"Atheists do good deeds because it's the right thing to do, while Christians do them because they want to get to heaven." True biblical Christianity states that good works do not save man. Trusting the finished work of Christ saves man and imputes his righteousness to the believer, which allows them to enter heaven. Because Christ took their unrighteousness on him when he died on the cross. Sooo this statement I think applies to maybe Catholicism or some Church of Christ and some kinds of pentecostal churches and more that maybe I'm not aware of.
That's not called cherry picking. To look at something with a better sense of what was intended when it was written is hardly called cherry picking.
i thought the choice "uneducated" was a little harsh...but if you think about it...if you believe something out of a book written before people knew what germs, bacteria, viruses, or atoms or anything like that were, you have to pretty naive
same things my parents taught me except I'm assuming its was faith in god while for my parents its faith in yourself.
If a person is religious or not doesn't change my view on them. How they act changes my view on them.
love from who? See this doesn't make sense at all. If you just replaced the word god with love why not just call "love" love?
it would be just easier if the root of the problem was gone. If these religious text were not here in the first place these problems would not have occurred.
Well I was just pointing out the fact that Christians use the same excuse for violent versus in their book as Muslims do. The "It was meant for that time period" excuse.
That's just your opinion though, isn't it? I have exactly the opposite opinion, which is that the absence of even all the religious texts in the world would not necessarily result in more or less violence. violent people + most convenient excuse = violence I will give you that, historically, religion and culture have been the most convenient excuse, but that does not mean the texts are to blame. The texts are written with a specific purpose, they are allegedly divine in some way/shape/form. Blame avoidance is not really one of the main purposes, nor should it be, given the scope of the texts. The fact that someone can come and hijack something is only relevant if its meant not to be hijacked. If the hijacking of religious text for other purposes is a problem, that's a problem that secular authorities must sort out. In these cases, there is a hijacker and a convenient excuse, but you seem to be implying that the texts must share some of the blame. The texts are books filled with the words of "non-existant" entities and people who have passed away long ago. You can blame them, but they don't really exist anymore. The texts are objects, they are books. What we need is to be able to pin the appropriate blame on the actual hijacker. There is nothing to gain from pursuing prosecution of the texts, and there's nothing to lose by refraining from prosecution of texts. More recently, religion has taken a backseat to the new age ideologies. The most convenient examples for me to use are globalism and capitalism. Tons of lives have been lost to the new ideologies, which is replacing religion as the traditional belief system. Another example is Israel - why just the other day StupidMoniker was saying that the Israei government's passive approval of land theft by violent extremists is a "necessary evil". Certainly, it's not a necessary evil of Judaism, since it goes against the core statements of traditional Judaism. Therefore it's a necessary evil to meet the non-religious ideological goals of the Israeli government under the guise of a Jewish state. The advantage there is that no entity called Judaism exists or has ever existed, so when **** hits the fan, you can extend at least some of the blame to this non-sensical entity. But again, this is a political ideology REGARDING a religious ideology. violent people + most convenient excuse => violence What causes violent people? IMO massive deviations in standard of living causes massive differences in the social conduct of humans, and when this condition materializes, it latches onto the most convenient ideology to make its point, political or otherwise. You may also point to the absence of "atheistic terrorists", which is at best a moot point. Why would someone declare an action in the name of the absence of something? Doesn't make sense, I can't understand why that would ever be claimed, even if it was the intention. The only thing the absence of claims of atheistic terrorism shows is that atheists have never really declared war on religious people because of their religion. Then again, that's more than you can say for religious people lol.
would have been nice to see other positive options in the poll. when someone tells me they believe in god, I am hopefull that they are secure in there beliefs. there are a great number of people who enjoy exalting the works of science and / or religion who know very little about either.
Every time I see this thread, I think of only one thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8TV8EXccAI&feature=related Unfortunately it won't let me embed. Personally, I don't have a problem with religion short of people trying to push their's on to others or committing atrocities in the name of religion.
Not sure why this thread is still up here. I think it's funny you mentioned that, because 90% of the comments in this thread sound like yours. If anything you guys are pushing this belief.
I had an experience the other day that kinda makes me agree with DonnyMost about religion. I was getting a ride to a Christmas Day dinner in an outer suburb from a friend of the host. Every other word out of this person's mouth was either "God", "Jesus", or "Blessed" the rest was bashing gays, Muslims, divorced people, abortions, secular Australians basically everyone who didn't follow the same narrow minded view of Christianity. Who would've thunk it on the other side of the world still the same judgmental crap as in the US.
