Dawkins interview on some sort of God channel...

[Scouse]

Look what religious belief does

In their minds they were right to do this.

No evidence tho. Just their belief

 

[old.Tohtori]

F*ck all to do with everyone though.

Problem is, you take extremists as regulars.

 

[nath]

F*ck all to do with everyone though.

Problem is, you take extremists as regulars.

No he doesn't, but he does say that religion has a part to play in the extremist mindset. That doesn't mean every religious person will become insane over a charred book, but religion is no innocent party.

 

[DaGaffer]

F*ck all to do with everyone though.

Problem is, you take extremists as regulars.

when a whole country behaves like that, then the extremists are the regulars. Did you see the TV coverage?

 

[Scouse]

No he doesn't, but he does say that religion has a part to play in the extremist mindset. That doesn't mean every religious person will become insane over a charred book, but religion is no innocent party.

This.

As long as man continues to pander to his baser brain and not require evidence for his actions this sort of thing won't ever stop.

Religion is one of, if not the, most expedient ways of spreading this model of thought amongst a population.

As long as man panders to the idea of a god he'll continue, in his mind, to distance himself from personal responsibility and abrogate responsibility for his actions - instead transferring it to the nonsensical and self-created whim of a non-existant supernatural being.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Keep living in that dream state of yours where religion is to blame, when it's gone, you'll be the neighbor on TV going "He was always such a nice man".

Delusional, in a word.

Sooner you realise it's about men, not religion, the sooner you'll stop being such a zealot.

 

[Krazeh]

Keep living in that dream state of yours where religion is to blame, when it's gone, you'll be the neighbor on TV going "He was always such a nice man".

Delusional, in a word.

Sooner you realise it's about men, not religion, the sooner you'll stop being such a zealot.

Of course it's about men but religions isn't blameless, it has it's part to play in tragedies such as this. You can't just disregard that and claim that religion holds no blame.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Of course it's about men but religions isn't blameless, it has it's part to play in tragedies such as this. You can't just disregard that and claim that religion holds no blame.

I'd like to bring the school shooter/shooter games into that.

School shooters may play violent games, but violent games don't make school shooters.

Even IF there's blame, there most certainly, 100%, isn't as much blame as the anti-religioin nutters claim. Making it sound like religion creates these people.

It's delusional, yet accepted, because there's no skyfairy in the equation. IT's a f*cked up concept to allow extremism and hate.

But as said, it's not atheisms fault, it's the peoples who use atheism as a weapon.

 

[Scouse]

Delusional, in a word.

Sooner you realise it's about men, not religion, the sooner you'll stop being such a zealot.

Zealots advocate violence and the violent overthrow of ideas. I do not advocate violence. I advocate rational thought based on evidence.


The sooner you realise it's about men + belief and that, separate to that, religion encourages the action of believing, you'll enter a world much more beautiful, astonishing and absurd than you can currently imagine.


And possibly you will be able to post without accusing me of being something I'm not - a delusional zealot.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Perhaps there's something to learn there.

 

[Scouse]

Your post about violent videogames is rather disingeuous.

I would wager that you are aware (but maybe not) that there is a complete lack of evidence of a causal link between computer games and school shootings.

I'd also wager you are very aware that the children involved in school shootings tend to have extremely tortured histories and very severe mental issues.

They're mentally ill.

Trying to draw parallels between the above types of situation, which we have a good evidential basis for, and our current argument smacks of desparation.



Also:

But as said, it's not atheisms fault, it's the peoples who use atheism as a weapon.

You have already conceded that atheism is a "lack of belief".

Therefore atheism, being nothing, cannot be used as a "weapon".


Stop deliberately confusing atheism with the intellectual argument of an atheist. And stop pathetically attempting to equate intellectual argument with weaponry.


I know of no instance where a group of people who hold no belief in common have or could react in the same way that believers have in Afghanistan.

Their atrocious actions required commonality of belief. Atheists do not have that.




Edit:

Perhaps there's something to learn there.

That's the post of a troll. However I reply to this you'll be able to find a self-serving argument that shows I've gotten it "wrong" or missed your point.

You aren't providing rational counter-argument to anybodies points. You're obscuring, twisting and attempting to deflect by bringing in meaningless off-topic guff.

Seriously Toht. Right now all I feel is pity for you.

 

[supersaint]

Proof there is no god.

YouTube - Mitchell and Webb - The Watermelon Miracle

 

[ford prefect]

This.

As long as man continues to pander to his baser brain and not require evidence for his actions this sort of thing won't ever stop.

Religion is one of, if not the, most expedient ways of spreading this model of thought amongst a population.

As long as man panders to the idea of a god he'll continue, in his mind, to distance himself from personal responsibility and abrogate responsibility for his actions - instead transferring it to the nonsensical and self-created whim of a non-existant supernatural being.

Personally I think you are giving mankind a little too much credit there. Man has shown time and time again that he can rationalise pretty much anything given sufficient power and motivation.

When religion fails it is down to mankinds nature rather than religion itself. Conservatively around 75% of people believe in some form of religion and of that 4 billion + people, very few are extremists. Yet without religious motivation we create and develop increasingly clever and complex ways of killing each other in the name of political distrust wealth and greed. We also have innate distrust of anything new and different – again not something based on religion, just the general human condition. For any individual to assume that three quarters of the worlds population is in some way deluded or that they know better or are in someway morally or intellectually superior is simple arrogance, nothing more.

The whole idea of religion is to put a moral and social code in place so that people can live together in some form of peace. It doesn’t necessarily matter what the religion is per se, simply that mankind has an inherent need to believe in something bigger than himself in order to justify following his conscience which will ultimately make his life more difficult. The only difference between today and a thousand years ago is that many have replaced that need with science rather than religion.

 

[nath]

When religion fails it is down to mankinds nature rather than religion itself.

Would you say then, that religion has not been responsible for anything positive whatsoever either? That when something good happens in the name of religion, it was just mankind, and religion is then totally redundant?

 

[ford prefect]

Would you say then, that religion has not been responsible for anything positive whatsoever either? That when something good happens in the name of religion, it was just mankind, and religion is then totally redundant?

No I would say that by and large religion tends to help mankind overcome the more base side of his nature.

 

[nath]

No I would say that by and large religion tends to help mankind overcome the more base side of his nature.

So how is it logical that religion can be responsible for good things and not bad. If it has an affect on people one way or the other then surely it's possible to have negative affects. Just taking the Bible for example, there's some really horrendous shit in there but that doesn't count?

 

[ford prefect]

So how is it logical that religion can be responsible for good things and not bad. If it has an affect on people one way or the other then surely it's possible to have negative affects. Just taking the Bible for example, there's some really horrendous shit in there but that doesn't count?

Terrible things have been done in the name of religion, but then again terrible things have simply been done in the name of wealth, power, greed, fear, desperation, superiority, arrogance or for no other reason than we can. Human nature is a complicated beast at best and we are ill suited to living well with one another. Blaming mankinds ills on religion makes no more sense than blaming them on communism or democracy.

 

[Krazeh]

Terrible things have been done in the name of religion, but then again terrible things have simply been done in the name of wealth, power, greed, fear, desperation, superiority, arrogance or for no other reason than we can. Human nature is a complicated beast at best and we are ill suited to living well with one another. Blaming mankinds ills on religion makes no more sense than blaming them on communism or democracy.

It sounds like you're basically saying that any good thing done in the name of religion is because of religion but any bad thing done in the name of religion is because of man's nature? What a handy distinction that is.

 

[ford prefect]

It sounds like you're basically saying that any good thing done in the name of religion is because of religion but any bad thing done in the name of religion is because of man's nature? What a handy distinction that is.

Obviously things aren't so black & white, but yes, I suspect that given human nature, without religion to temper it, we would probably be in a much more dangerous postion than we are now. And yes of course we are capable of good things regardless, but we are also capable of the most terrible things imaginable too.

I am not arguing with anyone or trying to justify my view, I am simply voicing my opinion as an agnostic.

 

[nath]

So religion can temper the nastier side of our human nature, why can't it bring it out more as well? There's so much intolerance in so many religions, are you not willing to accept that they can play a part in atrocities?

 

[ford prefect]

So religion can temper the nastier side of our human nature, why can't it bring it out more as well? There's so much intolerance in so many religions, are you not willing to accept that they can play a part in atrocities?

Of course it can and I agree for some religious intolerance is an issue (in my experience especially for modern "atheists"). Depsite what the media would have us believe, extremism is an exceptionally rare thing and such things tend to be as much political as they are religous - especially with islam.

Every modern religion that I have encountered teaches in one way or another that we must supress the base side of humanity and embrace our more positive aspects like the ability to love and forgive. People of faith are generally are sensible enough to know that their particular religous text isn't full of exacting history per se, but is guide to morality and faith and although they take that seriously, they don't take it completely literally. That is now especially true since most people have adopted monothestic religions.

Obviously there are always going to be a small lost minority that do take these things too far, but then again those are usually people who are easily influenced and usuallky influenced by people with some other political or social agenda.

 

[Wij]

Of course it can and I agree for some religious intolerance is an issue (in my experience especially for modern "atheists"). Depsite what the media would have us believe, extremism is an exceptionally rare thing and such things tend to be as much political as they are religous - especially with islam.

Every modern religion that I have encountered teaches in one way or another that we must supress the base side of humanity and embrace our more positive aspects like the ability to love and forgive. People of faith are generally are sensible enough to know that their particular religous text isn't full of exacting history per se, but is guide to morality and faith and although they take that seriously, they don't take it completely literally. That is now especially true since most people have adopted monothestic religions.

Obviously there are always going to be a small lost minority that do take these things too far, but then again those are usually people who are easily influenced and usuallky influenced by people with some other political or social agenda.

Don't have time to give a full argument but you are trying to have things both ways a lot there. Yes, sometime religion helps people be good but it also can help people be bad. Anyway, I've yet to hear of anyone beheaded in the name of atheism.

 

[Scouse]

Believers doing what believers do best

Oooh, that nasty book burning man eh? Must kill people who lived near people who burn our "bibles". Even if they're actually from Norway or nowhere near the states.

S'okay. Allah says they're infidels.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Scouse, no offense, but i'm just not going to continue the discussion with you. You can call it "backing out as religious folk always do", or anything of the sort, you can pity all you want(it's not actually doing ME harm if you do), it's just not worth the time. We can't agree, the very basics dictate it, so the discussion is pointless.

 

[ford prefect]

Believers doing what believers do best

Oooh, that nasty book burning man eh? Must kill people who lived near people who burn our "bibles". Even if they're actually from Norway or nowhere near the states.

S'okay. Allah says they're infidels.

To be honest that whole post strikes me as staggeringly short sighted. The fact that the article and you assume that it is simply down purely to religious motivation. As I have said in other threads; in Islam religion and politics are very much one in the same and it s a system that has worked exceptionally well for countless people for the better part of two millennium. Assuming such a close minded approach as that article does is just blindly following the current political agenda – Islam is bad, the west is good, it wasn’t so long ago that a certain Austrian took similar umbrage with Judaism and had his people feeling very much the same way.

Western pressure is now being applied to separate religion from politics, which is obviously going to be a huge cause for fear, and that alone is reason enough for these riots. And some bigot in America playing on those very fears is hardly going to help the situation. I've never been convinced by the religious roots of bigotry in Bible belt America. The truth is for the most part they are understanding people of faith. It is a sad expression of human nature that some claim religious motives when they are simply expressing their own fears and bigotry.

I’m not defending Christianity and I am not defending Islam, I’m agnostic and have no real interest in either, I am simply saying try looking at these issues without westernised media/political tinted goggles on.

 

[Scouse]

A couple of points, seriously made, before I go to bed.

I'd like to state up front that I'm not being aggressive with you Ford. You're at least amenable to argument. (Toht hasn't actually made any arguments - he just asks everyone to justify theirs, rather than making any of his own). Aaaanyway:

To be honest that whole post strikes me as staggeringly short sighted. The fact that the article and you assume that it is simply down purely to religious motivation.

Firstly. Answer this. Are they or are they not rioting in response to the burning of a copy of the Koran?


Secondly. As I have pointed out consistently, with long detailed explanation of my reasoning with examples as evidence, I don't think that religion is the root cause of the problem here.


The problem is belief.

Mankind's capacity to act without reason or evidence. To perform the act of believing.

Without belief (and I care not what in) you can't motivate yourself into performing these atrocities.


As I've stated many times, my beef with religion, all religion, is that by definition it requires men to act without reason or evidence. Religion (all kinds) requires men to believe.



I am open to reasoned debate on this subject, Mr Prefect. In fact, I'm fully in agreement with you that the manifest problems are motivated by much more than the fact that they're followers of Islam.

I also hold a particular distaste for the West, it's politics, its economics and its own religions.

However, until someone can argue the case, with evidence, how religion isn't deeply entwined as a causal part of these current atrocities then I will continue to state that 'believers will do what believers will do".

I've got a couple of thousand years of evidence to back my argument. Not only of atrocities perpetrated through the exploitation of man's capacity to ditch reason and believe, but including relatively recent revalations about how humans work/see the world/are neurologically wired for this shit.

It's time for the supporters of religion to stop saying "but it isn't so" and explain why it isn't so.

Make your case.

 

[ford prefect]

I'd like to state up front that I'm not being aggressive with you Ford. You're at least amenable to argument. (Toht hasn't actually made any arguments - he just asks everyone to justify theirs, rather than making any of his own). Aaaanyway:

Firstly. Answer this. Are they or are they not rioting in response to the burning of a copy of the Koran?

Actually I doubt very much that is the case. The protest was an Anti-American march. It is actually Staffan de Mistura who is chief envoy for the UN who suggests that it was all related to the specific incident of a pastor burning the Koran, I personally doubt that claim. I would imagine the protests are politically motivated and the burning of Bibles is simply a swipe at the US and the Pastor. A little spin here and there doesn’t really do the UN any harm in this situation either, given the financial and human resources being exhausted in the Afgan war, does it?

Secondly. As I have pointed out consistently, with long detailed explanation of my reasoning with examples as evidence, I don't think that religion is the root cause of the problem here.

The problem is belief.

Mankind's capacity to act without reason or evidence. To perform the act of believing.

Without belief (and I care not what in) you can't motivate yourself into performing these atrocities.


As I've stated many times, my beef with religion, all religion, is that by definition it requires men to act without reason or evidence. Religion (all kinds) requires men to believe.

I am open to reasoned debate on this subject, Mr Prefect. In fact, I'm fully in agreement with you that the manifest problems are motivated by much more than the fact that they're followers of Islam.

I also hold a particular distaste for the West, it's politics, its economics and its own religions.

However, until someone can argue the case, with evidence, how religion isn't deeply entwined as a causal part of these current atrocities then I will continue to state that 'believers will do what believers will do".

I've got a couple of thousand years of evidence to back my argument. Not only of atrocities perpetrated through the exploitation of man's capacity to ditch reason and believe, but including relatively recent revalations about how humans work/see the world/are neurologically wired for this shit.

It's time for the supporters of religion to stop saying "but it isn't so" and explain why it isn't so.

Make your case.

To be fair we went through the terms belief, faith, atheism, theism and irreligion and regardless of the actual definition, people put there own spin on them so I won’t go down that particular road again. Belief however is important to define in this debate – so let us settle on belief being the holding of a proposition or premise to be true. Most humans are believers by evolution, whether it be a patriotic belief in ones country or the existential belief in a deity or the belief in scientific truth or all three, we require those beliefs in order to live together, because they help give us a social and moral code that help define us and temper our lives. The only real question is whether ones faith/religion is subjective or objective and by its very nature religion is a spiritual or if prefer psychological journey, therefore most people experience religion as a subjective thing (as you and others have implied), that changes and adapts over their lifetime. Equally they see religious texts as subjective, the message being more important than the historical fact; Jesus the philosopher, Mohammed the prophet and so on.

Where trouble starts is when people use propaganda, fear, politics and spin to twist that message, which is when extremism occurs, and that quest for power is human nature. Wars loosely based on religion have always had a political motivation behind them, where religion has been abused as a weapon in order to achieve those goals. For me that says more about the nature of man to exploit his brethren and to abuse power, than it does about the rights and wrongs of religion.

 

[Wij]

Florida Quran burning: Hamid Karzai encourages a mob mentality in Afghanistan. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

 

[ford prefect]

Florida Quran burning: Hamid Karzai encourages a mob mentality in Afghanistan. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

Sorry Wij, but I don't really see anything in that article to suggest specific religous motivation either. The whole affair at the moment is entirely political with lots of different agenda's. Hamid Karzai's has been president of Afganistan since, what, 2004 if memory serves? Of course he is going to be fanning the flames, he is in a comfortable office and probably feels its high time that foreign troops got out of his country and is busy appeasing his political allies.

Isn't it curious that religions tend to get so much negative press, yet the good work they do is largely ignored by the media, for example any good muslim gives, through Zakat, the third pillar of islam, at least 2.5% of their annual income to charity, making them some of the largest contributors to third world projects.

 

[Krazeh]

Isn't it curious that religions tend to get so much negative press, yet the good work they do is largely ignored by the media, for example any good muslim gives, through Zakat, the third pillar of islam, at least 2.5% of their annual income to charity, making them some of the largest contributors to third world projects.

And do the majority do that because they think it's the right thing to do or because they think they need to in order to appease God and ensure they get into heaven when they die? Perhaps it's just me but I feel that coercing people into doing good deeds through fear of eternal damnation kinda takes the sheen off.