religion

[Element]

how do people still believe in this shit

[wbrycew]

I think it's mostly fear of death and the unknown.

[fatlip]

god = comfort


people only pray when they're scared or want something

[wrjones311]

I respectfully don't understand how people believe in any of it in the literal sense. Personally I am an atheist, however I believe religion was, and may be in the future, necessary for society to function civilly. (In the times of slavery Africans would enslave their own people, because they did not have a religion to make it a sin. Other countries; Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, England all had religion which said they could not enslave members of the same religion. Most of the African slaves were owned by other Africans originally.)

God does exist, but only in the form of a figurative web created by the bond a religion creates between its subscribers.

IMO it has been about money for a long time, and it was even worse before Luther helped reformation; the church told peoples families they had to pay in order for their relatives who died to get from purgatory to heaven.

As much harm as it has caused the world would not be how it is today if religion had not driven us... we are here in America independent and free largely based on the fact we fought for the right to have a religion, or not to if you choose.

[wbrycew]

(In the times of slavery Africans would enslave their own people, because they did not have a religion to make it a sin. Other countries; Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, England all had religion which said they could not enslave members of the same religion. Most of the African slaves were owned by other Africans originally.)

Religion may have minimized the African slavery, but that does not mean that a lack of religion was causal in the slavery. What was causal was a group of people that obviously held greed and selfishness to a higher regard than sense of community and well being of those around you.

The reason I'm disagreeing is because you're implying that religion is necessary to have morals. That is absolutely not true. I'm completely agnostic and have very strong morals. Religion isn't necessary to tell a person what's right and what's wrong. Only common sense and good parenting are required. Those African dudes that enslaved their own were just bad people. Blaming it on a lack of religion is just making excuses for them, and why would you want to do that?

As much harm as it has caused the world would not be how it is today if religion had not driven us... we are here in America independent and free largely based on the fact we fought for the right to have a religion, or not to if you choose.

True, religion has helped to drive us to where we are today, kinda-sorta (but not really) free. Without it (and the civilization that followed it around), we'd still be completely and truly free however.

people only pray when they're scared or want something

Interesting observation. I like it.

[$nipe]

Because it's the smart thing to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[FreeRayLiotta]

the religions are retarded for the most part - but it is hard for me to deny that there is some kind of spiritual shit going on here

not sure exactly what it is but im pretty sure it has to do with fucking a hot girl doggystyle with her pants half pulled down.

[Element]

Because it's the smart thing to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

pascal had no balls.

[dj3stripes]

Because it's the smart thing to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

pascal had no balls.

haha neither does the kid in your signature

[Sparticus]

Pascal's Wager is such a mind numbingly stupid argument for religion.

[wbrycew]

Because it's the smart thing to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I actually thought the exact same thing for a little while after I took an Intro to Philosophy class a few years ago. Then I thought about it for a while, and found two points that made it worthless.

"If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing."
This is a false premise. He's saying that living a life of strict religious behavior that would get you into heaven is equivalent to losing nothing if you're wrong. To me, that would be losing everything, at least as far as I can tell. I see no evidence for an afterlife, so I have to assume that this life is all I have, and I'm not going to give it away to a religion with a blind hope that I could possibly be in heaven someday. It's irrational.

The other problem is that Pascal only takes into consideration a belief in god, and a disbelief in god. Religions are not that simple however, so the wager that Pascal is defining has a lot more caveats than he is explaining. All religions claim that their god is the right one, and all other gods are wrong. So not only do you need to have a belief in god, it must be the correct god. There is no possible rational way to determine that, so it's bunk.

[Station]

Yeah, it's right there in the wikipedia article

Since there have been many religions throughout history, and therefore many potential gods, some assert that all of them need to be factored into the wager, in an argument known as the argument from inconsistent revelations. This would lead to a high probability of believing in the wrong god, which destroys the mathematical advantage Pascal claimed with his Wager. Denis Diderot, a contemporary of Voltaire, concisely expressed this opinion when asked about the wager, saying "an Imam could reason the same way".[13] J. L. Mackie notes that "the church within which alone salvation is to be found is not necessarily the Church of Rome, but perhaps that of the Anabaptists or the Mormons or the Muslim Sunnis or the worshipers of Kali or of Odin."

It's not that tough to understand why people believe in supernatural things... people aren't built to be rational, and in general it's hard to avoid magical thinking.

[Nate]

because people want to believe they'll see their loved ones when they die. It took me about four years to get over that.

[Tehshewz]

Religion is for people who cant think for themselves.

[Vibe Merchant]

Because they want an answer to the unknown that is untestable and unable to be disproved at the same time.

Religion being the answer to our morals is completely stupid and ill founded. Read almost any major religion's "book" and follow the exact "morals" shown in that book. You will be doing immoral things in no time.

[wbrycew]

Because they want an answer to the unknown that is untestable and unable to be disproved at the same time.

I wouldn't say that religious people actually want an answer that is untestable. It's just that they want an answer in general, and that religion is the easiest answer without thinking about it too much. To be agnostic or an atheist, and be content with your life and place in the universe, requires a lot more thought and research in various sciences than most people would care to do.

I think that if being well versed in anthropology and evolution and so forth was just as easy as having blind faith, more people would be agnostic.

[KyleRayner]

holy shit dude, you need to pull your head out of you ass. that was the most arrogant, prickish statement i might have read on here. being religious is not synonymous with being uneducated. you can still be religious and be quite well educated on evolution and anthropology. i'm agnostic, but i'm not so arrogant as to think that those who believe are dumb. do you know the word for people who think that others who believe differently than they do are beneath them? cunt would be a good one, but it needs some dickhead, fuckface overtones to really get it right

being religious is so much harder than being atheist. i mean, does it really take that many smarts to understand evolution and be well versed in anthropology? no it just takes being able to read. i understand people not believing, but what I don't understand why they feel the need to try to take people's faith if it makes them happy. it is hard to hold convictions of something that seem so improbable. it is hard to follow a moral code based on that stuff. it's easy to not believe.

sure some of those people believe the earth is 6000 years old and that the dinosaur bones are god's test of faith, but you kind of have to admire that they can hold so steady to a belief that 99% of people believe to be wrong

also, not believing in god is just as much a blind faith as believing, as, even with all the science in the world, you still can't prove that god doesn't exist, or explain everything in the universe.

[wbrycew]

You're definitely misunderstanding what I said. I didn't say agnostic people were smarter, and I didn't say religious people were dumber. Perhaps you should re read what I wrote.

My point was that having blind faith is a lot easier than doing the research to understand evolution. You should know that's what my point was, because that's what I said. You don't agree with that?

Having blind faith doesn't require anything except reading the bible and accepting it. You don't need evidence, and you don't need proof. You only need faith. Faith is easy, you just have to believe.

I never said anything about anybody's intelligence. Re-read my post and relax.

I agree that not believing in god takes just as much faith as believing in one. That's why I'm agnostic and not an atheist. I think atheism is basically equivalent to theism as they both require faith.

Hopefully that makes it a little clearer. I didn't intend to say anything offensive.

[Element]

i love starting shit about religion and then stepping back and watching people get all mad and shit

[Nate]

Just so you are all aware, you cannot pluralize morality.