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At 5/30/08 11:07 PM, poxpower wrote: The argument is simply that there is no logical pathway from atheism straight to doing horrible things

You put a bunch in some sort of group and there's gonna be someone who hates those not in it.

By the way

At 5/30/08 11:38 PM, Imperator wrote: How is it Mods have the brains to come up with the Official Bush Topic but can't see the need for a religion one?

We had one. Pox refused to enforce it because he somehow wasn't included in the decision to make said topic, and he weakened our ability to enforce it by posting in every religion topic he could find because mods are not (as a general courtesy) allowed to delete topics that other mods have posted in. Thus the offical religion topic went down, multiple religion topics went up, and we were back to square one.

I AM taking bets on who bans me first, or if I get banned at all. PM for details!!!

It won't be by me, and if pox does it that's a conflict of interests.

At 5/30/08 11:44 PM, Proteas wrote: (as a general courtesy)

To hell with that is what I say, start useing common sense.

At 5/30/08 11:44 PM, Proteas wrote:

At 5/30/08 11:38 PM, Imperator wrote: How is it Mods have the brains to come up with the Official Bush Topic but can't see the need for a religion one?

We had one. Pox refused to enforce it because he somehow wasn't included in the decision to make said topic

Pox had a good point when I asked him about it. He's one of the few mods who actually regular the Poli forum, and he says multiple religion topics are okay as long as they're on different aspects of religion. Religion is too much of a general topic to fit into one topic. Bush though, is pretty straight forward. He's a guy, who leads our country. What do you think?

I agree with pox (lolz) that an official religion topic would be utter shit

At 5/30/08 11:23 PM, Imperator wrote:

People can commit genocide and atrocity JUST FINE without religion Pox.....

-_-
missing the point, as usual.
Yeah you can die from poisoning without eating arsenic.
SO LET'S ALL EAT SOME YAY

Thanks for this great nugget of wisdom.

At 5/30/08 11:24 PM, Proteas wrote:

And yet, you still provided no answer or solid retort to what I said, you simply sidestepped by making vague allusions to something else and then shifted to what I believe.

You're trying to jump from a fact to an unrelated conclusion. Basically you know that religious people aren't evil people, we all know it. But what you want is for me to say "oh, gee, I guess it's possible to be good and religious, so I guess religion is great" which is a false conclusion.
It's unrelated.

My main claim is that we, as a society would DEFINITELY be MUCH better off without religion.
Case in point: what on earth does religion bring to anyone but false hope?

You make the crucial mistake of equating religion with actions taken by people who say they follow it but don't. You can easily extract tons of horrible things from religions, but people don't follow it ANYMORE.
Why? Where did the change come from? IT came from the people themselves. People are full capable of making correct moral/political/whatever decisions without it. In fact history clearly shows we've been doing FAR FAR better since we ditched the bullshit.

One of the other golden rules was that we would also support each other

Woah there skippy, why did you ignore my point?
See what you did there? Instead of admitting that you did something wrong, instead of turned it back on me and try to see if I did something wrong so that way we'd all forget what you did.

No. Own up, son.

I've always been somewhat of a "rogue" moderator, I never cared for the "don't argue with other mods" crap. But you seem to be really big on keeping a great image as a mod, I don't give a shit. So in that logic, you're the one who's DEFINITELY in the wrong since you break a rule you think is important.
Whereas I don't give two shits about it. I never did.

At 5/30/08 11:48 PM, LordJaric wrote:
To hell with that is what I say, start useing common sense.

Agreed.

At 5/30/08 11:44 PM, Proteas wrote:
We had one. Pox refused to enforce it because he somehow wasn't included in the decision to make said topic, and he weakened our ability to enforce it by posting in every religion topic he could find because mods are not (as a general courtesy) allowed to delete topics that other mods have posted in. Thus the offical religion topic went down, multiple religion topics went up, and we were back to square one.

I remember. It's this one, because I remember you had said it was the only one with the balls to call the debate what it was: Science vs Religion.

And I thought it was universally known that Pox is normally pretty "lenient" in moderating......which is to say I'm pretty sure he's said himself he doesn't ban people or lock topics unless it's a no-brainer.

And if I'm telling you that I know Pox is lenient, then why should it matter what he says about a topic he wasn't going to mod anyways? I'm out of all loops concerning the secrets of NG mods, and even I know Pox is the last person I'll get banned by.....unless I'm a complete moron or ask for one.......

It won't be by me, and if pox does it that's a conflict of interests.

Lol, I fought the law, and apparently won......

I'll stop now, this is gonna become a mod fight, in which I'll just grab popcorn and watch.

At 5/30/08 11:58 PM, poxpower wrote:
-_-
missing the point, as usual.
Yeah you can die from poisoning without eating arsenic.
SO LET'S ALL EAT SOME YAY

Thanks for this great nugget of wisdom.

Not missing the point at all. In fact, it fits perfectly with my point that religion can only be REPLACED with something else that fills the social gap it creates.

People who don't have religion to commit genocide over didn't stop committing genocide, they just found other reasons to kill each other.

People won't eat arsenic....they'll eat LEAD instead!

You'd do better to actually LISTEN to my nuggets of wisdom for once Pox......

My main claim is that we, as a society would DEFINITELY be MUCH better off without religion.
Case in point: what on earth does religion bring to anyone but false hope?

Survey says?

Religion can cover pretty much anything beyond Physiological needs, depending on what the person's looking for.

But once again, SOCIAL CONTROL is a good indicator why religion is still around. It's still the most effective means of controlling a population where not everyone has a Ph.D in molecular biology.

But I like your idea, let's persuade everyone to become Theoretical Physicists and mock them until they do!!! That'll show religion who's the boss!!!!

Whereas I don't give two shits about it. I never did.

Fantastic to know there's an NG moderator who doesn't give two shits about.....fucking moderating......

Pox you're the most logical and rational person with whom I've ever had the pleasure of communicating.

At 5/30/08 11:53 PM, Grammer wrote: What do you think?

I think the same thing now that I did when the Official Religion Topic was agreed upon; we have multiple topics about religion that all boil down to the same thing, science versus religion or belief versus non belief. Claiming it's a multifaceted issue that can't be contained in one topic when each topic quickly descends into rehashed crap is a miserable excuse for the continued existence of multiple topics about the issue.

Topics about religion have become what topics about Bush were 4 years ago when we started the OBT; an excuse for pseudo intellectuals to pad their own post count.

At 5/30/08 11:58 PM, poxpower wrote: No. Own up, son.

I'm not owning up to a damn thing, especially to someone who doesn't have the common decency to abide by the wishes of the rest of the mod team and the EXPLICITLY EXPRESSED wishes of prominent forum regulars.

At 5/30/08 06:12 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 5/30/08 06:02 PM, ImaSmartass2 wrote:

If you are devote Christian or determined athiest, if you are put in a situation where you debated your belief systems and were outsmarted by either party, would you change your belief?

The answer is no.

Now this is a very unfair way of seeing it.
Atheists are ready to change their mind with EVIDENCE.
Religious people are NOT.

Opinion.
With all the facts dis proving religion in the world right now, right?

Why debate it?
Because enough is enough. Everywhere that religion is strong, you find the most ignorant and violent people. Countless atrocities are done in the name of things that no one can prove. It's completely stupid.

Funny story, Hitler banned religion, he committed the worst atrocity against religion. Communism bans religion. Communist Russia killed millions of their own people (Atrocity). What you just said is completely stupid.

Religions are CULTS. Nothing more.

Opinion.

They have nothing to offer to anyone except false comfort through lies. Is that the kind of society we want?

You can't say it's lies until you prove it is lies. Why do you believe it's a lie if there is no proof of it being a lie? Are you contradicting yourself?

One where the people are kept peaceful with the fear of God and hell rather than with intelligence and knowledge?

You should only fear Hell if you do wrong things (not peaceful) in the world, otherwise you shouldn't be afraid of anything.

Consider that the smartest people on earth are atheists. Historically, anyone who was a scientist usually was not religious. The smarter you are, the less religious.

100% Fact! Because he said so!

Making up facts isn't a fact.

That's almost universally true. Of course there is no way to really test how religious someone is because they might be lying. But clearly the higher you get on the religious line of power, the less religious the person is. It's just painfully obvious that they use their religion for political and economic power.

Some leaders are corrupt, nothing new. Leaders =/= religion. You don't worship the leader of your religion, you worship God. In my religion there is no human leader like the Pope, or anything similiar. Only God.

It's got to fucking STOP. People have got to grow out of it. Religions have held the reigns for far too long causing death,

Humans cause death, not the religion. It's all about how you interpret the text. The Koran (Muslim holy book) contains many things which can be interpreted in violent ways, influencing the terrorism today.

chaos and despair all along the way and fucking shit up for everyone and there's is no way we'll ever have global peace as long as there is religious freedom and religions.

If it isn't religion, people will find another difference between themselves.

Religion is a mental virus, a cancer.

no, actually it's a belief.

It is "the first and worst" explanation for the world around us.

Opinion.

It's a vestige of our intellectual past, a vestigial line of thinking that we no longer need and have nothing to gain from. NOTHING.

Opinion.

And so just by stirring some shit up with debates, it lets everyone know: religion is being challenged.

By false accusations, personally attacking people who oppose your views, assumptions, stereotyping, and by providing absolutely nothing new into the debate. And since there is no facts dis proving religion, there is no facts given in these arguments.

The more people will hear of these debates, the more tv, radios, publishers etc. will be interested to feature them and smart people who watch them invariably will question their faith and turn atheist.

Because it is new to everyone in the world that there is no proof that God exists.

And hopefully within a few decades, we can get rid of this disease that plagues our minds and start solving our problems with logic rather than faith and emotion.

People solve their problems with logic already, I don't know what world you live in.

At 5/30/08 11:53 PM, Grammer wrote:

Pox had a good point when I asked him about it. He's one of the few mods who actually regular the Poli forum, and he says multiple religion topics are okay as long as they're on different aspects of religion. Religion is too much of a general topic to fit into one topic. Bush though, is pretty straight forward. He's a

The thing with bush is that usually the threads were all shit to begin with.
Same goes usually for election threads and threads about communism/anarchy, though less bad.
For some reason, communists are usually really brief and stupid-sounding on this forum.

But there's several people who are smart enough to debate at length on religion and who are willing to do it, so this is what this forum is for. The "opposition" is usually catholic, hence why it's always similar in nature.
If there were more jews, muslims, mormons or whatever on here, then you'd see a little more variety.

At 5/31/08 12:10 AM, Imperator wrote:

Not missing the point at all. In fact, it fits perfectly with my point that religion can only be REPLACED with something else that fills the social gap it creates.

Ok but that's different. In that thread you were saying that you'd have to replace religion with something else in order to make it go away, but now you're saying that if it wasn't there, something else would replace it and cause the exact same thing.

But I have no idea how you come to that. The second that religion took the backseat to science during the 15 century, you saw tremendous improvements that lead straight to our society. Religion was kicked out of science, and not replaced by anything, and science was all the better for it.

Religion was kicked out of laws in the U.S. and all the better for both religious and non-religious people.

Basically every time you kick it out of something, that thing gets better :o
If you kicked it out of wars, I bet even the wars would become better. At any rate you might imagine there would be less wars. I have no idea how you could come to the conclusion that there would be the same numer of wars or more wars.

But once again, SOCIAL CONTROL is a good indicator why religion is still around. It's still the most effective means of controlling a population where not everyone has a Ph.D in molecular biology.

There's 30 million atheists in the USA. I doubt even 1% of them have a PHD.
If your argument is that we should use religion just to control people, well that doesn't speak very well for religion, does it? You're basically saying it's good because it keeps people quiet, which is what Napoleon thought. And STALIN. Yep, he was atheist alright, but he, just like you, figured out that religion was AWESOME to control people.
And that's just what he did.

Fantastic to know there's an NG moderator who doesn't give two shits about.....fucking moderating......

Not moderating, but the rule about how mods shouldn't argue with each other. We were told to appear more like a team, but who cares? We're all people, we don't have to agree with each other all the time.
The other extent to that was to never question another mod's way of moderating outside the mod lounge, but I spoke against the official religion thread because I was a regular poli mod and I didn't want anyone to think I had anything to do with it.

At 5/31/08 12:14 AM, Proteas wrote:

I'm not owning up to a damn thing, especially to someone who doesn't have the common decency to abide by the wishes of the rest of the mod team and the EXPLICITLY EXPRESSED wishes of prominent forum regulars.

Like, why are you so full of angst and illwill?
You're attacking me saying I'm a bad mod because I cause trouble. Well... that's exactly what you do by taking it out here instead of a PM.
Except I don't care about that, whereas you do, which makes you a hypocrite.

And the religious thread wasn't decided by "the rest of the mod team". In fact I have no idea to this day who approved it. I imagine it was probably only you and sevenseize because with me that makes up all the poli mods who are regulars and don't just post in the lounge.
That's me vs two people, not me vs 30.

At 5/30/08 07:09 PM, Imperator wrote: I can believe that for all the brains atheists continually say they have, and all the logic and reason and smarts they hold over people with "ridiculous religious beliefs" that you people haven't figured it out how to destroy a religion yet. And it's fucking simple as hell.

You destroy the religion, the followers of the religion, the power of the religion, and the ideology of the religion by NOT GIVING THEM POWER IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! It's unbefuckinglievable that you can't make the connection between internet trolls and a religion: They feed on ATTENTION you dumbfucks!

Even religious TERRORISTS feed on attention. No one gave a SHIT about al-qaeda before they blew up the symbol of our economic power. And if they had hit a mall or something, people STILL wouldn't give a shit.

Secondly you become more powerful than them. Don't fucking try to fight a religion's ideology, haven't you figured that out yet? It's called faith, and it's called faith because you're not gonna best it in a debate. How stupid are you for trying to debate a religious person out of their religion when you ALREADY KNOW that "they hold these ideas contrary to anything you say". You're trying to destroy a concrete wall with a butter knife, and you KNOW you're doing it, and you KNOW you look stupid doing it. For all the logic and reason atheists profess, attacking a religious persons' ideology with DEBATE is about as stupid as you get. Don't attack, just build your own ideology, make it more popular, more influential, and a better social control. Take away the power of religion by replacing the need for religion, not by trying to discredit it, you dumbasses. Only a fucking reject atheist with no cognitive discipline can believe that they're going to destroy religion by discrediting what they already know cannot be discredited in the minds of their followers........

End rant, end thread.

You don't seem to understand that Atheists are a small minority of people in the World, at less then 10%*. While I now agree with you that Atheists should make their beliefs more popular instead of debating religion, (I don't know why I didn't think of that >_<) the problem is, they don't have enough resources yet.
But you CAN'T not give them power in the first place, if you:
1. Already gave them power.
2. They outnumber you by more then 3 to 1.

Yet again, you are right in saying they need to change their strategy to popularizing their religion. But they first need to get the resources to do that. Atheists need to do something to get their popularity (That's another matter.) but they aren't there yet. Maybe if they get the media......

And I'll end by saying you're a hypocrite for complaining about 'mudslinging' while simultaneously doing the same thing.

* Sources are = http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Ad herents.html , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religions , http://www.religion-cults.com/ .

At 5/31/08 12:37 AM, poxpower wrote: Like, why are you so full of angst and illwill?

Because I am burnt out and frustrated as all hell at seeing a never ending parade of repetitive religious topics in this forum and not being able to do a damn thing about them because YOU FUCKING POSTED IN THEM POX.

You're attacking me saying I'm a bad mod because I cause trouble. Well... that's exactly what you do by taking it out here instead of a PM.

I've brought this issue up with you here on the bbs before and you never said a damn word about it, what's makes this situation any different? Why am I the hypocrite all of the sudden?

In fact I have no idea to this day who approved it.

It was me, Seven, and Avie, and about a dozen or so political regulars who were begging the three of us almost on a daily basis to do something about the situation. You weren't included in the decision because at that point in time you largely moderated general forum while occasionally poking your head into politics.

At 5/31/08 12:26 AM, Creek wrote:

Opinion.
With all the facts dis proving religion in the world right now, right?

Well one quick glance at the history of any religion reveals that any time they've made any verifiable claims or predictions, they've been wrong.
They were wrong about the age of the universe, they were wrong about the earth's orbit, they were wrong about the age of the earth, they were wrong about animal orders and so on.

Funny story, Hitler banned religion

Outright lie.
Hitler collaborated with the Vatican in many occasions, was a Roman Catholic and was never excommunicated.

You can't say it's lies until you prove it is lies.

I can shoot lazers.
Prove it's a lie.

100% Fact! Because he said so!

One shred of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity _and_intelligence

If it isn't religion, people will find another difference between themselves.

Wow I didn't know you could predict the futur.
You're right, since we've stopped burning witches for religious reasons, we've found many other reasons to burn witches...

oh wait.

People solve their problems with logic already, I don't know what world you live in.

I live in a world where 16 year old kids try to tell me what's what by mainly not reading anything I write.

At 5/31/08 12:46 AM, Proteas wrote:

Because I am burnt out and frustrated as all hell at seeing a never ending parade of repetitive religious topics in this forum and not being able to do a damn thing about them because YOU FUCKING POSTED IN THEM POX.

Ok so basically you just want to abuse your mod powers but you can't because I posted in them to prevent you from needlessly locking things where people converse in a non-spammy way.
Religious topics in no way prevent you from talking about whatever you want to talk about and are in no way a massive spam problem.
There is no reason to lock them other than your personal vendetta against atheists, as far as I can see.

I've brought this issue up with you here on the bbs before and you never said a damn word about it, what's makes this situation any different? Why am I the hypocrite all of the sudden?

Uh because you keep attacking me saying I shouldn't do what you do.
Whereas I never attacked you because you're a mod and don't do everything that I think you should. I have no idea why you keep bringing up mod issues in this, other, again than you being pissed that you don't get to lock more threads.
No idea why you'd want to waste your time doing more mod work where it's not even needed.

It was me, Seven, and Avie, and about a dozen or so political regulars who were begging the three of us almost on a daily basis to do something about the situation.

Was it, per chance, "decided" in the regulars lounge, a place where you people have just cloistered yourselves using up bandwidth for meaningless banter without actually ever participating in any other threads?
Avie NEVER posts outside the lounge. Sevenseize, rarely. So basically, it's YOU, who is biased against religious discussion, who made the call. No warning,no PM, no mod lounge consultation. You don't do that, sorry.
And the "other regulars" who I imagine are half people who never post outside the lounge and half people who never talk about religion.

Basically a call made by people who don't have any business making it AT ALL.

And now you're angry that I didn't agree and you try to take it out on me by calling my mod behavior under question. Boo hoo, live with it. Jeez.

At 5/31/08 12:37 AM, poxpower wrote: Ok but that's different. In that thread you were saying that you'd have to replace religion with something else in order to make it go away, but now you're saying that if it wasn't there, something else would replace it and cause the exact same thing.

Do you not see how they're not different?
If you replace religion with something else, religion disappears. Some of the things that religion DOES won't disappear, because humans haven't come that far yet.

Your point was that you "need" a religion to commit the atrocities attributed to it, and that atheistm doesn't lend itself to those atrocities, which is complete bullshit, and what I showed with the list of genocides that had NOTHING to do with religion.

If you're trying to say getting rid of religion would be good because there'd be no more genocide or persecution, you're an idiot. Which was my point......the one you missed about 3 weeks ago.....

But I have no idea how you come to that. The second that religion took the backseat to science during the 15 century, you saw tremendous improvements that lead straight to our society. Religion was kicked out of science, and not replaced by anything, and science was all the better for it.

You're mixing points. The reason science never "replaced" religion is because religion tried muddling in science and failed, not because religion was offering science something it could not do without. That's the difference. Religion never offered science anything to begin with, so of course once it was gone nothing replaced it.

And again, look what happened? Renaissance and Age of Discovery. It became cool to learn shit and discover shit. Religion didn't offer that anymore, and interest in religion peters out in favor of philosophy, sailing, and art. That's proving MY point, not yours.

FYI there are still genocides taking place in the world, and if the Holocaust taught people anything it's that the efficiencies offered by science can be used by any idiot alive.....

For all the talk you do, you have yet to show that science has solved any of the problems you accuse religion of.....

Religion was kicked out of laws in the U.S. and all the better for both religious and non-religious people.

And that group solidarity has been replaced by political parties, and collections of like-minded ideologies. Again, that insatiable need to be in a group.

Basically every time you kick it out of something, that thing gets better :o

Again with the vague, pointless fucking terms. "Better" in terms of what, according to whom, and measured with what?

If you kicked it out of wars, I bet even the wars would become better.

800,000 dead Tutsis disagree. Stalin agrees with you though, religion only bogs down the efficiency in killing your opponents, there are much more efficient ways of inciting people to kill en mass.

At any rate you might imagine there would be less wars. I have no idea how you could come to the conclusion that there would be the same numer of wars or more wars.

If your argument is that we should use religion just to control people, well that doesn't speak very well for religion, does it?

Who the fuck said I was trying to speak well for religion? I just hate having to read your insane conclusions.

You're basically saying it's good because it keeps people quiet, which is what Napoleon thought. And STALIN. Yep, he was atheist alright, but he, just like you, figured out that religion was AWESOME to control people.
And that's just what he did.

And others have figured out religion isn't necessary to control them. Fear, money, and scapegoating based on other identities, like the ethnic identities between Tutsis and Hutus, are a great way of controlling people and committing genocide.

But I forgot that in this great age of enlightenment science had gotten rid of genocide, which of course is all religion's fault.

Not moderating, but the rule about how mods shouldn't argue with each other. We were told to appear more like a team, but who cares? We're all people, we don't have to agree with each other all the time.

Word of advice: NEVER try to lead anything or run for office. People don't want to know that superiors are fucking up left and right, and disagree to the point of conflict......

That rule's a GOOD rule, and is standard for.....well.....pretty much anything anywhere. What planet do you live on where you see it's "Ok" to not publicly appear unified when you're part of a group?

Have you ever played a sport in your life?

And the religious thread wasn't decided by "the rest of the mod team". In fact I have no idea to this day who approved it. I imagine it was probably only you and sevenseize because with me that makes up all the poli mods who are regulars and don't just post in the lounge.
That's me vs two people, not me vs 30.

If that's the state of the Mod ranks that's sad. You guys need purging and replenishing......
And frankly, Democracy means rule by mob. 2 v 1 is still a majority, even if it's a small one......

At 5/31/08 12:45 AM, madlawyer wrote: You don't seem to understand that Atheists are a small minority of people in the World, at less then 10%*. While I now agree with you that Atheists should make their beliefs more popular instead of debating religion, (I don't know why I didn't think of that >_<) the problem is, they don't have enough resources yet.
But you CAN'T not give them power in the first place, if you:
1. Already gave them power.
2. They outnumber you by more then 3 to 1.

Well if you've figured out that much, you're halfway there. I'm well aware atheists are a minority, and that's mainly because religion DOES offer things atheism does not.

Moreover, you don't even need to convert them to atheism, you just need an incentive away from religion.

If people are in a religion because they want to be in a group, show them a list of clubs they can join. BANG, one down.

It's unbelieveable that a CATHOLIC has to teach you on how to destroy religion.....but then again, Catholics have experience in this department......

Yet again, you are right in saying they need to change their strategy to popularizing their religion. But they first need to get the resources to do that. Atheists need to do something to get their popularity (That's another matter.) but they aren't there yet. Maybe if they get the media......

First off, atheism is not a religion......or is it? You people need to make up your damn minds about that, because I'm tired of being corrected there when I'm just repeating what I've been told BY atheists.

Second, you're making a mistake in thinking that to destroy religion it needs to be replaced by atheism. Think outside the box. Take the bits of religion that hold the power (like social control) and find something to replace that. Political ideologies have done so in the USA, ask any Republican fucktard who wants to go on a killing spree to rid the country of dirty liberals. They've replaced their religious genocidial tendencies with a political one.

And I'll end by saying you're a hypocrite for complaining about 'mudslinging' while simultaneously doing the same thing.

I couldn't fucking care if you think I'm a hypocrite. #1, calling Pox a dumbass isn't mudslinging.....because it's fucking true.......

#2 I'm not trying to destroy atheism, which is what Pox suggested people do by mocking them into submission. So I'm not even a hypocrite, because I'm not proposing using mudslinging for anything.

#3 I gave up on correcting the pissing matches that constitute NG debating. I keep it clean in Heathenry, everywhere else I'm explicitly a nasty fuck. Why? Because that's what wins around here.

Numbers have nothing to do with this, because it's a popularity contest. Find something that gives what religion gives, and make it popular and religion ceases to exist.

If it's tradition: Replace the tradition, find something even older than going to church on sundays.
If it's the need for a group: Find them a fucking swim club
If it's quest for knowledge: Find them a Theology department

Yes, the Irish Catholic teaching the atheists how to destroy religions. the irony is just fucking EXPLOSIVE today!

At 5/31/08 01:02 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 5/31/08 12:26 AM, Creek wrote:

Opinion.
With all the facts dis proving religion in the world right now, right?

Well one quick glance at the history of any religion reveals that any time they've made any verifiable claims or predictions, they've been wrong.

you mean: the history of any religion reveals that any time they've made any wrong claims or predictions, they've been wrong.

You can't say it's lies until you prove it is lies.

I can shoot lazers.
Prove it's a lie.

Can't I'm not there with you. Where do you shoot your laser from? a gun or fingertips or what? if it is a gun, I could see how the gun shoots lasers. If it's your fingertips people can check if your fingertips have special shit or w/e it needs to be able to shoot lasers.

However, I can choose not to believe you shoot lasers.

100% Fact! Because he said so!

One shred of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity _and_intelligence

If it isn't religion, people will find another difference between themselves.

Wow I didn't know you could predict the futur.

Whites, blacks. War.
Mexicans, Whites. War.
Black kids in school, Mexican kids in school. Gang fight.

Differences between people can cause dislike, or otherwise lead to hate and violence.

You're right, since we've stopped burning witches for religious reasons, we've found many other reasons to burn witches...

oh wait.

Whose "we"? I've never burned witches nor does my religion burn witches. People can believe in whatever they want. Personally, choose not to believe in the existence of witches.

People solve their problems with logic already, I don't know what world you live in.

I live in a world where 16 year old kids try to tell me what's what by mainly not reading anything I write.

I read everything you wrote before I replied to it. From what I've seen so far I think that you live in a world where you think you are so smart, you use irrelevant responses and think they support your point. You give analogies which are different scenarios and beg the question. Have you noticed you mainly use personal attacks, generalizations & assumptions, and accusations? And write them down as facts?

Also please consider not using your opinions as facts.

At 5/31/08 01:09 AM, Imperator wrote:

Some of the things that religion DOES won't disappear, because humans haven't come that far yet.

Ah, so now it's SOME things?
And to say "well we've just not come that far" is sort of self-defeating. How are we ever going to get that far is we rely on religion as a crutch?

Your point was that you "need" a religion to commit the atrocities attributed to it

No. The point is that religion causes bad behavior that wouldn't be present without religion while at the same time not causing good behavior that wouldn't be there without it.

Religion never offered science anything to begin with, so of course once it was gone nothing replaced it.

Up to the 15 century, religion WAS the science. Everything scientific went through them and they had the right of say on any conclusions.

For all the talk you do, you have yet to show that science has solved any of the problems you accuse religion of.....

You mean like racism, sexism, religious wars, psychic powers, ghosts, people who make money with faith healing, prophets etc.

And that group solidarity has been replaced by political parties, and collections of like-minded ideologies. Again, that insatiable need to be in a group.

What? That's bunk, they founded america to keep religion OUT OF THEIR LAWS. They didn't replace it with anything, they kicked them out, plain and simple. Gone. Boom.

I see what you're doing now. You're twisting and stretching the definition of "replace".

Again with the vague, pointless fucking terms. "Better" in terms of what, according to whom, and measured with what?

Ok, again with laws. Laws that are based on evidence instead of a religious book is better. It's not even possible to argue this. It's just plain obvious.
Take schools. Religions out of school is strictly better than religion getting to say what is and what isn't in schools.
You can't possibly argue this.

Who the fuck said I was trying to speak well for religion? I just hate having to read your insane conclusions.

You're catholic and you CONSTANTLY defend religion. CONSTANTLY.

And others have figured out religion isn't necessary to control them. Fear, money, and scapegoating based on other identities, like the ethnic identities between Tutsis and Hutus, are a great way of controlling people and committing genocide.

Again: "hey you can die from other ways than a chainsaw would to the head, so let's not do anything to prevent that, I mean, people will just kill themselves in exactly equal amounts anyway".

Your entire point is that, in theory, you think that people will find ways to go to war, do evil etc. at THE EXACT SAME RATE with or without religion.
And that is completely baseless and even dis proven easily when you check into just america where the most criminal people are the most religious. Invariably around the world, more violence is linked with a more religious population.
The examples you keep bringing up are some where the leaders themselves aren't of a religion, but the people they control are. That doesn't help you at all.
At all.

But I forgot that in this great age of enlightenment science had gotten rid of genocide, which of course is all religion's fault.

It's gotten rid the bubonic plague, something that witch burning just didn't quite seem to dent.
See, again you're doing something impossibly unfair. You're saying "ok well science has solved a lot of problems, but NOT ALL OF THEM, so religion is still just as good for us".

Anyways don't make judgments about the "state of the mods" or some crap, that's way beyond your scope here and has nothing to do with this. Stick to the debate.

At 5/31/08 01:48 AM, poxpower wrote:

And to say "well we've just not come that far" is sort of self-defeating. How are we ever going to get that far is we rely on religion as a crutch?

The same way physical therapy works. You replace the crutch with something else, like a cane, until you're well enough to walk again.

Unfortunately assume humans will ever "get well" in that regard is probably as much folly as believing you can rid the world of religion by mocking them into disbelief......

No. The point is that religion causes bad behavior that wouldn't be present without religion while at the same time not causing good behavior that wouldn't be there without it.

What bad behavior then? Genocide? No. Intolerance? No. Batshit crazy fundamentalism based on things that aren't true? No!

The point is you CANNOT come up with a bad behavior that cannot be caused in another way, just as you CANNOT claim that religion is necessary for good acts either.

You don't need religion to be bad, just as you don't need religion to be good.

If you want it both ways you're gonna have to disprove....well....basically psychology and sociology as a whole.

Up to the 15 century, religion WAS the science. Everything scientific went through them and they had the right of say on any conclusions.

Which just makes it an organizational structure, ie, a SOCIAL CONTROL! Science replaced that control with their own leadership.

Leadership itself didn't disappear though, which is what you're claiming will happen when religion goes by saying religion causes bad things and ridding religion will rid the bad things.

You mean like racism, sexism, religious wars, psychic powers, ghosts, people who make money with faith healing, prophets etc.

ALL STILL IN EXISTENCE!
Last I checked, David Copperfield still does shows in Vegas, women AND men bitch about sexism, half the world thinks towel-heads are some inferior breed that need cuddling, and George Bush issued a fucking CRUSADE following 9/11. Not to mention the fact that "Jihad" is now an everyday term. Thank you for reminding me that once again, you DON'T DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

Science has yet to rid the world of magicians. Or our ability to suspend disbelief to do the things we do.

When science finds a way to remove the part of our brain that suspends disbelief, science can effectively say it defeated religion (as well as most other frontal lobe goodies).

What? That's bunk, they founded america to keep religion OUT OF THEIR LAWS. They didn't replace it with anything, they kicked them out, plain and simple. Gone. Boom.

#1 you're arguing a different point now.
#2 Are you arguing history again? They looked for religious tolerance in their laws, they used the Roman system.

Once again, religion offered nothing for what was necessary, and what WAS necessary was replaced. They needed a law system that would let people practice freely, and wouldn't use a holy book as the base for the laws.

Well they NEEDED a precedent, and chose Roman law, half of which were directly taken and still retain their Latin terms.

I see what you're doing now. You're twisting and stretching the definition of "replace".

Not at all. Replace means whatever used to be there is switched, and that the original need of what was switched is still there.

Ok, again with laws. Laws that are based on evidence instead of a religious book is better. It's not even possible to argue this. It's just plain obvious.

OUR laws are based on social customs, and the basis of our legal system is based on ancient Greek and Roman legal systems. Jury, judge, and Rhetoricians, precedence, and proper social behavior. Conviction based on evidence and persuasion of a jury by a public speaker is a product of Roman and Greek law.

OTHER laws are based on the hearsay of Congress, a king, or an Emperor. "My word is law" is a favorite among dictators.

"Laws based on evidence" makes zero sense. Laws aren't based on "evidence" of anything, they're based on the decisions of Congress or precedence set by judges in previous cases.

It is fucking obvious, and it's absolutely ridiculous I have to explain how fucked up of a sentence that was.

Take schools. Religions out of school is strictly better than religion getting to say what is and what isn't in schools.
You can't possibly argue this.

THEOLOGY is still an academic subject moron. And prayer in school has been replaced by the Pledge of Allegiance.

I swear, I don't even know what you're trying to argue now. Places where you see religion as "gone" religion was never IN, or still resides, or was replaced by other aspects that fill the roles where religion was important.

Epic fail on EVERY level pox.

You're catholic and you CONSTANTLY defend religion. CONSTANTLY.

WRONG AGAIN. I'm not defending religion at all, I'm attacking your absolute moronic, baseless, and generalizing points of argument. Don't ever confuse me attacking you as an indication I'm defending religion, or any of the fucking nutjobs that constitute religion. I'm not on either side, I'm on my OWN side, defending intellectual honesty, which you lack on a nearly CONSTANT basis.......

Again: "hey you can die from other ways than a chainsaw would to the head, so let's not do anything to prevent that, I mean, people will just kill themselves in exactly equal amounts anyway".

Prove me wrong. Prove people have stopped killing each other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_Clea nsing

Genocide still exists, religion isn't necessary to cause it.

People ARE just killing themselves anyways, over race, money, or out of fear. You're living in a fuckign bubble if you actually believe what you just wrote.

And that is completely baseless and even dis proven easily when you check into just america where the most criminal people are the most religious. Invariably around the world, more violence is linked with a more religious population.

#1 I would love to see that link.
#2 the US is the reigning world Empire.
#3
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mu r_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_ca t_as_per-religion-catholics-as-percentag e

Italy alone proves you're a dumbass.

It's gotten rid the bubonic plague, something that witch burning just didn't quite seem to dent.

Yeah, and now we've got AIDS. WELL DONE SCIENCE!

BTW: I believe the actual number of witches burned was a grand total of 35. Not 25 hundred or thousand, just THIRTY FIVE.

See, again you're doing something impossibly unfair. You're saying "ok well science has solved a lot of problems, but NOT ALL OF THEM, so religion is still just as good for us".

No, I'm being completely fair. You're claiming religion causes XYZ and science is better. Science hasn't solved XYZ, so your point is bullshit.

I'm asking you to show how science has solved the issues you complained religion causes, and you think that's "unfair"? Bite me.

Anyways don't make judgments about the "state of the mods" or some crap, that's way beyond your scope here and has nothing to do with this. Stick to the debate.

I have every right as a Regular to voice my opinion on the bullshit I see in how the boards are run. "Scope" has nothing to do with it when it concerns how these boards are gonna be run and how I'm going to be affected by those decisions.

Have you ever served a leadership position Pox? Your views on what's "proper" for one suck balls. Group solidarity is important, and the fact that I have to deal with 2 sets of mods because they can't come at me with decisions from a unified front is entirely within my "scope". I was perfectly happy with Science v Religion as the ORT, but no one got banned for disobeying, which leaves me as a regular Religion topic debater confused and pissed.

Don't act like "how to mod a forum" is something I'm not gonna understand or is over my head. I run a fucking non-profit organization, a dance club, and a Classics student club, and you're Schmucky the Clown.

At 5/31/08 02:37 AM, Imperator wrote: BTW: I believe the actual number of witches burned was a grand total of 35. Not 25 hundred or thousand, just THIRTY FIVE.

That's correct. The famous inquisitions were mostly Christians killing Christians, largely for reasons having nothing to do with religion, using church sanction only as an excuse.

At 5/31/08 02:37 AM, Imperator wrote:

The same way physical therapy works. You replace the crutch with something else, like a cane, until you're well enough to walk again.

So why can't this be just science again?

What bad behavior then?

Witch burning, exorcism, confessions, preaching, faith healing, gay-bashing, black-bashing, creationism in schools, religious lobbying, kosher/hallal food nonsense ( look for the little "K" on food, that's jew food. It's everywhere ), crusades, insane sects ( scientology anyone? )

and there's more. All of this would go with religion if we were just all skeptic and scientifically-minded, which isn't really such a high goal to set for a society. Anyone could learn to be like that just in high school.

Which just makes it an organizational structure, ie, a SOCIAL CONTROL! Science replaced that control with their own leadership.

Science isn't "social control". All the rise of science did was to kick them out of science. It didn't replace religion with something else, it just eradicated it, it didn't a "cane" like you pretend we do to go from religious to non-religious.
Science isn't an "organization", it's universal. The way we do science is the way aliens would do science.

ALL STILL IN EXISTENCE!

But largely dimished. And guess where you find it? Along with religion. Just strengthens my point.

Science has yet to rid the world of magicians.

There's so many things wrong with that statement, I don't know where to begin. First of all, there's nothing unscientific about the profession of a magician. We all know they don't do actual magic. And science hasn't gotten everywhere equally. You're basically thinking "oh look science gave it it's best shot and it didn't do it!".
No, science is still gaining strenght. It's not at the top of what it can do yet. As I said, all those things are found where people have a bad scientific education.

Once again, religion offered nothing for what was necessary, and what WAS necessary was replaced.

Yeah that's my claim, religion has no business in laws, hence was kicked out of them. It wasn't "replaced" with anything.

OUR laws are based on social customs, and the basis of our legal system is based on ancient Greek and Roman legal systems.

Which are based on logic. Facts. Evidence. Cases. Laws change to fit the people.
When religion has it's way with laws, the laws are final. "God said it, end of discussion". That's obviously not how a system of law should be constructed, I don't even know what the hell you're arguing here. You know this.

"Laws based on evidence" makes zero sense. Laws aren't based on "evidence" of anything, they're based on the decisions of Congress or precedence set by judges in previous cases.

Laws ARE based on evidence. For instance: why is it not legal to exceed speed limits? You think someone just, without any evidence or logic, came up with that law?
No. People were crashing their cars, there was EVIDENCE that a law should be passed to prevent this.

THEOLOGY is still an academic subject moron. And prayer in school has been replaced by the Pledge of Allegiance.

*ugh dear lord*
Theology isn't religiously-controlled. I was telling you how it's a great idea to kick religious control out of schools. I thought it was pretty obvious that I wasn't saying we should keep the subject of religion out of school.

And the pledge has been added by RELIGION, and is a waste of time and just an extra source of aggravation that has no place in schools. One great example of why religious people shouldn't have a say in what goes on in schools.

Prove me wrong. Prove people have stopped killing each other.

Who the hell said peoeple have stopped killing each other? No one.
Who the hell said that, should science ever become universal and religion be gone, people would stop killing each other? No one.
You're the master of the straw man argument, aren't you?

I think it's pretty evident that without religion, every bad thing done by religion would be gone.
You claim that it would be replaced in the exact same amount so we shouldn't even try.

I'm saying, the nonsense and violence in the world would diminish a lot. Just like it has over the last 500 years as religion has steadily lost power.

#1 I would love to see that link.

In steps:
1- educated people are less religious the more educated they become:
http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/jesus/intellig ence%20&%20religion.htm
( and don't call bias, all of those are sourced ).

2- criminals are typically the most uneducated people:
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/justice /articles_publications/publications/edbr ief_19970901

More education = less religion and less crime.
If religion really redeemed anyone, the crime would diminish as people become more religious, but you find the opposite.

Now this doesn't suggest that religion is the cause of crime, but it suggests that it's really the religious who are the more criminal, simply because you have to be ignorant to be religious.

#2 the US is the reigning world Empire.

So?

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mu r_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_ca t_as_per-religion-catholics-as-percentag e
Italy alone proves you're a dumbass.

The number of catholics in the world has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. Nothing.

Yeah, and now we've got AIDS. WELL DONE SCIENCE!

Guess who tells africans to not use condoms?
p.s. what kind of argument is this??? Science gets rid of a problem and you, instead of saying "yeah I guess it works" just say 'BUT LOOK ANOTHER PROBLEM, DAMN YOU SCIENCE YOU SUCK SO MUHC!!!111".

BTW: I believe the actual number of witches burned was a grand total of 35. Not 25 hundred or thousand, just THIRTY FIVE.

So? Just one is already horrible.

No, I'm being completely fair. You're claiming religion causes XYZ and science is better. Science hasn't solved XYZ, so your point is bullshit.

This is the exact same logic as this:
"Religion can't answer every question, so you claim science is better. Science hasn't solved every question ever asked, so your point is bullshit".

Now let's see if you can figure out on your own why this is stupid.

I have every right as a Regular to voice my opinion on the bullshit I see in how the boards are run.

Well you haven't done any of that. What complaints do you have regarding the way politics is moderated?

At 5/30/08 06:55 PM, Imperator wrote: GOD DAMNIT STOP MAKING NEW THREADS!

The "point" of religious debates is to stimulate some fucking intellectual curiosity.

The point of religious debates ON NG is to prove how fucking moronic one can be.

The reason NG religious debates, on the whole, suck balls:
1.) 9/10 can't fucking DEBATE for the life of them

Actually, I think there are pretty good debaters here on both sides. You are a great debater who mostly take the religious side, I do like Drakims reasoning, and I dare to say that I'm at least decent at it and don't just throw bullshit around like Pox (I know when to shut up).
There are assholes on both sides, but when they keep out or are ignored, it's usually quite nice to read and occacionly post.

At 5/31/08 01:02 AM, poxpower wrote: There is no reason to lock them other than your personal vendetta against atheists, as far as I can see.

The only personal vendetta I have in this is getting people to leave me the fuck alone and quit whining about how we don't have an official religion topic and how it's so dammed aggravating that we have multiple topics about the discussion of science versus religion.

You don't do that, sorry.

I don't do that? I wasn't the one who actually made the topic, genius. You're point that it was solely my wish and desire to squash this repetitive garbage is patently false. And while we're talking about "rule by one," what exactly are you doing here, hm?

And the "other regulars" who I imagine are half people who never post outside the lounge and half people who never talk about religion.

Okay, let's clear the air; these topics are not about religion in general, they are science versus faith. We don't need six topics a day for that, and hell, this topic had nothing to do with the actual debate of religion until you showed up.

Basically a call made by people who don't have any business making it AT ALL.

As apposed to a call made by you, someone who at the time the topic was started wasn't that actively involved in politics forum? How's that for fair?