Oh look, more original thoughtful commentary by Canada-man. Well, you have surely mastered cut-and-paste of the poorly reasoned.taken from an Athiest facebook page
Why Can't You Leave Religion Alone?
by The Thinking Atheist on Monday, January 17, 2011 at 1:34pm
The protests come every day from the religious, and they go something like this:
* "Why spend your time disproving God?"
* "Why not just let people believe what they want to believe?"
* "Why can't you leave religion alone?"
As one YouTube commenter said recently, "No one can explain to me why it is so important to convince theists to abandon their beliefs."
The answer is simple. Pages like this one exist because religion exists.
Religion permeates our culture, shows up on our doorsteps with literature, scriptures and threats of eternal damnation, influences our science books, contaminates our political systems, indoctrinates our children and postulates that its doctrine must be followed, lest we be destroyed in body, in soul, or both.
Non-believers are simply responding to the avalanche of religious messages that bears down upon us daily.
Religion gets carte blanche to be as vocal as it wants, to knock on our doors and accost us in our homes, in our places of work, in our personal and professional lives. Believers are charged with a life mission to preach, teach, disciple, shout it from the mountaintops and to "go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Religion...is everywhere.
Ask yourself. When's the last time an atheist rang your doorbell with the Good News of Humanism? How often do you find Richard Dawkins books in the dresser drawers of your hotel rooms? When was the last atheist temple erected in your neighborhood? Have you ever attended an atheist revival? Has atheism demanded 10% of your household income? How many dedicated atheist television channels come through your satellite dish? How many atheist verses were you instructed to memorize as a child? When's the last time someone thanked a FARMER (or even the cook) at the dinner table instead of God?
On a more radical front, what's the name of the last atheist who sawed the head off of an "infidel?" Or sentenced a shrouded woman to death for displeasing an oppressive husband? Or strapped explosives to his belt in order to kill hundreds in a public square? Or publicly hung a gay person for his choice of lifestyle?
It's everywhere. Religion is a pounding drum that has gone mostly unanswered for a long, long time. And religion is not satisfied with merely existing quietly in the homes and hearts of the faithful. Its very nature compels the believer to proselytize, preach, promote, convince, convert and prevail. If you play on the team of the religious, your game plan is to stay, always, on offense.
Throughout our history, those who raise a simple hand of protest against these advances have been portrayed as the real problem. Religion has attempted to marginalize and defeat legitimate questions and concerns by indignantly portraying any resistors as misguided, immoral, rudderless, angry, miserable, lost and alone.
And when skepticism challenges wildly improbable (or impossible) stories found in the bible, the Qur'an and other holy books, the religious wail, "Why can't you just leave us alone?"
The irony is thick.
And religion impedes curiosity and inhibits learning, as the much-maligned Creation Museum proves. It stymies critical thinking. It stretches us to believe the unbelievable. And it poisons the foundational teachings we are using to train up the generations of tomorrow.
Pages like mine exist as a response... a counter-argument to ensure that the cacophony of superstition does not go unchallenged. And if your belief system is so undeniable, so factual, so provable, so real and so true, certainly it can withstand the opposing viewpoints presented here and elsewhere. Certainly, it can survive the acid tests.
Just remember. Religion began the argument. It amplifies itself before the world. And it threatens all mankind with punishment upon its rejection.
We are atheists. We are moral. We are reasonable. We are thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate, happy, fulfilled and well-informed.
And as long as religion insists on fixing human beings who are not broken, we will respond with the evidence that we are not the problem.
Why Religion Fails
- Thread starter canada-man
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Oh look, more original thoughtful commentary by Canada-man. Well, you have surely mastered cut-and-paste of the poorly reasoned.
As usual your need to play the victim leads you to make false statements.
Firstly, I am a member of no church, I have not even been baptised. I have never regularly attended a church and if you had the time to drill it right down I would be classified as agnostic.
Your theory of religious privilege is simply false. There is no religious privilege. There are just a number of pseudo-intellectuals who are bitter about something who feel the need of attacking someone else's belief system.
I fully support your right to talk about whatever you want. But the other side of the coin is that someone like me gets to comment on the fact that you don't seem to have the ability to carry on an argument, or reason, or add something to the discourse, other than cutting and pasting and living for Youtube. So far, you have shown a distinct lack of intellect, competence or originality and make a rather poorly informed representative of the athiest movement.
Mervyn quite rightly pointed out the intellectual bankruptcy of your angry little approach.
Normally I participate the threads on religion here but this thead goes nowhere,
And the Pope did when he recently visited the UK.
The statement that religion impedes learning is also an unfair generalization. What many intellectually dishonest athiests do is take the worst examples from the American evangelical movement or the worst examples of muslim fundamentalism and hold them up as a measuring stick for all religions. This is simply misleading and dishonest.
It would be like me suggesting that all athiests are like Stalin or Mao.
But I will wait patiently to see in Canada-man can articulate anything himself on the subject and then perhaps we can actually have a discussion.
It would be like me suggesting that all athiests are like Stalin or Mao.
But I will wait patiently to see in Canada-man can articulate anything himself on the subject and then perhaps we can actually have a discussion.
There were quite a few scientists who believed in God: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.html
I do slightly agree with canada-man however that religion has been hijacked by televangelists, phony faith healers and other money grabbers. But just because thats true is no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater
Would you agree with me that the phenomena that you are concerned about is primarily found in certain parts of the US, and the that rest of the world, in fact the vast majority of the world, approaches religion very different than those clowns?
I believe the money-grabbing happens all over the world, but perhaps a bit more in USA. Also because they live more extravagant lifestyles in America it shows more. Its kinda hard for a corrupt deacon to drive a Bentley and live in a multi-million dollar house somewhere in Armenia.
Also I heard the Vatican has billions of $$$ stashed away in bank accounts, shouldnt they be giving some of that money to the poor in Africa?
There is a lot of debate about how much money the Catholic Church has and a great deal of what you hear about their big stashes of money comes from poor sources.
However there is no doubt that much of the hardest aid relief done in some of the worst parts of the world is done by religious organizations and by people with religious motivations.
You are absolutely right, when you put enough people together in any organization some of them are going to be shits, no matter what the organization. Science and scientific organizations suffer from the same problem. Capitalism has turned self-interest and the free market into something like a religion, and it is valuable to have organizations to remind us that there are other goals worth pursuing beyond just helping ourselves.
It's in +95% DNA -- our need to follow or worship. Most are followers, not leaders.
From Neanderthal to today, human civilization (like animals) have the desire to follow. Whether, it's religion or Justin Bieber. It's ingrained in us at an early age. Most, never escape this - -sad truth.
From Neanderthal to today, human civilization (like animals) have the desire to follow. Whether, it's religion or Justin Bieber. It's ingrained in us at an early age. Most, never escape this - -sad truth.
Some studies show that the need to belong to a group offers a survival advantage and thus may be an evolved trait. And guess what...it works.
Yes because the elite few...like yourself have discovered the truth and have contempt for those who have not reached the same conclusion as you.
Hmmm...
But today they are a minority and the higher the level the less likely they are to be religious: http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/forum/f32/leading-scientists-still-reject-god-17529/
The examples from your link tend to be historical. Thus you should keep in mind that (1) at the time expressing disbelief was very unhealthy and (2) they did not have the benefit of our knowledge.
I think that is obvious if you read the posts I was responding it.
To all you atheists, scientists and other experts, let me ask you a few things please:
How did evolution work, and explain it exactly strand by strand for every DNA mutation please??
How does the universe work??
How the fuck does gravity exactly work??
Whats beyond our known universe?? Anything happening over there?? Any alien strip joints??
How exactly does the human brain work?? (Err I mean, how does it work in some people??)
These are all questions science cant answer yet. When they do, maybe I'll start listening to guys like Dawkins and Hitchens
How did evolution work, and explain it exactly strand by strand for every DNA mutation please??
How does the universe work??
How the fuck does gravity exactly work??
Whats beyond our known universe?? Anything happening over there?? Any alien strip joints??
How exactly does the human brain work?? (Err I mean, how does it work in some people??)
These are all questions science cant answer yet. When they do, maybe I'll start listening to guys like Dawkins and Hitchens
Here you are repeating the god of the gaps argument. I.e. because there is something science has not yet answered. we need to invent a god as an explanation. It is a weak argument. Besides, unless you can explain where your god came from, it is an argument that goes both ways.
It MIGHT be an explanation for why people invented religion. However, it is otherwise a weak aregument.
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