Considering the world is dominated by Theism and human thinking is biased towards the kind of thinking that gives rise to theism, there is no real danager to becoming a theist. To have courage, you have to face a path with danger. So, while I will agree that some atheists become theists, I utterly disagree that courage plays any role. I would agree with your statement if you replaced the phrase "Many theists" with "Extraordinarily few theists". Perhaps your particular brand of personal theism shelters you from the experience somewhat. All theists (and I mean all) whom have ever asked me "how did the universe come into existence?" have responded to my answer of "I don't know" with "Ha! Well I do.". It's not surprising though, religions push a notion that belief/faith is (for example using christianity) "evidence of things unseen". The resulting mental gymnastics required to swallow that result in faith becoming objective evidence (i.e. I believe, therefore I know it's true because I have evidence by the mere act of believing). Again, I would agree with your statement if you replaced the phrase "Many theists" with "Extraordinarily few theists".
Obviously religion isn't only about where lightning comes from. There are certain corollaries that follow when one posits a divine creator, such as "the creator must be appeased," and "this is how to appease it." You'll notice even Christianity encourages blood sacrifice. In other words, if you insist upon an intervening god, you can't avoid the creation of ethical codes in that god's name. It doesn't have to be true of everyone to be true. If anyone votes based on party lines and defends actions they would condemn from other politicians, then it is a true statement. Of course it works like that. Think of the "small government" crusaders in the GOP who attack Obama for every government program created or expanded, yet didn't bat an eyelash when GWB did the same thing. And they literally idolize Reagan, who probably increased the size and scope of government more than anyone who followed him. And the "anti-war" pacifists who wanted Bush impeached for going into Iraq and Afghanistan are startlingly silent when Obama promises more troops to Afghanistan and shows his inability to get out of Iraq. Why wouldn't it? Are you saying religion can't address more than one thing? I mean, have you ever read a holy text? They explain the origin of the universe and predict its end, dictate what you can and can't eat, under what circumstances and in what positions sex is acceptable, even mandate a dress code. Religion doesn't only serve to explain where lightning comes from, it also attempts (or at least many of them do) to lay out specific guidelines for living. Well, I haven't "sprouted" anything. But of course I took into account the fact that no truth is universal. But it doesn't have to be. If 90% of devout Christians didn't kill in the name of their faith, but 10% did, then Christianity would still be dangerous. It doesn't have to be true for everyone to be true. Much in the same way you can be a good person without always being a good person. You can grasp this concept, no? Of course there's evidence. You know where to find it, it's there for you to see. No, religion is not an action. The exercising of religion is an action, but religion itself is not an action. Yes, one can believe in something with evidence, but I was using "belief" in the context of religious beliefs. But okay, let's call it faith. Fair enough. There are a few non-theistic religions, but you aren't talking about those. You're trying to posit that "religion" is just another word for political thought or theory, which is incorrect. Saying "That's a fact" doesn't make it a fact, Jan. You have to support your claim. You have to do that. Meanwhile, I can point to scripture that has inspired people to do horrible things, or to religious leaders who use the trust and authority afforded them by their position to exploit people. Religion is without question dangerous. Nope. It's entirely empirical, no faith needed. All you have to do is look at the evidence. It is true regardless of what you believe. The best example of this is Darwin himself, who found the concept of evolution unsettling. He was the last guy who would have expected or wanted such a thing to be true, but the evidence was such that he could not ignore it. That's my understanding of religion because that's what religion is. I mean, you say it isn't, but you haven't offered an alternative explanation. What are you waiting for? As for whether or not I was a part of a religious institute, my mother is Catholic and my father is a lapsed Greek Orthodox. We didn't go to church or say prayers at dinner, I was never indoctrinated to believe--which is probably why I recognized my unbelief so early in life--but I did attend Catholic school in 4th and 5th grades, and again for 9th and 10th. But by then I already knew I didn't believe in it. It had nothing to do with fulfillment. I was too young to understand such a concept. It was simply about me seeing through the BS. You overstate its fullness. And your failure to elaborate suggests you're disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing, and know nothing of this alleged "fullness" yourself. Of course it is. You can't tell me that a book explaining how the world came to be isn't making some very large statements about that world. As I said, I was never indoctrinated, so I don't know how I'd react if I grew up enduring Hell Houses or having to constantly hear how evil homosexuality is. I can't even imagine what I'd think if I were born to a Taliban family. I'd probably believe that killing women who show their faces in public is a righteous act. It would be easier to rebel against such an idea if it were just authority figures making the claim, but there are mandates for such acts in the texts, which are themselves supposedly handed down from on high. Imagine the influence such a claim would have on me had I been born into it. That isn't true. Some Muslims, thanks to Western pressures, have abandoned such practices, but this just means that they've abandoned one aspect of their faith. It doesn't mean that the faith is any different. And what do you mean not every scripture condones it? The only scripture that even addresses it in the Quran condones it. Doesn't just condone it--mandates it. I'm sorry, what? I can't make sense of this.
Apart from that, what about the secular world? Isn't wife beating a serious problem, as well other forms of heinous kinds of acts? What makes that a religious injunction, in your mind? jan
Sure it is. No one claimed that it's exclusive to religion, but religions like Islam do institutionalize it. Just because people can become racists on their own doesn't mean that they can't also learn it from their parents. It's the same principal. The fact that it is mandated in religious texts.
In the U.S. and many parts of the world, the illusion of freedom is very important and banning or restricting religion would cause a very nasty backlash that wouldn't be good for anybody. I would suggest TV attack ads designed to dislodge the less committed theist and start promoting doubt in the faithful, then start pushing for the proof that they can never provide. After all education works if you keep at it.
Pretending to glorify the most dismal of political systems in recent memory is entirely self-inflicted. My commentary stands on the merits of checking you for your fallacies, contradictions and deceptions, nothing more. Yes, let's fact-check the absurd. No, you will not. You will rant, nothing more. You've had ample chance to make rational posts and you've completely blown it. You have nothing whatsoever to offer any reasonably informed dialogue because you are too full of yourself. Your entire purpose can be characterized as cynical self-gratification. A dozen people have told you the same. But you drone on with the same tired bluster. What so many good people have brought to this board as personal insight, you have effectively wiped your ass with and rubbed their face. And that's what you call debate. I'm not the issue. You are. Think about it. Look at all the folks attacking you moronic posts. Show me where any of them have attacked me, or where I have attacked them. Aha. So it is you after all. Look up Albania? Hell, no. Look up denial. *yawn* Get a life, dude.
Eliminate the religious tax break. Why should churches and other religious organizations be tax exempt? Why do we encourage people to start churches and preach BS by making them tax free? And why give priests the legal right to withhold information of criminal wrong doing? Sure let people believe the way they want but stop giving them public support. I don't want to pay more taxes because churches don't pay their fair share.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Originally Churches "Gave alms to the poor", so that's where the whole tax exemption thing came from initially. Nowadays of course there are hundreds (if not hundreds of thousands) of charities, international and domestic that aren't necessarily religious. So technically the religious "tax break" should be stopped. It doesn't of course mean that they couldn't run a charity thought to continue getting a tax break, so there is always a work around.
I'm not denying that. What I'm saying is that there are also those who supported and support the establishments. There will always be those for and against any government. This will be true until we achieve a truly classless society, since the state itself is predicated on class divide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG9rbkSNYAQ I'm not saying Stalin was an angel. Heck, I'll be honest: he was brutal and he was a dictator, Make no mistake. Many people feel that Stalin corrupted the "socialism" of the Soviet Union. He made policy errors; he had purges; and he sent people to gulags. But he also led the country through World War II, and like it or not, there really was a threat of espionage and sabotage by hostile forces, hence the purges and the harsh politics. Many in the West have this notion that, because there were some political prisoners in the Soviet Union, everybody ever sent to the gulag must have been innocent of any crime. No. Many of them were petty or violent criminals and indeed conspirators. And the gulags were not death camps. They were labor camps, and sometimes people died. It's not about liking or not liking Stalin or apologizing for him. It's about the fact that Russia during his day was going through a lot of shit and honestly had it been any other leader with "softer" policies, Russia might not be here today. Regarding the "20 million killed", though, I do declare that is total bullshit not supported by any evidence. It's intellectual dishonesty; people unfairly count deaths he couldn't control in the total count. A man could die of syphilis and they'll attribute it to Stalin. Stalin was not God. I don't doubt it, but I'm also unsurprised. That's not the full story. I recommend you read more about the Soviet Union in the early years. I'm not saying you are ignorant; you make good points. But it's not as simple as "collectivization failed". There were also natural circumstances, and many of the peasants hoarded grain. Not all, but so what? Feudalism laid the foundation for the emergence of mercantilism and capitalism. Capitalism will lay the foundation for socialism; remember, being a communist is not a lifestyle. I don't boycott Wal-Mart. You don't "escape" or "avoid" capitalism; the point is to change it. The more the productive forces are developed, the more reason to institute socialism. Also, many of these innovations (like the internet) are the result of government research; and arguably, competition may actually hinder development by dividing efforts and creating a situation where knowledge is private and protected rather than open for others to interpret and improve. Remember, the Soviet Union won all the space race landmarks except the moon landing. We're not "programmed"; we respond to material conditions. Human nature is not a fixed, eternal pole. It changes as material conditions change. Human nature was very different 5,000 and 15,000 years ago. See above. I made a thread about "human nature" in the ethics section. But not everybody does, and that freedom is hardly unlimited. Also, regular folks in Cuba, for example, do have many of those freedoms. They don't sit around in concrete huts bowing down to pictures of Dear Castro. They live normal lives and go to school and work and play. I suppose none, since "privacy" isn't a right. But the government is spying on the citizens and that's a slippery slope. And it's worse in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, as well as the rest of Europe, where there isn't a "bill of rights". The CIA are just as bad as the KGB. Just not on domestic soil. Or maybe they are. Dachas were accessible to much of the population except the poorest workers. They were just simple summer cottages. Standard of living indicators. Not so much after Stalin. And the circumstances and environment of Russia at the time dictated that rations had to be employed to ensure that everybody ate. It's better than starving and there's no magical cure for more food. I don't either. Again, I'm not trying to create a replica of Stalin's Russia. The unique historical circumstances under which it existed are gone. We are trying to understand as much as we can about the history of the Soviet Union so that we (Marxists) can go in the next time better prepared. The Bolsheviks were testing new waters in horrible circumstances. This will, hopefully, not be the case the next time. Perhaps they were. Well, everything is "determined" by somebody. I'm simply making this determination based on the fact that the Soviet Union had much less discrimination in the work place and schools and government for women and minorities than the United States did. I will say that. But not if you're just going to quote the same tired "facts" about Stalin that nobody ever actually backs up but they heard it in school so it must be true. Fair point, but it's not up to me. I'm nobody special. Revolution will happen when the working masses get fed up with the way things are and decide to do something about it. The best I can do is advocate my ideas. Nothing more.
I wonder how many churches report an actual end of year profit. I never thought about til you brought this up. Obviously they can avoid taxes by giving away all of their funds to charity which is what we normally think they are doing anyway. Besides handouts to the poor, soup lines, shelters, medical assistance, etc., many churches do social services like running battered women's shelters, orphanages, children's hospitals, elder care & etc. I think all of these should remain tax exempt - it's just that I'm not clear on how or why any of them might be showing a profit.
I think you should be banned for lifetime for insisting that Stalin is innocent of mass murder. This is overt trolling.
Can you quote where I said "innocent"? You're the fucking troll. Tell me, how much Soviet history have you studied? I bet none. I bet you just repeat talking points. Stalin is responsible for deaths but not for the 20 million or anything near attributed to him. "Murder" is DELIBERATE killing, and Stalin most certainly did NOT deliberately kill 20 million people. I'm blocking you. I'm sick of your rosy moralistic judgements, you fucking moron.
All of that flaming and unwarranted vulgarity is indefensible and grounds for being banned. Your defenses of Stalin are inexcusable, as are most of your other rants. You should be banned. Go ahead and block me, since you have nothing insightful to contribute, and my retorts are only exposing you for the troll you are. I will continue to oppose you as I see fit and as long as the admins allow you to post. I won't feed you though, troll, I will only expose your tactics. So far they include (besides this episode of flaming): inflammatory rhetoric, historical revisionism, lying, fallacious argumentation, bogus and unsupported claims, and lavishing praise and loyalty on some of the most despicably notorious tyrants in recent memory.
Mod Note: Not really my forum, but I'm still gonna ask you to play nice. RedStar: Your defense of Stalin is crossing the line. You can challenge sources, but making excuses for the slaughters that occurred under his reign is no different than apologizing for Hitler, Mao or PolPot's horrific treatment of their people. You are, of course, welcome to start a thread and discuss it in a civil fashion, but I warn you -- such a thread will be moderated and only peer-reviewed sources will be considered factual. If you don't like this standard, then you have the option to leave or to refrain from defending Stalin. You are required to be civil to Aqueous whether you like him/her or not. Aqueous ID: RedStar is a communist. You shouldn't be so thin-skinned when he defends communism and communist regimes. I admit it bothers me, but he's allowed to have his beliefs. Keep in mind. This was not a request. Your options are to follow these instructions or be subject to a suspension of your account.
I'm sorry, I received a warning for saying that Catholic priests have molested children, which is a statement of fact. "You fucking moron" directed another member of the forum needs more than a "Hey, play nice now."
Mods aren't robots. And I haven't finished my actions yet. I'm still trying to figure out how the new system works. Be patient. And you were warned for saying Catholic priests have molested children? Where? (I was one of them . . . I WISH! Man, did I have a hot preacher when I was younger) ~String
Sorry, there was no indication that you weren't finished. http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...bation-a-sin&p=2966630&viewfull=1#post2966630
Whatever. This forum is full of twits. Aqueos hasn't once backed up his claims. He speaks it as if he doesn't have to. Fuck off. Famine deaths are not murders. there are famines because of capitalism ALL THE TIME and nobody says anything about it.
Mod Note: RedStar, you are suspended for a week. Come back when you grow up. Your next suspension will be for a month.
