Originally Posted by lawleypop

Did you recently just watch Bill'O? He makes almost the EXACT same argument. XD

I don't know how many people religious has killed over the years (between the wars, the inbred hate, etc), but I'll just assume that it's also an outrageous number. Is the only difference that one is spread over AGES and the 2 acts you mentioned were memorable?

Well, I don't think you can so easily make that statement justly. If you really want to do a comparison, you'd have to group "religious deaths", and "non-religious deaths" from war (for example), and I'm pretty sure it's quite a different comparison. There are thousands of wars that are fought between "non-religious" people, but they don't receive publicity because they are considered normal. The only ones that come to light are "religious" ones or major wars because it has a greater impact on people. That's media.

For example, wars fought over territory of land would be classified as "non-religious", and rather political. Unless you're gonna group political and economic reasons into the "religious" class, then you've got a major definition problem.

Basically, I'm saying that people die tragically because of things like war, which are spurred on by economic, or political, or social reasons (or others). It sounds like you're saying that (more or less) the number of deaths from "non-religious" events is equal to the number of deaths from "religious" causes, which I think has a difficult claim of significant accuracy.

Wow, Tomassi is very good on keeping his word... a day later.

Originally Posted by Alpha2Omega

Well, I don't think you can so easily make that statement justly. If you really want to do a comparison, you'd have to group "religious deaths", and "non-religious deaths" from war (for example), and I'm pretty sure it's quite a different comparison. There are thousands of wars that are fought between "non-religious" people, but they don't receive publicity because they are considered normal. The only ones that come to light are "religious" ones or major wars because it has a greater impact on people. That's media.

For example, wars fought over territory of land would be classified as "non-religious", and rather political. Unless you're gonna group political and economic reasons into the "religious" class, then you've got a major definition problem.

Basically, I'm saying that people die tragically because of things like war, which are spurred on by economic, or political, or social reasons (or others). It sounds like you're saying that (more or less) the number of deaths from "non-religious" events is equal to the number of deaths from "religious" causes, which I think has a difficult claim of significant accuracy.

When I said wars, I meant only wars and hate arising from religion.

Don't know if that makes a difference/help clarify.

Like I said, don't know enough about the subject, but from hearsay, that's my current understanding of it.

An idea can still be morally blameworthy (or praiseworthy) even if human individuals are the ones carrying out acts in the name of an idea and making that idea a reality - for example, we can all agree even the idea of slavery is ethically wrong, but we can also say that those who practice slavery are also unethical individuals (By "unethical" I am referring to ethics as accepted in modern society; a Late Republican/Imperial Roman aristocrat would have a hard time seeing what's so wrong about slavery )

Further, when an act, like the practice of slavery, is carried out by an individual or individuals, one must inquire into where they learned that the idea is acceptable in reality - most likely, they learned it from the society of which they are a part. But how was this idea communicated by their society? Was it spread through frequent discussion and reaffirmation, or was it largely left neglected by discussion and debate? Returning to the slavery example, in ancient Rome's case, the idea was rarely discussed - it was an acceptable socio-economic state of affairs. It was also neither denounced nor even mentioned by Roman religion (ie, Roman polytheism).

Now, back to the idea of religion being a source of malice. If a religion contains within its tenets, such as in Christianity where idolatry and polytheism are explicitly denounced, an idea which instructs or inspires individuals to carry out what we may perceive as a malicious act - namely, discrimination, violence, and the like - it is logical to conclude that the religious idea is in fact morally culpable. In other words, if a properly-interpreted idea incites a malicious act, it is morally wrong.

In the Late Roman Empire, Greek and Roman temples, including the Parthenon, were regularly ransacked for being polytheistic, since the imperial religion at that time was Christianity. Here we can see that acts of cultural intolerance were carried out in the name of the commonly-accepted religious idea - yes, the individuals who executed these acts are responsible for forcing their beliefs upon another cultural group, but their motive was nonetheless to serve the moral guidelines outlined in Christianity against idolatry and polytheism. To me, that deems at least a portion of that idea as ethically wrong.

On the flip side of the coin, there is the argument that an idea can be morally praiseworthy. In modern North American society, this is quite a common phenomenon - people state they became a better person because they appealed to the teachings of a religion (such as Malcolm X and his conversion to Islam). So I ask this: if an idea can be accepted to be morally praiseworthy, why can it not be morally blameworthy? It appears that you cannot say that people are acting righteously because of their religion without accepting that their religion may cause them to act maliciously.

People don't use religion as an excuse. Religion allows people to think it is okay to do the monstrous things they do. It is not like people are using religion as a technicality to do what they want, they do these horrible things BECAUSE religion tells them it is okay because there is something more important than human life, which is god, and he wants you to kill, rape, torture and abuse.

Religion is not the excuse, it is the cause, don't be fooled.

Originally Posted by cocchiarella

agreed, go sit outside.

I couldn't because there was chalk all over the benches ..................... .............
That's my point.

So I just had a long talk with the KGP table people today, among many things we talked about one of them was (on my reference to the 22 page MacInsiders Thread) : Hey! Atleast the people are talking about it! Which shows that as much as the atheist/agnostics like to claim religion still is something that is very much part of our culture and gets people talking & That Religion is an "experience" just like Drinking, Sex, Drugs, Rez Life that every student should get a chance/access to during their time here. Which does make sense to me personally, but oh well.

Originally Posted by Ryan V

Malachi 3:6 For I am the Lord, I change not.

1 Kings 19:7- The

Originally Posted by Kathy2

I couldn't because there was chalk all over the benches ..................... .............
That's my point.

sit on a different bench

I considered writing "I like Pie" all over the place to see if people would get offended about me pushing my ideas on them.

Then I remembered that chalk looks bad all over campus.

I wouldn't say that anyone is pushing their ideas on you, rather just trying to cause consideration. Some of the vending machines have "Coca-cola" all over them, but no one seems to complain about that, or find that offensive.

KGP is simply a question, do you know God personally? I don't see how it's being forceful in anyway. The posters for SRA nominations are everywhere, but that in no way forces their opinions upon you either.

If you've got concerns with it, maybe you should go out to the event and talk to someone?

Originally Posted by Alpha2Omega

I wouldn't say that anyone is pushing their ideas on you, rather just trying to cause consideration. Some of the vending machines have "Coca-cola" all over them, but no one seems to complain about that, or find that offensive.

KGP is simply a question, do you know God personally? I don't see how it's being forceful in anyway. The posters for SRA nominations are everywhere, but that in no way forces their opinions upon you either.

If you've got concerns with it, maybe you should go out to the event and talk to someone?

It's because religion (either directly or indirectly) causes so much hatred and pain all over the world, most people want to just see it disappear.

Zero good comes from religion.

Originally Posted by Taunton

It's because religion (either directly or indirectly) causes so much hatred and pain all over the world, most people want to just see it disappear.

Zero good comes from religion.

It's because politics (either directly or indirectly) causes so much hatred and pain all over the world, most people want to just see it disappear.

Zero good comes from politics.

--------------------

It's because money (either directly or indirectly) causes so much hatred and pain all over the world, most people want to just see it disappear.

Zero good comes from money.

--------------------

It's because people (either directly or indirectly) cause so much hatred and pain all over the world, most people want to just see others disappear.

Zero good comes from people.

--------------------

Taunton, you've been around for the entire of this 22+ page thread. Using the anti-religion dice (see creationist dice earlier in thread and modify) is not going to help.

Essentially, this discussion has died.

Originally Posted by kldv

It's because politics (either directly or indirectly) causes so much hatred and pain all over the world, most people want to just see it disappear.

Zero good comes from politics.

--------------------

It's because money (either directly or indirectly) causes so much hatred and pain all over the world, most people want to just see it disappear.

Zero good comes from money.

--------------------

It's because people (either directly or indirectly) cause so much hatred and pain all over the world, most people want to just see others disappear.

Zero good comes from people.

--------------------

Taunton, you've been around for the entire of this 22+ page thread. Using the anti-religion dice (see creationist dice earlier in thread and modify) is not going to help.

Essentially, this discussion has died.

The problem with your post is that good, logical arguments can be made against every other statement you just made, where none can be made for religion.