Ok touchy subject.

After a heated argument with a work colleague I said I would canvas the opinions of the net. I am an athiest, I don't believe in anything. He is in the church of England, and almost became a priest.

My argument and comment that flared it up was that religion is a bigger killer than aids, cancer or any of the terminal diseases put together.

Northern ireland would not be in so much trouble, Afganistan , Palestine, etc etc etc..

I understand that if people did not have religion they would fight about something else, but why have it in the first place?

PP

Have to agree with the last sentance - religon doesn't *cause* wars, if people followed what religious text's say, there would be alot less - it's usually an excuse for a good fight :(

Religion is a touchy subject, but people beleive it's around because it's considered the truth - I was brought up in a Christian home and couldn't wait to get away from it when I left (adverse reaction), however, after many years of studing the facts, testimonies, beleifs behind Christianity I proudly call myself a Christian...therefore, IMHO, it's around because is a fact :)

..that should spark off a few ;):D

Totally agree. Unfortunately it is at the root of most of the problems with this planet.

Scientific fact outweighs the chinese whispers that have been handed down in a book.

And that should get people going too ;)

[Edited by ScoobyJawa - 8/23/2002 10:44:54 AM]

I have a 150ft barge pole pushing this thread away from me as i type......
Beef

Oh, and what really annoys me is when people come round to my house and ram it down my throat [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]
I don't go door to door telling everyone they should buy a scooby :rolleyes:
If I wanted to be involved I'd go to a church.

Religion being the crutch of humanity?

Q: Do you beleive Julius Ceaser (sp?!) existed?

There's approx. 900 times more evidence for the existance of Jesus and his actions than there is for Julius...it's just a question of reading into the subject... :)

anyway, that's completely not the point of the thread, so I'll go away now ;):D

<monty python stylee>
What has religion ever done for us?
</dead parrot>

Religion is just a way for people with no self-confidence to justify their existance. Humankind is just a bunch of random biochemical processes which have evolved to a higher level of complexity than you'd expect. However, many people find that being self-aware requires some deeper justification, and can't deal with the fact that stuff can just 'be' without needing a reason. So they make up some mumbo-jumbo about deities and so on, and that satisfies them.

Organised religion is simply a global means of controlling populations, and obtaining wealth and power. It leads to warmongering, pain and suffering - and not much else....

Jawa - I agree, feckin' nightmare....did you know it acutally say's in the bible you shouldn't do that?! :confused: ...anyway, I really will go away now ;):D

Jen

It was the point m8. For and against it, why do we have it?

CR

Not many people question that there was some carpenter chap called Jesus who lived about 2,000 years ago.

What most atheists or agnostics have difficulty believing is that somehow he was related to a make-believe deity, and that he performed miracles etc - for which there is no proof at all.

i really couldnt give a stuff about it, if you want believe it fine but please please please dont try to make me do the same its not fair !! The worst ones are the few mad people who stand in the middle of york screaming about god, they have been banned a few times but still come back :(

From The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/onion3734/god_clarifies_dont_kill.html

GOD ANGRILY CLARIFIES 'DON'T KILL' RULE

NEW YORK—Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.

"Look, I don't know, maybe I haven't made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again," said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don't. And to be honest, I'm really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand."

Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of violence."

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again."

I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"

"But somehow, it all gets twisted around and, next thing you know, somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued. "It's not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals 'Don't murder people.'"

Worse yet, many of the worst violators claim that their actions are justified by passages in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.

"To be honest, there's some contradictory stuff in there, okay?" God said. "So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it—My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bull****. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it's God's will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall."

Ahh, but Mark - there is! :)

The gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke etc..) are essentially witness statements extracted from a HUGE pile of similar ones. In fact, Matthew in his writes about seeing a young man run away from the death of Jesus - this was later proved to be Mark. That's just an example I can remember, there are lots more but I won't pretend to be an expert...100's of witness statements all written at the same time telling of the same event? People are convicted on less these days :)

Jen, do you believe everything you read? ;)

so whos religion is right ??????

Most definatly not mate! :D ...that's why I've spent a good 6 years studying the subject ;):D

Some people find comfort in believing that they are not responsible for their actions - that a "higher power" has pre-ordained what you are going to do and you are just following along in the Games of the Gods. Sometimes it is more a security blanket. I know people who are not sure that there is a God, but won't say there isn't "just in case". Fear is contagious, at any level.

I find it amazing just how many people in America come out of gaol having "found Jesus". :rolleyes:

I personally am not Christian or C of E, but if people find it a help / comfort / necessity to believe in it, who am I to gainsay them? Just as long as they don't knock on my door at 8am on a Sunday morning.... [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

The scary thing is that there is a chance that if you worship and devote you life to any type off god in the belief that you are going somewhere better and the there is also the chance that in the very moment that you are between life and death you could find that there is nothing after death.
How would you feel then that you could have spent all of the time you were worshiping etc doing so many other things.

We are only here for a short time so believe that we should live to the fullest. Just an opinion. Don't wanna upset the god botherers.

No

Good Elf - the point of being a Christian is taking responsability for your actions....just living a certain way. It most certainly does not lift responsibility from you - it puts more on you to make you think about how you react/think/act genrally.

8am Sunday morning?! Who the hell's up at that time?! :confused::)

Jason - true. Would be a bummer :) I do spend some time doing other things as well though ;):D

and why do most religious people seem to find atheists very similar to the devil ??? they ask if your religious you say no im an atheist the look on their face is usually very funny as they start to back away from you either that or start having ago at you about it

Bible Contradictions

More Contradictions

There's loads of them out there - I jsut did a search in Google on Bible+contraditions.

IIRC the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John stories were written up to 500 years after Jesus existed... Room for a smidge of error there...




(DISCLAIMER : This is not to say that Christianity is the only religion that is contradictory - this is just a bit of what I have found. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion / religion.)

As Yasser Arafat (of all people) once said;

"My imaginary God is better than your imaginary God".

Sums it up to me - a man-invented state of mind, which people draw comfort from in the absence of other explanations to lean on.

I believe humans can live to a high moral ethic without a formal religion to guide them - that's what makes us different from the rest of the animal kingdom after all, but if religion allows some people to do this better in their own minds then fine.

I just don't understand why so much war is started over religion, it's not like anyone's "right" or anything. Surely religion should be a deeply personal thing, which guides people into living peacefully. I reckon it's just used as an excuse for different ethnic groups to have a punch-up, thus displaying man's inherrent instict to fight perceived threats, a tendency which most of us keep under control most of the time...

Terry

I think this whole 'God' thing is a conspiracy. What do you think, TelBoy? ;) :D

the bible also quotes that the motor car existed and that Moses had an old Vitesse.

It clearly states that...

"Mose's came down the hill in his triumph"

Agree totally with MarkO's comments.

Religion was created by the mind as we became the first animals aware that we will each die one day.

LOL Mark. :D Definitely!!