I would say, we are sentient beings who find ourselves alive on this rock without any information on why, or how to live together other than what we can prove with science or experience. Nothing seems to gives a sh** about us in this universe on the geologic time or astrologic time scale. We can live for millennia or die off tomorrow wand we will probably have no more of a concept of why than we've ever had. If believing in something, anything, makes us more peaceful (inwardly or outwardly) than that's a good addition. Believe what you can, believe what you are compelled to.
Are pipe organs fairy tales? Incense? Cathedrals? Priests preaching about what is just and moral? Men kneeling to pray? No, none of that is fairy tales. The thing which the men kneel to, God, is a fairy tale. But the act of kneeling, and the feeling of devotion and worship that comes with prayer? That is real, regardless of whether God exists or not.
The idea that God plays favorites, and that some people are closer or understands what God's motive or intentions better than other people is the fallacy. If God does exists ( I believe he does), and he is omnipotent, then why would he need to channel his intentions and purpose through select people like Jesus or Mohammed. He would definitely not have written an instruction manual(bible/koran) that is pretty much left to interpretation. There are very few I distrust more than people who think they have God figured out.
Yes those are real. Many of the stories from this or that Religion are exactly fairy tales. How people interpreted those stories and be affected by them are real. And so the message from some of those stories, in particular those that seem violent, destructive, non-caring, war-like, delusional, etcs when taken literally or interpreted in a "negative" way, lead to dangerous people, as we are witnessing now and have read about from history.
I ask the same question. It's the D&D yet people find the need to be grumpy when it comes to "all-mighty" religion. It's because they have no facts to support their view. I have many friends of faith and I rarely bring it up in casual conversation. The D&D is the very place to discuss such things though!
part of why i reject the notion that the Bible is an instruction manual. it's a narrative...open to interpretation..and hardly what i would call a manual, though it can be instructive.
This is cute. The Israelis need the Christians on their side to fight their war against Islam or they know they're going to get clobbered.
You still should stay on topic. The atheist crap is tiring. OK you think religion if a fairy tale. So what
Isn't this thread about justifications for one group of humans killing another group? It's always economic but the teams are divided up by ideology. (if you think this atheist crap is tiring, you should see how tiring religion has been for the last 5.000 years. It's always Ra this and god that, god made me ruler, god made your biologic desire a sin, god says you are a witch, god don't like the way you say your prayers god says protestants should kill catholics, Sunni's should kill shia, ....sheesh)
Yes and most of the murders in the 20 th century had to do with communism and fascism, not religion So called "rational" ideologies that don't believe in fairy tales
Oh dear, here comes the religion for 5000 years stuff. I'm just saying threads should stay on topic. Too many ROHs.
How many times do we athiests have to repeat this. Religion is part of the problem not then problem. Atheism has nothing to do with facisim or communism. It's similar to saying that the constitution is based on christian beliefs. No, the constitution is a secular price of work that happened to be created by people who practices Christianity.
Atheism can be a problem too. Pol pot, Mao and Stalin outlawed religion and look how that turned out. Neither religion nor nonreligon is the problem. People are the problem. Stop trying to blame religion for what people do.
