Religion: If You Don't Believe In It Why Does It Bother You?

I never actually considered that, but it reminds me of something funny a few devout christians I know started talking about on Facebook after the earthquake in Haiti. I read a boat load of nonsense about how Haiti suffered the earthquake because of their practice of voodoo and because they supposedly 'made a pact with the Devil'. I lol'd.

And people that don't believe in any religion are in charge of countries with armies.

What's the point?

I once met a priest who told me. "We're here, look around you. Do you need anymore proof."

While that is true, if I remember correctly - many people have been killed in the name of a religion or for not believing in a certain god. Than have been killed for not believing there is no god?

If I remember correctly.

It's hard to make a judgment call on which would be more dangerous:

Someone in control of a deadly force and believes everything they do is justified under the name of God or

Someone in control of a deadly force and believes they will never be judged and have nothing to lose.

Equally dangerous IMO. Zealotry is a scary thing, no matter which side you're on.

Exactly. Meaning the point about leaders + religion is moot.

Dangerous people are dangerous regardless of their motivations for being so.

As you have pointed out here so well, its the person you have to worry about.

I'm bored, I had too.
Too much ***.

Hahaha NICE!

@ Xellith: Wont let me quote for some reason. Go thoughout this thread and take out all FACTs that you see. When I have seen a thread like this all I see is this:

Atheist: "Your god doesn't exist because you can't prove it."

Religous: .. wait I don't belive I've seen any yet.

If you do take a step back, you will realize that people that doesn't want to believe in a god trade one theory for another. Take the creation for example:

Christians believe that God created the Earth and man in his image Blah, Blah. We all know the story.

The accepted Scientific belief is The Big Bang Theory
In we believe that a comsmic explosion created what we have now.

Darwin's Theory believes that man kind evolved from the ape family. In which we are still looking for the missing link to have 100% proof of that theory.

No matter what you believe, there will be no 100% proof to say there is or isn't a God. I don't think it is ignorant of either side to be honest. The only way to prove to either side is A: The Bible comes true, and Jesus comes back and we know the rest. or B: Christians die and nothing happens. Saddly even if the Christian dies, he can't come back and tell the rest of them that "Hey, ya'll are in for a suprise!"

So lets continue the endless XXX thinks XXE is retard and visa versa..

My Biology teacher gave a pretty good explanation of how science relates to perception of truth.

Basically said science is merely a peephole looking into a small view of the big picture. If you looked through a peephole and saw what appeared to be a classroom, most would pretty much accept the conclusion that it was indeed a classroom, but for all we know, further inside out of the viewing range of the peephole, that place could have been a hollywood movie setup made to look like a classroom.

Nobody knows, but we go based on what general formulas, hypothesis, and results with what we have to work with have given us.

This.

It's funny how religion people pretend that their life is so meaningful, and make ignorant assumptions that an atheist's life is not.

My life is extremely meaningful! Do you want to know why?

It is because I don't believe there is a Utopia/Heaven after I die. My Utopia is the life I have, and it means everything to me to make it the best that I can make it.

When a family member of mine passes away, I don't degrade my own life by saying things like:

"He is going to a much better place"
"His life will be so much better now that he isn't sharing the same life as me now"

I don't praise death. I don't believe that Earth is a ***hole, and that a place that doesn't exist is SOOO much better.

How could I do that? My life is very meaningful.

I'm not saying that the world would be perfect... But if everyone thought this way, most people would atleast try to make things better here :/

not reading the entire topic but here's my 2 cents


I'm not bothered with the religion itself, i'm bothered by the *** and the jackasses that follow it that try to convert me into it and giving me "religion speeches" when i honestly just want to *** eat my god damn big mac or wings or do whatever the *** i was doing. (aka it's God's fans that piss me off, not God)

LMAO at religion, The church such a good rep at the minute raping all those kids in the ***.... dunno about the rest of you guys but, {Thanks for the offer, but i'll have to pass} shall stick with science. :)

First let me say I have not a single religious bone in my body. I was baptised Catholic and thats as far as it ever went.

My only problem (not really problem but argument) with Faith followers is that most of them half *** it. They do whats convenient for them. I'm talking on a minor level. My wife is guilty of this. She'll go to Church and follow the "rules" (for lack of a better term) for the most part. Though she'll take the lords name in vain. She used birth control and condoms. She had meat on Fridays a few times when she wasn't supposed to.

When we RARELY discuss religion, I bring those points up in my argument and how she must be going to hell cause she hasn't followed the rules. When she starts getting agitated, I let it drop cause its really not important to me at all. My philosophy is "to each their own". Don't bug me about my beliefs and I wont bug you.

I guess what I'm trying to say is 95% of religious people follow only certain beliefs of there faith. Shouldn't they be following the whole faith completely or else its all for not? This is and honest question and I'm in no way trying to start a war. I really just don't understand.

The last thing that bothers me is people saying I'm going to hell cause I don't go to church etc. etc.
Usually I just tell them that I hope Hitler saved me a seat at the poker table because me not showing up to church on Sundays definately puts me in the same boat as him.

(note: I was agnostic years before this incident)

Because of when people I know are raped by someone they trust completely and without hesitation due to their position in what is supposed to be a good establishment.

This is the sole reason I went from not caring about religion to hating it.

when priests stop molesting altar boys

The best way to put it is a quote I heard a long time ago, and have lived by since. "It's not God I have a problem with...it's the *** God Squad."

I agree, the people shoving their beliefs down others throats are ignorant and self-centered. And often selfish because they feel it's repenting, by converting someone and "saving" them, it's a deed that will counteract their daily sin.

That being said...there's always people like this.
it's a vicious cycle of stupidity, really.

I went to a Catholic Private School (actually forced to go there) for 13 years. After all the *** Religion classes we had, i don't believe in God anymore.

In regards to this, honestly there are good and bad people in all places and religions. There is a good, but kinda cheesy quote from a movie that I know that pertains to my beliefs that describes it oh so well, but I don't want to dig it up.

Either way, the good and bad comes from people not the religious establishments. Its terrible that ***like that happens, and that people are cruel like that. This is a good example also of why I only judge people based on them and how they treat me and others. Your religion or set of beliefs does not define how good or bad of a person you are and it never will.

I get ***for what I believe from well usually Christians a lot simply because they think I'm evil or going to hell. I know what kind of person I am, and its not because of my religion. When I was Christian, it didn't automatically make me a good person, and I think a lot of people think that if they give themselves the title, it automatically makes people view them as "a good person".

One of the reasons I abandoned my old beliefs was simply because I couldn't stand all the fake people I ran into every time I went to church. There would be the biggest douchebags on the planet from my school and I'd see them in church and it annoyed me to no end on how obvious it was that they were putting on a show.

Religion can influence politics.
Politics affect people.
Religion and politics can allow over 1,000 people to stand idly by and watch as 50 men stone a 13 year-old girl to death.

I'm not saying religion is bad, there are certainly good aspects of it. I wouldn't be opposed to using the good morals of some religious teaching to for my children's core values. However, religion can also be used as a tool to enslave people. "Are you a believer? No? Then my friends over here are going to beat the ***out of you until you believe, as has been sanctioned by my God, who may or may not exist."

This will become a wall of text, but is my thoughts on this whole thing, take it or leave it for what it is. Thanks in advance though for those that read it.

The main problems I have with these religious arguments is that it is typically Christian - VS - Atheist. What about other beliefs, religions non religions etc.
To an extent I guess they are all right in some way. We know that things were created, whether it was a god, gods, goddess, goddesses, aliens, spirits, or from an explosion all of them lead to the same conclusion. Earth and life was created and exist regardless of the method.

Due to limitations of our capabilities we will never truely know much about our universe or world. We still don't know everything about our planet in present day much less the past.

Christianity is based on the belief that there were texts or stories written about god and his son and peoples experiences about it, whether it has any truth or is fiction noone will ever know for sure, There may be some shred of truth but you could not say it is 100% right or true in every way as it was written and translated many times by humans who will put their personal spin on the writing or translation

Atheists claim to believe in science and provable facts. Which is fine and true to an extent. But like other things most of this is stuff we don't know but instead is an educated guess. It can't be fact as we cannot prove most things beyond a shadow of a doubt. Some thing we can. Science in some cases has even been proven wrong.

The main issues are people learn and understand things and accept them as they are. However if something conflicts with it then that other thing must be wrong. I would not say it is wrong. If you have several conflicting views then maybe somewhere in the middle could be right. Maybe a higher power/powers spirits or whatever did intervene in something which created what we have, noone knows if it was accident or intentional, however it did happen.

I am not Christian nor am I Atheist, but I also do not follow any organized religions.

Both are too extreme for my taste. However the main problem is not the belief or lack thereof but the people that claim to believe it.

Christians will judge people on face value or belief.
There are 2 passages or saying in Christianity that they don't follow which is why people are so energized.
1. Judge ye not lest you be judged yourself
2. Let those without sin cast the first stone

Christians try to change laws and rules of the country to force people to live the way they claim to believe, yet even between sects, groups and other stuff there is no central belief as they all differ and think the other one is wrong.

Atheists claim to be upset about having Christianity thrown down their throat but yet they do the same thing.

Then you have the quiet non religious, believers and non believers, that don't say much and follow their beliefs to a T. That would be an ideal world which won't happen but from what I understand this group is the quiet majority.

Just my thoughts, take them or leave them up to you but if you plan to profess to believe in something, follow it as you claim it is, not as it is convenient for you.

I agree with 'it's not God, it's his fanclub.' My stepmother will not shut up about wanting me to get back into church. I stopped going to church the day I moved out of her house 5 or 6 years ago, and I am a much happier and well-adjusted person now than I was then. I don't care if she goes to church and does whatever makes her feel good. I respect her choice to do that. But now she needs to respect MY choice to live my own life and have my own beliefs.

My biggest pet peeve with Christians is that they raise a big fuss all the time about kids not being allowed to read the Bible or pray in school. And that is such a lie. Kids are allowed to read pretty much whatever they want in school and no one is stopping them from praying. What Christians are actually mad about is that kids are no longer FORCED to read the Bible and pray in school. And I kinda have a problem with them having a problem with that.

I'm also sick of the 'one nation under God' debate. This is a country of religious freedom. That does not mean that everyone in the country believes in God. I personally don't give a flying rat's patooty whether the pledge says one nation under God or not. It makes absolutely no difference to me. But I can certainly understand if other religions in American don't want to pledge that, and they should not be forced to.

I guess the bottom line for me is that Christians need to stop expecting everyone else to also be Christians. Stop expecting every child in school to be taught the Bible. That's what Sunday school is for, that's what separation of church and state is for. Stop expecting every other religion in the nation to want to pledge to your God in order to pledge to the country. Stop demanding that your 10 commandment rules be placed all over public and government buildings. If you believe them and want to post them in your own home, that is great! But do NOT expect me to do the same, do NOT expect the schools and government and every other person in America to do the same.

Edit: And yes, the same goes for Atheism. Just as the Christians need to stop expecting everyone else to be Christians, the atheists need to stop expecting everyone else to be atheist. It's just that where I am at, we have a big problem with door-to-door religious people and religious people wandering around the college campus cornering people and talking their ear off about their God, but I really have never seen an atheist do any of that. Probably it's just because this is Idaho and we have a big Mormon population that we have a big door-to-door Christian problem.

Humans tend to have over-simplifications when thinking about "groups". Hell, I'm doing it just talking about "humans". Maybe it can be attributed to how we learned as a child, "This is a square, it has four corners" or "This is a car, it can do this." It's safe to say that discrimination between things is an extremely important aspect of everyday life.

However, with the complexities of human beliefs and thoughts, it can get us into major trouble as well... "Oh, that's a Christian, they're this and that, keep your distance." "He's a Muslim, he does this, I'd stay away if I were you." "Conservative... Liberal.. Republican." They're all just over-simplifications of a group of people.

The only true way you'll ever know what a person believes, is if you talk to that one person, alone. My guess is that you'll start seeing a blurring of that line you've made in your mind.

my personal problem with religon is that it is limiting scientific advancment. EX stem cell research, and in doing so it is limiting the time I have to live my one life. I honestly just think the world would be a better place if religion kept its head outa sciences hair, and allowed science to work on giving us unlimited new organs threw cloning, stem cells, and bio. engenearing. But you know with out the scientists gettting death threats or having there labs blown up by religous nuts.

ohh and this.

[url]http://www.irreligion.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/rehab477.jpg[url]