Just curious Libertarian (really, it isn’t meant as a challenge!), but where did Jesus say that? I know Paul said something similar in his second letter to Timothy, but I don’t remember and can’t find a passage where Jesus said that. Maybe I don’t have the same translation.
In a dusty gravel parking lot behind my brother’s insurance agency.
PefectDark: If Hitler and the Nazis hated Jews because of their religion, then why did they round up Jews who had converted to christianity and people whose ancestors were jewish but were christians? The Nazi’s didn’t think of Judaism as a religion, but as a race. The taint was not in their beliefs, but in their blood. You could be the most devout Nazi, but if it was discovered that you had jewish ancestory you would be shipped to the gas chambers.
And of course, Nazism was NOT a christian movement. The Nazis appropriated religious themes for their movement, but the beleived that people should worship the state, the leader, and the people…not God. Do some reading, for crying out loud.
The swastica is a religious symbol.
–I just found out that none of my dictionaries make note that the swastica was used by the Nazis. hmm–
Anyway… Lemur866 I think you should do some reading… back through the posts, I never actually said it was a Christian movement… what I said was that the Germans were Christians.
How the hell did we get on to this???
[Back to OP]
When will religion die?
[/Back to OP]
PerfectDark
Religion will die when it no longer cloaks political purposes.
Bush just told the Russians (in a speech in Poland) that they should not fear NATO expansion because they are part of Europe due to their Christian tradition.
Talk about convoluted logic, but that is what makes religions rich - political allies using them as shields.
The swastica is a hooked cross rotated 45 degrees. A hooked cross is s ymbol of luck and prosperity, and other such ahppy things. There was a thread here about it, but I’m just too lazy to look it up.
So all those Jewish people living in Germany weren’t German citizens? You have to be Christian to be German? Hitler didn’t like Christians. They were a bad influence on Nazis. Christianity preaches good will toward your fellow man, mercy, kindness, none of the things that the Nazi party teaches.
Sorry to keep this little birdwalk going, but I just couldn’t resist.
Not all the Germans you &(^%^%$. I am fed up with your opposition because you keep putting words into my mouth. And the majority of Germans were Christian so shutup!
If your not going to get back onto the OP “WHEN WILL RELIGION DIE?” Then SHUTUP!! I’d rather have this thread closed down then it turning into an argument over Hitler, it was brought up in the first place because someone wanted to defend religion as being good, which isn’t part of the debate, whether it’s good or not is irrelevant, it’s WHEN and HOW religion will die.
**The Fromesiter ** I’m telling you directly, get back to the OP or I will leave this thread for dead.
PerfectDark
Very well goood sir.
Religion will die when humanity looses it’s need for a belief in something greater than itself. Science will not provide this as it is based on cold hard facts, not the kindness, love, and protection that people desire.
Faith lives in so many people because life is meaningless without it. Science is cold and hard. Religion is open and loving. Tell me, which is more welcoming?
When religion dies, so does the heart of humanity. Religion embodies all things divine. Science doesn’t care one way or another. Logic is not life. Emotion is.
Well life isn’t really meaningless without a faith, it just appears to some people with faith that without it they would have no purpose in life.
This seems like a defect in the social construct of humanity in that some people are too weak to go about their lives without some afterlife moral check or divine purpose.
I don’t believe in God, I can’t remember ever believing, and I have a meaning in life. I don’t sit in the corner and cry because my life has no meaning due to when I die there is nothing. I enjoy life and I try to make the world a better place, I help volunteer for Guide Dogs for the Blind and I like helping and teaching people. My goal is to one day become the richest man in Australia and become PM, to make Australia a better place.
PerfectDark
And why is there a purpose to life without faith? If there is no reason for life then why doesn’t anarchy rule? I believe that that speaks for itself. Religion is real and will never die because everyday life is a reflection or religion. The order, the meaning, the purpose. When religion ceases, so does humanity, therefor religion will cease when humanity ceases.
There doesn’t have to be a judgement. Just that there is something more, even if it’s as simple as a greater being who only appears to us as a god.
Religion will always be around, because there will always be people who always fear death and need something to depend on. I’m afraid of death, and i certainly hope there is an afterlife.
And life isn’t meaningless without religion. Some people live for pure pleasure, in sex, drugs, whatever they can find for pleasure. That’s what they live for. Of course, that’s not the only thing to live for if your an atheist, but that’s the first thing that came to mind.
Why do i keep myself alive? Cuz i feel i would hurt to many people if i killed myself. That may sound self-centered, but think about what would happen if you killed yourself.
this thread is all over the place. Let’s get away from aliens and similar nutty topics for a minute to handle this discussion with some reason rather than gut feelings. Let’s see if I can hit the major points in what little time I have.
That may be perception of many, but it is by no means an accurate representation of the theory. Far from being an article of faith, the desire to live as long as possible is a documented, fundamental biological drive with which all living beings are endowed. Add to this that humans are pattern-seeking hierarchical animals, and the soundest explanation for God that emerges is therefore as an abstraction, the ultimate universal pack leader, able to guide and protect those who follow him. A religious system follows suit, in which a group of the religious elite interject on behalf of the commoners. Beliefs engendered by our survival drive concerning the immortality of some portions of our selves thrive, and provide hope to all. Such hope is frequently manipulated to provide solace, comfort for lost relatives or friends, or incentives less admirable (for example, both the Christian and Moslem sides in all the Crusades maintained that to fight the enemy in worthy cause assured one of a place in heaven).
In most cases, religious systems are responsible for both good and bad (relativistically speaking); charities are an example of good, and persecution is an example of bad. The line between the tenets of religion and the interpretation of the religion are often blurry however, and it is unwise to consistently blame an agency for the actions of some of its members.
One uses reason to analyse the problem, not unfalsifiable hypotheses. As it stands, God is epistemically unnecessary. The burden of proof is on the proponents of God to provide evidence or arguments in support of their beliefs. It is nobody’s job to “disprove” God, because it is not possible to employ reason to prove that an unrestricted non-exclusive negative does not exist.
God may exist for all we know. It’s the same thing with the aliens that came up earlier in the discussion: sure, there may be aliens out there, but we do not have any evidence of them, popular culture to the contrary. And yet you can’t go through a day without someone making references to aliens, or reading some “news” about them, or seeing them in pop media. Alien life is a human social archetype of the 20th century and beyond, and bears a striking similarity to our situation with the existence of God.
Just trying to establish our terms here. Now, back to the OP:
This has already happened, and is what “God is epistemically unnecessary” means. Doesn’t look like it slowed religion much, on the contrary: a number of religions attempt to utilize science to support their positions (I recall discussing the dangers of this in another thread here in GD). Your other possibilities, apart from the first one, in which we destroy ourselves, are extremely unlikely and would not necessarily contribute to the death of religion even if they did take place.
Now let’s examine science vs. religion, since the item has come up a few times in this thread. Science is a tool based on reason and evidence. Religion is a belief system based largely on faith. Any thinker worth his salt understands that science is knowledge and faith is opinion, and that the two ain’t the same thing. No self-respecting scientist is yet prepared to claim that God does or does not exist based on knowledge at hand; scientists may offer their opinions however, and some of them do–a surprising number of scientists are NOT atheists, contrary to popular belief.
The intellectual difficulties arise when religion is dressed up as knowledge rather than opinion (e.g. “Scientific Creation” and similar rubbish). Common people, many untrained in critical thinking, accept disguised opinion as knowledge, and argue from it. This is the equivalent of arguing from ignorance. Of course, scientists are also guilty of dressing opinion as fact (see homeopathy, or some parapsychologists), and this practice is by no means solely the domain of the religiously convinced (it is the domain of charlatanry, which is a form of opinion).
Pretty much the only position on God that you can defend with emphasis is the “we don’t know” position. That is truth. Positive or negative affirmations (God does or does not exist) are opinion and ought to be treated as such–certainly not as the absolute truth.
No, I do not see the rationale here. Religion will die when humanity no longer cares about it, would be more accurate.
Apples and oranges. Do you expect a pneumatic drill, or a surgeon’s scalpel to be warm and fuzzy? Science is a tool. Not a position, but a tool. It has probably saved your life a number of times by now, the same way a pneumatic drill once helped to build the warm comfort of your home. Tools. Science deals with facts and situations, survival, improvement, methodologies, and numbers; predictions too. When it comes to protection I doubt you can do better than science, although believing in an all-powerful being who can snatch you out of trouble certainly is comforting.
More apples and oranges. You can have the good sense to accept science (knowledge) and believe in religion (opinion) at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive only when brought to mesh together. There are those who prefer the warm fuzzy feeling of hope, and there are those to whom clear, concise information brings comfort. Knowledge and opinion are equally useful when applied correctly, and in some cases opinion can eventually lead to knowledge.
A highly emotional statement, but one that is unsupported. A more appropriate answer is that for human beings reason and emotion are equally important components that make us human. Remove one, and you have a monster, either anti-social or unstable. Remove both, and you have a vegetable. Science and knowledge are equivalent, however emotion and religion are not. There is no reason to claim that the removal of religion will not result in a stronger fellowship of humankind, where empathy replaces tribal (and super-tribal) conflicts of interest. We simply don’t know, and it is unwise to make bold assumptions over that which we do not know.
Religion will die when people realize that they have had a direct connection to the Divine, without need for proxies.
If religion dies and there is no such realization of that direct connection to the Divine, then apathy ensues.
Really? I have no religion and neither have I any realization of a direct connection to the Divine, and yet I am not in the least apathetic. Do you believe all atheists/agnostics just sit around all day staring at the walls and drooling, or that the only thing that prevents them from doing so is the presence of religion?