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Yes, cruel things happen in the world. (i.e. terrorism, genocide etc.) but did God himself commit these crimes? no. People did.

Is free choice possible when a god that is omnipotent and omniscient exists? I don't mean to get into this but doesn't the fact that ones "creator" knows the exact actions and outcomes of its creation beforehand kind of destroy the concept of free choice? It's like faulting the ball you placed for rolling down the hill you made when you created them both with the knowledge that that exact thing would happen and you did not create them any other way.

Also while I'm into the thing that I don't mean to get into didn't god create the concept of right and wrong and evil and good? Couldn't rape, murder, stealing, and all those other awful things be good if he so chose? It's not like those concepts are set in stone to their creator. Is not creating the very concept and possibility of evil also another strike against the idea that performing such actions should be punished? To follow the previous analogy its like saying that the ball you created is evil for rolling down the hill you made in the way you designed it to roll. And then punishing it for it.

Orkeosaurus wrote:

Ahtman wrote:I keep hearing people talk about religion, but it seems we are really talking about western religious traditions, might even skew that to modern western religious traditions. Many of the complaints aren't very applicable to Indigenous or Eastern religious traditions. Criticisms can be leveled at those as well, but they are different criticism.

Pretty much.

Not too surprising though. Indigenous and Eastern religious traditions just aren't as relevant to the interests of most of the people on this board.

I would assume that's just due to most of us posting being raised in western culture,so natruly that's going to be the primary focus,however I've never seen a buhdist monk on t.v yelling for money or condeming some one for their sexaul preferance (maybe they do these things I'm just not familiar with it)

I really don't know that much about eastern religions so I can't say anything qualified about them.

One more thing that always bugged me, when it comes to "organized" Religions, is that everybody seems to be sure that his god is the right one. That is of course something for everybody to decide themselves, but I think it's weird how some Religions just came out and stayed on top for so long. I have no reason to believe that Jehova is more "real" then say for example Zeus or Poseidon.

Then again, no matter how much one dislikes religion, western culture has a lot of roots in christianity. Our Calendar would be the most obvious example.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

My views on religion can be summerised into 1 short sentence.

Grown-ups with imaginary friends is stupid.

I understand that some people believe in God because that's how they were brought up, or it's easier to believe that there's some guy up there that will make us rich even if we just sit there doing nothing. But IMHO, limiting your life because of something that was based on a book is... irrational, at least.

NoobLord wrote:My views on religion can be summerised into 1 short sentence.

Grown-ups with imaginary friends is stupid.

I understand that some people believe in God because that's how they were brought up, or it's easier to believe that there's some guy up there that will make us rich even if we just sit there doing nothing. But IMHO, limiting your life because of something that was based on a book is... irrational, at least.

As an unrelated question, how old are you? I ask legitimately.

Cryonicleech wrote:Eh, I'm catholic, and no, I'm not going to spam "blah blah blah you don't believe blah blah blah".

Yes, cruel things happen in the world. (i.e. terrorism, genocide etc.) but did God himself commit these crimes? no. People did.

I believe that God gave us the right of choice. So what if you don't believe the exact same thing I do? Does that give me the right to "condemn" you to "hell"? No it doesn't.

Mad Doc, I sympathize with you. There are a good many people around the world who want to go around and judge every single non-believer. But please, not every single religious person is like that. I certainly wouldn't say that, seeing as my friend(s) are Atheist.

In essence, I believe that religion is just another thing that people have to overlook. It's important, and quite touchy, but I mean, come on people. "hell" is no scare tactic, unless wielded by a religious fanatic/devotee.

hopefully, we can discuss this in a civil manner. Flamefests are never fun.

But God apparently gave us free will. So I ask, how dare he punish me for doing as I wish?

I have many bones to pick with religions, and many holes to poke in them. But I shall refrain as I don't like foisting my views upon others unnecessarily.

Each to their own, and leave each other to it.

Yes, cruel things happen in the world. (i.e. terrorism, genocide etc.) but did God himself commit these crimes? no. People did.

Maybe. But God just sits up there in the clouds and watches? If I were him (if I would believe in that stuff) I would've probably pulled the plug on this gakhole a long time ago. Like, I dunno, around the time God's own Son was nailed to a cross. I mean, sure, that whole "I die so that you can come to heaven when you die" sounds like a pretty nifty deal, but couldn't he just have let him die of old age or something?

I have many bones to pick with religions, and many holes to poke in them.

You only seem to state a single one of those holes though. There are thousands of religions, perhaps state an opinion pertaining to one of the ones that didn't originate in the fertile crescent. Taoism, Buddhism, zoroastronism, druidism, whatever they are calling the wiccan stuff these days. Hell, satanism is an actual religion with tenets and followers.

I always liked Pastafarianism. All hail the meatballs. Ramen.

Anung Un Rama wrote:I always liked Pastafarianism. All hail the meatballs. Ramen.

Pastafarianism isn't a religion though. It's just an ironic method of mocking creationists and their insistence on teaching their beliefs alongside religion in schools.

Also all hail our glorious noodley god. May his meatballs touch your lives.

Well, there is that Anung Un Rama. I don't really know why God does nothing, but I mean, taking religion out of the picture, bad **** happens.


As for nailing his son to a cross, I guess God wanted people to understand that he was willing to do something for people in return for being good.


eh, as Mad Doc said, each their own.

I dunno. To me, taking Religion out of the quation makes certain behaviour much harder to justify.

As an admitedly extreme example, and I apologise for it already, the Westboro Baptist Church and it rampant homophobia. Take their Religious excuses away, and it's just a bunch of nutjobs ranting against the world, as opposed to a bunch of nutjobs with a book ranting against the world.

Hence why I say Religion is ultimately a bad thing, but made sure to show my distinction that Faith is something seperate.

ShumaGorath wrote:

NoobLord wrote:My views on religion can be summerised into 1 short sentence.

Grown-ups with imaginary friends is stupid.

I understand that some people believe in God because that's how they were brought up, or it's easier to believe that there's some guy up there that will make us rich even if we just sit there doing nothing. But IMHO, limiting your life because of something that was based on a book is... irrational, at least.

As an unrelated question, how old are you? I ask legitimately.

14.

Also... I really don't get the point of teaching "religion" as a subject in school in some countries. I understand learning ABOUT religions, but having a local priest come in and tell me about the Bible and how amazing Jesus was isn't exactly gonna help me in life, even if I was Christian. If I wanna learn about God, then I'll read some Bible and go to church.

ShumaGorath wrote:

I have many bones to pick with religions, and many holes to poke in them.

You only seem to state a single one of those holes though. There are thousands of religions, perhaps state an opinion pertaining to one of the ones that didn't originate in the fertile crescent. Taoism, Buddhism, zoroastronism, druidism, whatever they are calling the wiccan stuff these days. Hell, satanism is an actual religion with tenets and followers.

I don't know if satanism could honestly be called a religion,if you read Anton Levays books it's more of a religon of anti-religion and common sense.

14.

I figured. A softer view and tolerance of religion and religious beliefs tends to come later in development when a person begins to learn how fundamentally important the concepts of religion are and how little humanity really understands the world around itself.

If I wanna learn about God, then I'll read some Bible and go to church.

Understanding religions and religious teachings is a fundamental requirement if you want to understand the world around you. It's as simple as that. If you refuse to know or understand the beliefs by which the majority of the planet guide their lives then you'll be sorely equipped to understand their ideals and actions.

FITZZ wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

I have many bones to pick with religions, and many holes to poke in them.

You only seem to state a single one of those holes though. There are thousands of religions, perhaps state an opinion pertaining to one of the ones that didn't originate in the fertile crescent. Taoism, Buddhism, zoroastronism, druidism, whatever they are calling the wiccan stuff these days. Hell, satanism is an actual religion with tenets and followers.

I don't know if satanism could honestly be called a religion,if you read Anton Levays books it's more of a religon of anti-religion and common sense.

I can not honestly imagine satanism not being a religion, if even Jedism is.

FITZZ wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

I have many bones to pick with religions, and many holes to poke in them.

You only seem to state a single one of those holes though. There are thousands of religions, perhaps state an opinion pertaining to one of the ones that didn't originate in the fertile crescent. Taoism, Buddhism, zoroastronism, druidism, whatever they are calling the wiccan stuff these days. Hell, satanism is an actual religion with tenets and followers.

I don't know if satanism could honestly be called a religion,if you read Anton Levays books it's more of a religon of anti-religion and common sense.

Feng sui isn't so different then that. Nor is buddhism. Religions are not quantifiable by the method of belief or what is taught. The concept itself is pretty nebulous and undefined.

I can not honestly imagine satanism not being a religion, if even Jedism is.

Why is that exactly? How much do you actually know about the religion itself.

NoobLord wrote:

FITZZ wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

I have many bones to pick with religions, and many holes to poke in them.

You only seem to state a single one of those holes though. There are thousands of religions, perhaps state an opinion pertaining to one of the ones that didn't originate in the fertile crescent. Taoism, Buddhism, zoroastronism, druidism, whatever they are calling the wiccan stuff these days. Hell, satanism is an actual religion with tenets and followers.

I don't know if satanism could honestly be called a religion,if you read Anton Levays books it's more of a religon of anti-religion and common sense.

I can not honestly imagine satanism not being a religion, if even Jedism is.

I suppose in a broad description it could be considered a religion,however my point was,in the books I read "religion" is seen as more of a crutch and self relince is seen as the greatest virtue and being wilfully stupid seen as the greatest sin.
Hell,Anton Levay even states that no actual "satan" exist.

IMHO, a general description of religion is a system of beliefs defining what is good and bad by interference with the "spiritual world".

Very hard to put stuff like this into words...

I'm agnostic personally. I don't think religion is the greatest evil in humanity or anything close, I think that sort of hyperbole is pretty dumb actually.

My lack of faith came from basically gradually discovering that there was no evidence of supernatural things ever. And then later, thinking seriously about the idea of a compassionate god, and realising that he can't exist, because he created an unfair universe.
(Yeah, fair is an odd concept, but when you think about an omnipotent being it becomes a bit easier to get where I'm coming from.)

Eventually I decided that I didn't know one way or another about God- I mean, there could be one, there could not be. But I decided I'd be happier if a God who could think on the same scale as me didn't exist, as it would just be depressing. I'm very interested in religions and why people are religious though, it's fascinating. And I generally don't have problems with people of faith unless they are knob ends.

MDG: How come you capitalise words that aren't proper nouns so often?

I can't wrap my head around an omnipotent being who gives you free choice, but I imagine
it's much like Dr. Manhattan in the Watchman. Yes, he knows that x is going to happen, yet
he's still hurt for it to be revealed to him.

Or maybe it's like being a parent. You know they're going to mess up, how they're going to
mess up, why they're going to mess up, but you let kids do it anyway and only make yourself
available as a last resort.

NoobLord wrote:
Very hard to put stuff like this into words...

That's largely the point. Much of religion is built on the appreciation, or avoidance, of paradox. God is omnipotent, but free will exists. God is one, but also three. Its all meant to bend the mind, in order to give that mind an appreciation of its limits.

Or the whole thing is just a mishmash of random ideas cherry picked over the centuries by those in power?

For example, The Holy Trinity *could* have been an attempt to include the Brittoni (not Celts. Strictly speaking no such thing as Celts) religions into the Biblical fold. The Hag, Maiden and Girlchild I think it is in Druidic stuffs.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Or the whole thing is just a mishmash of random ideas cherry picked over the centuries by those in power?

Sure, that's been part of religion in the past. Myth is often used in order to inspire collective action. These myths do not have to be related to a god, or anything else we ordinarily conceive of as religious. Communism, for example, was a religion for many.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
For example, The Holy Trinity *could* have been an attempt to include the Brittoni (not Celts. Strictly speaking no such thing as Celts) religions into the Biblical fold. The Hag, Maiden and Girlchild I think it is in Druidic stuffs.

But it wasn't, because it was first conceived by people with no knowledge of the Brittoni religions.

I'm an atheist, that's what I would tell someone if asked, but very, very technically I'm agnostic. By this I mean that I acknowledge the possibility of a God or creator, but believe the probability is so remote that it isn't worth considering.

I don't like the idea of organised religion in the same way as I don't like the idea of any unchallengable form of power.

The most important point for me, and one that I always agree with non-nujob people with a religion on, is:

"If there is a God who created something as large and expansive as the universe, how can he expect an object as relatively insignificant as a human brain to undertsand His power?" (mangled quote from a Hindu scholar)

ie. Why should I worship any God who is vain enough to damn me to Hell for not believing in him without proof? I'm a good person, the aim of my life is to not add to the toll of human suffering in this world, I never deliberately hurt another. Surely my skepticism shouldn't condemn me to an eternity in Hell?

myself, i was raised in the south, as a southern baptist.
we would be at the church sunday morning, sunday evening, and most wednesdays.

While i was young, i would hear about how wonderful jesus was, and how great heaven would be, but as i got older and into the standard sermons, it changed into a constant barrage of hellfire and damnnation. do what the book says, or you burn forever.

Ever been to a tent revival? its equal parts songs about how much heaven is great, immediatly followed by hours on end about how your all going ot hell if you don't donate some cash and follow the bible, and not just any bible, but the king james version, since those other versions aren't correct enough.

by the time i was in highschool, i found myself looking at what i was taught to believe, and finding that it either made no sense when you examinded it, or was in some way impossible. the earlier think i remember questioning being the noah story, not because of the ark, but because it claimed one family was all that made it, yet we aren't all genetic mutants.

My viewpoint changed over time, and for years i operated under a more, what was described to me by a friend as a deist approach i belive. I didn't want to give up on the devine, so i thought of god more the great clockmaker, he set everything in motion, and then stepped back and let it run its course.

still, this didn't really satisfy the part of me that wanted to believe is something greater, for lack of a better phrase, so i spent a few years looking at other religions, learning what i could about them.

These days, i'm agnostic in my beliefs, i don't know if anything great exists, but i'm not ruling out the possibility. That, and i honestly just got to the point that i know longer cared about a religion, so long as i could follow my own personal, um, code i suppose will work.

Its been my experience that while the organized religions i've been exposed to can help instill some good elements in a person, those religions can also cause an untold amount of harm.

i've seen family and friends scarred by bad experiencs with their religion, hurt in ways that the everyday just isn't often capable of.

while i have no plans to attack religion, or convice those i meet of the "errors of their ways" or somesuch, i doubt i'll ever practice a religion again, and any children i have will be raised to act in a way we would consider "good" because is the right thing to do, but because if they don't that great big shotgun in the sky will smite them or punish them for all eternity

CS Lewis referred to himself jokingly as a ‘lapsed atheist’ and I kind of feel it describes me pretty well.

I was raised with no religious upbringing, and most of the time I still default to an atheist view, but more and more I have moments where I sense something greater. Now, I’m not at all interested in the God depicted in most religions, fixated on humans and their moral behaviour, because I just don’t see any evidence of a God that cares at all about what we do.

But when I see the scale and beauty of this universe, sometimes I get a glimpse of something greater.

Lord Bingo wrote:I can't follow religion for one simple reason, what prove is there that god exists? For me if it can't be proved it dosen't exist, so until god is proved to be real, I will never follow any religion.

That’s why they call it faith. God (or the supernatural in general) exists by definition outside the realm of observable reality. If it existed in observable reality, it would no longer be supernatural, and belief in it wouldn’t be faith.

Cryonicleech wrote:Eh, I'm catholic, and no, I'm not going to spam "blah blah blah you don't believe blah blah blah".

Yes, cruel things happen in the world. (i.e. terrorism, genocide etc.) but did God himself commit these crimes? no. People did.

It isn’t so much the terrorism and genocide but the kid born with a hole in his heart that dies after a couple of hours, and all the earthquakes and tsunamis. Random chance brings misery into the lives of many.

ShumaGorath wrote:Is free choice possible when a god that is omnipotent and omniscient exists? I don't mean to get into this but doesn't the fact that ones "creator" knows the exact actions and outcomes of its creation beforehand kind of destroy the concept of free choice? It's like faulting the ball you placed for rolling down the hill you made when you created them both with the knowledge that that exact thing would happen and you did not create them any other way.

You must know a guy that will do the same stupid thing every time he finds himself in a situation. Do you have that mate that will not back down from a scuffle at the pub with another guy. You sit there and you watch and you know exactly what’s going to happen and are watching it all play out as you expected, but you aren’t controlling events, your idiot mate is still making his choice.

Also while I'm into the thing that I don't mean to get into didn't god create the concept of right and wrong and evil and good? Couldn't rape, murder, stealing, and all those other awful things be good if he so chose? It's not like those concepts are set in stone to their creator. Is not creating the very concept and possibility of evil also another strike against the idea that performing such actions should be punished? To follow the previous analogy its like saying that the ball you created is evil for rolling down the hill you made in the way you designed it to roll. And then punishing it for it.

The argument is that removing free will is the greatest of evils. That a central part of humanity and life is the ability to choose our course of action, and that includes the ability to choose an evil action. While life might be happy and full of puppy dogs and rainbows if only God stopped us from murder and theft, what kind of people would we be? How could we grow and develop into mature, responsible people if we were stopped by God from ever doing anything wrong?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:But God apparently gave us free will. So I ask, how dare he punish me for doing as I wish?

He gave you free will because he wanted you to grow and mature, make decisions and take their consequences. God also gave you the power to know right from wrong.

It’s also worth pointing out, assuming we’re talking about Christianity here, that Hell is hardly mentioned in the Bible. The book spends a lot of time talking about kind works and forgiveness, and a whole lot of time ragging on the rich, but hardly any time talking about Hell. It just isn’t the focus of the faith, according to the Bible.

I have many bones to pick with religions, and many holes to poke in them. But I shall refrain as I don't like foisting my views upon others unnecessarily.

Each to their own, and leave each other to it.

There’s nothing wrong with discussing religion. As long as everyone remains polite and the arguments used have merit.

There's an old saw, which asks: can god create a rock so heavy he couldn't lift it?

The answer of course, is, "if he wanted to." Of course, if he than later wanted to be able to lift it, he could. the point being that God is outside of space and time, and concepts that we cling to wouldn't apply.

I'm not going to reply to every post here, I'm a bad preacher and I don't think this board is ripe with potential converts.

Just because God can know everything doesn't mean he actually does know everything. I'm Catholic, so the whole concept of god is a paradox: a three in one. Why wouldn't the god that I pray to be unaware of my future? Why couldn't the freedom of will that I've been given be legit? If god can create a rock he can't lift, than he can create knowledge that he doesn't possess.

Freewill isn't a gift, by the way. It's the whole reason I believe that god created us: so that there would be those that chose whether or not to seek him out. In my view, God was lonely. Creating beings that could freely chose to leave or accept him offered him the possibility of a certain companionship that he otherwise lacked. that's the whole reason the offer includes eternal life in paradise: it's not a reward for those that believe, but a way to only let in the people that want to go to the party. I mean, if you knew there was a god, why wouldn't you ask him favors?

Likewise, the counter offer isn't eternal damnation, it's simply death. Separation from the divine would result, not in fires and devils, but in a fairly simple lack of existence.

True, but I object to people talking at me about their Religious views, so it is only right and just if I refrain from doing the same.

I have enough respect to acknowledge those people of Faith are generally smart enough to have examined it.

And sadly, the ones that haven't are terrible debaters.