com defines "Atheist" as "One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods." One no more needs concrete evidence to claim disbelief as Christians or Muslims need concrete proof to BELIEVE God exists. It isn't about evidence or proof; it's about experience and that gut feeling, because when it comes to religion, nothing is ever proven to be fact. This part REALLY cracks me up though;
From the years of Apologetics classes I have taken I can say to you that atheism means that one went the length of the universe and one found no presence of God. This, by today’s means, would be impossible to accomplish. One cannot completely eliminate God, because one has no evidence that He does not exist.
So because we haven't searched every inch of the universe we can't eliminate God? Sounds like backwards logic to me, because from all the exploration we've done, we've never seen any actual signs of God, either. Heaven and Hell aren't places that we've ever seen. Atheists have no need to PROVE God doesn't exist, because evidence isn't necessarily the foundation for their disbelief. You can tell when your arguement is weak when you start asking people to prove you wrong, instead of proving yourself right. As for agnosticism, Dictionary.com had this to say;
To say that without religion there would be chaos is the single stupidest thing I have ever heard. Religion is the single thing that keeps people in check these days and by far the only thing keeping us from having absolutely no morals.
Oh wow. Not only is his writing contradictory in saying that the world without religion would be chaos is stupid, but then that be believes it, it just isnt true. Religion doesn't keep anything in check, the governments and laws of the world do. There are plenty of people who don't believe in any religion at all; do you see them all running around gunning people down and robbing liquor stores? No. And do we really need to talk about morals in religion? I believe that there is a lot of good morals to be learned in any of the world's religions, but considering the actions of Christianity in the past, how could they EVER claim to have the moral highground? One interesting point was made to me when I was down in LA visiting some family last week; someone told me that the people who claim to be religious and then commit those sins, "Aren;t real Christians." That sure sounds like an easy way to not have to take the blame for anything that is inspired by your religions. I'm pretty sure the Popes are real christians, and THEY sactioned and planned the Crusades and Inquisitions, which spanned the course of a milennium. So were they not "real christians"? The logic is just perposterous.
Let us “imagine no religion.” The big bang is true and we evolved from animals. That makes humans simply animals, chemically structured like any other, and nothing more. Animals fight for territory, of course not with nuclear weapons, although they would use them if they had the mental capacity to do so. I know it sounds funny, but imagine what a lion would do if he could just dispose of a competitor by merely pulling a trigger. Animals do not believe in religion (or else it's simply impossible) yet there are violent animals, which nonbelievers claim we might have evolved from. So wouldn’t that mean that, even without religion, there would be war?
“Religious crackpots” have a large following (the vast majority of the world believe in some type of organized religion) and these crackpots have the primary goal of installing good morals into their followers; take away these morals and you have a society that is bent on getting their way and they have nothing to stop them. To put it bluntly, the world would be in total anarchy - survival of the fittest (to the extreme), if you will. Sure, some empires would prosper and would know how to keep things together, but what about the other billions of people with nothing to go by and no basic guidelines telling them how to be a good person?
I will go as far as saying this: the day this world does not abide by religion will be the day we are overrun with agnostics and supposed “atheists.” I believe a more suitable line would be, "Imagine total destruction."
LOL. Evolution IS real, you don't have to imagine anything. I hate when people want to pretend something that has no scientific backing is real, but then ignore/mock scientifically proven concepts. But to say we are basically just animals is stupid; the whole point of evolution is that we have become something much, much more.
A Lion wouldn't pull the trigger on a nuke if he had the mental capacity, because Lions don't fight wars based on concepts or ideas; all they do is hunt and defend their hunting territory. What good would wiping out the entire landscape they hunt on do them? And as for the whole "animals are violent and don't believe in religion, so without religion we would just be violent ourselves" That is the dumbest logic I have ever heard. Animals don't have the mental capacity to form such complex thoughts. How could anyone claim with a straight face that religion makes people less violent? 9/11, anyone? We have been led into a "war" in Iraq by a man who is a devout Christian, which has led to the death of over 2,000 american soldiers and unknown numbers or Iraqi and civilian casualties. The Catholic church annihilated the Muslims and Jews during the Crusades, THEN backstabbed their Roman allies and burned Constantinople to the ground. That is this person's idea of the non-violence religion teaches people? The world does not abide by religion; we are given freedom FROM religion, as granted by the constitution. And where has that led us? Not to total anarchy or destruction; to being the most powerful and important nation in the history of the world. People learn morals from all sorts of places, and many don't go to church on Sundays. So how does one explain that? According to this guy's theory, he couldn't, because the only place people learn good morals is from their religion. Thomas Jefferson, one of the greatest presidents in our nation's history, was not religious at all, and DEFINED the freedom from religion. So by this theory, he would be an immoral beast, leading us to war and bloodshed and anarchy. What really happened? He authored the Declaration of Independence, freeing us from the monarchy of a foreign nation, purchased 1/3 of the land that is now the United States, and authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, which lead to manifest destiny and the total colonization of the continental U.S.
Wow, what an animal. How uncivilized. To say people without religion are basically amoral animals is an insult to every atheist, agnostic, and other non-believer; way to take the high-road you claim to live on based on your belief in something you cannot possibly prove. Real impressive. Someone should point out to me all the good, PROVABLE things that religion has done for human society, because from what I've seen, the damage dealt by the fanatics it creates FAR outweighs the hypothetical positive effects.
I love religion, I really do. Especially the occidental ones; they hold themselves to be morally superior to everyone else, when their history says otherwise.
The first thing I take issue with is his rational behind what being an atheist or agnostic is. You don't need to have scoured the universe and eliminated the possibility of their being a God to be atheist. Dictionary.com defines "Atheist" as "One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods." One no more needs concrete evidence to claim disbelief as Christians or Muslims need concrete proof to BELIEVE God exists. It isn't about evidence or proof; it's about experience and that gut feeling, because when it comes to religion, nothing is ever proven to be fact. This part REALLY cracks me up though;
From the years of Apologetics classes I have taken I can say to you that atheism means that one went the length of the universe and one found no presence of God. This, by today’s means, would be impossible to accomplish. One cannot completely eliminate God, because one has no evidence that He does not exist.
So because we haven't searched every inch of the universe we can't eliminate God? Sounds like backwards logic to me, because from all the exploration we've done, we've never seen any actual signs of God, either. Heaven and Hell aren't places that we've ever seen. Atheists have no need to PROVE God doesn't exist, because evidence isn't necessarily the foundation for their disbelief. You can tell when your arguement is weak when you start asking people to prove you wrong, instead of proving yourself right. As for agnosticism, Dictionary.com had this to say;
- One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
- One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
To say that without religion there would be chaos is the single stupidest thing I have ever heard. Religion is the single thing that keeps people in check these days and by far the only thing keeping us from having absolutely no morals.
Oh wow. Not only is his writing contradictory in saying that the world without religion would be chaos is stupid, but then that be believes it, it just isnt true. Religion doesn't keep anything in check, the governments and laws of the world do. There are plenty of people who don't believe in any religion at all; do you see them all running around gunning people down and robbing liquor stores? No. And do we really need to talk about morals in religion? I believe that there is a lot of good morals to be learned in any of the world's religions, but considering the actions of Christianity in the past, how could they EVER claim to have the moral highground? One interesting point was made to me when I was down in LA visiting some family last week; someone told me that the people who claim to be religious and then commit those sins, "Aren;t real Christians." That sure sounds like an easy way to not have to take the blame for anything that is inspired by your religions. I'm pretty sure the Popes are real christians, and THEY sactioned and planned the Crusades and Inquisitions, which spanned the course of a milennium. So were they not "real christians"? The logic is just perposterous.
Let us “imagine no religion.” The big bang is true and we evolved from animals. That makes humans simply animals, chemically structured like any other, and nothing more. Animals fight for territory, of course not with nuclear weapons, although they would use them if they had the mental capacity to do so. I know it sounds funny, but imagine what a lion would do if he could just dispose of a competitor by merely pulling a trigger. Animals do not believe in religion (or else it's simply impossible) yet there are violent animals, which nonbelievers claim we might have evolved from. So wouldn’t that mean that, even without religion, there would be war?
“Religious crackpots” have a large following (the vast majority of the world believe in some type of organized religion) and these crackpots have the primary goal of installing good morals into their followers; take away these morals and you have a society that is bent on getting their way and they have nothing to stop them. To put it bluntly, the world would be in total anarchy - survival of the fittest (to the extreme), if you will. Sure, some empires would prosper and would know how to keep things together, but what about the other billions of people with nothing to go by and no basic guidelines telling them how to be a good person?
I will go as far as saying this: the day this world does not abide by religion will be the day we are overrun with agnostics and supposed “atheists.” I believe a more suitable line would be, "Imagine total destruction."
LOL. Evolution IS real, you don't have to imagine anything. I hate when people want to pretend something that has no scientific backing is real, but then ignore/mock scientifically proven concepts. But to say we are basically just animals is stupid; the whole point of evolution is that we have become something much, much more.
A Lion wouldn't pull the trigger on a nuke if he had the mental capacity, because Lions don't fight wars based on concepts or ideas; all they do is hunt and defend their hunting territory. What good would wiping out the entire landscape they hunt on do them? And as for the whole "animals are violent and don't believe in religion, so without religion we would just be violent ourselves" That is the dumbest logic I have ever heard. Animals don't have the mental capacity to form such complex thoughts. How could anyone claim with a straight face that religion makes people less violent? 9/11, anyone? We have been led into a "war" in Iraq by a man who is a devout Christian, which has led to the death of over 2,000 american soldiers and unknown numbers or Iraqi and civilian casualties. The Catholic church annihilated the Muslims and Jews during the Crusades, THEN backstabbed their Roman allies and burned Constantinople to the ground. That is this person's idea of the non-violence religion teaches people? The world does not abide by religion; we are given freedom FROM religion, as granted by the constitution. And where has that led us? Not to total anarchy or destruction; to being the most powerful and important nation in the history of the world. People learn morals from all sorts of places, and many don't go to church on Sundays. So how does one explain that? According to this guy's theory, he couldn't, because the only place people learn good morals is from their religion. Thomas Jefferson, one of the greatest presidents in our nation's history, was not religious at all, and DEFINED the freedom from religion. So by this theory, he would be an immoral beast, leading us to war and bloodshed and anarchy. What really happened? He authored the Declaration of Independence, freeing us from the monarchy of a foreign nation, purchased 1/3 of the land that is now the United States, and authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, which lead to manifest destiny and the total colonization of the continental U.S.
Wow, what an animal. How uncivilized. To say people without religion are basically amoral animals is an insult to every atheist, agnostic, and other non-believer; way to take the high-road you claim to live on based on your belief in something you cannot possibly prove. Real impressive. Someone should point out to me all the good, PROVABLE things that religion has done for human society, because from what I've seen, the damage dealt by the fanatics it creates FAR outweighs the hypothetical positive effects.
posted by Burn1nMyLight at 12:34 PM
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