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Religion IS crazy!

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In my culture, we're told that we descended from the Mountain Phoenix and the Dragon lord of the East Sea. That the two one day meet, laid 100 eggs - 50 males, 50 females - so we're all inbreds like you Jews, Christians and Muslims. Anyway, we don't believe that story to be true, that it's a folk tale, the story of our Creation... something to inspire the kids.

So why is it that the stories of Genesis, create the world in six days... all that can't be disprove? Is Zeus still around or is he just Liam Neeson?
 
Weatsop said:
If god wants us to know, we'll know. He's all powerful. He could just flip the switch marked "know of My Terrible Existence". If we don't know, it's because he doesn't want us to know. And there's nothing any of us could do to outwit god. If we could prove the existence of god despite his opposition, we would have outsmarted him. So anyone who says something proves the existence of god is blaspheming. They are calling god an idiot.
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Such rationale will not phase a religious fundamentalist who will simply reject the basic premise that their God, its design, its will or its word is flawed in any way by definition (the gender specific pronoun he can't really apply to a monotheistic God concept) - doubt is for fallen unbelievers under Satan's influence. For the fundamentalist, God has spoken (past tense) in the form of creation, revealed truth in scripture, and its prophets. No further revelation is required.

The problem with asking the religious to provide evidence for their belief in religious myth and superstition (as demonstrated many times in this thread) is the extremely low standard of evidence (or what is carelessly called evidence) they will accept as justification for strong belief in such myth. Where this so called evidence is clearly shown to be a farce or outright fraud the response is obfuscation and misdirection (e.g. attacks on evolution theory, science, appeals to the good deeds people do in the name of religion, its usefulness, semantic argument etc.)

The added complexity in debating the religious is the deep emotional, intellectual and social investment they have made in a particular religious tradition. Reason and rationality frequently fails to make an impression because being truly honest with oneself about what you really know for certain to be true and factual and what you actually accept on blind faith creates a state of self-awareness that can create conflict with other members of the cult of belief. The consequences of such conflict can be dire indeed depending on the tradition or cult.

It's safer and less confronting not to question or doubt and construct or embrace sham arguments in defense of the faith. The myth of eternal life in a heavenly paradise is just to intoxicating for many to let go of with the first casualty being any true desire to question why one should believe fantastic claims in magic books for essentially bad reasons.
 
luutzu said:
In my culture, we're told that we descended from the Mountain Phoenix and the Dragon lord of the East Sea. That the two one day meet, laid 100 eggs - 50 males, 50 females -
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Phht that's nothing when it comes to the origins of man, the aborigine's Wandjina didn't wait for the place to be habitable they just moulded everything from a plastic lump of stardust.... no fuss no muss.

When it comes to the Bible, Adam was jilted by his blasphemous first lover (Lilith) who took off back to heaven where there was plumbing and electricity, so Eve was sent bush as his new squeeze. First case of divorce....:D
 
FxTrader said:
The myth of eternal life in a heavenly paradise is just to intoxicating for many to let go of with the first casualty being any true desire to question why one should believe fantastic claims in magic books for essentially bad reasons.
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It’s the old story....tell people what they want to hear and thousands will flock to listen and believe you without question no matter how outrageous your claims. And not just in religion either – people who set themselves up as investment gurus use this very same tactic to entice people into wealth creation schemes. Cassamatis of Storm Financial, for example.
Works like a charm and always will work thanks to human nature being what it is.
 
I am repeating what I have read and there is nothing to the contrary that I have seen. The genocide of Jews was because of Anti-Semitism :-
hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group. The term anti-Semitism was coined in 1879 by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate the anti-Jewish campaigns under way in central Europe at that time. Although the term now has wide currency, it is a misnomer, since it implies a discrimination against all Semites. Arabs and other peoples are also Semites, and yet they are not the targets of anti-Semitism as it is usually understood. The term is especially inappropriate as a label for the anti-Jewish prejudices, statements, or actions of Arabs or other Semites.
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Christian Anti-Semitism/Anti Judaism exists today. It manifests in various forms but I would not be paranoid of persecution. Maybe it is a deep seated belief and people don't say but quietly believe and practice.

Now, the battle for religious supremacy has a new contender. Islam. Are non religious folk safe from religious ideologies in the modern world? Depends on what country you live in.

Bunyip posted -
It’s the old story....tell people what they want to hear and thousands will flock to listen and believe you without question no matter how outrageous your claims.
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This quote from a perpetrator of genocide -

A few days later Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, a three-star general in the SS who had fought in the invasion of the Soviet Union, disagreed. He stated: "If for years, for decades, a doctrine is preached to the effect that the Slav race is an inferior race, that the Jews are not even human beings, then an explosion of this sort is inevitable."
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Tisme said:
Phht that's nothing when it comes to the origins of man, the aborigine's Wandjina didn't wait for the place to be habitable they just moulded everything from a plastic lump of stardust.... no fuss no muss.

When it comes to the Bible, Adam was jilted by his blasphemous first lover (Lilith) who took off back to heaven where there was plumbing and electricity, so Eve was sent bush as his new squeeze. First case of divorce....:D
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You're pulling my legs with Lilith right?

I'm pretty sure there's a fantastic story of Creation in every culture, strange that we dismiss others out of hand but take ours quite seriously. I can tell you that up until about 7, I thought us Viet, particularly me, haha, was awesome because I descended from a dragon king.

You're supposed to grow out of that stuff but if a person really believe in it, they can find some things in nature or history to support it. A good example is Ha Long Bay in Vietnam. Hanoi's old name was Thang Long - place where the dragon rise to Heaven... and Ha Long is where that dragon descend, and because the dragon was so powerful it kick up all those rocks in the bay.

In the Journey to the West, the Monkey King and all that... I remember thinking how awesome it was that 1 day in Heaven equals 100 years on earth. In Nolan's Interstellar, 1 hour on some planet equals 7 years on Earth - it's based on some relativity or something.


Anyway, just about all Chinese and other Asians influenced by Chinese culture... we all favour the Year of the Dragon - what with the Emperor being the dragon - and a couple of years ago when it was the Year of the Water Dragon, a lot of expecting Asian mothers actually choose to have a (safe) premature C-section just so their son would be born in this lucky year. Most actually plan conception for birth in that year. The others favourable one being the Monkey, then maybe the Horse... Buffalo they don't like too much.

Strange superstition to non-Asians but not that much different from Genesis and what not.
 
FxTrader said:
It's safer and less confronting not to question or doubt and construct or embrace sham arguments in defense of the faith. The myth of eternal life in a heavenly paradise is just to intoxicating for many to let go of with the first casualty being any true desire to question why one should believe fantastic claims in magic books for essentially bad reasons.
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Yeah, I think a lot of folk don't actually believe. They want it to be true, and seem to think if they try hard enough to believe, it will be true. But most "religious" folk don't actually act like they believe.

If I thought an old book was the actual word of God The All Powerful, I'd know that thing backwards and forwards. Yet most Christians think they go to heaven when they die, and look down on their families, even though that's not what the bible actually says. Or they think it's perfect despite the bible clearly contradicting itself (JC's descent from King David being the famous one).

I mean, have they actually *read* the damn thing? And... if they truly believed, *wouldn't* they read it?
 
bunyip said:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-...fication-due-to-social-media-pressure/5877584

No doubt there will be different opinions on this - mine is that any customer who insists on halal certification for foods they buy from Aussie companies should be told in no uncertain terms to take their business elsewhere.
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Hell yeah! Anyone who isn't exactly the same as me is unaustralian and should live in a hole in the ground until they die!!!

In fact, we should make a list of people who eat blue cheese, right? And then when the aliens come we'll know who to give them for their organ harvesting, because eating mouldy cheese is MESSED UP.

...or, hang on...

MAYBE we could accept that other human beings actually exist, and sometimes like things that we don't like?

Sometimes they even like things that we don't really care about very much, but it's something with a funny word that we don't really understand, but as long as it doesn't actually effect us in any way whatsoever maybe we should just get over ourselves and live our lives without sticking our faces into other people's business?

Here's an idea:

Any Australians who think it's Australian to tell other people how to live their lives should take their opinions elsewhere.

Maybe to New Zealand, because when New Zealanders curse you out for being an over-reacting redneck, their accent makes it sound funny.

Hah. "Rudnuck".

And yeah, I just told people how to live their lives, but it's different because I'm right.
:p
 
bunyip said:
No doubt there will be different opinions on this - mine is that any customer who insists on halal certification for foods they buy from Aussie companies should be told in no uncertain terms to take their business elsewhere.
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Theological determinism -- coming to a store near you.
 
Sharia law is Islam’s legal system. It derives from the Koran and the Hadiths, the sayings and customs attributed to the Prophet Mohammed, as well as fatwas - the rulings of Islamic scholars.
Currently, Sharia principles are not formally addressed by or included in Britain’s laws. However, a network of Sharia courts has grown up in Islamic communities to deal with disputes between Muslim families.
There are reported to be around 85 such courts in the UK – however campaigners say there could be far more.
The Sharia Law event at the Law Society’s headquarters on Chancery Lane, central London on June 24 has already sold out.
It offers training in Sharia law covering wills and inheritance, family and children and corporate and commercial law.
The course is billed as “a forerunner to a planned future seminar series on Islamic law”, the Law Society said.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/rel...et-formal-training-in-Islamic-Sharia-law.html

This may have been raised earlier but I haven't been involved with this thread very much. Is it realistic to think what you see above will be attempted in Australia? Religious laws as interpreted from a religious book. It raises the question of how much we value our democracy and the "civilised" laws that apply to all Australian. The creation of a separate, possibly integrated, set of rules and regulations that directly opposes this nation's egalitarian ideology.
 
ISIS members discuss the trading Kurdish females they have captured,

They actually quote from the Qu'ran to justify their actions.

 
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The bible has been used many times to justify slavery, too.

Religion, IMO, just lets people justify doing whatever they like, good or bad.

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PS: how many sexually repressed young men from any background would be all giggly and excited like these arseholes at the thought of buying themselves a hotty?

If you were a 19 year old virgin and there was a slave market down the road, and all your mates are saying it's a great idea, wouldn't you at least be tempted to work some extra shifts for the money?

And I can't think of anywhere more sexually repressed than Saudi Arabia. The rich men get lots of wives, the young men aren't even allowed to talk to a girl in public. Plenty of them will NEVER have sex. Ever. Their whole lives.

...then these guys get a slave-market.

Surprised at the outcome?
 
Weatsop said:
The bible has been used many times to justify slavery, too.

.
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Yes but that was a long time ago in Australia ......hang on we never had slavery did we, so we should blame the USA for our poor performance as Christian slavers?

As with all things, because someone did it doesn't make it a righteous precedent. Anti Christian acts found in the ten commandments are predicated on a malignancy that has beset the human species right from the religious getgo it seems.
 
Tisme said:
Yes but that was a long time ago in Australia ......hang on we never had slavery did we, .
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we did actually, sugar slaves as they were called.

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herzy said:
Would you say the same for kosher?

How about vegan?

How about gluten free?
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I’m opposed to food being certified on religious grounds, and the certification fees going to any religion.

I’m not opposed to foods being certified for health reasons, such as organic certification or gluten-free certification.
 
Wysiwyg said:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/rel...et-formal-training-in-Islamic-Sharia-law.html

This may have been raised earlier but I haven't been involved with this thread very much. Is it realistic to think what you see above will be attempted in Australia? Religious laws as interpreted from a religious book. It raises the question of how much we value our democracy and the "civilised" laws that apply to all Australian. The creation of a separate, possibly integrated, set of rules and regulations that directly opposes this nation's egalitarian ideology.
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Yes, it’s definitely realistic to think Sharia law could infiltrate Australia. Some of the more radical Muslims are openly demanding it.
That’s the problem with Muslims – they leave their own countries because of the oppression they suffer under Islamic laws and attitudes, they come to a county where they can live free from oppression. Then little by little they force changes in their adopted countries to make them like the countries they came from where they were unhappy.
The more their numbers grow, the faster they force these changes. They've done it in every country in which they've gained a foothold, to the detriment of that country.....Britain, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, and many others.
If they’d leave their old attitudes behind them, if they’d leave their old religious factional hatreds behind them, if they’d ditch their oppressive and dictatorial religion, if they’d come to their new country with the attitude of ‘Righto, here’s our chance for a new start, no need for any of that crap we left behind, let’s embrace this wonderful new free country and everything about it, and start enjoying life for a change.’
But for some reason they just can’t seem to do that.
 
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