Religious fanatic murders child and gets a slap on the hand

[snake]

[quote]If you were at all honest with yourself, you'd have to admit that you have no idea what the absence of religion would look like.[/quote]

Very similar to Albania from 1967-1991. What was once a beautiful reality is now sadly only a fading memory. Still, I know there are many among us who dream that such a glorious nation will rise once again to be a beacon of rationality and humanity to the rest of the world.

Live long and prosper, my friends.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='kungtotte' post='1740444' date='Mar 31 2009, 16.32']Why do you continue to believe that religion is the linchpin of terrorist acts like 9/11? You don't have to [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Bank_bombing"]look far[/url] to find example of suicidal terrorist attacks that aren't connected to religion, [b]which disproves your theory that you need religion to motivate people to carry out attacks such as 9/11.
[/b]
Furthermore, the antipathy between the US and the middle-east is fueled by the US actions in the region rather than the difference in religion between the US and Afghanistan. Religion here plays the role of an additional source of contention, and a cheap way of organizing things. Much like religion became a symbol in the struggle in Northern Ireland. It didn't start with catholics bombing protestants, it started when the brits occupied and oppressed the irish.

Remove religion from either situation and you will find that events would have transpired in much the same way, albeit perhaps with different actors and with a slightly different discourse.[/quote]

I did not say religion was the linchpin of terrorist acts LIKE 9-11, I said it was the linchpin OF 9-11. And what's the point of that link? You linked an attack by the Tamil Tigers, a separatist group in Sri Lanka, fighting a war in Sri Lanka, attacking a target in Sri Lanka. You know, a direct assault on their immediate real or perceived oppressors. The type of shit that does happen in war, the sort of local strike one would expect in a war. When they're blowing up shit in Sudan because of what's going on in Chechnya, give me a call. As for the bolded part, please scour through my posts to find where I proposed the theory that religion was necessary for 9-11 style attacks. Even disregarding the fact that due to the factors I mentioned here and mentioned before, you have not linked to a 9-11 style attack.

Yes, the Brits occupying and oppressing the Irish. Pray tell which middle eastern country we were occupying and oppressing prior to 9-11. Even if you can make a flimsy case for our Israel sponsorship in that conflict, why would someone in UAE or Saudi Arabia care to the point of mass murder and suicide if they did not share the common cause and heightened outrage granted by religion.

No things are not going to transpire much the same way. Without religion there is no 9-11, which leads to a whole host of things that were a direct response to 9-11 that WOULD NOT HAPPEN. Do tell me which different actors or discourse are gonna cause an attack on our soil by foreign forces on the scale of 9-11 within the rough time period of 9-11 in the absence of religion? You can be as general as you like. Whose gonna do it? And if they were gonna do it with or without religion, why haven't they done it yet?

[Lord of Oop North]

Unless someone here has invented psychohistory, then it's pretty arrogant to assume that we can predict what the world would be like without religion. The planet would be so radically different that you have literally no idea what it would be like. To think that you do, is pretty laughable. It's possible we'd act like carebears, sing happy songs, and drink jaegarbombs all day, but it's also possible we'd try to close the world off to the outside and initiate the Apocalypse. There is no way to prove it either way, and you can't say with any certainty whatsoever what is likely and what is unlikely.

[The_BlauerDragon]

[quote name='John Quincy Adams' post='1740343' date='Mar 31 2009, 13.08']If you were at all honest with yourself, you'd have to admit that you have no idea what the absence of religion would look like.[/quote]
Very well stated. There is no way to know.
Personally, I believe that the atrocities that man has committed against man (and continues to commit) would not even begin to compare to the horrors that would have unfolded without the constraints and/or guidance of religion. With the way things exist now, those who have wanted to do the most vile of deeds have often used religion as both a justification for those deeds and as a means of winning others over to their cause. If there had been no religious divide to use for feeding the greed of the power elite, they would have had to resort to other tactics. In some cases, that would be brute force, in some it would be widespread corruption, in others... who knows?
I've heard it said that without religion there would be no war. I find this statement to be an absolute fallacy. War is within the nature of man. Without religion being in play, there probably would not have been nearly as many wars, but the ones that did happen would most likely have been much more brutal in nature. I also do not believe that slavery would have ever become a less common (and often disapproved of) practice in the world without religion. The way that I see it; organized religions are the machines through which great evils are carried across the land, but the individual faith of the people within those religions provides the braking mechanism that occasionally forces the machine to alter course or come to a (temporary) halt.
Of course, I am a religious individual and (according to many that I've observed here on these boards) therefore incapable of any level of critical thinking or rational thought, so what do I know?

[Kalbear]

[quote]Yes, the Brits occupying and oppressing the Irish. Pray tell which middle eastern country we were occupying and oppressing prior to 9-11. Even if you can make a flimsy case for our Israel sponsorship in that conflict, why would someone in UAE or Saudi Arabia care to the point of mass murder and suicide if they did not share the common cause and heightened outrage granted by religion.[/quote]No, it wouldn't be Israel. It'd be Saudi Arabia. That's what OBL has said was repeatedly the problem - the US involvement and presence in SA. Israel was a secondary problem but not as big an affront. and really, the anger only came about after Gulf War 1 and a permanent presence in SA came about.

Without Christianity we wouldn't have come out of the dark ages, and we'd all be Muslim now. We can play that game all along, but there are plenty of reasons for people to hate other people and travel halfway across the world to fuck their shit up. Even taking the notion that 9-11 happened only because of religion and would not have happened for other reasons, that's one specific case of a terrorist happening. It doesn't mean all terrorist actions are because of religion. It doesn't stop terrorism.

[Shryke]

[quote name='Lord of Oop North' post='1740483' date='Mar 31 2009, 18.07']Unless someone here has invented psychohistory, then it's pretty arrogant to assume that we can predict what the world would be like without religion. The planet would be so radically different that you have literally no idea what it would be like. To think that you do, is pretty laughable. It's possible we'd act like carebears, sing happy songs, and drink jaegarbombs all day, but it's also possible we'd try to close the world off to the outside and initiate the Apocalypse. There is no way to prove it either way, and you can't say with any certainty whatsoever what is likely and what is unlikely.[/quote]

Without religion PEOPLE would be so radically different I don't think we could come close to predicting the outcome.

[The Khaleesi]

[quote name='the Blauer Dragon' post='1740489' date='Apr 1 2009, 11.12']I also do not believe that slavery would have ever become a less common (and often disapproved of) practice in the world without religion.[/quote]
Slavery was first abolished by the French revolution, which brought about a big shift of power from the Church to the State.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1740491' date='Mar 31 2009, 17.15']No, it wouldn't be Israel. It'd be Saudi Arabia. That's what OBL has said was repeatedly the problem - the US involvement and presence in SA. Israel was a secondary problem but not as big an affront. and really, the anger only came about after Gulf War 1 and a permanent presence in SA came about.[/quote]

A problem that only REALLY becomes a problem, a problem worthy of inspiring suicide and mass murder...because of religion. OBL and his followers weren't outraged to the point of butchery because a few thousand US troops had a few bases in the Arabian desert at the request of the official Saudi government...its because there were heathen western soldiers in the Holy Land. No religion, no Holy Land, no catastrophic, suicidal, 3,000 dead tantrum over a minor inconvenience.

[quote]Without Christianity we wouldn't have come out of the dark ages, and we'd all be Muslim now. We can play that game all along, but there are plenty of reasons for people to hate other people and travel halfway across the world to fuck their shit up. Even taking the notion that 9-11 happened only because of religion and would not have happened for other reasons, that's one specific case of a terrorist happening. It doesn't mean all terrorist actions are because of religion. It doesn't stop terrorism.[/quote]

I'm not advocating the absence of Christianity, but the absence of religion. So no Muslim's either and presumably no continent sweeping conquests out of the backwater of some corner of the Arabian desert. Also, the missionary's role in our rise from the dark ages is probably overstated. All the ancient learning was still preserved and taught in the Byzantine empire and the vast majority of it that made its way to Europe came from Byzantine teachers and scribes. As well as many of the Muslim contributions made til that point. Even if the Missionary contributions were paramount, Europe was bound to dig themselves out of the depths eventually. Maybe it gets delayed for a bit. And even if we did have Islam but no Christianity, Europeans didn't need christianity to have a reason to resist a foreign conqueror on their doorstep. The halting battles in France still probably happen regardless and the Byzantines stood alone regardless in the initial onslaught and were not overwhelmed. Most of Europe would have stayed safely non-Muslim.

[Kalbear]

[quote]Slavery was first abolished by the French revolution, which brought about a big shift of power from the Church to the State.[/quote]Depends on the slavery in question. Slavery was abolished in many forms in feudalistic times, and was certainly frowned upon for a long time beforehand. Of course, that was often Christian slaves - the Pope specifically made an edict encouraging taking non-christian slaves.

And the first big deal was done in 1772, and that was in England - prior to that, slavery existed but was in a grey area. It wasn't abolished 60 years after.

In France, it was declared illegal with the revolution. Of course, Napoleon brought it right back. It wasn't completely abolished again until about 20 years after England did it, and only 17 years before the US did.

[GSP]

"It is not necessary for people to be charitable" - Oh, of course not? Where is this happy utopia where you live?

Well, since religion is clearly a cancer to be gotten rid of, how would you suggest we go about that short of genocide and despotic oversight? I look forward to the happy, religionless world of tommorow where the critical thinkers have prevailed over the intellectually inferior, superstitious billions. Ah Utopia!

What I find ironic about the most vehement atheists is that they cannot even recognize how thousands of years of religious culture have shaped their secular norms. All this 'do unto others' social justice, good feeling stuff is very much a spin off of judeo christian values. Take international law for example. The idea of the justified or defensive war came about after the Roman Empire Christianized and had to deal with the fact that you couldn't just invade a neighbour and take their shit now because you were strong and they were weak. This concept was absolutely foreign to pre Christian Rome and in many other theatres as well.

But, everything religion has ever offered is outdone by the repugnance that comes along with it.

EHK claims Nationalism isn't 'inherently' divisive. I assume the other side of the coin is that religion is? Funny. I was dragged to Church twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday evening for years and years and years. The vast bulk and majority of every bore me to tears sermon and Sunday school class was about how to conduct oneself to be Christlike: charitable, forgiving, turn the other cheek, loving, kind, not to lie, not to steal, not to fight, not to gossip, never to kill, to suppress greed, envy and jealousy in one's heart .... .... ....... (none of which are to be applied only to fellow Christians, but to each and every human being, especially those outside the flock as you are representing what the church stands for in your daily life).

But reading posts on this thread I think they were supposed to spend their time railing at me to beat up homosexuals and non believers and bomb abortion clinics. Where's the disconnect? Dare I say blind prejudice?

[Lord Mord]

GSP,

[quote name='GSP' post='1740557' date='Mar 31 2009, 16.11']Funny. I was dragged to Church twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday evening for years and years and years. The vast bulk and majority of every bore me to tears sermon and Sunday school class was about how to conduct oneself to be Christlike: charitable, forgiving, turn the other cheek, loving, kind, not to lie, not to steal, not to fight, not to gossip, never to kill, to suppress greed, envy and jealousy in one's heart .... .... ....... (none of which are to be applied only to fellow Christians, but to each and every human being, especially those outside the flock as you are representing what the church stands for in your daily life).

But reading posts on this thread I think they were supposed to spend their time railing at me to beat up homosexuals and non believers and bomb abortion clinics. Where's the disconnect? Dare I say blind prejudice?[/quote]


Church has to be one or the other? It can't be a totally hypocritical blend of both, such as ... oh, say, every church to which I've ever been introduced?


The way I see it: the argument against religion amounts to a bunch of folks with more ego than good sense thinking they can speak for the Universe At Large when they boil down all the arguments to this: "Well, even if you believed in a wholly benevolent God and could explain all the inexplicable and don't carry any of the ugly baggage men who identified under the name of your faith have carried out over the centuries ... even given all that, the fact that you'll take his existence on faith makes you stupid."

Because that's all it boils down to, because in the end the evidence is one of personal invective, I think it's necessary to tell people advocating the demolition of religion to stuff it. Of course we should permit religion; we should also encourage its better adherents to promote its better facets and discourage all the shitheads and all the nasty stuff.

[GSP]

Bill Starbuck,

as a self indulgent, wholly debauched nihilist, you are getting to the heart of what annoys me about some uber atheists kickin around and their dismissive attitudes to all people of faith. For fuck sakes, EHK's got a nice little comment over in the 'Iraq to execute gays' thread (by the way, what the fuck?) where he states that only atheists should be allowed to vote. Wow. Sorry EHK, but I'm seeing right on this board that atheism can be every bit as bigoted and divisive as any religion. Haven't heard anyone religious on this board claim that only members of x religion should have the right to vote. That's insane.

[The_BlauerDragon]

[quote name='GSP' post='1740593' date='Mar 31 2009, 16.59']Haven't heard anyone religious on this board claim that only members of x religion should have the right to vote. That's insane.[/quote]
But when you examine it in more detail, isn't Atheism a religion, in and of itself? A religion of non-religion, as it were? In that case, yes, you have heard someone advocate exactly that.

[The Khaleesi]

[quote name='the Blauer Dragon' post='1740597' date='Apr 1 2009, 13.11']But when you examine it in more detail, isn't Atheism a religion, in and of itself? A religion of non-religion, as it were? In that case, yes, you have heard someone advocate exactly that.[/quote]

That is a rather hackneyed idea, and I'll respond with another cliche - saying that atheism is a religion is like saying that not-collecting-stamps is a hobby.

Also - I'm pretty sure that EHK was being tongue-in-cheek when he suggested that only atheists be allowed to vote; however, there are religions that prevent their members (or some of their members) from voting. examples: The Exclusive brethren,hard line Muslims (women can't vote).

[Seventh Pup]

[quote name='GSP' post='1740557' date='Mar 31 2009, 16.11']I was dragged to Church twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday evening for years and years and years. The vast bulk and majority of every bore me to tears sermon and Sunday school class was about how to conduct oneself to be Christlike: charitable, forgiving, turn the other cheek, loving, kind, not to lie, not to steal, not to fight, not to gossip, never to kill, to suppress greed, envy and jealousy in one's heart .... .... ....... (none of which are to be applied only to fellow Christians, but to each and every human being, especially those outside the flock as you are representing what the church stands for in your daily life).[/quote]

But then you learn that you are the chosen people of god to light the way for those not fortunate enough to be like you; and that everyone who is not like you will burn and be tortured for all eternity.

ETA

Not that religion is all bad. It's not, but it there is a lot in it worth reproach.

[The_BlauerDragon]

[quote name='The Khaleesi' post='1740602' date='Mar 31 2009, 17.17']That is a rather hackneyed idea, and I'll respond with another cliche - saying that atheism is a religion is like saying that not-collecting-stamps is a hobby.[/quote]
I could be wrong (God knows it's happened before): but I'm fairly certain that if you purposefully went about making sure that you did not collect stamps, and making sure that anyone and everyone that you encountered knew right away that you not only did not collect stamps but also had a strong bias against those who do collect stamps... that would qualify as a hobby. It would be one of the saddest and most pointless hobbies of all time (and some might even call it an insanity), but it would be your hobby. And I would do my best to defend your right to have that hobby.

Now, on a side note, I[i] really [/i]need to start using smileys when I am trying to be a bit facetious.

[Lord Mord]

Blauer Dragon,

[quote name='the Blauer Dragon' post='1740621' date='Mar 31 2009, 17.35']I could be wrong (God knows it's happened before): but I'm fairly certain that if you purposefully went about making sure that you did not collect stamps, and making sure that anyone and everyone that you encountered knew right away that you not only did not collect stamps but also had a strong bias against those who do collect stamps... that would qualify as a hobby. It would be one of the saddest and most pointless hobbies of all time (and some might even call it an insanity), but it would be your hobby.[/quote]


But at the same time, not all people who may be said to be "not collecting stamps," really give a shit about stamps one way or the other. As such, to say that their "not collecting stamps" is a hobby is really pretty silly.


Even if that person had at some point been a stamp collector and simply decided to stop, or had considered it and simply decided against. They may have some feeling on the subject (as opposed to not giving a shit), but still hardly have made a [i]study[/i] or a [i]habit[/i] of "not collecting."


ETA: Yes, some smileys would help. It would also help if I had read the last line or two of your response before I posted my reply :)

[The Khaleesi]

[quote name='the Blauer Dragon' post='1740621' date='Apr 1 2009, 13.35']I could be wrong (God knows it's happened before): but I'm fairly certain that [b]if[/b] you purposefully went about making sure that you did not collect stamps, and making sure that anyone and everyone that you encountered knew right away that you not only did not collect stamps but also had a strong bias against those who do collect stamps... that would qualify as a hobby. It would be one of the saddest and most pointless hobbies of all time (and some might even call it an insanity), but it would be your hobby. And I would do my best to defend your right to have that hobby.

Now, on a side note, I[i] really [/i]need to start using smileys when I am trying to be a bit facetious.[/quote]

Yep I've taken notice of your "if", and - if that were the case, I'm still not sure it would qualify as a hobby. Maybe a bias against philatelists, but definitely not a hobby.

[The_BlauerDragon]

[quote name='The Khaleesi' post='1740625' date='Mar 31 2009, 17.43']Yep I've taken notice of your "if", and - if that were the case, I'm still not sure it would qualify as a hobby. Maybe a bias against philatelists, but definitely not a hobby.[/quote]
I guess what I was trying to say originally was that I've known plenty of people that had no religious belief what-so-ever who would never have described themselves as "Atheists". The majority of the people that I've met who did describe themselves specifically as Atheists, went about it just like it [i]was[/i] their religion. Anyway, I believe that there is room in this human experience for all of us, and all of our beliefs and ideals, so... :cheers:

[Lord O' Bones]

[quote name='the Blauer Dragon' post='1740489' date='Mar 31 2009, 15.12']Of course, I am a religious individual and (according to many that I've observed here on these boards) therefore incapable of any level of critical thinking or rational thought, so what do I know?[/quote]
I don't think anyone is saying that. I think what they are saying is that during certain moments [i]while you're thinking about your faith[/i] you must suspend critical thinking to do so.

[quote name='GSP' post='1740593' date='Mar 31 2009, 16.59']Haven't heard anyone religious on this board claim that only members of x religion should have the right to vote. That's insane.[/quote]
[i]On this board[/i] is key. I have heard it more than once from Christians [i]in this country[/i].

ETA: [url="http://www.csama.org/csanews/nws200807.pdf"]Priceless[/url].