Society without God:Better or worse?

Originally posted by solomons path
reply to post by ghaleon12

 

I'm not sure I'm getting you . . . you say with or without god . . . morality is about the ego/human nature, then you say without the (true)god we can never rise to a point of moral culture.

So . . . is god responsible or not? Is it human nature? Is it the shedding of the ego?

I think you've contradicted your own belief . . .

I never said anything about a moral culture with a true God. God is responsible for all things that occur. Human nature is the will to receive, aka the ego.

reply to post by ghaleon12


So wouldn't that make god the "lawgiver" and, through our egos, decide to follow or not?

How doe that not contradict the first part of your other post? If god gives the guideline for morality . . . how is he irrelevent to morality? Just trying to understand.

Originally posted by bruxfain
Yes, mankind did do many things. One of the things mankind accomplished, just recently, was to nearly destroy themselves and lose everything.

Funny how many times (according to religious extremists) that's happened.
But what incident are you referring to?

Originally posted by bruxfain
The whole world watched it. You were saved, but you won't accept how or by whom.

Let me guess.
GDI - God Did It
Is that your answer to every question, or just the hard ones?

Originally posted by bruxfain
I bet the people outside of this country know why the United States of America still exists, but you obviously do not.

Because God has his 'loving hand' on this nation?
Or was Osama Bin Laden too drunk to push the red button?

Originally posted by bruxfain
And you think you'll be able to, "contain the truth". Its not going to work out, I am happy to say.

What truth?
You mean extraordinary claims with no evidence?
If that's truth then what the Hell is fiction?

Originally posted by bruxfain
That's really the funny thing. You have no clue what is happening in the world. Its not secret information. You think that being stuck on my wild claims will change anything?

Your claims are rather generic for a religious extremists...
I've seen better.
Google "Ronald Weinland" for some tips and tricks on gathering lost sheep.

PS. I suggest not calling yourself and 'elf' if you want to be taken even remotely seriously.

Originally posted by Simplynoone

So tell me how did you learn not to steal,kill,etc ?

This is pretty simple. When I was little, something I wanted was taken from me. That sucked. I remembered that feeling and grew to feel that would be unkind to make others feel that way as well. So, I do not take what is not mine.

NEXT!!!!!!!!

[edit on 1-11-2008 by Lucifer Rising]

Originally posted by Simplynoone
Every religion (except satan) has at least the ten commandments that they go by in their laws ..

Sigh. DENY IGNORANCE.

Show me, i dunno 100 religions that all have 10 commandments. That is not nearly "all (except satan)" and I still feel confident you will fall short of your goal.

By the way, Satan is not a religion, it is a character from the bible.

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
- Albert Einstein

Originally posted by Bejing
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
- Albert Einstein

Bejing, Thank you for the quote.

Volumes of insight were given in one simple sentence. Awsome!

Is this a direct and acurate quote or from memory?

www.monbiot.com...

New research suggests that the Christian virtues are best represented in godless societies

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion … None of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction.” Within the United States “the strongly theistic, anti-evolution South and Midwest” have “markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the Northeast where … secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms

Well we all know moral integrity is a human attribute and not a religious one but its interesting that recent studies have concluded that virtues like compassion,empathy,benevolence and kindness are much more prevalent in so called ´godless´ societies as opposed to overtly religious ones.


[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

Beginning early this year, but climaxing between mid-September and mid October. The global financial system was destroyed. Many threads and newssites have been devoted to this occurence. The blast center was most notably around American investment banks and to a lesser degree depostitory institutions. Currently, no investment banks exist, as the two, Goldman and Morgan, that survived what has been described as a Financial WMD, abandoned the model and became deposit institutions and submitted to government oversight. Noone had to push the red button as it was on a timer. People on suicide missions sometimes lose heart so the thing that built the bomb set it to a clock to detonate, as it did.

Without direct intervention by the US Government to the tune of $850 Billion up-front and promises of more if needed and trillions more in Europe, Russia and Eastern Asia, the banking system would have ceased to exist and the global economy and then nations states would have followed close behind. As it is and for all practical purposes Your System is gone and the parts that were worth saving under someone else's control! Your Tower of Godlessness was reduced to rubble by its own greed, can't you see?

Thus, your assertion that the world or society is better without God has already been disproven. The Banking system, the very center of Godlessness for 1000s of years, was nearly completely destroyed and captured last month. They begged on their hands and knees to be saved. As evidenced by Henry Paulson's prostrating himself before Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

That is the destruction to which I was refering. There is more, but if you didn't see even see that, I don't know what rock you've been living under.

Who did it, God did it would be the easiest answer. But for you great thinkers out there who require proof of God, this is not enough.

So, I'll say men and women who have pledged their lives and fortunes to living a certain way saved America. The Godless nearly destroyed it as can be expected.

I like calling myself an Elf, I can say we're far more technologically advanced than you and haven't been destroyed despite the endless war your kind have brought to my house. As an Elf, I can be playful, happy, optimistic and enjoy a close relationship with God, while the human condition seems to have become and endless voyage down a dead end road.

And I am not an religious extremist, religion is the domain of Satan, I am a Warmonger. The best part is when the enemy has been struck with a fatal blow, but still walks around for a time as if it were still alive. I can walk away from it knowing that its already dead, but just doesn't know it yet.

So, to be civil please refer to me as such in future communications.

[edit on 2-11-2008 by bruxfain]

August 6 - President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi of Mauritania is deposed in a military coup d'état.
August 7 - The 2008 South Ossetia war begins as Georgia and Russia launch a major offensive inside the separatist region of South Ossetia.
August 15 - Pushpa Kamal Dahal is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal after the Nepalese monarchy was abolished in May 2008.
August 18 - Pervez Musharraf resigns from the post of President of Pakistan.
September 2 - Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda of Japan resigns less than a year after taking office.
September 2 - Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand declares a state of emergency in Bangkok.
September 3 - Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani of Pakistan survives an assassination attempt.
September 6 - Asif Ali Zardari is elected as the President of Pakistan by the Electoral College of Pakistan.
September 7 - Global financial crisis: In one of the largest banking interventions in United States history, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are placed into conservatorship.
September 7 - Governor General Michaëlle Jean dissolves the 39th Canadian Parliament and calls early elections.
September 9 - The Constitutional Court of Thailand orders Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej to resign.
September 15 - Global financial crisis: Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy protection, in the largest bankruptcy in United States history.
September 15 - President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara sign a power-sharing deal, making Tsvangirai the new Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
September 16 - Global financial crisis: The US Government, through the Federal Reserve, lends $85 billion dollars to AIG in exchange for the right to buy 80% of the company, in another of the largest US interventions in the banking industry.
September 21 - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel resigns.
September 21 - President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa resigns.
September 24 - The Diet of Japan elects Taro Aso as the new Prime Minister of Japan.
September 25 - Kgalema Motlanthe is elected by the National Assembly of South Africa as the President of South Africa
September 25 - Global financial crisis: In the largest bank failure in U.S. history, Washington Mutual is placed into receivership by the Office of Thrift Supervision. As receiver, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation sells the bank's accounts and operations to JPMorgan Chase.
September 29 - Global financial crisis: The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is rejected by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Dow falls 777.68 points.
October 3 - Global financial crisis: U.S. President George W. Bush signs the revised Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law, creating a 700 billion dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank assets.
October 7 - Global financial crisis: Russia agrees to provide Iceland with a four-billion-euro loan.
October 9 - Global financial crisis: Following a major banking and financial crisis in Iceland, the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority takes control of three largest banks in the country:
October 9 - Global financial crisis: The Dow falls 679 points, or 7.3%.
October 13 - Global financial crisis: The Dow rises 936 points, or 11.1%.
October 15 - Global financial crisis: The Dow falls 733 points, or 7.87%.
October 28 - Global financial crisis: The Dow gains 889.35 points, 10.88%.
October 29 - Global financial crisis: Hungary's currency and stock markets rise on the news that it would receive an international economic bailout package worth $25 billion from the IMF, European Union and World Bank.
November 4 - Election of the 44th President of the United States and the 47th Vice President.

This is our world over the last 3 months. We'll see what you have to say about who controls what on Wednesday!

You know... I think this song says it all.


Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one - John Lennon

reply to post by calihan123


AS much as I liked John Lennon for his courageous stands against the PTB, atheistic communism is an 'imaginary' pipe-dream for those who refuse to believe in a God, (besides themselves, of course).
Even regular communism doesn't work without despots FORCING the individuals to work hard enough and SHARE.
It didn't even work in the colonial U.S., but, was tried.

Religion and society parallel each other, without one there is not the other.

Although, Religion hasn't always gone by that name. In the time of Neanderthals what was there to govern right from wrong, good from evil? It was a common belief on one thing. Survival. There were also leaders of the groups of people, were they chosen through a mutual understanding of said person's skills? Or was it a belief that said person was MEANT to be their leader?

Personally I don't know the answer to that but it seems the same could be said about religion. It's a label that reflects a common belief of a group of people, however large the number of believers are.

Back to the topic. This essentially brings up the Nature v. Nurture debate which is so prevalent in the psych. community. Are we born this way? Or do we learn to act and behave a certain way though our environment?

Religion affects both society and culture, it makes us who we are, even if you don't believe in any one god, maybe you just don't know if you believe or not.

And on that note, as human beings we, for some reason, have this ingrained NEED, this instinctual drive to know what exactly is going to happen to us, whether it be the idea that we just die and are returned to the earth or that we move on to another place or even come back as a cockroach. We are egotistical beings by nature, so it makes sense that we want to know what's going to happen to us when we die. It's natural for us to feel like there is something more out there.

So, long story short, there will always be some sort of "religion" out there. We all believe in something, ourself, our family, our gov't (yeah right) our religion.

Having said all that, our society imo, would be the same, because whether it's called religion or twinkledoodle, people with the same beliefs will still come together and create things, destructive or not.

The bottom line is this


We are god. We are satan. We all have good and bad sides to us. Every living person does.

It is foolish to say we are either on one side, or the other. Everyone has sex. Everyone curses at times. Everyone has been in an argument and has probably hated people in their lives. But everyone also has good in them, and that is what keeps the world in line. Not religion. People are smart enough on their own to keep a good balance of both good and bad.

The anti-religious always think of the ways religion is odious because it interferes with their game plan.

I think that is PRECISELY how organized religion serves society.

In the United States, it is religion that has reformed us......

-the abolition of slavery was a movement that began in the churches (as it did in England). John Brown was a Christian preacher, who started the first white armed resistance of slavery. There were some atheist societies in New England at the time, but none of them organized the underground railroad that helped undermine slavery even before the war--that task fell to the churches.

-The women's suffrage movement began within churches, and organized and drew its strength from churches. It was ministers who objected to the way women in the US were beaten and jailed for believing that they morally equal to a man.

-The civil rights movement. What do you think "Doctor King" held a doctorate in? dentistry? He was a doctor of ....ministry. And his cause of nonviolence was based on his religious beliefs. The whites who helped him, the vast majority, were active Christians, particularly white ministers

But again, religion is some how... bad... for society, right????

How many homelesss shelters are started and maintained by atheist societies? How many children in drought-stricken or flooded areas of the world are fed by secularist agencies---other than governments TAXING people and taking the money by coercion for their projects?

Look at only significant work done to end AIDS in Africa. And you know who has spearheaded that effort===Bono, the lead singer of U2. Did he do that because he was an atheist? And when he partnered with .... George W. Bush(!) to coordinate foreign relief for AIDS in africa, why do you think they did that? How could two men so diametrically opposed to each other agree on a cause like that? (hint: it wasn't because they were both bowling enthusiasts......)

And just what is Richard Dawkins' name synonymous with, when it comes to feeding the hungry?

And when there's an earth quake anywhere. What relief agencies show up to help? The red cross, the red crescent, the red star. Are any of them "faithless-based" organizations?

How many soup kitchens are opened in the name of the flying spaghetti monster?

Religion isnt a bad thing. That's not what people are saying. Its organized religion, and conservative beliefs and views that people disagree with. The typical religious person in america tends to be very close minded and judgemental about anyone who doesnt believe the same way they do. Thats not what religion is about. Religion is supposed to bring people together, no matter what they believe.

Plus, all religions formed in a very negative way. By killing anyone who didnt believe in what they did. Look at the catholic crusades, or even witch killings. They didnt believe the same way, and were killed because of it. What does that say about religion?

Originally posted by calihan123

Plus, all religions formed in a very negative way. By killing anyone who didnt believe in what they did. Look at the catholic crusades, or even witch killings. They didnt believe the same way, and were killed because of it. What does that say about religion?

ummm............, early Christians were crucified, fed to lions, killed by other animals.
On Perpetua was hung naked (with a friend, Felicitas) in the roman arena in a net, while a bull with bronze points on it's horns gored them.
There was Christian violence after Constantine.

[edit on 2-11-2008 by Clearskies]

I think we should rationaly go with natural prevalence and use understanding of ourselves in nature because were here, obviously where a God wants us to be for now.

so basicly instead of being legalistic or authoritative, which causes wars and arguments..be natural, let things happen and interfere only when it will be just to do so in others realities.

God is like this. We should be a reflection.

Originally posted by calihan123
Its organized religion, and conservative beliefs and views that people disagree with.

Which was precisely my point. The social achievements of faith have always been organized religion. Abolitionism didn't do squat to end slavery until whole congregations got involved. Ditto the civil rights movements. It was the appeal to whole denominations that begant to effect change.

Same with the red cross, and your neighborhood homeless shelter. Those institutions weren't started by lone religious nuts; they were created by groups of people who.....organized.... to make the world a better place.

The only reason that secularists have no beef with individual piety is, that individual "spirituality" doesn't ever actually produce anything of consequence in the real world---it just makes the believer feel better. Whole congregations working together are how anything worthwhile get done---habitat for humanity for example.

The typical religious person in america tends to be very close minded and judgemental about anyone who doesnt believe the same way they do.

Just like the typical non-believer in america; just like humans everywhere. But the point of this thread is to pick on particular humans, the ones who don't...."believe the same way."

Plus, all religions formed in a very negative way. By killing anyone who didnt believe in what they did.

Were you thinking of the Quakers? The Mennonites, or Buddhism?

Look at the catholic crusades, or even witch killings. They didnt believe the same way, and were killed because of it. What does that say about religion?

It says that religion, like everything else in that time period was a very bloody business. But your cherry-picking your history. The crusades were about faith. But the rest of the wars, like the wars of the Roses in England, the War of the Spanish succession, the War of Austrian Succession, the Napoleanic wars, The Punic Wars, the Carthagenian Wars, the 80 years war, the 100 years war, The Spanish American war, The Gallic Wars......ALL those wars were about governments.

But then, this isn't a thread about large institutions that control people and are repsonsible for the deaths of millions around the world right now. This isn't supposed to be a thread about how governments coerce conformity, about how they stifle the human spirit, about how they host a bevy of social parasites that feed on the public's loyalty and demand blind obedience as the price for being accepted.

In short this isn't a thread about how Governments are guilty of precisely the nasty things that ATS posters accuse religions of being...about how it is governments that seek to control people, while the few remaining religions left try to provide comfort and protect the weak, particularly those who are subject to the ravages of government excess....

no, this is a thread about how horrible religions are. About how if we had less religion..... we'd all be freer somehow. It's just funny to me that in one post we hear about how sinister religions is, and in the next, we hear about how irrelevant it is.

And meanwhile, it is organized religion that has been the only soical force in America to actually, successfully stand up to the government..... but what we need, according to many, is LESS of that.

all the best.

Originally posted by calihan123
Everyone has sex.

Great - thanks...
I was just starting to feel normal.