Why Religion Fails

[rld]

"Science" has barely begun to scratch the surface of life

You clearly underestimate the accomplishments of the life sciences.

 

[rld]

When religion becomes a competition. Which one is the best one.

Great question. Damned if I know.

I also guess it depends on how you evaluate them. What is important to you or your culture.

 

[Phil C. McNasty]

You clearly underestimate the accomplishments of the life sciences

I'm not saying humanity hasnt come a long way, clearly we have. Just saying when the experts have it all figured out then call me

 

[someone]

Oh really??!!

Last time I checked neither atheists nor religion had the answers to "The meaning of Life"

Relying on superstition does not producing a meaning of anything. As I said before, if you cannot come up with answers without relaying on imaginary creatures, you have not come up with a meaning to anything.

Those of us who are more mature, realize that the only “meaning” life has is the meaning we give it.

BTW, earlier you were citing examples involving science, now you are switching to philosophy. I take that as implying that you now realize the fallacy of your previous argument and are trying a new one. I am glad that you are progressing to some extent.

Yes it is!!!

Well, partially anyways

I did not see this when I answered your previous post. This statement is actually funny. Give me a single bit of evidence to support the belief in the existence of mythical beings like gods.

BTW if you ask any religious person who actually knows anything about his religion, he will admit that it is a matter of “faith”. He will try to make faith (the belief in something without evidence) sound like a positive thing. However, he will at least admit it is a matter of faith and not evidence. Only a religious person who has never thought about the issue will give a different answer.

When religion becomes a competition. Which one is the best one.

Actually, most of the economic literature on religion is about competition between religions. I am not sure what you mean by “best”. However, some religions end up being more successful than others, in terms of the number of followers it has. There is also some literature ranking them in terms of the effects they have on economic growth. There is also literature on the differing effects on educational attainment of their members. Thus, you need to define what you mean my "best". However, I agree that it is an interesting question.

 

[Mervyn]

I think you mean 69

No, that's what gives life meaning

 

[Mervyn]

It's amazing how people keep missing the obvious.

If you say religion gives meaning, your are wrong, if you say Science gives meaning , you are also wrong.

Meaning is an individual thing, if one of those works for you, awesome, then it is right for YOU, it may not be right for others, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

Such a freakin easy concept.

 

[Phil C. McNasty]

Give me a single bit of evidence to support the belief in the existence of mythical beings like gods

I said there is a pursuit of finding evidence of a God, I didnt say we had found it

 

[WoodPeckr]

"Science" has barely begun to scratch the surface of life

True but Science is based on empirical fact, while religion is solely based on subjective faith, fantasy, wish fulfillment and where you live.....

 

[5hummer]

It's all perception and interpretation.
Any body can be perceived or interpreted as a God. Anybody.

Clapton is God. See?

 

[canada-man]

Orthodox Church clown insults and dehumanize women


MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian feminists expressed outrage Wednesday after the country's Orthodox Church proposed women dress more modestly and refrain from walking down the street "painted like a clown."

Endorsed by Russia's leaders as the country's main faith, the Orthodox Church has grown increasingly powerful since communism fell and its dominance has drawn criticism from rights groups who say it undermines Russia's secular constitution.

"We should create an all-Russian dress code," top Church official Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said in a letter published by Interfax news agency Tuesday.

"Either scantily clad or painted like a clown, a woman who counts on meeting men on the street, in the metro or a bar not only risks running into a drunken idiot but will meet men with no self-respect," he said.

Chaplin, who also heads the Church's department for relations with society, said last month that women in mini-skirts were to blame if raped as they "provoke men."


The dress-code proposal won praise Wednesday from the hardline leader of Muslim Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, whom analysts accuse of leading a radical Islamic revival which has included the harassment of women for not wearing headscarves.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110119/lf_nm_life/us_russia_church_women

 

[rld]

I said there is a pursuit of finding evidence of a God, I didnt say we had found it

If evidence of a god is found, that religion fails.

 

[rld]

Orthodox Church clown insults and dehumanize women


MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian feminists expressed outrage Wednesday after the country's Orthodox Church proposed women dress more modestly and refrain from walking down the street "painted like a clown."

Endorsed by Russia's leaders as the country's main faith, the Orthodox Church has grown increasingly powerful since communism fell and its dominance has drawn criticism from rights groups who say it undermines Russia's secular constitution.

"We should create an all-Russian dress code," top Church official Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said in a letter published by Interfax news agency Tuesday.

"Either scantily clad or painted like a clown, a woman who counts on meeting men on the street, in the metro or a bar not only risks running into a drunken idiot but will meet men with no self-respect," he said.

Chaplin, who also heads the Church's department for relations with society, said last month that women in mini-skirts were to blame if raped as they "provoke men."


The dress-code proposal won praise Wednesday from the hardline leader of Muslim Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, whom analysts accuse of leading a radical Islamic revival which has included the harassment of women for not wearing headscarves.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110119/lf_nm_life/us_russia_church_women

This might be your weakest effort yet.

 

[rld]

Just for you Canada Man

Atheism's Body Count - Ideology and Human Suffering
Atheism's Murder Rate: More than 250 Million Dead in the Past Century
It is often argued by humanists and atheists that religion is responsible for most of the suffering caused by war in human history. It is often argued specifically that religious violence proves God does not exist.* While it is true that religious wars have been notoriously bloody, and waged so contrary to their founders' teachings, religion's followers have no exclusive corner on the market when it comes to creating suffering. Atheism it seems is at least as bad, if not worse. What follows is a brief, tongue-in-cheek, rebuttal to humanism's utopian hope for a peaceful world through the elimination of all religion. (BTW, a related book review of Who Really Cares? reports statistical studies which show that religious people are actually more charitable towards the poor than non-religious people: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/001/8.11.html )

Proof # 666 - Atheism's Body Count *

It is obvious that Atheism cannot be true; for if it were, it would produce a more humane world, since it values only this life and is not swayed by the foolish beliefs of primitive superstitions and religions. However, the opposite proves to be true. Rather than providing the utopia of idealism, it has produced a body count second to none. With recent documents uncovered for the Maoist and Stalinist regimes, it now seems the high end of estimates of 250 million dead (between 1900-1987) are closer to the mark. The Stalinist Purges produced 61 million dead and Mao's Cultural Revolution produced 70 million casualties. These murders are all upon their own people! This number does not include the countless dead in their wars of outward aggression waged in the name of the purity of atheism's world view. China invades its peaceful, but religious neighbor, Tibet; supports N. Korea in its war against its southern neighbor and in its merciless oppression of its own people; and Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge kill up to 6 million with Chinese support. All of these actions done "in the name of the people" to create a better world.

Atheism's Tendency Towards Totalitarianism Rather Than Freedom
What is so strange and odd that in spite of their outward rejection of religion and all its superstitions, they feel compelled to set up cults of personality and worship of the State and its leaders that is so totalitarian that the leaders are not satisfied with mere outward obedience; rather they insist on total mind control and control of thoughts, ideas and beliefs. They institute Gulags and "re-education" centers to indoctrinate anyone who even would dare question any action or declaration of the "Dear Leader." Even the Spanish Inquisition cannot compare to the ruthlessness and methodical efficiency of these programs conducted on so massive a scale. While proclaiming freedom to the masses, they institute the most methodical efforts to completely eliminate freedom from the people, and they do so all "on behalf" of the proletariat. A completely ordered and totally unfree totalitarian State is routinely set up in place of religion, because it is obviously so profoundly better society. It is also strange that Stalin was a seminarian who rejected Christianity and went on to set up himself as an object of worship. It seems that impulse to religious devotion is present in all, whether that be in traditional forms or secular inventions.

And while it is often said that Hitler was a Christian, the Nuremberg documents clearly reveal the heart of this ruthless man who believed in social Darwinism and had devised plans to completely eliminate Christianity after the Third Reich was firmly established. He wanted to use religion to subvert it for his own political purposes, but he had rejected his Catholic heritage long before. What should be of concern to every atheist is that Hitler thought he could best succeed if he eliminated the Church's influence on politics. He promised not to persecute Catholics if the Catholic Church agreed to stay out of politics. However, many Protestants could not accept Hitler's claim to be a German Messiah or submit to an absolute allegiance to the German State, and many Protestants and Catholics were put into Concentration Camps along with the Jews for their resistance to the Führer.

Hitler's view of the Master Race was highly influenced by both Nietzschean Philosophy and modern, Darwinian evolutionary view of science. So we can also obviously see that evolution must be wrong because it led to more than 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews murdered in this quest for Führer worship and absolute power.

 

[canada-man]

Atheism is not a political belief and Hitler was christian and Nazi Germany signed a concordat agreement with the Vatican


Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich
[with Supplementary Protocol and Secret Supplement]
July 20, 1933

[Ratified 10 September 1933]

http://www.concordatwatch.eu/showkb.php?org_id=858&kb_header_id=752&kb_id=1211


http://www.evilbible.com/hitler_was_christian.htm

Hitler’s involvement with the Church:

a) Hitler was baptized as Roman Catholic during infancy in Austria.

b) As Hitler approached boyhood he attended a monastery school. (On his way to school young Adolf daily observed a stone arch which was carved with the monastery’s coat of arms bearing a swastika.)

c) Hitler was a communicant and an altar boy in the Catholic Church.

d) As a young man he was confirmed as a “soldier of Christ.” His most ardent goal at the time was to become a priest. Hitler writes of his love for the church and clergy: “I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal.” -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

e) Hitler was NEVER excommunicated nor condemned by his church. Matter of fact the Church felt he was JUST and “avenging for God” in attacking the Jews for they deemed the Semites the killers of Jesus.

f) Hitler, Franco and Mussolini were given VETO power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain and Italy. In turn they surtaxed the Catholics and gave the money to the Vatican. Hitler wrote a speech in which he talks about this alliance, this is an excerpt: “The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism [Nazism] is hostile to religion is a lie.” Adolf Hitler, 22 July 1933, writing to the Nazi Party

Hitler and the Popeg) Hitler worked CLOSELY with Pope Pius in converting Germanic society and supporting the church. The Church absorbed Nazi ideals and preached them as part of their sermons in turn Hitler placed Catholic teachings in public education. This photo depicts Hitler with Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin. It was taken On April 20, 1939, when Orsenigo celebrated Hitler’s birthday. The celebrations were initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) and became a tradition.

Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send “warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with “fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars.” (If you would like to know more about the secret dealings of Hitler and the Pope I recommend you get a book titled: Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell)

h) Due to Hitler’s involvement with the Church he began enacting doctrines of the Church as law. He outlawed all abortion, raged a death war on all homosexuals, and demanded corporal punishment in schools and home. Many times Hitler addressed the church and promised that Germany would implement its teachings: “The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today.” –Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934, to Catholic bishops to assure them that he would take action against the new pagan propaganda “Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church.” -Adolf Hitler, reportedly to have said in Berlin in 1936 on the enmity of the Catholic Church to National Socialism

Hitler's religious beliefs

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

 

[rld]

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

Catholicism is not a political belief, nor is any form of religion.

And you are really weak with a 1922 quote from Hitler. Try reading a few of the accounts from about 1933 on. He clearly rejected Christianity.

And the Catholic Church did sign a concordat with the Nazi state, in order to survive.

The point is that athiesm has not produced better results.

 

[canada-man]

Catholicism is not a political belief, nor is any form of religion.

And you are really weak with a 1922 quote from Hitler. Try reading a few of the accounts from about 1933 on. He clearly rejected Christianity.

And the Catholic Church did sign a concordat with the Nazi state, in order to survive.

The point is that athiesm has not produced better results.

Hitler wth Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin, 1935

On April 20, 1939, Archbishop Orsenigo celebrated Hitler's birthday. The celebrations, initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) became a tradition. Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany" and added with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars."

(Source: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell)

 

[rld]

Hitler wth Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin, 1935

On April 20, 1939, Archbishop Orsenigo celebrated Hitler's birthday. The celebrations, initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) became a tradition. Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany" and added with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars."

(Source: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell)

That's who diplomacy works dude. It doesn't make Hitler Christian. Any more than the Non-Aggression Pact makes him a communist.

Now give us some real historic sources that show Hitler was a Christian anywhere after 1935 or so.

And then, just because I know you are supposed to be a thinking man's athiest, why don't you share some of the scathing rebuttals to Cornwall's book?

 

[canada-man]

That's who diplomacy works dude. It doesn't make Hitler Christian. Any more than the Non-Aggression Pact makes him a communist.

Now give us some real historic sources that show Hitler was a Christian anywhere after 1935 or so.

And then, just because I know you are supposed to be a thinking man's athiest, why don't you share some of the scathing rebuttals to Cornwall's book?

“National Socialism is not a cult-movement-- a movement for worship; it is exclusively a ‘volkic’ political doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership of a people defined by a common blood-relationship... We will not allow mystically- minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else-- in any case something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our programme there stand no secret surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a divine will-- not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord… Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men.” -Adolf Hitler, in Nuremberg on 6 Sept.1938


"Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates, above all Goering and Gobbels, to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide." (Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer page 95-96)

 

[rld]

“National Socialism is not a cult-movement-- a movement for worship; it is exclusively a ‘volkic’ political doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership of a people defined by a common blood-relationship... We will not allow mystically- minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else-- in any case something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our programme there stand no secret surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a divine will-- not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord… Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men.” -Adolf Hitler, in Nuremberg on 6 Sept.1938


"Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates, above all Goering and Gobbels, to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide." (Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer page 95-96)

Thank you for proving my point for me.

 

[red]

“National Socialism is not a cult-movement-- a movement for worship; it is exclusively a ‘volkic’ political doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership of a people defined by a common blood-relationship... We will not allow mystically- minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else-- in any case something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our programme there stand no secret surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a divine will-- not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord… Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men.” -Adolf Hitler, in Nuremberg on 6 Sept.1938


"Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates, above all Goering and Gobbels, to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide." (Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer page 95-96)

do you read what you post?