The merits and shortcomings of religion, spirituality, and nonbelief — Page 3

TV's Frink said:

I can agree with that, if I understood you correctly.  Kinda what the Pope was saying, right?

My wife just reminded my of a (fairly harmless, but still) example of religious cramming.  We have lived in a state where alcohol is sold in the grocery store six days a week, but not on Sundays.  Cram!

 Since your example isn't an example of true Christian spirit, my point still applies. Try to find an example of a true Christian action that you think is truly detrimental to society and bring it here. I can't think of any.

You misunderstand me, I'm not complaining about true Christian spirit.  Where religion preaches love, tolerance, acceptance, charity, etc., I have no problem with it.

d_e was saying that non-believers do as much cramming as believers.  That theory is what I take issue with.

I apologize. However, I do think that non-religious in general do cram as much as those who follow a religion.

MrBrown said:

RicOlie_2 said:

...

Islam: Despite what many insist, Islam is certainly not a religion of peace and this is apparent from the Qur'an. I believe in peace (though I think war is necessary sometimes), thus I cannot maintain the ideals of this religion.

...

 You are aware that much from the Qur'an is taken from the bible?
 And regarding this point the bible is as bloody and bloodthirsty as the Qur'an. With both books, it is often more a question of the interpreting priests.

A lot taken from the Bible is warped into a different story or the stories are drawn from different traditions (the latter being just a guess based on what I have read in the Qur'an). A new law of love and peace was given by Christ, so only the Old Testament contains the comparatively violent religion of the Jews/Israelites which was largely due to the way the world was at the time. Their violent behaviour was entirely normal back then. Muslims, at least according to the Qur'an, are still required to kill non-believers.

Also I may add, that inquisition, witch hunting, holy war, and purge the pagan was a catholic invention. Just to mention "Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy" Night of August the 23rd to August 24th 1572. 

None of which would have been anything but appalling to the members of the early Church. None of those were right, none of those are in accordance with the Catholic religion. Holy wars and massacres are not only allowed in the Qur'an, but are also required.

Oh, not that you think I pick on you, but you seem to be very interesting to discuss with, because, we have both very different sighty, but I would say that we do our best not to insult, but to debate reasons and beliefs.

No worries, I don't feel picked on and I enjoy debating. :)

Personally I am not very religious, so I won'T call anything "god". I would argue, that the things atheists call morality is indeed the same thing as the point poeple of a belief see their god. It is the inner voice wich telling somebody if he is "wrong" or "right".

That has truth in it, but of course I believe that our conscience comes from God, not vice versa.

I really beliefe that Earth with its live on it is just a coincidence, and that we are only a little bit of dust in the whole existence of all. I don't dare to beliefe that we are the most intelligent beeings, also not the most reasonable.

 Though I believe our existence was planned from the beginning, I don't believe we are the most intelligent or reasonable beings. I believe the angels are both more intelligent and more reasonable, and of course that God is infinitely intelligent and reasonable.

Everybody calm.....

The moral issue,.....now the bible says that we get our moral values not just from the scriptures but god gave them to us,....hes in our head helping us to make those choices,.....so a Christian worries that society will fall if our belief in god diminishes?

.....surely god is still connected to our consciousness making us make the right decisions, or would he turn his back on us and disconnect?

The other thing that was said which answer is used time and again (on other threads here also)...._Ender said:

So if you believe in God, you can easily believe there are absolute rights and wrongs, defined by our Creator.  If you don't then in reality I don't see any true way to identify absolute rights and wrongs. 

If all the moral teachings in the bible were taken on board and obeyed the world's moral would step back a couple of thousand of years......rape, treatment of women, slavery etc.....which now in our times are unacceptable, so for morals which are laid down and unchanging,.....have changed with cultural change

Atheists have their own standards, which didn't just come to them as simply self-evident truths, but actually through a process of evolving culture.  And as culture continues to evolve, the standards of mankind will continue to change.  Thus, if there is no God, then there is no absolute right and wrong.  See my point.

I don't see your point.

Morals were laid down as I said in my previous post as a mean of law (and law in my country is still dictated by the church) the moral guide that the bible goes by was spread by christianity all over the world, so yes, the moral code we cling to originates by the good word of the bible.

As the world evolves and we are more aware of the wonders of science, we are slowly finding our place in the universe.

The laws & morals that we learned from the bible (the good ones) are of course still valid as the foundation of society......and we will still follow those laws as we continue to evolve

J

RicOlie_2 said:

I apologize. However, I do think that non-religious in general do cram as much as those who follow a religion.

 Examples please.

I presume you mean specific examples?

Because I can give a lot of general ones, and I might be able to find examples of atheists shoving their views down my throat, assuming I can find the comments, but that take some time. They are less publicly active, admittedly, so other than stories like pro-choice activists smuggling jars of crap into a building to dump it on a pro-life convention or something of the sort (they were stopped) there isn't a lot you can find on the news.

I find that agnostics generally only force their pro-choice or pro-gay views on people whereas atheists are more prone to make declarative statements such as "God isn't real" or "Religious people are a bunch of stupid **** and the world would be better of without them" without backing up their views.

I find it sad that writing so much as "God bless" at the end of a comment on an internet article causes a multitude of insults and derogatory comments as well as such declarative statements as I mentioned above. It's a pity that there are so many atheists like that. I'm glad that few people on this forum seem to have that attitude.

Perhaps it isn't so much shoving views down others' throats as attacking views held by other people.

Sorry for the semi-rant. I am not trying to say that atheists and agnostics are bad or anything, just expressing my frustration with people who think they'll convert me to atheism by calling me an immoral idiot.

Personally, my eyes glaze over when I starting reading a comment on the 'Net that's just an atheistic diatribe. More often than not, they attack a lot of strawmen and stereotypes that are only partially true at best.

MrBrown said:

RicOlie_2 said:

MrBrown said:

RicOlie_2 said:

...

Islam: Despite what many insist, Islam is certainly not a religion of peace and this is apparent from the Qur'an. I believe in peace (though I think war is necessary sometimes), thus I cannot maintain the ideals of this religion.

...

 You are aware that much from the Qur'an is taken from the bible?
 And regarding this point the bible is as bloody and bloodthirsty as the Qur'an. With both books, it is often more a question of the interpreting priests.

A lot taken from the Bible is warped into a different story or the stories are drawn from different traditions (the latter being just a guess based on what I have read in the Qur'an). A new law of love and peace was given by Christ, so only the Old Testament contains the comparatively violent religion of the Jews/Israelites which was largely due to the way the world was at the time. Their violent behaviour was entirely normal back then. Muslims, at least according to the Qur'an, are still required to kill non-believers.

I really would love to read the Qur'an in its original language, but I am very bad at learning languages, so this would never happen. I think most of the "kill non-believers" is some kind of more or less mistranslation and misinterpreting by people, which want to bring people in a certain way. But as long as I don't know it literal words, I can only assume, and hope for the best.

Hey, you can't be that bad. You seem to understand English quite well and you write it pretty well too.

I think the Qur'an was clear enough on that point that it one would find the same message in its original language.

Also I may add, that inquisition, witch hunting, holy war, and purge the pagan was a catholic invention. Just to mention "Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy" Night of August the 23rd to August 24th 1572. 

None of which would have been anything but appalling to the members of the early Church. None of those were right, none of those are in accordance with the Catholic religion. Holy wars and massacres are not only allowed in the Qur'an, but are also required.

The point I was trying to take is, again, I think most problems of religions are created not by just believing in God, but by interpretation done by (wo)men. These activities in the Name of the Catholic Church maybe wrong today, they even were wrong thatdays, but for the catholics and the catholic church they were in the name and word of the Lord.

They were in the name of the Lord, yes, but those actions contradicted what was written in the Bible. In most cases kings, queens, and emperors were responsible for those actions, not the Pope (though, since there were bad Popes, some of those atrocities were approved by him).

I really beliefe that Earth with its live on it is just a coincidence, and that we are only a little bit of dust in the whole existence of all. I don't dare to beliefe that we are the most intelligent beeings, also not the most reasonable.

 Though I believe our existence was planned from the beginning, I don't believe we are the most intelligent or reasonable beings. I believe the angels are both more intelligent and more reasonable, and of course that God is infinitely intelligent and reasonable.

And now a really challenging question(s):

Do you need the catholic church for your believe in God?You said, in the homosexual thread, that a homosexual who does act against the catholic church, if he commit homosexual acts (if I interporeted your words correctly). But you also said that actions in the past, like inquisition, were against what the catholic church stands for. As I said: Today these acts would be against it, but in past times it was exactly what the catholic chruch stands for that days. So what makes the conter homosexual teachings of the catholic church any more trustworthy, as the past time teachings against wiches and non-believers?

Homosexual sex acts are wrong according to Church doctrine, which is permanent. Witches were burned at the stake because they were thought to be users of black magic, but it is not and never was an actual doctrine, or even rule of the Church. The same goes for the Inquisition. The Inquisition as we know it was not formally approved by the Church, but a less severe form of it was in order to root out heresies. It was never a Church doctrine that heretics should be rooted out and killed, though it was permitted and at times encouraged. So the question isn't really that hard. It is important to distinguish between Church doctrine, which we believe is infallible and permanent, and actions permitted or encouraged by the Pope, since those actions may be fallible.

But I also think it is more complicate than that. There are some very delicate topics, which are not scrateched with that.

in Exsample what topic is not even scratched:

In the State of Vatikan it is illegal to commit sex out of marriage, you have to be marriaged to commit sex. (So it is illegal to commit homosexual sex at all, because you would not be married in the state of Vatikan.) Nice thing, but: The age for being marriaged depends in the State of Vatikan on the sex: Male may marriage with 16 years, female with the age of 12... (I didn't find any news, if the Age of marriage was raised, I only can find that in Spain the age of marriage was raised from 14 to 16.)

 In Vatican City, I think it is fine to have restrictions like that since it has a population of something like 400 people, almost all of which are Roman Catholic, I am sure.

yeah, 12 is too young to marry, so is 16.  Why the difference for males and females?   Why can females marry at a younger age than males?

I think 12 and 16 is kind of young nowadays. The age difference is probably because, like you said Mr. Brown, when the laws were made the man needed to be of an age at which he was capable of providing for his family, while the woman needed to be able to keep house and raise children.

So how come they haven't been changed? 

Warbler said:

So how come they haven't been changed? 

 Not sure. They probably have few enough weddings anyway that there's no motivation to change it. Also, I doubt anyone that young would get married anyway--leastwise not in Vatican City. If there was some problem caused by the laws, they would no doubt change it, but right now they probably don't have much reason to do so.

Another Save Our Souls thread.