Religion

[Fau Teixeira]

How did our society get this fucked up?”    

Honestly, look around the world, look at every country you can find. The more religious a country is, the more fucked up it is. Overarching, dominant belief systems are hazardous to prosperity.

I know the whole right wing blames tragedies on the lack of god in school or government or whatever, but the opposite is in fact true. The less influence religion has in a society, the better off it is. The proof is in the worldwide pudding.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Splitting because guns AND religion in one thread is too much.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

While religion certainly has its problems that is an over simplification.  North Korea, China, and the country that just invaded Ukraine are all atheist countries.  UK has an official religion. 

[stinkfish]

Faith is good. Religion is bad. How many wars have been fought because "my God's dick is bigger than your God's dick."

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Faith is good. Religion is bad. How many wars have been fought because "my God's dick is bigger than your God's dick."

Still an oversimplification.  Seven day adventists, quakers haven't started any wars.  MLK, Gandi, Mother Theresa were all very religious.

However, Quakers and Seven Day are among the less than 1% of people claiming to be Christian that actually follow the teachings of Jesus.  Same issue is common in other religions. 

[Fau Teixeira]

While religion certainly has its problems that is an over simplification.  North Korea, China, and the country that just invaded Ukraine are all atheist countries.  UK has an official religion. 

I make no distinction between theist and non-theist religions, NK is a thanatocracy, they worship a dead guy as a god figure. China's religion is the state and Russia has a whole history of authoritative strong-man leaders going back generations.

UK does have an official religion, albeit I'll suggest that it's less religious than the US, even then, how's Brexit been working out for them?

[Dave Gray]

Faith is good.

I don't even agree with this.

Faith isn't bad, per se....but it's definitely not good on its face.

Faith asks for belief in the absence of evidence at best, but in the face of evidence at worst.

[Phishfan]

MLK, Gandhi, & Mother Teresa (spelling) all wore religion on their sleeves but they also had some fucked up sides also.

[stinkfish]

I don’t know Dave. If Faith can give someone comfort, hope, or something to hold onto, and maybe make that person a good over all person, what’s the harm? Weather you have Faith in Jesus, God, Allah, the Cookie Monster, or whatever. Faith doesn’t have any negative effects. Organized religion can and does.

[Dave Gray]

I don’t know Dave. If Faith can give someone comfort, hope, or something to hold onto, and maybe make that person a good over all person, what’s the harm?

Good question.  Fair question.

First off, it's false premise.  Faith doesn't make people good.  People without faith are equally good.  There is no correlation between faith and good behavior and it's probably the opposite, if anything.

However, even if you want to attribute faith to good behavior, faith isn't just the good.  Faith makes people fly airplanes into buildings.  But even far less and obviously dangerous than that, it teaches a general disregard for facts.  It makes people believe in lies and conspiracy, because religion is, in itself, a lie and a conspiracy that you are programmed so deeply to believe despite how obviously bullshit it is.

It's hard to have this discussion without sounding like a soapboxing asshole, and I understand and am largely past being a militant atheist.  Usually I just go about my business.  But religion is something that even children recognize as obvious bullshit.  You have to be programmed and indoctrinated into it.   And in doing so, you have to reject logic, you have to reject science -- you have to reject things that you know in your core to be true.

Once that lid is off and you have belief in the face of fact, you can and will believe anything.  God wants me to treat these people this way.  He wants me to blow up this abortion clinic.  He wants me to burn these witches at the stake.  He wants me to fight over this Holy Land.  ...repeat ad nauseum throughout history.  And even if God isn't as the heart of your choices, once you reject facts, you'll turn down a life saving vaccine, you'll deny blood transfusions for your kids, you'll think you can pray away gun violence, you'll think that God has a plan and that you can sit idly by while the world around you goes to shit, you'll think the election is stolen without evidence, you'll fall for anything, because you are getting conned and you're a mark.

In short, faith asks you to reject fact.  That, in itself, is harmful.


ed. why are you shitty at quoting? - fau

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I disagree with the idea atheists don’t have faith.  Faith is knowing something as fact without evidence.  Agnostics who accept that the existence of God is unknowable have no faith.  Atheists accept the nonexistentance of god on faith without proof.

[Fau Teixeira]

I disagree with the idea atheists don’t have faith.  Faith is knowing something as fact without evidence.  Agnostics who accept that the existence of God is unknowable have no faith.  Atheists accept the nonexistentance of god on faith without proof.

This is a logical fallacy. When there is no proof, the default position is that it doesn't exist. The burden doesn't fall on anyone to disprove something. The burden is on those claiming something is true without evidence to back that claim up. And the more exceptional the claim, the better that evidence must be.

If you claim you saw a cat on the sidewalk, I'll take you at your word, it's very plausible .. you could be lying, but I'd believe you anyways because cats on sidewalks is something I've seen before. But if you claimed you saw a Unicorn prancing around on the sidewalk, then you best have some evidence or no-body would believe you.

Replace a unicorn with god and sidewalk with a burning bush and suddenly (and apparently magically) the burden of proof flip flops in your mind? .. Thanks but no thanks, the burden is still on you to prove that and not on me to disprove it.

[Spider-Dan]

I disagree with the idea atheists don’t have faith.  Faith is knowing something as fact without evidence.  Agnostics who accept that the existence of God is unknowable have no faith.  Atheists accept the nonexistentance of god on faith without proof.

Would you call it "faith" to say that Santa Claus doesn't exist?  That leprechauns aren't real?
There is at least as much proof against the existence of God as there is for those two.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

^^^^ Not equivalent. 

The Santa Clause/Unicorn example is fine for debunking any specific religion and most religions all at once.  However, the universe is too well organized and the laws of physics to perfect to claim to know that it was all a result of a random accident rather than a grand design. 

It is possible that Stonehenge was not built but the rocks are just arranged there that way by accident.  But most people who look at the design conclude is too perfect to be a result of random chance.  The same could be said of the universe or the creation of life.  Everything was put together too well to just be a random event. 

Atheism claims the Universe and the laws of physics were not designed but a random event.  Theism claims it was designed on purpose.  Neither side has more evidence than the other and both positions are equally arrogant.

[Sunstroke]

"Philosophy is a walk on the slippery rocks
Religion is a light in the fog..."

~Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians, "What I Am"