ForumsWEPRWhy do people really care

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Devoidless
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Devoidless
3,678 posts
Jester

..if someone is religious or not.

It is not as if someone who is atheist is going to steal your first born child.

It is not as if someone of the faith is going to tie you down and convert you.

Granted, not all people care that much about what the person believes, but more of what they say.

It seems that a lot of people of the faith take it personally when an atheist says something against the religion, pointing out flaws in the logic.

And athiests seems to get all up in arms when a person of faith posts a cliche, factless religious 'oint.' I admit I am guilty of this every now and then.

The question is...why?

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Alemaun
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Alemaun
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Nomad

i dont know!

SomeKidSoDealWithIt
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SomeKidSoDealWithIt
118 posts
Nomad

i dont think anybody knows

Flare
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Flare
57 posts
Nomad

Because it's the human drive, their opinion, their emotions. The reason why racism exists is because one race treated another race badly ,and it all started from there.

It might end and it might not.

I guess you can say the same for all your question on why...

homegrove
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homegrove
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Peasant

Devoidless makes it seem like someone of religion never makes any points as to flaws in evolution, only that atheists make points as to flaws in Creation. This, for one, sends me into a little flurry.

Well look at that, I have already become slightly upset, over just a simple statement regarding origins of the world. It is a very tender subject, one which I doubt will ever be answered until we die. Only then will we find out who had their facts straight.

redbedhead
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redbedhead
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Nomad

Just think of it like this, if I'm right (with christianity) and your wrong you've got an eternity of hell to face. If I'm wrong and your right then o well it doesnt matter cause nothing happens. If I were you I wouldn't risk it

homegrove
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homegrove
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Peasant

As untechnical and unproffesional as redbedhead puts it, (and I hardly use this as an illustration when I am debating with an atheist) he has a good point. So what if I am wrong, we will just stop existing if evolution is correct. But if Christianity is correct, then I pity the fool who must go through the consequences...

kanethebrain
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kanethebrain
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Nomad

redbedhead and homegrove: what you're describing is Pascal's wager. Basically, he claims that if you're Christian and right, you get infinite reward. If you're Christian and wrong, you get no penalty. If you're atheist and right, you get no penalty. If you're atheist and wrong, you get infinite penalty.

This is a logical fallacy for two reasons:

1) There is a penalty for bring Christian. You have to go to church, follow religious laws, spending time praying, etc.

2) Christianity and Atheism aren't the only two possibilities. What if you follow Christianity, die, and then find out that Islam was the one true religion and now you're going to burn in hell? (I do not actually know if Islam has a hell). What about if the ancient Greeks had it right and Zeus is mad because you didn't worship him? What if it was the Norse gods and Odin smites your spirit for not following his laws? Since there is a penalty for every religion, and no penalty for atheism, and it's not possible to know which religion to follow, you should take the option with the highest expectation of good for you, which is atheism.

Strop
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Strop
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Bard

@ Kane:

2) is awesome. It's a history of mankind and tracing what religions developed where, and their cultural implications that really has me appreciating what I personally see as the nature of religion itself. This also happens to be one of the reasons (at least, as far as my knowledge goes) academic proponents of the Christian faith try so hard to justify the validity of their religion over other religions through other means.

However, I'm going to play Devil's advocate again. Is going to church and devoting your life to prayer, and following religious laws necessarily a penalty?

Skyla
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Skyla
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Peasant

@redbedhead:

You belong to the people who are just Christian because they have nothing to lose - that means you are not certain that God exists - and you will go to hell if he does. Am I not correct that you need to be absolutely sure that God exists to go to heaven? Isn't that the basis of religion?

How do you for certain that Zues doesn't exist? How do you know for certain that the flying speghetti monster doesn't exist (even if on another galaxy millions of light-years away?)

@homegrove:

Homegrove, scientists are not finding flaws in the evolution theory. We are seeing species evolve today. We have found fossils millions of years ago (?) (God I really need to find that book about evolution ) Either way, millions of years, or hundreds of thousands of years - all the same. Those fossils resemble humans with only slight differences, just like they assembled dinosaur bones and concluded that they once existed, they have done the same with neanderthals and other ancestors before that (need that book for the names and detailed descriptions .)

Although we might find something that would change the idea of what we evolved from - the fact remains, we evolved from something, again proving evolution.

Religion, on the other hand, provides no alternative to the theory of evolution (other than 'God created everything in 6 days.) Religion also provides no credible proof that God exists - other than a contradictory book. If that is the best an Eternal Being has to offer, I am not impressed.

How do you know that in a few hundred years, there would be another religion, and they would think about Christianity and Islam as we think about the Greek gods today?

@redbedhead again:

So you're suggesting that you're only Christian because you have nothing to lose? You're just Christian because in the case God is existant, you will not be damned to hell? That's an aweful way to get about. If you are not certain of God's existance, you are not going to heaven - simple as that.

-Skyla <3

kanethebrain
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kanethebrain
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Nomad

@Skyla: Good way to put it! I think you explained it better than I could have. I think the timeframe on human-like fossils goes from 4-2 million for ape-like fossils, and 1.2 million to 400k for direct ancestors.

@Strop: So, I would be incorrect if I said that there's zero benefits to religion, like social interaction, and perhaps the architecture that gets put into mosques, or cathedrals, or temples. However, those benefits serve a purpose as their own end. I think it would be better if we did something else that had those same benefits but served the greater good of humanity, not our fantasies of what the supernatural is like.

Strop
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Strop
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Bard

Kane said:

...not our fantasies of what the supernatural is like


This is in fact a criticism that occasionally surfaces from within the structure of organised religion.

So I can relate to it- after all, it may seem, sometimes, that some religious people make a very big deal about whether one is going to spend eternity in Heaven, or Hell (or purgatory, should your beliefs accommodate for it)...to the point that it ends up detracting from being relevant to our life here and now. But what if I were to suggest that you're being a little too reductive here? We can't ignore that there are at least motivations to belief in religion that seem to be common and yet exclusive to religion alone. By which I mean a certain sense of mythos or maybe spirituality that seems to be lacking, perhaps (arguably) to the detriment of today's modern societies.

How true this is, I personally do not know, seeing as I'm not a particularly spiritual person myself. But is this because that's the way I am, or am I missing something? (This is a rhetorical question...I wouldn't want you to take it at face value!)
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