Take all the really religious people in the world, put them in one place, and then jettison that place into space.

I'm sorry, and I really do not mean to offend anyone*, but once people think that their god is telling them to kill people, I stop listening to them.

I mean, even our 'fearless leader' claims that god gave him a mission to 'help' Iraq... WHAT?! This is America! Church and State, buddy!

*if I have offended you: i am truly, sincerely, sorry.

Sentiment-wise, I agree with you ... but then we'd just have Trekkies butchering Star Wars geeks.

Ah, I totally and utterly agree. Really relgious people are starting to piss me off. Escpcially little kids at camp who tell there conslers [moi] that they are going to burn in eternal hell for not being catholic.

I agree with you StarOfEight, there would only be new groups around wo would claim power and start butchering one another.
As long as all the humans do not change their behaviour and belief drastically there will be no peace. Religions are not the cause, but a result of the human way of thinking.

some religious people are ok. most people in the world have some sort of religion. my brother is so very catholic but he's the best person in the world (ok, my world, but still). my parents are religious. a lot of people i know and love are. i'm sure a lot of people you know and love are.

-mumbles under breathe- Yes I do. My ex-boyfriend just so happens to be very religious. Hmph. Lets just say it was one of the faluts I didn't like. But if you try to 'Debate' with him on the matter of their being a god or not, he will not let you win. Which may be one of the reasons hes now my EX boyfriend.

My exgirl friend was really religous and i tried to hold her hand and she was like i can't hold your hand because its against the bible, i was i like what the hell. I hate all religous people they just piss be off, it is impossible to find what relgon is right, so why do all these religons keep aguing on stupid things?

Ah. I kinda feel bad for you then. Heehee atleast I got to hold his hand [at the leas XD] Not going to say how far we went, so you won't have future reference. Ha.

It's the "new" religions that keep popping up in the Middle East: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Monotheism is the problem. One's pantheon is supposed to be a model of one's spirit. The Sumerians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Egyptians, Native Americans, etc. all had a number of gods. (Usually 23, there is actually some consistency here that maps with the synapses in our brain.)

Having only one god makes you look at the world in one dimension. Everything is either good or evil. It's like something binary that a geeky computer programmer invented. It stifles introspection, makes people feel ashamed of feelings that are perfectly normal, and limits discussions among people about how they feel about things and about how their societies should grow and adapt.

So just take the members of the Abrahamic religions. The rest of the people can stay. ^_^

Lately I've witnessed a lot of opinionated anti-religious sentiments online and in my daily life. It scares me when people jump on these opinion band-wagons whether they be pro or con on the issues.
Sure, it makes us feel better to point fingers and agree with the denunciations but I can't see how it helps resolve the conflict.
Of course, every instance is different and needs to be examined in it's own light.
I guess I'm saying:

Don't be to quick to judge, lest you become that which you hate, only this time in a different skin.

I agree that there are harmful aspects of organized religion but I have found that the helpful aspects have far outwayed the harmful in my person experience. Don't let emotion blow the issue out of proportion.
Be also careful to look for the very hypocrisy that you fight in other areas of your life, perhaps in places where you are less secure in your stance.

Isn't that sort of one sided to say? The Abrhamic religons should go? I'm not big on religion. Actually I downright despise it at times. But I know some of the basic knowledge. I agree with S.S on this one. And some religions to actually contridict themselves...I forget the name but its totally whacked out religion. Its just kinda scary to think that people are willining to die and kill innosent people just on something you can't really prove...

Proof is subjective, relative.
How ever hard we try, we can never fully understand the human mind, ours or that of another.
It scares me to imagine a situation in which I would choose a course of action that would severely harm or murder another human being although I believe that situation could exist and that no amount of deep thinking, morality, or humanity would be able to stop it.
So on one hand, I say "Who are we to judge?"

On the other, I imagine that psychotic fanatic you speak of coming at ME. I'm not anywhere near a hundred percent sure I wouldn't pull the trigger.

*if I have offended you: i am truly, sincerely, sorry.

Off tangent

Don't be sorry. Soldiers did not die and defy their mother country so you could say sorry about stating your opinions. Your thoughts are yours and need no apology.

Take all the really religious people in the world, put them in one place, and then jettison that place into space.

Do not let few bad apples ruin the whole basket. While I find religion to be a crutch of humanity, hatred by association is just as foolish. I understand why you feel this way because sometimes the actions of few can be so baffling that the whole institution looks ridiculious. Rest assured most have more commen sense than this even though most rely way too much on and listen too closely to the word of god.

Most religious people I know, know enough to not impose their beliefs on others. Most also don't use religion as the 'answer all' for everything.

The problem is those who do, and are unwilling to consider opposing views. Even if you assume that your religious book of choice was written by god.. that doesn't mean you interpreted it right.

The problem is those who do, and are unwilling to consider opposing views.
When we take a stance on a viewpoint of such cosmic magnitude, we tend to attach ourselves to it quite tightly. If our viewpoint comes under attack, we feel threatened. This could explain a lot of fanatical and unwilling attitudes found in religious conflicts.

But how do you deal with this... besides shooting them into space?

I haven't the faintest clue.

If it's not one person who agrovates it will be another just live and let live and just hope they do the same

That's the problem though... they don't. Notice that nobody bugs the amish, because they don't bug us.

Exscatly Persol!

Mustafhakofi [Nice name...]
If they don't aggrivate it at all, then they won't have anything else to follow.

The Amish not having electricity would make it difficult for them to bug an Internet forum.

True. But still, its just an exsample.

Take all the really religious people in the world, put them in

Really religous ppl? I think that I know what are you talking about, however, I would not call those ppl REALLY realigious. Their beliefs and actions have actually nothing to to with any religion as it's known fact that in the essence of all religions are love and compassion.

How is it a known fact if they are just beliefs...?

The Amish not having electricity would make it difficult for them to bug an Internet forum.If fanatics only bugged us on online forums I could care less.

Lately I've witnessed a lot of opinionated anti-religious sentiments online and in my daily life.Yeah? Then apparently you've not been paying attention to the incredibly LARGER number of vitriolic, inflammatory, and downright aggressive sentiments expressed by the religious faction against the rest of us! Throughout history there have always been huge swaths of territory on this globe where an atheist or even someone who is not a member of the so-charming Abrahamic sects could be executed with no fear of punishment. There are arguably equally large tracts where Abrahamists of competing sects are out gunning for each other. And the earth is in a brief respite right now. The more "normal" state over the past two thousand years has been for the Abrahamists to be on a mission from their god to wipe out our (as well as each other's) entire cultures, including our written histories, our traditions, and our very languages. Sometimes they let us live if we agreed to convert at swordpoint, other times we were only allowed to live as slaves, and other times they just casually exterminated us like we were gophers in their angry, vengeful, cruel and abusive god's front lawn. It scares me when people jump on these opinion band-wagons whether they be pro or con on the issues.It scares me a lot worse to see the leader of the world's most powerful country citing his religion as he sends troops without provocation into a sovereign nation whose people (Iraqis) just happen to be of the same religion (Islam) as the people (Saudis) who perpetrated 9/11. It scares me even worse when he deliberately saturates the airwaves with photos of those soldiers demeaning Muslims (don't tell me that happened by accident, nobody takes hundreds of photos of themselves committing atrocities as souvenirs of their summer vacation) so that now two frelling BILLION Muslims are starting to think that we really are the Great Satan and now they're going to come and try to kill ME even though I'm not one of the superstitious yokels that attends Bush's damn church.Don't be to quick to judge, lest you become that which you hate, only this time in a different skin. I agree that there are harmful aspects of organized religion but I have found that the helpful aspects have far outwayed the harmful in my person experience.Quick??? This has been going on for two thousand years -- more if you count the atrocities that the Abrahamist Jews got away with before Jesus's time. Abrahamism has brought us the burning of the libraries of the Cushitic Egyptians and the Aztecs, the Inquisition, the total annihilation of the civlizations of the New World, and a nearly constant state of feudal, revenge-driven warfare in the Middle East. It has failed to deter its followers from practicing slavery, genocide, the subjugation of women, and the repression of sub-Sahran Africa. That's a pretty sad list of evil achievements.

And what are these "helpful aspects" that "far outweighed the harmful" listed above? A hundred years after the abolition of slavery, a few liberal Christian churches finally pulled their heads out of the sand and gave their blessing to the civil rights movement -- while the more traditional denominations steadfastly supported segregation. After demonizing Jews for centuries and finally sitting passively with their eyes averted as their leaders came close to killing off the entire ethnic group, guilt-ridden European Christians finally began meekly supporting the Jewish cause -- as long as it involved only sending them money and Mercedes-Benz buses and giving them somebody else's homeland to take over rather than inviting them to live next door in Paris or Rome.

Your apologistic reassurance notwithstanding, the balance sheet after two thousand years of our having to share this planet with the Abrahamists is not very inspiring. It's difficult to imagine ways in which the world could be any worse off if Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed had not existed. Wait a minute, Jesus actually didn't exist, those sections in the writings of Josephus turned out to be forgeries, didn't they. Oh crap, this stuff is just unstoppable.

Be also careful to look for the very hypocrisy that you fight in other areas of your life, perhaps in places where you are less secure in your stance.This consistent, only occasionally and briefly interrupted, pattern of behavior that I have identified in the Abrahamic communities is not "hypocrisy." With no qualms they loudly call each other and the rest of us "infidels," "heathens," "pagans". They joyfully and with great fanfare proclaim themselves superior to each other and the rest of us. They proudly march off to war, crusades, witch hunts, and occupations of other lands, dead certain that they are doing their god's bidding. There is no hypocrisy here.

These religions really are evil. It's time for us to speak the truth instead of being the only ones who support "freedom of religion" for someone other than our own damn selves.

Fraggle Rocker--

I couldn't agree more. I appluade you for putting it into words with such ease. -Salutes-

Fraggle Rocker-- I couldn't agree more. I appluade you for putting it into words with such ease. -Salutes-Thanks for your supportive words. Now you'll have to excuse me while I go put on my flame-retardant suit.

Thanks for your supportive words. Now you'll have to excuse me while I go put on my flame-retardant suit.

You won't need that suit.

Sentiment-wise, I agree with you ... but then we'd just have Trekkies butchering Star Wars geeks.

LOL!

sorry, kinda late reaction but that is fucking hilarious and likely pretty accurate.

Sentiment-wise, I agree with you ... but then we'd just have Trekkies butchering Star Wars geeks.No, we wouldn't! And that's the whole frelling point. NOTHING makes people as angry, hateful, irrational, righteous, and violent as the Abrahamic religions. Well maybe soccer, I'll never understand that crap, and even then they have to be stone drunk and they only do it in the stadiums.

I know you were joking but it's a good springboard for this discussion. The only other thing that comes close is politics. People have fought some pretty bloody wars over politics. But then one side wins and the other side gives in and that conflict is over. It doesn't keep brewing for a thousand years. When we forced the Japanese to surrender after WWII, they didn't have secret meetings in basements with candles where they plotted to restore the empire and conquer the world. Even after the American Civil War, which many historians single out as the most horrible in history by many measures, the people of the South never made a serious attempt to restore the Confederacy, despite the ill will toward "damn Yankees" and the slogans about "hanging on to your Confederate money." Every single time the Union went to war, the Sons of the South marched off with the Sons of the North and fought side by side. In fact, starting with the Vietnam Era, we feel like the Southerners have co-opted our flag and we've reciprocated by putting five of them in the White House.

I know I'm oversimplifying and some animosities kept simmering for multiple generations, but today even the French, Germans, and English have buried the hatchet. Nothing like the never-ending 3-way battle between Judaism, Christendom, and Islam, or between the Catholics and the Protestants, or between the Shias, Sunnis, Wahhabis, Sufis, Hashemites, and whatever other Islamic sects there are.

There is something about this pathetic "one god and he's got a penis" paradigm, this foolish attempt to straitjacket the human spirit into a one-dimensional spectrum where everything is either "good" or "evil" and there are no other choices, that makes a good chunk of that human spirit fester for generations and then explode like a river of lava, burning down everything that gets in its way.

Sports doesn't do this, politics doesn't do this, economic theories don't do this, even flat-out ethnic hatred doesn't do this.

Only the monotheistic, patriarchal religions of Abraham do this to our poor planet.

I stoped listening to relgious people, when they told me god told them to make a movie

Frag, you're forgetting Soviet Russia, Communist China, and the Khmer Rouge, all of whom were inspired by an economic theory.

Frag, you're forgetting Soviet Russia, Communist China, and the Khmer Rouge, all of whom were inspired by an economic theory.No, I haven't forgotten them. How could I? I am old enough to have lived through the inception of the last two and I had an aunt and uncle who emigrated to the USSR during the Great Depression because life was "so good" over there.

I conceded in my posting that there have been other "great ideas" in the history of the human race -- as well as a rather larger number of crappy ideas -- that motivated people to the same peaks of hatred and irrational violence that I'm speaking of. But I also made the point that not a single one of those ideas has survived for six frelling thousand years and is still inspiring people to commit genocide and other barbarisms in its name.

The USSR is dead. A few minor Soviet satraps have managed to hang onto power in some of the newly liberated republics, but they have no movement. They just have a few sycophants who know which side their bread is buttered on and will be loyal just until the leaders die. And most importantly, they are no longer preaching communism. They're just opportunists.

Communist China exists, but one must put it in context. China was conquered by Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes several centuries ago and they took complete control of the country. There was never an insurgency. They were never overthrown. Yet two or three centuries later, they had disappeared. There was no evidence of Mongols in China except for a few buildings and some grandchildren of suspicious ancestry. China was once again in the hands of the Chinese.

China was conquered by the Manchus a few centuries later. Same thing happened again. No insurgency, no overthrow. Only this time the conquerers had the misfortune of having their own country on China's border. Not only was China magically once again under the rule of Chinese people -- but so was Manchuria!

So now we have China conquered by communism. Any bets on how this will turn out? Especially seeing how things are going right this minute, major experimentation with capitalism?

China is the world's oldest continuous civilization. They have a more patient sense of history than we do. Things take a little longer. But they happen. Have no misgivings, China will absorb, dissipate, and destroy the communists just as it did the Mongols and the Manchurians.

The Khmer Rouge? They didn't survive as long as the Nazis!

My point stands. People rise up and commit atrocities for all kinds of reasons, but they settle down again and progress continues. The Abrahamic religions motivate people to commit continuous strings of atrocities for centuries.

The Dark Ages lasted for an entire Millennium. The repression of sub-Saharan Africa has arguably not yet stopped. The indigenous American peoples are still second-class citizens in their own lands. The holy war between Christendom and Araby is about to flare up again -- what, the fifth time in thirteen hundred years? The Jews and Palestinians are determined to kill each other over a piece of real estate they've been contesting for a thousand years.

Nothing the Russians, Chinese, or Cambodians have done compares to this. The Abrahamic religions instill a sense of hatred, irrationality, and violence, that never ever goes away. It's like the Evil Twin of the Energizer Bunny: still going.

I love Trekkies. They have faith in the future.

I agree with you StarOfEight, there would only be new groups around wo would claim power and start butchering one another.
As long as all the humans do not change their behaviour and belief drastically there will be no peace. Religions are not the cause, but a result of the human way of thinking.

Dude that is sooooooo wrong its not even funny. Grant it, there will always be a few nutbags in society , but what you speak is ridiculous. Revealed religion is going to end mankind as we know it. Not anything but "it".

Let me rephrase that... it will change our way of life... not an end to mankind... their will come a day that revealed religion will obliterate a billion or two...... if we as humans stay on the course we are on. And that is my God is better then yours...... God says your evil you must die... no God says your evil you must die....................its neverending. Not until our way of life will forever be changed.

It scares me a lot worse to see the leader of the world's most powerful country citing his religion as he sends troops without provocation into a sovereign nation... ...so that now two frelling BILLION Muslims are starting to think that we really are the Great Satan and now they're going to come and try to kill ME even though I'm not one of the superstitious yokels that attends Bush's damn church.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I just don't understand some of the things that people do through their religions. I mean, all the bigotry and being against gay marriage. I'm not much of a church goer... but doesn't 'god love everybody?'

Besides, I thought that Islam was a fairly peaceful religion :confused:. Of course, my father corrected me in saying that Mohammed (right? was it him?) was a warrior, or something.

Geez, I even remember hearing in History about Buddhist monks burning themselves in protest of Vietnam.

...with photos of those soldiers demeaning Muslims...
Don't even get me going, man.

To muslims. They did that to MUSLIMS! Isn't modesty one of the most important part of muslim culture? Aren't spouses not even really allowed to see eachother nude? I don't know much about it, though, but it still distgusts me to hear about (and see) that torture.

I find religion to be a crutch of humanity

I coulsn't agree more. Although i must say i find a lot of things crutches. i.e. books, movies, :m: , and people thinking that they are so much cooler than they are (the whole popularity stepladder).

but overall i dont think it is necessary to take these people and 'release' them (if you've ever read the giver you will probably agree it applies)

actuallyi find mysely getting completely bored with the constant bicker of gods true 'divinity'. howabout we all just shut up and belive what we, on our own, would like to believe.

i dont think it is fair to try and convert someones beliefs into something different.

Atheists impose their beliefs more than anybody. They can't stop running around proclaiming how much they should jettison religious people off to outerspace.

This thread is simply more atheist fanatical imposing.

If a religious person started this thread about how we should jettison all atheists to outerspace, they would get jumped on for imposing their religious beliefs.

But when an atheists starts a thread about sending religious people to outerspace, religious people still get jumped on.

look at the mormons if you want to see pushing your own views, do they ever stop trying to convert us?

look at the mormons if you want to see pushing your own views, do they ever stop trying to convert us?


I'm a Catholic that doesn't believe in Jesus Christ. and I don't care if any one else agrees with, me it's just how i feel, and I hate it when people force thier religion on others! DOES IT REALLY MATTER! My dad's methodist and I didn't learn that until i was 12!

Take all the really religious people in the world, put them in one place, and then jettison that place into space.

I'm sorry, and I really do not mean to offend anyone*, but once people think that their god is telling them to kill people, I stop listening to them.

I mean, even our 'fearless leader' claims that god gave him a mission to 'help' Iraq... WHAT?! This is America! Church and State, buddy!

*if I have offended you: i am truly, sincerely, sorry.

There isn't a place big enough (except earth) and that's already in space.
Why not just colonize another planet with the non-believers?

Deal. As long I am properly equipped, I am ready to leave this rock in a heartbeat.

It probably wouldn't be too terribly difficult to terraform Mars. Once we
had enough numbers (after several generations) we could invade Earth
and take it by force with our superior technology. Once in power we could
redefine belief as indentured servitude and get lots of free labor!

Umm well maybe not - Mars has no magnetic field so any atomosphere we try to create would be stripped away by the solar winds.

Nah - the solution to the eradication of religion is education.

Umm well maybe not - Mars has no magnetic field so any atomosphere we try to create would be stripped away by the solar winds.

Nah - the solution to the eradication of religion is education.

Mars has a magnetic field, but it's not so easy to detect.

There's a lot of knowledge in religions.

theological knowledge yes, but what good does that do in
reality.