# Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion



## Dameon

Available in full on Youtube. Thought some people might be into it. A great, scathing, very intelligent attack on religion (sorry believers).


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## roughdraft

the power of Christ compels you!!!

naw this is good stuff and very necessary, thanks for posting


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## Deleted member 24029

@roughdraft See, now I want to quote that movie!
"...very good day for an exorcism..."
See what you started. ..


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## Dameon

I really love Richard Dawkins. If you know the word "meme", you can thank him (and I highly recommend looking into what memes are, it's probably not what you think).


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## ResistMuchObeyLittle

Books that I enjoyed more than this book are the books-- How to be a stoic, Epictetus, Seneca-Letters to a stoic and Marcus Aurelius Meditations.


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## Gypsybones

I’ve read the book or actually I listened to the book, multiple times. I have a lot of professor Dawkins books and they are a joy to listen to.

Also check out Christopher Hitchens ‘God is not Great- how religion poisons everything ‘

... and here you go


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## Gypsybones

Dameon said:


> I really love Richard Dawkins. If you know the word "meme", you can thank him (and I highly recommend looking into what memes are, it's probably not what you think).



Absolutely correct


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## Gypsybones

Wile I’m on the subject, here is a book by the late great professor Sagan (hail Sagan) 
This one is a little more on the pseudoscience subject, but also gives god a swift kick in his nonexistent ass. (Chapter 5, a dragon in my garage)




Sorry, but unfortunately, the man him self didn’t read any of his books on audio :-(


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## Gypsybones

Oh wow, I’m dumb! I just realized you didn’t post the audio book version. Oops 


It’s ok, I’ll remedy that


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## ResistMuchObeyLittle

Hail Sagan! Dragons of Eden is a classic!


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## Gypsybones

Here is a conversation with 4 incredible minds that all have written books trashing religion.


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## Gypsybones

You notice the look that pastor gives Dawkins? That man is a psychopath


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## noothgrush

Atheists have no imagination


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## Maxnomad

Yea atheists are tiresome. Imagine criticizing a nonsensical approach to decision making and also being a capitalist


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## Maxnomad

Also doing apophatic theology by accident lol


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## roughdraft

Maxnomad said:


> Also doing apophatic theology by accident lol



what's that? ::bookworm::


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## roughdraft

noothgrush said:


> Atheists have no imagination



true, i believe in 'something'

religion is very bad as it is but imagination is great


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## Dameon

noothgrush said:


> Atheists have no imagination


There's a difference between being able to imagine things, and believing in imaginary things.


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## Gypsybones

noothgrush said:


> Atheists have no imagination


 How laughable of a notion, to assert that non-believers have no imagination from people who believe as they are told, with no evidence to back up the claims.( I gave up talking to imaginary friends when I was 5)
Why don’t you read/listen to the books and then make a decision? Fear of hearing a better argument ?

Blind faith is just the refusal to change your mind. It’s the grasping of ignorance with the inability to ever admit that you might be wrong.

Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.


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## Gypsybones

Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.

If religious instruction were not allowed until children have attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.


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## Maxnomad

Apophatic theology is a negative approach to understanding god. It's based on the idea that we can't understand the absolute. There will always be things we don't know, and if god is the sum of all being then we can't know god, not perfectly. It's easier to approach the idea of what god is not. (Obviously this raises a contradiction, but this is a paragraph blurb on a train kid forum an I'm an oogle). For instance you could say god is not stabbing your friends in the back. God made us in their image, so acting shitty is straying from the path of god. Or, god is not a beardy guy in the sky, and god is not midwestern politicians trying to control women's bodies. God is not our fear or our anger. Faith would be just living with never being totally certain. Someone who knows they're going to heaven can never have faith


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## benton

this is one of my favorite topics

all religion is man-made and Jesus never created a bureaucracy

I believe it is possible for one to have a direct experience of The Creator and/or Christ Jesus and this experience cannot be quantified and is proof of nothing.

We can only speculate - no one knows if there is an after life and other than direct experience (which is subjective in my view) or choosing to believe (faith means belief) we cannot demonstrate if there is a being or force that created everything, or if there isn't (which is a big part of why this life can be so interesting imo).


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## Gypsybones

A Pascalian wager all wrapped up in modern language. How boring


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## Maxnomad

Are you sure? Cause it sounds like you're thinking of something else, I'm not seeing pascal's wager in any of that. Regardless, if you're opposed to people trying to set themselves up as authorities and run other people's lives that makes sense to me, but scientism isn't your friend


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## Gypsybones

Scientism? Did you make that up? That’s cute, but it’s totally bunk.


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## Gypsybones

To quote hitch

I’m an atheist. I'm not neutral about religion, I'm hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one. And I mean not just organized religion, but religious belief itself.


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## noothgrush

Gypsybones said:


> To quote hitch
> 
> I’m an atheist. I'm not neutral about religion, I'm hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one. And I mean not just organized religion, but religious belief itself.


Why?


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## noothgrush

Gypsybones said:


> Scientism? Did you make that up? That’s cute, but it’s totally bunk.


 scientism is a real thing.


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## Maxnomad

Yea it's worth googling


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## MFB

I cant understand being hostile toward religion. Ive known way to many religious ppl that were really good ppl, mainly bc of thier faith. Its not my place to tell someone what to believe.

If some ol Granny wants to pray for her grandkids morning to night, or if some kid from Laos wants to go see a fortune teller to sort out his life, that sounds pretty okay to me. Whats life wo whimsy?

It doesnt matter what someone believes. 
But rather how those beliefs affect thier behavior and treatment towards others.


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## Dameon

MFB said:


> I cant understand being hostile toward religion. Ive known way to many religious ppl that were really good ppl, mainly bc of thier faith. Its not my place to tell someone what to believe.


First off, hating religion doesn't necessarily translate to hating religious people. Second, it's not faith in god that makes people good, ever. If you need the threat/reward of god to make you a good person, you're not a good person. There's no evidence that being religious makes you a more "good" person than somebody who's not religious, and there's no evidence that somebody becomes a better person just because they've accepted a religion.

As for reasons to hate religion, it's a long list. There's the fact that it's used to control people, regardless of whether they share your religion. Many states still have anti-homosexuality laws, many counties have laws against selling alcohol on a Sunday; religious people aren't content to just run their own lives according to their religion, they are set on running everybody else's, too. They vote for politicians who want to use that religion to control you, and they vote for those politicians based on their religion. There's very few openly non-religious politicians in higher government.

There's the massive amounts of shit that religion enables, from suicide bombers to churches covering up for rapists and child molesters; it's not surprising, when the major religions all condone genocide, rape, and slavery. There's all the native tribes decimated by missionaries, the wars started over who's what religion. Some of it would be possible without religion, but a lot of it is driven by religion.

Religion uses brainwashing techniques to rob people of their self-identity, dictating who they associate with, how they're allowed to live their lives, and what they're allowed to think. It's used to manipulate desperate people who don't have much to give into giving their money to rich scum, hoping that if they give enough money to god's representative, he'll cure their cancer. It's used to manipulate people into believing in whatever they're told, even if the evidence directly contradicts that.

I could honestly go on all day, but you get the idea.


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## MFB

Dameon said:


> First off, hating religion doesn't necessarily translate to hating religious people. Second, it's not faith in god that makes people good, ever. If you need the threat/reward of god to make you a good person, you're not a good person. There's no evidence that being religious makes you a more "good" person than somebody who's not religious, and there's no evidence that somebody becomes a better person just because they've accepted a religion.
> 
> As for reasons to hate religion, it's a long list. There's the fact that it's used to control people, regardless of whether they share your religion. Many states still have anti-homosexuality laws, many counties have laws against selling alcohol on a Sunday; religious people aren't content to just run their own lives according to their religion, they are set on running everybody else's, too. They vote for politicians who want to use that religion to control you, and they vote for those politicians based on their religion. There's very few openly non-religious politicians in higher government.
> 
> There's the massive amounts of shit that religion enables, from suicide bombers to churches covering up for rapists and child molesters; it's not surprising, when the major religions all condone genocide, rape, and slavery. There's all the native tribes decimated by missionaries, the wars started over who's what religion. Some of it would be possible without religion, but a lot of it is driven by religion.
> 
> Religion uses brainwashing techniques to rob people of their self-identity, dictating who they associate with, how they're allowed to live their lives, and what they're allowed to think. It's used to manipulate desperate people who don't have much to give into giving their money to rich scum, hoping that if they give enough money to god's representative, he'll cure their cancer. It's used to manipulate people into believing in whatever they're told, even if the evidence directly contradicts that.
> 
> I could honestly go on all day, but you get the idea.




To your 1st paragraph; agreed. There are shitty people, religious, agnostic, athiest, etc. What I am saying is I know a lot of ppl that have committed themselves to a religion and it works for them. Im not gonna shit on that. 

To your second; anyone that doesnt think for themselves will end up being controlled in one way another. I dont think religion should be blamed for ignorance. Correlation rather than causation. 
And, politics are all bullshit regardless of religion

Third, I promise ya all those things would still be happening without religion. Humans would find another reason or ideology to justify atrocities. It just is, was, and always will be. 

Fourth, stupid ppl will be manipulated with or without religion. Thats nature. 

I started volunteering at the YMCA 3 years ago, bc I felt I owed some good tonthe world. Everyone there is hardcore christian. I was worried at first due to my appearance, lifestyle, beliefs. ALL of the ppl I have met there have been amazing. 
They dont care what you are, they care about being good to ppl and promoting community and positivity. They dont push an agenda on you. Which is why i said, I dont care what ya believe, but how it affects your life. 

Im agnostic. But if religion helps you in an authentic way, then do that shit.


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## Gypsybones

Most of your arguments come down to privilege. You have never lived in a society where you cannot take a break from your religion; where the phrase “god damn it” gets you locked up or killed because of blasphemy laws or being treated like chattel with no personal rights based on the fact you are female, lower caste, or different color from the ruling party.

There is one, just one, abortion clinic in the whole state of Mississippi. Why? Religion. The reason so many women in this country don’t have complete rights to their own bodies, is religion.

Take for example:
Say a man, just one, held a young girl down and sewed up her vagina, only leaving enough room to urinate and menstruate out of. We would probably be in general consensus that the death penalty would be to easy on him. But let that happen thousands of times and say it is part of your religion, then people tell you that you must respect their beliefs. It’s preposterous.

Don’t even get me started on what your “harmless believes” do to the lgbtq community.


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## Gypsybones

Here is my challenge. Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first - I have been asking it for some time - awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.


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## Gypsybones

You sir, have high-jacked a tread that damion and myself were engaging in the exchange of free ideas and independent thought. Ideas that run counter to your own and rather than ignore this humanist discourse, you felt compelled to chime in with your two cents and snarky comments. You demand that us non-believers respect your “beliefs” but you refuse to give any credence to our stance. 

You just had to tell us how wrong we are. Like a good little believer, you tow the party line. Get those damned atheists and spread gods word by the sword, if need be. 

Well, there you have it. My reason for saying fuck your religion and the horse it stole to ride in on.


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## benton

Gypsybones said:


> To quote hitch
> 
> I’m an atheist. I'm not neutral about religion, I'm hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one. And I mean not just organized religion, but religious belief itself.


Christopher Hitchens handily won this debate against Dennis Prager and Dinesh D'Souza in my opinion. Here's the link to the youtube video.

I probably share your hostility towards religion, which in my view is both manmade and serves Satan and not the Most High God (assuming that these concepts actually exist, which is of course debatable).

I'm not sure what you mean by "religious belief" however.

And I do want to add that your characterizations of the behaviors of the other posters in this thread are opinions and we all know what those are worth...


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## Dameon

Gypsybones said:


> You sir, have high-jacked a tread that damion and myself were engaging in the exchange of free ideas and independent thought.


It's not a very free exchange of ideas if you're berating people for coming in with different opinions.



MFB said:


> To your 1st paragraph; agreed. There are shitty people, religious, agnostic, athiest, etc. What I am saying is I know a lot of ppl that have committed themselves to a religion and it works for them. Im not gonna shit on that.


I'll address this, because it's what all your arguments come down to (people are bad regardless of religion). How many atheist terrorist organizations are there, compared to religious terrorist organizations? Can you name any atheist equivalent to churches and their methods of brainwashing people while fleecing them for their money? How many people would you say that atheists have killed in the name of atheism throughout history?

You're arguing that people are good/bad equally without religion, but history just doesn't hold that up as true, and despite your own argument, you say that some people are made into better people _because_ of religion. So when people do bad things, they would do those bad things anyway, but when they do good things, you believe that those good things are because of their religion. I know plenty of atheists who volunteer and donate to charity without judging people for their appearance and beliefs.

Religion brainwashes people into behavior that they absolutely wouldn't do without religion, because religion teaches you to ignore evidence and believe what you're told, and you don't have to worry about dying in service to god because this world is just a small stop before eternity. This isn't something that happens without religion, you _need_ religion to convince people to prefer faith over facts. Yeah, you can argue there's theoretically atheist conmen, but is there an atheist equivalent to a megachurch? Atheism is all about critical thought, it's the opposite mentality of religion.

There's no such thing as a non-religious conversion camp, or an atheist suicide bomber. Religion gives people a shield to hide behind when they commit atrocities. Circumcised? Did the most sensitive part of your dick get removed without your consent and no anesthetic? It's okay, it's just religion.

Let's say that your local YMCA Christians are some magical perfect version of Christian, though. They don't vote based on religious agendas, they don't want you to convert and join their fold, they're just the ultimate nice Christian with no bad side. Quick analogy here, let's say there's a disease, and it affects most people badly, but one out of 100 acts as a carrier without the bad side effects. The problem is that they're still a carrier. Back from the analogy. Even if these Christians are as perfect as you think they are (hint: they're not), they still spread Christianity. If they're ultra-nice and accepting to you, maybe it's because that's a good way to spread their religion. Religion has bad side effects, and they're not just things people would do anyway.

Most of all, don't forget that your nice Christian friends worship a god that they believe is going to torture you for an infinite amount of time while they live in gold mansions and sing his praises, and your nice friends believe that this is good and right.


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## noothgrush

Dameon said:


> There's a difference between being able to imagine things, and believing in imaginary things.


How do you know what's real and what isn't? Expecting a "burden of proof" response.


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## noothgrush

Dameon said:


> It's not a very free exchange of ideas if you're berating people for coming in with different opinions.
> 
> 
> I'll address this, because it's what all your arguments come down to (people are bad regardless of religion). How many atheist terrorist organizations are there, compared to religious terrorist organizations? Can you name any atheist equivalent to churches and their methods of brainwashing people while fleecing them for their money? How many people would you say that atheists have killed in the name of atheism throughout history?
> 
> You're arguing that people are good/bad equally without religion, but history just doesn't hold that up as true, and despite your own argument, you say that some people are made into better people _because_ of religion. So when people do bad things, they would do those bad things anyway, but when they do good things, you believe that those good things are because of their religion. I know plenty of atheists who volunteer and donate to charity without judging people for their appearance and beliefs.
> 
> Religion brainwashes people into behavior that they absolutely wouldn't do without religion, because religion teaches you to ignore evidence and believe what you're told, and you don't have to worry about dying in service to god because this world is just a small stop before eternity. This isn't something that happens without religion, you _need_ religion to convince people to prefer faith over facts. Yeah, you can argue there's theoretically atheist conmen, but is there an atheist equivalent to a megachurch? Atheism is all about critical thought, it's the opposite mentality of religion.
> 
> There's no such thing as a non-religious conversion camp, or an atheist suicide bomber. Religion gives people a shield to hide behind when they commit atrocities. Circumcised? Did the most sensitive part of your dick get removed without your consent and no anesthetic? It's okay, it's just religion.
> 
> Let's say that your local YMCA Christians are some magical perfect version of Christian, though. They don't vote based on religious agendas, they don't want you to convert and join their fold, they're just the ultimate nice Christian with no bad side. Quick analogy here, let's say there's a disease, and it affects most people badly, but one out of 100 acts as a carrier without the bad side effects. The problem is that they're still a carrier. Back from the analogy. Even if these Christians are as perfect as you think they are (hint: they're not), they still spread Christianity. If they're ultra-nice and accepting to you, maybe it's because that's a good way to spread their religion. Religion has bad side effects, and they're not just things people would do anyway.
> 
> Most of all, don't forget that your nice Christian friends worship a god that they believe is going to torture you for an infinite amount of time while they live in gold mansions and sing his praises, and your nice friends believe that this is good and right.


Ok Christian doctrine is bullshit. But admitting that isn't atheism. Athiesm is denial of all god or gods. Its just another belief doctrine.


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## noothgrush

Gypsybones said:


> Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.
> 
> If religious instruction were not allowed until children have attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.


Your right we would all be fanatical capitalists or communists finding other reasons to justify killing each other.


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## MFB

Sorry to hijack the *thread, I thought it was an open forum! And Sweet T Swift GIF!

Its funny, bc Im not religious. But Im not bitter toward religion in the least. 
I never said anyone was wrong, only sharing my thoughts. 
I think my words are being twisted. 

I believe people can be ethical regardless of thier beliefs. Religious, atheist, or otherwise. Ive met good ppl of all creeds. I do think religion is being used as a scapegoat here for ppl's unethical actions. Perhaps you guys have had nothing but bad experiences w religious folk. Ive had a lot of good ones. 

I dont believe terrorism\suicide bombers\brainwashing\politics agendas\etc are tied to religion so much as they are tactical goals. I see Religion being used a distraction to justify actions toward social and economic goals that have nothing to do with religion. 
Furthermore, there have been many secular terrorist organizations. 

And again, I never said the religious folk I know are 'perfect'. They fuck up like the rest of us. I said they are good people, that have never pushed an agenda on anyone in my experience. They are an example of how religion works for some people. I think its presumptuous to assume theyre being good ppl in an effort to recruit ppl, or they are being good ppl bc of the reward of heaven. Imo The people Ive worked w are authentically nice bc that is reward in itself and its what they believe is right for them and only them. 

Again. Im not religious. And Im not arguing that there hasnt been a lot of bad that has come from religion, but there is also a lot of good. Im saying that religion helps a lot of people optimize themselves. I dont think there's a right or wrong. It's personal. People should be able to believe what they need to when they need to.


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## Dameon

noothgrush said:


> How do you know what's real and what isn't? Expecting a "burden of proof" response.


I assume you mean as far as gods go, since in the philosophical sense that's way too broad a question. Despite your dismissal of "burden of proof", it's very important. Besides that, it's impossible to prove something's not real, as far as gods and magic go. All these gods and magical people had no problem with showing off in the past, it's only apparently recently that every single one of them has developed a problem with proving their own existence, and their existence is contradictory to things we _do_ know and can prove.


noothgrush said:


> Ok Christian doctrine is bullshit. But admitting that isn't atheism. Athiesm is denial of all god or gods. Its just another belief doctrine.


I didn't just address Christianity, although some of my specific examples were from Christianity. Atheism isn't a belief doctrine; you aren't taught the principles of atheism by somebody, there isn't some sort of atheist scripture handed down by the elders. You aren't required to believe anything that you can't prove for yourself.


MFB said:


> I believe people can be ethical regardless of thier beliefs. Religious, atheist, or otherwise. Ive met good ppl of all creeds. I do think religion is being used as a scapegoat here for ppl's unethical actions. Perhaps you guys have had nothing but bad experiences w religious folk. Ive had a lot of good ones.


I'm not arguing that people can't be _moral_ regardless of their beliefs. I believe that your beliefs affect your worldview and your actions, especially when those beliefs require you to give up your capacity for critical thought. However, here's the problem, certain religious _ethics _are objectively immoral. Murdering your son in cold blood because a voice in the sky tells you to is ethical in biblical terms, but objectively immoral behavior. Beating your slave is immoral, but by biblical ethics it's okay (as long as you don't beat them to death). Having a crowd of youths torn to pieces because they make fun of you is ethical according to the bible, but I hope we can all agree it's immoral.

And while these are specifically Christian ethics, all the major religions have this feature. There's a difference between ethics handed down from a religious source, and morals derived from sound philosophical principles.


MFB said:


> I dont believe terrorism\suicide bombers\brainwashing\politics agendas\etc are tied to religion so much as they are tactical goals. I see Religion being used a distraction to justify actions toward social and economic goals that have nothing to do with religion.
> Furthermore, there have been many secular terrorist organizations.


Secular terrorism is very different from religious terrorism.
Religious terrorism is more violent and deadly, and the more religious an organization is, the more attacks it will carry out.
As religious terrorism has grown, the rate and lethality of attacks has grown dramatically.
Saying that "non-religious people do it too" is disingenuous; they don't do it the same, or nearly as much. Religion creates specific opportunities to exploit in somebody's psyche; it requires suspension of critical thought, it requires belief in what you're taught over evidence. It gives you a system of ethics based on a history of genocide, rape, and slavery in the name of a creator that mercilessly punishes non-believers and the disobedient. 


MFB said:


> Again. Im not religious. And Im not arguing that there hasnt been a lot of bad that has come from religion, but there is also a lot of good. Im saying that religion helps a lot of people optimize themselves. I dont think there's a right or wrong. It's personal. People should be able to believe what they need to when they need to.


See, here's where your problem is. It's like you're stuck halfway; you admit that "a lot of bad comes from religion" (to paraphrase you), but you can't admit that those bad things are done through religious people, using the religion. And here's the thing, I can quantify the bad stuff that comes from religion; I can show you solid, numbers-based evidence that religion encourages and enables people to do that bad stuff, that people do it in higher numbers because of religion. Show me some numbers that show religion helps more people than it hurts.

Meanwhile, people flock to religious 12-step programs to treat addiction, when the success rates are abysmal, instead of using actual science-based approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Doesn't seem like religion is helping them optimize themselves when it counts; in fact it's setting them up for a cycle of addiction and hopelessness when they could get the help they need and have much better odds. Conversion camps where gay people are beaten, insulted, and berated turn out broken people with life-long mental issues; that doesn't seem optimal. I don't think you can be your optimal self while you believe in a magical invisible sky genie that will punish you for thinking wrong thoughts.

Nobody's saying anybody shouldn't have the right to their beliefs. Nobody's proposing making religion illegal, that kind of stuff just makes religion stronger anyway; they love their martyrdom. Don't build straw men.


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## Gypsybones

I’m being lazy and not quoting anyone, but I’m sure y’all can keep with the program.



The faithful believe that certain truths have been 'revealed.' The skeptics and secularists believe that truth is only to be sought by free inquiry and trial and error. Only one of those positions is dogmatic.




Here is the point about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true - that religion has caused innumerate people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. In the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.


There are all kinds of stupid people that annoy me, but what annoys me most is a lazy argument.




*to make a point my friend, it was not a berating 




“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”

~Richard Dawkins


Goodnight folks


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## Gypsybones




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## benton

Dameon said:


> Religion brainwashes people into behavior that they absolutely wouldn't do without religion, because religion teaches you to ignore evidence and believe what you're told, and you don't have to worry about dying in service to god because this world is just a small stop before eternity. This isn't something that happens without religion, you _need_ religion to convince people to prefer faith over facts. Yeah, you can argue there's theoretically atheist conmen, but is there an atheist equivalent to a megachurch? Atheism is all about critical thought, it's the opposite mentality of religion.



Speaking from personal experience, with some religions its actually much worse than what you are describing. Children who are raised in mind control cults such as Jehovah's Witnesses experience a stunting of their ability to think and reason for themselves whereas without the mind control of the cult being applied, presumably the child's ability to think and reason independently would develop normally.

When you see a group of Jehovah's Witnesses in public proselytizing, any children in the group are being subjected to literal mind control which in my opinion is child abuse and one of the effects of which is the hobbling of the development of the child's intellect with respect to logic and reason, because in order to keep the child under mind control as they mature into adulthood, it is necessary that the cult member not have the ability to think for themselves. What I have described from experience is directly Satanic in my view.

edit: with respect to "truth" and religion: truth is manifested each moment and is living and in flow (dynamic)

truth can never be possessed as an object because as soon as one seizes truth and tries to hold onto it, the flow is interrupted and the "truth" becomes a dead thing (static), and truth cannot possibly be a dead thing


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## MFB

I was thinking about responding, but I dont see anything productive coming from an ongoing back and forth. 
So Ill say, agree to disagree. 
And
God bless you, my doods!


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## Maxnomad

Some believe that that truth has been revealed. But, this belief runs counter to faith itself, which is by definition persistence in the face of uncertainty.

Experiments can only be conducted under conditions of prior non-knowledge. Galileo dropping stuff off the tower of pisa was conducting a test based on untested assumptions about the nature of stuff and towers. Science is unavoidably embedded in culture, and culturally informed.

"Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically. We believe" honestly this is such a wildly incoherent statement (it does not cohere) that it needs no comment. Here's one anyway. If you're not a physicist, you can only have blind faith in physics

What is real is not an overly broad philosophical question. I was actually just flipping through the relatively short book "what is real", and I'm looking forward to it

Here's this
https://info-buddhism.com/Tibet_as_...5GHgLAw1wqDquLn-1tFOmdNnZUkEMjOxgeAWsSE5pumOE


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## Dameon

Maxnomad said:


> Some believe that that truth has been revealed. But, this belief runs counter to faith itself, which is by definition persistence in the face of uncertainty.
> 
> Experiments can only be conducted under conditions of prior non-knowledge. Galileo dropping stuff off the tower of pisa was conducting a test based on untested assumptions about the nature of stuff and towers. Science is unavoidably embedded in culture, and culturally informed.
> 
> "Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically. We believe" honestly this is such a wildly incoherent statement (it does not cohere) that it needs no comment. Here's one anyway. If you're not a physicist, you can only have blind faith in physics


I like how you paraphrased what I said as something very different, and then said it was "incoherent". Yeah, it's incoherent when you change all the words. Speaking of incoherent, how is Galileo's experiment related to culture? Care to elaborate on why you think experiments require "conditions of prior non-knowledge"? Scientists do experiments to verify the results of other experiments literally _all the time_.

I don't have blind faith in physics, because the vast majority of it is independently verifiable. I can repeat Galileo's experiment, for example, and verify that two objects of different weights reach the same terminal velocity. At a certain point, yes, I have to assume that the entire scientific community isn't united in a giant conspiracy to lie to me, but the odds of that are pretty slim. 


Maxnomad said:


> What is real is not an overly broad philosophical question. I was actually just flipping through the relatively short book "what is real", and I'm looking forward to it


"What is real" _is_ a very broad philosophical question, it's something that's been debated from many different angles with many different conclusions throughout history. Just because there's a short book on it doesn't mean that book explores it in the depth it deserves. Regardless, discussing the broad idea of "what's real" isn't immediately relevant to the conversation, beyond the answer I gave.

I don't see how your link is relevant at all, either. Can you explain why China's oppression of Tibet is relevant to the discussion of whether religion is good or bad?


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## Maxnomad

Ok, bear with me, I'll try and take these one at a time but I don't have like notes prepared or anything.

First of all, I didn't paraphrase you, I quoted gypsybones, verbatim

Second, the relation between culture and experimentation is the determination that brings the experiment about, it's a question of what's already valued in that culture. For example, with us, it's profit. I just read a thing about sleep deprivation being correlated with stronger but temporary antidepressant effects from sleep deprivation, but you can't market sleep deprivation. Similarly you can't just patent a plant, but if you can isolate and synthesize some compounds, bam, there's a pill for the market. "Science" is not one monolithic thing, neither is religion. The article, if you read it, makes it clear that monasteries were places of refuge and centers of culture in an otherwise pretty shitty setting. The same was true, on and off, of Christian monasteries, which had various degrees throughout history of independance from the church. For that matter, the new testament was compiled a couple hundred years after the life of christ, written accounts taken from oral testimony, and there were a few of those that are deemed heretical, sacreligious, etc. Those are a supposedly a lot more radical, I haven't gotten to reading them


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## Maxnomad

And yes, what is real is a broad philosophical question, but it's also a determination you make every waking second, I'm pretty sure you can handle it


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## DweebyChimp

"When the fortunate one looks around the war-field of the world before him, he finds that it is easy to follow worldly religion but it requires supreme grace to triumph over this war against the very māyā." 

We just had a visitor to our farm/temple in the middle of nowhere who was a prison inmate& former atheist locked up in solitary. Thru hopelessness he came in contact with our camp through a book program. 
You can't touch divine yoga. Tangible joy saturated with peace & joy. Where is the path illuminated by Atheists that leads to freedom from poisonous qualities like envy&greed? If anyone is lost in the dark forest they should be so kind to switch that lamp on... because if your talk & actions don't spread the light of love, then what toxins are you broadcasting?? 

Proof is in the pudding, & the pudding is full proofed.


----------



## roughdraft

DweebyChimp said:


> "When the fortunate one looks around the war-field of the world before him, he finds that it is easy to follow worldly religion but it requires supreme grace to triumph over this war against the very māyā."
> 
> We just had a visitor to our farm/temple in the middle of nowhere who was a prison inmate& former atheist locked up in solitary. Thru hopelessness he came in contact with our camp through a book program.
> You can't touch divine yoga. Tangible joy saturated with peace & joy. Where is the path illuminated by Atheists that leads to freedom from poisonous qualities like envy&greed? If anyone is lost in the dark forest they should be so kind to switch that lamp on... because if your talk & actions don't spread the light of love, then what toxins are you broadcasting??
> 
> Proof is in the pudding, & the pudding is full proofed.



do you mean foolproof, fully proven or proofed?


----------



## Dameon

DweebyChimp said:


> We just had a visitor to our farm/temple in the middle of nowhere who was a prison inmate& former atheist locked up in solitary. Thru hopelessness he came in contact with our camp through a book program.
> You can't touch divine yoga. Tangible joy saturated with peace & joy. Where is the path illuminated by Atheists that leads to freedom from poisonous qualities like envy&greed? If anyone is lost in the dark forest they should be so kind to switch that lamp on... because if your talk & actions don't spread the light of love, then what toxins are you broadcasting??


There's so much to deconstruct here. For one, did your religion fix this prison guy, _or did he come to you already wanting to be better_? I don't know what you consider "divine yoga", but I get peace and joy all the time, and I don't need a god to do it.

Also, are you suggesting that atheism is all about envy and greed? Many of the most greedy people I've seen are religious, or operate under the guise of religion. You don't need god to spread love. I'm as capable of experiencing and spreading love as anybody who believes in a god. And your belief in a god doesn't mean you aren't just as capable of being an evil monster as anybody else.


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## DweebyChimp

roughdraft said:


> do you mean foolproof, fully proven or proofed?


Yes.


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## iamwhatiam

benton said:


> Speaking from personal experience, with some religions its actually much worse than what you are describing. Children who are raised in mind control cults such as Jehovah's Witnesses experience a stunting of their ability to think and reason for themselves whereas without the mind control of the cult being applied, presumably the child's ability to think and reason independently would develop normally.


I'm glad you brought this up as I was raised Jehovah's Witness. Thankfully, I was never baptized and discovered how bullshit it all was in my late teens. Not only is it a mind control cult, but if you are baptized and THEN decide later you no longer believe, then you'll be completely shunned by all your friends and family that are still in. As in, they treat you like you don't even exist anymore.

I won't even go into the other fucked up policies of that religion (unless someone asks) because I'm not trying to derail this thread.



MFB said:


> I cant understand being hostile toward religion. Ive known way to many religious ppl that were really good ppl, mainly bc of thier faith. Its not my place to tell someone what to believe.
> It doesnt matter what someone believes.


To some religions, it DOES matter what someone else believes and they will completely shun you or worse when you decide you no longer believe their faith. How is that good?


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## DweebyChimp

Dameon said:


> There's so much to deconstruct here. For one, did your religion fix this prison guy, _or did he come to you already wanting to be better_? I don't know what you consider "divine yoga", but I get peace and joy all the time, and I don't need a god to do it.
> 
> Also, are you suggesting that atheism is all about envy and greed? Many of the most greedy people I've seen are religious, or operate under the guise of religion. You don't need god to spread love. I'm as capable of experiencing and spreading love as anybody who believes in a god. And your belief in a god doesn't mean you aren't just as capable of being an evil monster as anybody else.


Smoking Ganja&getting drunk doesn't equate to real peace&joy eh? 

I WILL NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR BEING AGAINTS VIOLENT MATERIALISTIC SOCIETY! & I REFUSE TO ALLOW BITTERNESS TO WITHER MY HEART. 
....don't you know it's Kali yuga?


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## Dameon

DweebyChimp said:


> Smoking Ganja&getting drunk doesn't equate to real peace&joy eh?


I never said they do, stop trying to build strawmen. Also, you don't get to decide what equates "real" peace and joy. People can find those things in practically any activity, and you don't need a god to enjoy those feelings, nor does worshiping a god guarantee peace and joy. 


DweebyChimp said:


> I WILL NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR BEING AGAINTS VIOLENT MATERIALISTIC SOCIETY! & I REFUSE TO ALLOW BITTERNESS TO WITHER MY HEART.
> ....don't you know it's Kali yuga?


Then it's a good thing nobody asked you to do either of those things...


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## benton

iamwhatiam said:


> I'm glad you brought this up as I was raised Jehovah's Witness. Thankfully, I was never baptized and discovered how bullshit it all was in my late teens. Not only is it a mind control cult, but if you are baptized and THEN decide later you no longer believe, then you'll be completely shunned by all your friends and family that are still in. As in, they treat you like you don't even exist anymore.


In my personal experience and from my observations, I believe that all children who are raised in the JW cult are victims of psychological child abuse at minimum because of the indoctrination and formal mind control techniques that are employed, which in my opinion are harmful to children because their brains are developing (and for a myriad of other reasons). The cult programming is much more harmful to children than it is to adults who were raised and socialized "normally" in my view.

JW children are socialized to interact with and respond to other people in specific ways in order to facilitate conversion of new members into the mind control cult.

I was well into my 30's before I began to realize that much of my interaction with other people was based on a false persona that had resulted from my cult indoctrination. For example, I had believed that I was one of the most extraverted and socially agreeable people around when in reality I am one of the most introverted people and actually have some inherent anti-social personality traits (as I assume many of us here have).

For a time I experienced much confusion because it was difficult to differentiate my actual personality from the false persona that resulted from the cult programming. I have been able to eliminate some of the programming through concerted effort and by retraining myself in various ways. I suspect that I will never be able to completely eliminate the programming and I work to mitigate it.

Formal, daily meditation was a game changer for me. It has enabled me to observe my thoughts and review my interactions in a detached manner in order to shift through them and figure out what is me and what is the cult. Shit is fucked, man!


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## DweebyChimp

Dameon said:


> I never said they do, stop trying to build strawmen. Also, you don't get to decide what equates "real" peace and joy. People can find those things in practically any activity, and you don't need a god to enjoy those feelings, nor does worshiping a god guarantee peace and joy.
> 
> Then it's a good thing nobody asked you to do either of those things...


Neat opinion.


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## Maxnomad

Oy vey


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## roughdraft

DweebyChimp said:


> Neat opinion.



we like to have productive conversations here


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## Nowhere

All religions are poised as perfection, but people are not: that is why I give Quranic and other religous passages to unsuspecting Christians---I might replace the NAME---and then hope they go home and google it. 

Scientist have the greatest faith because they are willing to change their assumptions. I try, not to deny anyones' personal experiences and embrace their understandings. No one has authority here y'all (oh wait unless you've got an epic beard!). Thanks for the resources, and for keep'n it real.


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## Dameon

Samwell Nomad said:


> Scientist have the greatest faith because they are willing to change their assumptions.


That's literally the opposite of faith.


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## Nowhere

Dameon said:


> That's literally the opposite of faith.



Their faith is the Truth.


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## roughdraft

Samwell Nomad said:


> Their faith is the Truth.



i think the point is if you've grasped 'the truth' then faith is not required


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## Nowhere

roughdraft said:


> i think the point is if you've grasped 'the truth' then faith is not required



Yes, you are right.. thus naming a specific ideology, or God(s) only leads to separation of all other forms of 'the truth.' So how can we go about explaining the 'Unseen'? To answer in short: it's all a personal path. Some here will argue there is no spiritual world, and that is okay, but it's not our position to deny others' experiences. I'm a hypocrite---I love religion and it seems just as silly too. I would be embarrassed if an alien race came here and said what's what, but sometimes I need a deliverance from the shit situations I put myself in.


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## Maxnomad

"All religions are poised as perfection" um no my guy a pretty central notion of Christian faith is that only god the absolute can be perfect, and gospel, as something that passes through the hands and mouths of men is fallible cause folks are fallible, and cause of that there's no such thing as certainty that's why *christ* placed so much emphasis on humility, and why faith is called faith and not expertise. I'm not sure why y'all can grasp that not every oog knows everything there is to know about trains but you deadass swallow whole everything you've ever heard from the mouths of a christian. . .


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## Maxnomad

I don't even believe in god btw, but I think charity and goodwill is tite so I got yall 
a present


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## roughdraft

Maxnomad said:


> I don't even believe in god btw, but I think charity and goodwill is tite so I got yall
> a present



lmaooooo.... WHAT ELSE!?!?!??!


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## Beegod Santana

But without religion how will I get a bunch of old people I hardly know to forgive me for all the terrible things I've done?


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## Dameon

Beegod Santana said:


> But without religion how will I get a bunch of old people I hardly know to forgive me for all the terrible things I've done?


It's drastic, but you may have to go the old fashioned route and just not do terrible things.


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## WyldLyfe

Religion: from the latin verb religare: "to tie back; to hold back; to thwart from forward progress; to bind. A system of control based in unchallenged dogmatic belief which holds back the progress of consciousness.

The thing is, how many of you are religious and don't even fucking realize it! yet you all love to arrogantly mock others for things you yourselves are doing.. because many of you are what you declare you hate or dislike.. religious, atheism in itself is a fucking religion, scientism, left or right wing political views, the belief in the legitimacy of authority, and the belief in the value of money, there are many.

Now with that being said, there is a higher force, a primordial force within nature/ourselves that when one comes in contact with, WILL change your life, and transform you setting in motion that process of progress. People who mock such a notion do nothing more then show there ignorance on the topic, and show where they stand.


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## Beegod Santana

Nah, there's no force. You're just high buddy.


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## Dameon

WyldLyfe said:


> Religion: from the latin verb religare: "to tie back; to hold back; to thwart from forward progress; to bind. A system of control based in unchallenged dogmatic belief which holds back the progress of consciousness.


Yeah, completely wrong. From the latin word "religionem", "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods; conscientiousness, sense of right, moral obligation; fear of the gods; divine service, religious observance; a religion, a faith, a mode of worship, cult; sanctity, holiness."



WyldLyfe said:


> religious, atheism in itself is a fucking religion, scientism, left or right wing political views, the belief in the legitimacy of authority, and the belief in the value of money, there are many.


"the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods."

Sorry, none of those fits the definition of a religion, just saying "anything you believe is a religion" isn't true, as much as religious people always want to try and pretend "atheism is a religion!" to make themselves feel better about being religious. You're trying to say *literally everything* is a religion, and that's simply not true by the common definition of religion.



WyldLyfe said:


> Now with that being said, there is a higher force, a primordial force within nature/ourselves that when one comes in contact with, WILL change your life, and transform you setting in motion that process of progress. People who mock such a notion do nothing more then show there ignorance on the topic, and show where they stand.


Or they've had the same "experience" and drawn different conclusions from it. You're basically just saying "anybody who doesn't agree with my subjective interpretations of certain kinds of experiences is just ignorant." It's ironic that earlier in your diatribe you were talking about other peoples' arrogance, but at the same time you have the arrogance to say "I have the only valid interpretation of a subjective experience."


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## WyldLyfe

Dameon said:


> "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods."



This is what it comes down to^ those words.. worship and controlling power, like i said some worship authority, some money, others there "guru" or Gods as you say. There is more to all of this though, more then i know, because yes the gods and goddesses are real, but at the same time there original intent was to be created by teachers as images representing parts of our own psych, for seekers to reflect on, get in touch with and understand but people have distorted traditions and now people worship these. If you look at my thread "ufos and craft we've filmed" that is another part to this, it seems since humanity has been visited by other worldly beings since we've existed, some have considered them to be gods and goddesses to, when any benevolent e.t won't take such a position over a human like that, but assist instead of wanting to be worshiped.



Dameon said:


> Sorry, none of those fits the definition of a religion, just saying "anything you believe is a religion" isn't true, as much as religious people always want to try and pretend "atheism is a religion!" to make themselves feel better about being religious. You're trying to say *literally everything* is a religion, and that's simply not true by the common definition of religion.



Not everything is a religion in the sense you mean here, but people hold onto these things religiously, it becomes there religion. Atheism is a religion, they often do not even want to or have not spent the time needed to delve deep enough into anything, in practice, and just say stuff like "oh they just think a fairy in the sky made the world, how stupid" and they actually think they are clever for that.


Dameon said:


> Or they've had the same "experience" and drawn different conclusions from it. You're basically just saying "anybody who doesn't agree with my subjective interpretations of certain kinds of experiences is just ignorant." It's ironic that earlier in your diatribe you were talking about other peoples' arrogance, but at the same time you have the arrogance to say "I have the only valid interpretation of a subjective experience."



Many people have had experiences and processes of initiation take place in there lives, and yes it is different for everyone but can be somewhat similar, or similar for individuals at times, what do you think all these monks, mystics, mystery schools, Occultists, shamans ect.. around the world are doing? there are actual practices to be done that bring forth results, not just believing a book or preacher, there is a difference, there is a science. Many traditions even have stages for one to pass through and I shall present an example here.. in regards to the Alchemy tradition.

Alchemy, out of darkness, into light.
Alchemy, literally “from khem” or “out of darkness” is an occult tradition taught through allegories, an allegory is a cryptic story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted or decoded in order to reveal a hidden meaning. In the tradition of alchemy, it is asserted that all base modes of human consciousness (“base metals”) are imperfections of pure consciousness (“gold”), and that all “metals” are ordained by nature to become the perfect “gold of the sun” (enlightened.) The alchemist seeks to remove from his or her thoughts, emotions, and actions their disorderly imperfections, or base characteristics, in order to bring them to their true state of natural order (harmony with natural law) and to transmute them into “alchemical gold” representing the purification of the body, mind and spirit. The second phase of alchemical transmutation is albedo, or the whitening. Albedo represents the process of spiritual purification: the burning out of impurities from “salt” or hardened ego. The “salt” is reduced into quicksilver, or mercury, which represents fluidity, and the process of rapid mental, emotional and spiritual change, and strengthening of the sacred feminine essence, leading to the engagement of the imagination, from which the elixir of life (the awakened mind) can be made.


----------



## Dameon

WyldLyfe said:


> This is what it comes down to^ those words.. worship and controlling power, like i said some worship authority, some money, others there "guru" or Gods as you say.


I like how you cherry pick a few words out of the definition. It comes down to the entire definition. Money isn't a "controlling power" because nobody thinks that money is a sentient being that consciously decides their fates. You're just performing extraordinary reaches of sophistry.


WyldLyfe said:


> Not everything is a religion in the sense you mean here, but people hold onto these things religiously, it becomes there religion. Atheism is a religion, they often do not even want to or have not spent the time needed to delve deep enough into anything, in practice, and just say stuff like "oh they just think a fairy in the sky made the world, how stupid" and they actually think they are clever for that.


That's not how religion works. Atheism is _not _a religion. What do atheists worship? What do we think is a controlling power? Nothing and nothing. Atheism is literally the opposite of a religion. There's no dogmatic beliefs you're taught; most people arrive at atheism after being raised in a religion, by questioning beliefs, not by automatically accepting them. Atheists often delve deep into many things, your generalization is your own biases showing through. That's not an argument, that's just an insult.


WyldLyfe said:


> what do you think all these monks, mystics, mystery schools, Occultists, shamans ect.. around the world are doing? there are actual practices to be done that bring forth results, not just believing a book or preacher, there is a difference, there is a science.


Well no, there's not a science, because some fundamental principles of science are that you should be able to repeatedly get observable results, and that you should be able to predict what results you will get. None of those occultists can fulfill either of those principles, or it wouldn't be weird fringe occult stuff, _it would just be science._ Science doesn't reject this stuff because scientists are dogmatic and refuse to believe it, science rejects it because scientists have tried (and some still try) to validate these kinds of beliefs, and failed miserably every time they didn't cheat.


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## void gaze

Anyone see that thing recently where Dawkins tweeted “I’m not saying we *should* do eugenics, but if we *did* it would totally work “? Good stuff...cool guy. 

I’m not going to read this whole thread so sorry if this has been said but I think I can get the flavor from reading this page and I just wanted to say that a lot of times atheists especially ones like him are talking about Christianity or certain versions of it and maybe of a small number of other religions when they say “religion (in general)” and they spin arguments that don’t really relate either to the differences or in the ways that religion/s has/have a place in people’s lives. A lot of ppl find it a way to have community and ritual that gives structure to their lives and maybe that famous sense of ‘connection to something greater than oneself’. I don’t find Dawkins and other neo-atheists seem to say much about that.


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## Dameon

void gaze said:


> Anyone see that thing recently where Dawkins tweeted “I’m not saying we *should* do eugenics, but if we *did* it would totally work “? Good stuff...cool guy.


Is he wrong, though? Scientifically, it _would_ work. Are you seriously condemning him for stating a scientific fact while acknowledging that _ethically_ it's not a valid path? Are we supposed to pretend that genetics doesn't work because eugenics is wrong?


void gaze said:


> a lot of times atheists especially ones like him are talking about Christianity or certain versions of it and maybe of a small number of other religions when they say “religion (in general)”


What gives you that idea? Atheists may speak mostly about Christianity/Islam, but that's because those are the two major religions in the western world. Of course I'm not going to spend my time arguing against some small niche religion practiced by a relative minority. That doesn't mean that I'm not against that religion, just that there are much bigger fish to fry.


void gaze said:


> and they spin arguments that don’t really relate either to the differences or in the ways that religion/s has/have a place in people’s lives. A lot of ppl find it a way to have community and ritual that gives structure to their lives and maybe that famous sense of ‘connection to something greater than oneself’. I don’t find Dawkins and other neo-atheists seem to say much about that.


That's because...and I know this may sound a little crazy: you can get community, ritual, and structure without religion or god. There are, in fact, non-theist churches. You can spend time with people without it being centered around worshiping imaginary creatures.


----------



## void gaze

No it’s definitely very normal and cool to talk about the advantages of breeding people like racehorses. You know, because it ‘works’. I don’t really get the fish fry part though. But I did go back and skim the thread and I wanted to address the binding of Isaac, which you brought up, in a way I think might help you see what I mean. Considering that like Dawkins you’re in a culture where Protestant Christianity is so socially dominant you don’t have to think outside of it, and can miss how heavily that shapes your whole concept of ‘religion’ and its elements.

For instance Christians read this story, like much of the Bible, very differently from Jews, who are inclined to identify as much if not more with Isaac (the father of Jacob/Israel) than with Abraham (also father to Ishmael and the Arabic people). For some it’s a literal belief but to many it’s a mythological symbol of risk and responsibility in human life. We are all like Isaac some way helplessly exposed to a universe that can kill us, like Abraham conflicted sometimes about what seems and feels right. It’s a horrifying, terrifying story; it’s not at all about what you said, about how human sacrifice is good; the Bible says in many places that it’s unacceptable. It’s a disturbing paradoxical fable and btw ends with the substitution of a ram for Isaac which I think bears pretty fascinating ecological/anthropological analysis according to the concept of totem.

A lot of modern Jews have a pretty metaphorical notion of a lot of what our religion is ‘really’ literally about since it’s just as much really about family, community ritual ancestors etc all the things that give you a place in the world... it’s not at all about the kind of fanatical belief and obedience that some Christians are about, and some Christians aren’t either. Sure you can have those positive things without religion, but why have a problem with people who do have them together? What’s even the point of attacking that besides being edgy? It’s a culture, a way of relating to people and world through practices and stories, and some find it beneficial even if some don’t. Again I think it’s easy to miss to miss if most of your idea of what you’re against is shaped by analyzing stuff like JW, Mormons, Evangelicals salafi/wahhabis etc

I didn’t get this for a very long time- I was raised a standard secular American liberal by people who have the same kind of reductive and dismissive ideas. I don’t see that their disenchantment particularly helps them live or makes them any less fanatically obedient to capitalism or any less delusional about its ideology. I started “getting” Judaism after spending time around Native people and learning something about how and why certain past spiritual traditions are preserved adapted and revived.


----------



## void gaze

Or to just throw a quick related point out there, the idea that you can look at the Bible almost anything that’s in it and say ‘this definitely means X’ is itself more the viewpoint of a fundamentalist than an informed critic - someone who appreciates how it’s a collection of texts that were written in many times and places for a lot of reasons, in languages very different from English. Even the prosaic seeming legal stuff is not easy to understand well outside of its historical context, yeah treating human beings as slaves is not good but first the word isn’t actually slave it’s eved which means a servant of any kind and second slavery was practiced all around the region then and in some countries the rights of servants, slaves wives etc were a lot worse than what the Torah specifies. Then in Judaism at least there’s thousands of years of rabbinic interpretation aiming to soften the harsh and violent laws. Or again all the seeming racism about canaanites, it’s hard to dispute now that the Israelites were at least partly canaanites who had left the cities for the mountains. If you look carefully it’s cities that they don’t like, with their wealthy elites and violent oppression. There is zero archaeological evidence for the wars of Joshua when the burning of many cities would have left traces obvious to scientists even today.

In sum, re: the Bible. Not everything says what it looks like it says and not everyone who’s not an atheist thinks there’s a literal meaning!


----------



## Dameon

void gaze said:


> No it’s definitely very normal and cool to talk about the advantages of breeding people like racehorses. You know, because it ‘works’.


He didn't talk about the advantages of it, he literally only said that it works. Maybe read the tweet in question. If you can find anywhere that Dawkins actually says we should do eugenics, I'd love to see it. I'll do you one better and show you his follow-up tweets.


> For those determined to miss the point, I deplore the idea of a eugenic policy. I simply said deploring it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work. Just as we breed cows to yield more milk, we could breed humans to run faster or jump higher. But heaven forbid that we should do it.
> 
> A eugenic policy would be bad. I’m combating the illogical step from “X would be bad” to “So X is impossible”. It would work in the same sense as it works for cows. Let’s fight it on moral grounds. Deny obvious scientific facts & we lose – or at best derail – the argument.


Oh yeah, totally the Hitler you're determined to view him as. Do your research rather than throwing out blind accusations based on rumors.



void gaze said:


> Sure you can have those positive things without religion, but why have a problem with people who do have them together? What’s even the point of attacking that besides being edgy? It’s a culture, a way of relating to people and world through practices and stories, and some find it beneficial even if some don’t. Again I think it’s easy to miss to miss if most of your idea of what you’re against is shaped by analyzing stuff like JW, Mormons, Evangelicals salafi/wahhabis etc


I don't have a problem with people who quietly practice their own spirituality together harmlessly. You'll find the vast majority of atheists have no problem with that. You don't see atheists out protesting Jewish cultural centers, do you? I can still be against the concept of religion in general while tolerating peoples' right to practice their religions.


----------



## Dameon

void gaze said:


> second slavery was practiced all around the region then and in some countries the rights of servants, slaves wives etc were a lot worse than what the Torah specifies.


Ah yes, the old argument that slavery was moral because "everybody was doing it."


void gaze said:


> Then in Judaism at least there’s thousands of years of rabbinic interpretation aiming to soften the harsh and violent laws. Or again all the seeming racism about canaanites, it’s hard to dispute now that the Israelites were at least partly canaanites who had left the cities for the mountains. If you look carefully it’s cities that they don’t like, with their wealthy elites and violent oppression. There is zero archaeological evidence for the wars of Joshua when the burning of many cities would have left traces obvious to scientists even today.


So let me see if I've got this straight...you're telling me that the bible is a pack of lies written by men, changeable by men, and up to the interpretation of men? If only I had realized that earlier.


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## void gaze

Lmao where did I say anything remotely positive about slavery? Seriously I know I wrote a lot but where? Either read all the way through or don’t go spitting out straw man arguments based on your own misconceptions. What I said was you’re talking about a very complicated book that is thousands of years old and you are reading it as a completely one dimensional text the way fundamentalists do. The Torah also says that runaway slaves are to be protected and adopted into the tribe and not returned to their masters. See? Complex and contradictory and addressing a totally different situation that hasn’t existed for millennia. It’s not even really one book it’s a bunch of very ancient texts collaged together and I think it’s fascinating. Some parts are inspiring and moving to me and others are appalling. The idea that you have to either accept or reject it all as a single unit is literally exactly how fundamentalists of both faiths view it. I’m not one, obviously. I’m sorry you think it’s just a pack of lies. I guess we need to denounce all literature and mythology then. All a bunch of fkn lies!!!! DANG but you’re edgy. 

And I’m not afraid of you protesting Judaism, dude, although your admiration for Dawkins and his wretched philosophy is disconcerting. I’m just trying to show you there are other ways to look at the subject than your prophet of atheist fundamentalism has taught you. I’ve hated that guy since he came out with his book about how humans are just meat robots piloted by genes. That’s not science, it’s just a disgusting and depressing philosophy. The idea that life is just genes making copies isn’t even very good science and that’s his great discovery he’s known for. It basically ignores ecology and sociology altogether for one. Anyway there are about a thousand replies on that thread explaining why eugenics is bad science as well as bad politics. You can go read them it’s still up. I don’t think you’ve explained why it’s necessary to debate the merits of eugenics at all in this day and age. Neither did he... No one made him tweet that. It’s a weird fucking thing to say. At a time when fascism is back on the agenda? This is what I’m saying. Scientism has you treating the world like an amoral collection of facts. “Lol y u triggered I’m just saying. Eugenics could make people better!!” Nope. Not having it.


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