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1 in 5 Americans is Religiously Unaffiliated

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Nemesis 1 said:
Non sense . More western BS . China
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Huh?

Scientists throughout history have invoked "God" when they reach the limit of their knowledge.

Basically they figure something out, lets use why the orbits are eliptical instead of round, they figure out the math and the gravity between the sun and earth etc.... But then they start looking at other planets that give the earth small gravitational pulls during their orbits and combining all those little tugs together and still having stable orbits that have lasted billions of years was incomprehensible to Newton at the time. So, did he say "I am at the limit of my knowledge and I hope someone, some day, can solve this very complex problem"? Nope, he basically said "God must have done it and therefore nobody will ever be able to figure it out and I am wasting my time trying".

Newton was probably the most brilliant man in recorded history and the above story is basically how it went down. The "unsolvable problem" was actually rather easy compared to the stuff he did over the course of mere months. I truly believe that if he hadn't have invoked "God" that he could have knocked it out in a weekend. He invented calculus basically because of a dare before he turned 27 FFS, perturbation theory is nothing compared to that.

How many billions of Muslims have lived since the 12th century? How many potentially great minds solved absolutely nothing because of religion? How many millions upon millions of scientists did we not have because of religion? Hell, for the longest time the Catholic Church would have you killed or locked up for writing a scientific fact or theory that didn't go along with what they were teaching. All of this holds up progress and advancement, I don't see how anyone can argue otherwise.

And WTF about China?

Edit: Thats not to say that Religious institutions can't contribute to our advancement as well because they have.
 
zsdersw said:
To me it matters less that there will always be something else to latch on to and more that we will have moved on to something else; it is the moving-on itself that is good.
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Haha, sure, when German put Hitler in power, they thought they moved on to something different too, see how that turned out.....
 
rchiu said:
Haha, sure, when German put Hitler in power, they thought they moved on to something different too, see how that turned out.....
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Try to keep up. There's been plenty of subsequent posts after the one of mine you quoted that address the point you're trying to make.
 
Nemesis 1 said:
The seer stone was used by Josphep Smith to translate the golden plates. Ya Ya I know but this is interesting stuff and it exposes the pure lie of modern religion . Romneys of england came to america as MORMONS in 1841 .. Joey lived from 1805 -1845 . There is no way these 2 mormons are same religion . Or are they . its bindblowing stuff . Its also the biggest clusterfuck the powers that be ever made . Find out who the English mormons were. Science fiction has nothing on this shit. Religion exposed
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Do you just read a bit on all of the religions, take the chunks you like, and throw them together for your own "beliefs" or something?
 
JohnOfSheffield said:
No, but they are the only ones that do it because god demands it.

AGAIN

Bad people will do bad things,
Good people will do good things,
But for good people to do bad things,
That takes religion.

Do you get that, that religion can convince good people to do bad things because religion is about a higher power, if god commands you you must follow even if you know it's wrong.
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There are other corrupting forces besides religion that make people do bad things... bad people for example.

You letting your hatred of religion blind you to the facts.

Jihad/acts of terrorism = Bad because religion is behind it
Name any politically motivated war = Good because religion wasn't behind it?
 
JohnOfSheffield said:
Good men will do good things,
Bad men will do bad things,
But for good men to do bad things,
That takes religion.
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Sorry, religion doesn't make good man do bad thing, man use religion to make good man do bad thing. Religion is just another tool from man, like form of government, judiciary system...etc. You think Osama bin Laden really did everything in the name of Islam? No, he had his political agenda, he just used religion as a tool to control his man.

There were plenty of people who used religion to achieve great things, take mother Teresa for example, and there were plenty of people who abuse religion for personal agenda. It is in every religion, Islam, Christian. Just like a government, people can use government to achieve great society or abuse government to murder millions like the case of China during cultural revolution.
 
rchiu said:
Sorry, religion doesn't make good man do bad thing, man use religion to make good man do bad thing. Religion is just another tool from man, like form of government, judiciary system...etc. You think Osama bin Laden really did everything in the name of Islam? No, he had his political agenda, he just used religion as a tool to control his man.

There were plenty of people who used religion to achieve great things, take mother Teresa for example, and there were plenty of people who abuse religion for personal agenda. It is in every religion, Islam, Christian. Just like a government, people can use government to achieve great society or abuse government to murder millions like the case of China during cultural revolution.
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The problem is without religion you would have a very very hard to getting people to do those things. Their are not many things people in this world are willing to die and go to war over other than religion or defending your country from an invader.

I mean try to come up with something not religious that you can get millions of people on board with that they are willing to go to war over.
 
soulcougher73 said:
The problem is without religion you would have a very very hard to getting people to do those things. Their are not many things people in this world are willing to die and go to war over other than religion or defending your country from an invader.

I mean try to come up with something not religious that you can get millions of people on board with that they are willing to go to war over.
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Forget religion, we'll never be absent country. So there's no need to imagine a motivator without it.
 
rchiu said:
Sorry, religion doesn't make good man do bad thing, man use religion to make good man do bad thing. Religion is just another tool from man, like form of government, judiciary system...etc. You think Osama bin Laden really did everything in the name of Islam? No, he had his political agenda, he just used religion as a tool to control his man.

There were plenty of people who used religion to achieve great things, take mother Teresa for example, and there were plenty of people who abuse religion for personal agenda. It is in every religion, Islam, Christian. Just like a government, people can use government to achieve great society or abuse government to murder millions like the case of China during cultural revolution.
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Yeah, religion can't make someone do something bad no more than a gun can make a person shoot someone else.

I can see where people are coming from when people kill in the name of religion.

I attribute that to pure hatred and bloodthirst... extremists use religion more of an excuse than sound reason for being stupid.
 
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Rob M. said:
Yeah, religion can't make someone do something bad no more than a gun can make a person shoot someone else.

I can see where people are coming from when people kill in the name of religion.

I attribute that to pure hatred and bloodthirst... extremists use religion more of an excuse than sound reason for being stupid.
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Then how is it that fear of damnation is meant to motivate people to make good choices, if similar tenets cannot also be used to get people to make bad choices?

Heck, the afterlife as a concept is a motivator towards all sorts of actions.
 
soulcougher73 said:
The problem is without religion you would have a very very hard to getting people to do those things. Their are not many things people in this world are willing to die and go to war over other than religion or defending your country from an invader.

I mean try to come up with something not religious that you can get millions of people on board with that they are willing to go to war over.
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really? Which one of the world war was caused by religion? Imperialism, fascism, strategic resources, I can go on on things people willing to go to war for.
 
Religion is not going anywhere. It has no place in politics, but if you have some agenda to "purge" religion from people's personal lives, then you're just as much of a scumbag as Hitler or Stalin.
 
jackstar7 said:
Then how is it that fear of damnation is meant to motivate people to make good choices, if similar tenets cannot also be used to get people to make bad choices?

Heck, the afterlife as a concept is a motivator towards all sorts of actions.
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Good question.

People don't read the Bible for themselves -- they listen to their "teachers" and aren't allowed to question them out of fear of questioning "God". 🙄

So... they just follow and do as commanded.

Using Muslim extremists as an example, some say Muhammed would NEVER condone violence, or return violence in kind. However, some muslims do just that.

Why? Well, if that's true about Muhammed, they aren't listenining to him... they're listening to whomever wants to shed the blood of those who "disrepsect" Muhammed.

I think that followers of certain religions are just doing what they're told by their "leaders" when it comes to killing, etc... and can't ask questions out of fear of being booted out of the Church.
 
rchiu said:
really? Which one of the world war was caused by religion? Imperialism, fascism, strategic resources, I can go on on things people willing to go to war for.
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Weve already covered this. Religion is not the reason for war but the tool for it. Take away the tool. Now find a reason besides defending yourself.

A leader of a country may have desires of imperialist, fascism etc but trying to get a million + people to support that enough to start a war is going to be a hard sale. Religion is the easy tool because people are willing to die for their blind faith.

I know im not going to war unless im attacked. Im also not religious.
 
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Rob M. said:
Good question.

People don't read the Bible for themselves -- they listen to their "teachers" and aren't allowed to question them out of fear of questioning "God". 🙄

So... they just follow and do as commanded.

Using Muslim extremists as an example, some say Muhammed would NEVER condone violence, or return violence in kind. However, some muslims do just that.

Why? Well, if that's true about Muhammed, they aren't listenining to him... they're listening to whomever wants to shed the blood of those who "disrepsect" Muhammed.

I think that followers of certain religions are just doing what they're told by their "leaders" when it comes to killing, etc... and can't ask questions out of fear of being booted out of the Church.
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This is kind of like that outrage over the video on youtube; supposedly a bunch of the people protesting never even saw the video and were just outraged because they were told to be. I would think if some of those in the middle east were on youtube they'd have a heck of a lot more things to be outraged about.
 
Darwin333 said:
Do you just read a bit on all of the religions, take the chunks you like, and throw them together for your own "beliefs" or something?
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He an end of the world scientologist type. Aliens made people and they are going to be back any minute to fuck shit up. Thing is, their arrival has been imminent since he was 4 years old. He's a grandfather now, so they should be here any second.
 
dalailama.afp_1.jpg


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/10/dalai-lama-warns-against-generalizing-islam/
 
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