you also said in another thread "God has no direct influence on this planet or what happens on it, good or bad. God(or gods/whatever is out there) could be good, could be bad, I think it is neither. I think it just is."
undeniably statements of an agnostic. Its what you are whether you believe it or not. It just defines your beliefs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
more
http://arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/E-tex...l/agnostic.htm
more
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agnostic
you sir are an Agnostic and don't even know it!
http://www.religioustolerance.org/agnostic.htm
Well if you need more proof let me know. Its only a google of agnostic or (especially apathetic agnosticism) away.
You are very wrong about the Christian faith. The Christian faith directly stems from the first major mono-theistic faith, Judaism. There are similarities between this and other faiths, but it does not change its origins. That's like saying that the only real religion is whatever the FIRST one was because it was first and everything else was copied. So all religions after are posers.
When we speak of law and absolutes lets go back to the concept of laws and what they were intended to do. Laws were intended to help society function. All written law, and unwritten, has its place to support human life and well being within a society. Written law all stems from the same moral code or moral law. Those are things that are the laws about murder, theft, etc etc. People all over the world when they kill they have to try to justify it some way. That's because the entire world views the taking of life as a wrong thing to do. Which proves that their is something in humans that tells us that killing is wrong.
I have commented on the choice thing on another thread so I will not go back into that.
Lastly, you said
"First of all, Individuals such as you and I are responsible for the way this world is and will be. Not god, not buddha, not religion, although religion indirectly and directly affect the actions of millions of ppl, but it comes down to human choice. A choice to kill someone, or a choice to help someone...and yes, EVERYONE should believe in themselves more...."
and then you said
"I don't know why you're lecturing us about islamic terroists and hitler and whatnot, I know not to judge a group of ppl by the actions of a few, and I do not...although we can all agree female asian drivers are the worst!"
again a contradiction (EVEN IN THE SAME POST)
The people I listed did exactly what you started this thread about. But what you say is that it would be a better world if people believed in themselves. The same people who you can contribute to creating these terrible religions and governments, and performing horrible acts toward one another, you want them to be relinquished of "religion" as if it is going to make them better people. It wont because these people have already proven that they are ignoring the doctrines of their faith in light of "believing in themselves" So how do you figure that makes sense?
So what is it to you? Is your culprit religion, or is it the individuals. It can't be both in this case, because you have attacked the system and the individual. Its either that one of them is right and one is wrong or they both are wrong. But if they both are wrong, then you can't say that you think people should look to themselves because you have indirectly placed humans as responsible for the bad in our world either through religion or through their own philosophy of life. You want people to take your arguments seriously (some I do) but you don't seem to know what your argument is.
So how about you tell us specifics? Why don't you actually step up and provide us with specifics on when a religion, in its very doctrine says that we are to commit genocide, or when a religion in its doctrine said, lets hurt people, lets hate people. Give us that example? Let us know what you mean when you say religion, because to me "in the name of religion" means nothing unless you can tell me about the individual. Because you yourself said that you do not judge a group of people by the actions of a few, but that is exactly what you are doing. You are taking the 99% of the world who have some sort of faith and judging them based off of the 5% who claim faith but do stupid things.
There is no way around your skew here. If it is the religion then we can talk about how billions of people in our world are "religious" and the high majority of them have nothing to do with the problems in our respective societies. Or you can look at the individuals as a whole who do not follow the rules of their faith. That would be like saying laws in America are pointless because look at how many people break them and make our world a worse place to live.
so what is the point for you? Why do you even post on here? You made a blanket statement of which you have not shown your sources? Is it that YOU have been jaded by people of faith, I would bet Christianity because you used the term "saves" in your first post, when in fact ONLY Christianity uses it widely? Is that you just can't stand it? Because all I can see is you using the actions of a few to define ME and my family and MY friends whom I know do 10 times more to serve individually than any of the non-theists I know. Boy Scouts, Salvation Army, Red Cross, Habitat 4 Humanity, over seas missions, educators peace corps, these things all have their foundations in service and that service is spawned by religion.
As much as I would like to continue this discussion with you I am going to start ignoring what you post. Mostly because you do not have a specific goal in your statements and responding to you is beginning to be the same with no advance in thought. You don't seem to have a direction in your arguments, and your points are actually starting to contradict the very nature of your POV. I would just like to see you get specific with real examples and real points.
...BTW I think I agree with the female asian driver statement.
Originally Posted by sport_122
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