Do you think the world would be a better place without religion?

yes

I remember that episode well. I didn't know if I should be amused or feel bad for her. She was SO out of her element and overwhelmed.

lol i think its funny how the kid holding the poster at the end it says AND MORMONS...

Yes 100 times, I might miss some but still we would be better off with none.

Religion is not the problem. How certain people choose to use it is the problem. People who have only a superficial understanding of it and use it to hate others are the problem. If it wasn't religion that they used, they would find some other philosophy to fight with others and to denigrate others. Religion and spirituality, when used in a positive way, have made the world much better.

I agree with you, and every religion is used for poor choices by people as a need to hate.

But Religion and Spirituality are at opposing ends of the spectrum. The more Religious, the less Spiritual, and vice versa.

Religion isn't the problem. I will use my religion as an example, it does not apply to all. Christianity is a religion of peace. We are taught to love our neighbors as we would love ourselves and to even love our enemies. We are taught to forgive and forget those who have harmed us by turning the other cheek against those who have wronged us and much more.

It is man who is the problem. Men, not Religion, wage wars and pervert the Word of God. Men (and women, of course) lie, cheat, steal, murder.

It makes as much sense to blame the Law when kids shoot up a school as it does to blame Religion for the Oklahoma City Bombing. The words are there, the rules are there; it is up to MAN to decide if/how he will follow them.

So then explain the GOP/Evangelical Party, or the Bush Crusades, or the Bible, which reads like the WWF.

No need to, all you described just now is all explained in my post above. It is men who twist and pervert Religion, not the other way around.

I assume you are referring to the Old Testament when referring to the Bible, and I'm not going to get into with you, considering your comment about it. Thanks.

No way. True religion helps and is the glue that is holding society together. Things like love , forgiveness and mercy are all things that we want and need. Blaming religion for all the worlds problems is pathetic and ignorant. So many other things that have made the world worse.


Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James 1:27 >>

The number one thing that created all those bad thing? BINGO your heavenly father.

Starving children, courtesy of the almighty, horrible viruses a result of gods love and perfect design, well I know you weren't gonna just credit him for the good things now were you?

Your wrong but what ever.

Man is responsible for all those things. Try taking personal responsibility for a change. Blaming GOD is childish.

"You're wrong, but what ever."

"Man is responsible for all those things"

How did man create them again? My memory of scripture is just a little faulty. Please help me out.

So a man shoots another man. And how is that GODS fault again??

I couldn't help you if I tried. Help yourself. Read a book and point the finger and the real culprit.

Thanks for making it even easier.

He created BOTH men, the gun, EVERYTHING and set them on a course where he knew one would eventually shoot the other. Neither had a choice to deviate, because he KNOWS it's gonna happen.

How's that not his fault?

Again he created EVERYTHING meaning he HAD to have created evil.

He CREATED (if I was all powerful and all knowing I would just NOT create the thing that eventually screws it all up) the devil, if he knows everything, didn't he KNOW that the devil would eventually turn bad? And tempt Adam and Eve? Didn't he KNOW they would fail?

Do you know what the problem (or paradox) of evil is?

So clearly you don't believe in freedom of Choice.

And he didn't set them on any course. They set them selves. GOD created guns. lol ! That is news to me.

Like with my son. Should I control his every move just because I may know the out come.??



Better to love and lost that to never have loved at all.

Not if god knows EVERYTHING before you do it it's impossible.

He set everything into motion didn't he? From the moment he said let there be light they were confided to their lot in life like trains on a track.

You believe that if god didn't want guns there would still be guns? What else do you call it when something exist SOLELY because that entity wanted it? If god didn't want it then it wouldn't happen, unless he's NOT ALL POWERFUL.

Well if you were All knowing and you were the one that DESIGNED the plan then yes you would be controlling his every move.

"Better to love and lost that to never have loved at all"

A bastardized version of pascal's wager? As with every other iteration, it's a FALSE dichotomy. There aren't only two choices but actually thousands and you could end in the hell of some long dead religion that just happened to have the right god, just like me.

But, you don't believe that it doesn't even faze you because YOU KNOW IT'S ABSURD. Now you've gotten a glimpse about how I FEEL about your god.

I don't

For some one who doesn't believe in GOD ,you sure have a lot to say about him.

Because religious people don't have much to say about evolution, or abiogenesis, or big bang cosmology, or radioactive dating, or climate change.

All things that most of them are woefully unqualified to discuss and lack even a rudimentary knowledge of.

Science cannot and does not give proof of anything. Not even mathematics which is based on unproven and unprovable assumptions. The axioms of science and maths are what Karl Popper calls "common sense" not fact. But it goes further than that: no one has solved the solipsism problem. There is no way to prove your own sanity let alone that science even exists, or Dawkins for that matter. There could be a matrix, there could be a matric within a matrix.

That's the philosophical case. so don't act like it solves everything. Science is fundamentally flawed.

So who made them orphans?

So a mom and dad put their child up for adoption. So how does that make it GOD's fault?

Your making no sense?

But someone will come along and dream up a new one to fill the void in the minds of the sheeple...

All children are borne atheists...

Children are not born atheist

What religion are the born then?

Their not born religion

Their not born religion........

"Their not born religion"
What the kind of.. O.o you okay?

They are born WITHOUT a belief in god

A - Theist

You're smart you know what that breaks down to.

A - without

Theist - a belief in god

It's in fact NOT a religion and children are born NOT believing in anything until they're indoctrinated.

Sure they are. Then adults brainwash them.

So true! It didn't work with me. I think that learning to read early and not being censored saved me from a life of religious bondage.

Same here. I rebelled in the eighth grade after forced participation and said no more! Never looked back or had any regrets...

Two of my favorite quotes.

"When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." Stephen F. Roberts:

All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher. Lucretius 99BC – 55BC

When I was twelve my dad let me quit going to Sunday school. I tried it a couple of times after that, but it was so irrational I couldn't stand it.

I like these quotes:

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it with religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal

Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst. --C.S. Lewis

Thanks for sharing.

yes they are.

I think all organized religions now have become a money making business and big mind control to their members one way or another. It seems they misconstrue the concept of tithing to the point where they pressure and force their members to pay up and line their pockets. Some of the brain washing is so bad, some people are handing over their hard earned money to these churches instead of buying food or clothes for their families. I was Mormon for many years and the huge pressure of paying 10% of you money was huge! They even restricted me from going in their temples and other events. They even went as far as the bishop telling me that I would not be blessed if I did not pay my tithing! That’s when it started getting just too weird for me. Now that I left I see how screwed up it was! Also, it seems the more a person believes or the higher up they go in their religion the more critical and judgmental they become of other people and religions. I just study the Bible and other books now on my own and leave the organizations, churches, groups, and money out of it.

Religion has always existed and played an imortant role in every civilization that has ever come into being. Except for a few rare individuals, the world could not exist without it.

As a whole, yes. That doesn't mean I am down on all religions, but the ones that start wars and terrorism, I am.

We shall never know.

Yes!