Faith is one of the world's great evils

[Bored38]

I agree completely, the amount of faith it takes to believe humans evolved from apes amazes me.

 

[Hawker]

Here's a video for educational purposes:




Ps. lol at the part at 23:54 "Uh, because of evidence." (Cuts to next scene) ...lmao

 

[Narushima]

Hawker, like you I am an atheist (in fact, just a year or two ago I was a Richard Dawkins acolyte) and, like you - from what I gather from your posts - I identify with, and wish to preserve western civilization.

In the past year, perhaps for the first time I have given the issue of our cultural decline prolonged reflection and came to realize just how serious the trends in our culture has been in the past 50 years.

And I have come to believe that these trends have set us on a path of civilizational suicide - in fact already it is politically incorrect to even speak of Europeans in the sense of a community bound by descent, history and destiny i.e. to acknowledge our very peoplehood (we are, uniquely I would add, asked to define our nations in terms of abstract principles whereas virtually every other people in the world continues to see themselves in kinship terms). Christianity, for millennia an inextricable aspect, if not the defining feature, of our culture, has concomitantly declined.

Finally, I have come to believe that these trends may not be so independent as I once thought. Do you really think, for instance, that we could be exploited by Islam in our own continent as we are currently, if Christianity exerted the same influence in our societies it did just 50 years ago?

All these abstract debates - such as the ones that typically fill these type of threads - mean little in the real world; a great Scandinavian philosopher by the name of Kierkegaard explained all that much better than I could ever hope to.

Life is all about trade-offs and recently I have personally come to believe that the benefits that Christianity bestowed on our community via social cohesion, for example, far outweighs any cost on people like you or I. The same could be said of some other religions like Buddhism for the East Asian people, and Hinduism for the South Asian people.

 

[Son of God]

William Lane Craig vs. Stephen Law.

For all you unoriginal clones

 

[Hawker]

What if science worked like religion?

 

[Bored38]

What if science worked like religion?

I liked the video and I agree with the points he made on religion, but theres a difference between "religion" and "God". The main stream, most influential religions worship the same God but in different ways. God isnt the problem. Mans interpretations of God is the problem.
Science on the other hand has its own problem. The Quantum fields of Science are showing us that there is an intelligent design behind creation but Mainstream Science is clinging for dear life to a random evoultion model and will never prove that creation was random and not inspired or that man evolved from a lower life form.

As for faith, blind faith in anything is stupid and can cause harm but faith in general terms is a necessary part of our thought processes as we go through our daily lives.
Its the man made aspects of God, which are not provable or even knowable and requires blind faith to believe. To think that ppl blindly have faith to the point of condemning and harming others shows how screwed we are.

 

[ComplexCity]

I liked the video and I agree with the points he made on religion, but theres a difference between "religion" and "God". The main stream, most influential religions worship the same God but in different ways. God isnt the problem. Mans interpretations of God is the problem.
Science on the other hand has its own problem. The Quantum fields of Science are showing us that there is an intelligent design behind creation but Mainstream Science is clinging for dear life to a random evoultion model and will never prove that creation was random and not inspired or that man evolved from a lower life form.

As for faith, blind faith in anything is stupid and can cause harm but faith in general terms is a necessary part of our thought processes as we go through our daily lives.
Its the man made aspects of God, which are not provable or even knowable and requires blind faith to believe. To think that ppl blindly have faith to the point of condemning and harming others shows how screwed we are.

What would you define as blind faith?

 

[Hawker]

I liked the video and I agree with the points he made on religion, but theres a difference between "religion" and "God". The main stream, most influential religions worship the same God but in different ways. God isnt the problem. Mans interpretations of God is the problem.
Science on the other hand has its own problem. The Quantum fields of Science are showing us that there is an intelligent design behind creation but Mainstream Science is clinging for dear life to a random evoultion model and will never prove that creation was random and not inspired or that man evolved from a lower life form.

As for faith, blind faith in anything is stupid and can cause harm but faith in general terms is a necessary part of our thought processes as we go through our daily lives.
Its the man made aspects of God, which are not provable or even knowable and requires blind faith to believe. To think that ppl blindly have faith to the point of condemning and harming others shows how screwed we are.

Yes what I'm talking about here is the religious faith. It isn't always used for the bad but it can be. It's a destructive weapon.

Actually quantum physics as far as I know disprove omnipresent god who has a plan.
I'm talking about the double-slit experiment which I adressed on the earlier page:

So it proves the fact that everything is a wave of probability. Meaning all things basiacally are random.And this is proven fact that everything that could happen pretty much does happen. Its when we observe it that it collapses to just one outcome. So everything is a wave of probability (random) when for God to exist and the God you claim to know to exist needs a plan which is compleaty disproven by the double slit experiment. Basically it means that everything is a wave of probability until its observed. No plan. No design.

 

[ComplexCity]

Yes what I'm talking about here is the religious faith. It isn't always used for the bad but it can be. It's a destructive weapon.

Actually quantum physics as far as I know disprove omnipresent god who has a plan.
I'm talking about the double-slit experiment which I adressed on the earlier page:

So it proves the fact that everything is a wave of probability. Meaning all things basiacally are random.And this is proven fact that everything that could happen pretty much does happen. Its when we observe it that it collapses to just one outcome. So everything is a wave of probability (random) when for God to exist and the God you claim to know to exist needs a plan which is compleaty disproven by the double slit experiment. Basically it means that everything is a wave of probability until its observed. No plan. No design.

Holy moly... :Rucken:

 

[Made in Heaven]

An atheist claiming anything to be evil is so hilarious.

 

[YowYan]

An atheist claiming anything to be evil is so hilarious.

Because..atheists are evil themselves?

 

[Made in Heaven]

Because..atheists are evil themselves?

What? No, that's not what I meant.

 

[YowYan]

I meant that their morality is subjective, so pointing fingers makes no sense. I thought you said you were a pagan or spiritualist or something anyways.

So, atheists shouldn't look at forced marriages, childmarriages, honorkillings, violence towards LGBT-people, etc as savagery? We're not qualified to do that as morality is subjective? Anything immoral is the cause of robbing another of his or her freedom in any way possible. Robbing one of mental freedom is one that is fundamental in religion. So, nothing hilarious to see here.

Just a practicioner of higher intuition. I think that's the best way to describe it right now.

 

[Omegga Shenron]

Faith means believing something without scientific evidence or proof. Because if you believe something without that, then that justifies anything. You are no longer vulnerable to somebody coming back at you and saying: hang on a minute let me argue the case. If you believe it without scientific evidence or proof which is what faith is, then you don't argue the case. You say no, I'm not arguing the case. This is my faith, it is mine, it is private, I don't descent from it, I don't retreat from it. You are just going go have to accept that. <---- tell me which religion doesn't demand that kind of faith from it's supporters.

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noun
1.
confidence or trust in a person or thing:
faith in another's ability.
2.
belief that is not based on proof:
He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3.
belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion:
the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4.
belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.:
to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5.
a system of religious belief:
the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.



1.Faith is an assertion of unreasonable conviction, which is assumed without reason, and defended against all reason.
Assumed without reason meaning most muslims and christians are born that whey. They are just products of their culture. Like Richard Dawkins says: you happened to be brought up in the Christian faith. You know what it's like to not believe in a particular faith because you're not a Muslim. You're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India. If you had of been brought up in India, you'd be a Hindu. If you had been brought up in Denmark in the time of the Vikings you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in classical Greece you'd be believing in, in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa you'd be believing in the great Juju up the mountain. There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian god, in which by the sheerest accident you happen to have been brought up. So why so confident in your faith?


2. Faith has never answered anything of significance.
Or has it? Tell me an example if you think it has. I can tell you what science has answered. The advantage of science is that new evidence changes ideas, allowing the advancement of human knowledge, something religion does not allow.

3. Faith has caused more bad things than good:
For example when it comes to Catholic church here are some of their accomplishments:
Crusades, inquisition, the persecution of the jewish people, injustice towards women (that's half of the population righ there) and the force conversion of indigenious people, especially in South-America, African slave trade. They've institutionalized the raping of children.

Then there's the case of Islam: terrorism, sharia law, genitale mutilation (90% of Egyptian women have had their genitals mutilated), stoning of homosexuals and unfaithful wifes, oppression of women.

Now compare those with the achievements of science. Lightbulp. Electricity. Vaccines. Phone. Computers. Medication. Organ transplants. Prosthate legs. Condoms.

4. Faith as in religion instills warped morality into people. Their morales come from the book or the teachings of their religion. Thus they don't do things based on rationalisation, but based on the fear of god. They fear they go to hell or heaven. That is inherently warped.
For example the holy books of christianity have examples of this warped morality: Old Testament instructs believers to kill any friend or family member who favours serving other gods, and Numbers 31 where Moses, angered at the mercy his victorious forces show in taking women and children captive, instructs them to kill all save virgin girls, who are to be taken as slaves.
New testament: St Paul's nasty sadomasochistic doctrine that Jesus had to be hideously tortured and killed so that we might be redeemed – the doctrine of atonement for original sin – and asks "if God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them? Who is God trying to impress?" He says that modern science demonstrates that the alleged perpetrators Adam and Eve never even existed, undermining St Paul's doctrine."

5. Faith is the process of non-thinking which is not a way of understanding the world, but instead stands in fundamental opposition to modern science and the scientific method, and is divisive and dangerous. cience involves a process of constantly testing and revising theories in the light of new evidence, while faith makes a virtue out of believing unprovable and often improbable propositions. For an example of faith, the infallible doctrine of the Assumption, which Pope Pius XII declared in 1950 by relying upon tradition. When contrasted this with science, which works as a system whereby working assumptions may be falsified by recourse to reason and evidence.
Examples from most familiar scriptures from western society:

-John 20:29 “how blessed are they who have not seen but yet believe.”
-Romans 14:22 “The faith which you have, have as your own conviction-”
-2 Corinthians 4:18 “We look not at things seen, but at things not seen.”
-2 Corinthians 5:7 “for we walk by faith, not by sight.”
-Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
-Romans 1:20 “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood from the things that are made.”

6. Faith at it's core is surrendering. It is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated

7. Faith is literally a matter of make-believe, convincing yourself of whatever you want to believe. That’s why the faithful have a practice to ‘reaffirm’ their faith. Faith is neither virtuous nor moral; it’s a matter of self-deception and manipulation of the masses. It is already dishonest to assert as fact that which is not evidently true, but that’s what all religions do. Worse, they also post a statement of faith wherein they admit, (as if this were something to be proud of) that they will automatically and thoughtlessly reject any and all evidence that seems to challenge their preconceived notions, which must be defended a-priori. Because of this, faith is fundamentally fallacious and inherently dishonest. An example of this is homosexual marriages. It's a well known fact that all muslims think of it as a sin. They won't allow it. Many christians won't allow gay marriages because it's not "how god intended it".
Homosexual marriages have been over and over again rationally argued to something that gays should have the right to have. There's no logical way to deny it. Gay parents have been proven to be as safe and good if not even better than heterosexual parents. Even the National psychiatric organisation in US agrees with this. Same with the National Psychologist Association in Finland. It's the consensus all over the world. Yet Christians object it due to their faith. Not to talk about muslims who are even further behind in progress.

8. Faith has always only ever served to impede, retard, or reverse progress in whatever socio-political medical, educational, economic or environmental application it has ever touched.

9.If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.

10. Religion demands faith when it proposes impossible and irrational thoughs as real. For example Christian creed:
To live unto the Law, is to die unto God. To die unto the Law, is to live unto God. These two propositions go against reason.When we pay attention to reason, God seems to propose impossible matters in the Christian Creed. To reason it seems absurd that Christ should offer His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper; that Baptism should be the washing of regeneration; that the dead shall rise; that Christ the Son of God was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, etc. Reason shouts that all this is preposterous.



“That is unreasonable, and it’s unscientific.
That is the definition of blind faith;
I believe something even though
there is no evidence to support it.”
-creationist, Kirk Cameron
of Living Waters Ministries

​

Who here thinks that faith is the source for good?

yea idk man, imo faith can be a good thing, im not religious but i've thought about exploring some religions and culture (islam and buddhism), it unites people, if used correctly it can create such peaceful people, I blame the human mind, we were cursed with evolution.

The human mind is different with everyone, and can lead to making people evil, its just a fault in our species, and other species as well (for example when one bigger dog eats the other dogs food because their too shook to do anything), don't blame religion, blame the diversity of the human mind. I'm really high, so sorry if this makes no sense to you and leads to nowhere.

 

[Made in Heaven]

So, atheists shouldn't look at forced marriages, childmarriages, honorkillings, violence towards LGBT-people, etc as savagery? We're not qualified to do that as morality is subjective? Anything immoral is the cause of robbing another of his or her freedom in any way possible. Robbing one of mental freedom is one that is fundamental in religion. So, nothing hilarious to see here.

Just a practicioner of higher intuition. I think that's the best way to describe it right now.

Yes, actually. If your morality is subjective and has no standard, then what you believe to be right and wrong is just your opinion and not a fact (like the varying ages of when one is allowed to drink and marry, what drugs are allowed to be used, the use of capital punishment in certain countries, are all subjective)

Even that definition of morality you give is just an opinion and not objectiv.

 

[Bored38]

Yes what I'm talking about here is the religious faith. It isn't always used for the bad but it can be. It's a destructive weapon.

Actually quantum physics as far as I know disprove omnipresent god who has a plan.
I'm talking about the double-slit experiment which I adressed on the earlier page:

So it proves the fact that everything is a wave of probability. Meaning all things basiacally are random.And this is proven fact that everything that could happen pretty much does happen. Its when we observe it that it collapses to just one outcome. So everything is a wave of probability (random) when for God to exist and the God you claim to know to exist needs a plan which is compleaty disproven by the double slit experiment. Basically it means that everything is a wave of probability until its observed. No plan. No design.

Probability as it relates to events, im not opposed to. Probability as it relates to creation, I disagree with.
I only defined God in relation to Quantum Science as an intelligent force. I did'nt assign any further characteristics than that and that is where Quantum science is leading us. Before probability comes information, so where does the information encoded in creation come from if not an intelligent creative force?

 

[Venomous Cobra]

The dumbest shit ever since the member "entire forum". Beliefs were starting key of the creation and the discovery of countless things in the world, one would logically assume before they apply logic and proof, this does not apply to everything in the world since everything in the world must have an exception. Also, the definition of "reasonable conviction" varies based on reasons which are by pure nature subjective.


It's one thing to hate on religion and be "cool" thinking an idea would truly harm people physically, but it's another thing to go full retarded and unconsciously spouting Nonsense.

 

[Natsu Shazneel]

Because..atheists are evil themselves?

Every story needs a villain.

 

[Son of God]

Yes, actually. If your morality is subjective and has no standard, then what you believe to be right and wrong is just your opinion and not a fact (like the varying ages of when one is allowed to drink and marry, what drugs are allowed to be used, the use of capital punishment in certain countries, are all subjective)

Even that definition of morality you give is just an opinion and not objectiv.

And? So?

 

[Made in Heaven]

And? So?

So it means the OP, who is an atheist, has no right to go calling "faith" evil. Because he has no standard to uphold to begin with.