.. wrote:
Tournifreak wrote:
. wrote:
snip
worryingly, probably more than is good for it to do so. sadly, it's
nigh on impossible to reason with the deluded that following their
'imaginary friend'
and all their crazy rules, rituals and rhetoric may not be the best
way to build a safe and tolerant world (the last 2000 years of
christianity proves that let alone these newly invented cults) the
sane must sit back and hope all this bull**** burns it's self out
without taking us with it.

I wasn't going to get involved in this thread but since other people
seem to be up for a discussion and Chris Bacon doesn't appear to be
around...

snip

Do you see religion as an entirely bad thing then?

YES.

the wasteland of evidence surrounds us. have a gander.

OK. Let's look at the wars again shall we? Sure, religion has been
implicated in wars. Bad things have been done by bad people in the name
of religion. But let's look at the last century shall we? Atheism has
been by far the greatest cause of loss of life of any ideology. Nazism,
inspired by the philosophy of the athiest Neitzche, resulted in the
holocaust. Over 6 million dead. With the rise of atheist Communism, 60
million died in Stalin's gulags. Over a million died in Pol-Pot's
killing fields. That's probably more than the combined total of all the
so-called religious wars in past history.

So what evidence are _you_ talking about?

Or are you going to ignore all the evidence I've already cited?

Not saying all religions are helpful, or that all religious people are
good. But please don't make gross and crass generalisations.

eh ? like wot you've just done ?

No. I just gave a while list of evidence to suggest that religion can
be good. I didn't see much in the way of generalisation there.

I take onboard all you've said but take this: remove /any and all/ "gods"
from your imagined 'reality' and consider this : there is no evil without
a GOD. it all boils down to human nature, good guy, bad guy. right v wrong.

Sure. I agree with you. Some of us are worse than others. But I do
wonder if we are actually all quite a bit worse than we like to
believe. When you see what happens when anarchy takes hold and social
behavioural norms are destroyed, it can be pretty scary. Look at Bosnia
- when war breaks out and anyone can get away with anything, people
rape and murder their neighbours. Armed gangs ran amuck in New Orleans
when the opportunity arose. And tens of thousands of people in war-time
Germany just went along with the holocaust because everyone else was
doing it.

no one else to blame. we're here alone.

every 'good' you've described as attributable to a 'god' could have
been performed out of the goodness of ones own good natured
heart.
Sure, there are good people around.

person to person, sans dogma, fighting, strange frocks, the
child abuse, inequality towards women ... beheadings ... corruption,
george bush
....and there are bad people.

what's your point?

Regards,

Jon.