boo

sum it up

I came to science forums to discuss ideas with people, not pointless tit for tat arguing, ok? so, lets just do away with it for now , otherwise i just dont have any interest in continuing the conversation. ok, let me put my response another way. for someone who has mentioned earlier that you are an atheist, you sure don't sound like an atheist. would you be interested in adressing that? you are an atheist who believes in the bible? or the bible has been misunderstood ? or what?

?

who's the preacher now.

oh right, then my apologies That is quite interesting. I should point out i'm no biblical scholar myself however I know that there is good and bad in the bible,There are passages in it that are totally fraudulent, it is a hodge podge text from many different authors who's identity is hidden from us, sources non existent. Its fun to find the occasional piece of wisdom in there, for sure. But overall, the only way to decide the good from the bad is to use ones own bias, whatever that may be. Very problematic and not a reliable source of wisdom overall, in my view.

back to the petty point scoring is it? man, find a hobby. The bible is a fine piece of fiction, glad i quoted it without realising, great minds think alike I guess.

I changed my wording., it wasnt the wording i wanted to use. I don't think you even need persuasion actually, the truth is very persuasive if you have access to it.

of course. and denying that right would only fortify it and make it far worse. the best antidote for Religion is education and information and I think the ship has already sailed on that, at least in the west, it is happening naturally and very rapidly in some places but it will just take a little time.

against whom? nobody on this thread said that they don't or shouldn't have that right.

and this is coming from the person defending religion? dear god! im through with this. its going nowhere

Now that's me trying to be clever, because... "No-one expects the Spanish inquisition"... I may have failed, but it made me giggle.. Have the magic man, don't have the magic man... I don't give a shit, why do you? That reminds me... You do know that an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence, don't you? what is up with you? you are acting very immature now I'm entitled to my view, and you to yours. we can rationalize it maturely if you want. I don't object to other people being religious. you have either misinterpreted me, or you are taking offence to my views and are overreacting.

you are right, it is probably an over simplification. however, the point i was making, is if you create a condition were people are willing to believe literally anything, without evidence, for whatever reason, this creates a vulnerability which can be exploited. It is no wonder that so many governments promote religion, or terrorist groups for that matter. It seems like the perfect catalyst. we could speculate that crimes committed in the name of Religion may have happened anyways under other circumstances, but that is just speculation, we don't know for sure, we do know what did happen though and Religion helped.

this is just a matter of opinion. your opinion. I'd be interested to know why you have come to believe this. Evidence of the negative is everywhere. Im sure the 9/11 terrorists derived plenty of solace in knowing they would go to heaven once the plane exploded,. The evangelist sect who stand on the road side with anti gay signs, probably get plenty of solace in knowing they are doing Gods work. Merely believing in a god or an afterlife may not be the biggest problem, but there are invariably other things bundled into the belief system which can have more negative effects I'd recommend you read Hitchins' book 'God is not Great'. He discusses the case fairly thoroughly.

wow, you really cant bring yourself to just give a straight answer......not even a one word answer. its your argument, make it. there is plenty of bad with the little good, that is the point. and who decides that the lie is a good thing? the liar or the person being lied to?

is that a yes? you prefer to be lied to. let it go. Just discuss the topic. lets not make it about you vs me. that's where you are going wrong.

is it not inherently obvious? would you like to be lied to rather than told the truth? and you have yet to demonstrate why people need religion. ...and why are so confrontational?

There isn't enough space on the internet to discuss all of the negative effects of religion. But the act of teaching lies, mixing myth with reality is obviously damaging. I have made the points already as to how it is negative.

LOL, yes some positive may come of religion, even though the net effect is negative. that was my point earlier. children need parents, but do parents need to be disingenuous to their children?

it might be the same, but my point is that it doesn't prove that the child needs it. The child would most likely get along fine without it. If there are untruths in the inuit belief system, and If the truth is out there, then i think the child deserves to have access to the it.

that is what i think. Why would you have to choose to believe something if you genuinely believed it? it seems like an admission of disbelief in itself. people are instilled with religion from a young age, they often hang onto it as a form of tradition and never really question it, but I don't see the proof that they really need it. Had they grown up in a society that didn't have religious indoctrination, they may not 'need' it at all and in fact might be a lot better off without it.

i just have nothing more to add to that LOL good luck !

well said

eh, no, you were put on the spot and you ran out of things to say. thats what happened LOL sounds like a bad case of psychological projection and you know, for an "atheist" you seem awfully offended by atheism. funny that....

it didn't even sound clever the first time ..... good luck with your "atheism" LOL