US embassies attacked

Nor are they amused by your existence. Here is where the problem lies. You may rather that they don't exist, but the feeling is mutual. We (the U.S.) go all over the world supposedly in the interest of offering freedom and prosperity in the name of humanity, yet when it really counts (such as in Syria) we don't get involved. There are resources in Iraq and in Lybia, and we "helped" them. Yet in Syria, there is nothing but sand and murder, and we don't get involved. What happened to removing "evil dictators"? What happened to all the ideals that were our excuses for meddling in the politics of all those other contries? They fall away when we have nothing materially at stake in the conflict. THAT is why they don't trust us. THAT is ignorance on the part of the people of the U.S. Why should they trust us?
 
@ Raz, CZ posted exactly what I was going to say. Quoting large bodies of text that you read isn't doing anything. I appreciate the way you presented your points, and I find that I was the harsh one during this exchange, so I apologize for that, but I am not going to continue this debate if all you do is site quotes from the Qur'an and throw out your net to catch something wrong.
 
yeah, but i'm not amused by their existence because they go and kill people. i'm not warmongering, because i find war as stupid as i find murder (same crap, different scale). what i AM doing is expressing my distaste that people exist who actually cause innocent people to cease to exist, especially so when it's for childish reasons. i don't claim to be tolerant, either, i'd rather they'd all fall down a cliff and stop bothering the rest of us (and by "they" i don't mean "muslims", i mean childish tribal-minded public hazards, such as exist in all societies everywhere).
 
i wouldn't necessarily say the world would be better off without religion (inb4 dark ages), but i most definitely would love to see a world where there are no formal institutionalized specific religions, and i would heartily support formal institutions aimed at bringing willing people the personal psychological benefits of religious thinking while avoiding specific dogma in favour of "personalized belief", similar to how many people today consider themselves "spiritual" and/or loosely associate with one of the established religions, without fully immersing in them or considering themselves complete believers.
 
Why?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIMifWU5ucU



Religious thinking in my humble opinion is inherently unscientific regardless of how loosely one associates with their proclaimed religion. So I don't think I can support that.

If you (not you specifically) want the benefits(happiness, reduced stress, better self control, ect...) of religious thinking with out the religious aspects, you can do that by seeing a trained psychologist or counsellor.
 
Question, what was the purpose of that video? Nobody mentioned Science and Islam, the last discussion was no religion at all.
 
You asked why the Earth would be better without religion. I am simply showing one example of why it would be.
 
How does that video show how the world would be better without religion?

He mentions the number 0 and numbers 1-9, astrology and so on. What do you know about Islamic contributions to science other than that three minute video which wasn't even on subject?
 
Inherent in the sense of "must the religion be this way" -- no. As you pointed out, back in time it wasn't always this way. Therefore, it is not necessary to the religion.

But obviously, there have developed some strains that are inherently violent. Sticking with Christianity as a comparison, we can say the same thing. We all know of historical occurences of violent forms of the religion, but all know of "nice" forms of the religion, too.

What I belive is that the evil forms of the religion must be dealt with in the context of their religion. I would like to say, "Ignore the Islamic packaging because they're not representing true Islam, and what they're doing is inherently and objectively evil." But I quite simply don't believe it can be ignored. I would say the same thing if it was any other religion under the sun.

What a mess.
 
It would be easy if you just looked at my Threads and Posts in the religious section but here are a few words that sum up my thoughts on religious groups and organizations.

Megalomaniacs, Control freaks, Hypocrites and some are the cause of disease, starvation, slavery, pedophilia the unwillingness to move forward and progress the denial of scientific fact over Biblical myth and fantasy, brainwashing, intolerance, racism, discrimination, extremism, Things such as would always exist but many of the religious organizations are the perfect breeding grounds for these problems and extremely prevalent if you want to debate this subject i suggest starting a thread in the religion section but i would just repeat what i have written so many times before.
 
All those things (apart from the bits about the Bible) are also done by non-religious groups and individuals too. It's human nature, I'm afraid. If religion disappeared tomorrow, people would simply find other excuses for evil behaviour.
 
Megalomaniacs, control freaks, hypocrites nothing to do with religion. Show me where this is a tenet in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Those religions promote something else quite differently. Individuals who did it for religious reasons do not define the religion. Stalin, Mao, Hitler three big MegloControlFreakHypocrites in history used different excuses. Please tell me what religion promotes paedophilia, denies scientific fact causes starvation, and causes disease? "Biblical myth" as you put it is only to do with Christianity, we are discussing religion not one particular faith.

I'm happy for you or a Mod to start a new thread broaching the subject, or am happy to do so myself, what would you like to discuss?
 
I don't think it would be fair to narrow it down to simply Islam. Religion in general seems to thrive and grow more extreme under oppression. It provides an easy banner for people to unite under and vent their anger, while hoping for a higher power than the oppressive government to support them in their struggle.

The natural response to being oppressed by someone you can't fight directly, is to try and find a more powerful authority to appeal to.
 
Ill reply to the bigger post you made in a while but I just seen this one.

Are you really going to say it was the atheism of Stalin and Mao that made them do what they did?

It was their rational skepticism, critical thinking, and disbelief in god? Rather than their political motivations?

And also when it comes to Hitler please do some research, Hitler was not Atheist, right wing catholic if anything.

see the book Hitler's Millennial Reich, which talks more about the religious aspects of Nazism and Hitler's own beliefs.

"Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children."

- Adolf Hitler reflecting on World War I, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 7

There is a lot more out there but I think Iv'e stressed the point.

Did you know Stalin attended seminary school school by the way~?

If your point here was that Atheists have done more "killing" etc I think you really need to think again.
 
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