All Religion is Bad.

[Herzblut]

The truth is that ALL religions that place ANY non-evidenced faith above rational evidence are bad.

The truth rather is that this is your personal credo, based on non-evidenced faith above rational evidence. Thus, your credo is per its content self-refuting by declaring itself as "bad".

Herzblut

 

[The Atheist]

I just refuted your comparison between stalin/bush

Aha! Another friend of Arti's I see - say something often enough and it might come true.

Hint: At no stage did I compare Bush and Stalin.

 

[The Grave]

No Faithers please, we're British!

The truth rather is that this is your personal credo, based on non-evidenced faith above rational evidence. Thus, your credo is per its content self-refuting by declaring itself as "bad".

Herzblut

Evidence:

1. pope supported roman catholic Hitler
2. islamic virgin loving religious terrorists
3. crazy hindus trying to infect the world with TB
4. christian terrorists (US & UK ) fighting yet another holy war in the East
5. arab slaughtering jews and vise-versa
6. creationism
7. jehovah's child abuse
8. on and on et al eternity........

Griff.

 

[Herzblut]

Evidence:

1. pope supported roman catholic Hitler
2. islamic virgin loving religious terrorists
3. crazy hindus trying to infect the world with TB
4. christian terrorists (US & UK ) fighting yet another holy war in the East
5. arab slaughtering jews and vise-versa
6. creationism
7. jehovah's child abuse
8. on and on et al eternity........

Griff.

Now, what's that wunderfully objective and well-balanced list supposed to be evidence for?

Herzblut

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

I don't think it makes you an "apologist" to not hate all religion and be fair enough to admit that people who practise it aren't all automatically crazy, racist, ignorant, hypocrites, etc. and, in fact, have a right to their religion.

Unless religion actually physically hurts someone or the people who practise it try to push it on others, I have little problem with it.

 

[qayak]

And thanks for franking the impression everyone has of your ignorance - I pointed out to you a while ago, you can't even get your cheerleader's name right twelve months later - IT'S QAYAK.

I am dead-set lmao. You lie, you bluster and you cannot even learn the difference between a "g" and a "q".

Seems to me that you made the same mistake when I first joined the list along with a lot of other people. I could have corrected Articulett at anytime but did not simply because it means absolutely nothing to me.

It is quite ridiculous to point and laugh at a simple spelling mistake while ignoring your own intellectual dishonesty. Lying about references is bad enough when you do it to further your own cause but you took the especially cowardly road and used it to damage the reputation of your opponent in a debate.

Obviously you do not have the moral strength to correct this issue so I will ask the membership of JREF.

Did anyone say the things about Articulett that The Atheist claims?

 

[mijopaalmc]

Thanks for dropping by and illustrating my point for me. I wasn't even going to mention that it was you who derailed that particular thread...

(shh.... don't say anything bad about religion... because to Mijo you mean ALL religions are equally bad...he's got an over-generalization thing going on--he thinks if something has any randomness in it, you can rightfully define it as random... pregnancy results are random...poker is random... and evolution is as random as a tornado in a junkyard producing a 747)

You know, articulett. if you think that this is that answer that you claim to have provided to the question about whether unqualified collective nouns are universal then you have drastically redefined the word "answer". Instead, you have constructed the same old straw men that you have use in What evidence is there that evolution is non-random?. You are ignoring that it is a standard convention of the English language that when you refer to group without qualification as to what members of the group your are referring, you are referring to the whole group. This is why statements like "Jews are cheap" and "liberalism is a mental disorder" are so offensive.

 

[sphenisc]

You don't see much acanine art either.

Does performance art count?
http://www.jokeshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/sitewise.pl?act=det&p=3252

or cartoons?
http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/mba/lowres/mban756l.jpg

 

[sphenisc]

Did anyone say the things about Articulett that The Atheist claims?

Do you mean all the things or some of the things?

What things?

 

[Faithkills]

The truth rather is that this is your personal credo, based on non-evidenced faith above rational evidence. Thus, your credo is per its content self-refuting by declaring itself as "bad".

Herzblut

No it's coherent, certainly does not refute itself, and we have a world of evidence of the destructive power of faith.

In general, how can you think being deluded is positive thing?

 

[Faithkills]

You know, articulett. if you think that this is that answer that you claim to have provided to the question about whether unqualified collective nouns are universal then you have drastically redefined the word "answer". Instead, you have constructed the same old straw men that you have use in What evidence is there that evolution is non-random?. You are ignoring that it is a standard convention of the English language that when you refer to group without qualification as to what members of the group your are referring, you are referring to the whole group. This is why statements like "Jews are cheap" and "liberalism is a mental disorder" are so offensive.

Oh please. First I don't think articulett is in any way saying all religion is not bad. His statement however does not mean that all religion is equally bad which is just an asinine assertion. Any more than "Jews are cheap" means that all jews are equally cheap. And even an idiot that would make that claim would admit that some jews somewhere are not cheap, like their personal jewish friend or whatever.

Moreover he has made it clear what he means but apparently some people think raising this specious point over and over will detract from the valid points he makes.

"You said blah!"

"No I didn't say blah, I said bloo. And in case it wasn't clear by bloo I meant in general and all bloo is not equally bloo and same may be blah and some may be blee."

"But you said BLAH! You bigot! Hey everyone look at the bigot!"

This whole poll is designed to make that sort of fallacious attack possible by excluding the middle.

For myself I had no qualms in answering. All religion is bad. All religion is not equally bad. All religions do not fail to evidence a positive result on occasion. But in general all religions do promote unfounded belief in something in order to perpetuate themselves, if adherents benefit it's merely incidental, and if not it's irrelevant.

Even white lies are still lies. I don't like lies. I don't like the fact that so many people are trained to believe lies. I don't like the results of that on an individual or large scale level.

'Is all religion bad'? It's essentially the same question as 'are all lies bad'? Regardless of whether the teller is the genesis of the lie or actually believes the lie and is merely propagating the lie.

Yes there are occasions people justify lying because they think somehow the lied to would be better off. There may even be occasions where that the lied to actually is better off.

But I don't want to be lied to. And I don't like that other people are lied to.

Is all religion bad? Yes/No?

Pretty much.

 

[Herzblut]

No it's coherent, certainly does not refute itself, and we have a world of evidence of the destructive power of faith.

It's a fallacious selective perception leading to a big methodological flaw.

If you want to derive a fair value judgment about an institution you need to balance negative and positive impact. What you're doing is trying to prove "Herzblut is ALL bad" by just listing the things I did wrong and completely ignoring the things I did well. You might understand that I'd refuse to accept any such judgment.

In general, how can you think being deluded is positive thing?

Every human being is inevitably deluded by its brain, day by day and night by night. This is kinda "natural" and hard to overcome for any individual.

For instance, you fell into the delusion trap about "all evil religion". It's an irrational faith you adhere to, you're deluded. You will - of course - vehemently protest, just like religious believers probably will, but that does not change the fact. You're possibly biased by your own personal experiences, maybe in childhood. Again, that does not change the fact.

You're a skeptical man? Then you should ask yourself: what would it take to prove myself wrong? Then you yourself should seek what it takes. You should be able to shift your paradigm once you accept you're wrong. But instead, you're just selectively perceiving what is in favor of your mindset and ignoring what's against it. Like almost everybody else. Well, I don't even blame you, it is incredibly difficult to be neutral and requires alot of training.

Herzblut

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Religion hasn't harmed me yet.

Explain how religion has harmed you in such a profound way. You can disagree with something and still have an open mind. Yet to blanket all religions as bad regardless of any good that may come out of them is mum....

 

[Faithkills]

It's a fallacious selective perception leading to a big methological flaw.

If you want to derive a fair value judgment about an institution you need to balance negative and positive impact. What you're doing is trying to prove "Herzblut ia ALL bad" by just listing the things I did wrong and completely ignoring the things I did well. You might understand that I'd refuse to accept any such judgment.

No, I would start with the fact you lie. That's enough of a fair value judgment for me. I am sure you think it's for a good reason, but that doesn't change it.

It's very simple.

Religions are a big mass of lies. How many people are aware or not aware is not germane to that fact, except to note how well the lies are composed and continually recomposed to be nice circular logic loops, and how part of the lie is that not believing the lie is dangerous. How many people think the lies are in good causes are not germane. How many people knowingly lie to gain power is not terribly germane either.

What is germane is that they are lying.

Every human being is inevitably deluded by its brain, day by day and night by night. This is kinda "natural" and hard to overcome for any individual.

For instance, you fell into the delusion trap about "all evil religion". It's an irrational faith you adhere, you're deluded. You will - of course - vehemently protest, just like religious believers probably will, but that does not change the fact. You're possibly biased by your own personal experiences, maybe in childhood. Again, that des not change the fact.

Lol do you have another ploy? This one is tired. I'm not deluded I just don't like lies, or the big fat liars who tell them;P

It's not complicated. You can't equate me not liking you lot of liars because you lie, with being deluded. Well you can but it's just another lie.

You're a skeptical man? Then you should ask yourself: what would it take to prove myself wrong? Then you yourself should seek what it takes. You should be able to shift your paradigm once you accept you're wrong. But instead, you're just selectively preceiving what is in favor of your mindset and ignoring what's against it. Like almost everybody else. Well, I don't even blame you, it is incredibly difficult to be neutral and requires alot of training.

Herzblut

Easy to prove myself wrong. Show me how lies are a good idea, in general.

Saying we've lived with the lies all this time is not showing it's a good idea. We lived with people dying of pnuemonia, we lived without air travel, we lived without the internet's influence on exposing lies, but I for one am glad of all these things, despite they are changes to the status quo.

For every happy childhood church memory you have I can point you at a mutilated corpse. For every bowl of soup given to a homeless person I can point you to a homeless person that is religious and might not have been homeless if he had not been brainwashed to put his fate in gods hands. The sad part of that is the hypocrites know god won't save them and make their own way, tho they still go to church. The honest souls who believe that horse pucky are mostly just hosed.

 

[Herzblut]

No, I would start with the fact you lie. That's enough of a fair value judgment for me.

I told you above: it's an irrational faith you adhere to, you're deluded.

Your "method" is completely useless in the eyes of scientific investigation. The latter is the only investigation method I'll accept.

Moreoever, you create your own language. You assign "lying" to "being mistaken", an absurdly stretched definition, just to fill your needs. Such redefinition of language is a common tool used by extremist groups, like e.g. $cientology. Knowing that, I tend to be very cautious analysing any information from such groups.

It's very simple.

I am even more cautious when certain people wanna tell me how simple a complex issue is. "Just look around!", "Everybody can see it!", "We must be right!", "These jews/religious/bolschewists/whoever are evil!".

Using that extremely weak argument to support a very strong claim is infamous! It is all in contrast to how a sceptical thinker should argue: strong claims need equally strong supportive arguments.

No, man. A complex issue is complex is complex is complex. People telling the opposite are normally just agitating. It's atrocity propaganda, blaming some group to be the culprid for the problems in the world. Excuse me, man, but any German, who has gone thru the excellent German school education will be teached how extremists work. We learn how to not fall into the traps and pitfalls of these extremists. For obvious reasons.

You are an extremist. You will never convince me to follow extremism. I don't follow atrocity propaganda!

Religions are a big mass of lies. ..

Stop your atrocity propaganda!

For every bowl of soup given to a homeless person I can point you to a homeless person that is religious and might not have been homeless if he had not been brainwashed to put his fate in gods hands.

No, of course, you cannot point to such homeless. That makes your "argument", again, atrocity propaganda.

How can you ever think that I won't clearly see this?

Herzblut

 

[Faithkills]

I told you above: it's an irrational faith you adhere to, you're deluded.

Please explain why thinking lies are bad is an act of faith? This makes no sense at all. I don't like lies or liars. How much faith does this take?

Your "method" is completely useless in the eyes of scientific investigation. The latter is the only investigation method I'll accept.

You'll accept anything that supports your position. You're a liar after all.

Moreoever, you create your own language. You assign "lying" to "being mistaken", an absurdly stretched definition, just to fill your needs. Such redefinition of language is a common tool used by extremist groups, like e.g. $cientology. Knowing that, I tend to be very cautious analysing any information from such groups.

A lie is a lie. Do I care if you believe the lie you try to tell me or not? Not really. You may be mistaken, or you may be a liar. I don't know. But you are lying or you are propagating a lie. Some group of someones came up with the codex of lies comprising the magic book for any particular religion.

Using that extremely weak argument to support a very strong claim is infamous! It is all in contrast to how a sceptical thinker should argue: strong claims need equally strong supportive arguments.

Skeptics don't like lies. Not many people do, if they know they are. This isn't abstract.

You may, and clearly will, debate the cost/benefit of these lies, but they are lies and that, to me, makes them intrinsically suspect. History shows us the tragic results.

If you say "trust me" then I immediately think you are lying. If you were telling the truth you wouldn't have to ask me to trust you. You would show me. Then I would know, and I could show other people.

You are an extremist. You will never convince me to follow extremism. I don't follow atrocity propaganda!

Stop your atrocity propaganda!

Articulett may be right. You really may be insane. Or terrified? You know the truth but we are the whipping boy for your repressed intelligence? Beat us up with lies and maybe the truth will go away?

 

[Herzblut]

Please explain why thinking lies are bad is an act of faith?

Religious people are not lying more oftenly than irreligious ones. Your assertion is null and void.

You'll accept anything that supports your position. You're a liar after all.

You don't even know my position. You never ask. You just spit out yours.

Extremist behaviour.

A lie is a lie.

A mistake is no lie. That's why in all languages I know of, there's a word for "mistake" and one for "lie".

Please provide languages where there's only one word for both to give evidence for the existence of at least certain cultures that do not differentiate between the two.

In English, German, Spanish, Italien, French etc. there is such clear distinction. Also, there is no alternative word for "lie", like there is for many other words. This is to avoid any kind of misunderstanding of what it's meant by saying "lie". In particular, "mistake" is not equal to "lie".

These easy reasonings show how extremists like you bent over language for their purposes of agitation and atrocity propaganda.

Do I care if you believe the lie you try to tell me or not? Not really. You may be mistaken, or you may be a liar. I don't know. But you are lying or you are propagating a lie. Some group of someones came up with the codex of lies comprising the magic book for any particular religion.

Do I care what you care about? Not at all. It is irrelevant what you care about for the current discussion. But OK, to make you happy:

Didn't Mr Einstein show that Mr. Newton was fundamentally mistaken? Do you care if Newton believed the lies he tried to tell everybody? No, you don't!

Well, then you assault the book Principia Mathematica by Mr. Newton to be propagating lies. Actually, every scientific theory must be a lie, because sooner of later it is replaced by a better one.

Science is nothing but lies, right?

The inclined reader may recognize the absurdies that follow from consequently applying a language that is stretched by extremists for the only sake of their agitation and atrocity propaganda.

If you say "trust me" then I immediately think you are lying. If you were telling the truth you wouldn't have to ask me to trust you. You would show me. Then I would know, and I could show other people.

You distrust anybody in the first place until proof is given that he/she is trustworthy?

Articulett may be right. You really may be insane. Or terrified?

Ad hom. Agitation. Atrocity propaganda. You can't do any better, it seems.

You're an extremist.

Herzblut

 

[qayak]

There are a couple things I would like to put in here:

1- Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism are all philosphies until they begn to believe in the supernatural. At that point they become religions. In this thread we are only discussing the religious branches and not the branches that are solely philosophy.

2- Taoism and Confucianism are far less religious than Buddhism.

3- Shintoism is a full blown religion with many, many gods. Every village in Japan had its own Shinto god and there were festivals for each. Shintoism was the state religion of Japan and was used to control the population. In the Shinto belief, the emperor was a living god.

4- I hear many people claim that religion can be good and yet I do not see anyone point to the denomination they see as the example. Mostly, they all say it "can" they don't say it is.

5- Can anyone give an example of how a religion IS good without any qualifiers? For instance, I agree that a religion that instills a sense of community is good, unless it restricts this community to its own little group.

6- If one is going to ignore the atrocities committed by religions in the past in order to come to the conclusion that it is good, what assurances do they need that those atrocities cannot happen again? What has the church done to ensure they can't happen again? Are you relying on civil law to keep your religion in check?

7- At what point would you say religion is bad?

 

[qayak]

Religion hasn't harmed me yet.

Explain how religion has harmed you in such a profound way. You can disagree with something and still have an open mind. Yet to blanket all religions as bad regardless of any good that may come out of them is mum....

I still haven't been killed in a war but I think wars are all bad. Some are just not as bad as the alternative.

I have no problem changing my mind about religion but I will have to see some evidence that it has changed. I don't see that. I don't see religions being a whole lot different that they have been for the past 2000 years or more.

The only difference is that now we have laws that keep religions in check. However, have a look around the world and take note of the situation in areas where governments, for whatever reason, no longer have the power to hold religions in check.

I think that religious people who claim people need religion to make them moral have not been too observant. It is laws and governments that make religious people moral, not religion.

ETA: I think this is why religions constantly attack laws and constitutions. They are hoping to return to the old days where religions had free reign to do as the pleased.

 

[The Atheist]

Religion hasn't harmed me yet.

Explain how religion has harmed you in such a profound way. You can disagree with something and still have an open mind. Yet to blanket all religions as bad regardless of any good that may come out of them is mum....

Well, you'd have to know that I was going to agree with that, if only because I don't really want to change my name.

...lies...

Herzblut

In the lack of Ken Mortis, or some equally-esteemed peacemaker, I'm blowing the whistle on you two!

Degenerated far beyond even bad taste, so give it away, please.

Any more and it will be:



which equals 10 mins in the sin-bin. Herz; let it go, mate.

4- I hear many people claim that religion can be good and yet I do not see anyone point to the denomination they see as the example. Mostly, they all say it "can" they don't say it is.

Ok. Let's take a step back here. I have never and will never claim that any particular sect, type or denomination of religion is "good". My argument all along is that religion is not all bad.

Where would you like me to start a list of good things religion is responsible for?

Salvation Army?
Christian organisations running aid missions in Africa and other countries?
Roman Catholic Hospices?
etc.

The list of things religion does which is good is a very long list. It may only be a fraction of the size of the bad list, but my premise was always - as is this poll - that religion is not all bad.

5- Can anyone give an example of how a religion IS good without any qualifiers? For instance, I agree that a religion that instills a sense of community is good, unless it restricts this community to its own little group.

Again, I sense a touch of goalpost-shifting in the wind. Qualifiers are irrelevant. The premise was never that a particular brand of religion was inherently good, or bad even. The premise was that religion is all bad; it has no good parts. It isn't a balance, it's black and white - religion either does no good or it does some good. This is your premise, so if you wish to change your view at this very late stage, please make it perfectly clear.

Again, I have never argued that religion is better than no religion, merely that religion is not all bad.

Thanks to that, some people have tried to label me a "christian apologist". Hard to credit, isn't it?

6- If one is going to ignore the atrocities committed by religions in the past in order to come to the conclusion that it is good, what assurances do they need that those atrocities cannot happen again? What has the church done to ensure they can't happen again? Are you relying on civil law to keep your religion in check?

What do atrocities in the past matter to today? Do you hate all Germans because of Hitler? Do you hate all Japanese? Turks? Should Islam hate the western world because of the Crusades?

Again, nobody - other than christians - came to a conclusion that religion was good. I took great pains to explain that I could not accept that religion is all bad, simply because I have seen personally some of the good results religion has brought about. This is your own strawman you keep setting fire to. I repeat the question; are you changing your premise now?

7- At what point would you say religion is bad?

When it does harm.

According to your own words again, all religion is harmful. I wonder how you equate that with the Catholic nurse giving an injection to save a child's life thanks to her church's charity program, but obviously, in your warped version of the planet, that is harmful, so no conflict exists.