What if we have no God & religion ?

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Originally Posted by Volya

In my opinion, although religion came about as a way of trying to understand the world (I think? Creation myths and all that), it has really turned into a way for priests and other religious figures to control people. Religion doesn't govern our morals, morals come from within you. If your religion said it was ok to go around killing peeps, would that make it ok?

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religion is the cover up the shield behind the devil's hand. You have to imagine religion as the ticket to anything you wish to desire and killing is one of them. A human that is reduced to killing because the belief is in a religion that said so is a human that in danger of themselves.
The best way to do it is to take it away from them religion that is. It will do it has to.
So no it is not ok by any stretch of the imagination ever. What is ok however is to tell them they have no longer a religion to run. Thy shall be don sooner or later.

SLG-The atheistic states of the Soviet Union and the East Bloc along with Maoist China didn't bring about some fantasy state of freedom.

To be fair, I think this has a lot to do with the fact that the goal of the people running those states was one of power and a totalitarian state.

Of course the same could be said of Catholicism or Islam... It isn't the religion that is inherently bad but rather the uses and abuses that it is put to by certain individuals in power.

If we had no God, atheists should feel pretty stupid for wasting so much time against the notion.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

The atheistic states of the Soviet Union and the East Bloc along with Maoist China didn't bring about some fantasy state of freedom.

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Let's not forget the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.

My religion teach me that If I didn't belief there is only one god...I lose
some Religions come from god and this decide how human should live. and other people made it to rule or put their hand in place they want to get it.
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I can control my animal instincts if i rise in good environment, in family teaching me from begin the meaning of the respect.

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Originally Posted by cafolini

If we had no God, atheists should feel pretty stupid for wasting so much time against the notion.

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That's just silly. Atheists aren't fighting against a non-existent god, but the things people do in the name of their god/s.

If nobody worshipped god/s there would be any atheists.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

That's just silly. Atheists aren't fighting against a non-existent god, but the things people do in the name of their god/s.

If nobody worshipped god/s there would be any atheists.

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That's truly silly. I mean the proposition that they are not fighting against a non-existing god. As if they could if they so chose? LOL

I feel this thread is pretty presumptuous that God and Religion are one. If there is a God, why would we cast him out based upon a man made and controlled institution such as religion? God doesn't call the shots in the hierarchies that are formed through them, the "enlightened" men at the top do.

Also, isn't a society achieving for pure freedom kind of a naive ideal? I don't mean to offend those who seek freedom, and I'm not saying I don't enjoy the freedoms I have. But wouldn't pure freedom just be a jungle of animals to do and act as they please at any given moment? Laws, created either with or without a religious background, are made for the intention of a greater common good toward the people. I won't deny that this has countless times gone down a path of controlling and enslaving the common people, but that's why there has to be a good balance, of law and freedom.

And if we had no God and Religion? That's hard, because religion is simply a set of rituals, practices, beliefs, etc. that one is devoted to. In many respects, Capitalism could be a religion, hell I hear enough people tie it to God somehow to throw him into it as well, lol. And it has an influence which is now on a global scale.

I'm not sure why Religion is tied strictly to Spirituality, when one could be religious doing anything.

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Originally Posted by Shaman_Raman

I feel this thread is pretty presumptuous that God and Religion are one. If there is a God, why would we cast him out based upon a man made and controlled institution such as religion? God doesn't call the shots in the hierarchies that are formed through them, the "enlightened" men at the top do.

Also, isn't a society achieving for pure freedom kind of a naive ideal? I don't mean to offend those who seek freedom, and I'm not saying I don't enjoy the freedoms I have. But wouldn't pure freedom just be a jungle of animals to do and act as they please at any given moment? Laws, created either with or without a religious background, are made for the intention of a greater common good toward the people. I won't deny that this has countless times gone down a path of controlling and enslaving the common people, but that's why there has to be a good balance, of law and freedom.

And if we had no God and Religion? That's hard, because religion is simply a set of rituals, practices, beliefs, etc. that one is devoted to. In many respects, Capitalism could be a religion, hell I hear enough people tie it to God somehow to throw him into it as well, lol. And it has an influence which is now on a global scale.

I'm not sure why Religion is tied strictly to Spirituality, when one could be religious doing anything.

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You are getting better. You must be a Mason like this one. Good speech.

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Originally Posted by cafolini

You are getting better. You must be a Mason like this one. Good speech.

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Getting better?

I'm just saying: " God and Religion are restrictors." I agree that religious institutions frown on certain issues, like homosexuality, but what has God actually done to physically restrict you or me?

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I'm not sure why Religion is tied strictly to Spirituality, when one could be religious doing anything.

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I absolutely agree. One can have religion at heart because one feels there is another being somewhere and that in itself is enough.
No need to church and prayers to be believe in a being. The belief in itself is religion.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

SLG-The atheistic states of the Soviet Union and the East Bloc along with Maoist China didn't bring about some fantasy state of freedom.

To be fair, I think this has a lot to do with the fact that the goal of the people running those states was one of power and a totalitarian state.

Of course the same could be said of Catholicism or Islam... It isn't the religion that is inherently bad but rather the uses and abuses that it is put to by certain individuals in power.

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Indeed. All I'm getting at is that when you're dealing with the sort of individual who thinks 1984 is an instruction manual for how to run a proper society (assuming they get to be at the top of said society) their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) aren't going to matter much if they get into control.

That said, as I'm sure you know, most of the arguments that (famous) atheists make against religious belief are not so much about how any particular religion is inherently harmful (at least not in the bigger picture) as that teaching people to use faith rather than reason to reach decisions can cause harm.

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Originally Posted by Dark Star

Indeed. All I'm getting at is that when you're dealing with the sort of individual who thinks 1984 is an instruction manual for how to run a proper society (assuming they get to be at the top of said society) their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) aren't going to matter much if they get into control.

That said, as I'm sure you know, most of the arguments that (famous) atheists make against religious belief are not so much about how any particular religion is inherently harmful (at least not in the bigger picture) as that teaching people to use faith rather than reason to reach decisions can cause harm.

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Reason is as open to sobriety as it is open to insanity.

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Originally Posted by Shaman_Raman

Getting better?

I'm just saying: " God and Religion are restrictors." I agree that religious institutions frown on certain issues, like homosexuality, but what has God actually done to physically restrict you or me?

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Religion is not a restriction. It is a realization of ignorance. In God we trust by His Grace. Watch the Providence Eye above the truncated pyramid because it is watching you blunder with immaturity.

Religion might be a source of earthly resignation in some historical contexts, but not necessarily. In Latin America, during the '60s and '70s, the conservative Catholic Church was unsettled by the rise of Liberation Theology and the Movement of Priests for the Third World among its lower ranks, both inspired by a strong sense of social justice and a steadfast criticism of authoritarian régimes (not surprisingly, many of those priests were later murdered by military task forces). In other historical contexts, too, religion has provided an ethics of resistance, and even of rebellion (just remember Thomas Müntzer and the Peasants' War, in Germany). Again, we may criticize religion as an illusion which ultimately "liberates" man from any real responsibility over his own acts, and thus as some sort of moral immaturity, but we should also acknowledge that the meaning of religion may be resignified in the face of particular historical circumstances; in other words, it can become a progressive force in some cases, and a reactionary one in some others... Just like any ideology, religious or not: Marxism played a revolutionary role in many occasions, but it turned into an official State ideology in the USSR, China, Cuba, etc., where it became a monolithic dogma, an automatic legitimation for anything the Party (or the Dear Leader) does or thinks.

The Eighteenth Century is long gone. Like cafolini said, "reason is open to sobriety as it is open to insanity". We, children of the Twentieth Century, should be aware of that.