Society Religious Discussion and Q&A Thread

[Roflkopt3r]

Just a curious side issue but I really got to laugh about this one when a german newspaper wrote about it:
http://www.catholicintl.com/galileowaswrong/index.html

It's an event organised by Robert Sungenis (a theologian from the US) trying to prove that Galileo was wrong and the earth is the center of the universe as well as our solar system.
Quite impressive how many religious blockheads still exist these days.

 

[Smit]

For some reason I feel like sharing today. So here's my view on religion. Take no offense its just my opinion.
I myself became an atheist by the time I was 17. Before that I was open to the idea of Deities. At some point I started thinking about religion and deities and came to the conclusion that there is so much wrong in the world. Why wouldn't a Deity show it self to show us the way. If i were a Deity I would try to help the world as much as i can. Then i thought of a couple of reasons why he/she/they wouldn't help.
1) They are apathetic bastards not worthy of praise.
2) They dont exist.
So I went with #2. So that question was anwered. But it raised a lot of new questions as it always does. What is the meaning of life and what am I doing here. After some heavy debates (mostly with myself) there was only 1 answer. There is no meaning. Which for me was a huge relieve. Im not part of some huge master plan and have control over my own life. Based on this came my personnal philosophy of 3 rules:
1) Do everything in your power to be happy
2) Try not to get in the way of other peoples happiness
3) If 1 and 2 conflict see #1

Hope this helps anyone who reads this as much as it helped me write it.

 

[xi0]

I was Christened and Confirmed Catholic, went to Catechism once a week for over 10 years, but I don't consider myself religious anymore. I know a lot of people think someone saying they're Agnostic is a cop-out...but I don't really have any other way of labeling myself.

I have something that rattles around in my head from time to time when it comes to religion, and monotheism in general: If God truly does exists. If he is the creator of everything and anything. If he is omniscient and omnipresent, and even if he created us in his image...why does it matter to him whether we believe in him or not? Why would he punish those that don't believe in him, or those who are simply unaware of him?

There's no logical answer in my eyes. Thus, if God does exist, and I'll have no way of knowing until I'm dead, for me, it's completely inconsequential to who I am, or how I choose to live my life.

 

[kkck]

I myself am a catholic. Hell in principle is indeed a place of punishment however there is a bit more to it that just that. Heaven is seen as being in perfect communion with God. Basically, heaven is not this huge generic green place with naked babies flying around and relatives who died but rather basking eternally in God(family can still be there, however it is marginal in comparison to being with God). Hell in contrast is the exact opposite. If heaven is being with God for eternity, then hell is being eternally and terminally separated from God(the actual permanent and even willing separation from god is actually seen as the greatest suffering you endure in hell). There is an element of choice. If you live your life in the way he suggested then you can be with him while if you do not then you are not with him. There is an element of punishment however there is also a very important element of choice.

As for myself, I am not particularly troubled by God letting the world follow its natural course(war, hunger, death, injustice and whatnot). When I was asking myself this questions about whether God existed they were not about what in the world he was thinking(some people stop believing in God because apparently something being wrong in the world makes God evil or something like a huge baby with a magnifying glass) but rather what it would mean for me whether he existed or not. To avoid an eternal post which in itself would probably take me hours to write, I will just say that my conclusion was that life in general made a hell of a lot more sense if god existed(I am not talking about pain and misery making more sense and having more of a purpose through god though).

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Some thoughts on religious people:

-In best case, they interprete the given religious rules on their own and realize those which seem explainable and justified to them. This can be a christian who believes that empathy and helping the poor is important, for example. But even some extreme believers can make something nice out of the given rules. My examples would be Amish who accept their rules because they are aware of the fact that their simple lifestyle can be very fortunate as well, there's nothing wrong with that.
-In worst case, beeing religious means to stop thinking independendly but only obeying religious rules

In my opinion, Religion is obsolete in a way. Humanistic thinking could totally replace it and it wouldn't be any bad since I don't see a reason to believe in a godlike entity - Why should I believe one of the several religious parties? There is nothing which would make one theory more likely than the other, and each of them sounds unlikely to me since science offers good explanation on the developement of universe and humanity.
Yes, of course the scientifical explanations are incomplete yet, how should it be complete already? It's easy to find gaps, and possibly contradictions BUT science reacts to the findings of actual contradictions because it is has the demand on replicability and accuracy.
Compared to that, Religions just offered a very plain and easy explanation which is not falsifiable, but not provable either. To me it was just the simpliest, thus first, explanation on our existance, which (in this purpose) is absolutely minor to science because it cannot be developed anymore.
To put it bluntly: In the long gone past, people were simply not able to develope scientifical standards and explanations, so religion was just the simplified version for explaining the world because it did not require alot of thinking.

However, Religion of course is more than that since it also always contains a behavioral code as well. And here it is very equal to the last point: Religion is the simplified version of modern ethics, just like the creation myths were the simplified version of science.
Of course a behavioral code is good for society, so it was good that religion served this purpose and this is also a reason why the power of religion was good for society because it educated people to stick to certain base rules. But, just like creation myths, it's just a simple version of something more accurate, which would be humanism ethics in my mind. But in this purpose religion is not obsolete yet, because huge parts of humanity do not have a humanistic education. As long as people don't mutually understand each other and try to overcome their egoism, as long as mankind is too stupid for that, religion still has a purpose, because it can even reach the least educated humans. It requires absolutely no education.
However, since religion is just the simplified container of human values, it should only be an intermediate state until all of humanity gains mutual understanding and education.
Since this aim is much more unrealistic than science, since science only requires a small number of people while this would require all of mankind to change, it will most likely be a reason why religion will exist forever.
That wouldn't bother me, if two conditions were true, which sadly aren't right now:
1. If religious people would accept their religions as calls for charity and peace.
2. If religion wouldn't stop so many people from using their own brains.

So, TL;DR-Version:
Religion is just a transitional state for explaining existence and moral values to people to me. It's a more simple but inferior version of the modern concepts of science and humanistic ethics. It would be absolutely acceptable if it wouldn't be used to create conflicts and if it wouldn't make people stop using their own mind.

I don't mean to insult believers in general with this. It might appear so but I wanted to remain honest, although it might sound arrogant in the way of "religious people are stupid" - That's not what I mean, I just mean that religion is a very simplified thing... arrr, hard to explain :P

 

[kkck]

Science is not something that can replace religion though. They deal with completely different things. I for one believe in evolution (in the way mainstream science explains), think creationism is absurd (god is not a necessity for science to make sense) and I still believe in god. For me, the two never clash nor one could replace the other.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Science is not something that can replace religion though. They deal with completely different things. I for one believe in evolution (in the way mainstream science explains), think creationism is absurd (god is not a necessity for science to make sense) and I still believe in god. For me, the two never clash nor one could replace the other.

I only mentioned the point of science because I'm very sure that the absence of science was an important reason why religion came into existence in the first place.
People couldn't answer the things around them, the world, weather. Not so much their own existence already, that would've been too complex for the beginning. Since there was no way they could explain anything scientifically with their limited knowledge, some day theoretical entities like Gods were created and religion was born.
That's what I believe to be the most likely cause for religion to come into existence. That's why I mentioned science. Whatever the reason for religion is, the phenomena of religion is at least 40.000 years old, which is why I can't detect any plausibility in the thought why the old or new testamony should be right over other religions, it just evolved from other religious concepts. Why older religions again definitly have their source lack of knowledge.

I believe that there is no reason to believe in the existence of god, the only reason why there are believers is that religion started at one point and never ended existing. Truth and plausibility are independend of the source, no matter how limited the knowledge of a person, he can still say something true. But the deliverance of religious writings contains nothing which would be plausible or logical on its own, it only exists because it's beeing traditional. That's why basic science and maths can be taught in a way of letting pupils doing experiments on their own while religion has to be told to them word by word.
However, since Gods are just theoretical beeings, it's no problem to combine them with scientifical knowledge, ignore them or ignore science by valuing religious knowledge higher than it. They're adaptable because they consist of thoughts.

But as I said, religion also has this social aspect to it which sadly can't be replaced yet since it would require whole nations or even all of humanity to learn to respect each other even when there is no almighty something watching them and putting them into hell when they don't do so.

 

[DLord.Van.Buuren]

I believe that there is no reason to believe in the existence of god, the only reason why there are believers is that religion started at one point and never ended existing.

Religion will exist as long as there are things unanswered in the creation, like what happens after we die, how vast is the universe. ?

you believe in evolution right ?

Just answer this simple question why did humans stop to evolve ? aren't we now supposed to be evolving to some other form ?

 

[AnkorSVK]

Religion will exist as long as there are things unanswered in the creation, like what happens after we die, how vast is the universe. ?

you believe in evolution right ?

Just answer this simple question why did humans stop to evolve ? aren't we now supposed to be evolving to some other form ?

That may be right but with new discoveries the definition of religion may need to change

 

[DLord.Van.Buuren]

That may be right but with new discoveries the definition of religion may need to change

I haven't seen new discoveries in like a long time, people now aren't focusing on solving mysteries but rather how to embetter life and make people as comfortable as they can get.

Fighting diseases, finding new energy sources, making the earth more inhabitable.

I seriously think that funds devoted to exploring the outter space is a waste, and rather should be focused on how to feed children of africa.

---

Christians now are troubled by the fact that islam is going to dominate europe soon, why ?

because muslims have a lot of kids while europeans don't so in about fifty years there will be a majority of people in europe who are muslims.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Christians now are troubled by the fact that islam is going to dominate europe soon, why ?

because muslims have a lot of kids while europeans don't so in about fifty years there will be a majority of people in europe who are muslims.

As Günther Paal aka. Gunkl once commented on the slogan "Abendland in Christenhand" (a rhyme by a right wing austrian party: "Occident ruled by Christs"):
"The fact which actually makes the occident appealing to it's inhabitants rather is the fact, that we took it out of the hands of Christianity. If still people like Thomas Aquinas or similar thinking characters would be the only viable philosophers, earth would still be a disk, half of humanity - the women this means - wouldn't be accounted as full humans anymore because they'ld have an "defectus naturae" - which means officially a loose screw, and instead of the state of law we had a christian-fundamental Shariah.
So people who want "Occident ruled by Christs" admit that they totally missed all of the age of enlightenment (...)"

 

[Akainu]

Religion will exist as long as there are things unanswered in the creation, like what happens after we die, how vast is the universe. ?

you believe in evolution right ?

Just answer this simple question why did humans stop to evolve ? aren't we now supposed to be evolving to some other form ?

evolution is a process that takes thousands of years and thus moves for us in such a slow motion we think it might have stopped, it is however still present. who knows where using technology will lead us to? on thing is for sure though, we are far from the top as humans

As Günther Paal aka. Gunkl once commented on the slogan "Abendland in Christenhand" (a rhyme by a right wing austrian party: "Occident ruled by Christs"):
"The fact which actually makes the occident appealing to it's inhabitants rather is the fact, that we took it out of the hands of Christianity. If still people like Thomas Aquinas or similar thinking characters would be the only viable philosophers, earth would still be a disk, half of humanity - the women this means - wouldn't be accounted as full humans anymore because they'ld have an "defectus naturae" - which means officially a loose screw, and instead of the state of law we had a christian-fundamental Shariah.
So people who want "Occident ruled by Christs" admit that they totally missed all of the age of enlightenment (...)"

Not arguing against this in the slightest, just the way he proves it is by at least 1/3 false: church did not believe in the disk theory anymore, at least by the time of enlightenment if not before (link yh, wikipedia is useful sometimes ).

 

[Imperium]

because muslims have a lot of kids while europeans don't so in about fifty years there will be a majority of people in Europe who are muslims.

You see these claims a lot on the interent, and it started with the popular Muslim demographics video on youtube. All the claims usually lead back to that video and to put it bluntly its rubbish. The only true assertion that video made is that the muslim population is increasing in Europe but it is not increasing at the rate they are saying. Muslims being a majority in 50 years? That is a complete fabrication with no intellectual basis at all. The BBC looked at it twice and put the claims to the test. The video gives birth rates that are not only rubbish but laughably stupid. I particularly liked 25% of Belgium is already Muslim. Its funny because the truth it is only 6% is Muslim. This goes on throughout the video, just look at the articles.

Another point i want to make is that this video is a great example of propaganda and facts distortion. There is a saying "you can prove anything with facts" which is meant to be tongue in cheek but this video is a perfect example of when it ends up being true. The acceptance of the distortion becomes regurgitated until its becomes believed by everyone.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Not arguing against this in the slightest, just the way he proves it is by at least 1/3 false: church did not believe in the disk theory anymore, at least by the time of enlightenment if not before (link yh, wikipedia is useful sometimes ).

However, the church did oppose any theories of the earth beeing not flat and later - for a longer time -that it isn't the center of our solar system or even universe as well.
Apart from that beeing only a detail; We could argue that at that point the church only admitted their mistake, because their power was weakened already

 

[DLord.Van.Buuren]

You see these claims a lot on the interent, and it started with the popular Muslim demographics video on youtube. All the claims usually lead back to that video and to put it bluntly its rubbish. The only true assertion that video made is that the muslim population is increasing in Europe but it is not increasing at the rate they are saying. Muslims being a majority in 50 years? That is a complete fabrication with no intellectual basis at all. The BBC looked at it twice and put the claims to the test. The video gives birth rates that are not only rubbish but laughably stupid. I particularly liked 25% of Belgium is already Muslim. Its funny because the truth it is only 6% is Muslim. This goes on throughout the video, just look at the articles.

Another point i want to make is that this video is a great example of propaganda and facts distortion. There is a saying "you can prove anything with facts" which is meant to be tongue in cheek but this video is a perfect example of when it ends up being true. The acceptance of the distortion becomes regurgitated until its becomes believed by everyone.

Yeah thats the video that brought it, but its not the video that triguered my attention but the vulgarity of the comments on the video, I mean they are basically AFRAID that it might happen which kinda proves the point.

Some of them who claim to be civilized called the muslims barbarians and they should be cleaned and only the white race should exist in europe and the west.

Now this is a propaganda by the christians to increase awareness of how bad islam is and to frighten people against islam, and in my post above I said they were christians.

 

[Akainu]

Personally I think Islam is way way underappreciated.
Look at what they did for us during the "dark middle ages", when the arabic/muslim regions were far more open towards other monotheistic religions than christians probably ever were. They basically preserved the old teachings of romans and greeks and even added stuff like medicine to it.
On the same note though, it's a pity that this open society got hijacked but some close minded people that want to shut off from the world and more or less get everyone stuck in the fifties (not the middle ages, if they were it would be extremly cool).
Anyway, I think that this is one of the points generating the "fear" you are talking about. Closed societies always give off a vibe of danger. Also the religiousness seems alienating to the more or less secular societies and vice versa. Propaganda doesn't help to bridge such gaps though, from neither side

 

[Roflkopt3r]

@ Akainu: Yeah you're right, the arabian cultures were quite ahead of the medieval, religious European society at the time of crusades. Sadly, that stopped at some point. I don't know much about their history of that time, but they definitly missed the age of enlightenment. That might've been the point where the intellectual levels of orient and occident switched place.

I don't think that Europe is in any danger of muslim integration. In case of Germany - we have a huge community of turkish immigrants - most immigrants actually behave well. They learn German, they look for a job and they are more embarassed when they have to rely money from the state than most unemployed Germans do.

As for the debate on headscarfs, there was a great sentence by Hagen Rether:
"And often it's the young turkish muslim girls with a headscarf who speak much better German and are much more enlightened and educated than their totally overassimilated arse-antlered, belly-button-pierced compatriot girls without it.
The headscarf is not only a symbol of repression or isolation, but can just as well be a sign of identity and pride."

 

[Imperium]

@ Akainu: Yeah you're right, the arabian cultures were quite ahead of the medieval, religious European society at the time of crusades. Sadly, that stopped at some point. I don't know much about their history of that time, but they definitly missed the age of enlightenment. That might've been the point where the intellectual levels of orient and occident switched place.

The "Islamic golden age" lasted about 600-700 years depending on when you believe it ended. Its started around 7th Ad till about 13-15th AD. The age of enlightenment was around 17-18th century. By the end of the 15 century the scientific and cultural output had declined. So the intellectual impact was more on say Aquinas rather then Hobbes.

 

[DLord.Van.Buuren]

evolution is a process that takes thousands of years and thus moves for us in such a slow motion we think it might have stopped, it is however still present. who knows where using technology will lead us to? on thing is for sure though, we are far from the top as humans

Does evolution only apply to humans or all creations ?

because we know that if evolution is true it should apply to both, then when we look back on how the earth was created it didn't exist at one point because the earth and thanks to science has an age.



Now we know for a fact that you can't create something from nothing, then from what did the earth evolve.?

We conclude that the THEORIE of evolution is flawed.

 

[kkck]

Evolution applies to all living things... That said, it is not flawed, it is incomplete (and by a longshot for completely different reasons from what you said), the mechanisms by which it works are still being discovered and theories are still under heated debate. There are plenty of theories and explanations of how earth came to be, it is quite easy to find over the internet.