Can you handle the Truth?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Yes, nothing will ever come of an rhetoric like that (unless you want to kill everyone who isn't like you) so I don't particularly care.

Wait, what? That doesn't even make sense, making your point invalid. I don't want to kill everyone who isn't like me -- not by a long shot. I'm merely telling of how 'faith' can be dangerous. There's obviously reasons as to why faith is beneficial for many people, but this is not what the post was about.

EDIT: BTW, you said something eerily similar to what I said in a previous post. So please, lose the condescending tone.

To promote an idea you need to look at previous successes, Christianity gets away with a lot today but didn't get that far by starting out with insane ranting about how everyone who is even slightly different is evil or insane.

Obviously.

Insane ranting? What about insane acts of murder?

Faith has been the culprit of many acts of genocide. Don't believe me? What have you been living under for the past... oh, 2000 years?

Originally posted by Eon Blue
Wait, what? I don't want to kill everyone who isn't like me -- not by a long shot. I'm merely telling of how 'faith' can be dangerous. There's obviously reasons as to why faith is beneficial for many people, but this is not what the post was about.

The entire post revolves around religion being a "threat", has constant undertones of hatred and gives no ground to differentiate between what you see as the enemy and religious people that are harmless or even supportive of you.

You use the rhetoric of someone trying to build a following but what's the point of that? You're not going to get people to join a countercultural movement by telling them that they're insane.

Originally posted by Eon Blue
Obviously. Now they are.

Insane ranting? What about insane acts of murder?

Faith has been the culprit of many acts of genocide. Don't believe me? What have you been living under for the past... oh, 2000 years?

Crying over spilt milk. If you want to get anywhere you can't start off being an idiot about it. Being angry just makes you seem (and clearly be) irrational about the whole situation, you're not going to bring people back by whining and you're not going to get anyone on your side that way either.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
[B]The entire post revolves around religion being a "threat", has constant undertones of hatred and gives no ground to differentiate between what you see as the enemy and religious people that are harmless or even supportive of you.

The fact remains that religion is and has been a threat.

You use the rhetoric of someone trying to build a following but what's the point of that? You're not going to get people to join a countercultural movement by telling them that they're insane.

Again, you're seeing what you want to see. I'm not trying to gain a following in any way, shape, or form.

Crying over spilt milk. If you want to get anywhere you can't start off being an idiot about it.

Please, I'll ask again: Lose the condescending tone. It makes you look like an even bigger douche rocket and you're making this about me. I am not angry about anything, SC.

What makes you think atrocious acts of genocide will never be commited again? It has happened, correct, but the fact remains that it happened over something on the basis of an invisible force.

Originally posted by Eon Blue
Religion is and has been a threat.

And by treating any variation from your ideal as that threat you get rid of any meaningful support from the other side. At best you've help to radicalized a few people against you. Good work.

Originally posted by Eon Blue
Again, you're seeing what you want to see. I'm not trying to gain a following in any way, shape, or form.

Well your clearly not trying to get people to support you. Actually what is your objective? Is it just venting? Congratualtions, you're a failure.

Originally posted by Eon Blue
Please, I'll ask again: Lose the condescending tone. It makes you look like an even bigger douche rocket.

😆 You want to complain about my "tone"?

Hey everybody, come and look at the moron who can't see his own blantany hypocricy! I mean it's not as though someone had been explaining that he made had been making himself out to be a jackass or anything.

Originally posted by Eon Blue
What makes you think atrocious acts of genocide will never be commited again? It has happened, correct, but the fact remains that it happened over something on the basis of an invisible force.

I never said bad things will never happen again. You're simply better off trying to move people toward being moderates than telling them that they're stupid or bad. In argument there is nothing so glorified and irrelevant as the truth.

And for the record: I agree with you and pretty much all points. You simply chose the worst way of trying to adress the problem.

Be careful of this one's trickery Eon Blue, he's a Yemani Islamo-fascist. Watch, he'll start telling you how Muhammad is God's one and only true prophet and then ask you for money.

Thanks for the warning, Rob. Haha

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
[B]And by treating any variation from your ideal as that threat you get rid of any meaningful support from the other side. At best you've help to radicalized a few people against you. Good work.

And religion hasn't? I said before, faith can be a wonderous and beautiful thing (obviously), but when an opinion leads one to murder another, that's when it offends me. At no point have I claimed that doing away with religion would wipe clean the sins of humanity. There will always be murders, there will always be rapes, and there will always be wars. What it would serve to do is to destroy the foundation of most of those murders, most of those rapes, and most of those wars. No other factor plays as large a role in the development of a culture than that of its religion, therefore religion is the main obstacle that needs to be overcome when dealing with other, more problematic countries. Every Islamic country innately pushes against the West because of Islam; they disapprove of our "Godlessness," and we disapprove that they turn a blind eye to Honor Killings and patriarchal tyranny.

Well your clearly not trying to get people to support you. Actually what is your objective? Is it just venting? Congratualtions, you're a failure.

For a person who's been telling me that anger accomplishes nothing -- you've suceeded in being far more angry than I have (or at least you definitely appear it). Part of your argument stems from believing me to be angry about religion -- but in truth, I'm not angry at all. Ignorance angers me; when a person's faith leads to destruction, it angers me. You've been missing my point the entire time.

Oh, and I'm a failure? How cute. How does defending one's own beliefs and showing the negative spectrum of faith constituite as one being a failure? I fail to see how it translates. According to your (poor) logic, you too are a failure because you're now venting and defending your own views against mine since you see an inherent hostile attitude in them.

I won't go so far as to say "you're a failure", since ad hominems really solve nothing.

😆 You want to complain about my "tone"?

Hey everybody, come and look at the moron who can't see his own blantany hypocricy! I mean it's not as though someone had been explaining that he made had been making himself out to be a jackass or anything.

On what basis to you say that on? The basis that you simply disagree with me? It's quite easy to make an ad hominem argument without actually addressing any of my points in depth.

I never said bad things will never happen again. You're simply better off trying to move people toward being moderates than telling them that they're stupid or bad. In argument there is nothing so glorified and irrelevant as the truth.

At least we agree about that.

Anything can foster extremism. Yet it is religion that spawns it with such regularity due to the inherent reason why religion exists in the first place: the fear of not knowing what happens after death. Within the Bible and the Koran, eternal life is offered to all believers and there are specific passages that outright order the faithful to cast the unbelievers into Hell. Oh, and you also have to be a "good person." The very heart of Faith hinges on this dichotomy! No other force in the universe can so thoroughly corrupt a mind because those under the spell believe that life doesn't end, it only gets better; in the case of Islam, dying while killing others gets you automatically into eternal bliss! If you are not afraid of death and think that killing another person only betters you, how on Earth can this NOT cause extremism to gestate?

I could not care less about what a person believes, but it is when that belief directly affects the world we live in that we, as a society, need to stand up and and set them straight... if only the majority of society wasn't falling for the exact same thing.

Quote these two because they more or less deal with the same perception of mine.

I do not take issue with faith as a generality, I take issue with faith as a dogma and its potential for destruction. The reason I mainly attack the dogmatic institutions of Christianity and Islam is because these are the two biggest murderers in the entire world, even though Judaism (Palestine) and Hinduism (Kashmere) play their part, though on a smaller scale (despite no inward cry towards the destruction of non-believers, the ultimate factor in the two previously mentioned conflicts is religion: if Israel was a muslim state, there would giant ho hum about Palestine's displacement, nor would Israel have been inclined to push the Palestinians from their home if they were Jewish). Buddhism, on the other hands, boils down to complete acceptance of everyone. Though I may disagree with the methodologies that lead it to this conclusion, the conclusion is absolutely something that I dig.

Ultimately, my issue is the willful taking of life and the role the religion takes with it, not the propagation of ignorance. If Christianity and Islam truly were about love and there should not be any passages about killing a non-believer, why don't the Ayatollah's and the Vatican simply remove the passages from the sacred texts? They can't and won't because they feel that these books are the literal Word of God, and they wish not to alter it. Bhuddism and other more centric religions have nothing of this sort, so when they claim to be a religion of peace, they truly are a religion of peace (yes, there have been Bhuddist riots and such, but the religion itself does not condone violence in any way).
Christianity (and mostly all religion, really) are but one example of the herd mentality -- take them away and another idea or philosophy will swiftly take their place.

As of right now, I lack the time and further inclination to get any more into this subject than I already have with you.

Originally posted by Eon Blue
The fact remains that religion is and has been a threat.

Religion is only a threat in the hands of dumb people. The same goes for guns, ether, and sugary drinks.

I dont claim any of those things are out to destroy hummanity.

Originally posted by Ordo
[B]Religion is only a threat in the hands of dumb people. The same goes for guns, ether, and sugary drinks.

Of course -- you're right. I'd hazard there's more ignorant people in this world than there are intelligent ones. Look at how many religions are needed and how many people blindly follow them! Anything with a potential for danger can pose a threat -- religion is beyond dangerous in the hands of stupid people; it functions as a sword to justify ignorance and destroy those with questioning minds all in the name of a higher power. Faith in religion makes certain ideas right and certain ideas wrong -- what could be more dangerous when a religious leader claims that it's wrong to be a certain color, or a certain sexual orientation? The scary thing is that this particular belief set isn't alien in nature; it's happened many times before over the course of the Earth's existance.

I dont claim any of those things are out to destroy hummanity

Religion in itself isn't 'out to destroy humanity' (just as the above mentioned aren't); it's the dogmatic and fundamentalist approach of certain religions that claim that they're right, while you're a good for nothing heathen that needs spiritual cleansing for your sinful ways. This is the kind of thinking that pushes people over the edge and makes them murder in the name of god. Nothing creates more extremism in the masses than religion. I'm pretty much repeating myself with this post.

Originally posted by Ordo
Religion is only a threat in the hands of dumb people.

ya, we aren't running out of those, however...

Originally posted by Eon Blue
Faith in religion makes certain ideas right and certain ideas wrong

The point is, other institutions have reached that point as well: governments (from tribes to empires), philosphies, even you here and now saying that it is wrong to "murder in the name of god." One could also construe your posts to mean that it is wrong to be religious, or at least blindly follow religion.

Clearly, religion is just one of many ways that people use to justify concepts of right and wrong. That doesn't make it inherently negative. The holocaust was not executed as a result of religious ideology, nor the Rawandan genocide, nor September 11th (some people might debate that).

Without checking my facts, I'd guess more people die every day form complications of being fat than of religious intolerance...and being overwieght is much more easily preventable than being dumb.

Perhaps a different crusade is in order? We could save more lives.

Originally posted by inimalist
ya, we aren't running out of those, however...

Unfortunately, its part of the human condition.

Perhaps some sort of mechanism to make it into a source of renewable energy?

Originally posted by Ordo
[B]Clearly, religion is just one of many ways that people use to justify concepts of right and wrong. That doesn't make it inherently negative. The holocaust was not executed as a result of religious ideology, nor the Rawandan genocide, nor September 11th (some people might debate that).

No, but they were the result of having faith in a ridiculous belief set that was clearly devoid of any rationality whatsoever; the Nazis thought they were the supreme race over any others. And as I said, religion in itself isn't inherently wrong. It provides comfort and hope, though I question the inherent 'God' figure in it. For all the harm that religions have caused they can not hold a candle to rational ideologies. For all its faults ,though, religion still tends to have a moral core to help keep things in check. There is inherent morality in religion and thus making the religious moral (hopefully, but anything morally can be turned around if one has faith in what they are believing). The result is something like the Holodomor. After all, you can't make an omlette without breaking eggs. I can see the good that religion serves in this aspect, but I'm dubious about the fact that certain individuals need religion in order to have morals.

I consider myself an agnostic because there's no way anyone would ever know what exactly the truth is -- anyone who says otherwise is lying or deluded and without reason.

Without checking my facts, I'd guess more people die every day form complications of being fat than of religious intolerance...and being overwieght is much more easily preventable than being dumb.
Perhaps a different crusade is in order? We could save more lives.

Agreed. My point is that religion can provide a buffer for horrid atrocities. Some religious people claim that everything is God's will, even if their beloved son died from AIDS, the religious claim that it was their fate. I'd much rather live in a society that knows what the AIDS virus actually is and diligently works to understand it in hopes of finding a cure, rather than in a society that passes AIDS off as God's divine retribution and would rather waste time rallying against all things Harry Potter.

My extended family are evangelical Christians, and I have seen first-hand the damage and hurt such irrational ideals can cause. They shunned me (and still do) for the lifestyle that I choose to participate in, and they don't even want to see why I think the way I do or care to know who I am; they are firm in their beliefs that I am a rampant sinner that needs to repent.

Unfortunately, its part of the human condition.

Perhaps some sort of mechanism to make it into a source of renewable energy?

'Twould be useful -- very useful. Haha

Originally posted by Eon Blue
I'm dubious about the fact that certain individuals need religion in order to have morals.

Some people, honestly, are just too dumb to think for themselves.

I feel your pain, obvsiously, but I disagree that removing religion would solve the problem or even make a drastic improvement.

Most often, religion is used as the justification for their thoughts/actions, not as the source. Removing the justification makes little difference to irrational people. That is the whole struggle.

Originally posted by Ordo
Some people, honestly, are just too dumb to think for themselves.

I feel your pain, obvsiously, but I disagree that removing religion would solve the problem or even make a drastic improvement.

Most often, religion is used as the justification for their thoughts/actions, not as the source. Removing the justification makes little difference to irrational people. That is the whole struggle.

I agree. They would just find another justification.

Originally posted by Ordo
Unfortunately, its part of the human condition.

Perhaps some sort of mechanism to make it into a source of renewable energy?

Magnificent cities, skyscrapers touching the clouds, millions of cars, lights, sounds.

All fueled by our own ignorance...

AND ITS BEAUTIFUL!

Originally posted by inimalist
Magnificent cities, skyscrapers touching the clouds, millions of cars, lights, sounds.

All fueled by our own ignorance...

We could overcome the chains of physics simply by ignoring them.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Well, what did he kill them for? Oh yeah, it was "wickedness", conveniently defined by mosaic law... and you are saying that it had nothing to do with their beliefs?

(See below) This was the original topic under discussion. Somehow it deviated to other subjects.

Originally posted by JesusIsAlive
That is incorrect. The Bible has never stated that an unbeliever be converted or killed. But the Quran (Koran) does teach this.

I am saying what I said in the beginning (I have not deviated), The Bible has never stated that an unbeliever (i.e. someone who has not placed their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation from their sins in order to receive everlasting life) be converted or killed for not converting.

However the Quran (Koran) does teach this:

"
Fight/battle/kill those who do not believe in God, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what God and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the compensation in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
" Al-Tawba ayat 29

"
The punishment of those who wage war against God and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be banished; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement,
" Al-Maeda ayat 33

"
Oh you who believe! do not take the Guided and the Helpers for trustees; they are trustees of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a trustee, then surely he is one of them; surely God does not guide the unjust people.
" Al-Maeda ayat 51

"
When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.
" Al-Anfal ayat 12

"
So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the Dualists wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and purified themself, leave their way free to them; surely God is Forgiving, Merciful.
" Al-Tawba ayat 5

"
So when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite the necks until when you have overcome them, then make prisoners, and afterwards either set them free as a favor or let them ransom until the war terminates. That; and if God had pleased He would certainly have exacted what is due from them, but that He may try some of you by means of others; and those who are slain in the way of God, He will by no means allow their deeds to perish.
" Muhammad ayat 4

Source(s):
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/

JIA let me see if I have this right: you are saying that an unbeliever must be converted or killed? 😱

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I agree. They would just find another justification.

Yes. It has already happened, and if anything the replacement has been worse. During the enlightenment, science gained a great deal of prestige as the rational source of knowledge even as religion began to fall out of favour. When Western nations decided they wanted to expand their empires, they no longer turned to religion as a justification. Now science was being used to show how the black man was inferior and thus could be treated like animals to be worked, starved and killed at whim. Even as these nations were supposed to be rational and enlightened in the ways of humanism, they showed no restraint in their dealings with their fellow man.

Intolerance comes first. We see ourselves as belonging to a group and those outside our group as the other. For some, the other is to be feared and hated. Rationalizing this hate requires a criterion that will clearly separate out the other. As religion is fundamental in virtually any society it makes for a powerful tool to rationalize that hatred.

I hope you'll forgive this example, but I can think of no better to illustrate my point. Imagine a young Hitler having just discovered his calling as a speaker. He had been sent by the army to spy on a certain political society and had fallen in with them. He stands up and begins speaking about antisemitism. Specifically, he talks about how previous forms had been deficient and must be dropped. No longer would the irrational hatred of Jews on religious or cultural grounds be acceptable. A new distinction based on race, a supposedly scientific concept, would justify his hatred.

Originally posted by JesusIsAlive
(See below) This was the original topic under discussion. Somehow it deviated to other subjects.