Religious freedom

[jimbur]

Personally, I wouldn't ban religious beliefs, just put them in the same category as astrology, numerology, psychics and other, similar fantasies - ie - you can believe in them, just don't try making real world decisions with them.

To my mind that would include removing any tax benefits they have at present.
Jim

[jerryc]

And what's your definition of reason?

i used the word in it's colloquial form where to be pedantic I perhaps should have used logic. That is the testing of a belief by examining known facts and from them deducing an outcome.

I am an atheist because, to me there are too many areas in those religions I have looked at which rely on pure acceptance of what is taught.

Why is God prone to act as a grumpy old man?

If he doesn't get what he considers to be his just need to be worshiped then he is likely to thump everyone in sight. An omnipotent god who is massively narcissic?

He is said to have created the Devil. If Lucifer was his creation and a mistake, why didn't he squash the troublesome upstart?

If God created everything, including the Devil then He must have created evil itself.

I'm not seeking to expand this discussion into a full blown theological debate. I am simply stating the way I see things.

Jerry

[Master Splinter]

I always wonder at just which set of commandments we should use from the bible...is it:

1) the first set that Moses got from a quick chat with God on the mount? (Exodus 20: 2-17)

2) the second set, on stone tablets, that Moses smashed in a temper tanty? (Exodus 32:19)

3) or the third set, when Moses nipped back to god and, red-faced, said their had been an 'unfortunate incident' with the first lot of stone tablets.

God whips up a new set (probably still had the CNC file loaded and just needed to toss a new piece of granite in), specifically identifies them as the Ten Commandments (which he didn't do with the first two sets), and gives them to Moses. (Exodus 34:13-28).

Now, since the first lot were verbal ('words' which 'God spake'), and God labeled the second lot as 'testimony' and the tablets got broken anyway, you'd think that the third, written in stone, and clearly identified by God as 'the Ten Commandments' would be... the ten commandments.

For those unfamiliar with Exodus 34:13-28, these ten commandments, written in stone, carried down the mount etc, are:

I. Thou shalt worship no other god.
II. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
III. The feast of unleavened bread thou shalt keep
IV. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.
V. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.
VI. Thrice In the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God.
VII. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.
VIII. Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.
IX. The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.
X. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

Well, I think I'm doing good on number 10, at least....

[Sebastiaan56]

My favourite religious line,

"Never choose for a god someone you wouldnt want as a neighbour"

Most of the tragedies discussed have little to do with the teachings of the major religions, they are mostly the result of people using religion for their own ends. A great example is during the recent mortgage crisis in America a lot of repossessions were clustered around "Prosperity Churches". Quite often it was found that the man witnessing at the pulpit was the same guy who was selling the mortgage to people who couldnt afford them! But he was driving a Cadillac so god must have been shining on him... right?

[Gingermick]

those ones look better than the one about coveting thy neighbours ####.

[funkychicken]

If pointing out the facts as opposed making random guesses to support a point of view is 'picking on' something, then my hand is up, I'm guilty.

Thank you for correcting me and please excuse my wording. "Pick up on" would work better but would imply that I knew that my examples were wrong, which I didn't.
Plenty of wrong has been done in the name of religion, usually things that contradict the religions rules. But there has been plenty of wrong committed by non religious types as well. Wrongdoings done in the name of some god just get more attention than the rest.

If jerryc stated the way he sees things than so shall I.

Alot of people find belief in a God absolutely ludicrous but I find belief that everything was the result of an explosion, an accident, just as unbelievable.

Where did the big kerbang come from? Where did the "fuel" for the explosion come from? At some point in time things had to just exist. Seems illogical

I'd rather believe that my life has some kind of purpose than that I'm an accident. I'd rather think of other people as creations than organisms.

I've got no problem with atheists, agnostics and all the rest who have different beliefs to me. Don't think that I'm attacking or proselytizing any of you.

I'll leave it at that. The mods don't want a donnybrook erupting and neither do I.

Ps. Don't get me started on Prosperity Ministry...