Christmas In Iraq

Can't continue this right now guys, I'll talk more later. G2G. I was mostly posting in a religious thread because my internet has been going out every 10 minutes from the heavy rain in Cali so I couldn't do much else D: This was a very civil thread though so kudos to those who contributed in any way.

I agree, but that's only because the typical players haven't arrived yet. You'll come back to a ***storm. I have to go as well. I await this thread when I can take another break from work.

Don't flatter yourself, I don't believe in God to displease you. Seriously you guys are so bitter. Leave the religion thing alone, you don't like it, you think its evil, we totally get it. There is no discussion, we've had 100,001 threads that all go the same way. It always ends the same way.

I'm just saying banning mainstream religions is totally wrong, and frankly will never work.

A banning of religion will never work; I believe, more likely, that if religion fails to evolve that it will end up killing itself.

Christianity is dying; Judaism's been dying for even longer; it is only logical that Islam follow the same path.

Obviously you both have been around the wrong type of 'Christians' who have their story all wrong. Our Lord wants us to walk beside him, and be with him eternally. He also wants us to treat everyone (our neighbor to our enemy) with the same love that we have for ourselves.

Pretty sure that meets the requirements of a being that you would gladly serve.

Possibly, Christianity/Catholicism may disappear one day, but the concept of Religion probably won't disappear. It's quite natural to want to believe in some higher power, even if you do only when it suits you to, but that's pretty much the ideaology behind it. Something will replace it, I mean, look at Scientology, that ***popped up out of nowhere.

How is life Darka?

I don't deny that there is something in human nature that causes us to seek knowledge and information. After all, religion pre-dates Christianity and Islam, based on what we know of Ancient Greece, among other historical cultures. The same internal drive that led man to create religion also led man to cure diseases, sail the seas, look into microscopes, and explore space.

Creating a fictional "higher power" aids a man in making himself more comfortable with things he can not explain. We all seek comfort, it's human nature.

That's what I try get people to understand:

You can believe in a higher power without a formalized doctrine of religious practice, it's just less comfortable.

You can lead a moral and/or well-behaved life without relying on a religious doctrine to guide your thoughts and actions.

Love is a human emotion, not a divination. You can love others and love yourself without help from god. You just have to try (harder?).

There's nothing wrong with worshiping god. There's also nothing wrong with worshiping a teddy-bear, or a shiny jewel, or a pet dog. The problem with Christianity/Islam's influence on the modern world is that it has provided a too easy and illegitimate means for some/many people to view themselves as superior to others. It has artificially segregated society, and enables people to act irrationally when they would not act so otherwise, often with dire consequences.

I know this is far-fetched, but it's worth considering:
if everyone went to sleep tonight, and awoke with all memory of Christianity and Islam erased from their minds, and all records of the religions was physically eradicated (books, symbols, etc.) ... those religions would permanently cease to exist. There would be no revival, no second-coming. Christianity and Islam wouldn't miraculously reappear to "save" anyone or anything. There would be no holy wars, no jihads. There would be less turmoil in the Middle East, and in Ireland, and even in the USA. And yet, humans would still go on with their lives, and raise their families, and have parties, and work, and study, and explore, and create. And yes, people would even continue to seek answers to unexplained questions, including pursuit of a "higher power". But they would do these things with one less (very large) artificial hindrance towards sharing/development/evolution.

There is one unarguable truth in this debate:
Christianity and Islam need people in order to endure/exist, but not the inverse. People do not need Christianity and Islam in order to endure/exist.

And I'm here to tell you, regardless of Christianity or Islam's possible positive effect(s) on your individual life, the overall worldwide effect of these religions is overwhelmingly negative and destructive. So, we'd all be better off without them, even if it means you, the individual, would feel less comfortable without your books and preachers as you seek a "relationship" with the "higher power".

That I agree with


Can't really make a wild assumption like that. Religion is like Politics, remove it and there will still be wars, not all Religions promote conflict, in fact most (not all) promote tolerance, it's the individuals themselves that find something to fight about. Also Religion has nothing to do with conflict in Ireland, that's a misconception.


Very busy! Too much animating :( You?

I think the OP is missing that it isn't religion that is evil, its human nature that is evil. Philip Zambardo showed us this in 1971 with perfectly healthy students that ended up torturing other students both mentally and physicality just because they were assigned a power position. At one point Zambardo himself took on the roll as the warden with out even realizing had began too, some where in his psyche it just clicked to assume that roll of power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment (if you are interested in the study)

Work, family, games. Quite busy here as well. Have a merry Christmas my friend.

Im gonna link this, the pic is self explanatory...

Islamic Christmas

woman get the smaller less important knifes and are slightly off to the left behind the crowd.

Honestly, though I believe any organization of religion as thought of as a literal translation of the word of God or "Gods" is utter ***, If it were eliminated from the picture, Humans would still be killing themselves over stupid ***. Just type the benign Alpha-Numeric combination "PS3" on an IGN Xbox360 board, you'll have half a mind to create a panic-bunker after a biblical shitstorm erupts.

Some humans will always have a testosterone and/or anxiety-driven lust for violence, that's true, and I won't argue against that fact of human nature. However, you're either too pessimistic or too hyperbolic (or both?) to notice that many/most humans are NOT inherently evil.
That aside, the gripe here is that organized monotheistic religion grants some people an EASY means, or excuse, to ENABLE their "dark side". And this dark side would (or at least might) lay dormant indefinitely without the rallying cry of "I'll do it for god!" so freely available and abuse-able.

I sort of already explained in this thread, but I'll reiterate that the possibility that someone might still act out in hatred or violence if religion were abolished does not acquit religion of its crimes against humanity. It is just as plausible that people would be less likely to act out violently in the absence of organized religions.

So, ultimately, if we abolish organized religions, people might still find enabling forces to galvanize their want for violence ... but they might not, too. I realize I'm just one voice ... but I think that's an experiment and a risk worth taking, for the betterment of the future of the human race.

"I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual."
"I'm not honest, but you're interesting!"

True.
But also consider that nature of humans in combination with what religion advocates or preaches to the most extreme and personal level. With the wrong minds, it can be a rather disturbing/fatal combination.

Replace god with wizards / witches / w/e.
Replace demons with dragons, etc.
Same ***, different time period, same human brain chemistry.

Yep
Cept dragons and wizards are much cooler!

I would love to ride a dragon!

Ignoring religion is fine,
but being ignorant of religion is another thing.

Why is knowing something of no personal importance (to some) imperative to everybody? Christian mythology has no impact on my personal life; but I will say it's interesting to learn about nevertheless.
Frankly, I'm much more fascinated by Buddhism or Hinduism.

Just...read what you said, then read what I said, then read what you said again.

You obviously misread my post or have little to no knowledge about how the human psyche works. The "Evil" is a very real thing, that religion itself doesn't bring out, its the "group mentality" that generally causes man kind to act "evil". Would the world be better with out religion? That can't really be answered at the moment, but will probably be answered in the next 40-50 years as church mass population is reaching record all time lows. Lets face the facts though, even with organized religion gone, genocide, murder, torture, terrorism, pedophilia will still remain. Human nature is more damaged then a 60 year old virgin reading out of a old book.

I know how to read, thank you very much :)

Never said i was teaching you to read.
Just by what I said, you took it the wrong way, or didn't think of it the way I did.

What I said was supposed to mean that if you ignore religion, and don't pay any attention to it and not complain and fuss about how people are idiots for believing in religion when it's ultimately pointless, is fine. Because honestly, there's no getting around religion, and people themselves saying that one religion is better than another. So all you can do is help the cause by not saying anything when people say "zomgmyreligionrbettarzandusuck", just turn your head the other way.

But when you see it, and you go in and start babbling on about how their religion sucks, and that there's no way in hell that they are even a logical person since they believe in this religion, then that's when it's a problem. All you're doing is fueling the fire. If you can't see the religion from that person's viewpoint, then that's when you're ignorant, because you fail to understand the way they're thinking.

Zeus > All

Ah I see what you mean.
However, that's the nature of the opposition.
Faith and logic are not either correct or incorrect, but rather polar opposites in methods and viewpoints one uses in reasoning.

I believe there's nothing there because there is no evidence supporting that supposed fact.
They believe there is something there because they feel what I cannot and alas, we're in the loophole of misunderstanding.

Venus>Zeus

I never said you had to believe the religion, but see in what ways they would believe it would be true.

For example, I'm a Christian, so I believe in Creationism, right?
I believe that god created the Universe/Earth himself (cells everything etc.), i.e. the first lifeforms to be.

Now, as for an Evolutionists viewpoint, Archaebacteria was the first type of living being to live on earth. And the way they were created, was through spontaneous generation, which basically came from lightning around the volcanoes, and gases in the air. Then it evolved, reproduced etc.

Evidence from Christianity: Old documents written of it, along with other artifacts.

Evidence from Evolutionists: The beginning stage of the life form they're talking about, and the final stage, but no inbetween.

I can look at the evolutionists viewpoint and say "Ok, so these two species have a very similar structure and habitat, but they're not the same and both have different behaviors. Also, there's no subject inbetween that shows most of the traits from both of the species"

I don't call atheists, evolutionists, bhuddists, hinduists, judaists crazy because they believe in different ideas that I'm not accustomed to, but I do believe that my religion is best suited to my thought process.