Islam v Christianity-what it boils down to

[baldmosher]

Yes, children are forced into religion. A child does not have the mental ability to combat bullshit. It's brainwashing without as much effort.

I am sure you're right, given the amount of effort required just to explain why I don't believe in God to someone who does believe in God and retorts with "but why?" without ever seeing things from a non-believer's point of view. I've got it down to a fine art now because I don't try to persuade people that they are wrong. It destroys their argument completely if you argue that both sides are just as likely to be correct, because you are agreeing with them, and they can't prove it, and neither can you.

Does "brainwashing" children with religion diminish their bullshit detection system in later life too? Why is this specific to religion? Was I brainwashed with science?

I can't sift through the enormous stack of evidence for all aspects of science, there's a massive leap of faith required every time I push the switch that the room will light up. Another to assume that the sun will rise every morning. That leap gets easier every single time. You may call it faith; I call it acceptance.

I was brought up a Christian by a CofE vicar but as soon as I was taught the basics of science, the idea of God just didn't make any sense. Were my parents brainwashed or did they choose to believe in God based on their own experiences?

When I went to a Pathfinders camp aged 10 I had my first "religious experience". The power of collective worship cannot be explained by science.

When I was taught about other religions in RE, all of them made a lot of sense. But they were obviously just brought about by cultural differences. I would not have realised this if I hadn't been taught RE at school.

Children are perhaps not equally capable of detecting bullshit but it's more likely that some are more pliant than others and just don't care what the right answer is if it isn't precisely what they believe. It's like when kids start doing GCSEs and have to forget their previous understanding to be able to understand the correct model. And then they go on to A-Levels and have to forget their previous understanding to be able to understand the correct model. And then they go on to do a degree.... PhD.... etc. No model is ever perfect, it's just an explanation of how things work. Eventually you can't explain things in any more detail because you can't detect them. So... God did it!

Asking anti-scientists to use science to explain unscientific acts in the Bible is hilarious. Conversely, anyone can explain a scientific act in the Bible through religion.

Most people just don't care what's correct or not, they will believe whatever they feel they can understand or accept as fact. Who can blame them? "God did it" and "God put that there to test our faith" is a much simpler explanation than trying to understand the intricacies of quantum theory, the process of evolutionary development, and whatever the fuck "primordial ooze" was supposed to be. Carbon + Hydrogen + Lightning => Bacteria?

Blaise Pascal believed in God because it was logically more beneficial to believe than not believe in God. What effort is required? Just a bit of faith. It didn't stop him being a scientist and mathematician, and it doesn't stop anyone else. You can't disprove God.

I can see some sense in that approach. There are quantum physicists who are devout Christians. The two only conflict if you insist on taking the entire Bible literally, which means you have to believe that Noah created a boat and piled on two of every single animal in the entire world, and that Jesus walked on water, and God will smite you down if you wear two different types of cloth. Bearing in mind that at the time of the Bible, nobody knew that we are made up almost entirely of empty space, living on a universally insignficant rock made up almost entirely of empty space, and floating in the middle of almost entirely empty space. Or are we?

As for the last part of your post, are you trying to tell us that religion is not the cause of any ill in the world?

I was trying to say only what I specifically said. Anything you suggest I might have said but didn't say is clearly not what I said but what you said.

If a man uses his religion as justification, his religion is not at fault, he is.
If people simply believe a man's teachings, their religion is not at fault, they are.
Everyone has responsibility for their own actions.
Anyone who doesn't is either deluded, megalomanic, or seriously mentally ill. Or maybe they actually are hearing the voice of God telling them to kill kill kill? We will never know.

Waco was not a distant product of Judaism, it was the product of gullible people believing anything they are told.

What about the gullible people who allegedly gave up their life savings this summer because a preacher told them he'd recalculated that the world would end again? And it didn't again. Imbeciles.

I'd go to R.E and my teacher would tell me god loves me,
then i'd got to physics and my teacher there would tell me it's bollocks lol.

Strange, my RE teachers told me that different religions believe different things. Did you go to a Catholic school?

Apparently, if you were brainwashed as a child, you would only be able to believe one of those teachers....? Surely a teenager who is perfectly capable of understanding the concepts of science is capable of working out for themselves what's real and what's not.

Nowadays, if you want to produce a nation of compliant automatons, you don't need religion. You set up a social hierarchy that is impervious to criticism, making people believe that their desires and votes counts for nothing, and that they have no control over their own lives. You continue to tell them that Facebook is brilliant and that

That's the atheist approach to human control, where religion is another distracting side show and a stick to beat people with. Is that really any better than the fear of God? Probably not.

Clearly if we win the EPL and UCL this season, Allah is the one true God

 

[didactic]

Correct, it is currently 1431-1432 in the Islamic calendar.

Muslims do not believe their religion started with Muhammad infact according to the Quran he was the LAST of their prophets. The one who came after Jesus Christ who they believe in too.<br /><br />-- Fri Oct 14, 2011 12:04 pm --<br /><br />

utter rubbish!!
forced conversion starts with parents of all religions who tell their impressionable kids, by being force fed a particular faith from birth giving them little chance of deciding from themselves.
some will realise as they get older and choose themselves.
but many will be indoctrinated.

So by your logic everyone born into a particular religion has no free will and automatically follows that faith. That is false. Also how is forced conversion if the child has no faith to begin with?. Indoctrination sounds like a word made popular by the recent association of terrorism with Islam. Parents will always guide their children into whatever beliefs they have regardless of religious or otherwise. Ask Uma Thurman why she is a hippy or Madonnas children why they do not eat meat. Thats part of being a parent they have a right to do what they think is best for their children.

Also anyone who actually believes the world would be a better place without religion is highly deluded it offers a moral compass to people who would otherwise be unhinged. It also offers comfort to those who lack hope. Its simply been manipulated like everything else once the powers that be realise its potential for control.

 

[baldmosher]

most religions are based on fear

No. Most religions are based on faith.

It took me 25 years of hearing the mantra before I was able to understand that GOD IS LOVE.

Everything else is piffle as far as I'm concerned.

Science takes the mysticism out of love, but it doesn't stop it being real. I have faith in love.

 

[tonea2003]

[-- Fri Oct 14, 2011 12:04 pm --

utter rubbish!!
forced conversion starts with parents of all religions who tell their impressionable kids, by being force fed a particular faith from birth giving them little chance of deciding from themselves.
some will realise as they get older and choose themselves.
but many will be indoctrinated.

So by your logic everyone born into a particular religion has no free will and automatically follows that faith. That is false. Also how is forced conversion if the child has no faith to begin with?. Indoctrination sounds like a word made popular by the recent association of terrorism with Islam. Parents will always guide their children into whatever beliefs they have regardless of religious or otherwise. Ask Uma Thurman why she is a hippy or Madonnas children why they do not eat meat. Thats part of being a parent they have a right to do what they think is best for their children.

Also anyone who actually believes the world would be a better place without religion is highly deluded it offers a moral compass to people who would otherwise be unhinged. It also offers comfort to those who lack hope. Its simply been manipulated like everything else once the powers that be realise its potential for control.[/quote]

get your facts right and stop trying to be clever, no child is born into a religion, they are brought into the world free of religion by parents who have adopted a religion by choice or by methods mentioned above
as you well know children are easily manipulated to believe many things
and constant teaching of doctrines will sink in to the easily led
as it would with anything
aka teaching our kids to support city.

how would you know if a world would or would not be better without religion have you any facts? no i thought not.
moral compass does not require religion never has never will.
what lack of hope are you refering to that religion can comfort that nothing else can?<br /><br />-- Fri Oct 14, 2011 12:42 pm --<br /><br />

most religions are based on fear

No. Most religions are based on faith.

It took me 25 years of hearing the mantra before I was able to understand that GOD IS LOVE.

Everything else is piffle as far as I'm concerned.

Science takes the mysticism out of love, but it doesn't stop it being real. I have faith in love.

what has a god got to do with the human emotion love?

 

[didactic]

get your facts right and stop trying to be clever, no child is born into a religion, they are brought into the world free of religion by parents who have adopted a religion by choice or by methods mentioned above
as you well know children are easily manipulated to believe many things
and constant teaching of doctrines will sink in to the easily led
as it would with anything
aka teaching our kids to support city.

how would you know if a world would or would not be better without religion have you any facts? no i thought not.
moral compass does not require religion never has never will.
what lack of hope are you refering to that religion can comfort that nothing else can?

You are speaking from your own perspective hence why what you say makes sence to you. There and billions of people on this planet and there have been billions who have died believing in a faith. These children who you are screaming where converted by force many have grown up and embraced religion themselves. Your views on how and what religion is are not shared by everyone. You can tell someone they are fools for having faith and they can respond with you are fools for not.

There was a time where religion was forced on to people by threat of death now you can do what you want that said I wonder why so many people get offended by the topic?. Live and let live you do not believe then dont. Its completely up to you.

 

[tonea2003]

get your facts right and stop trying to be clever, no child is born into a religion, they are brought into the world free of religion by parents who have adopted a religion by choice or by methods mentioned above
as you well know children are easily manipulated to believe many things
and constant teaching of doctrines will sink in to the easily led
as it would with anything
aka teaching our kids to support city.

how would you know if a world would or would not be better without religion have you any facts? no i thought not.
moral compass does not require religion never has never will.
what lack of hope are you refering to that religion can comfort that nothing else can?

You are speaking from your own perspective hence why what you say makes sence to you. There and billions of people on this planet and there have been billions who have died believing in a faith. These children who you are screaming where converted by force many have grown up and embraced religion themselves. Your views on how and what religion is are not shared by everyone. You can tell someone they are fools for having faith and they can respond with you are fools for not.

There was a time where religion was forced on to people by threat of death now you can do what you want that said I wonder why so many people get offended by the topic?. Live and let live you do not believe then dont. Its completely up to you.

your use of emotional script is quite telling.
why has screaming come into this
i could say the same about your views being not shared, i'm not sure what that proves.
the pivitol word here is faith
i assume you have this faith in the unproven hence your stubborn defence.
where as i do not.
i wonder if children left to thier own devices would have the same embracing of faith.

 

[baldmosher]

what has a god got to do with the human emotion love?

Any religion that teaches compassion, forgiveness, understanding, and love demonstrably (if not explicitly) believes that they are one and the same thing. The only difference is the manner or extent to which they personify their belief into a deity or deities.

The Incas worshipped the Sun; plenty of ancient religions did. Probably more accurate in terms of treating something as an all-powerful deity; the Sun provides everything we have on earth. But it's just one of an unimaginable number of suns. Galileo destroyed that religion before the Spanish even got there. It doesn't cheapen the importance of the Sun to us.

'Modern' religions often claim their way will provide everything for when we die, but we first have to have faith that we only physically die when we die. There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that this is not the case; the question is therefore the definition of "death".

Energy cannot be destroyed, only dissipated. Entropy turns us into atoms. Electromagnetism turns atoms into us. Religion and science are the same thing, just worded differently.

The infinite and infinitessimal could be one and the same thing. Frankly, that's enough of a headfuck to stop me caring whether a god exists. It's unimaginable to absolutely believe that one doesn't exist, and since one can't prove it either way, one can never assume that one is right. It's a personal question of whether it matters.

Nothing should ever be taken literally.

i assume you [didactic] have this faith in the unproven hence your stubborn defence.

Go on then, explain how my complete absence of faith fits into this hypothesis.

 

[didactic]

your use of emotional script is quite telling.
why has screaming come into this
i could say the same about your views being not shared, i'm not sure what that proves.
the pivitol word here is faith
i assume you have this faith in the unproven hence your stubborn defence.
where as i do not.
i wonder if children left to thier own devices would have the same embracing of faith.

Strange that you find something telling when I follow no religion or organised belief system what so ever.
I havent screamed in any of this. Yes my veiws will not be shared by everyone but do you actually know what they are?.
People believe in good conqours evil, karma and many other unproven things.
You have assumed wrong I am not a follower of any of these systems of orgnaised religion just read as much as I can to learn as much about people as I can in the short time on earth we call life.
Not all children have been raised in a faith. I believe our society was better as a whole when they were history tells those tales.

 

[pirate]

your use of emotional script is quite telling.
why has screaming come into this
i could say the same about your views being not shared, i'm not sure what that proves.
the pivitol word here is faith
i assume you have this faith in the unproven hence your stubborn defence.
where as i do not.
i wonder if children left to thier own devices would have the same embracing of faith.

Strange that you find something telling when I follow no religion or organised belief system what so ever.
I havent screamed in any of this. Yes my veiws will not be shared by everyone but do you actually know what they are?.
People believe in good conqours evil, karma and many other unproven things.
You have assumed wrong I am not a follower of any of these systems of orgnaised religion just read as much as I can to learn as much about people as I can in the short time on earth we call life.
Not all children have been raised in a faith. I believe our society was better as a whole when they were history tells those tales.

when does history tell us this?
when was our society better than it is now and what evidence is there that children were raised in faith?

 

[baldmosher]

That's a fallacious argument.