Herbrand on 19/2/2009 at 00:06
As a Christian myself, I find the ad to be healthy humour, and I can see the good point of it. :)
Herr_Garrett on 19/2/2009 at 07:44
Quote Posted by jtr7
Let me know when science has figured out a harmless alternative for the power of belief in something more, the power of mere hope in a future that may never arrive, and a surrogate for unanswered questions, denial of facts because one is too weak to handle the truth, the power of giving and selflessness, etc.
Why should science come up with such stuff? Humans invented it a long time ago: it's called thinking, and forgetting, love and hate, fear and hope and you know, those buch of things called 'emotions'. Religion has nothing to do with emotions.
Religion is not based on faith, but on structure. Religion certainly had its use in the dawn of time as a sort of proto-society forming power. But since then a lot of time has passed and we came up with other forms of society, so, please I'll have dictature, thanks, but without the theocracy sprinkle.
[Carnage] on 19/2/2009 at 09:20
Aye, big post :D
Religion is more about emotion than you think. Most religions advocate love, understanding and respect for others, self discipline and generally a view on life that is supposed to make it better for everyone. Being a Christian, I think I understand the entire concept of love that the Bible is trying to teach.
A lot of this, if not everything, can be backed up by modern day psychology, which I find quite interesting, since a book such as the Bible was written quite a while ago. In short, one's ego and selfcenteredness is often the cause of trouble, especially since the outcome is usually counterproductive. If I hit you, you will hit me, meaning I will hit you again, etc, until someone gets knocked out, dies, or involves another person in this. It only stops if someone breaks this vicious cycle, but you can't break the cycle if you're overwhelmed by (negative) emotions and can only think about your next 'move'.
Sadly, people will use anything in their quest for power which resulted in mass abuse of pretty much any religion, which is why people have such a skewed view on it these days. Then again, I don't blame them, there are plenty of crazy folks out there and events such 9/11 don't really help. This is also why I ain't a fan of the Catholic church.
That said, a religion that encourages manslaughter is most likely doing something wrong, but the perk is that in most religions this isn't even the main focus, but serves more of a warning and encouragement. For instance, going to Hell could metaphorically be seen as ending up in a situation where you won't be very happy. If you kill someone, you go to jail. Heck, even if you don't it certainly won't make you a better, happier person. Religious fundamentalists tend to bring up Fire and Brimstone (tm) a lot though, but like I said, often only to achieve some form of control or power over people. Even if they did mean it as a warning, that's certainly not how it is perceived.
Campaigns such as these are trying to break that, which is good, but they're still being rather one sided. Rather than focusing on people's right to believe in whatever they want (or nothing for that matter), they focus on their own view and immediately (and rightfully) people get offended and some sort of war starts. Had they just focused on the right of free choice of religion and belief, I doubt any conflict would have occurred. Again, lack of certain sympathy and empathy ends up being counterproductive.
jay pettitt on 19/2/2009 at 09:47
Can I just point out that I don't believe in 'nothing'. I just don't believe in the supernatural and occult. Thanks.
[Carnage] on 19/2/2009 at 09:57
Fair enough ;)
DDL on 19/2/2009 at 12:37
[QUOTE='[Carnage];1822466']
Religion is more about emotion than you think. Most religions advocate love, understanding and respect for others, self discipline and generally a view on life that is supposed to make it better for everyone. Being a Christian, I think I understand the entire concept of love that the Bible is trying to teach. Surely the point is that, while all that is true, it's also
unnecessary. Religion can encourage all that stuff, but that stuff can also occur entirely without religion.
Likewise, religion can conjure up all manner of pointless bigotry and hatred, but so can..people just being people: no religion needed.
Also, "bible pointing out stuff that modern psychology is also pointing out" is not terribly surprising. Quite a lot of current psychology studies fit happily into the remit of "proving the fucking obvious" -"everyone knows X is true", but nobody ever actually went and
confirmed it with scientific analysis. And so on. Sometimes even with interesting results.
