Kochari wrote:Just want to point out that although I love certain parts of Buddhism, it is just as flawed as any other religion, for instance, this has been happening for a while now;
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/slrv.htm
alright, i was admittedly quite wrong about that, guess buddhism
can be just as bad
. i still think it has a bit less of a tendency to incite hatred like that though. clearly it's just a taaaad less violent in its teachings than the abrahamic religions that encourage stoning for just about every little mistake a person can make.
Kochari wrote:Christians have traditionally been very good at helping others - that's kind of the whole point. Sufi Muslims are also all about the tolerance and kindness. These things are not black and white.
certainly religion does bring about some good in the world. but helping others isnt something exclusive to religion. it can be accomplished just as well without it. while religion can often result in aforementioned good, it also often goes wrong end you end up with horrible things being done thanks to religious motivation. why run the risk of these extremists doing BAD shit when all the good aspects of religion can be fulfilled otherwise?
Kochari wrote:"nowadays something like the spanish inquisition would never happen, but it did, thanks to religion." - "nowadays something like the Stalinist purges or Chinese persecutions in Tibet would never happen, but they did, thanks to Athiems" - you see how ridiculous this argument is? Dicks are dicks, regardless of their religion or otherwise.
Both of these terrible things may have been committed
by atheists, but they weren't motivated by atheistic ideals (which dont even exist, although if you really wanted to assign one, it'd probably be secular humanism). there were other ideologies fueling these things, not something like reason, logic, the pursuit of knowledge, etc. the spanish inquisition, crusades, etc, on the other hand, were almost purely motivated and justified by religion. even if you want to argue that they weren't religiously motivated somehow, religion was still the thing that gave them credence and credibility in the eyes of many. that's the problem; it gives incorrect thoughts and actions validity. would religion not exist, these atrocities would have never happened. something like the stalinist purges or china v tibet is just as likely, if not more likely, to happen in the presence of religion.
This is an overt attack on religiosity, but what scares me more is the type of thing you were saying a few pages back, about hoping that religious belief will be wiped out.
I just think religious beliefs are holding humanity back in a number of ways. It keeps us from seeing the truth about the universe/life, stops progress, and (yes, while it can also do good), it has a tendency to sometimes promote hatred, intolerance, and bloodshed.
If I was a big scary Muslim saying these things - "Jewish belief must be wiped out"would you say I was an extremist or a rational thinker like you?
Well no, clearly not, because you'd still be favoring Islam. They're all the same bullshit to me. And saying something like "belief must be wiped out" connotes violence and bloodshed to achieve the means; that's not what i'm after. i'm not for forcing anyone to disbelieve anything. i'm simply for the freedom of knowledge, specifically scientific knowledge, and the removal of unfair indoctrination. there's no real agenda behind that. i just think that, organically, with the advent of those to everyone (which i believe will gradually happen naturally), as a result, people THEMSELVES will find the truth in the universe, ie, that there is no deity in the sky (which i don't think is somehow a boring or emotionally unsatisfactory idea, in fact i think its much more beautiful than some arrogant man in flowing white robes controlling everything you see). it's a natural process that will happen as ideas are allowed to spread freely.
More to the point, in my opinion it is NOT acceptable to label religious thinkers as "small minded", "stupid", "outdated" etc. This so easily leads to the kind of behaviour we see between religious groups all the time. How you can think that this kind of behaviour and thinking is any different from racism/sexism etc is beyond me.
if you had read what i originally posted, i don't think that believers are stupid or small minded (although i do think they are outdated). it's not their fault they were raised in a society where they were brought up with this religion, and i dont even think it's a bad thing. like i said, it's just the natural progression of such a thing, there's no real speeding it up and i'm fine with that. these things take time. these beliefs had an important role in civilization for very many years, and have thus become well established. in the last few decades especially, the role of religion has been entirely replaced imo by something superior and closer to the truth. as a result, the number of believers is dwindling. civilization will not "unlearn" religion overnight, and that's okay with me. i just think it'll happen eventually and i think the human race will be better off for it.
everything getting moved around and so on.
??