I like watching a bit of Joel Osteen every now and then. He has a lovely smiley face and makes me want to be nice to people.
Religion, what's the point?
- Thread starter TheRedFlag
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You're bringing my maturity into question when you've gone off on one because you feel I "told you off"?
I'll leave it to you niMic, this is so obviously your playground..
I am beginning to doubt you are actually a grown man. I "went off on one"? I made a fairly detailed reply to your post on the subject of religion; you know, the point of the thread. You proceeded to, yes, tell me off. I then explained why I made my original post, since you didn't seem to understand why.
And from all of this, you get the impression that I won't tolerate digression from "my" subject? According to you, I was the one who made the digression in the first place! At least keep your excuses consistent.
Perhaps you're right. You shouldn't post in the CE if you're not prepared to have people critically respond to your posts.
:greensmileyeyeroll: etc
niMic, I'm quite happy to have other contributors decide who is throwing the hissy fit. I know that when someone attempts to be insulting and brings the politics of the playground to the discussion they've usually lost it. I wish you well, I hope you have a pleasant evening.
This will be my final post on the subject.
I was not the one who made the discussion unpleasant. I was perfectly happy calmly explaining my reasoning. You are the one who decided to start using the good old demeaning green smiley, and condescendingly explain to me how I shouldn't take it so hard, before topping it off with the always classy addendum "laughing my nuts off". Playground politics indeed.
Oates save your breath. You made the first mistake by linking to researched data, in a thread that prefers idle speculation and unsubstantiated claims.
Any truly inquiring, skeptical mind would dismiss this type of unsubstantiated garbage out of hand:
But as it has a stench of the anti religious about it, some are happy to defend it and swallow it whole. Skepticism and atheism aint what they used to be.
Any truly inquiring, skeptical mind would dismiss this type of unsubstantiated garbage out of hand:
rednev said:
eric le roi said:
But as it has a stench of the anti religious about it, some are happy to defend it and swallow it whole. Skepticism and atheism aint what they used to be.
Victims.
Oates stepped into Nimic's domain. Many have tried to tread the same path, the many have met the same fate. It is a brave man who takes on a Norwegian atheist in a debate about religion.
That can be taken many ways, but I am just about vain enough to graciously accept the compliment 
It's unsubstantiated garbage that there are tens of millions of atheists in the Western world who were brought up religious? Really? Does your 'truly inquiring, skeptical mind' still want to dismiss it? There are plenty of statistics to show that there are millions of atheists in the UK alone who were mostly brought up with religious labels.
I think that atheists are winning when it comes to not mutilating the genitals of our daughters, though.
I think if you are saying that it is practiced by people of religion predominantly than I would tend to agree since it is a practiced by communities in african countries and the middle east where most if not all of those communities are muslim.
However many would argue that it is not a religious practice as it has no basis in scripture or religious teaching but that it is a much older phenomenon familiar to the region which predates that particular religion and goes back to at least the times of pharaohs and even romans pre-BC.
So I think female mutilation is more "cultural" than relevant to modern day religion.
Religion is silly, believing in a creator isn't that daft though
Live and let live and all that
The religious can't seem to stick to that though.
It was a nice chat, I didn't believe what they were saying though and thought that they sounded slightly brainwashed.
They believed...
In microevolution whatever that means.
That they themselves were created in the image of the lord (which sounds a bit up themselves to be honest).
That there being a case for saying that the church may have had an ulterior motive was laughable, and that of course they wouldn't have taken advantage of peasants who had shit lives and nothing else to believe in because they are just trying to preach the word of the lord.
All of the miracles happened.
The story of Noah's ark is true.
I thought that most Christians may believe in a God and pray to him and believe that he is listening... but may have reconsidered some of the tales of the Bible in light of other evidence. Also, I was possibly rather surprised because I've never really met religious people before.
Here's a video, I like the first 3 minutes of this joke. (Don't watch Liam!)
Are you drunk celebrating Molde's glorious league title tonight, Nimic? Complaining about being told off when you're not told off at all... You're not usually that thin skinned. And complaining about oates derailing the thread when he merely offered a completely reasonable comment to a wacky post? You can do better than that.
Religion is slowly going away. I would be unpleasantly surprised to see it as much of a factor in social life by 2050. Its already increasingly uncool to be religious in western society, and that is likely to spread into other parts of the planet as technology and education seep in there.
Micro evolution is the change in a species over time due to selection/evolution. Macroevolution is the creation of new species through selection/evolution. Apparently natural processes know the difference and thus when to stop in order not to offend the almighty.
Basically it it idiotic mental gymnastics that allows some religious types to pretend to be scientific and adhere to their religion which really wants to deny it all but can't.
My parents told me they thought that in the 60s. The one and only natural resource the earth can be dependant on to produce ad infinitum is stupid people.
That said, England IS less religious than it was in my folks time. It's only the wider awareness of the outside world that makes it seem like it's still growing. Hopefully the same wider awareness will expediate it's decline.
But again, dumb people. Thems be everywhere.
That sounds ludicrous. They are basically putting a time limit on how long we can evolve for... and still saying that all of the animals were there in the beginning! So 100 million years ago we lived with the dinosaurs? Hmm. It also means that they believe in the creation story, but they said they thought the big bang happened too. I have a feeling they're confused.
They are basically putting a time limit on how long we can evolve for... and still saying that all of the animals were there in the beginning! So 100 million years ago we lived with the dinosaurs? Hmm. It also means that they believe in the creation story, but they said they thought the big bang happened too. I have a feeling they're confused.He did "tell me off", in that he completely ignored my points despite still replying to me anyway. It's funny how our interaction began by him telling me my post was off point, and yet I'm supposed to be the one who complained about derailing. I see you're jumping right on his narrative, though.
You're a smart guy, but frankly I have no interest in debating religion with you as you're always assuming the worst from me, and always take whatever my "opponent" says for granted.
That sounds ludicrous.
They also totally ignore the processes by which new species are created. They seem to be under the impression that "more" evolution creates new species whereas that isn't true. You can have lots and lots of evolution with no speciation or relatively little evolution which results in speciation if the circumstances are correct (two population separated to avoid inbreeding and different selection pressures.. Indeed most evolution in animals is "invisible" in that it is fighting bacteria, viruses and parasites.
Despite allowing the teaching of evolution in Catholic schools the Vatican still theoretically doesn't believe in Macroevolution although I suspect that this is because the official word on this is decades old now - early/mid 60's I think - and I'm sure they will alter their stance next time this is officially addressed.
I would have said that thirty years ago. Now I would say it doesn't have the social hold that it used to have, where half of life was connected to church-based events, but the number of real believers is increasing again, in the young, and across the religions too.
Personally I'm an atheist, this is just an observation of others.
Fair enough, but you're slightly overreacting. I'm probably as non-religious as you, but we've got dozens of watchdogs on behalf of Atheism here, I'm not needed and I don't really give a shit. When I react it's usually because I expect or hope for more from the vocal non-religious people (or atheists as some like to brand themselves) than from the religious ones. So, you know, when I don't "tell you off" I'm probably on your side (or just not bothering).
You forgot:
"...as a result of the modern-day discourse surrounding religion and rational thought, which has largely taken place on the internet."
Well, yes. Why else do you think that there has been an explosion in atheism in the West over the past decade or so? Something in the water? 50 years ago atheism was practically non-existent as a topic of discussion and criticism of religion only took place in certain circles, usually behind closed doors. Over the past decade this has changed, thanks largely to the internet. If nobody had been talking about religion and atheism over the past decade, i.e if there had been no open discourse, then for what reason would there have been a surge in atheism/the rejection of religion?
The internet is full of testimonies from atheists whose eyes have been opened thanks to what they have been able to read/watch on the internet. I recall posters on the Caf referring to the likes of Hitchens and Dawkins (to whom they were introduced on the internet) as reasons for their rejection of religion.
Religion offers intellectually lazy explanations for how the world came to be what it is, and these explanations are just passed on through the generations with little critiquing. And all societies are guilty of it. In this sense, religion is the antithesis of science, which questions everything, even established theories.
It's no surprise that as societies become more sophisticated they demand better explanations, and religion starts to lose its hold. There are exceptions of course, like in the rural USA.
The other side of religion tells people how to live instead of what to think. This part is more tenable, and has some good advice mixed up with the occasional idiocy masquerading as cultural norms.
Ultimately everyone should develop their own philosophy of life and code of conduct, and it can be eclectic, derived from many sources. This view puts me at variance with organised religion, where the herd mentality prevails.
It's no surprise that as societies become more sophisticated they demand better explanations, and religion starts to lose its hold. There are exceptions of course, like in the rural USA.
The other side of religion tells people how to live instead of what to think. This part is more tenable, and has some good advice mixed up with the occasional idiocy masquerading as cultural norms.
Ultimately everyone should develop their own philosophy of life and code of conduct, and it can be eclectic, derived from many sources. This view puts me at variance with organised religion, where the herd mentality prevails.
It's these types of grand claims that raise my hackles.
Although the claim is largely true.
I thought it was dead meat (along with Tories) in the 70s.
The western society is less religious I'd say. We're just being out-bred by poorer countries where religion is till very prevelant.
The post world wide web world is definitely changing the way people socialize and is gradually secularizing the discourse around the world, through things like the formation of global norms. I think we're in the middle of a major macro-sociological / epistemic shift right now, that is being driven by an access to information that is historically without precedent. Religion, nationalism, and to a lesser extent, tribalism, because they tend to have a fragmenting effect on societies, will (imo) naturally become disposable concepts as societies gradually and organically defragment over the next 50-75 years.
I can see that. But it seems like I only ever see you in these threads when you pop up towards the end of them to point out some serious flaw in my posts, usually involving "be nicer".
Yeah, but the good news is that the general wealth level in the world is rising rapidly. And, as we all know, higher levels of wealth and education leads to lower levels of religiosity. We'll never be completely rid of it, which is fine, but eventually it will be in the minority. Probably not in my lifetime, but who knows. If the world is fecked over royally by environmental change, then all bets are off, as people usually get more religious in time of trouble. And we'd be in trouble.
You missed out capitalism from that list, otherwise very sound reasoning.
I deliberately left it out because a defragmented global social structure would still function on economic interdependence, which would remain predicated on free markets, albeit with a strong social safety net that is lacking (for example) in today's American system.
Sacré bleu. It's like the revolution never happened.
One popular culture example: The Seventh Seal - possibly cinema's greatest example of atheistic dicussion and the questioning of god - was released 55 years ago.
In Sweden.
He also didn't say it didn't happen at all. Not to mention that he said "50 years ago", and the best example you could come up with was 55 years ago. Not exactly a massive knock to his argument.
He also didn't say it didn't happen at all. Not to mention that he said "50 years ago", and the best example you could come up with was 55 years ago. Not exactly a massive knock to his argument.