You ate it, Dude....
you're supposed to build a golden ark around it and then smite all the unholy with it's holy-fire laser guided rightnousness....
Haven't you seen Indiana Jones
It was dinner time .
You ate it, Dude....
you're supposed to build a golden ark around it and then smite all the unholy with it's holy-fire laser guided rightnousness....
Haven't you seen Indiana Jones
Actually your latter post doesn't actually change anything, it was a history lesson on religion (and possibly not entirely accurate considering the dark ages weren't actually all that dark really). If the morality in religion is a reflection of society rather than driving society then a society without religion would still have the same morality it would just be reflected in a different way. We just don't know what would have developed because religion was there instead.
And we have plenty of history and plenty of modern day examples of using a religion that are just as nasty.
The point still stands, if the bad in religion is the fault of bad men and not the religion then surely the good in religion is the fault of good men and not the religion? Why only ascribe the positive to religion?
It seems you just wish to be argumentative rather than anythign else.
Well if the thread was attacking atheism I for one would defend their right to disbelieve just as much as a theists right believe...
Education was not always the norm, you are forgetting that one overriding aspect of civilisations development out of barbarism was driven by religious education of a moralistic code and law. No matter how you shake and bake it, everyone has been affected somehow by that.
Athiesm grew out of Roman practicality, but by this time education and moral law making was already in place, when Rome fell and the Dark ages began barbarism didn't take too long to resurface and shortly after this began a religious revival which took us throught to the renaissance of the 16th-17th century where education and philosophical speculation came to the fore again and so on.
Do you see my point yet, it's not about the belief in a deity or not, but the control and codes it instills, replace it with rule of law and education and you get the same result, but with neither you have barbarism and anarchy.
Education alone will not stop the deeds done in religions name, as the Balkans and such examples show.
so basically you like to defend the right of people to hold a given belief in something regardless of how bizarre it appears to non believers & switch sides accordingly ?
Nothing really wrong with that I suppose but where do you draw the line if for instance I said I worship fire breathing dragons but others on here then call me an idiot for having such stupid beliefs because everyone knows there are no such things ? would you defend my belief ?
I guess you wouldn't because there can be no doubt that there are no fire breathing dragons
Agreed, but you're talking of times long gone...
Are you suggesting we still need a veil between us and reality for us to somehow cope? You think we need mystical threats to keep us in check, instead of simple good lessons on morals and compassion?
im one of those who (likes to) believe there is more to life than just this....
And here is where it all starts.
Why should there be more? Why would there be more?
Because you had the fortune to be born human instead of cockroach, or do cockroaches go to heaven if they live a good, subserviant, poor life too?
I'd love to know what a cockroach has to do to get into heaven or become a ghost.
why would there not be more ?
But I think you are missing the point, why would there be?
I'd like to know what evidence we have (Britains most haunted excluded) to suggest there WOULD be anything. I'm flabbergasted as to why you just seem to think there is anything after you die? Because you think you are too important in this universe to just... well... die?
Hmm.
im one of those who (likes to) believe there is more to life than just this....what that may be, i have no idea.
so by me saying 'im one of those who (likes to) believe there is more to life than just this' ...the meaning you get out of it is that i feel i'm too important in this universe and i can't just die
Yes.
but if i'm talking about life on earth where does the self importance bit come from ?
im one of those who (likes to) believe there is more to life than just this....what that may be, i have no idea.