SomeRandomAspie
Unspecified origin
Here are my problems with religion:i've seen that kind of thing, and it's sad i agree, however:
- not everyone is an intellectual pondering theoretical concepts, not everyone feels the need to live their lives based on the rigours of science and consistently benchmark and critique the values ad influences in their lives, some people enjoy the simplicity of being anonymous in an organised larger structure and find comfort in belief, and as long as they don't hurt anyone else that is there right
- i've lived in the us, the uk, france and germany, i find that the current european system is not indoctrinating and does not impose itself, many people are raised catholic but don't believe in god and move away from the belief part of it as they grow older
- clearly, not everything in the church is as it should be, but you cannot extrapolate/generalize that from that fact all of catholicism is bad, it is like saying that:
-1- sports should be banned because of a minority of fanatics that act like maniacal cult members devoted to their sports or coaches that are pedofiles
-2- companies should be banned because they have a structure and expect you to adhere to a corporate culture
you are basically saying that anything should be banned because it can be abused, because it didn't work out for a minority group of people and because some individuals have abused it for their own benefit.
by that reasoning, everything a company makes should be banned, every policy a government makes should be banned, every person that does anything for his or her own benefit at the expense of anyone else should be removed from society, police hospitals and any public service should be banned because these people can abuse their position, all medications should be banned because they can have negative effects for some people, etc
the church is kind of like the armed services, both have done a lot of unjustified awful damage in the name of ideals, but both have also been the source of much innovation to the benefit of mankind, the church was a driving force of architecture, literature, art, beer brewing, it used to one of the main employer of artisans
in summary:
- religions are flawed, just like any other human social or other construct
- you don't need to believe in god to act like a good christian, christian values aren't even unique to catholicism
- don't throw the baby away with the bathwater, take from religion what is useful but scrutinise what is going wrong
- people that are misusing religion for their own benefit at other's expenses should be prosecuted
for the sake of clarity, i am in no way religious, for me this is just a thought exercise, definite and final opinions (should be banned, is all bad) always get me thinking as i believe that most things are not black and white,
i also appreciate your opinion, and i'm i no way saying that your are not entitled to it, i'm only saying that for some people religion can be a helpful positive element in their lives, these people have the right to experience their religion as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, clearly religion can also be dangerous and should monitored for abuses, but this is the case for almost anything in life and in my opinion that's not a sufficient reason to scrap it
-it can be abused, even if it isn't always misused.
-most religious people disrespect scientific findings.
-45% of people in the US don't believe in eveolution.
-people don't need science as a coping mechanism. They could use other coping mechanism or try not caring.
-if there was no religion science would progress much faster.
And here is my "Is God Real" checklist:
- There's no evidence!
- God doesn't stop the evil in the world, and God himself committed plenty of it.
- Drowning just about everything alive?... not a sign of love.
- The opening lines of the Bible are wrong. Why believe the rest of it?
- Prayer has never fixed anything physically impossible. Why won't God heal amputees?
- There are thousands of Gods you don't believe in. What makes yours any different?
- Where you're born essentially determines what you believe. Why is the truth based on geography?
- Who created God? And how does your answer to that make any sense?
- Pediatric cancer
- Unconditional love shouldn't come with a list of conditions.
- Every supposed miracles gets debunked eventually.
- The Ten Commandments he gave left off Don't Rape and Slavery's Not Okay.
- The movies and music that honor God... are awful!
- The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike
- No hide and seek game lasts this long
- Science explains so much of what we used to attribute to God
- The more we learn, the less reason we have to believe in God
- If you tried to explain your religious mythology to someone who had never heard it before, you'd sound crazy.
- If God didn't exist, the world would probably look exactly as it does now.
- If God existed, he would smite me now.
