What does the information on the picture tell you?

First off I'm a Atheist. I wanted to show this picture to see what people of whatever views on religion think. Give me your view on the information in these pictures. Please keep this thread civil. I'm not here to bash religion. Only to see what ATS members think of this picture.

It tells me nothing.

There are beautiful places all over the world.

If you look for beauty, you will find it.

If you look for a slum, violence, and immoral behavior, you will find it.

I could easily go into any of those countries looking for those things, and take a picture of some horrible run down slum.

Or I could go to the United States and take pictures of all the beauty around me.

Just because a country is more Athiest doesn't mean it has more beauty or peace. Those can be found if you look, the same as can be found evil if you look.

You'll find what you seek, especially if you are trying to fuel some agenda.
You'll always get the evidence you seek, because you will look until you find it, ignoring all other evidence.

Athism requires faith as well.
There are evangelical atheists that love to spread their message of nonreligion, but in the end, they have a type of faith as well.

If you look for a creator, you will find evidence of one.
If you want evidence to the contrary, you will look and find it.

Everyone seeks and find what he desires to find.

I can try to convince you or you can try to convince me. But in the end, we all discover only what we are willing to believe.






[edit on 21-6-2010 by jessieg]

seems like the pic is cut off, so the point is lost, but let me take a wild stab at it anyway....

the countries that consider religion most important are the ones waging the most war and havoc and the ones caring the least about the people in their own countries?

Where does it say that all the rest of the people are athiest they just say its not inportant it does not say they dont believe

reply to post by digby888

Exactly. That they don't rank it above all else in importance certainly doesn't imply in any way that they are atheists.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


You got to use the bar at the bottom of the picture to move the picture.

It tells me there is a hot chick in Japan who likes to blow bubbles.

And French girls like wearing red dresses and smoking, while looking seductive.

Australian women enjoy swimming or something.

Its tells me I need to travel more.

Not quite sure what kind of point is being made here.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


Oh okay...thanks. Well then I revise my guess to include that people are happier and also live longer? LOL

am I missing the countries that rank religion as high in importance? is there another bar i'm not seeing?

reply to post by Wrath5639


I was trying to introduce how many believe that religion should be involve in government issues.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


You're not missing anything else. That's the only picture I have. I can find more information about religion being in high importance in other countries to compare with the picture I uploaded.

Religion and belief in God are not one and the same. And what exactly do they mean by "consider religion important" ... importance in organized religion? Importance of one religion over another? Importance in spiritual beliefs of any kind? Info provided is too generic to draw a conclusion from.

Anyone wanting to view the image in its entirety can right click on it and select "view image" It will open in a new window where you can click on the image to maximize it.

I don't know if this works on non-windows machines.

On Topic:
I consider myself agnostic, and I tend to agree with the other posters that state people will find whatever they are looking for if they try hard enough!

[edit on 21-6-2010 by Negotium of Verum]

Besides what I said before, there is a difference I think between religion and belief.

I believe in God, but I haven't been part of an organized religion for a while now. I still think that God sustains me and that God has a plan for me. I think that he is still at work in my life. I like to listen to the radio or read the bible for myself.
Since God is everwhere, I think we can worship him everywhere. I don't think I need a building anyway. I like to just be in nature and appreciating it.

I'm not the kind of person to go door to door professing my faith. If the issue comes up when I am with others, I listen to them and hope they listen to me.

I am also interested in meditation and I do believe there are some sort of energy centers in the body, and that people an sort of go into themselves to achieve a higher state of thinking.
In that sense, I may differ from most typical Christians, in that I am interested in what people in some Eastern religions are able to do.
I've had some strange experiences while meditating, and I have had lucid dreams.

Sometimes I feel like I should go to church, but I do realize that there are some corrupt churches and scandals in churches. Some organized churches are full of people who do nothing but argue or care too much for the personal lives of other people. There are some churches that take one small part of the Bible out of context, and rule by making people feel guilty for eating a certain food or dressing a certain way.

There are some churches in which the elders only want money and care nothing for the salvation of the members.

I pretty much don't take stock in anything that happens on televised mega churches. Those are the worst I think. God may be at work in some of them, but I don't know.

Sometimes I hope that people don't look at these mega churches and think these are representatives of real Christians. I don't think God cares what kind of car you drive or what you wear or even what you eat. The things I think he cares about, no one can see, because it is what you are thinking and feeling in your heart. The only way you can show this is through your actions, and some people do not behave right way. They show through their extravagance that they care about worldly goods and love to entertain themselves.


Maybe there are lots of other people like me who aren't regularly attending a church, but still have a belief system.

Hah.

Nine out of the 10 countries in that picture are historically Christian.

Therefore you might say having a Christian society sometime in a cultural phylogeny breeds a stable and prosperous society later on.

One of the archetypal evolutions of a majority Christian country is to secular humanism, of which Atheism is a subset.

I noticed most of the countries listed here happen to be in Europe.

Judging by all the trouble Europe is currently faced with, this is enough to tell me that such a Utopian society can only be temporary.

Btw, there is a clear distinction between religion and God.

Originally posted by jessieg
Besides what I said before, there is a difference I think between religion and belief.

I believe in God, but I haven't been part of an organized religion for a while now.

That is a great way to put it. I can't stand how corporate organized religion has become. On the other hand I feel that if there is a God, he or it would be much happier to know that you can see nature as a temple, and not some man-made structure.
I believe the Bible even mentions the importance of solitude in prayer.

Here's a better list off wikipedia. With countries that have religious populations. It's the best I can find. :/

[edit on 21-6-2010 by Romantic_Rebel]

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


The links are not working for me. :/
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

I do wonder where the US would fit in there and I think I want to move to Sweden...

As another poster said, we could probably find horrible pictures in all of these countries and beautiful ones in countries where religion is important.