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Tink said:
VC, you just go on and on with no concept of what religion has actually contributed in society.

You really must be devoid of any beauty or warmth, from language, to music, to architecture, the list goes on.
Do you know the depth of what religion has contributed?
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Tink, I support your right to believe in your religion, but when you make statements like this, suggesting that someone who doesn't agree with you must be 'devoid of any beauty or warmth', that support wanes quickly.
That's just silly. There is absolutely no reason to think that religious belief is necessary to experience beauty in any form, or even that it's conducive to such experience.

It's as silly as saying that all the world's composers, painters, architects, writers, philosophers must have been religious in order to produce their works.

Where does morality come from?
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If you're suggesting it necessarily comes from religion, you're effectively saying that all of us who don't do religion are amoral, incapable of behaving in a morally and ethically acceptable fashion.
Again, too silly.

Basic rules are fundamental to any society. Doesn't need religion to sort these out.
 
SirRumpole said:
OK, so explain to me how string theory's idea of dimensions contradicts with what I'm saying.
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Firstly String theory hasn't proven the existence of different dimensions, they are still theoretical, and you haven't proven the existence of ghosts, bot even theoretical ghosts and nothing suggests that if they existed that ghosts can slip in and out of these dimensions, as I said you still have to demonstrate that these ghosts exist.

Also, even if you could demonstrate a ghost exists, it still wouldn't be able to travel faster than the speed of light.

but, again your jumping the gun, and trying to reverse backwards into this, it's up to you to show how string theory proves your idea, not up to me to show a reason why your idea goes against string theory.

But just in case you haven't understood exactly what string theory is about here is something for you to chew on.

 
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Rules of society are not morals.

If there is no moral law giver then moraility of subjective. It doesn't matter who agrees on the particular moral proposed or not. Truth is not decided by consensus.

Just because someone is an atheist doesn't mean that they can't act out morally. They can follow the moral laws if they choose. We have all been given a conscience and an ability to obey it. Atheists can be moral people.


Where Christians differ in the worldview is that if God is a righteous judge of our actions according to morality then we have all missed the mark and are all guilty of offence. If there is no price paid for being guilty of the offence then we deserve punishment for him or he is approving of immorality (in the same way that a judge would be by letting a guily man free). Because we have all fallen short, even once, we all need a saviour. Jesus paid the price for our sins and because of that we can receive right standing before God legally.

It's not about ojnly Christians can do good. That is nonsense.
But only through Christ can anyone fulfill the rightgeous standard that removes our guilt.
 
If there is no moral law giver then moraility of subjective
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If your just following the orders of a god, your not a moral person, you are amoral by definition, your just going through the motions, and probably willing to commit immoral acts if you think your celestial dictator wants you to.

As I have said earlier our morals come from the ability for us to experience empathy, not a dictatorship, that's why we have been able to over come the immorality of the bible and other religious texts.
 
Tink said:
Julia, I will reply to you shortly.

Some history for you, VC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_the_Catholic_Church_in_Western_civilization
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If hitler won the war, not doubt they would have written a sterling portrayal of nazi history also. The wiki page seems like its been written by the catholic church's public relations office rather than an independent historian.

By the way, I have never claimed that religious people have not done good things, I have only ever maintained that religion has terrible side effects, and none of the good things are owned by religion, they can all be achieved in other ways, and the other ways are often better.
 
Tink said:
Julia, I will reply to you shortly.

Some history for you, VC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_the_Catholic_Church_in_Western_civilization
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The State and its leadership uses the Church, the State create the Church, not the other way around.

Constantine found it convenient to say that Christ and God was on his side, became Emperor and Christ's 13th Apostle - a living saint.

The Western societies are dominantly Christian yet never in its history since Constantine does it take Christ's teaching regarding money or his golden rule seriously. Same goes for all other cultures and societies regarding religious teachings it found "impractical".
 
The Catholic Church is not a force for good in the world, their apology in the year 2000 is an admission of this. He admitted that their list of sins was so vast, he could only summarise a list, but he included the following.

The conquest of Mesoamerica by Spain in the name of the Church

The legal process on the Italian scientist and philosopher Galileo Galilei, himself a devout Catholic, around 1633 (31 October 1992).

Catholics' involvement with the African slave trade (9 August 1993).

The Church's role in burnings at the stake and the religious wars that followed the Protestant Reformation (May 1995, in the Czech Republic)

The injustices committed against women, the violation of women's rights and for the historical denigration of women (29 May 1995, in a "letter to women").

The inactivity and silence of many Catholics during the Holocaust (16 March 1998)

For the execution of Jan Hus in 1415 (18 December 1999 in Prague). When John Paul II visited Prague in 1990s, he requested experts in this matter "to define with greater clarity the position held by Jan Hus among the Church's reformers, and acknowledged that "independently of the theological convictions he defended, Hus cannot be denied integrity in his personal life and commitment to the nation's moral education." It was another step in building a bridge between Catholics and Protestants.

For the sins of Catholics throughout the ages for violating "the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and [for showing] contempt for their cultures and religious traditions". (12 March 2000, during a public Mass of Pardons).

For the actions of the Crusader attack on Constantinople in 1204. To the Patriarch of Constantinople he said "Some memories are especially painful, and some events of the distant past have left deep wounds in the minds and hearts of people to this day. I am thinking of the disastrous sack of the imperial city of Constantinople, which was for so long the bastion of Christianity in the East. It is tragic that the assailants, who had set out to secure free access for Christians to the Holy Land, turned against their own brothers in the faith. The fact that they were Latin Christians fills Catholics with deep regret. How can we fail to see here the mysterium iniquitatis at work in the human heart? ".

On 20 November 2001, from a laptop in the Vatican, Pope John Paul II sent his first e-mail apologising for the Catholic sex abuse cases, the Church-backed "Stolen Generations" of Aboriginal children in Australia, and to China for the behaviour of Catholic missionaries in colonial times.

They haven't apologised yet for their treatment of the LGBT community or for telling people in aids ridden Africa that condors are bad, but maybe that will come later.

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OQHxkX-tyYU[/video]
 
I posted that to show you what they contributed in society, but yet again, you are ungrateful.
 
Tink said:
I posted that to show you what they contributed in society, but yet again, you are ungrateful.
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Ungrateful for what?

Yes they did some good things, but they also did some very, very terrible things, and I don't think the good outweighs the bad.

I also think your giving them credit for a lot of things good people in society do regardless of their faith.
 
I don't expect you to believe, but to acknowledge history and their input, law and order etc and the many other contributions.

As other atheists have said, they don't believe in a religion, but they do acknowledge that -

'Christianity has served THIS COUNTRY well'.
 
Tink said:
I don't expect you to believe, but to acknowledge history and their input, law and order etc and the many other contributions.

.
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For most of the catholic church's history, a non believer like me would have been at risk of death or torture if I was open about my nonbelief, why would I respect that kind of law and order.

You give the church credit for the things people contributed to society, But I say the good things you point at happened despite religion, not because of it.

As other atheists have said, they don't believe in a religion, but they do acknowledge that -

'Christianity has served THIS COUNTRY well'
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I genuinely don't get what you mean by that, I see the various religious institutions as non productive leeches, yes the members are capable of charity work at the ground level, but so are any group of people, and the charity work would be more effective if it didn't also have to support the bloated institutions of fat cats.
 
Julia said:
Basic rules are fundamental to any society. Doesn't need religion to sort these out.
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Many of the fundamental rules have come from religion though, so even if people don't believe in religion it has had an effect on them via the long influence (good and bad) of religion in society. It's an invalid argument to say "society would be better off if religion had never occurred", we simply don't know as it's impossible to erase religion from history.

Similarly if we say "I'm a moral person but I don't believe in religion therefore religion has had no effect on me", again ignores the impact of religious teachings through the ages that have affected society to date.

Maybe we could say "we don't need religion any more", there may be a valid argument for that in the minds of some people, but it's such a powerful force to believe in eternal life that I doubt if people will want to accept that a single life on earth is all there is for us as individuals.

You don't need religion to believe in an afterlife, but religions seems to have a monopoly on it at the moment.
 
SirRumpole said:
Many of the fundamental rules have come from religion though, so even if people don't believe in religion it has had an effect on them via the long influence (good and bad) of religion in society.
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I don't agree, I think the rules you would point at as being good moral rules from religion, existed before the religion you give credit for them. Religion has just tried to hijacked the moral high ground and add a bunch of baloney to it.

for example, before the ten commandments were dreamed up, there were civilizations all over the world that had the concept that stealing and killing was bad and had laws against them, the ten commandments were largely taken from Egyptian law.

In Australian Aboriginal tribes theft, adultery, unauthorised physical assault, and insult and neglect of family and clan obligations were offences that were considered unlawful.

Morality predates religion.

. It's an invalid argument to say "society would be better off if religion had never occurred", we simply don't know as it's impossible to erase religion from history.
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In the same breath you would have to say it's invalid argument to say "Society is better off because of religion", we simply don't know as it's impossible to erase religion from history.

but it's such a powerful force to believe in eternal life that I doubt if people will want to accept that a single life on earth is all there is for us as individuals.

You don't need religion to believe in an afterlife, but religions seems to have a monopoly on it at the moment
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I really don't get that, I don't know why some people think they have to believe in an after life, isn't this life enough?

I am thankful for every day I wake up and can enjoy another day, I love my life and I love living, But I don't fear death. I don't know why people feel they have to have an after life to give this life meaning. I think it was Mark Twain that said "I was dead for billions of years before I was born, and didn't suffer even the slightest inconvenience"
 
Value Collector said:
I don't agree, I think the rules you would point at as being good moral rules from religion, existed before the religion you give credit for them. Religion has just tried to hijacked the moral high ground and add a bunch of baloney to it.
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Be that as it may religion spread the "rules" through more cultures than otherwise would have happened. It also inspired music, art and architecture more so than any other influence through the ages. If you look at essentially pagan cultures like Rome, we have tyrants like Caligula and Nero, and the Egyptians you exult also believed in an afterlife.

Like it or not, the religious influence is there in our history.
 
Sorry Julia, you are right, you can see beauty.
I was reading an article on how ugly art etc is becoming now.

I was trying to bring across that religion, the Church has an extensive history and has influenced a lot in our society. I have mentioned the Courts before.

Rumpole, thanks for understanding what I was trying to bring across.

Sadly it seems people aren't learning all this rich history at school.
 
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