Religion and Race - a new cornerstone for us?

@Mccarry said:
My perspective on the new point you raised (which I think is contribution to society) is look at not for profit organisations and do the analysis on weighting Christian vs non Christian. It is taboo to say it but a lot of selfless good comes from those of faith. That said those doing the selfless good are still inherently flawed. We all are. It's a truth no sane person can deny.

The only thing of contention is do humans get do determine how good is good enough or did God come down and tell us.

Is it selfless when someone is following a faith-based imperative?

Why is the proposition that everyone is inherently flawed an undeniable truth? It assumes that there is an ideal that everyone is failing to live up to. What defines that ideal? It seems like it's a construct of faith. So outside of your faith, why is that an undeniable truth?
 
@Mccarry said:
@the third said:
The abject abuse of power by priests looking after children and subsequent failure of the church to acknowledge this unfortunately prevents me from seeing religion as a solution.

I don't/won't judge others in their views as they shouldn't judge me

So you judge schools, scouts, local sports clubs, swimming teams, tv shows, annoying entertainers, family gatherings all as things that couldn't possibly be solutions?

On a more serious note, the disgusting issue you are referring to has been rife across most major institutions in our society. Picking on the church is like blaming your skin for skin cancer. Of course sickos are going to choose to operate in places they have power over their victims.

All institutions, ALL… failed the poor victims of these vile creatures. The church failed TERRIBLY. Humans failed. The Dept of Education failed. 1000s of families failed. It is horrible. Thinking it is proof one way or another of whether religion can bring meaning to your life is a bit of a leap.

That said I can see how you get there. The church and my beloved faith will be picking off scabs for generations because of what those vile creatures did. All the great work. All the volunteering and the charity.... Forgotten. Judged by the minority.

**Probably like a Roosters player. In my mind they are all dog rooters.**

Did you happen to see some of the Roosters players join with some of our players for a prayer circle after the match yesterday? They can't be all bad eh?
 
@Flippedy said:
Did you happen to see some of the Roosters players join with some of our players for a prayer circle after the match yesterday? They can't be all bad eh?

Yes, they were all praying to be selected for The Ark.
 
@TIGER said:
Essay:Atheism and world peace - RationalWiki http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Atheism_and_world_peace (Share from CM Browser)

Think religion makes society less violent? Think again. - LA Times http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1101-zuckerman-violence-secularism-20151101-story.html (Share from CM Browser)
two
Secular Societies Fare Better Than Religious Societies | Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-secular-life/201410/secular-societies-fare-better-religious-societies (Share from CM Browser)

Need any more.

This is getting way off topic now, but since you raised the false notion that atheism offers some utopic benefit to the world that religion doesn't, you might wish to explain why Atheists during the 20th century alone killed more people than all of the religious wars in history combined??

If you need the stats:
- Mao's atheist army killed between 45-70 million Chinese.
- The Soviets put to death about 60 million people.
- The Khmer Rouge killed 2.5 million of their country men.

These are all regimes with **Atheism** as a central point of their stated ideology.

Now a lot of people are grown up enough to understand that there are many underlying causes for wars and violence of this nature, where religion (or lack thereof) is just a vehicle rather than an underlying motivation. But you have gone off on a rant stating that society is better off without religion, and I think I have just proved conclusively that is just a ridiculous sweeping statement to make. I bet the 100 + million people killed above would beg to differ.

As for the articles presented… :laughing: . Besides two of them being basically the same article written by the same guy in two different magazines, and the other a two paragraph statement with no explanations or reasoning, they did give me a fit of the giggles. Arguing that quality of life is better in Australia than Malawi, simply because Australia is more secular than Malawi ... FMD!

I'll give you a tip, being a smug atheist is no better than being a smug bible basher... two sides of the same "im better than you are" coin.
 
Last entered thread on page 4…now exiting on page 7... forever amen..
 
@Abraham said:
@TIGER said:
Essay:Atheism and world peace - RationalWiki http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Atheism_and_world_peace (Share from CM Browser)

Think religion makes society less violent? Think again. - LA Times http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1101-zuckerman-violence-secularism-20151101-story.html (Share from CM Browser)
two
Secular Societies Fare Better Than Religious Societies | Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-secular-life/201410/secular-societies-fare-better-religious-societies (Share from CM Browser)

Need any more.

This is getting way off topic now, but since you raised the false notion that atheism offers some utopic benefit to the world that religion doesn't, you might wish to explain why Atheists during the 20th century alone killed more people than all of the religious wars in history combined??

If you need the stats:
- Mao's atheist army killed between 45-70 million Chinese.
- The Soviets put to death about 60 million people.
- The Khmer Rouge killed 2.5 million of their country men.

These are all regimes with **Atheism** as a central point of their stated ideology.

Now a lot of people are grown up enough to understand that there are many underlying causes for wars and violence of this nature, where religion (or lack thereof) is just a vehicle rather than an underlying motivation. But you have gone off on a rant stating that society is better off without religion, and I think I have just proved conclusively that is just a ridiculous sweeping statement to make. I bet the 100 + million people killed above would beg to differ.

As for the articles presented… :laughing: . Besides two of them being basically the same article written by the same guy in two different magazines, and the other a two paragraph statement with no explanations or reasoning, they did give me a fit of the giggles. Arguing that quality of life is better in Australia than Malawi, simply because Australia is more secular than Malawi ... FMD!

I'll give you a tip, being a smug atheist is no better than being a smug bible basher... two sides of the same "im better than you are" coin.

Why are you trying to turn this into aa historical athiest v religious body count?
You say the soviets do you mean Hitler? Pretty sure he wasn't an atheist.
The difference is, none of them killed in the name of atheism, but many have been killed in the name of god/religion. That's the past anyway, I'm talking about now and it's quite clear that non religious countries are getting on much better than religious ones.

Do you not believe the results of the study? I didn't spend much time finding those links if you're interested I'm sure you can find the breakdown data country by country.
 
oh boy, this reminds me of my University days. Studying history and philosphy of science. Religion vs science. Studied all the philosophers…its a debate that ends up no where...like a dog chasing his tail.
 
@Abraham said:
@TIGER said:
Essay:Atheism and world peace - RationalWiki http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Atheism_and_world_peace (Share from CM Browser)

Think religion makes society less violent? Think again. - LA Times http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1101-zuckerman-violence-secularism-20151101-story.html (Share from CM Browser)
two
Secular Societies Fare Better Than Religious Societies | Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-secular-life/201410/secular-societies-fare-better-religious-societies (Share from CM Browser)

Need any more.

This is getting way off topic now, but since you raised the false notion that atheism offers some utopic benefit to the world that religion doesn't, you might wish to explain why Atheists during the 20th century alone killed more people than all of the religious wars in history combined??

If you need the stats:
- Mao's atheist army killed between 45-70 million Chinese.
- The Soviets put to death about 60 million people.
- The Khmer Rouge killed 2.5 million of their country men.

These are all regimes with **Atheism** as a central point of their stated ideology.

Now a lot of people are grown up enough to understand that there are many underlying causes for wars and violence of this nature, where religion (or lack thereof) is just a vehicle rather than an underlying motivation. But you have gone off on a rant stating that society is better off without religion, and I think I have just proved conclusively that is just a ridiculous sweeping statement to make. I bet the 100 + million people killed above would beg to differ.

As for the articles presented… :laughing: . Besides two of them being basically the same article written by the same guy in two different magazines, and the other a two paragraph statement with no explanations or reasoning, they did give me a fit of the giggles. Arguing that quality of life is better in Australia than Malawi, simply because Australia is more secular than Malawi ... FMD!

I'll give you a tip, being a smug atheist is no better than being a smug bible basher... two sides of the same "im better than you are" coin.

I'm not saying I'm better than anyone or atheists are better than anyone, I'm simply showing that just because you're a person of faith it doesn't mean you're more moral than anyone else, religious people seem to think that if people don't believe in God the moral fabric of society comes apart, but its just not the case as the study shows.
 
Most of them killed in political manoeuvres in order to maintain their stranglehold on power, it wasn't (ir)religiously motivated killing.

That said, State Atheism is a core principle of Communism (of which all those regimes were,) which is quite funny because they impose a cult of personality around their leaders (North Korea are exceptionally good at this, the Kim family are virtually God status.)

Hitler wasn't religiously motivated in a personal sense, but it was certainly religiously motivated by the religion of those he persecuted. It's largely suggested that Hitler wasn't as closely associated with Catholicism as believed. There's been articles written that he had an affinity for Islam and mysticism as well as Christianity.

You don't have to be religious to be a homicidal maniac, some people are just dicks.
 
@Balmain Boy said:
I'm a bit lost, who is this Khmer Rouge and what position does he play?

Franco-Asian fella, I'm told he shuns the tough stuff and likes to send his teammates to face the firing squad when things go wrong.
 
@Cultured Bogan said:
@Balmain Boy said:
I'm a bit lost, who is this Khmer Rouge and what position does he play?

Franco-Asian fella, I'm told he shuns the tough stuff and likes to send his teammates to face the firing squad when things go wrong.

Sounds like he'd fit in perfectly with the culture at our club then!
 
@TIGER said:
Why are you trying to turn this into aa historical athiest v religious body count?
You say the soviets do you mean Hitler? Pretty sure he wasn't an atheist.
The difference is, none of them killed in the name of atheism, but many have been killed in the name of god/religion. That's the past anyway, I'm talking about now and it's quite clear that non religious countries are getting on much better than religious ones.

Do you not believe the results of the study? I didn't spend much time finding those links if you're interested I'm sure you can find the breakdown data country by country.

You made a clear inference that non-religion is better for society than religion, and that you had facts to back that up.

I demonstrated that the only times we have had Atheism regimes control society (i.e. societies without religion) it has ended in genocide and destruction. Hardly an endorsement for your claims.

I then pointed out that the 'evidence' you presented does not know the difference between secularism and atheism, secularism and theism, and provides no statistics, targeted research, or background information on any of the claims it made. It was horrendously poor, even by internet click-bait standards.

So do you wish to retract the statement, and maybe admit its just your opinion rather than a factual statement?
 
@Cultured Bogan said:
Most of them killed in political manoeuvres in order to maintain their stranglehold on power, it wasn't (ir)religiously motivated killing.

That said, State Atheism is a core principle of Communism (of which all those regimes were,) which is quite funny because they impose a cult of personality around their leaders (North Korea are exceptionally good at this, the Kim family are virtually God status.)

Hitler wasn't religiously motivated in a personal sense, but it was certainly religiously motivated by the religion of those he persecuted. It's largely suggested that Hitler wasn't as closely associated with Catholicism as believed. There's been articles written that he had an affinity for Islam and mysticism as well as Christianity.

You don't have to be religious to be a homicidal maniac, some people are just dicks.

Judging by your response above, and even though we sit at polar ends of this debate, we probably share a lot of common attitudes to this type of thing.

It grates me to no end when I hear people say 'religion this' and 'atheism that', when they don't even bother to scratch the surface and find out the why's and how's. In my experience a lot of atheists are no different than the whacko religious nut-jobs they hate…, they share the same level of fanaticism and misinformation, just about different things (not lumping you into those groups at all, just to be clear).

And as for Hitler, he left the Catholic Faith along time before he rose to power. It was confirmed by Goebbels personally. So not sure why TIGER brought him of all people up?
 
@TIGER said:
I'm not saying I'm better than anyone or atheists are better than anyone, I'm simply showing that just because you're a person of faith it doesn't mean you're more moral than anyone else, religious people seem to think that if people don't believe in God the moral fabric of society comes apart, but its just not the case as the study shows.

I'm sorry, what study?
 
This is going all over the shop. Any regime, be it religious or otherwise, involves a power structure. Once they get above a certain size power structures become like open wounds asking to be infected by greed and corruption and they are amenable to the will of those who hold the most power. Those who hold the most power are often deeply flawed people who are themselves riddled with greed and self-importance (or sociopathy). There will always be exceptions and exceptional individuals but as an overall trend people will be people, and people will be dicks when they get a lot of power. Nobody wins. Religious orders do it badly. It is done badly in the absence of religion. It is just a flaw in how we as humans interact on a large scale.
 
@Abraham said:
@Cultured Bogan said:
Most of them killed in political manoeuvres in order to maintain their stranglehold on power, it wasn't (ir)religiously motivated killing.

That said, State Atheism is a core principle of Communism (of which all those regimes were,) which is quite funny because they impose a cult of personality around their leaders (North Korea are exceptionally good at this, the Kim family are virtually God status.)

Hitler wasn't religiously motivated in a personal sense, but it was certainly religiously motivated by the religion of those he persecuted. It's largely suggested that Hitler wasn't as closely associated with Catholicism as believed. There's been articles written that he had an affinity for Islam and mysticism as well as Christianity.

You don't have to be religious to be a homicidal maniac, some people are just dicks.

Judging by your response above, and even though we sit at polar ends of this debate, we probably share a lot of common attitudes to this type of thing.

It grates me to no end when I hear people say 'religion this' and 'atheism that', when they don't even bother to scratch the surface and find out the why's and how's. In my experience a lot of atheists are no different than the whacko religious nut-jobs they hate…, they share the same level of fanaticism and misinformation, just about different things (not lumping you into those groups at all, just to be clear).

And as for Hitler, he left the Catholic Faith along time before he rose to power. It was confirmed by Goebbels personally. So not sure why TIGER brought him of all people up?

I've always held the belief (ironic choice of words,) that religion should be personal, between the adherent and their God. Not sure why religions require a middle man to deliver the message, but that's a moot point. I abhor the idea of religion personally, I won't impose my choices on others rights as long as theirs don't impinge on mine, particularly in a secular society.

As you've said, some atheists tend to be as fanatical and fundamentalist as the religious they lambast. I have to admit, at one point I was one of those. I suppose I've grown to have a wider view that it's not as simple as declaring religion a tool of oppression, rather that it is inherent within the human condition to manipulate people with ideals and beliefs they hold dear in order to garner sympathetic support toward a cause.
 
@TIGER said:
@Abraham said:
@TIGER said:
Essay:Atheism and world peace - RationalWiki http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Atheism_and_world_peace (Share from CM Browser)

Think religion makes society less violent? Think again. - LA Times http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1101-zuckerman-violence-secularism-20151101-story.html (Share from CM Browser)
two
Secular Societies Fare Better Than Religious Societies | Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-secular-life/201410/secular-societies-fare-better-religious-societies (Share from CM Browser)

Need any more.

This is getting way off topic now, but since you raised the false notion that atheism offers some utopic benefit to the world that religion doesn't, you might wish to explain why Atheists during the 20th century alone killed more people than all of the religious wars in history combined??

If you need the stats:
- Mao's atheist army killed between 45-70 million Chinese.
- The Soviets put to death about 60 million people.
- The Khmer Rouge killed 2.5 million of their country men.

These are all regimes with **Atheism** as a central point of their stated ideology.

Now a lot of people are grown up enough to understand that there are many underlying causes for wars and violence of this nature, where religion (or lack thereof) is just a vehicle rather than an underlying motivation. But you have gone off on a rant stating that society is better off without religion, and I think I have just proved conclusively that is just a ridiculous sweeping statement to make. I bet the 100 + million people killed above would beg to differ.

As for the articles presented… :laughing: . Besides two of them being basically the same article written by the same guy in two different magazines, and the other a two paragraph statement with no explanations or reasoning, they did give me a fit of the giggles. Arguing that quality of life is better in Australia than Malawi, simply because Australia is more secular than Malawi ... FMD!

I'll give you a tip, being a smug atheist is no better than being a smug bible basher... two sides of the same "im better than you are" coin.

I'm not saying I'm better than anyone or atheists are better than anyone, I'm simply showing that just because you're a person of faith it doesn't mean you're more moral than anyone else, religious people seem to think that if people don't believe in God the moral fabric of society comes apart, but its just not the case as the study shows.

Abraham. Impressive response. Thanks for caring enough to correct the record.
 

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