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Research on Belief in God

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RedheadDane said:
The problem is that there are some people who'll use every excuse possible to hurt others. The my religions claims I must do this way has just been really convinient for a long time, mostly due to people not being able actually read and Thus learn that, No! My religion does not claim that I must do this.

Also, pretty sure there hasn't been organized Religion "since the dawn of man". Probably took a few thousand years for that to happen!
Maybe not, maybe yes :p the origins of organized religions are still foggy afaik. Mainly due to absence of written text. Anyway a tribe's religion centered to its shaman or equivalent might be viewed as an organized religion.
 
An astonishing majority of Christians have never read neither the new nor the old testaments. The old one is so bad that it becomes funny.
For example, Book of Chronicles - Samuel 15:3: ''Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'' The worst of all, it refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the lord by destroying them.

Religion has promoted hate since always, and still does. Are you aware of the killing that takes place over the name of god? People getting beheaded in Middle East, entire budist families brutally murdered by sick pervert muslims in Thailand... Obviously, not all religious people are assassins, but the point is these things take place because of the beliefs in the existance of a god.

Everyday you are presented with almost factual scientific information that offers you a much more rational and intelligent view on the creation of the life and the Universe itself, but yet those of you choose the easy path.
Afterall, it is not that nice to think that one will simply die and engage in a permanent blackout to feed the scavengers, right?

Wrong. We have a brain, and after thousands of years of evolution we finally have the chance to have a critical look on our surroundings, life, and above all, the true answer for our existance. Which is the same for the cow in the farm, the pet next you or the chimp in the zoo. We simply developed our brain to a certain point that now we can ask these questions.
 
Eshnar said:
Maybe not, maybe yes :p the origins of organized religions are still foggy afaik. Mainly due to absence of written text. Anyway a tribe's religion centered to its shaman or equivalent might be viewed as an organized religion.

Organised religion as we know it first appeared by the Upper Paleolithic altough the first known whorships of a god takes us back almost 300.000 years earlier.
 
Eshnar said:
they have values. They don't believe in God. I'm an atheist but I feel Italian and I belong to this group of people that share a common tradition. How does that involve religion at all.

It does not involve it, it IS religion. Rousseau's "general will" is the old Christian God. Nothing more and nothing less, which the author even said.


Eshnar said:
Human beings of this age I said. Not religious. Religious people indeed should not change their view. And their view about money (for Christianity, for istance, was always the same in the centuries: take as much money as you can. (and as an Italian I can guarantee you that, for the Catholic church)

OK and you had the audacity to argue I was trolling. I had the weakness to think discussion was possible with you but apparently not. Be happy with your guarantees and you views !!

Eshnar said:
Nazists were Christians and discouraged atheism.

:p:p A little bit of doubt won't hurt.

rhubroma said:
Since the Enlightenment democracy and secularism have at least begun to liberate society from the tyranny and obscurantism that reigned over it for centuries

What? The Encyclopedists were the tyrants (allied with the Jansenists) and the Church was being tyrannized. There were plenty of counter-powers in the old feudal monarchies like the Parliaments, there were no absolute control, that's a myth. Louis XIV had much less control than Buonaparte, than Pétain and even less than some of our democratically elected governments.

The Enlightenment was not the driving force behind it? But read Voltaire's work. He approved of free-market economy - it's even his ideal -, he approved of slavery and torture - seconding Beccaria for that -, he approved of the Guarani massacre (who had been protected by the Jesuits), believed in education strictly for the elite, rejected the Sunday rest and most of all he had this quote that speaks volume about him:

"A well-organized country is one in which the small number makes the large number works, is fed by him and governs him."

That is thus Voltaire speaking. A big name in the Enlightenment, calling himself a 'Deist' but anti-Christian through and through.

So you claim that all the horrors that came afterwards were only "negative outcome" of all that? But everything was already in the work of Voltaire.

We've now had two centuries of this "Civilization of Progress" and, despite technological advancement, we've never had so much ugliness, so much destruction, so much bestiality and so much misery in the history of mankind and we would like to spread 'human right' to all corners of the Earth? How are we legitimate for that?

Two World Wars, concentration camps (invented by the Brits!), two atomic bombs, Chemical agents spread all across South-Vietnam of which the consequences are still felt, the failure of Communism, the invention of racism, colonial empires that pathetically failed, etc. The best authors of the 1920's and 1930's already questioned this Civilization of Progress leading to WWI but had they seen what has happened since what would they have said?

What is our assessment?
 
BigMac said:
...
Afterall, it is not that nice to think that one will simply die and engage in a permanent blackout to feed the scavengers, right?[/B]

Wrong...

You should read On Nature by Lucretius. In it, he says that people who fear the prospect of eternal non-existence after death should think back to the eternity of non-existence before their birth, which they probably do not fear.

This leads me to quote a letter by Flaubert: ‘The melancholy of the antique world seems to me more profound than that of moderns, all of whom more or less imply that beyond the dark void lies immortality. But for the ancients that “black hole” is infinity itself; their dreams loom and vanish against a background of immutable ebony. No crying out, no convulsions - nothing but the fixity of a pensive gaze. Just when the gods had not ceased to be and the Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment in history between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone. Nowhere else have I found that particular grandeur.’
 
Echoes said:
OK and you had the audacity to argue I was trolling. I had the weakness to think discussion was possible with you but apparently not. Be happy with your guarantees and you views !!
the discussion is possible. I look forward to know what argument could you bring to state that the Christian church first and the Catholic one in particular weren't and aren't interested in money.
 
Echoes said:
What? The Encyclopedists were the tyrants (allied with the Jansenists) and the Church was being tyrannized. There were plenty of counter-powers in the old feudal monarchies like the Parliaments, there were no absolute control, that's a myth. Louis XIV had much less control than Buonaparte, than Pétain and even less than some of our democratically elected governments.

The Enlightenment was not the driving force behind it? But read Voltaire's work. He approved of free-market economy - it's even his ideal -, he approved of slavery and torture - seconding Beccaria for that -, he approved of the Guarani massacre (who had been protected by the Jesuits), believed in education strictly for the elite, rejected the Sunday rest and most of all he had this quote that speaks volume about him:

"A well-organized country is one in which the small number makes the large number works, is fed by him and governs him."

That is thus Voltaire speaking. A big name in the Enlightenment, calling himself a 'Deist' but anti-Christian through and through.

So you claim that all the horrors that came afterwards were only "negative outcome" of all that? But everything was already in the work of Voltaire.

We've now had two centuries of this "Civilization of Progress" and, despite technological advancement, we've never had so much ugliness, so much destruction, so much bestiality and so much misery in the history of mankind and we would like to spread 'human right' to all corners of the Earth? How are we legitimate for that?

Two World Wars, concentration camps (invented by the Brits!), two atomic bombs, Chemical agents spread all across South-Vietnam of which the consequences are still felt, the failure of Communism, the invention of racism, colonial empires that pathetically failed, etc. The best authors of the 1920's and 1930's already questioned this Civilization of Progress leading to WWI but had they seen what has happened since what would they have said?

What is our assessment?

I don't know, you tell me. What do you advocate? Turning back to the clock to a time in which critical thinking might get you the fate of a Giordano Bruno at the hands of the religious authorities? You seem to delegitimize all of that, while denying that these injustices ever existed before. Certainly if secular though hadn't come to pass then we'd, as a society, still be nailed to that cross. It is irrelavent in this sense which crosses replaced them, though under every sway of volitile revolutionary transition vehement outcomes will occur. Perhaps an Iran style theocracy might suit you best. At any rate atheism doesn't work toward totalitarianism, any more than being religious is a requirement for having morals.

Please, for every instance of the abuses you cite there have been counter examples purpetrated by the clerical mechenisms of control and punishment. On this you might consider Pope Alexander IV's Bull Dudum Siquidem of 26, September 1493 that gave Spain Christian authority beyond the Atlantic recent discoveries, and was based on the medieval theocratic doctrine of the pope as Dominus Orbis. A doctrine of absolute superiority of the European Christian world over the Americas, propagating the use of force and constraint to impose Christianity as the only religion, divinely revealed – in contrast with those who saw the native Americans as simple, uncorrupted souls and thus in them a perfect opportunity to create a new “Indian” church free of the corruption and evils that inflicted the Old World Roman Church.

Other than a posterior Jesuit heroicism. I'd say racism was a product of colonialism more than any secular tendencies.
 
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Eshnar said:
A little OT, perhaps? We're talking about religion, not about science.

Not really OT. Do you know anything of the Dark Ages? Why and how they happened? Religion has much to answer for between the millions of deaths from famine and diseases caused by ignorance of the advances made by the Romans and Greeks, and the millions of deaths caused by wars fought in the name of religion, both recent and in the past.
 
elapid said:
Not really OT. Do you know anything of the Dark Ages? Why and how they happened? Religion has much to answer for between the millions of deaths from famine and diseases caused by ignorance of the advances made by the Romans and Greeks, and the millions of deaths caused by wars fought in the name of religion, both recent and in the past.
it was because of the fall or the Western Roman Empire. But there were technological advancements during the Dark Ages too. Slowly but surely. Although mainly due to the contribution of Arabs :D The Church wasn't much against technology. Church was only against certain specific ideas.
 
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rhubroma said:
I don't know, you tell me. What do you advocate? Turning back to the clock to a time in which critical thinking might get you the fate of a Giordano Bruno at the hands of the religious authorities? You seem to delegitimize all of that, while denying that these injustices ever existed before. Certainly if secular though hadn't come to pass then we'd, as a society, still be nailed to that cross. It is irrelavent which crosses replaced them, though under every sway of volitile revolutionary transition vehement outcomes occur. Perhaps an Iran style theocracy might suit you best.

Please, for every instance of the abuses you cite there are counter examples purpetrated by the clerical mechenisms of control and punishment. On this you might consider Pope Alexander IV's Bull Dudum Siquidem of 26, September 1493 that gave Spain Christian authority beyond the Atlantic recent discoveries, and was based on the medieval theocratic doctrine of the pope as Dominus Orbis. A doctrine of absolute superiority of the European Christian world over the Americas, propagating the use of force and constraint to impose Christianity as the only religion, divinely revealed – in contrast with those who saw the native Americans as simple, uncorrupted souls and thus in them a perfect opportunity to create a new “Indian” church free of the corruption and evils that inflicted the Old World Roman Church.


Other than a posterior Jesuit heroicism. I'd say racism was a product of colonialism more than any secular tendencies.

When the ladder of consciousness is formalized into human institutions, whether they be the hieracrchies of church, state or corporations, and become the ladder of success and temporal power they tend to become increasingly corrupted in time. Eventually they become ossified in stratification and literalism, fundamentalism and collapse. Those most qualified are the least prone to seek temporal power (understandably) and we get those willing to play the game. Nothing new, round and round we go...
 
The 15 centuries of the Christian era (from the 4th to 1789) was the era of 'gradual' human emancipation from slavery, from serfdom, from poverty, etc. Injustices existed but were minor compared to the contemporary era but most of all not backed up by the Christian doctrine, while the Enlightenment advocated child labour, free-market, speculation, usury, etc.etc.

Colombus' colonization had nothing to do with evangelization, it was a Mammonic robbery of America's gold and opposition from the priests resulted in the creation of the Jesuit Order !!

Racism was the product of colonialism, that's true. But colonialism was the product of this civilization of Progress; so "secular" tendencies (which means atheist tendencies because secularism is christian). Colonialists were free-masons who wished to bring "civilization" to Africa and Asia. A bit like Human Right charities, nowadays.
 
Echoes said:
We've now had two centuries of this "Civilization of Progress" and, despite technological advancement, we've never had so much ugliness, so much destruction, so much bestiality

Snippet

2 world wars, communismthe invention of racism, ?
even amidst all that pseudo historical bs that makes creationism look like a genuine scientific theory by comparison, this little piece stood out and was worth a chuckle.

racism a recent invention?
and atheist at that.

ha! What a sense of humour.
 
Eshnar said:
it was because of the fall or the Western Roman Empire. But there were technological advancements during the Dark Ages too. Slowly but surely. Although mainly due to the contribution of Arabs :D The Church wasn't much against technology. Church was only against certain specific ideas.


At its best the Roman Empire was a crucible of cosmopolitanism in which various religions coexisted peacefully, despite periodic (often inflated by Church elders) Christian persecutions. The transformation of the Roman Empire into a Christian state in late antiquity (which did little to alter it's worst froms of cruelty), on the other hand, and the increased Germanic presence among the military leadership meant that what you actually had as the West entered the Middle Ages was not a dramatic fall, but rather continuity in the transition. Let's not, therefore, perceive in the early medieval period the result of a dramatic fall of a previous civilization. For nothing could be further from the truth.

The salient point that distinguishes our world from theirs, at least in principle (if not often in practice), is that conviction of holding absolute Truth among the religious, which should be universally applied, has given way to a more democratic if not entirely successful forms of coexistence.
 
RetroActive said:
When the ladder of consciousness is formalized into human institutions, whether they be the hieracrchies of church, state or corporations, and become the ladder of success and temporal power they tend to become increasingly corrupted in time. Eventually they become ossified in stratification and literalism, fundamentalism and collapse. Those most qualified are the least prone to seek temporal power (understandably) and we get those willing to play the game. Nothing new, round and round we go...

I would largely agree with this, though how is civilization going to be able to break the eternal cycle if most remain in semi-darkness? It's like living in a museum.
 
rhubroma said:
At its best the Roman Empire was a crucible of cosmopolitanism in which various religions coexisted peacefully, despite periodic (often inflated by Church elders) Christian persecutions. The transformation of the Roman Empire into a Christian state in late antiquity (which did little to alter it's worst froms of cruely), on the other hand, and the increased Germanic presence among the military leadership meant that what you actually had as the West entered the Middle Ages was not a dramatic fall, but rather continuity in the transition. Let's not, therefore, perceive in the early medieval period the result of a dramatic fall of a previous civilization. For nothing could be further from the truth.

The salient point that distinguishes our world from theirs, at least in principle (if not often in practice), is that conviction of holding absolute Truth among the religious, which should be universally applied, has given way to a more democratic if not entirely successful forms of coexistence.
I don't..... not sure why you bolded my last sentence though. :confused:
 
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rhubroma said:
I would largely agree with this, though how is civilization going to be able to break the eternal cycle if most remain in semi-darkness? It's like living in a museum.

The dark ages aren't over yet. I really think we have to reclaim our heritage sans all the whitenoise. I posted a link a few pages ago, call it comparative mythology with open minded reason applied. Right up your alley I'd think.
 

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