I think you make the mistake to equate the reality of your country (whatever it may be) with the whole world. At least here, nobody is unwilling to discuss religious issues.
But it did have a huge effect. Catholic theology, for instance, has been vastly influenced by Protestantism and its iconoclastic spirit. Sunday mass wasn’t scrapped, but having mass every day was. (Formerly, many Catholics went to church daily.)
Sorry, but that’s wrong. We still have mass every day. Even here, in a small village with less than 3000 inhabitants, there is still a mass every day that is indeed attended by a sizeable number of Catholics.
There is very little wrong with most religions, in themselves. Most make a lot of good points. 90% of major wars in the las few centuries were based on religion. Though I don’t doubt that there would have been wars regardless, there would almost certainly have been a lot fewer.
As for Bush’s insanity, in a speech, he did say that he went to war in Iraq because God told him to. Quote: From: Haaretz NewspapreBush said: “God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.”
Regarding teaching of religion in school, I do believe there should be a Comparative Religion class that teaches ALL known religions, and does not claim any one has mroe validity than any other.
Religion itself doesn’t tend to make bad people, however most religious leaders throughout history have been corrupt, and have used religion as one of the greatest tools of evil the world has ever known. Since most religions consider questioning ANYTHING you’re told by your religion to be evil and a sin, it becomes very easy to control people. Religion is generally only evil when it becomes organized.
Very interesting thread. There’s only one thing I really can’t get past.
What place does something beyond human comprehension have in a world ruled entirely by human beings? To my eye, it’s like a law being passed saying only people with dorsal fins of a blue color can see comedy movies. Nobody has a dorsal fin. The idea that we would be segregated by the color of dorsal fins we don’t even possess is ludicrous. What if we went to war over the idea that people with blue dorsal fins were right and people with green ones were wrong? I don’t see the point in encouraging the idea of people having dorsal fins when they don’t. You could say, “Congress approved the law, it must be good for something,” but what happens when the evidence to the contrary becomes overwhelming?
I’m not concise or skilled at arguing, but honestly, that’s the best I can put it. Why do we want something we can’t understand, something that may be completely false, governing our behavior and way of life? That’s the problem I see with religion.
The problem with this is that it has nothing to do with what we want. If we believe that God gave us his word, and that God knows what’s best for us, then we follow it whether or not our intellects argue that it’s wrong or nonsenical. That’s the whole point of something being beyond our comprehension. Religion (at least until the whole recent “spirituality” binge) has always been about smothering certain things we want in order to follow what God wants.
Again, that’s not an absolute, because God’s word is always tempered by the conduits it’s sent through. In Judaism, the Rabbis actually have (or had) some authority to supercede the word of God. But that’s the basic idea.
I really don’t understand what it is people have against one religion or another. Or all religions for that matter. You must realize that there will always be people of conflicting beliefs and that each group will have its extremists. For example, the muslim extremists who are making headlines around the world. They are not really the majority of muslims, but they are there giving muslims a bad name. they are the reason that almost anyone realated to Islam is looked down on. People look down on Christians for one reason or another, though most of it is unbased claims or claims based on a miniscule number of people. I still am unsure why most people seem to hate any religion having to do with God (i.e. Christianity, Catholicism, etc.) but there really is no reason. i guess my point is that there will always be trouble, much of it blamed on religion, and there will always be people who wish religion to be done away with, so people like myself will just have to put up with them for the rest of our lives.
If you don’t understand why people dislike religion, you haven’t been listening to them at all. Just because the article posted in this thread is a silly piece of tripe doesn’t mean that people can’t dislike it from a personal level - many people don’t like the idea of believing in a God because it diminishes the idea of free will, humans as creatures with limitless intelligence, science as sacrosanct, holding on to “outmoded” ideas, etc. And that’s their prerogative, of course.
Concept of free will can be diminished from a certain standpoint that me and my friends have often argued. If God knows what you are going to do before you do it, do you have free will? i would have to say yes, because He also knows what your choices are in a given situation and the outcome of those various actions. all that’s left is for you to decide which action to take and you will then end up with the consequences of your actions, not necessarily God-ordained, but still forseen by him. People who believe that humans have a capacity for infinite learning and that if the world goes on long enough, we will understand everything, are optimistic to the point of foolishness. there will always be things that we do not understand. granted humanity has used science, common sense, process of elimination and so forth to discover many of todays facts that were held as superstitions years ago. Yet no one has evidence of how the world was created. there are plenty of theories and religions that teach a certain way, but no one was around to watch any sort of big bang, no one was around to watch God create the earth or anything of that sort. I suppose it may be that people think that the concept of God will bring out their conscience and they will have to understand the difference between right and wrong. most people don’t like being told what they’re doing is wrong. as you said, it is their perogative to live in such a way, but they really should wake up to the facts.
On an unrelated note, the beginning said something about the “villainous duo” of Bush and Blair. If you peoplehonestly think that they are so evil and that what they are doing is completely wrong, please let me know what you would do in such a situation as they are in. Would you rather let some group of terrorists bomb your country freely and unhindered, killing civilians at will? Or would you rather take steps to eliminate the threat? I think that they are doing a better job than most people who could have stepped into their shoes and their situation and they and the troops abroad have my support 100% of the way.
Bush’s and Blair’s war in Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with eliminating the threat of terrorism. On the contrary, it is making the threat worse, creating threats to us in places where none existed before and bringing new terrorists to our shores with plans of “retaliation.” The terrorists chose to attack London, out of all the places they could have attacked, precisely because Britain had signed on to our war, and continues to support it. They have also threatened other countries that support the war, none of which were previously targets of Islamic terrorism, but which may well become targets now because of their support for the war. So, the spread of terrorism continues unabated, and at the same time the war makes us less effective at preventing terrorist attacks, because it diverts so many resources to the occupation of a country that never posed any threat to us in the first place.
Religion is a reflection of human nature. People use it for good purposes and bad ones. If you think religion itself is inherently evil, you might as well think that technology is as well. This point was probably already made in this thread.
You could make the argument that invading Iraq was part of the War on Terror because it put the U.S. military in a position to intimidate the governments of Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia into cracking down on terrorists within their borders(and those countries do, or did, have a problem with harboring terrorists). This applies to Saudi Arabia most of all. The argument could also be made that the war was meant to project strength to the world - the terrorists and China and Russia would think we were weak if we didn’t hit back in some hard way. Knowing the outlook of the world that Bush’s crew seems to hold, I’m sure both those things were considerations.
Are you trying to say that Saddam was a gentleman and that we were supposed to let a mass murderer walk around and continue to kill his own people while supporting al qaida and other terrorist cells? i would have to say that i disagree with ya there buddy. BTW, in war, one generally attacks an enemies allies as well, so while it is tragic, it is not unexpected either. war is all about retaliation and attacking your enemies…ALL OF THEM. al qaida is simply attacking an enemy as well as its allies just as we have been doing by attacking iraq.
Coughs.
It’s being proven quite conclusively that before the invasion, there was no Al Queida link to Iraq.
Or at least, not a strong one. It was an excuse, not a reason.
coughs back
Regardless of whether or not there was a STRONG link or not, there was a link. Regardless of the link’s weakness or strength now, what’s done is done and we can only change the course of the future. Worrying will change nothing about yesterday and wishes don’t stop wars.
No, but if you have a disease thats going to kill you, and a disease thats going to make you cough a little bit for a week, and you have one pill that can either cure one disease, or cure the other, but not both, you use it on the one that will kill you. The time, forces, money, everything, spent in Iraq could have been spent in areas that had a stronger link to Al Qaeda.