People who have noble ideals, but who are convinced that the proper expression of those noble ideals is an unconscionably immoral act.
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People who have noble ideals, but who are convinced that the proper expression of those noble ideals is an unconscionably immoral act.
The ends justify the means defense was invented by religion.
And by the way, I'm not saying that people believing in God is the reason for all the problems in the world. What I mean is that when someone comes to you as a child and says "you may have some very powerful ideas about good and bad, but you don't really know what good and bad are. Let me / Jesus / Chairman Mao / L. Ron Hubbard / The Quran / Great Leader Kim / the Torah / etc. tell you what good and bad really are," we're talking about something very powerful that can cause people to forget their humanity and do horrible things to other people in the name of a great ideal.
Yes, religion can be used for terrible things. Yes, pretty much any socially organizing power can be as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Swami
Wouldn't that leave us with only two classes of people? Perfect and bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn
I'm not talking about "any socially organizing power" and you know this. I'm talking about orthodoxy. And orthodoxy is present in religion more than in any other field of discussion.
I'm better now. It's been awhile since I tortured and killed someone who didn't believe exactly as me, but hell, I still have three more kids anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by MoTown
I do absolutley despise religion and religionists. Religion has wreaked havoc on the world, and likely always will. I also like to spot hypocrisy in religionists. It is ALWAYS there, without fail. A guy says he's religious and moral, and then has Champagne Room access and posts there. I see a problem.
I have no problem with Spirituality. Tell me you are Spiritual, and I'm there. I didn't see JC walking around coming up with denominations and worried about a whole lot of shit with regard to who was right and wrong. I didn't see him talking about strapping a bomb around your balls and walking into a shopping mall. I didn't see him talking about the need for an Inquisition, or the separation of differing sets of beliefs. I saw him telling us we could all be like him with faith.
I do see religionists raping the planet throughout their history. I do see them picking the pockets of their ignorant flock. I do see that when we had no conception of God we created this storybook and said "And God said, let us create man in our image", so's we could elevate ourselves to his position, corrupt his world and turn it into a divided mess.
I see us giving God human emotions: Jelousy, anger, petulant, reactionary; turning him into a mass murderer who, at the drop of a dime decided at various times entire populations needed to be wiped out.
I see leaders of churches suspected of being Nazi underlings. I see leaders of churches being bounced for untidy little doings with homosexuality (that they preach against), drugs, little boys, prostitutes, and profiting beyond reasonable standards for a person with a message "from God". I see all this happening without once OUNCE of proof that any of this suff ever happened, or is true.
We've seen churchy guys stand in the way of medical research and progress; of arresting scientists who proved that their theories were bogus.
And again, all because of some old Jewish mythology that if it were to come out today would be either one of the more hilarious books ever written, or borderline science fiction.
And we see time and time again that people pull this ace of spades out of their pockets when they need to condemn someone else or pat themselves on the back.
Who's right? I don't know. But I DO know that ANY God wouldn;t be out there drowning his creation with a flood, or dropping a nuke on a town for behaving badly. I DO know there's no 70 virgins waiting for people who blow up a schoolbus in Israel. I DO know you can't tithe your way into heaven, or knock on enough doors to get a better room up there. I DO think it funny that his "chosen" people keep fucking Him over whenever he tries to do something nice for them.
I do know no God would sanction slavery, avarice in his name, mass murder, boffing 12 year old boys, or standing up and saying a prayer to a flag. I don't recall him building fences around countries. Oceans, maybe, because he knew people were nuts and would kill everyone they found on some new land they "discovered", so he made it a little harder for them to get there.
I DO know that Spirituality is not frought with dogma, creed, traditionalism, and false prophesy.
And this goes beyond the "people just want to blame religion for anything and everything". It is out there to be seen. People who pretend to speak on behalf of some God have proven to be the most bitter, bloodthirsty, perverted, amoral, perverted hypocrites. Yes, just like those who are not religious can be as well. But for the most part, religion has been a social construct that has been used by governments and religious leaders for the control and subjugation of the masses. It works: It validates their authority, and kind of keeps you behaved so you don't go burn in some lake of fire somewhere.
Do I want religionists to give it up? No, just shut the fuck up. Keep going to church, doing missionary work, praying, trying to behave (and mostly failing like the rest of us), and by all means: Keep the fuck out of politics and governments with your bedtime stories that would make Harry Potter look like a boring creation of some kindergarten student.
I 100% agree with you, Zip. Those people that you just spent the good part of an hour writing about are indeed the scum of the universe. People that use religion, something that should be used for happiness and salvation, and twist the words to make whatever point their trying to make are no better than serial killers in my opinion. People that purposely misinterpret sayings in holy books to persuade others are evil. Every one of those 12 paragraphs you just typed are spot on. No god would condone that.
Which brings me to my point. If it wasn't religion, it would be something else. If a priest is molesting a 12 year old boy, he'd do it if he didn't join priesthood. Nazi's blamed everything on Christianity, but it could have been something else. Bad people will always be bad people. Unfortunately, I think out of the 6 billion people in the world, it's about 50/50 out there. That leaves a lot of room for bad people out there, those same bad people you just talked about. But that also leaves a lot of room for good people that you don't hear or talk about. Not as interesting. Don't condemn a huge group of people throughout the world because you hear about the bad ones.
And it looks like you're still on my back about calling myself religious and moral. This was all because I was saying people without a sense of humor who claim jokes are bad because they're "religious" or "moral" people shouldn't use that as an excuse. Somehow, though I've explained it to you, you continue to misinterpret it. I don't know what else I have to do. But I will say this: because someone goes to the champaign room, they cannot be moral or religious? Come on Zip. Now you're stretching. I don't think I said I'm religious, moral and perfect. Everyone wishes they could be like me. I've seen a pair of boobies that belonged to a girl that I haven't married. I've had sex with more than 1 girl in my lifetime. I've smoked pot. I've been drunk. I've gotten in a fight or two. I used the Lord's name in vein. After all that, I still think I'm a pretty good guy. I wish I could say I'm perfect, but I can't. I'm pretty sure God understands everyone has flaws. I'm sorry if you disagree. You can probably judge me for who I am based on what you see in a message board. If you want to base your opinion on my morality based off of things you read on a message board, then I guess I'm fucked.
Don't you fucking insult me like that again. It took me about eleven minutes to get that last post out.
My bad. That was insensitive of me.
You clearly didn't catch the changes I made to your post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Swami
I did. But you know as well as I do that nationhood doesn't necessarily have the same effect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fool
Aside from the "and they will burn in hell", I don't really see it. People commit murder, genocide, mass-suicide, all based on either.
You know, I really should stay away from threads like these. It makes me feel like I'm being known as a strident anti-religion guy when I'm really not. It's almost dishonest.
There's nothing wrong with being anit-religion. Try it, it's quite refreshing. Gets a huge monkey off your back realizing how dopey religion is.
Think of it as being pro-reason.
That's a phenominal post.Quote:
Originally Posted by geerussell
Co-signed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Swami