What has Religion taught you.....

[G.T.]

As someone once said, without religion, cracking skulls would be open season and just another pastime.

Except, thats nonsense.

 

[Decus]

As someone once said, without religion, cracking skulls would be open season and just another pastime.

Except, thats nonsense.

Crime rates would have been very different today and historically without religion. Believe what you want.

 

[G.T.]

As someone once said, without religion, cracking skulls would be open season and just another pastime.

Except, thats nonsense.

Crime rates would have been very different today and historically without religion. Believe what you want.

Laws are designed for optimum peaceful coexistence. Laws are not designed to appease god....religion was designed to control people to reflect an optimum coexistence, as theorized and learned by years and years of trial and error, mankind getting it wrong, etc.

 

[Foxfyre]

Well, here's the thing.

If you're going to say that you havent seen much of people valuing life and such outside of Religion......

And I have.......

My obvious remark would be for you to meet new people because where you're looking is obviously odd...to me, based on my own experience in finding that non-Religious still value life.


You're not here to talk, you're here for a "gotcha!" Get the fuggouttaaa heyaa.

You have no way to know why I am here. I am not insulting you. I am defending those who I thought unfairly insulted and doing my best to answer your question. But that which I say I have learned you say I could have learned outside of religion. And your implication was that if I 'got out more", so to speak, I would know that.

Would it not follow that if you spent more time with people of genuine faith and religious beliefs, you might better understand the truth of what I am saying here? And if you say you have done that, could it not logically follow that I have also witnessed the dynamics of perception and understand among those who reject religious faith and concepts just as much as you have?

I have been in and around Religion all of my life.

I see no different caring for human life of the Religious versus the non.

Really? Please name the Atheist organizations that are manning soup lines for the homeless, organizing and staffing thrift shops and food banks, or providing shelter, counseling, and hope to thousands of the nation's most down and out people? Show me the non-religious who are loading the trucks with food, blankets, and other survival supplies and, at great personal risk and without benefit of any media praise, are driving them into dangerous areas to provide relief to the the sick, starving, and homeless. Show me any person without faith who is ministering to devastated people banished to leper colonies. Find me a non-religious person willing to risk driving through the most violent of the drug cartels in Juarez in order to deliver critical supplies to an orphanage? Find me a non-religious person providing companionship for lonely people in nursing homes or spending an evening teaching a welfare mother how to budget and how to use simple things to provide nutritious meals or their children. Show me the person without faith who spends endless hours sewing quilts to give, without fanfare or recognition, to wounded warriors and the home or hospital bound.

Yes there are some non-religious who are doing this too, but I know of none willing to do it without being paid to do it or who do it quietly, without any praise or recognition, or without any political motives of any kind.

This is what my religious faith informs me. God changes people, inspires them, gives them the desire and will and courage to make a diference for no other reason than they want to. The world would be a much emptier, more hostile, less compassionate place without them.

 

[G.T.]

Fox..I wont even dignify that with a response. You ranted, and (just in my opinion of course) are way off base. Way off base. Atheism isnt quite an organization, fyi. Im not even an atheist either. Just..move on.

 

[peach174]

I disagree, I believe mankind taught it all.

If mankind taught it. Then our American Society would not be going down the tubes the way it has. Our culture is seeing the way mankind has become without religious teaching.
Our children do not have respect for their parents.
Woman would not be doing abortions at over a million each and every year. It's desensitizing the value of human life.
Everyone is cheating on each other and divorce is sky high.
People are robbing and stealing right and left.
Almost everyone is lying to each other, especially our Government.
Everyone is jealous of what everyone else has and they want it and they want it now. Credit cards are maxed out.
Our society was never like this, just a few short 45 or 50 years ago.
We were totally opposite from what I just listed.

im in complete disagreement with you. I dont see our society as devolving..but evolving. Cheating and stealing has been around forever. Forever. Youre just jaded, and thats alright...but sadly for the theory is that much of america respects their parents..works hard, and are honest. The only way you can think differently is to over indulge in media hype, or widely seclude yourself.also...if your theory about our destruction is true, it has nothing provable to do with religion.

During the great depression people did not steal. They were grateful for what people did for them and especially the soup kitchens.
People were able to leave their doors unlocked at night because there was very few who broke into homes like they do now.
Evidence has been proved.
When we took God and prayer and the ten commandments out of our schools our society started going down.
Look what everyone was doing in the late 60's and early 70's
Free love, drugs and drinking. Single parenthood. Divorce.
It has gotten worse each and every decade.
Our children are constantly being exposed to sex, violent video games and movies.

 

[Decus]

Except, thats nonsense.

Crime rates would have been very different today and historically without religion. Believe what you want.

Laws are designed for optimum peaceful coexistence. Laws are not designed to appease god....religion was designed to control people to reflect an optimum coexistence, as theorized and learned by years and years of trial and error, mankind getting it wrong, etc.

Belief in God and an afterlife are more persuasive than you are willing to admit. Live in different parts of the world and this becomes evident. Ever live abroad?

 

[Uncensored2008]

Fox..I wont even dignify that with a response. You ranted, and (just in my opinion of course) are way off base. Way off base. Atheism isnt quite an organization, fyi. Im not even an atheist either. Just..move on.

That's an awfully wordy way of acknowledging defeat.

 

[G.T.]

I disagree with you peach..organized crime was at an all time high during the great depression. Stealing is not more prevalent per capita...its just that theres more people. Youre off on mostly all that youve said. Ancient indiams were smoking pot bro. Its not a 60s and 70s thing. Its a human thing. Opium..alcohol..hash...all as old as society itself.

 

[del]

I answered your question and I got it.
You can not learn good and evil without religious teaching.
Society does not teach this.
Mankind left by itself always resorts back to selfishness, jealousy, envy, murder and so on.

I disagree, I believe mankind taught it all.

If mankind taught it. Then our American Society would not be going down the tubes the way it has. Our culture is seeing the way mankind has become without religious teaching.
Our children do not have respect for their parents.
Woman would not be doing abortions at over a million each and every year. It's desensitizing the value of human life.
Everyone is cheating on each other and divorce is sky high.
People are robbing and stealing right and left.
Almost everyone is lying to each other, especially our Government.
Everyone is jealous of what everyone else has and they want it and they want it now. Credit cards are maxed out.
Our society was never like this, just a few short 45 or 50 years ago.
We were totally opposite from what I just listed.

on what planet?

 

[PratchettFan]

Okay, I'll be more specific.

Any books claiming to be inspired by or the word of - God - or claiming intimate knowledge of God and proceeding with a list of his wishes or actions.

Ahh.... it is always good to define terms because that is not how I would define it. So, based upon your definition, I have learned some history and sociology from religion.

That you could not have learned outside of it, or as a happenstance that you didn't learn outside of it?

I suppose the argument could be made that I might have learned it from books written by people who had read "religion", but I don't see how that changes it. How many writings from the early periods of our history do we have, outside of religious texts?

Religion is an intrinsic part of human culture. Any study of humanity without including religion would be self-defeating.

 

[G.T.]

Crime rates would have been very different today and historically without religion. Believe what you want.

Laws are designed for optimum peaceful coexistence. Laws are not designed to appease god....religion was designed to control people to reflect an optimum coexistence, as theorized and learned by years and years of trial and error, mankind getting it wrong, etc.

Belief in God and an afterlife are more persuasive than you are willing to admit. Live in different parts of the world and this becomes evident. Ever live abroad?

Thats what I mean when I say that they were created as a means of control. Of course, fear of prison has been a decent prohibitor..not perfect but decent........and then theres the inherent goodness in most of us. That helps too..

 

[Foxfyre]

Fox..I wont even dignify that with a response. You ranted, and (just in my opinion of course) are way off base. Way off base. Atheism isnt quite an organization, fyi. Im not even an atheist either. Just..move on.

That's an awfully wordy way of acknowledging defeat.

Yup. When they tell me they won't dignify it with a response, you know they can't.

And when they tell me to move on when I've offered something that could be rebutted if I'm wrong, that absolutely is an admission of defeat whether intended that way or not.

Nevertheless I will move on as I don't fight with anybody about religion. I enjoy reasoned and civil debate, even re religious belief and concepts as much as the next person, but not when only one point of view is deemed acceptable and the other who disagrees becomes disagreeable.

 

[G.T.]

Ahh.... it is always good to define terms because that is not how I would define it. So, based upon your definition, I have learned some history and sociology from religion.

That you could not have learned outside of it, or as a happenstance that you didn't learn outside of it?

I suppose the argument could be made that I might have learned it from books written by people who had read "religion", but I don't see how that changes it. How many writings from the early periods of our history do we have, outside of religious texts?

Religion is an intrinsic part of human culture. Any study of humanity without including religion would be self-defeating.

the point is not that religion has not contributed anything to society...its that man came up with religion as a control mechanism to spread a way of living that they had learned was optimum all on their own...god aside.

 

[Decus]

Laws are designed for optimum peaceful coexistence. Laws are not designed to appease god....religion was designed to control people to reflect an optimum coexistence, as theorized and learned by years and years of trial and error, mankind getting it wrong, etc.

Belief in God and an afterlife are more persuasive than you are willing to admit. Live in different parts of the world and this becomes evident. Ever live abroad?

Thats what I mean when I say that they were created as a means of control. Of course, fear of prison has been a decent prohibitor..not perfect but decent........and then theres the inherent goodness in most of us. That helps too..

Religion is often predicated on the Godliness within each of us. Why is that a bad thing?

 

[G.T.]

Well fox..you should try not to be so offensive. You ignore the works of the red cross and the tons of other world wide charitable acts and givings in your rants when they are easy to find.you claim they dont exist......ans so.then you dont deserve a response. The non religious people...including me...dont deserve to have someone spreading lies and putting a black eye on their work.theres no "defeat".....thats childish..im not in a competition.

 

[Foxfyre]

Fox..I wont even dignify that with a response. You ranted, and (just in my opinion of course) are way off base. Way off base. Atheism isnt quite an organization, fyi. Im not even an atheist either. Just..move on.

So you make a statement to me that there is no difference between the religious and the non religious, and I rebut it with a reasoned (and accurate) statement of why I believe you to be wrong about that, and I am ranting?

Okay, so your concept is that only you are right, only you are able to make conclusions about what others think and believe, and anybody who isn't speaking in generalities should just 'move on'. I get it and will comply and wish you well. I hope you find whatever it is here that you're shooting for.

But I just have to say that I didn't not accuse you of being an Atheist or anything, nor did I state Atheism but rather referred to Atheist organizations.

And just some of those:

List of secularist organizations
AAmerican Atheists
The Atheist Agenda
Atheist Alliance International
Atheist and Agnostic Group
Atheist Centre
The Atheist Experience
Atheist Foundation of Australia
Atheist Ireland
Atheist Union of Greece
BBrazilian Association of Atheists and Agnostics
CCentral Council of Ex-Muslims
Charles E. Stevens American Atheist Library and Archives
FFederation of Indian Rationalist Associations
Freedom From Religion Foundation
Freethinking Atheist and Agnostic Kinship
HHumanist Association of Ireland
Humanist Canada
IIndonesian Atheists
International League of non-religious and atheists
Internet Infidels
LLeeds Atheist Society
MMilitary Association of Atheists & Freethinkers
NNational Secular Society
Norwegian Heathen Society
PPhilippine Atheists and Agnostics Society
RRational Response Squad
SLeague of Militant Atheists
TTatar Union of the Godless
UUnion of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics
United Coalition of Reason

Do have a nice day.

 

[G.T.]

Belief in God and an afterlife are more persuasive than you are willing to admit. Live in different parts of the world and this becomes evident. Ever live abroad?

Thats what I mean when I say that they were created as a means of control. Of course, fear of prison has been a decent prohibitor..not perfect but decent........and then theres the inherent goodness in most of us. That helps too..

Religion is often predicated on the Godliness within each of us. Why is that a bad thing?

Any lie is bad, in the longrun. Especially the type that are used to control.

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

G.T.,

What was the point of this thread? You provide what seems like a friendy and open-ended invitation for honest responses, but what results is essentially your attacks on religion, faith, etc.

It's like setting a bait trap and then sitting back with a sniper rifle and taking pot shots at those who come to examine the bait. If that is your intention, mission accomplished I guess, just seems a bit sneaky to me.

 

[peach174]

I disagree with you peach..organized crime was at an all time high during the great depression. Stealing is not more prevalent per capita...its just that theres more people. Youre off on mostly all that youve said. Ancient indiams were smoking pot bro. Its not a 60s and 70s thing. Its a human thing. Opium..alcohol..hash...all as old as society itself.

It was not widespread though out the states
Organized crime was mainly in the east like N.J., N.Y. Chicago and L.A. and San Diego in the west.
Yes drugs, robbers and drinking were around since the beginning of time.
In America as well, but it was not as prevalent as it is now.
Look at how people are talking on twitter, facebook (bullying). it's become vicious and totally disrespectful.