What does it make sense to believe without evidence?

I agree with you, of course, and that is what the evidence says, but I don’t think most people can get their minds around this. Look at the popularity of ghost stories. They just don’t accept that there is no such thing as a soul. I rather believe this predated formal religion, and got incorporated into it.

I’ve considered Communism to be a religion for years; don’t give this thread the credit. I and others talk about it here.

A religion is the beliefs held by those who follow it, not the cherry picked sayings of some long dead prophet that few actually pay attention to. The “contortion” is the “true” religion; what you consider the “true” religion is a dead issue.

You keep trying to blame the evils of Communism on atheism ( standard tactic ), but that doesn’t wash. Why aren’t other atheistic groups known for that behavior ? Perhaps…it’s because it’s Communism, not atheism that is at fault. The thread I linked talks about that attitude of yours as well.

“Rationalistic” is hardly the word I’d use to describe them. They were a bunch of true believing, dogma spouting superstitious loonies, not rationalists.

When the opposite side is as implausible as believing the world is run by a secret conspiracy of four dimensional unicorns ? In this subject, no I’m not wrong.

You keep claiming I’m wrong when I say the evils of religion greatly outweigh the good; one is implied in the other. If I’m wrong, the good of religion outweighs the evil.

As far as your second assertion goes, you and others keep trying to blame the evils of religion on everything else; it’s “contorted”, or hijacked or misinterpeted; nothing it does is ever it’s fault. Examples :

I never claimed any such things existed. My contention is that the foundatoin of our belief system, whoever you are, is only significant in realtion to the fruiits of our actions, which are a real live reflection of our beliefs. If someone goes to church and that particular path works for them to become a better person great. If someone else does it through studying philosophy great. It’s the fruits that those beliefs bear that matter.

[QUOTE]

Have I made that claim, or have I pointed out that its a claim you can’t prove and that your standards of even a feeble attempt at proof are completely biased and illogical. Not the same thing is it? I ask again. Show me the quote where I made that claim or retract it as false.

Never said that either.
What I have done is point out to you that your system of measureing good vs. harm is completely skewed. That was the point of most of the quotes you selected. So I’m guessing you can’t provide a simple quote or two from me to prove the two false assertions you made. Care to try again?

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]

Arrrgh ! Alright, fine you never literally used those words. You implied it, you danced around it but you never actually said those words. You may have meant it, it may be the only conclusion I can draw from what you said, but you never used those specific words. Happy now ?

Now, are you going to provide evidence I’m wrong, evidence you’re right, or are you going to keep playing literal minded word games ?

I suppose someone could say that after our electrical activity comes to an end, we still linger on for a while as electrical activity in other brains.

Fair enough. You make a good argument although I dont completely agree with you. I am sure you can see the dilemma. For a God-honoring person the Holy Spirit should be followed. This is not the case for a self-fulfilling person. The Bible is The book to follow since it spells out how to live life. Specifically Christs example.

Just because God spoke in terms of traditions of that day does not change anything for me. It’s not a fair conclusion that they are fabricated simply because of a tradition. If God came and spoke to us today, we could understand much easier if he used analogies/traditions we were use to at the current time.
Now in regards to how a woman child makes the woman more unclean. What I am trying to figure out is why you put so much emphasis on this quote? If God wanted to show that the woman was more unclean when she had a woman child so what? I could come up with my idea of why it is but there could be thousands of possibilities as to why this is. A common theme you should notice is the sheding of blood for purification.

The reason is because it was not the intended purpose of the body. The intended purpose of sexual contact is between a man and a woman inside marriage to become one. Our bodies are given to us and it is only just for God to ask that we treat them as His. I have personally known people who have been gay but after hard work have turned straight again through Christ. You seem to know Christ so I think you also understand the power that we have through God to overcome our addictions. Addictions that we would never be able to leave behind without God. It is a safe bet that you know how much the world can fuck us up.

You bring up a good question. Is being gay a sin or is gay sex the sin? Again it probably comes down to your definition of sin. I have already stated that it is my viewpoint that the act of gay sex is a sin. Look above this post for my explanation. In a sense, we are all evil since none of us is perfect. I would consider being gay the part of us that has desires that go against Gods plan for us. I am actually very interested in the research as to if someone is born gay or it is a learned behavior. It wouldnt really change my viewpoint at all (and of coarse I would never consider them any less equal either way). The reason is because we are born with evil desires. This one would be no different. Some people are hit right away with these huge barriers such as someones mother smoking or doing drugs before the baby is even out of the womb. Others dont really get hit with the huge negative consequences of sin until later in life.

God never intended sex before marriage. It is the literal combining (spirtually) of a man and a woman into one. As with any sin, the consequences of premarital sex can be very devastating. Not only are you more likely to have a failed marriage because of premarital sex, you are also unclean for the person you do end up marrying if you have already slept with another person. I do not expect most people to understand this concept. Sin of the body is the hardest to overcome and is usually accompanied by the most self-fulfilling ideas to escape the consequence of dealing with it. Even I have a hard time with this.

Thank you I will take a look at these.

Well, well, bigotry rears it’s head.

Even if that were true, so what ?

Poetic, but meaningless. It’s also arrogant to tell people what they can do with their bodies.

Arrogant, disgusting garbage. My body is mine, and no one else has rights over it. Not God, not the government, no one and nothing.

Not this again. No you don’t. You may think you do, but you don’t.

So being gay is an addiction ? How charming.

So God is a bigoted jerk ?

Somehow, I’m not surprised that you wouldn’t change your mind. I seriously doubt anyone with sense is going to believe you have any respect for people you consider enemies of God.

Even if that were true, why should anyone care ?

“Unclean” ? :rolleyes: You sound like the sort of person who believes in burning witches.

Saying something is wrong is not anywhere near bigotry.

That is under the assumption that our bodies were just randomly given to us and we can do whatever we please with them. Besides, God says what you should do. You do not have to listen since you have it all figured out.

Who said they were enemies of God? Evil is an enemy of God. Not the person (created). Your argument would apply equally to myself since I would be an enemy of God. Thankfully this does not apply and it is the evil inside of me that is despised. If you had read anything I have said before you would have known that I do not consider anyone any better or worse from me.

If you look a few posts above yours you would see the talk about being unclean. I would have hoped you would understand the biblical sense of being unclean.

Sin is whatever the writers of what they claim are holy books consider bad at the time. Working on the Sabbath was a far greater sin than homosexuality. Sin is bullshit. Calling things that hurt no one sin is triple bullshit.

What a horrible concept. It’s like saying that a kid who doesn’t get 100% on all his tests is stupid. 2,000 years ago they came up with the concept that everyone is evil and go to hell unless you pay the Church for the get out of hell card - today they say that your breath is horrid and you’ll never get the girl without buying the right mouthwash. And the gullible fall for it.

Yes it is coarse. (Good Freudian slip there.) By your definition I’m hella gay (not that there’s anything wrong with it.) Would surprise the hell out of my wife.

And you consider them less equal - you don’t think anyone who doesn’t toe your line deserves happiness. You’re going to be saying some of my best friends are gay next.

What does being a crack baby have to do with evil desires? Do they deserve it? Who’s responsible for someone being born with evil desires anyway? (Hint - Adam and Eve never existed.)

You should check up on Abraham and Sarah’s adventures in Egypt some time. The only negative consequences I can see are when someone is so beset by religious guilt trips that they turn a good relationship into a bad one. I’m too much of a heathen to ever be bothered by this.

And I’ve had lots of self-fulfilling ideas that don’t escape “sin” of the body. :smiley:

Sex in violation of trust is bad. You don’t need god to figure that out. Besides that - the divorce rate is going down, especially among young people, and less religious states have lower divorce rates than more religious states.

For us, we got married in a basically atheistic institution with the name of God never mentioned. Hasn’t seemed to have hurt. All that stuff is so two millenia ago.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

Hmmm I guess you might call that a retraction. If those were the only conclusions you could come to then you need to work on your reading comprehension skills.

Let’s review. You said,

I asked you to cite that claim and here you are mincing words trying to indicate I “all but said it” rather than just admit you were wrong.
So let’s be clear I never said you provided no evidence nor have I ever claimed in any way that the evils done in the name of religion don’t count against it. What I said was that you can’t prove your claim and that your methods of judgement are completely biased. So far both those things appear to be true.

Your 2nd false statement about me was,

Never claimed it or heavily implied it. Again, I was finding fault with your method of trying to prove your assertion, and claiming that you couldn’t actually prove it.
I never claimed that you were wrong or that the opposite of your assertion was what I believed to be true. It’s consdered good form to admit it when you’re wrong in grown up discussions. It only hurts for a second.

Over and over again in several threads you’ve criticized anyone with spiritual beliefs for not having the evidence needed to prove their beliefs. All I tried to do was point out to you that you also make claims that you can’t prove. I’ll admit you have objective evidence that is plain for anyone to see. Those like myself who have spiritual beliefs have subjective evidence. I think that’s valid,* for me*. I don’t claim that my subjective evidence is valid evidence for anyone else.

IMO Religion is an integral part of the human experience. It’s been around as long as recorded history and like humanity it has a mixed record of successes and failures. Would we be better off without religion? It seems a pointless question. Your own feelings on Communism seems to indicate that. Even without religion based on spritual beliefs man contrives something just like religion.
Does religion have more good than bad, or more bad than good? I can’t see anyway to measure that, especially not a way that you and I would agree was fair.

You mean you didn’t recognize it in most of your posts?

I’m not sure what you mean here. You’re sure he doesn’t no anyone that used to be gay but now is not? Does that mean that people that change from a gay to straight lifestyle weer never really gay?

and man was created in his image. Some more than others.

I don’t know what to say. On one hand, Der Trihs isn’t defending any of his “religion is teh eval” claims. (WHich does not in itself make them illogical.) On the other hand, I agree with him, and yet, I have no desire to hijack this into a “Religion is teh Eval” thread. Perhaps he has seen how those go, with neither side giving an inch, and doesn’t want to start such nonsense either. Or maybe he is just lazy. I don’t know. All I do know is:

This really sounds ridiculous. Last time I looked, most forms of bigotry were caused by prejudice. Somehow, I doubt Der Trihs suffers from lack of expose to religion. Rather, he is likely to have had a lot of expose to it, and has based his views on that.

I’ve pointed out all the evils that religion has done, and asked for some sort of good that at least comes close to it. That’s my defense. It seems like a good one to me, since I’ve yet to see any such thing.

The Bible is not the only book that makes recommendations on how to live. As I mentioned. Buddha taught essentially the same lessons on how to relate to others and the world. I’m not sure what you mean by a self fulfilling person, but love, kindness, integrity, courage, compassion, are the true revelation of who we are regardless of what we give lip service to or what books we read.

But God wouldn’t compromise the truth for the sake of tradition. Jesus didn’t.

So what? Did you say so what? My dear Trust. The fact that you actually think God wanted to show that makes me think we won’t have much to talk about. Isn’t it obvious that passage is just a refelection of the gender bias of an ancient civilzation and “The Lord said” part is just completly false. The Lord said no such thing because it’s ridiculous. This is a prime example of what I call putting a tradtional belief about the Bible ahead of the truth. “It’s in the Bible so it must be true no matter how illogical or unreasonable it is”

Because a 2000 year old book says so, right? That’s another problem I see with seeing the Bible as the final authority. Instead of growing it inhibits growth and understanding by trying to get us to conform to a 2000 year old culture.

I don’t believe all people who choose to have sex with thier own gender are born that way. Some choose that life style for various emotional and phycological reasons and may choose something else as their life changes. Most however are born that way and it would be going against their nature to try and change who they are. Either way, the physical act of sex is not evil. It is the intent of the heart that determines that. IMHO.

I wouldn’t refer to being gay as an addiction. We choose and our choices have consequences. We are influenced by the world around us and not always in a positive way. I believe we do have access to the Holy Spirit for direction, insight wisdom, and encouragement.

You’re right Scott. That statement sounds totally ridiculous.

And you probably never will. Not because it doesn’t exist, but because your standards reflect your own bias and you simply dismiss what is offered as “that doesn’t count” while accuseing others of doing exactly what you’re doing.

It does seem to me that on balance religion as it has been practiced is a drag on society. The good that religion does would be done in any case I think. Even those without religion are not without charity for the victims of disaster. That just leaves the evil. I don’t think that religion causes evil necessarily, but those who are evil anyway for whatever reason can certainly find their justification in the Bible.

We might be better off if religion had never existed but we’re now stuck with it. I think the best we can expect is that over time its evil aspects will be ameliorated by external forces as has been the case in the past.