Is it normal that I want all religions and "gods" to disappear from our planet?
I don't want to be offensive (though I probably am) but I just think it's medieval and we are better off without it in the year 2012.
It's so strange to me when people say they need religion or their "god" to have moral values..
Nobody would ever convert me nor would I convert others, but to think we need an imaginary higher power to be good sounds so ridiculous to me?
I've never been religious (I was taught about every major religion in school but I didn't take any of them serious), and I've never harmed anyone or even broken the law.
My parents, school, friends, society, etc taught me how to behave and what's right and wrong.
In a thousand years humans will laugh at the fact that a great portion of the human population actually believed in gods and some devoted their lives to it.
Is it normal that I think this way or am I being too offensive?
I don't want to be offensive (though I probably am) but I just think it's medieval and we are better off without it in the year 2012.
It's so strange to me when people say they need religion or their "god" to have moral values..
Nobody would ever convert me nor would I convert others, but to think we need an imaginary higher power to be good sounds so ridiculous to me?
I've never been religious (I was taught about every major religion in school but I didn't take any of them serious), and I've never harmed anyone or even broken the law.
My parents, school, friends, society, etc taught me how to behave and what's right and wrong.
In a thousand years humans will laugh at the fact that a great portion of the human population actually believed in gods and some devoted their lives to it.
Is it normal that I think this way or am I being too offensive?
But humanity will always be divided over something. So long as one man has more than another, so long as the color of our skin, our accent, our language, our sex, gender or sexual preferences differ, we will always be divided. Even the supposedly superior, open-minded type atheists find reasons to bicker and feel bitterness towards eachother.
Take religion away, and the evil will have to find something else to fill the void. Religion is not good. Good is good. Religion is not evil. Evil is evil. It is in man's nature to complicate and blame, when the blame rests squarely on our shoulders. We all ultimately have free will, and if we choose not to excersise it, then the blame should rest squarely on our shoulders, not on something inanimate like religion.
It's fine to want religion to disappear, but I want people to start taking responsbility for their actions, period. Blame religion? Blame bad genes? Blame bad parenting? Blame economic disparity? No, blame them. Make them take responsibility for their actions. Only then will we see any "change".
But just think by then this world will be a utopian society (if humanity still exists).
What I can't stand is when people preach about being open minded, but then will shut down anyone that does not hold the exact set of moral beliefs as they do. I find it quite pathetic for people to put themselves above someone else based purely on a personal moral standpoint. Which is what you have stated above.
Now, having said that, I believe that most of what we see in our day to day lives can be explained through simple science, but, believe it or not, the belief in a deity is not as outlandish as the media would like you to think.
I apologize for any grammatical errors. I had to type this out in a hurry.
I'm not at all religious and there's times when I hate that aspects of my life are controlled by certain parts of the community who are religious mandating for everyone else the way everyone should live their lives. To counter that, I shouldn't be able to tell religious people how to live theirs.
It is what it is. =)
Now I feel like I need to learn more. :}
Should I?
Seek and you shall find is actually discouraged in that mode of thinking, logical thinking and reason suppressed. We all know the time frame thrown by fundamental Christians for the entire course of the World's beginning is under heavy fire...6,000 years. Noah's Ark story is found in Sumerian texts predating all Biblical chronology; The myth of Jesus is an Egyptian duality of Horus and Krishna and the Greek god Dionysus. Contradictions and atrocities abound and all committed in the name of a god who feels obligated to be "jealous", an entirely childish and humanistic emotion which would only theoretically be magnified by a God's standard. How disconcerting is that?
People are examining critically what has been changed and modified and restructured and added to since the Holy Roman Empire of Constantine. Read up on it, the story goes to show you what it means when you say "So dark the con of man"
But if there is something to learn I'll consider it. Thank you.
I've seen a number of your posts and your very rational. I too, am glad there is intelligence here and not just obnoxious trolls. ;)
Unless of course God comes down and performs some miracles.
I think it's normal that you feel this way. Maybe the world would learn to heal and get over our differences to find our similarities.
I truely have been going to this religious Christian group get together thing that my roomie goes to, to have fun. But I just think to myself why do you have to believe in god to be a good person. They are really nice people though but still... I'm just the type that needs proof to believe in god and other religious beliefs.
Honestly, it does more bad than good.
But lets be honest: school, family, friends, and society, are all influenced by religion. Haha especially society, hello: laws??.
People who think that religion is suddenly going to go poof? No. It will not. Its all wishful conjecture. In my opinion, man almost has a DRIVE to believe in something more powerful. religious thought will certainly change but it will absolutely not disappear.
this reminds me of the book Oryx and Crake by margret atwood. Crake, something like a mad-scientist, creates a new race of man modeled after his preferences. Because he doesn't believe in god, he destroys parts of their brain that's has anything to do with worship. Nontheless the new humans began questioning where they came from and poof they start believing in Crake, their god. Eh, it's only a novel but these things are relevant.
You think we wouldn't have those laws if it wasn't for religion?
You think people need the bible to be good?
People already knew not to steal or murder before anything Christendom related happened.
Ever heard of the Dark Ages? A very violent time in Europe that came AFTER Christianity.
Ming China 1368-1644 was one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history.
Without religion.
There was Confucianism, but that's not religion, there is no "god" or greater being, it's a Chinese ethical and philosophical system.
Most of the people in Japan and China today are not religious, yet Christianity was never really there and it's quite peaceful there.
Laws are there because of humans, they are there even if there is no religion in the whole country.
I can't name a lot more countries because many were colonized and converted to Christianity, and Islam conquered a large part as well (and yet many of those countries are very violent and unsafe).
What does education have to do with religion?
Lol if anything education does is make the person question religion itself, if anything we know is the most educated countries tend not to be religious at all.
You could be right, the more we know about science, technology, the universe, the more we find out and discover, the more Christianity and its bible changes.
Maybe that will just keep happening and people will keep following it blindly.
But let's not ignore the statistics, in the countries where people are educated and free to abandon their religion (aka developened countries), the amount of believers have gone downhill.
Europe is clearly far less religious than it used to be, people are actually thinking now.
In the United States the amount of non-believers have gone up as well from 8% of the population in 1990 to 15% in 2008.
2) I absolutely did not say anything about a bible, but then again we are not talking about Christianity are we? we are talking religion in general. In my opinion, religion evolves, it doesn't die.
3) What does education have to do with religion? Not much? Well, for one, hundreds of thousands of volumes of historical literature were burned in the dark ages you speak of. Any lick of literature we have before, during, and after the fall of Rome is really due to fervent bookmaking, brought to you exclusively by the church. Math, science and technology, you may not know this, was a fundamental part of the early church. I digress, I don't care to defend Christianity, because we both know that eventually the church would grow into a tyrant (suppressing much of the knowledge it had previously promoted).
And com'mon, you think that PEOPLE will suddenly stop believing in a god, afterlife, and divine retribution? Give me a break with the "educated people aren't believers" crap. Who cares about the US? You are of the first-world perspective, where religion doesn't have as much value anymore. Why would it? Are you starving? Do you have clothing on your back? Are you constantly seeing people around you die from disease? Is your woman being raped? Your son, has he been kidnapped? Your government, foul as any government may be, isn't killing it's own constituents. The fact that you aren't experiencing any of these things means that your very well off. Well off enough to not care about a god, whom most impoverished people pray will avenge them.
Seriously, we could go on and on about this. Is it really worth it?
the dark ages, it wasn't just the Christians. the christians, jews, and muslims were all locked in a war for jerusalem, but in the end the muslims won.
Japan without a religion? Buddhism IS a religion! (Many deities) oh, and Shinto is also A RELIGION. And since 1949, china is communist, and under government control. the state may be officially Athiest, but Taoism and Buddhism are supported.
Christianity and Islam aren't the only religions out there, Ever heard of Hinduism, Judiasm, Zoroastrinism, Santaria, and Voodoo, along with the religious system that was followed by the native Americans, The Norse System of the Vikings, and the many Polytheistic ideas of the ancient civilizations? There are and were others, but there are too many to list.
Religion has been around since the earliest of days, at least since they stopped being slaves to instinct, and started wondering about the world.
Do your homework before you start talking.
also, there will always be a religion of sorts, until Science once and for all either proves or disproves that Some sort of God exists.(Even if the government tries to force athiesm on the world. )
I never said Christianity is the only religion..
Christianity happenened to be the major religion in Europe, and Europe happened to colonize great parts of the world (and Islam conquering other parts).
That is why those two religions have the most adherents.
The Dark Ages is actually the name of a period of time in Europe...
Which began after the Roman empire fell (aka. sack of Rome), which was much earlier than the Crusades (now you do your homework, hypocrit:)
Japan actually has a great portion of atheists, so does China.
Not all Buddhists, Taoists or Shintoists believe in a "god".
I've asked them, and you can look it up yourself why they do so.
Some do it to be spiritual, or to honor their ancestors, or because it's their country's tradition or culture (mostly the last three).
These words do not necessarily mean religion.
I know Christianity and Islam aren't the only two religions out there sherlock, as I said before there's certain religions who make up for a very high percentage of the religious world population.
Religion is here because humans didn't know better.
So yes as science further disproves the claims in the Quran and the Bible and further discovers more flaws... the more religion will disappear.
Even though it's hard to disprove some things in there that were made up.
(Even if the government forces religion on the world, which we both know also existed/exists.)