> If religion is harmful, does it necessarily follow that the absence of > religion is beneficial? Relatively, yes. ************************************************************************************** Please elaborate on this, I may have misread it. Does this mean that if we kill off everyone that has a belief in the supernatural and burn every copy of any kind of scripture, we will have the ability to achieve Utopia? For me the real bottom-line argument is that religion, any religion, is *false*. Basing your life on a falsehood is bad. ************************************************************************************** So are you telling those in this forum that if they *do* believe in a religion, there entire lives are false? If they disagree with you, it's only because they have been brainwashed by religion and are therefore "bad"? Very mildly. But they're still encouraging people to believe things on faith rather than evidence, for example, and that's bad. People do far to little thinking. ************************************************************************************** Clarify this for me please, are you saying that those that follow a religion don't think? In fact, in all of them, you will find a LOT of > teachings that can be effectively translated as "Will you PLEASE be > NICE to each other? Thanks, this is your God." Then you've never looked at the bible, in particular. Many examples of the Bible either calling for harm explicitly, or rewarding people for harming people, or punishing people for not harming people. **************************************************************************************** I have a PhD in Theology, actually, even though I am not a Christian. I have studied the Bible in Hebrew and Greek. I did not say that ALL of the Bible taught peace and love, only that there were many teachings in it that set forth these ideals. Especially in the Greek Scriptures. (Commonly called the New Testement) In college, we used to say that we were glad that Jesus came along, because God sure was grumpy in the Hebrew Scriptures. Religion encourages people to make decisions on "faith" rather than evidence. ******************************************************************************************* I accept the existence of Pluto on faith, not evidence. I certainly have never seen it. I also accept the existence of atomic particals on faith, not evidence. I have yet to see an atomic partical. <chuckles> Jastrow once said that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in creationism, because at that point, there was less evidence to support evolution. What's your point? Religion often introduces non-human scale issues into the argument, which completely discombobulates most human thought processes and leads to wrong results for the humans. **************************************************************************************** This is different than trying to hold a conversation with Mathmatics professors in what way? Right, and an institution that teaches beliefs and rules of action should get no blame for bad effects of their teachings. Sorry, not buying it. ************************************************************************************************* I just have to wonder, are you against religion...or the scriptures religion tends to be based upon? Most of the bad effects that I have seen perpetrated by so-called "religion" was AGAINST their own holy scriptures. Not only that, it was *people* that twisted those same codes into things that would serve their own purpose. Is the Islamic religion to blame for the attacks of Sept. 11th, even though the Islamic scriptures clearly say that killing innocents is a grand way to get a one way ticket to Hell? Or are the leaders of the offshoot cult to blame for deliberately twisting those scriptures to gain themselves an army to feed their hate? ************************************************************************************************* Your tone on this particular thread is different from what I am accustomed to reading from you. You really dislike opposition on this topic, don't you? Peace, Caliann *Owned and Operated by the Grand Poohbah Cheese of the Universe* "Offense theives. -- they take it when it isn't offered." --Tom Digby --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now