Logic dictates this:

Why put believe in something that cannot be proven? The idea of God is just as silly as Ninja Ferrets who started all of Creation when we really think about it. Since neither can be proven nor disproven why do we believe in one and not the other? Because more people believe in one and that there is a long standing history of a corrupted system based upon money and control that dates back to the fall of the Roman Empire.

As above, I am not saying that God does not exist. And I cannot say that Ninja Ferrets also didn't start all of creation.

Religion is neccessary in less evolved times because there was not a developed form of science to explain the everyday events that take our lives. Rather than ask themselves why the sun would eclipse and the seasons change, why storms would kill millions and drought would starve the crops, it was simpler and more acceptable for many cultures to turn to theology, myth and legend.

In today's society where we can explain so many more facets of existence and the subtle nuiances in science are so deep that they are absolutely (I think) more fascinating than any religion we have no more need for religion at all.

Religion first existed to keep the ruling powers in power and to control the masses into obeying some kind of doctrine sanctioned by those in charge. It is an _excellent_ means to keep an otherwise stupid, uncontrollable and unwashed mass into obeying your word even in the face of pestilence and starvation. Please recall that in many countries around the world that the King is believed to be a direct descendant of God. Coincidence? Who can rile up against the Will of God? You can choose to kill a King if he's a man. But what _if_ he's the grandson of God? What if he were God reincarnated? Won't you be damned for eternity? Effective, isn't it?

Part of me hopes that religion will phase out over the next few centuries. Although it does concern me that fundamentalists are seeing an increase in population in the states. I have no qualms with religious people at all - but their lot scares me. Blind zealots lead to believe in a cause that does not exist. I would suggest everyone look into the film documentary "Jesus Camp" and see what these nuts are really up to. They would have their children stapped to bombs and blow themselves up for Jesus, just because the Islamic extremists are doing that, too.

I also hope that otherwise intelligent people will 'see the light' and do away with the notion of any dieties or diety. There is no more relevance in the Christian/Islam ONE GOD than the group of Olympian gods from the Greek times, or the plethora of Gods that existed for the Egyptions or the Aztec. So why is it that people would willingly buy into these notions in this day and age?

But religion is constantly being manipulated by potent powers and does, in fact, evolve as an organism to suit the times. Like Natural Selection, religions are born and die, and those that survive have to evolve and change with the times. For instance, to survive, I believe that the Roman Catholic Church must soon embrace tolerance towards homosexuality and divorce. These are changing times and just as the Queen of England is no longer a descendent of God, perhaps some people's chosen way of life is no longer cause for having an eternity of locusts flying out of your eyeballs.

Even though religion is started in the guise of keeping the power powerful beyond the grasp of man, it is not to say that it has done no good. There have been plenty of fine and religious people that I have met in my lifetime. Yet I poise this question:

Would you be just as good as an individual if you were bereft of faith?

For my part, I would not stop helping the eldery across the street, holding doors open for people and assisting people in need because I am athiest. Could the same be true in others?

After all, for the lives that have been saved and improved with religion, far more have been destroyed and crippled because of its influence. The power-hungry, the insane and the unjust would make themselves to be larger-than-life and beyond-human, a demi-god, a messenger, a messiah and then proceed to break every rule of their religion because of this one fact:

The victims are different. They do not believe. The rules that we obey can be ignored because they are sinners and deserve to go to hell.

I am sure that every one of us can think of many influential historical names and events to support this arguement.

Is religion truly for the betterment of the people? Has it truly benefitted man kind? Even to this very day we have baseless hatred without and within our borders because of petty differences. Catholics vs Protestants, Christianity Vs Muslim (or anyone else different it seems!).

It is my belief that religion often carries a deep and unwanted burden of consequence with its followers; seggregation, elitism, biggotry, intolerence, discrimmination, corruption.

I reiterate this one point.

If neither God nor Zeus-and-Superfriends nor Holy Ninja Ferrets can be proven nor disproven beyond doubt, why would we, as an advancing and thinking species place BLIND FAITH into such institutions?

Religious thinkers often justify their standing because they believe so powerfully in their faith that it blinds them to all other truths. The irony of it all! People have died for Anubis, Mars and Aphrodite just as readily as they die now for God and Allah. Is their faith truly stronger? After all, they too have been willing to lay their lives down and take up arms for their cause. What makes one believer right-er than another? Because you believe stronger? Because you are right? Just because?

Because they say so.

Oh... and for the record. If I had to choose any religion it'd be

S C I E N T O L O G Y


Just because it doesn't go as far back as 'other things' doesn't make it less relevant and possible than other worldly religions!

I am entertained by this thought strongly.

In the far future, there will be TWO GROUPS of aliens. The good ones and the bad ones.

They will wage war on the surface of our world. The good ones will help believers like Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Issac Hayes, John Travolta AND ME onto their shiny chrome space-discs and dress us in metal-lined quasi-futuristic wear and give us globular fish-bowl helms and we'll all blast off into space while the rest of the Good Aliens Fight the Bad ones and the non-believer (humans) will be left at the mercy of the Bad Aliens as their anal-probe guns will go up your bum so hard that your head will explode. And ya'lls will call to us as we're levetating off,

"Take us with you! We was wrong! We was wrong about [insert said belief or religion]!"

They will find themselves immersed in lakes of fire not caused by any God, but rather the green unholy beams that fire out of the rectums of the large and legged metallic Bad Alien Ships (think Independance Day). As the planet melts around them and they are forcefully probed into anal submission, we'll respond:

"No, you made fun of us for believing. And you aren't faithful. We can't take you with us to the moon."

And that will be the end of your sorry butts. And I'll smoke a cigar with celebs. Maybe I can get Hikki to believe so that she can be saved too.

1) Yes, I would be just as good as any other individual if I were bereft of faith.

2) Just because something doesn't exist on the physical plane doesn't mean it's real. What about silence? That's not on the physical plane and yet we can sense silence.

People have faith because they have to have SOMEthing to believe in. It's a way of coping with the things that happen in life as well as a way of making people feel as if they have something in common with other people, which is a basic need. Not to say I condone unintelligent conformity, I'm just saying that we all have a need to be on the same wavelength with someone, and religion can be one of those tools.

3) ANYTHING in the wrong hands can be used to hurt people, even something like science. Why single out religion just because it's a matter of belief and not a matter of fact?

4) Quote:

Faith should NEVER equal hate, IMHO, although I'm aware I'm probably in a teeny minority of people, especially here in America. I believe in all faiths; whatever gets you through life is a valid point, even if it's Holy Ninja Ferrets.

One of the tenets of my Wiccan faith is "Do what you will, as long as you harm none". "Harm none" can be meant many different ways; personally, I take it to mean that it's okay to have open dialogue about things (like religion, for example) as long as you don't disrespect others' beliefs. As long as you don't harm them by thinking their stupid to believe in Holy Ninja Ferrets. I might think it's silly, but a lot of people find nature-based religions silly.

I refuse to judge anyone based on their faith nor their position on it. Yet to say that faith is a bad thing might have its points - which I've personally experienced - but you can't slam it carte blanche without at least having looked what your own beliefs are or could be.

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Awesome.

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You can measure sound in decibels and the lack of sound (silence) at 0 db.

But you cannot measure faith in the same manner! But I see your point; just because we cannot see/experience/proove something it does not mean that it is not there. Such as the electron and distant galaxies only came to 'exist' in these last hundred years to us. Even so! By logic and Occam's Razor, we should always stick to the simplest and most logical course of action: and that is to believe only in things that we have cause to.

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A pen can be used to draw human rights up or to stab your foe in the neck. True. But this is a relevant criteria for human religion. It is de-facto offspring of many faiths. We should measure the merit of such faiths with the actions of their proponents. As we measure men by their actions and not their intent!

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People are more like case-and-point arguements. My own belief is that numerically speaking, religions have claimed more lives than they have benefitted in the past. And that _I_ hope that humanity evolves into a society that no longer needs the fear of eternal damnation to prod them into being decent citizens.

There are faiths that I believe that have (probably) done more good than harm. Buddhism for one. Because it teaches the notion of having nothing and wanting nothing to achieve Enlightenment. It says nothing about others being wrong and it being right. The worst that a monk can do is to starve himself to death in search for Nirvana.

I have no qualms with having faith. It is but one facet of a person. While _I_ may feel as though faith is unneeded and silly, so you could say about my chosen hobby of building little plastic robots. I judge people as a whole and by their actions rather than their ethnicity, physical features or theology.

For the record, the world would be an awesome place if people actually _followed_ the doctrine of their religions rather than saying like Captain Balbosa,

"Tis more of a guideline."

I hate hypocrites SO much.

Well, I am agnostic.
I was just never brought up religiously so it's not something I feel a connection with. I believe in Science.
I don't have a problem with other people practicing whatever religion they see fit, however. It has nothing to do with me, so if it makes you happy, then go for it.

This doesn't include however, Scientology. Because Scientology is not a religion. It is a cult. A fake-religion that some wack job made up and only tried to make it a religion so they wouldn't have to pay taxes.
It is a JOKE.
Few things really get my blood going, but this is one of them.

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Wow this thread blew up :O,thanks guys and Funky I can't see how every religion doesn't piss you off then.It might be that because you got to actually see this one form.You see how ridiculous it is.I wish you would care about what other people look at for self-actualization.I happen to be pained by the fact that their are so many people that blindly follow religious leaders and waste time and money which can be put to better their well being or overall community more so.Religions in fact separate communities.That town in Florida for instance.A whole catholic only colony,that's segregation if they don't realize it.But from what?The world.The actuality of things.They only get news from the religious standing,they learn that way in their schools as well.They work and live within the town,completely oblivious to the outside world.That hurts me deeply.Some young kid,ingenious artist could be shun for his art being beside what he is taught to believe.Poets inspiration restricted to the fiction of what their religious Father approves of as permitted thought by God.


I not trying to hurt anyone's feeling here.I'm trying to tell you all it's alright to (censored)ing think for yourself.I mean REALLY think for yourself.I wake up in the morning not saying "What can I do in the light of god today?" but "What can I do for those I give a (censored) about?".Is it blasphemous to me not to have god in thought?NO!Half the time I don't even acknowledge the idea of there being a God!And I happen to get a lot more out of life not worrying about :/ We could all be wrong I mean ALL of us.Everything person on this planet could be the farthest from the truth.But hell :/ whatever.When we find out,we'll know.And that may never happen.It really isn't that big a deal.



and Amaterasu:


Would you be just as good as an individual if you were bereft of faith?

I can't stress that enough,but it also poses the question: Why do religions impose from step one that you are Ignorant,powerless and evil?

How does powerless and evil even coincide?Insult make me lose faith in myself?


For the record, the world would be an awesome place if people actually _followed_ the doctrine of their religions rather than saying like Captain Balbosa,

"Tis more of a guideline." I hate hypocrites SO much.

I've never seen a Pirate be quoted so efficiently :O

That's what I have to hardest time understanding....Why follow the faith if you don't want to do shit of it?

oh dear... its really not a good idea to attack other peoples religions and 'selfish' is just too strong to be just curiosity,

im totally athiest, but i still respect others beliefs

It seems this thread is a heck of a lot more civil than was projected. ^_^ It's good that we can accept each others' opinions and not insist that ours is the only right one, which is what I was afraid would happen. Good job, guys and gals!

Insofar as Scientology... personally, I don't get it. I mean, I can understand how a "new" religion can be doubted; although Wicca may have it's heart in pre-Judean religions, it's only been around formally in its current incarnation for about 60 or so years. But what gets me is that Scientology was created not by a theologian or someone that studied history, but by a science fiction writer. I would rather not slam ANY religion, but it smells a little funny to me personally. Yet I still stand by what I wrote earlier regarding Holy Ninja Ferrets.

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It should.The man how started the religion took part in a Kabbalah ritual back in the durimg WWII with the guy that established the church of Satan(I shit you not).It was believed that he spanned the void within the Kabbalah tree with his consciousness untouched granting high awareness and the ability to vibe tune(which surprising enough makes a lot of sense to me...I believe a chance that their is no bullshit on this one).But what I am saying is that he was exposed to something that no one else was whether true of a hallucination(because believe me they wer baked).That's what caused him to form that church,but Scientology was just a conception until recent years.Just like Buddhism,you can follow it's conception and believe in Horus.Much like freemasonry as well,hidden agendas aside.Scientology has some hidden agenda.At least we say the masons contributed to our country,they built it 0_0.Scientology is really just creating more confusion.It won't have a argument til it gets a deity.

I'm rather surprised that the topic concerning Hikki's breasts had caused much more uproar than this topic.

As for myself, i'm an atheist from a Catholic family. I even attended Catholic school as a child. But after enduring that whole experience and coming to the "age of reasoning", I decided to let go of Jesus.