God has no merit (4 Viewers)

[scarybunny]

I was listening to kids do scripture today and it amused me.

I once told my Christian friend that I thought indoctrinating children was silly, because they really do not understand the concept of God. Ideas are completely lost on them, God is just Santa or the Easter bunny who promises gifts when you're good and a lump of coal when you're bad.

She said something along the lines of "Well you need to teach children when they're young, or else they'd never develop faith."



I didn't have the heart to tell her that that reflects a massive problem with religion. If faith was logically sound to an adult mind and provided the answers to questions that all introspective humans asked, it wouldn't have to trick children into believing in order to maintain numbers.

 

[thongetsu]

She said something along the lines of "Well you need to teach children when they're young, or else they'd never develop faith."

This is how the taliban recruits people. Yay for religion!

Also if lots kids suffering from poverty can be bad, they can have coal to burn. xD

 

[scarybunny]

Haha well there you go.


I have no problem with people being religious, but it's so obvious that children just do not understand. Some people do become religious in adulthood, and at least then they might understand what they're supposed to be believing.

 

[thongetsu]

God/Jesus is the adult version of the tooth fairy/Easter bunny/ [insert fairytale creature here]

 

[scarybunny]

I think once you start questioning life, the universe and everything, it all seems so daunting and huge that you want to defer to a simple higher power. I'm sure it's comforting to think that when you die everything will be OK, that what you do on this Earth matters.

Science is a cold mother, God seems so much warmer.


Unfortunately, reality is rarely so forgiving.

 

[-Lemon-]

Haha well there you go.


I have no problem with people being religious, but it's so obvious that children just do not understand. Some people do become religious in adulthood, and at least then they might understand what they're supposed to be believing.

Don't preach to others how they should raise their kids.
And anyway, in the moral vacuum that is today's society, we need to instill our kids with strong moral values, they need to know the ten commandments because God only knows what sort of warped young men and women they will become if they are raised on Grand Theft Auto type video simulations.
Do you think children naturally understand the sanctity of marriage? Or the fact that Jesus died on the cross for all of humanity? No of course not, these things must be passed down from generation to generation, and if you don't instill them with Gods Grace (i'm not necessarily talking about Christianity), i.e that theres more to life than just material possessions, then society will cease to function

 

[thongetsu]

Jesus did not die for humanity. Supposedly, he died for our sins. If you think about it like that then we shouldn't stop sinning, if anything we should sin as much as possible because if we don't, Jesus' death would be in vain.

So basically I'm honouring Jesus by sinning.

 

[scarybunny]

You can teach children to be good people separately to religion. Maybe then they'll be good people because they've decided it's the right thing to do, rather than because their faith has told them that that's the way to get brownie points with the bloke upstairs.


I'm just suggesting waiting until children understand before exposing them to religion, and letting them decide what they believe for themselves.

 

[Chavi1]

Just because a few fanatics interpret their holy books a certain way, doesn't make the belief system *bad*

 

[-Lemon-]

You can teach children to be good people separately to religion. Maybe then they'll be good people because they've decided it's the right thing to do, rather than because their faith has told them that that's the way to get brownie points with the bloke upstairs.


I'm just suggesting waiting until children understand before exposing them to religion, and letting them decide what they believe for themselves.

the 'word' good is meaningless without religion, what on earth do you mean when you say 'good people', it's a abjectly subjective term, you need religion to objectify it.
Did the atheist columbine killers think what they where doing was 'good'? In a world without religion they certainly would have been justified in thinking so, because there is no 'good' or 'evil' in an atheist society, everything would merely boil down to materialist or self-constructed conjectures.

 

[scarybunny]

Haha oh you're one of those people.

 

[SylviaB]

so not only is lemon a statist

but he's also a theist

wow...

 

[Kim Il-Sung]

the 'word' good is meaningless without religion, what on earth do you mean when you say 'good people', it's a abjectly subjective term, you need religion to objectify it.
Did the atheist columbine killers think what they where doing was 'good'? In a world without religion they certainly would have been justified in thinking so, because there is no 'good' or 'evil' in an atheist society, everything would merely boil down to materialist or self-constructed conjectures.

listen you fucking bible thumper

you don't need to be religious to be moral. thou shalt not kill or covet your neighbour's wife? fuckin WOW i really need a religious text to tell me that is not a good idea.

there are some basic morals that (almost) everyone shares, but beyond that level morals CANNOT be objectified or made absolute which is why opposing homosexuality or homosexual relations because it is 'wrong' is such a crock of shit.

and do not start with your pathetic strawmans, what about those christians who shoot abortionists over in the US? awesome morality right there, killing fully-grown adults to save a blob of chemicals the size of a grain of sand.

 

[Scorch]

the 'word' good is meaningless without religion, what on earth do you mean when you say 'good people', it's a abjectly subjective term, you need religion to objectify it.
Did the atheist columbine killers think what they where doing was 'good'? In a world without religion they certainly would have been justified in thinking so, because there is no 'good' or 'evil' in an atheist society, everything would merely boil down to materialist or self-constructed conjectures.

Wow. This is potentially the most idiotic thing a person can say. The moral imperatives of religion are either entirely generic and obvious or completely disgusting or useless. Simply because a sky-man didn't hand it down to some murderous tribes thousands of years ago doesn't mean that there is no sense of morality that society can draw upon.

There is nothing about human ideology about respecting people, preventing suffering, social good and reciprocity that would be suddenly erased if religion disappeared. You just don't understand how things work.

 

[SylviaB]

Morality: the way one ought to act.

Even if god exists, it is impossible to determine the way one ought to act, because its still all relies upon consequences (instead of deontology)

"rape is sinful! You oughtn't do it!"

Why?

"because god will send you to hell!"

Note that god or the theist doesn't explain why rape is inherently wrong, but appeals to consequences (going to hell).

The fact that god says something is wrong and will punish you for it still doesn't explain why its the "wrong" thing to do.

So your theistic morality is just as much a load of bullshit as secular ethics

 

[Kim Il-Sung]

secular ethics

what's wrong with secular ethics?

 

[thongetsu]

the 'word' good

Aren't the inverted commas meant to be around the word 'good'.

 

[SylviaB]

what's wrong with secular ethics?

a load of shit

 

[blueduck]

the 'word' good is meaningless without religion, what on earth do you mean when you say 'good people', it's a abjectly subjective term, you need religion to objectify it.
Did the atheist columbine killers think what they where doing was 'good'? In a world without religion they certainly would have been justified in thinking so, because there is no 'good' or 'evil' in an atheist society, everything would merely boil down to materialist or self-constructed conjectures.

you seem to be blurring the boundary between an atheist society and a society run by gun-loving hicks.

just because atheists do not define what is good and what is evil by the consequences of their actions after death, does not mean that they are free to pick an choose what is moral and what is immoral.

to use an overused example... if tomorrow a group of scientists amazingly were able to completely disprove any possibility of the existence of a higher power... would you be able to justify killing your father over a heated debate?

if someone decides that it is good to kill someone it is not because they are an atheist... it is because they are a psychopath

 

[Davie1]

I tell you what we should be worrying about instead of god... Those scientologist. I mean come on, we can discus and argue our opinions until the cows come home, but the scientologist should really be the ones we look at with suspicion