The Truth

I got to caught up int the comments, why IS slavery included in this?

I think somewhere in the Bible it says something about slavery being okay (take that with a grain of salt, I have yet to read it myself) and so the creator assumed that that was the reason the South seceded.

Hey I'm trying not to flame but here we go

The bible doesn't really say that slavery is okay, but it uses it to express points.

The thing about it was that slavery was a concept that was fairly common, and the bible wasn't going to ignore this.

Also most of the time you could trade the word slave for Servant for a more accurate representation.

Well I was originally saying that it was stupid to include the Civil War anyway. I was just offering some explanation as to why it was. Like I said, I haven't read the Bible, so I have no idea if that was correct or not.

Its cool I was just trying to help you out

Its hard to comment on content like this while still retaining a sense of civility

Ahh, well thank you.

Yeah, every comment you read automatically has that tinge of rudeness to it.

what it says is a man is allowed to own a slave as property and can beat them, just not to death.

Well if they can't have sex who else would they go to?

I don't actually believe in any religion, I don't like to really be considered an atheist either...

But if they are having sex with little boys and whatnot after the religion explicitly is against it, they really aren't with said religion.

That's why I'm Christian without being religious, I know it sounds weird but it makes sense. I believe in Christianity just not any subdivisions of it, Catholicism included... they're kinda out there...

That is basically how I am....

I don't necessarily believe in a god, but I believe that there was a Jesus, not THE son of god, but a son of god in the sense that he had a proper path to be good...
The bible for me is a good book of moral stories, not necessarily truths, maybe the best explanation for the unknown at the time.

See I do believe in God, but I also take things in the bible with a grain of salt, one has to remember that the bible was written by man, moreover the church, and times and morals were way different then, especially male domination. There are parts of the bible that were removed because of these reasons, which is why I always tread carefully with the bible.

The reason why the bible is believed to be all truth is because the Holy Spirit and angels guide the hand of man to keep it as pure and close to the truth as possible... But I believe that's bullshit so I consider the bible just stories lol

But, I'd like to say that I do respect your views and am not trying to put them down.

I understand completely, as likewise, I respect yours and also am not trying to put anyone down, just giving my own personal circumstance and ideaology behind it.

Honestly I think you belong in the non-denominational group of christianity though... not sure either lol

I am non-demoninational lol I though I mentioned that, I guess I didn't but yeah, I just believe in Christianity and that's it.

I think I deserve points for calling that....

Indeed lol, You seem rather intelligent and level headed.

I try to seem that way... I am actually good at logic arguing, so I rarely know much of what I am arguing about, just enough to get by and find opposing holes.

Me too usually, but there are always people that don't really have that sense of logic and go by the it's this way cause it is excuse.

Kids see things on Family Guy and assume its true

People kill because they are people, that's just how it is

People seize power because they are people, it's just that those who don't want to have power taken from them tend to get caught up in war over that and people die. There are bad people in the world who will take advantage of those who they can manipulate, and religion has just happened to be the tool of choice over history.

Also I didn't see this on Family Guy, and even if I had it doesn't invalidate the point being made.

Not saying everyone has, but there is a family guy episode in which case they go to alternate dimensions. One such dimension is futuristic, but being as they are only dimension travelling is at the same time as our dimension.

The reason for why they are so advance is because supposedly in that dimension there was no Christianity, and so science progressed much more rapidly. After that episode I heard more of the whole "christian dark ages" than I had had in my entire life.

People forget the works of monks and people like Isaac Newton, and just jump on the bandwagon.

Also heres a random rare reaction pic for everyone

I understand the misconception then. I've actually seen that episode though, but I thought you were referring to an episode where someone claims "People kill because they are people, that's just how it is". It appears we may have been arguing two different points then (I was saying that people would have died for pointless reasons even if there had been no religion while you seemed to think I was saying that we would be further ahead as a society if there had been no religion) .

Here's my favorite reaction image, not sure how many people have it

My bad sir, I was just fuming and misguided my annoyances


BTW that pic is going in my priority folder

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Exactly, humans would've created another religion, if not that then some order or creed in which it would've been perfectly acceptable to do horrific things in the name of your god / group / law.

^ so hard ^

Okay, let's say religion just died. Everyone is now atheist.
What are some ways someone could justify genocides, murder, slavery, etc. without being just plain crazy?

War over land, supplies, cultural misunderstanding, rivalry/hatred between leaders, etc. Its happened plenty of times before over history. Historically most religious wars had political undertones fueling them as well.

Then "they took our land" or "they heinously insulted our society and leader" or "they stole all our food or water" would be used as justification at the time. No matter the justification, we as a more advanced society now look down upon those kinds of wars nowadays (unless they were actually justified by the wrongful taking from or hurting of another society, though usually that's not the case and someone just wanted more power), whether they were justified by the reasons previously expressed or whether they were justified by religion. People just bash religion on this subject because it has been used as justification far too often when that's not a valid reason (the same as claiming something bullshit when in reality the winning party just wanted more power isn't valid).

I agree completely. People (generally speaking) are inherently violent and will find any reason to start a fight. It just so happens that religion was the best way to gain mass support for corrupt leaders by promising access to heaven and things such as 72 virgins for murdering infidels.

I guess you're right, but the amount of peace in the world would be much greater if there were no religion

That is purely speculation. It is impossible to tell how a world without religion would behave. On one hand, religion helps to bring peace to many people while many others (the more well known and assumed portion) take it to extremes, usually out of context, and incite unsolicited violence based on these beliefs. When a non-Christian thinks of Christians, they usually think of the Bible-thumping, judgmental, radical people yelling at the street corners than the quiet, respectful, and friendly church-goer as most Christians actually are. Just like many ignorant Americans think that all Muslims are Al-Qaeda terrorists when this is in fact only a small demographic of the Muslim population. The problem is not religion, as everyone claims it is, but rather peoples' lack of understanding and respect for differences in opinions. If people of all walks of life could just see each other as just people instead of solely belonging to a particular group, then the world would be a much more amicable and peaceful place. The same argument applies to racism, sexism, etc. However, this is of course impossible since there would still be radicals out there.

okay, I surrender that argument, but I have another! Yay! Religion, for the most part, no matter how tolerant it can be, kills curiosity. People don't search for answers because they think they already have them. Science has been slowed down by religion, not necessarily because people don't join, but because they prevent funding and suppressing science in their country. Did you know there was supposed to be a large hadron collider, that was longer than the one in Europe, in Texas? The Texan government gave the engineers 1 billion dollars to dig the hole, then asked them if they would find God with it. The people said no, and they gave them another billion dollars to fill the hole back up.

I honestly don't believe that we'll ever have all the answers, religion or science out of the question. I think it's a matter of that our human minds just can't comprehend the concept of the beginning, it's a never ending cycle literally. If we discover the origins of the universe, now we have another question, what events conspired to start the start of the universe, and what events took place for these events to occur.

**cullenatorguy rolled a random image posted in comment #12 at DEM LEGZ **
you win this as your prize for having an awesome roll

praise the turtle lord!

pic unrelated

the pic failed

How is it pretty likely god created us through evolution? That is a huge jump to make with no evidence to support it what so ever.

You obviously believe in evolution if you feel that you can attribute it to an act of god, but let me ask you this: Why have you not applied the same evidential requirement for god that you needed for evolution?

Also yes there is such a thing as crazy religions, ALL RELIGIONS ARE CRAZY. They all ask for you to have 'faith' to believe. Which is basically the equivilent of asking: Yeah I have no evidence for this whatsoever, except this book written thousands of years ago by people who had no idea about the world around them, much less the entire universe, which has numerous fallacies, contradictions, and obvious falsehoods, but it says that if you die you get to go to heaven and live happily ever after with your relatives, your dog, and every one of your friends, and that makes me happy so I will completely disregard all of these flaws because I want to be happy, and I hope you will as well.:

I'm sorry but believing in something with no evidence whatsoever is delusional and anything that asks you to is crazy for doing so.

I meant from a Christian point of view, I didn't force it and say 'God created us through evolution.' I figured it was pretty likely that God could've created us through Evolution, with scientific evidence. I believe in God, because I studied the bible, and my brother asked me if I wanted to go to church and I said yes. I believe in God for some of my own personal reasons, I just believe in God.
And no, there are no crazy religions. You think they're crazy, but they're really not. They ask you to have faith because they can't prove what they say. They had no idea about the world around them because they were new, they didn't have the equipment and requirements to figure out how everything happened, so they decided they would figure it out their own way, some people had prophetic visions or whatever. Several fallacies, contradictions and falsehoods are simply hypothetical, definitely not literal, and some could easily have been edited in by madmen.
I'm sorry, but not believing in something with no evidence whatsoever just isn't fun. I believe in God, you won't. Simple as that. You're not going to change my view or whatever, simple as that.

A christian point of view can not be equivocated with science. You can provide evidence for evolution, you cannot for god. So you can say "Evolution happened" but until god is proven, you cannot say "God created us through evolution".

The problem with believing god through the bible is because you are already believing in god by using that as a suitable form of evidence, for it to applies as evidence, it has to have been written divinely. This already sets up a premise that god is real before you can even ask yourself the question.


Yes they are crazy. "They ask you to have faith because they can't prove what they say" Then why believe it. and exactly they didn't know the world around them, so they implanted god there to fill the gap.
No they are literal, because you cannot look at a book and take something written as literal "God said to do this" "god did this exact action" "all of this happened", because these are not written metaphorical and even so why believe in a god if even he could be metaphorical? It's strange how everything is open to change and mis-interpretation except god. And yes it could have been edited, but this book is the only thing that proves the god of christianity, so why believe if there are good chances this book is wrong? Very good chances actually.

"not believing in something with no evidence whatsoever just isn't fun" what?...that made no sense.

and I agree it is that simple.

There's no evidence that God does not exist. You said yourself, 'believing in something with no evidence whatsoever is delusional and anything that asks you to is crazy for doing so.'

*facepalm*

You cannot prove a negative, the only evidence for something not existing is lack of evidence for it existing.

Do you believe in big foot? What evidence do you use to believe big foot doesn't exist, do you ask for pictures of NO footprints on the ground, statements from people who DIDN'T see him, footage of him NOT walking around, etc etc etc. You see how stupid this sounds?
No you rely on the fact that noone has actually recorded evidence of big foot, all the evidence supposedly for him isn't even close to substantial and is very easily forged/something entirely different, the statements about people that have seen him aren't very credible and cannot be correlated to any hardcore evidence.
All of these are lack of proof, and/or discrediting the subjective proof because that's what it is: Subjective.

To say you cannot disprove god is simply avoiding the actual problem, you cannot prove him. And as I said, the evidence for something not existing is the lack of evidence for proving their existence.

So how many things do you believe in that you cannot 'prove isn't real' by your definition of proof? Do you believe in dragons? What about unicorns? Fairies? Big foot, loch ness monster, zeus, odin, krishna, ra, etc etc etc.

See what I think is you apply the same basic idea of whether or not something exists by it being proven, for all of these things. But because it's your god, you tell me that I have to disprove it. When you have no evidence whatsoever your god exists.

What is the point of this conversation, even?

None really. Healthy debate in my opinion.

Did you read the first frame? It's directed towards the pope talking about how evil atheism is.

What's your point?

It's a response towards the pope. This post is just defending atheism by pointing out the hypocrisy in the pope's statement. Whether or not the religons themselves are crazy, they were still committed in the name of religon.
No evil acts like that, which were done in the name of atheism come to my mind.

I see your point, and that is true.
I understand defending Atheism, it just seemed slightly offensive, which, I find most to be, though, since most every time somebody talks about religion it's attacking that religion or whatever.

for other religions, same things go.

SOME are like that. Not all, not even a quarter of them, but a good number are like that.

People are people, there will always be murder and chaos caused by many with "justifications". Religious people or non religious people will do some of the same horrendous things with different justifications. One is no worse than the other.

The crusades were mostly political

Justification of slavery is as old as people, and if your referring to the bible's use of the word slavery its because slavery was a thing back then, and it wasn't going to ignore it.

The which hunts have no justification from the bible, but was part of paranoid leaders using the ignorance of the people to combat their enemies.

9/11 is what you stated it to be.

Last time I checked atheism is the belief that there is no god of any form, it's difficult to kill in the name of nothing so I'd imagine that it would have different names such as finding racial superiority, power struggle, etc.

It's difficult to attribute the killings to atheism because there is no part of atheism that specifically declares to kill. I guess you could make up some bull crap about trying to find racial superiority or something, but noone kills directly in the name of atheism (many communist regimes did this, but apparently this doesn't count)

Because of this you would add the atrocities of atheists to the list of deaths in the name of atheism because like I said it is few times in history that people kill in the name of nothing.

BUT POSTER THAT ISN'T FAIR YOU CAN'T ATTRIBUTE THOSE DEATHS TO ATHEISM BECAUSE ATHEISM ISN'T ABOUT KILLING.

In no part of the bible does it say to kill, heck it even says to specifically just take it, and make it easier for your opponent.

However Christianity is still applied to acts with God's name on it, even though it makes no sense.

When it comes to the soviet union here is a quote from wikipedia...
"Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Soviet Union. Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and the elimination of religion."

Atheism is NOT A BELIEF. It is, rather, the lack of it, for the foul of there being no proof or evidence in these 'religious' matters.

atheism is by all means a belief, just check dictionary.com

to disbelieve in something is to believe it isn't so :/

but its pretty clear from this definition


1.
the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2.
disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

CONT from above

"The state was committed to the destruction of religion,[2][3] and destroyed churches, mosques and temples, ridiculed, harassed and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with atheistic propaganda, and generally promoted 'scientific atheism' as the truth that society should accept."

As for communist china for much a time it was only worse.

Also back to the contributing the acts of atheist men to the list, Mao Zedong has the highest death toll of his own people in what is considered to be a single act in all of history (that isn't a war, in which case he would be second) that being 40 mil (includes famine, but if you can help but don't is it not murder?)

The crusades death toll's highest estimate is 3 mil, with the lowest being 1 mil the majority of which is in warfare, not slaughter

So stop attributing these killings to any particular anything People kill because they are people, and idiots follow

Explain?

The civil war mainly happened because the south ASSUMED on Lincolns stance on slavery. He made it clear he was never going to abolish slavery, he just viewed it as a process that if you localized it to one area (the south mainly and the large farms/plant industries) it would eventually die out. Lincoln never had any plan to get rid of slavery.

However, his non-support of slavery and some of his other ideals angered the south and so they said they would secede if Lincoln was elected. Well he was and sure enough that's what they did.

You also have to understand social and economic aspects played a large part of the war, there was much disparity over the humongous differences between the farming life of the south and the city life of the north.

The best way to show this war wasn't over slavery is to actually understand what the Emancipation Proclamation said, and basically, if the south had come back, they could have kept their slaves since the EP only stated that slavery was abolished in states OUTSIDE of the union. Considering there were 2 (can't remember which) border states that lincoln couldn't afford to lose, and allowed them to keep their slaves.

Actually the Civil War was fought over States' Rights and the South left the Union because the Northern states controlled the Senate and the House. They kept passing laws and regulations that benefited the North and hurt the South. That's pretty much what started the entire war, slavery was never the issue.

Well states vs. federal was definitely as aspect of it. It wasn't the main reason, nor were any of these. They were just a culmination of events that ended with the election of lincoln.

Yeah the South got fed up with everything and left.

heh noble

I AM SO SORRY IGNORE ME AND MY STUPID PROBLEMS