What really winds me up is the "It's God's will" answer spouted by those with no real explanation. What 'loving God' would be wiping out millions of people of all beliefs and none?
I remember reading about missionaries visiting tribes with had no concept of property or ownership. Hard to 'save' someone who does not steal or covet and thinks lust is quite normal.
Even harder to save someone who doesn't have immunity to the diseases you bring with you too. I get quite angry about how organised religion has destroyed culture all over the world and is still continuing to be a persistent harm even when people should know better. but anyway here's a question: When food packaging now says 'mix of EU and non-EU something' is the non-EU part including the UK or would that have to say 'mix of EU, non-EU and British something'? I mean it seems like a fairly pointless phrase to have on a packet when it basically means 'could be from bloody anywhere we don't have a clue'.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Blaming religion for man's ills just don't [sic] work. Man created religion - man works on differences. Us and them - religion is just one aspect. If religion didn't exist, man would create something else to create a difference. Short or tall, fat or thin,labour or conservative, male or female, black or white, pink or yellow, capitalist or communist. Weren't the Nazis a-religious? What is communism? What is capitalism? Do you not think that all of those create massive damage if believed in to the detriment of anything else?
So isn't the problem 'belief' rather than the thing that is believed in? Dogma.
BUT without belief, man would not progress. It seems that science relies on belief - the belief that you can explain existence - and without that drive to explain and understand, science would be a poor shadow. Belief is then a ying/yang thing like everything. But like always, I just repeat as I think I said all that on the ists and isms thread.
I was going to say that with science, you can see the proof but then I thought of quantum physics. We believe because the scientists tell us they've seen the proof.Most of us wouldn't ever have access to their apparatus or understand what we were seeing even if we did. Not very different from religion.
You see the proof after it's been proven! The belief is in the stage before that where the person 'believes' they have identified something - like electricity or magnetism - that drives them on to prove what they think they're seeing.
Edited to add: Didn't Newton 'believe' the bible contained a code and spent years of his life trying to find it? Odd where belief takes us.
Just because religion is there at a lot of the worst atrocities doesn't mean it's religion doing it but more likely the powerful men behind the religion. You see this people giving a lifetime of serving those in need in the name of their religion but at the same time someone is committing atrocities in the name of their religion. Does that mean it's religion or the person using religion to justify their actions? If all religious types lived lives of self sacrifice and servitude to the greater good in the name of their religion would you say that religion is evil? Religion is a concept made up by mankind it's mankind that makes what it wants of their version of the concept. Blaming religion is nice and tidy way to absolve humankind from the blame they and they alone deserve.
Examples abound such as selling it indulgences (selling heaven for money /power). Families passing in the Pope job among themselves. Plus many others. They all have power and the grip of it. That's human not religion.
I never said science makes the laws it just explains based on the current state of human understanding. What I was saying is that science fills the gaps in human understanding reducing the need for religious mumbo jumbo. For example when you have a fossil record and living record of evolution you stop needing a creation explanation for all the variety of living creatures. If we ever discover the start of big bang and possibly before then creation might not have anything left to hang oni suppose.
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As has been virtually every other religion at various points in history.
Even harder to save someone who doesn't have immunity to the diseases you bring with you too. I get quite angry about how organised religion has destroyed culture all over the world and is still continuing to be a persistent harm even when people should know better.
but anyway here's a question: When food packaging now says 'mix of EU and non-EU something' is the non-EU part including the UK or would that have to say 'mix of EU, non-EU and British something'? I mean it seems like a fairly pointless phrase to have on a packet when it basically means 'could be from bloody anywhere we don't have a clue'.
Not very different from religion.
Examples abound such as selling it indulgences (selling heaven for money /power). Families passing in the Pope job among themselves. Plus many others. They all have power and the grip of it. That's human not religion.
I never said science makes the laws it just explains based on the current state of human understanding. What I was saying is that science fills the gaps in human understanding reducing the need for religious mumbo jumbo. For example when you have a fossil record and living record of evolution you stop needing a creation explanation for all the variety of living creatures. If we ever discover the start of big bang and possibly before then creation might not have anything left to hang oni suppose.