Islamic Terrorism: is religion/belief no matter how misguided, the main motivator?

Evil people will always find something to use to manipulate simple, downtrodden people into committing atrocities, Islam is just the latest in a long line. Desperate people really aren't hard to brainwash, whether that be with religion, nationalism, racism or something else. Scientology exists ffs
 
I have always felt those who follow religion are also hedging their bets, wanting to believe there is something else after this short time spent on a freak of nature.

As long as it doesn't impact me or my family, I'm cool with it.

I suspect so many lives would be saved if they believed there was jack shit, and made the most of the time we all have.

Love thy neighbour?

I don't need to have any book tell me that we should be kind and not kill people.

Like George Carlin said, Religion is all about my magic man in the sky is bigger and better than your magic man in the sky.

Absurd really.
 
Imagine I ask to borrow your last pound, offering a vague chance I might give you a fiver in eighty years.

No?

How about you agree to do whatever I say (on pain of eternal damnation), for the rest of the only life you are guaranteed, in the blind hope you'll get another?
 
Like George Carlin said, Religion is all about my magic man in the sky is bigger and better than your magic man in the sky.

Absurd really.

If you think of it, staunchly not believing in any religion is itself a religion.

A religion is not necessarily attached to a god (such as the Abrahamic religions) or many gods (such as hinduism, paganism, there are many). Atheism even existed in the olden days as religion itself. Greeks who disbelieved in god(s) yet cling on to the words of Homer, is what you are exhibiting now by clinging to the words of George Carlin. Religion is belief, and it doesn't take a god figure to validate it. Atheism has been the bread and butter of civilization, but was never propelled to its heights that it is now becoming because there were simply no 'holy book' (or unholy / antiholy book?) to ascribe its teaching. But we all know its doctrines. 1. There is no god. 2. Everything can be explained with knowledge. 3. Mono and polytheity is the heresy of this belief. It has its own set of unwritten tenets, that people in this thread expresses. You believe religion is absurd for example. These were not derived naturally from birth, but influenced by your exposures to what is atheism and the atheist construct in the media.

George Carlin is literally your version of a prophet :)
 
If only we had firm evidence the dinosaurs existed.
To be fair, there is an argument that belief in science is pretty much the same in belief in religion to most people. I don't have anywhere near the scientific knowledge to work out for myself if anything they say is true, but we just blindly believe scientists in much the same way religious people believe priests and the like.

People tell me atoms exist, I pretty much just take their word for it. People tell me this lump of rock is proof of dinosaurs existing, they tell me they can tell how old the rock is and that it's real, I pretty much just believe it. I'm sure I could dedicate my life to doing all the experiments required to find out If this is true, but I haven't and I won't, instead I'll just believe it based on nothing but other peoples word.
 
If you think of it, staunchly not believing in any religion is itself a religion.

A religion is not necessarily attached to a god (such as the Abrahamic religions) or many gods (such as hinduism, paganism, there are many). Atheism even existed in the olden days as religion itself. Greeks who disbelieved in god(s) yet cling on to the words of Homer, is what you are exhibiting now by clinging to the words of George Carlin. Religion is belief, and it doesn't take a god figure to validate it. Atheism has been the bread and butter of civilization, but was never propelled to its heights that it is now becoming because there were simply no 'holy book' (or unholy / antiholy book?) to ascribe its teaching. But we all know its doctrines. 1. There is no god. 2. Everything can be explained with knowledge. 3. Mono and polytheity is the heresy of this belief. It has its own set of unwritten tenets, that people in this thread expresses. You believe religion is absurd for example. These were not derived naturally from birth, but influenced by your exposures to what is atheism and the atheist construct in the media.

George Carlin is literally your version of a prophet :)

Haha, fair play.

George Carlin isn't offering the caveat of an after life, though.
 
If only we had firm evidence the dinosaurs existed.

Now I don't know which religion you are referring to but Islam validates the existence of dinosaurs because it is after all the 'dabbah' that has been scattered across the face of the Earth (dabbah is beast).

I think you are implying about the theory of evolution, which would make an interesting debate indeed :)
 
I have always felt those who follow religion are also hedging their bets, wanting to believe there is something else after this short time spent on a freak of nature.

As long as it doesn't impact me or my family, I'm cool with it.

I suspect so many lives would be saved if they believed there was jack shit, and made the most of the time we all have.

Love thy neighbour?

I don't need to have any book tell me that we should be kind and not kill people.

Interesting 'In our time' discussion this morning about what folk used to think about the afterlife and how religions have played on their 'medieval' fears e.g. by encouraging folk to pay in one way or another to to get time taken off their time in purgatory; wholly corrupt which was one of the main driving forces for Martin Luther and protestantism.
 

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