If man kind is to survive, religion must end

reply to post by plumranch


i agree ,religion should be banned , for human race to survive

I don't think religious belief or spirituality should end, but organized religion most definitely should.

I used to defend religious belief. I was of the opinion that there is a lot they can all offer the average Human as long as things are not taken too seriously.

But it now seems that the damage they do to the rest of the world overshadows any good they offer.

Just today, having seen the total BS spouted by the Pope, I am no longer inclined to defend the rights of any Christian or Catholic. It is not a "loving" church, it is a hateful, corporate, controlling machine with a leader trying to cause separation, suspicion and hatred.

I'm done assuming that some religious nuts are good people. You support a church that spouts such BS and you'll get no support, recognition or respect from me.
If I had a person supposedly speaking for my beliefs in this way, I'd be out of the door and denouncing them in a shot.

I have lost any slight vestige of respect and compassion for anyone who accepts or even pays attention to the Pope.

First off, I'm not religious. I work on Christmas, and don't buy gifts for anyone, unless I happen to spot something that I think would really be useful or important to a person that I know.
Having said that....even having no religion is still a religion isn't it? Ok, so maybe the thread title should be modified to say that religion must change or unify or something to that effect. It is happening...slowly.
Religion is just a stepping stone in the evolution of mans consciousness to broader realizations. It has(had?) it's purpose. You see because despite what a person believes or if they believe in nothing, they still have an inherent need to explain the world around them. So whats the real problem facing mankind? Common sense says the problem that is most logical is

THERE'S TOO MANY PEOPLE!!!!

You think you can alleviate problems by banning ALL religions(which I've already explained is impossible). Don't you think bringing the population down to something manageable is the real solution to alleviating, nearly EVERY problem facing mankind? Including out of control religious wackos. I don't expect to have my post starred because this is the issue that ticks people off. Because everyone knows it, and no one has the integrity to admit it.

reply to post by StevenDye

First if all, I would like to say that I am not religious though I went to Catholic school for 12 years and I am a self-proclaimed thinker/philosopher so I will try to relay my oppinion as unbiased as possible.

Originally posted by rattan1
There are no religions that promote hatred or division. It is us humans that create division and hatred by using religion for our own greed and selfishness.

I have to agree with rattan1 there.

Even though religion seems to be the forefront of many present world issues, religion also has a lot of responsibilities as a cultural crutch.

"Religion" isn't the problem. It's man's interpretation of said religion that create's issues.
IMO, religion was started to answer the many questions philosophical man naturally comes across in life.

Since I didn't make me, someone else must be responsible for my existence. Thus, we find a universal "God."
As for the thousands of other unanswered questions thousands of years ago like, "what the hell is that big ball of fire that rises and falls," we find the many varieties of answers: "oh, that's the chariot wheel of Apollo and it's on fire." Mythological god created.

Religion is the basis for human action and explanation of seemingly supernatural occurances and has since been manipulated by many translations and corrupt individuals seeking control. For an example, look up the Crusades. Modern science is constantly answering many questions of which were responsible for the original ideas of myth and religion, even though it is also taking on a role of religion in its own right.

For any person who's lived life, the common goal is to live with meaning and leave with dignity. What was your guidance as a young child growing up? Your parents were. Who is supposed to guide you as an adult? Many people (and in fact, the majority of) look to religion as their guide. How many of those people become ruthless religious activists?
Well, not many do.

My point is that religion has its ups and downs but generally speaking, religion has an important role in society as a guidance in moral standards. Many religious people live fulfilling, beautiful lives whilst living in "the eyes of the lord." It is the evil in people that create repressing forms of religion and take advantage of innocent wayless followers, not religion itself.

As for the idea of taking religion away completely, could you imagine a world full of existentialists? Depressing and meaningless (for the most part).

reply to post by die_another_day


How about pledging allegiance to cloth and swearing oaths to paper?

How about working for and getting paid with electronic code that's backed by faith?

How about reading about events we personally can't confirm or deny, but put our faith in historians and researchers who do the writing?

Honor, Ethics, Law, Finance, History, and even Civics are really all bound by faith as much as religion is. We believe its important thus it becomes important. Its all driven by confidence and faith in systems.

In essence all of these systems are all Imaginary Friends.

I just spent about 20 min looking at some of the fights that are on ATS about religion and it confirms my point. Argument, hate, bad decision making, irrational thought process, denial of science are just some of the things that come from religion. If people continue to mix religion with things that effect other people the growth of our species will never happen. Politics and religion need to be the first thing to be banned. Im a republican and I am horrified by the sight of evangelicals being pandered to by the party. I just want to knock these people in the head with their own bibles.

All the topics relating to creationism, Aliens bringing god, spirituality drive me crazy.

These people who believe this stuff are not mentally capable of making rational decisions when it comes to positions of leadership such as policy and government. I really hope you don't intend on running for any type of office. If you do I will try and stop you.

It scares me that people like this are in positions of authority. Especially in the highest offices of government.

reply to post by robwerden


The Nazi's wanted to rid the world of Jews. The KKK and Aryan Nation want's to rid the world of Blacks. You want to rid the world of all Religions. Seems simple enough. Same thing exactly.

Kabbalah says the same thing in regards to religion from what I've read. It says that religion can stay as a part of culture but everyone needs to know about kabbalah. In my view and others, there are secular people, religious people, and then the smart people that see that both of those are missing the mark

[edit on 23-12-2008 by ghaleon12]

Nice to see the new non religious view point by the OP involves incredible self righteousness, fanaticism to the point of ignoring all who disagree and downright disdain for any views that differ from their own - Its nice to be shown the new way forward - what a joke!

Just goes to show its not religion thats the problem - its people - the op being a perfect example.

Exactly liquidsmoke206 people are the problem i advocate eliminating 90% of the race and letting the rest start over.

reply to post by robwerden


You are 100% on point!

S&F!

Religion brigs people together, but a select number. if we were to form a world religion or just use common sense and logic, i believe it would work. ot to mention save a lot of grief and make everyone happy.

yea, i think i also pissed a few people off too.

I wont debate you though, its your job to liberate yourself from a false hope.

ta ta!

reply to post by WisdomInChains


Hmmm...you must be part of that NWO i keep reading about on here....it's nice to finally have a name of one of you guys. Sheesh.

I don't know if 90% is a little too high of a number, that would have to be worked out. And I don't think you can just do it. You have to gradually bring the population down, but if you could get everyone on the same page(willing, unwillingly, knowingly, or unknowingly) you could dramatically drop it in 1 generation, that's not too bad.

Have you and your illustrious organization thought about going that route instead of just wiping everyone out and dealing with the mess?

reply to post by robwerden


First off, you are doing the wrong thing by cutting off any input from the 'other' side. That is simply not the way to go on this site. Just my two cents on that.

Now on to the subject. Well, I must say that I agree. Organized religion, and I'm talking about the BIG BOYS of religion, has done more harm than good for mankind. They control and manipulate governments and control a vast amount of money that would make most people blink in surprise. What does a church need with so much money and assets like property (that they took from the farmers during other recessions/depressions and now rent out to the same families that USED to own that land and much more)? They don't. They want the power. The power to force their system on people so that they can control the people in order to gain more wealth and power.

Now, when I think about the smaller churches that I have attended I must say that I think they are great for communities. The problems begin to arise when they are affiliated with bigger establishments. However, when a small church takes tithes for good just causes and actually spend that money for those causes then there is nothing wrong with it. I have found that most smaller churches are more accepting of what the main stream religions view as sins such as homosexuality and so on. They also do not try to create a fanatic fervor about such things and force their people to FORCE their message down everyone's throats even if they don't want the message.

I can go on and on and on with this subject. There will be many who will debate against what I say by providing links showing what the BIG BOYS of reglion do for the world. Yet they won't even touch on the hording of land, treasures and money being perpetrated by the like of the Catholic Church in the Vatican City. They deem the treasures the property of God and thus they have ownership of it.

Hogswallop. They are greedy men that want power and wealth. Period. And if you don't buy into their manipulations of ancient texts then you are GOING TO HELL.

Originally posted by ugie1028
reply to post by robwerden

 

You are 100% on point!

S&F!

Religion brigs people together, but a select number. if we were to form a world religion or just use common sense and logic, i believe it would work. ot to mention save a lot of grief and make everyone happy.

yea, i think i also pissed a few people off too.

I wont debate you though, its your job to liberate yourself from a false hope.

ta ta!

Wow, and this is the scariest post I have seen in a LONG time. And I've been paying a little attention to the fear mongering threads being posted.

A one world religion? Are you kidding me? And what would it take to bring that about? It would take one religion stating plainly that THEY ARE RIGHT and FORCING everyone else to accept it. In other words, there would be one hell of a bloody war just to unite everyone under one religion.

It's good to talk about it and believe you are presenting an ideal solution but you didn't really think it through.

What religion would you take (just want to know)?

Christianity?
Islam?
Buddhism?
and on and on? Which one would be the RIGHT one?

**Edit to add: And no, you didn't piss me off at all. This is truly a friendly question about a pretty important topic.

[edit on 23-12-2008 by dariousg]

Originally posted by count66
Nice to see the new non religious view point by the OP involves incredible self righteousness, fanaticism to the point of ignoring all who disagree and downright disdain for any views that differ from their own - Its nice to be shown the new way forward - what a joke!

Just goes to show its not religion thats the problem - its people - the op being a perfect example.

You just described every organized religion.

Surely it is better to have individuals thinking in this way, as a spiritual belief (however controlling or dictatorial) unable to really effect change, than whole sections of society with representatives making decisions for the entire population?

I would rather deal with individuals who have warped ideas on how to control people, than deal with organized, wealthy groups of leaders believing this BS and controlling the lives of millions.

I think like a lot of others on Earth; I don't care what an individual believes, as long as their views and opinions do not restrict my life.
You can worship an invisible man, a goat, a tree, yourself, I don't care. But when you tell me I cannot sleep with another man because you don't think it is right, you are restricting my life, and it does concern me greatly.

Tolerance is an interesting thing isn't it?
Religious nuts go on about them "tolerating" people, when it should be the other way around. Regular people who only wish to go about their lives making choices that have no bearing on the lives of others should be the ones who "tolerate" these religions and their designs on global domination and control.

I merely "tolerate" organized religion.

But when those religions begin to try to restrict my way of life and the choices I make to be happy, then I will no longer tolerate it or the people involved in such an organization.

reply to post by detachedindividual


I think you put it quite nicely. I ABHORE it when my Christian friends and family members say that they TOLERATE behavior and actions of others because that is what God tells them to do. It truly should be the other way around. Period.

The people that choose not to be involved in organized religion and the vast brain washing that takes place within should be allowed to choose whether to tolerate the religious and their spoon fed beliefs. Because according to the religious texts, we were all created with free will. Boy, does that bring up a BUNCH of conflicts....

Religion is just skin-deep. Usually decided by your social surroundings and intellect/critical thinking. The evil-doing by religion is done by the intelligent manipulators taking advantage of the gullible sheep, not capable of questioning things. But as history shows one doesn't need religion to manipulate sheep. Look at Stalin or Hitler, no religion but just an idea. The lack of critical thinking by the majority of people and the fact that the whole social surrounding is pressuring the 'doubters' can result in scary scenario's. Look what Obama is doing to people, not saying he's bad but I just hope US-citizens won't make the mistake to blindly believe in him. So the bottom line is, people can be evil regardless of religion. People usually get 'evil' by bad upbringing...

Originally posted by Blaine91555
reply to post by robwerden

 

The Nazi's wanted to rid the world of Jews. The KKK and Aryan Nation want's to rid the world of Blacks. You want to rid the world of all Religions. Seems simple enough. Same thing exactly.

Advocating an end to an institution is not advocating an end to the people who take a part of it.

That's like saying Conservatives want to slaughter government employees because they believe in smaller government.

Anyway, the only way the human species will progress is by having a government that gives the people freedom to worship as they please (whether it be worship of a God, the self, nature, or nothing), and yet at the same time refuses to legislate one belief over another.

Our progress in classrooms is limited by the bickering of science vs. theism, our progress in society is limited by the mindset of those unwilling to step into the shoes of others, and our progress within ourselves is limited by our fear of looking beyond what we know and having the courage to move beyond. One side pulls frantically forward while the other side steadfastly refuses to budge, and the majority of us are stuck in the middle of their tug of war.

Perhaps we should not be asking if religion is the crux and downfall of man, but rather, is human nature the ultimate crux and downfall of man?

I know this was from Hellboy 2, but I thought it was very poetic - Man has a hole in his heart that can never be filled - greed. It is within our nature to dominate our surroundings; we are not happy until every corner of our existence is bent to our submission and our ultimate comfort. Perhaps we don't see or feel this way on an individual level, but as a collective, we can see how we have tried to dominate the environment since the beginning of history. It doesn't matter if your country is a kingdom, democracy, republic, communist, or theocratic one, it will always work out the same way because humans haven't had the time to evolve beyond what we are.

I agree with you, but since most of the world is uneducated, it's hard to make this happen when you go to places like the middle east, India and even China.

reply to post by robwerden