a lie you hear about christianity
 

"Oh it has caused the most wars and death..."


truth: There was nothing holy about the holy roman empire. They killed the common folks for wanting to read their bibles, instead of having the priests read it to them. Same goes for the inquisition. If anything, both of these factions were more like the muslims than christians.

truth: The wars that have killed the most people have nothing to do with religion. WWI.....nope. WWII....nope, in fact hitler said that after he killed the jews, he would kill the christians. Korean war....nope. Civil war...nope. Stalin murdering 20 million of his own people...nope.


Truth: there have been over 30 million, yes million documented cases of abortions in this country....my mind staggers to think about the numbers of the entire world....surely this is not a godly thing fair?

truth: Anti-god communistic, political, and eugenics have killed far more people in the last 100 years than Christianity has in it's entire existence.


Have a great day friend!

edit....sorry....58 million abortions. cheers.

Let's try and hit 100 million abortions

I find that acceptable though.

Before, religion was this crazy fucked up thing that everyone went nuts over because people believed it was tied to their reality

Now, religion is that annoyance that means you can't sleep in on Easter & is something your parents give you to forget for them.

In the Western world, yes.

The reason Christianity is not a threat to peace (as much) these days is because the majority of people do not follow it as closely or as fanatically as they once did.

Islam is a threat, because too many of their followers still do.

We need to embrace the Islamic moderates in places like Iran, which has some of the most liberal thinking young people in the world, instead of branding the entire country 'evil'...if we can get the moderates to be active and educate the generations coming up, the problem will be vastly improved.

What you need to do is realize that the ones who are labeled as "fanatics" are the ones who are following what the religion actually says. The ones who are moderate, are not preaching the true religious texts, because they aren't "politically correct" in this era. But religion and politically correctness don't (or shouldn't) go hand in hand. They are moving in the right direction by abandoning things judged archaic and savage. But no one is moving far enough away fast enough. No one is realizing, Hey, maybe it's all just bullshit.

I'm pretty sure the "lie" Veritas speaks of is an accusation slung against all religion, not just Christianity.

But, way to act even more persecuted

so, we are missing the point guys.

I agree....but if simply not saying it, not preaching it, is all that can happen for now...then that's good enough for me...I have no problem with people believing it...but when they start using it to influence others to discriminate, violently or otherwise, I have a problem.

There are people who are not just omitting it tho, but coming out and saying it is wrong, such as the young people of Iran and other Islamic countries, and we really need to embrace those guys.

I wouldn't say religion is inherently evil, but what I can say from personal experience, is that it creates a mindset that is susceptible to brain washing and therefore susceptible to being drawn in to committing horrifying acts of violence in the name of said religion.

It's all about how/what you learn from a religious standpoint.

you realize the whole idea of anything being "inherently evil" is derived directly from religious thought?
We can't even have this discussion free from the brainwashings of religion because it's been going on for so long and so widespread.

Good point actually.

I don't believe anything or anyone is inherently evil.

Repped.

Also, saying 'well they weren't really acting christian, they were acting more like muslims' is ridiculous, they did it in the name of the religion with the authority of the church.

I have been more or less a fan until this post. I'm sorry but most of your "facts" here are highly inaccurate and influenced more by your personal biases than any connection to the truth.

Christians get a pass when people pervert the scriptures and kill in God's name, but that doesn't apply to anyone else?

Yes. They Inquisition and the Holy Romans are similar to some modern day Muslims in terms of violence. That was the whole point of this original comparison. Both religions have had periods of mass violence against people with different beliefs. That's entirely the point. Christianity is the same as Islam in this respect

If you're saying those wars had nothing to do with religion you're skimming significant portions of history. Nazism and Communism were reactionary policies that competed with religion for the hearts and minds of followers. That's exactly why they were so opposed to (other) organized religions. In way Nazism and Stalinist Marxism were both religious personality cults built around a charismatic leader (see N. Korea for a modern day example). Maybe not caused by Christianity but the psychological drivers in all the wars you named have the same basis as religious wars.

The Civil War was highly religious as this was a very Christian nation at the time and Biblical narratives were used frequently on both sides for justification of atrocious actions. Slave owners tried to used the Bible to justify slavery in countless cases, you don't have to search hard to find examples.

I'm assuming the last statement was a joke so I won't address it.

Thanks friend!

This is generally the point where we get to FUCK GRAVITY, LET'S FLY territory and the problem is nobody can actually do that. I mean, we all gotta have some type of code, some type of philosophy to follow (self-created or otherwise). Maybe, a major part of your philosophy is to be anti-religion... and truth is, that can be just as instilled and brainwashed as any other code be it religion or full-on hipsterism.

Check it, one thing y'all aint even touched on is the fact that even within Christianity itself there are tons of denominations. I mean, you lump all of those together in a discussion and you're not going to make any progress. That's assuming that everybody ultimately wants to learn something from dialogue rather than just express anger over something they've learned to despise based on past experiences or again, possibly ... brainwashing?

But yo, on the whole "inherently evil" thing... if you want to dissect it on a more primal, non-philosophical, non-romanticized level. Sure, "evil" is a word we've applied over the years to describe some of our more self-destructive primal instincts, but the bottom line is we are self-destructive... we create bombs that could destroy our entire planet, we kill our own babies, we kill other people's babies and a whole list of other atrocities. I really don't have a problem with somebody pointing that out as "evil" tbh, all semantics aside.

Animals can't do these types of things on this level as a matter a fact, just look at the number of animal species that humans are responsible for wiping out.

Reppp

@fraze great point as well



I agree that violence is in our nature and religion is often used as a scape goat or excuse for intolerance
Regardless we would find a reason to kill shit


Point is region more often divides than unites
Especially in the grand scheme

let us focus gents.

the lie we here is that Religion is responsible for all the wars of history, religion is responsible for the most killing.


both are lies.

In terms of brainwashing, I would now argue that the person who cannot see that abortion has killed farrrrrr more people just this year than all "religions" combined ever is the one brainwashed.

I will also elaborate how the holy roman empire and inquisitions were tools of the devil if anyone cares.

The devil can be in church. Look at present day.

Zytorg out.

so can we all now agree that religion is not responsible for all the wars and the most killings? can we agree?

Abortion responsible for more deaths than region
1 yr of abortion
About 6,000 of religious wars at the LEAST


Nah we can't agree so just fuck off

I also don't agree that abortion = murder

yea she bad

and I don't necessarily agree that it's in man's nature to kill
maybe it was initially, but there's no reason to take both the viewpoint that we are more than animals and we can't rise above killing each other. There's a lot to be said about religion being one of the reasons we haven't risen above the savagery of needless killing. There's also a lot of debate about how much people have to be influenced before they will rise to such savagery on a massive scale, ie, the holocaust in WW2, systematic slavery in the U.S., etc. It's my personal belief that man is inherently good, which is the opposite of most religious thought.

also, every religion looks forward to an ending of it all, an apocalypse, when all of this ends.
why?
short of the eventual heat death of the universe I see no need to assume that it's just all going to come crashing down.
it's the most negative world view you could take about anything.
It's also a pass to allow you to get away with whatever atrocities you commit in the name of said religion because all of this doesn't really matter anyway because it's all gonna end eventually?
nah, fuck that, I rather own my place in this world, my contribution to it, and look toward a future where man perseveres indefinitely

Hush.

I am asking you to agree that there have been more murders from abortion in the last year = 58 million

than all the religious wars in our history.

if you cannot agree to that,

can you agree that there has been far more deaths due to war of just nations fighting nations and abortion than deaths from wars over the name of God?

fair?

Veritas, can we agree that if there has been even one innocent death caused by religion in all of history than that is too many?

fair?

Abortion is not murder

murder is murder

Veritas reminds me of my shithead stepdad who cheated on my moms for prolly like 25 years then divorced, immediately remarried and found the church. Hasn't called me in 7 years, but texts me on every religious holiday to wish me "blessings."
fuck out of here with your bleeding heart bullshit, Veritas
there's no such thing as vicarious redemption

I'm going to need citations for your statistics. Do you have this?

lmfao
knuck agrees with Veritas

you lose

And this perfectly explains your intense hatred for religion. It's understandable, just as much so as the person who had a positive religious experience and now is too blind to acknowledge any of its faults. I think V's whole point in this thread is that people consistently quote untrue things about Christianity, a point that you further drive home if you say that Christianity is just about brainwashing and teaching that people are evil and must be killed in the name of said religion. Those statements do not describe even a small percentage of Christians in the world at all. It basically covers extremists and mental cases.

Some dude accidently killed himself the other day trying to launch fireworks off of his head. That however doesn't mean that fireworks aren't fun to watch.

Think about the state the world would be in if everybody believed there were ZERO consequences for their actions. Any religion that keeps a person somewhat "in-check" for fear of consequences should be welcomed in society. Nobody wants to talk about how fear of "God's wrath" can be all that stop a lot of people from killing, raping and destroying.

Think about it.

I knew that would be exactly how that was taken. My disdain for religion came around a long time before that example of hypocrisy which I used above. I came to my own conclusions at a young age that religion was simply a business, which is exactly what it is.
And now, it's a cause for people to commit all kinds of atrocities that they use religious beliefs to justify. Morality isn't derived from religion, Roy, it precedes it.

and to simply say 'it has its faults," isn't accurate
it is a fault

in contrast, I believe I am the voice of the solution

Religious people by and large develop personal beliefs from religion

Peoples' personal beliefs affect how they vote

That shit harms society, considering religion is based on teachings from ancient manuscripts

If you think "oh that's only 5% of religious people like extremists" then you're not talking about religious people, you're talking about avid holy book club enthusiasts

I feel as if all of those things are really beside the point. I'm not going to defend any of the horrible things that have happened in the name of a religion, nor would I try to with slavery or any of the other things that happened before we got where we are now as a race. What do those things have to do with where we are now? Whenever you have trouble acknowledging both pros and cons of some thing, you lose your ability to consider things rationally.

Basically, I see your points and they have merit but you only acknowledge the cons of religion and that isn't rational.

Fair?

Roy, when the cons outweigh the pros, that's how something is judged as bad

Word?

Do tell us what is "the problem "

Knuck, if you don't see why this debate is important, why continue to contribute to it?