[iamzack]

Yeah, but where do like 99% of religious people come from? Religious families. It takes a real psycho to grow up normal and then become a fundy.

[Colonol Dekker]

Judge not lest ye be judged. . . . . .
 
 
 
Nah i'm kidding hee hee

[Kosh]

I didn't suggest banning anything. I just said that the doctrines of Christianity and Islam and any other religion that puts a cult-level emphasis on converting others is going to inevitably conflict with other people's rights. And that that makes them incompatible with a society in which those rights are guaranteed.

If some Christians and Muslims can contain themselves, good on them. But that's not enough of them to protect them from criticism.

Hrrmm...not all Christians and Muslims are out to convert everyone.  Actually I'd say its a relative minority.  Then again...whenever I do go to church its the sort of place where the Minister actively invites other local religious leaders from other parts of Christianity, Judaism, Muslims and so forth to speak.  Its really quite interesting.  It sounds like you've had some bad experiences but you should broaden your horizons. Its not all bad...although looking from outside in it does seem like the US is very polarized on the issues of religion.

When I was in school in the US, when I brought a book to read about evolution quite a few of my classmates came up and said many times that "oh its wrong, god did everything" or "you're a bad person" or my personal favorite "you're going to go to hell".

You do realize that statements like that make you sound every bit as ridiculous as the Westboro Baptist nuts, right?  Just wondering.

Not really, given organized religion's proven intolerance towards free thinking.

[Dilmah G]

When I was in school in the US, when I brought a book to read about evolution quite a few of my classmates came up and said many times that "oh its wrong, god did everything" or "you're a bad person" or my personal favorite "you're going to go to hell".

Wow..

Did you hit them?
Bloody hell, if there's one thing that annoys me, it's Religious Fundamentalists that think they can **** all over science.

[QuantumDelta]

Wow..

Did you hit them?
Bloody hell, if there's one thing that annoys me, it's Religious Fundamentalists that think they can **** all over science.

The problem is it's more common than most people think, I've had this treatment several times too, although raised Christian, I have been taught to be a critical thinker by a couple of good teachers in a Christian(protestant church linked) primary school.
That led me natural to the position where Science is always going to take precedence over Religion for me.
However I was never aggressive about my convictions, in fact rarely voiced them.
NOW? - Over time, and having met a great deal of common people idiots, who feel their brainwashed psychobable about tribal skygods originating from a time when people thought all sorts of superstitious rubbish, because our brain evolved to imagine "the big bad unexplained" as a survival reaction to predators, and this developed into our take on the super natural and "divine"......

.....And, this is rare.....
I completely agree with the standings of Richard Dawkins and his ilk.
Religion is a waste of human time and resources.
Religion is a horrible horrible concept sowing dissent and mistrust between opposing ideologies.
And, Religion has almost completely been debunked.
All of them.
You would have to be wilfully ignorant, brainwashed, or stupid to believe in any kind of established theism in this age.

The worst part is most of them think they're 'enlightened' or 'special' or egotistically, 'chosen', and that they should impart this 'knowledge' upon others, which is even more dangerous because it's mostly attempted to be done in a traditional manner; on children in their formative years.

And whilst there are a quite minority that I do personally appreciate as being quite civil, the vast majority are not, nor, do the vast majority of western (or middle-eastern) religions note that they are extremely corrupt even compared to their own root origins.

It's laughable that people could delude themselves on a personal level, but delusion in this grand a scale can only be viewed as cancerous.

No modern day religion stands up to critical thinking, and that is what the scientific model presents.
Whilst I wont tote that Science is always practised perfectly everywhere, the peer review system based on a model of availability to challenge is a lot more reasonable than; "Cuz I said so. And I said so cuz this hundred-times-re-written-2000-year-old-cultist-book said so and that must be true cuz it's like, old and stuff."

Religion in schools?
As was mentioned earlier, only in a historic and current effect on society style of teaching.
Never theism as fact.
Not even a hint.

[Dilmah G]

I too was taught to view Christianity from an "Intelligent/Science-based viewpoint" by my Religion and Philosophy Teachers over the years (I go to an Anglican School, it's compulsory), which I can't thank them enough for.

I don't have a huge problem with religion, only when it starts trying to disprove science or take the Bible literally in the case of Christianity (more the book of Genesis actually).

[NGTM-1R]

b]completely[/b] agree with the standings of Richard Dawkins and his ilk.
Religion is a waste of human time and resources.
Religion is a horrible horrible concept sowing dissent and mistrust between opposing ideologies.
And, Religion has almost completely been debunked.
All of them.
You would have to be wilfully ignorant, brainwashed, or stupid to believe in any kind of established theism in this age.

You do realize that Dawkins' "The God Delusion", while a masterful book, is prone to logical fallacies quite often?

You can't debunk religion. It's not possible. Straight up. God is the ultimate unproveable. And I say this as an atheist/Jungian agnostic.

[iamzack]

What you can debunk is many of the claims of the religious. Like earth being 6,000 years old.

[General Battuta]

And the problem is that on a logical level God is on the exact same level as the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, two gods, three gods, a hundred gods, the Hindu pantheon, Buddhism, Scientology, Allah (same god as the Judeo-Christian one) or whatever else I decide to make up.

Which makes belief in a certain one an iffy proposition.

Which is why it really is best left to faith, not reason.

[QuantumDelta]

You can't disprove a negative, or at the very least disproving an undefined negative is extremely difficult.
However, whilst you can't systematically say "God doesn't exist" you can say it's EXTREMELY unlikely God exists.

What you can debunk and disprove is pretty much everything in any of the worlds religious texts that doesn't directly refer to broad and non-specific historic events.

I chose my words very carefully, as the subject always gets my goat, you have misread them, you can be theistic and believe in a higher power, but the bible and more or less everything in it is not much better than the myths and legends of other cultures, the only thing it has going for it, is that it is the most recent of the major religious texts.

There's a reason why modern religions (read; new ones thought up recently) are scoffed at.
If Christianity had been introduced via the bible, or even assuming not via the bible, but by the documentation of the life of one man, unless the 'miracles' were witnessed, they'd similarly be seen as tosh.

[General Battuta]

You can't disprove a negative, or at the very least disproving an undefined negative is extremely difficult.
However, whilst you can't systematically say "God doesn't exist" you can say it's EXTREMELY unlikely God exists.

What you can debunk and disprove is pretty much everything in any of the worlds religious texts that doesn't directly refer to broad and non-specific historic events.

I chose my words very carefully, as the subject always gets my goat, you have misread them, you can be theistic and believe in a higher power, but the bible and more or less everything in it is not much better than the myths and legends of other cultures, the only thing it has going for it, is that it is the most recent of the major religious texts.

Except for the Kuran.

[Mongoose]

Not really, given organized religion's proven intolerance towards free thinking.

Yup, you got it.  I'm a totally brainwashed zombie stumbling around and mumbling, "Going to hell...6000 years old...repent or die..."  Those twelve years of Catholic school sucked every single ounce of free thinking right out of my body, because we're down with that.  Nailed it in one.

Y'know, what I hate most about the whole anti-organized-religion stance isn't the viewpoint itself, but rather how frequently it's founded on blatant stereotyping based on a few select encounters.  You meet a few fundamentalist whackjobs down in Alabama, and all of a sudden, boom, religion is the great illogical Satan responsible for dumbing down the masses.  And there's rarely, if ever, any attempt to have a reasonable discussion with someone who does consider themself religious; it's just straight to the assumption table.  I attended Catholic grade and high school for twelve years of my life, I've been going to Mass on a weekly basis for all twenty-three years, I've known hundreds, if not thousands, of other Catholics, I knew many people of various denominations and other faiths in college...and out of all of those people, not one has come remotely close to that insipid "God Delusion" viewpoint.  They've all been sound, reasonable people who fully partake in modern society.  Yes, my experiences are no less anecdotal than anyone else's, but when you get beyond a certain number, you have to wonder where the hell people are finding that redneck stereotype.

In the end, though, none of that really matters.  Battuta said it best:

Which is why it really is best left to faith, not reason.

Religion isn't intended as a replacement for science, and anyone who suggests otherwise is doing it wrong.  It's a matter of faith in concepts beyond the realm of proof or disproof, and it's a standard for living one's life on a daily basis.  No more, no less.

[General Battuta]

I know too many tolerant, intelligent religious people to believe that everyone is a Westboro Baptist Church type.

There are nutjobs in any social group. More populous and more damaging in religious groups, perhaps, but the vast majority are still sane and reasonable people.

On the macro level I do dislike America's failure to acknowledge basic scientific theory for religious reasons, but I don't think that's the fault of religion itself.

[StarSlayer]

There certainly isn't direct correlation between being religious and being an zealot asshat, but there is unfortuantely enough of them trying to forcibly interject their belief system into education policies and the government.  Quite frankly those zealots and their aims scare the **** out of me.  It doesn't help that most religions seem to cling to archaic rules and are unwilling to actively reform the whole "Our religion is the only one" stance.  I'm not sure why they don't realize that any deity that is banishing untold millions of people to a torturous afterlife because they didn't happen to be born in the right religious sect is certainly not worthy of devotion.  Aside from pure greed and possibly to impress womenfolk religious strife probably claimed more lives then any other cause.  Which is pretty ridiculous considering at their core most religions seem to have the same basic value system.

If their is a God I have to think he must be painfully ashamed of us.

[iamzack]

Even the most reasonable religious people are still *religious.*

[StarSlayer]

and so what?

People can believe what they want, thats their freedom to do so.  That freedom ends when it overlaps with mine but otherwise what does it matter if their religious?

[Mongoose]

Yeah, I'd like to hear that explanation too.

[iamzack]

Religious people are so wrapped up in their religion they see it as their mission to convert others. Their religion is right and everyone else is wrong. If something disagrees with their religious views, it is wrong no matter what anyone says or shows to them as proof.

And then after they've become appropriately crazy, they start in on public schools and the government and whatnot demanding that their religious views not be respected but instead enforced.

My point is that religious people don't keep it to themselves.

[Mongoose]

So...I must have done all of this, because I'm a religious person?  Funny, I don't remember it.  Must have been really drunk at the time.

[NGTM-1R]

Religious people are so wrapped up in their religion they see it as their mission to convert others. Their religion is right and everyone else is wrong. If something disagrees with their religious views, it is wrong no matter what anyone says or shows to them as proof.

And then after they've become appropriately crazy, they start in on public schools and the government and whatnot demanding that their religious views not be respected but instead enforced.

My point is that religious people don't keep it to themselves.

Bull****. Straight, wall-to-wall, so-full-of-it-the-whites-of-your-eyes-are-turning-brown.