Religious Tolerance

[UnoMOTO]

Easy champ. Let's not get carried away, okay?

No worries...I was just commenting on danoffs deep thoughts. I find him interesting and like to give him an elbow every now and then. No harm meant by my comment.

 

[Danoff]

Care to make a clear, direct statement, instead of a vague, "you're wrong"?

Ok, here goes:

You need to take a course in logic.

 

[Philly]

Religion is not the cause of wars, but it does play some part. World War I was dragged out longer than it should have because both sides thought God was on their side and it would've all worked out. Most wars are started because of politix. Protestant-catholic wars have been going on in Europe since Luther put his 95 theses on the door.

Europe has also been waging wars that have nothing to do with religion. Louis XIV kept France at war for 100 years and none of it had to do with religion. He even attacked fellow catholic neighbor Spain.

Religious friction is a relatively new phenomenon. Notice how it all is going on because of the extremest groups? Those formed during the Cold War. Why were they started? Well, believe it or not, us NATO nations needed a woy to confront the Soviets without waging war. What better thing to do than create a guerilla group locally where the fighting is happening?

You see, all of these wars are the result of politics. Religion is just a thing we happen to disagree with. These conflicts would happen if we were all christians.The Isreal crisis, quite possibly the reason for this Christo-Muslim conflict was political, while it did have religious undertones. Who wants land taken from them by a 3rd party & given to another country?

Current religious conflict is not driven by religious differences but by ignorance. Remember the Danish cartoon event? Maybe he didn't understand the muslims. If each religion understood the other, a lot of these problems would not be happening.

You see, religion is just a difference. Politics is the source of all evil.

Anyway, this debate is pretty heated.

EDIT: The no religion=no war is inhuman. That would be taking away one of two things that distinguish humans from the beasts: religion and arts. Religion is held dearly by people and no matter what, it will not be abolished. It may metamorphicise, seeing as how we (the majority) no longer are polytheists.

 

[wfooshee]

Religious conflict is just a justification for "You are not us and must die." It's still a base primate tribal thing. "Religion" allows it to be justified, sanctioned by God, etc. With God on our side, who can oppose us? That sort of thing.

If religion is simply expression of faith, teaching of morality, something like that, there's no problem. When religion is used to highlight cultural differences and identify "enemies," then you have a problem.

As for "no religion = no war" that's bunk. There's still the tribal "you are not us" mentality underneath everything people do, whether it's what neighborhood you live in, where you buy your groceries, where you take your kids to soccer, or what school you want them in. Kind of like "If Saddam is gone, Iraq will be OK." That went well, huh?

For Auburn to win the Iron Bowl 5 years running is OK. Nobody's dead, although at least one guy's out of a job. For Klansmen to run around hanging blacks is a bit beyond the level of acceptibility, obviously. For Muslims to claim to be the only people with a right to exist is also beyond the level of acceptibility.

It's not just Muslims, either, although they seem to carry the headlines these days. There's a bit of Christian-vs.-Christian history in Ireland, and the record of the middle ages and the Crusades is not that clean for either side. My stepdaughter is all but ostracized by her father's family because he had the audacitiy to procreate with a Methodist woman. These people can't accept their granddaughter because she's "tainted" or something. Maybe they're not violent or deadly about it, but she's damaged by it just the same.

 

[Deathclown66]

Ok, here goes:

You need to take a course in logic.

And you're on a debate team? pity for your teammates.

anywho, I'll put it in your own words, since mine seem to far for you.... or to simple.

A is b.
b is c.
So a must be c.

But what logic will not tell you, is that d exists. a is actually f. but since logic doesn't tell you what options exist, and you only discovered a,b, and c, you'll never know about d, e, or f, the latter being the truth.

and that is the reason "thinking logically", will not tell the world the origins of the universe. One must first find facts, and then use logic to put them together.
If one finds no facts, or has no evidence of the facts placed before them, the most logical thinking in the world cannot help them.

If you disagree with that, I suggest cancelling the "course in logic", because logic tells you what I just said.

 

[Philly]

I remember there is a discussion about stubbornness in the good times with ricers (something like that) thread. There, we learned that the most annoying part about ricers is that they will continue to argue indefinitly.

Danoff, may I recommend a quick look? You seem to argue in vain. The thread seems to a little heated.

 

[ledhed]

Cheese man if you think this is " heated ' you must live a very sheltered existence .



@ Danoff..I took a course in logic once ...it did not make any sense though .

 

[Danoff]

And you're on a debate team? pity for your teammates.

anywho, I'll put it in your own words, since mine seem to far for you.... or to simple.

A is b.
b is c.
So a must be c.

But what logic will not tell you, is that d exists. a is actually f. but since logic doesn't tell you what options exist, and you only discovered a,b, and c, you'll never know about d, e, or f, the latter being the truth.

and that is the reason "thinking logically", will not tell the world the origins of the universe. One must first find facts, and then use logic to put them together.
If one finds no facts, or has no evidence of the facts placed before them, the most logical thinking in the world cannot help them.

If you disagree with that, I suggest cancelling the "course in logic", because logic tells you what I just said.

I need to remind myself where this is coming from.

Logic: Believing that this earth was created by a god, a higher power. Why is this logical? because everything we see, and know, we see created somehow. As a regular person, that knows nothing about the common facts known to the scientific world, most people believe in a god for all the logical reasons. How did the world get here? well, a big "bang", creating the universe, to the average joe, doesn't make a whole lotta sense, now does it?

Logic can only carry you as far as your knowledge.
If you know that your house is white, and has old white chips falling off, and can see only see white paint underneath, you'll logically believe that house to have always been white.
But what logic cant tell you is that the house was stripped of it's paint. And since you don't know paint can be stripped, you can't even consider it an option.

Ignoring the improper use of the word logic in the second part here, I'll roll with the premise for a moment - that it is logical to believe in a supreme being. Let's examine the word logic for a second:

Logic - the science that investigates the principles governing correct or reliable inference.

That's a nice definition. Proper inference... Let's examine your reasoning for believing in God.

Why is this logical? because everything we see, and know, we see created somehow.

If everything must have been created, God must have been created. So religion is not justified via this means of reasoning because it makes exception for God. That's the most obvious problem and I'm not even getting warmed up.

We do not see everything created somehow. Did you see the oceans created? You see it, you know it, you didn't see it created. Did you see the 100 year old tree down the road created? I doubt it. How about a storm? Did you see that get created?

So your conclusion (belief in God is logical) does not follow from your premise (we see everything we know created)... and your premise itself is also invalid. Let's see if there's anything we can salvage from your argument. Maybe your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise but is valid anyway. Can we think of any way to disprove the claim that "it is logical to beleive in God?".

Well, belief in God by definition requires faith. It requires faith because there is no evidence to support it. Even if it didn't require faith, drawing conclusions based on evidence is logically flawed (but very useful). That means that for your statement to be true, we have to prove the existence of God via logic alone.

I have never in my entire life seen or heard of a single successful logical proof (and I use the phrase in the strictest sense) of God. If you can give me one to support your claim, I'll stand corrected. Until then, I think it's safe to say that you cannot be correct when you say that it is logical to believe in God.

 

[Dave A]

And you're on a debate team? pity for your teammates.

While I dissagree with danoff on the existence of a God or not, there's nothing to pity me for, being on the same debate team as danoff is something I was happy about. I don't see any sense in this comment other than to stir things up, which is not a good idea.

 

[K_Speed]

You see, religion is just a difference. Politics is the source of all evil.
.

Yes exactly. But religion plays a big role in choosing the politic party. In a good amount of countries at least.

What I think is that all the extreme Religion is tearing the world appart. Believe what you believe, but dont drag other people into it.

Differences cause hate and thats what religion is doing atm.

If there was no religion in the middle east there would much less fighting going on. Now, you have to agree with me on that...

 

[///M-Spec]

anywho, I'll put it in your own words, since mine seem to far for you.... or to simple.

A is b.
b is c.
So a must be c.

But what logic will not tell you, is that d exists. a is actually f. but since logic doesn't tell you what options exist, and you only discovered a,b, and c, you'll never know about d, e, or f, the latter being the truth.

What you present is called a False Dilemma and people like Aristotle has been telling us this is NOT logical for over two thousand years. A false dilemma is when you claim there are only a certain number of choices when in fact there may be more. NOT logical at all.

It's pretty ironic that you are trying to attack logical reasoning by making a reasoning mistake.


M

 

[FoolKiller]

Yes exactly. But religion plays a big role in choosing the politic party. In a good amount of countries at least.

And without religion you think everyone would choose their party by properly studying all the issues? No, it will be over something else.

Differences cause hate and thats what religion is doing atm.

People cause hate and differences make an excuse. Religious difference is the current excuse.

If there was no religion in the middle east there would much less fighting going on. Now, you have to agree with me on that...

Actually, I don't because you can't convince me they wouldn't be fighting over something else.

If two men try to kill each other over money is it the men or the money that is at fault?

Now, if two men try to kill each other over religion is it the men or the religion that is at fault?


Also, consider this: If not for religion would there be a Red Cross, Salvation Army, or any other number of charitable organizations? Religion may be used as an excuse for war but it is also used as an excuse to help other people.

 

[ledhed]

Yes exactly. But religion plays a big role in choosing the politic party. In a good amount of countries at least.

What I think is that all the extreme Religion is tearing the world apart. Believe what you believe, but don't drag other people into it.

Differences cause hate and thats what religion is doing atm.

If there was no religion in the middle east there would much less fighting going on. Now, you have to agree with me on that...

What makes you say that ? If there were no Jews in the Middle East there would be less fighting. if there were no Arabs there would be less fighting.
But if there were no PEOPLE there would be NO fighting .

Politics and the systems of governing is the cause of most of the violence in the middle east. The Jews are used to keep people who would turn against their goverment if given half a chance something of a greater evil to focus on. religion is used to brainwash and indoctrinate them...no differently than political propaganda is used in North Korea to keep the people focused on an invasion by the US . If you remove religion from the table , men will use something else..like race or culture ..or create a fear of a system ..whatever is handy to manipulate with to achieve the same goal . Domination of a region or resourses.

Religion ? Explain Nazis then .

More fighting is over resources and or lack of them than , over or because of , religion. Religion is ONLY a tool used for different reasons by different people , it can't by itself CAUSE anything. People have to USE it to cause something to happen.

Communist have NO religion...so explain POL POT and explain the Cultural revolution and explain Stalin ?

" Blaming" Religion is a Panacea for the stupidity of men .

 

[K_Speed]

And without religion you think everyone would choose their party by properly studying all the issues? No, it will be over something else.

Who does study all the issues. All they care about is not letting gay couples get married (Im a bit exaggerating).

People cause hate and differences make an excuse. Religious difference is the current excuse.

If two men try to kill each other over money is it the men or the money that is at fault?

Both.

Now, if two men try to kill each other over religion is it the men or the religion that is at fault?

Both.

Also, consider this: If not for religion would there be a Red Cross, Salvation Army, or any other number of charitable organizations? Religion may be used as an excuse for war but it is also used as an excuse to help other people.

True, but do you think if there was no religion people wouldnt help other people? I like to help other people, do I believe in god, no.

What makes you say that ? If there were no Jews in the Middle East there would be less fighting. if there were no Arabs there would be less fighting.
But if there were no PEOPLE there would be NO fighting .

Yes, youve just said it. But the last sentence there is irrelevant. I get your point, people always fight thats true, but things would much calmer without Allah and the other dude.

 

[K_Speed]

Religion ? Explain Nazis then .

Exactly.

"The Jews are responsible for this bad situation were in."

The Jews....

Once again, there will always be fighting, but much less without religion. IMO

 

[FoolKiller]

Both.

Both.

So you think that money is responsible for two men killing each other? Money is evil, or bad, or whatever? If I throw a brick through a window is it my fault or the brick's?

True, but do you think if there was no religion people wouldnt help other people? I like to help other people, do I believe in god, no.

It works both ways.

Exactly.

"The Jews are responsible for this bad situation were in."

The Jews....

Once again, there will always be fighting, but much less without religion. IMO

Germans needed a scapegoat and they found one that was weak. Religion had nothing to do with it in this case. If it hadn't been Jews they would have blamed black people.

 

[///M-Spec]

Exactly.

"The Jews are responsible for this bad situation were in."

The Jews....

Once again, there will always be fighting, but much less without religion. IMO

Gross oversimplification. For someone who is supposed in Germany, you display remarkably little knowledge of German history.


M

 

[Danoff]

I'll be the first to tell you that when someone violates another person's rights, the person (not society, not guns, not bricks, just the person) is to blame. Human beings are responsible for their actions, and the beliefs that lead to those actions.

But if you encourage someone to shoot another person, are you not partially to blame for their death? In our society it would be called "conspiracy to commit murder", and it is a crime. Of course there are "reasonable person" standards that are applied to cover the degenerate cases, but for the most part, you're an accomplice if you encourage a crime to be committed by someone.

Now that's exactly what goes on in the middle east today. Osama didn't actually fly aircraft into buildings (too bad he didn't), he convinced others to do it - making him an accomplice, even an orchestrator. But the story doesn't stop there.

If a religion encourages a crime, does it become an accomplice? No, clearly not, it isn't a person so it can't be guilty of action. But if you write a book, or found a religion that commits crimes as a result of your encouragement can you be an accomplice?

Obviously religion cannot be responsible for crime. But the fact that religion encourages crime in some cases makes the originators and maintainters of the religion guilty. That's about as close to making the religion itself guilty as one can get. The book itself is a tool by which the author encouraged a particular crime.

What is religion? If a religion is a collection of individuals who perpetrate it, then the religion is guilty. If the religion is a set of beliefs, then religion can be said to be the cause of the crime, but not guilty of it.

 

[Deathclown66]

What you present is called a False Dilemma and people like Aristotle has been telling us this is NOT logical for over two thousand years. A false dilemma is when you claim there are only a certain number of choices when in fact there may be more. NOT logical at all.

It's pretty ironic that you are trying to attack logical reasoning by making a reasoning mistake.


M

The whole point clearly went over your head.
The point is, if you only know a, b, and c, you cannot draw the conclusion that is f. If you think that is a reasoning mistake, I don't know how you can type.

something must have created the god.

At a glance, yes.
But somewhere, something had to come first.
did everything form out of nothing? surely there had to be something that was the first piece of something, that ever existed. Something that formed from absolute nothingness.
So while there may not be proof of a god's existence, there is certainly no proof otherwise. To call people "ignorant" for believing that the first thing to exist, was a god, that created everything else, is no more ignorant than saying it wasn't.

Gross oversimplification. For someone who is supposed in Germany, you display remarkably little knowledge of German history

They don't teach anything or make any mention of the nazi's in German schools, far as I've heard.

 

[ledhed]

They don't teach anything or make any mention of the nazi's in German schools, far as I've heard.

A good friend married a German girl when he was stationed in Germany.

She became a very good friend of the family and after she had children and started helping them with homework was very badly traumatized by what she learned to be true .

 

[Philly]

We also have to look at what regions we are talking about. The "Good" side here is the West, USA, Canada, UK, France ect. All developed, strong people's governments. Look at the rest of the world. Middle East: corrupt, undeveloped, dictatorships. South America:
More of the same. Africa: Undeveloped, dictatorships, generally poor. Asia: More of the same. We are saying religion has a huge part of crime? That crime originates from parts of the world that would gravitate toward violence anyway!

Who created all of these problems? The "good" side. When we pulled out of our colonies, we redrew the borders. These borders have major conflicts with the different tribes and groups in the regions. These places can't industrialize because they are fighting in an effort to keep their nation intact. Development is the last of their concerns.

The way to fix this problem is to go back. Have the West return, iron out the problems, and help develop the places. The only way to fix our issues with these people is to fix them. Doing this would also solve most of the dangerous foeign policy problems that relate to these places.

 

[K_Speed]

The whole point clearly went over your head.
The point is, if you only know a, b, and c, you cannot draw the conclusion that is f. If you think that is a reasoning mistake, I don't know how you can type.



At a glance, yes.
But somewhere, something had to come first.
did everything form out of nothing? surely there had to be something that was the first piece of something, that ever existed. Something that formed from absolute nothingness.
So while there may not be proof of a god's existence, there is certainly no proof otherwise. To call people "ignorant" for believing that the first thing to exist, was a god, that created everything else, is no more ignorant than saying it wasn't.


They don't teach anything or make any mention of the nazi's in German schools, far as I've heard.

Of course they do. They teach it all, they teach more than they do in the US. I've lived in both countries.

But you know it is almost the same what kind of topics they teach. It's just a matter of how much you get into the topics.

There are still many nazi veterans here and we talk to them. They are my friends grandfathers.

Germans know exactly what WWII was about, they still feel responsible for what happened. But it is on the rise again. Political freedom lets the nazis come back into congress. They are getting many votes in certain parts of germany.

It's horrible. Germany is still made up of two sides.

Yea it was a scapegoat, you are right, and I think hitler would have come up with a different one if there was no religion.

I agree with you, but I still feel like if there were no muslims, no jews, no christians etc. we would be more alike and wouldnt differentiate ourselves with something we believe in.

 

[FoolKiller]

I agree with you, but I still feel like if there were no muslims, no jews, no christians etc. we would be more alike and wouldnt differentiate ourselves with something we believe in.

I've grown up in rural America, on the edge of what we call The Bible Belt, and it is made up of mostly protestant Christians with some Catholics thrown in for fun. Everyone basically believes the same thing and no one fights over religious issues, but we still have a fair share of murders and fighting.

I know for a fact that racism plays a part in some areas and they use many other excuses, alcohol being a large one, money being another.

 

[ledhed]

I've grown up in rural America, on the edge of what we call The Bible Belt, and it is made up of mostly protestant Christians with some Catholics thrown in for fun. Everyone basically believes the same thing and no one fights over religious issues, but we still have a fair share of murders and fighting.

I know for a fact that racism plays a part in some areas and they use many other excuses, alcohol being a large one, money being another.

So where do they do the catholic tossing ? Is it at a bar on a tuesday night ?

They used to have midget tossing and midget bowling in a few places but it got banated because it was insensitive. Well at least its not like the clan and the ir view on the " papist ' ... They would toss them off the top of your 5 story sky scrapers ...


I had family living in Alabama...now talk to me about what its like to be a catholic....or a "Jew" around there...its like your a different life form.....

 

[FoolKiller]

So where do they do the catholic tossing ? Is it at a bar on a tuesday night ?

They used to have midget tossing and midget bowling in a few places but it got banated because it was insensitive. Well at least its not like the clan and the ir view on the " papist ' ... They would toss them off the top of your 5 story sky scrapers ...


I had family living in Alabama...now talk to me about what its like to be a catholic....or a "Jew" around there...its like your a different life form.....

Well, in my hometown they are essentially "country Catholics" and they blend in. No one has issues with each other over religion because everyone's pretty much just Christian.

 

[///M-Spec]

The whole point clearly went over your head.

Yes, I have a hard time understanding the nonsensical.

The point is, if you only know a, b, and c, you cannot draw the conclusion that is f.

It is illogical to present a situation where there are only a limited set of choices, when if fact one or more additional choices may exist.

Example

Which statement is true?

a) You have renounced your bigotry
b) You are still a bigot

Choose a) or b).

This is a fallacy because it ignores a third option, c) You have never been a bigot to begin with. It's been a well documented logical fallacy and has been for a couple thousand years. You keep saying logic doesn't account for this, but in fact, anyone who has studied logic since the Greeks understands this.

Danoff is right. You have no understanding of what you are trying to attack.

If you think that is a reasoning mistake, I don't know how you can type.

I've read a lot of cheap potshots over the years, but that has got to be one of the most pathetic.

They don't teach anything or make any mention of the nazi's in German schools, far as I've heard.

You heard wrong.


M

 

[Danoff]

At a glance, yes.
But somewhere, something had to come first.

That directly violates the following:

everything we see, and know, we see created somehow.

Do you see how those are inconsistent? You try to prove that everything was created by saying that we know of nothing that isn't created. Then you say that it doesn't make sense for EVERYTHING to be created. You're all over the place. Either everything was created or not everything is created. You don't get it both ways...

If you choose the latter, why is it less logical for one to suggest that the universe has always existed (not that anyone is aying that), than for one to say that God has always existed.

did everything form out of nothing? surely there had to be something that was the first piece of something, that ever existed. Something that formed from absolute nothingness.

New premise, and one with absolutely no basis. Why must the thing that forms from nothingness create everything else? If one thing can come from nothingness, why not lots of things? Why not a big ball of matter that exploded, or whole planets materializing out of empty space? Why not human beings? Why can they not come from nothingness if God can? Why not more than one God? There certainly is more nothingness out there for multiple Gods to develop. What about nothing coming from nothingness? How does something come from nothing anyway?

So while there may not be proof of a god's existence, there is certainly no proof otherwise. To call people "ignorant" for believing that the first thing to exist, was a god, that created everything else, is no more ignorant than saying it wasn't.

Here you suggest that believing in something with no proof either way is not ignorant. It's an easy assertion to prove false, all I have to do is give you an example of something ignorant to believe that has no proof.

Let's see:
1) Flying Spaghetti Monster comes to mind
2) Zeus
3) Rocks that heal people
4) Aliens are sitting on the dark side of the moon watching us and snatching us occasionally so that they can do experiments on us.

There is no proof of any of that stuff - so you can't call it ignorant right? I mean, if you told me the alien bit, and I called you ignorant, you would just say:

To call people "ignorant" for believing [something with no proof] is no more ignorant than [not believing].

Right? That would apply to me saying that my friend told me that his toilet speaks to him, and I believe him. That wouldn't be ignorant either right?

It all follows your "logic".

Now, just as a technical note to our logically minded readers. That last quote from DC might actually be correct, but only because it doesn't mean what he intended it to mean.

 

[DuckRacer]

1) Flying Spaghetti Monster comes to mind

AFAIK, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is an internet meme that people jokingly worship. That said...

HE IS LEADAR. WE FOLLOW TEH NOODEL.

 

[FoolKiller]

4) Aliens are sitting on the dark side of the moon watching us and snatching us occasionally so that they can do experiments on us.

There is no proof of any of that stuff

Ahem.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[Philly]

I believe, MSPEC, you may be talking of the dreaded TRICK QUESTION ?