breakin some personal rules here.
this always ends up a useless, unproductive exercise.
don't talk politics. people don't change.
don't talk religion. people don't change.
but seriously. can't takes no more.
if you'd like the condensed version, this is it:
:female::bowdown::bowdown::bowdown::bowdown: :anon.sml:
:female::bowdown::bowdown::ak:
................... :1zhelp::girl:
:female::bowdown::bowdown::2gunsfiring_v1:
............ :love-smiley-086: :love-smiley-013::love-smiley-083:


:error: :angrysoapbox_sml:
if you're willing to take an objective, rational look at an argument, this is it:
more people died in wars this past century that had nothing to do with religion but ideology.
distorted sentence, i'll try to clarify -- you meant 'more people died in wars this past century due to ideology than religion'. yeah?
first, that's a bullshit move.
'war' has nothing to do with it.
just because the vatican hasn't declared all out war doesn't mean thousands of people in ireland haven't died due to religious infighting.
just because religious institutions haven't petitioned some congress to approve a war that stones women to death for being unpure, doesn't mean they aren't murdered
every single day because they have a natural, instinctual drive to propagate the species.
there's no war that has decreed homosexuals must be lynched, hung, shot, and/or genitally mutilated because the bible says it's wrong, that's for sure.
but all of these things, and horrendously more, do happen.
just because someone hasn't put a pen to paper doesn't mean there hasn't been a constant war on the human race for millenia.
second:
religion
is ideology.
most religion follows the
idea that there's an all powerful, all knowing, sometimes benevolent sometimes genocidal dictator in the sky that has created all and controls all -- removing personal responsibility from the individual.
this is the prime reason iranian extremists, rapture-ready zealots, and other armageddon ushers feel the way they do.
the
idea says when this world passes, a better one will come.
but do you know what's beyond?
do you
know?
no.
nobody does.
we all have theories. we all have beliefs.
but
nobody has come back to tell you personally one way or another.
and it's irresponsible in the extreme to blindly believe a book that has been revised hundreds of times in the past 2000 years, or one that fell from the sky, or any other book that relies on
human beings to reproduce and/or produce in the first place.
a book that, with objective eyes, is nothing more than an early attempt to explain the world around us.
a book of rudimentary ideas that proposed theories on how nature worked.
how a society should work.
how people should act.
how people should live.
and what people should think.
religion is essentially based on crude
science books written thousands of years ago.
through force and and incredible loss of human life, these books -- these
ideas -- became required reading for different cultures.
and these ideas from these books have been the prime cause for
sanctioned, justified killing in the name of an idea -- war.
not just in the past century, but since their inception.
now, honestly: would you approve of the mandatory inclusion of 1700s-era ethics books in the classroom, that condone slavery?
would you approve of our children being taught that the earth is flat, or that Sun and Moon gods chase each other around the earth?
would you accept it if these outdated
ideas were force fed into society, and if you didn't acknowledge their absolute truth you would be put to death?
would you?
this is how many major religions were introduced to the world.
this is how many religious groups
demand their ideas be accepted by the world today.
when the world rejects these demands, some religious groups resort to extremism.
that's the problem.
the conflict created by different beliefs is tearing the world apart.
if people could believe what they wish in peace, it would be dandy.
but as long as there is any form of religion that
demands to be spread because it is 'mandated by god' or the 'righteous' path or the 'true way to salvation' -- there will always be conflict. as long as the individual is made to feel weak, powerless, and not responsible for their actions and consequences because a god is in control of everything, there will be conflict. as long as religions continue participating in a pissing contest of who can control more people, there will be conflict.
and with the state of technology today, this conflict can easily turn into a worldwide catastrophe.
there are bad people and stupid people are not in short supply. they won't disappear in your utopia of "no religion". those who manipulate the weak using religion would use something else.
maybe. maybe not.
if something is broken, would you really choose not to fix it because it might break again?
manipulative bastards will always exist, sure.
but the supply of stupid can easily be made scarce.
you're a marketer, right?
would you buy that awesome free acai trial that's so damn popular now?
probably not.
why not?
because you're educated. because you can see beyond the smoke and mirrors.
you're aware of the persuasive marketing tricks that tend to hide the evil rebill and flaunt the
idea of losing weight fast.
you can see the offer for what it really is.
most can't.
education is key.
seeing the world as it is helps nothing. seeing what it could be, changes everything.
the atheists who scream the loudest, trying to "prove" there is no god and trying to convince everyone else are really trying to convince themselves.
no.
they're trying to convince that crazy church/family who praises god for dead soldiers.
they're trying to convince suicide bombers who believe that their death and the death of those around them will not result in 72 virgins given to you in the afterlife. or at least that 72 virgins isn't worth dying for -- wouldn't you rather have 72 women who know how to please you?
they're trying to convince people who truly believe the only way to make the world into a heaven on earth is to flush it all away, based on the two thousand year old
idea that says god will make it happen like that.
they're trying to convince
you.
because even if you're an awesome example of a compassionate and loving human being -- your personal emotional solace created by faith in an
idea isn't worth the deaths of millions, if not billions, due to religious extremism.
not by a damn sight.
The main difference is that Atheists say if you don't believe as they do, you'll suffer in this life, Theists that you'll suffer in the next.
touching on a related, but completely different can of worms there.
it's just so damn bad to be
wrong, isn't it?
atheists and theists, both 100% convinced that they are in the right and the others are damn idiots for thinking otherwise. god forbid either side being wrong. that would just be the
worst -- would suck to realize that you've been fooled one way or another your entire life.
me? i love to be proven wrong.
it's along the lines of failure -- without it, there is no opportunity for growth.
but for some damn reason people get all butthurt when someone even suggests there's the slightest possibility that they're wrong.
really, i would love to see irrefutable proof that god exists.
i'd have a long chat with the guy.
i'd smoke a fattie with him.
i might even punch him in the nose.
but as it is, rational logical scientific proof doesn't -- and can't -- point to an absolute yes or no on the god question.
what it
can establish is that almost all religions have roughly the same backstory that can be traced to egyptian mythology. that alone puts the idea into bullshit territory, but i'm spending way too much time talking to different colored brick walls who aren't wrong so i'm gonna cut it short here.
so. in conclusion:
what would jesus do?
what would allah do?
who does do?