Prayse tha Lawd!

[Kezzer]

its will be mostly subconscious. so i wouldnt blame you for it anyway

So why are religious people weak minded? They live lives of celebacy, refrain from any kind of fornication, avoid certain foods, direct their thinking towards religious icons. Surely it's easier to become someone who is not religious? Then surely that means that non-religious types are more-so weak minded than religious types?

For example, it's easier to pick up your favourite food and eat it, maybe a chocolate bar or a bag of crisps. It's more difficult to refrain from eating that particular food. Same applies for religion. It's mentally tougher to restrict yourself from certain things than it is to just let go and lead your life without religion in it. So to conclude, is it really the weak minded people who turn to religion? I don't see the logic in that statement myself.

[MadduckUK]

if it was a case of not eating your faverout food to lose weight, save money etc then thats fine.

however the conformity nessesairy in order to reach "a higher being" isnt like this, its more like brainwashing. someone else has told you that you must do this in order to get to the prize at the end.

[Kezzer]

if it was a case of not eating your faverout food to lose weight, save money etc then thats fine.

however the conformity nessesairy in order to reach "a higher being" isnt like this, its more like brainwashing. someone else has told you that you must do this in order to get to the prize at the end.

Conformity? You mean good moral standards? Sorry, I didn't realise this was a conformity in modern Earth. Also, what prize? You do realise there are self-less religious types right? People who don't do good to receive that "prize" at the end. Could you never be content with the fact you're doing some good in the world despite what may ever happen to you in the end?

[MadduckUK]

Conformity? You mean good moral standards? Sorry, I didn't realise this was a conformity in modern Earth. Also, what prize? You do realise there are self-less religious types right? People who don't do good to receive that "prize" at the end. Could you never be content with the fact you're doing some good in the world despite what may ever happen to you in the end?

you have totally just read my mind kezzer. these is no need for religion. common sence and respect for others is all you need

[Kezzer]

you have totally just read my mind kezzer. these is no need for religion. common sence and respect for others is all you need

It's a shame the majority of people don't have that

[MadduckUK]

so religion is the alternative?

[Kezzer]

so religion is the alternative?

Now you're just blatantly trying to stir something by reading inbetween the lines I would never, ever force religious viewpoints on anyone. I just don't understand why people are so intent in dehumanising religious beliefs just because they don't agree with them. If someone takes drugs, I don't go up to them and say "what you're doing is completely wrong", I let them live their lives however they want, because it has nothing to do with me. It seems every anti-religious person wait until they can make a comment against religious viewpoints just to try and prove to themselves that their own argument is correct.

[Sinizter]

There's a theory for this kind of stuff. People don't believe in any kind of higher power mainly because of scientific influences within society nowadays - that was a big reason for the shift towards atheism/agnosticism in more recent years. There's more people trying to disprove religion than there are trying to prove it, yet people seem to think this is because religious cultures don't have a concrete ground to stand on when it comes to their faith. The actual reason is mainly because of religious literature teaching the followers that they don't have to prove themselves in many ways.

I think a lot of non-religious people are just plain rude. The majority of religious people I know nowadays are living happy lives and generally being contented with what they do, not poking their nose in anyone else's business. However, the non-religious type constantly put themselves out of their way to try and prove the non-existence of a higher power. It makes me wonder who they're trying to convince. And everytime I make a comment like this the typical response is usually "no, we're just trying to make them understand". Understand what? That you don't have a clue about the majority of religions yet you're basing your facts on opinions of illiterate individuals?

</rant>



I can't actually remember the name of the theory explaining existence itself, i.e. if you don't believe in a higher power then how did everything come into existence in the first place? Then it follows up by "then if you do believe in a higher power, who created that?". It's infinitely recursive, and I can't remember the name of it! >_< Ah well, back to work

There's only two ways I can look at the "God Situation"

1) He/She/It does not exist
2) He/She/It does not give a damn about what we do in our lives and does not want to micro-manage every aspect of 6 billions little bugs crawling around on a little dungheap in one corner of the universe
3) He/She/It is like a child, does not know why he(etc) exists and is creating worlds/universe(s) to observe and experience and understand the reason for his existence

End result - Religion is fairly pointless and only serves to alleviate man's sense of insignificance.

[JPreston]

Woah!

Just because someone has faith doesn't make them weak minded.

Anywhere in the developed world, I'll bet more than an RE teacher's apocryphal £50 note that religious people are on average less intelligent than atheists for at least two reasons:

1) You are born into a religion, but you become an atheist as a result of thinking about stuff. If you never think about anything, you believe the same stuff you parents did, and their parents before them, all the way back to Adam and Eve (and their hugely inbred offspring - or would it be Noah and a giraffe or something?). In order to be religious today, you have to come from an unbroken long line of people who believe the first thing they are told and never question it. Or maybe they question it, but are incapable or coming up with a better idea. Either way....

2) Everywhere in the world religion is strongly negatively correlated with education; i.e. the more of one you have the less of the other. In order for someone to grow up in a society that educates it's children for years and years and years and STILL end up able to form no better ideas about the world than an illiterate subsistence farmer, they arguably must be weaker-minded than their contemporaries. A kinder way to put it would be to say that their mind is like stony ground that the seed of their education fell on, and withered.

[Alex]

In order to be religious today, you have to come from an unbroken long line of people who believe the first thing they are told and never question it. Or maybe...

... you're talking out of your arse. Surely you're not suggesting that only people brought up as Christians remain as Christians? I mean, as falisfiable claims go, I need to look as far as, well, me, to disprove you on that one. and what exactly do you mean by weak minded anyway? Undereducated? Of lower IQ? What?

[JPreston]

...
fascinating story I came across last week: an RE teacher was discussing the existence of God. Most of the pupils jeered at the notion - there is no God etc. So she took out 50 quid, put it on the desk, and said it was free to the first pupil who was prepared to sell her their soul. After all, there isn't any such thing, right?
There were no takers.
Funny, that.

Not that I believe that for a second, but that story is an illustration of 'Pascal's Wager' - the assymmetry between the two payouts of believing vs non-believing.

If you believe, and are wrong, then you get eaten by worms but have only wasted your Sunday afternoons (or 1/10 of your lifetime wealth in tithes, or some oxen, or your firstborn child). If you are right you get a harp and 72 virgins and live forever in paradise.

If you don't believe, and are wrong, then you get to adopt a superior attitude for your four score years and ten but then spend eternity getting sodomised by demons in burning hell, or something.

A dull child will conclude that adopting a religious belief is the only rational thing to do.

But anyone capable of a more sophisticated analysis will conclude that the chance of pciking the correct god out of the 100,000s of deities that humans have worshipped throughout history is vanishingly small - not to mention that by choosing the wrong god you might be making things infinitely worse for yourself anyway.

If the children in the class were all too thick to work this out for themselves and take the £50 note, then obviously they need to spend less time in RE and more time learning the very basics.

[MadduckUK]

people with problems in there life will also go hunting for a "cure". so no not necessarily only people born into it, just the majority.

[JPreston]

... you're talking out of your arse. Surely you're not suggesting that only people brought up as Christians remain as Christians? I mean, as falisfiable claims go, I need to look as far as, well, me, to disprove you on that one. and what exactly do you mean by weak minded anyway? Undereducated? Of lower IQ? What?

No need for that sort of language; if I've offended you why don't you just 'forgive' me?

Any definition of weak-minded will hold, even if you believe that an education involves nothing more than rote learning (which if you have an exclusively religious education - and there's a contradiction in terms - it doesn't). If you accept to any extent at all that through education the mind is made more capable, then the one follows from the other to some extent.

On average, even within the same culture religious people are less educated and hence less intelligent. IMO...

[MadduckUK]

its an artificially imposed restriction on there way of thinking

[fuddam]

On average, even within the same culture religious people are less educated and hence less intelligent. IMO...

could you supply some evidence, please? real evidence.

[fuddam]

There's only two ways I can look at the "God Situation"

1) He/She/It does not exist
2) He/She/It does not give a damn about what we do in our lives and does not want to micro-manage every aspect of 6 billions little bugs crawling around on a little dungheap in one corner of the universe
3) He/She/It is like a child, does not know why he(etc) exists and is creating worlds/universe(s) to observe and experience and understand the reason for his existence

End result - Religion is fairly pointless and only serves to alleviate man's sense of insignificance.

well, that was 3 ways, unless we're working with different numbering systems

let's add #4: you know what love is / have experienced it in your own life. the sum total of all worthwhile endeavours in your life revolve around relationship. There is a God who desires a loving relationship with His creation, although as evidenced by your post, many of His creation do not care 2 hoots.

#4 negates your theories 1 through 3, I believe.