Religion Created 18 years ago2005-12-26 16:29:20 UTC by Archie

Before i start, i DO NOT want this thread to turn into a 'z0mg u religios lol fag' debate.

I am geniunely interestedin how many of you TWHLers out there are religous.

So, please post a reply set out like this -

I do/do not beleive in a religion.

Because...

I live in.

The final piece of information letting us see which is the most religous country...

I live in the UK which is growing more and more atheist.. is it the only place? is america largly religous? Does anyone still go to church?

I know i dont.
Religions are created by people who are too lazy or too scared to try to realise the truth. We are born. We live. We die.
There is no WHY there is just fact.
I personally think that the idea of being in a greater being's pitri dish is far more likely than the existance of a 'god'

Share your opinions

This thread is already doomed.

I'll go first!!!

I do not believe in any religion because religions are for pussies

Um, like this?

I am not religious, and I live in America.

I am not religious, and don't like religions, and religious ...

I agree that religions enable humans to do great things through our history,
_our ancestors builts cathedrals ok,
_our ancestors defined ways of life ok, with matters of dignity (special points of view most of the time, but dignity all the same), of hygiene, of laws, they changed barbarians into "civilized" people, make people live (sometimes) together, with the same objectives yeah yeah yeah, this is great ...
_our ancestors defined crazy stuff like time zones (when islam spreaded), of humility (about the nature mainly), of education etc I know that ...

but

_billions of people have been murdered just for a fucking matter of religion,
_hundreds of scientists have been killed or got a big "STFU" just because they were annoying a pack of old well-dressed religious, with strange discoveries of "round planet" etc ...
_thousands of people abused again and again of the people, the mobs, with religion stuff, they did nothing of their lives and got the others to work for them (build and keep cleaned palaces, collect food, etc), they parasited them ...

then

I agree that religions were an essential way for our evolutions, but now it has to stop : we have to take back the divinity of our existences, and kill our gods ...

I live in France.

wow.

I too am sickened by those who feel that their belief is justified enough to slaughter thousands of people in terrorist attacks.

But, on the same stone, does religion stop people from murdering others? did morality spawn when religion did?

SariBous: Even though what you say is true (and rather amusing at that ), try to keep it out of this thread. Having a settle, "sophisticated" discussion would be nice for once. Lets hope this'll be one, shalln't we?

As for me, I'm not religious because I simply wasn't raised to be. I believe what defines if you're religious or not is very much derived from how you were raised - same goes for (mostly) political ideology. If your parents are passively socialist, you're bound to end up the same way.

I live in sweden, which is very agnostic (or atheist, who knows?).
During the past few years, the number of members of the swedish church has more or less halved (I think) or atleast dropped very much. In addition, more foreign religions gain a stronger foothold because of the growth of minorities (due to our pretty open immigrant standards), such as Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.

Would be nice to have someone religious give their side of the anthropologic matter. (I'm looking at you BL )

a good point you raised, ZL.

and i agree, many children raised by religious parents end up believing themselves.
My mate "haggishunt56" is on that plate. except his is a rather interesting story.

He believes rather strongly in god, and used to be a regular chruch-goer mostly because the rest of his family went to church and tought him to be that way which is probably the situation in almost all christian families. But, this path of religion is easily polluted, because who does a young teenager listen to almost more than his parents? his mates.
And low and behold, here I come along, total atheist.

We have argued on more than one occasion about it, but I have actually stopped him going to church. He still participates in nativity placs and still goes to a sort of 'more fun sunday-school' which isn't really religious, it just gives people the 'good message of helping' and other such anti-sadistic rubbish.
But sometimes i feel bad about this. What right do i have, telling him what to beleive in? hell, i don't tell him not to beleive in whatever he wants to, i just sort of.. contradict every damn piece of bullshit that is written in the bible.
I could contemplate the existance of a god. I mean, even the strongest atheists feel that sometimes there might be something out there. But the bible? its a shitload of nonsense and about 3 quarters of it has been proved wrong my science. And yet people go on believing it. Adam and Eve? fuck off.

im not at all religious!! - and me from london

its funny when I challenge religious people as to why God allows suffering, and to here some of the utter crap they come up with...

...

Plus they don't really give a straight answer when you ask for scientific proof that God exists. "Faith" means nothing to me,

I'm not religious and I live in the UK...
Although when times are down and I have a frown I often slip a quick please help me God and sometimes things are fixed and i'm happy again

I am a religious dude. Not to the point so i live my life by the "rules" but they aren?t rules, more like moral guide lines. And why am i religious?

first of all i have a feeling inside me, like i know that there is a god and a jesus. Not "i have been rased to be a religious man" My parents never talk about this, my father is a beliver but he doesnt talk about it so this is something i feelt all my life without someone telling me.

and it?s the only thing that make sense! How was the earth and everything else created? I don?t belive what you guys belive, a big explotion and then everything was there! And i don?t belive that we come from the monkeys either, if we do come from the monkey, why are there monkeys here now? wouldn?t they also be like us? or atlest smart in some way... that?s so faaaaar fetched.
Nope. I belive that god created us.

But my belif is a bit different from the rest christian belivers, they are all about punishing people and olny talk about what you should not do, and tell people that they are going to hell. thats WRONG, read the bible man! It?s all there, forgive and forget. It?s not about following the rules or else you burn in hell, its only the evil people that go to hell.
Nice people get to heaven, even if the are sinners, there sins will be forgiven.

and those terrosists and leaders aren?t religious! they blame the bad stuff on there god so that the people will follow them! Are you blind, man?

And religion should not be mixed with politics, in fact religion shouldn?t get any support at all from the goverment and such. Religion is all about beliving, we don?t need anything else then maybe a bible to be religious.

It makes me angry seeing tax money go to the church, it?s just wrong.

I don?t go to church

and i live in sweden

And why does god allow suffering? Because we have our free will.

if we do come from the monkey, why are there monkeys here now? wouldn?t they also be like us? or atlest smart in some way... that?s so faaaaar fetched.

We evolved into humans and monkeys evolved into monkeys. "We" weren't monkeys, but our ancestors might've been something that resembles them.

Also, evolving organisms is farfetched...
but a guy who sits in heaven, rules everything, creates species, never dies - a god - isn't? I'd say that's hell of a lot more farfetched than the scientific explanation.

I don?t belive in sciense, they always prove eachother wrong.

Having a settle, "sophisticated" discussion would be nice for once. Lets hope this'll be one, shalln't we?

No way, i want them to get pissed. I can't stand religions, it's so fucking stupid.

True about the tax money to the churches... With all the churches there are throughout everywhere, if the governments of the world diddnt have to pay we could cure world hunger. I'm a loose religious christian because of the saying "Its better to have believed in a god and done no harm to yourself rather than not believing in a god and risking eternal damnation". It makes logical sense, yet, sometimes I do question religion. If god is all powerful, then can he create a rock he cannot lift, yet, if he cannot lift it, then that means hes not all powerful. These false each other out. There is no way to be all powerful... Also, why are curse words considered sins. These were created by humans as words to express ourselves, yet, someone just steps in saying "they've spoken to god" saying not to repeat them. Saying one in any language will be considered as a sin. This means, you can come up with your own word that means a curse, get it popular, and its now a sin. Next, why should we ask forgiveness from preachers in those booths... They just listen and tell you some kind of religious sounding crap. Ask it of god through prayers, not through him. and last, the creation of the universe is an interesting subject. I choose not to decide how it was created but agree that its just something humans cant comprehend, so if god created the universe, then what created him, and what created that... Religion may just be something created to keep the human population in check.. Just something to think about.

I go to church rarely and live in Texas, USA

Edit- Also, in what way does going to church clean you of sins.. You just show up in a building and listening to an old guy interpret the bible for you. Read it your own damn self and think of it how you wish..

With all the churches there are throughout everywhere, if the governments of the world diddnt have to pay we could cure world hunger

Some religious orders actually do help the poor. They just dont brag about it the way some media stars and other famous people do.

Yes that?s true Kasperg.

Religion only comes with good thing, life after death with reduse the fear of dying. Belif, it?s importants, makes you feel good. And so on.

But some people do very bad things, like killing from one to millions of people and then blame it on their religion and say that "god spoke to them" or something... Wich is WRONG and they would still have done it if there wasn?t any religion

I understand that. Nothing bad intended Kasperg..

You don't have to be religious to have faith, or believing in something. Set your own moral standards instead of following the ones written some 2000 years ago.

Also, religion is all about the fear of dying.
"Believe in God, or go to hell". "Live by the church and go to heaven".
It was invented by fear of dying - people need to know there's 'something beyond'.

I guess what I don't like about religion is the fact that people take advantage of it.
"Give money to the priest, you'll go to heaven".
"Kill lots of people, you'll become a martyr and go to heaven".
"Come in this booth, you seven year old boy, I'll rape you bloody... and you'll go to heaven".
You get the idea. Ofcourse, this isn't the religions standards - but it's a fact that people interpret the religious ideologies in this way.

I don't see why people get so worked up about religion. I mean, I am Catholic, but I don't see why people care so much about what other people belive in. Mind your own business. I have a friend who is agnostic, and I think he said something smart about religion, "If you get something out of it, good for you."

Saying that religion is a bad thing becuase people have died over it, yea, well people have also died because of greed (robbings), lust (rape), Predjudace (hate crimes). If these people where religious, they would not do these things. This of course raises the question, "Well, why were there other people who WERE religious and have wars over it?" Well, simply put, It's not religiouns fault, It's mans.

I truly believe that most things we have now (Goverment, religion) are very good, except man. I think Communism (everybody works equal, everybody recieve equal) Demorcractic ( goverment stays out of peoples lives for the most part) and Republican ( Goverment helps people further) are all very good goverments. So why are all so corrupted, Men (mankind, not men in general).People are greedy, and will do anything to further themselves from others.

So you really shouldn't hate people because they are in a religion, or religions themselves. Although there are people in every religion who pervert it, and use it incorrectly.Those people you can hate.

what you just wrote however is your own beleive and people some obviously won't agree - it's human nature, completely unavoidable. Anyway, i am aethiest (iv'e had this discussion before!) and find it incredibly hard to believe in a god or to change the way i live or think for a religion. I live in Australia, which itself is becoming more and more religiously divided.

It might be believable if there was only one religion, but with a bunch of them, its just a made up thing used to get money.

Of course at times, i can be religous

even if there were only a choice between say christianity and atheism then, i would still be atheist it's in my nature (like everyone has there own) to believe i am the 'god' of my life, i do not pray to someone/thing else to watch me or guide me - it's utter bullshit.

I think ZL made a very good point with the upbringing part, which is something I regularly question myself. Is there actually any such thing as free will, or is everything determined by chance reactions in the brain and other peoples' opinions? Something to ponder. My Phyics teacher mentioned a French philosopher who considered the same thing, and turned control of his life over to a die, or similar, assigning half the values to, say, bad things, and half to good, and then doing 'what the die said'.

I think Communism (everybody works equal, everybody recieve equal) Demorcractic ( goverment stays out of peoples lives for the most part) and Republican ( Goverment helps people further) are all very good goverments. So why are all so corrupted, Men (mankind, not men in general)

I thought Republicans were more right-wing, who believe in interfering less, for better or worse?

Religion drives a minority to do some pleasant things, such as our own BL, who I believe participates in such schemes as Domiciles for the Destitute/similar, and those to whom Kasperg referred. Yeah, that's mildly nice, but society'd be rather better if more people did it out of kindness, etc., rather than because a bloke in a dress and some dead monks threaten them with eternal burning.

Look what modern science has done for us. Without this becoming an economic argument, the life expectancies in developed countries are far greater than they were, say, in the seventeenth century, when religion was generally taken pretty seriously. Has religion cured smallpox or developed antibiotics? Think how much further science could have progressed without the religious a) wasting their own time, and b) harassing those whose quest for knowledge and curiosity furthered the human race.

I think religion today is just a lazy alternative to learning. People go "whoa, that's too complicated. Probability? I'd rather believe that everything is controlled by a lovely friendly man with a big beard. Yay, now I feel safe and warm.". Very mature. If you don't understand what you can see in front of you, what on earth makes you so arrogant and stupid as to think you can understand all of existance?

On a similar note, how can you be so abominably conceited as to think that everyone who follows a different religion to you is completely wrong and stupid and evil, etc., etc., and doomed? Come on, that is sheer idiocy. Think about what you're doing.

Anyone who professes to understand life is lying, but so what? There is no way to live your life other than based on what you sense around you.

Stop being so ignorant and cowardly, and do something useful.

I am religious, coz I just fuckin am.. So wtf is the goddamn problem??
Sorry.. I watched Behind enemy lines yesterday..

I'm christian, btw..

And I won't be getting into another religious debate, coz if I remember right, I had one with ZL, Ant and SariBous some time ago..

that's what hunter's trying to avoid here anyway.

Stop being so ignorant and cowardly, and do something useful.

very nice, i live life in the moment, and it's ENTIRELY MY DOING.

You're referring to my "free will" bit?

yeah seventh

So you're saying that you have never had your opinion changed on any subject by anyone? That you've never learnt anything from anybody else?

Bah, it depends on how you define free will. The influences you got from parents/friends/other influential characters will define who you are - not make you do certain things "against your will".

Republican (Goverment helps people further)

Replace the paranthesis with Social-democrat and you've got a good one-line definition of it. Republicans motto are more like "Let the individual make his own decisions", no?

Seventh makes some excellent points.

So you really shouldn't hate people because they are in a religion

Of course not, everyone has the right to believe in whatever nonsense they want to, but I surely will disagree strongly with anyone religious. I'm just having a hard time understanding the concept. There're what, 7 major religions in the world? And 6 of them says the other 6 are completely wrong and false and sinful and bad. Can't really see how one of the groups can be more right than the other.

Republicans motto are more like "Let the individual make his own decisions", no?

I was under the impression so. I thought the ultimate left-wing party considered society as a whole alone, while the ultimate right-wing party respected only the individual (which isn't really government at all, surely).

Judging by this thread - most of TWHL aren't religious..

-Although it sounds strange, there are religious people who are scientists, doctors, etc. The religion vs. science thing is pointless, because their purpose is not to contradict each other, they speak of different things. The whole Adam and Eve stuff (and most of the old testament for that matter) is made out of metaphores to explain things. A concept similar to fables.
-Like Tosse said, the science we believe now might turn out to be wrong next century, the way Newton's laws were considered wrong by Einstein's relativity theories. In that sense, there some are religious moral teachings from 2000 years ago that are still valid, but scientific things from the Middle Ages (like doctors making people bleed all their blood to cure an illness) were completely wrong and others became obsolete.
-The point is, if you care about religion, concentrate on the part of it that relates to human nature and is common to every other religion. If something's right about it, it probably doesnt belong to only 1 of 7 religions.

btw, has anyone ever heard a priest threatening with eternal fire and damnation? those things usually happen in movies. And religion in movies is portrayed depending on the people in charge. So never base your judgement in that sort of thing... :S

Thank God :).

the choices i make may be influenced by others but they are still my choices/ I cannot beleive people are influenced by things that cannot exist.

@ZL: That flying spaghetti Monster stuff is gold!

Tosse, the problem with your earlier post, is that evolution is proven. We KNOW we came from ancestors ersembling apes. There is very little doubt. We KNOW that millions and millions of tiny single cell organisms evolved in to land-faring creatures. Its been done a hundred times (in miniture) in a pitri dish.

Man can play as god now. We are almost at the peak of understanding EXACTLY how the Universe around us was created. Man can create life without the need of intercourse (referring to cloning - e.g. Dolly the sheep) which i believe was the big thing about the 'virgin' Mary and yet, Dolly the sheep is not the son of the sheep god.
And religion not threatening with eternal damnation? sorry, but they really do. Again, with the Dolly the sheep clone - Religous parties made terrible allogations about the scientists doing the experiment. Saying that what they were doing was un-holy. That they would go straight to hell.

And its utter BULLSHIT.

How the hell could Adam and Eve have existed and the time when (WE HAVE PROVEN IT) dinosaurs roamed the earth?

2 of every animal on the Ark? YEAH, if a thousand species get left behind. Apologise to the damned emu, but there is no rooom left.

And if there was a god, then surely he would know that more than a quarter of the world are atheist and would bother getting some of the old tricks out - burning sinners like me, giving Jesus a fucking shotgun to go medievil on the world.

Or is he all out of ideas now that crusifiction is banned?

Science: accept that we don't know some things, and might never.
Religion: make stuff up and take it very seriously, killing lots of people over pointless arguments.

Hunter those last few paragraphs you wrote were spot on. Now i'm off to become a Pastafarian and get each friday of as a religious holiday.

As I said in the last thread;
God didn't create the human, the human created god!
And I stick to that.

I do have respect for some religions.
But I highly dislike these weird religions in asia wich totaly discriminate the women.

evolution is proven

No it isn't, it is just the most likely theory so far, so it is generally accepted, you can't really prove it though.

Yeah. I'm not sure what constitutes proof in philosophy or biology.

I was raised a Catholic, and I basically stick to my own catholocism. I don't beleive that one man boarded 2 of every species of animal onto a boat to survive an apocolyptic flood. These are most obviously stories, and most people don't believe them as cold hard fact. (although there are some odd religeous groups out there who do.) I dont believe that god went poof and 2 people, a male and a female, were created.
I think of god as the scientist who created the first cells.. because they had to get here somehow. I don't try to understand where god came from, or who created him, and into infinity with questions about the methods of their arrival.
I agree that religeon is overblown and misunderstood nowadays, and I do understand that religeon is exploited. Religeon, to me, is ones own spiritual retreat from the stress of the world to give ones self a break from life and reality. Believe it or not, some people feel better about themselves when they feel like they have some greater power watching over them, so try not to take that away from them.

Religion isnt really all that its cracked up to be

Believe it or not, some people feel better about themselves when they feel like they have some greater power watching over them, so try not to take that away from them.

Uh, pretty much everyone has brought that up.

This is my theory on religion :

Well , i don't believe in religion because , the universe is HUGE
And why would it be that a tiny bit of it was Supernatural (god ; zeus ; that indian guy)
And only does things at a time so far since 0ad/bc . He's never done anything for us. Personally i Do't believe in religon but What happens when you die? Christians say you either go to heaven or hell , Those indian people Say you get reincarnated , then after your Karma is good , go to a starnge place like heaven. Religion is confusing.i'm gunna not post on this thread again and i'm gunna say , I DON'T WANT TO BE RACIST BUT THE WORLD WOULD PROBABLY BETTER IF THERE WERE NO RELIGION WARS (People arguing about which to believe , eg , THIS THREAD!)

i'm very sorry, but i dont see a single religous argument in this thread, Mr. GM. maybe if you had actually bothered to read the whopping 13 major posts, you would realise that.

Yeah. I think the few religious members who've participated in previous thread have tired of arguing, whilst the zealot atheists such as myself are still keen to deprogramme people :).

Ah, there'll be an argument, you lot just mark my words...

Religion is the Opium of the Masses!
People only believe in religion since it gives them hope. Something to look forward to. It comforts them when they are lonely. etc.

As for the Scientific argument, I think that science is the way to think. It's a way of reasoning what happens in the world but it's is not like philosophy or religion since it relies on pure hard facts.