Are you religious?

A pedantic correction:

As my favourite person Richard Dawkins says, religiosity is based on evolution, obviously, although it isn't a trait that is particular to religion. Instead it is more likely that religion has piggybacked on the 'listen to what your parents tell you' trait.

This trait would have originally been (and still is) helpful because it prevented children from coming to harm - if a child listened when their parents told them to not stand in the fire, then they wouldn't die.
Unfortunately the trait doesn't prevent you from taking advice that is untrue - it was only a matter of time before someone discovered that this can be exploited to get people to do what you want them to.

Religions that feature divine punishment (e.g. Christianity, Islam and so on) is an outcome of this trait combined with an individual's desire for dominance.

 

I doubt Hitler was motivated by Christianity to commit his genocides, it was racism and the idea of a pure race that motivated him. He twisted both Christianity and Norse mythology, as well as science, in order to get people to follow his plans, drawing heavily from Hindu and Iranian mythology as well.

 

Adolf Hitler - Iron Chariots Wiki

Of course whether Hitler was or wasn't religious isn't the yardstick for whether it is ultimately good or bad.

 

I'm an athiest but I'm not totally anti-thiest. "Freedom of thought" means exactly what it means and sometimes I think some atheists are just as bad as some Christians when it comes to forcing their beliefs on other people. I'm pretty much nice to anybody whos nice to me whether they agree or disagree with my lifestyle whether it be for stupid or legitimate reasons. BUT I do have a problem with somebody actually trying to prevent me from living my life the way I want to just because the ancient scriptures the subscribe to says it isn't ok.

 

ITT: Irish wants to talk a lot and argue everthing.
Everyone else says junk that gets argued for whatever reason.
EC mods say to behave, some posters do not and act hypocritical of their false apologies.
I post this out of boredom in bed and pure shock value at how long this futile 'discussion' has gone on for.

I'm now going to think of kittens and sleep. Foolish thread.

Meow.

 

Bigots will use any paradigm to justify their bigotry. Invariably they use both religious and secular justifications. Unless they don't have a religious paradigm--then they only use a secular justification. Religious justifications of bigotry and inhumanity are always accompanied by secular justifications. For example, the religious arguments against homosexuality are almost always accompanied by arguments about biology and reproduction. The fact that people use biology to justify their bigotry does not mean that the study of biology is bad, or that it inherently leads people to be bigots, so why should it be different when it is religion that they are using as justification?

I don't want to spend too much time on the Nazis, and certainly not the beliefs of Hitler. In any event, there was plenty of secular, non-religious justification of Nazism. Rather than being a religion, it makes more sense to me to say that Nazis made use of all available paradigms to justify their ideology. They drew on religion (and not only one, but several), and the occult, and science and philosophy.

Atheism, though not always called by that name, is as old as religion. It is not a new evolutionary development. There have always been those that did not believe, as evidenced by the fact that almost all religions make explicit reference to "unbelievers." At those times when non-belief is discriminated against, of course more people profess belief.

Religions have emerged throughout human history. Most of our current religions definitely do not date to prehistory. Certainly Christianity does not. (Are you aware that the term "prehistory" refers to the time before things were recorded in writing?) New religions are emerging all the time. Scientology dates only from the 1950s. Several varieties of paganism (with vastly diverse beliefs) have come into being recently. Clearly, the impulse toward religion is something that persists in humanity, not something merely historical, and certainly not something that can be relegated only to prehistory.

Personally, I think that the strongest impulse toward religion is to find or create meaning in human life, not merely seeking comfort or explaining the natural world. The need people have to seek meaning in things has not diminished.

No, but you are claiming that religion is necessarily a negative force. That it is harmful. In your first post, you referred to it as "evil." For religious people, the suggestion that there entire paradigm (the entire way they look at the world) is inherently evil is obviously going to be offensive.

Here you are referring to specific religions and specific cultures. Conclusions about Christianity in the first half of the 20th century, or even today, cannot be generalized to all religions everywhere throughout history. And that's if I concede your premise that bigots base their bigotry on their religion, rather than basing their religion on their bigotry, which I don't really concede.

I will agree that theocracy is undesirable. Religion should not be part of the government, nor mandated by it. (Nor forbidden by it, either!)

You still have not supported this claim with any evidence. You have perhaps supported the idea that there is a contradiction between some specific religions and having an LGBT identity, but you have not supported your claim that this is true of all religion. For example, I know several lesbians who are pagan or Wiccan, and this does not cause them any trouble at all. Unitarian Universalists also don't appear to have any difficulty. I understand the practice of voodoo is not traditionally discriminatory at all, although some hybrids with Christianity are. There are affirming variants of Christianity, but even if there were not there are many other affirming religions. The fact that our culture's dominant religion is often hostile to LGBT people is not enough to make it contradictory for an LGBT person to belong to any religion.

On what basis do you think that being religious is contradictory for LGBT people?

^^I'm not sure what that is referring to. I haven't commented at all as to whether any religion may or may not actually be "true," whatever that is taken to mean in the context of religion, and I think that is a separate question to whether they have a positive or negative effect on society overall.

All ideological paradigms are man-made, not only the religious ones, and the non-religious ones are equally dangerous. It is ideological zeal that is dangerous, regardless of whether the ideology is religious in nature.

Oh, I think people should be able to discuss religion. In particular, I think it's fine to discuss with people your different personal beliefs. But any time you make a negative value statement about other people's ideological paradigms, you are going to offend them. For example, saying that religion is inherently bad or detrimental, is naturally going to be offensive to religious people, just as I'm sure it's offensive to you when people say negative things about atheism. Disagreeing with something, and saying that the belief in it is inherently harmful or "evil," is not exactly the same thing.

And people get just as bent out of shape about politics, anyway. I don't know why you are using that example.

I'm not religious, by the way. I just don't agree that religion is inherently bad. Human beings necessarily form ideological paradigms--you won't get away from that by abolishing religion, it happens even without people believing in "things unseen," so to speak. And consciously or unconsciously, people warp whatever the ideology is to support their agenda. They do it with "scientific" paradigms just as readily as "religious" ones.

 

It doesn't mean I'm angry just because I'm arguing with you... I do think people will be offended by comments that religion is something inherently bad, but I wasn't offended personally. I just disagree.

Just respect that other people have different beliefs than yours and I'm sure you'll get along with everyone just fine. :icon_bigg

 

Then perhaps you should start by getting to know people, not standing on a soap-box and denouncing people's beliefs as "wrong" "evil" and "mentally challanged" because you don't agree with it or like it. I've only managed to not take offence at your posts because I'm an aetheist these days- but a year ago would have unleashed a torrent of abuse that I can no longer be bothered with typing.

 

I'm an atheist but it took me a long time to come to that point. I believe religion can have wonderful stories and meanings on how to be a good person. But more often then not is misinterpreted and allows certain people to have way too much power and control over a group of people. In my opinion religion kills more people than it saves.

 

I'm an arab gay atheist. I think I was always an atheist, it's like I NEVER bought into the stories told to me, they sounded like bed-time stories with heaven and hell, angels and the devil, like a very cool sci-fi movie! lol

When I was 10 years old, I started asking myself "If islam is the right religion as they say, why are we this way? why are most islamic countries so poor and full of bad, stupid people? Did god just simply choose to ignore all his worshipers?" And I love how muslims cover this up with "God is testing us!!! He wants to know who's the most faithful!!!" Oh please... Other questions were like "Why are there no miracles any more? Did all supernatural occurrences just stop a thousand years ago?" etc.

Also I had christian best friends and I heard in religion class that only muslims are allowed in heaven and I remember that making me furious, and of course how it encourages homophobia, how it puts women beneath men etc. and I wondered, is god really that judgmental? It was clear to me early on that this is a religion of hate and inequality, I just couldn't be a part of it.

Growing up, the more I thought about it the more it made sense to me, religions were created for a purpose; keeping people under control, and at the same time giving people a reason, a motivation to be good (but that's obviously not the case), but they couldn't help themselves from subjectifying them.

For anyone who cares, one point I thought about recently made me a 100% sure islam is a lie. It is said that prophet mohamed lived in a cave for 6 months to think about where all the beauty in this world came from? Who created all of this? That there must be a creator. Now WTF would he stay in a CAVE for 6 MONTHS to think about the beauty of this world? Unless he didnt stay in a cave for 6 months, I bet he met up with the other prophets and sahaba (companions) to plan out the "masterpiece" that is the quran. Then, the quran was released in a time frame of more than 20 years, page by page! Which is plenty of time to perfect it. GOD THE ALMIGHTY released the quran in twenty years, through a human being, page by page! Thats the most recent point I thought about, there is more but I think I made my point.

I'm not against religious people, I remember when my grandma died and my family told me she's in heaven, she's happier than she ever was and I realized the good side of religion, the truth is much uglier. But the way religion is used now and how people do terrible things and hide behind religion makes me think that we would be better off without it.

 

My whole family is atheistic. And so am I.
Tell ya', feels good.

 

i used to be until i was forced to go to church i dont like it

 

Religious peoples' opinions should be respected of course...but what about the right of other people to hold the opinion that religion is indeed a destructive force upon humanity? It shouldn't be a one-way street to stifle free discussion.

 

You can hold that belief, but you should expect religious people to be offended by it, and not be surprised that they are. And in a forum like this, it's best to think about how what you are saying affects other people in regard to the main purpose of the site.

Maligning religion as inherently bad is not helpful to the many members who are painfully struggling to reconcile their sexuality and their faith--it does not convince them, and only causes them more distress.