Students Trade Bibles for Porn

[Multiple Miggs]

Finally, the Bible actually becomes useful.

Students Trade Bibles for Porn

SAN ANTONIO — A group of atheists at the University of Texas at San Antonio is putting a novel twist on the toys-for-guns programs run by many urban police departments. But instead of toys, they are handing out porn in exchange for bibles.


“We consider the bible to be a very negative force in the history of the world,” student Ryan Walker said. Walker is part of a student group that calls itself the Atheist Agenda.

Club members this week posted fliers promoting what they call the “Smut for Smut” campaign then set up a table in the student union to collect religious materials and pass out adult magazines such as Black Label and Playboy.

The group is not officially sanctioned by the university and has raised the ire of several religious organizations on campus.
“In my opinion, there are no atheists. There are fools,” Pastor Rick Hawkins of UTSA’s Family Praise Center said. “So, that would be foolish propaganda. I don't know one believer that would take his Bible and turn it in for pornography.”

Hawkins obviously didn’t stop by the Atheist Agenda table, where several students had dropped off copies of the good book and walked away with skin mags.

Athiest Agenda isn’t the first student group to explore the idea of introducing porn to former bible toters. Members say they got the idea from students in Austin who ran a similar pro-porn drive.
Walker added that members thought it sounded like a creative way to exercise their freedom of speech.

http://www.xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=11518

[patbattlefield]

athiest's are just as mean-spirited as some chistian lobby groups. they forget it is faith in god that inspired many of the world's philantropists and charities. people are evil not the bible. anyone can twist a scripture to excuse their behavior it doesn't mean the bible is the cause.

[Taso]

At least this way the bible is being put to good use.

[DoughBoy]

I'm an athiest, sir. The bible and religion in general is a cause of oppression, violence, and hate around the world. You don't need some guy to tell you that some fake god says you need to pony up some cash and pay the man every weekend to validate your pathetic life. You just need to be good to your fellow man. No religion needed for that.

[Diceman Cometh]

I'm an athiest, sir. The bible and religion in general is a cause of oppression, violence, and hate around the world.

Good thing your intellectual conscience lets you ignore the immeasurable good that religion has done, such as charity work, missionaries that have saved millions of lives in South America, Africa, India, Southeast Asia, etc.

I'm not gonna have this argument for the 5th time on this message board. Atheists truly are as hated-filled and agenda driven as fanatical Christians/Muslims. If you can't see the fact that Man, not the Bible, is responsible for the world's evil, and Man would have been just as rotten with or without the Bible, then you are truly delusional, and are hanging onto a belief that is no less silly those held by militant religious groups.

Stalin and all his communist amigos were atheists, remember? If the entire world dropped religion, it wouldn't decrease body counts.

[frankjg]

Good thing your intellectual conscience lets you ignore the immeasurable good that religion has done, such as charity work, missionaries that have saved millions of lives in South America, Africa, India, Southeast Asia, etc.

I'm not gonna have this argument for the 5th time on this message board. Atheists truly are as hated-filled and agenda driven as fanatical Christians/Muslims. If you can't see the fact that Man, not the Bible, is responsible for the world's evil, and Man would have been just as rotten with or without the Bible, then you are truly delusional, and are hanging onto a belief that is no less silly those held by militant religious groups.

Stalin and all his communist amigos were atheists, remember? If the entire world dropped religion, it wouldn't decrease body counts.

Well put :clap:

[JoeyDVDZ]

It's not the bible, per se, that is evil. It is, in my opinion, the subjective nature of organized religion and the men who either wield it like a bludgeon over other people, or those who use it as a guide to better living, as it was meant to be used, that determines whether religion is evil or good.

Millions and millions of people have been murdered in the name of religion, of one form or another, over the course of hundreds, even thousands, of years.

[LiddyRules]

While I'll agree that religion has led to good work and brilliant pieces of art (figured I'd throw that in there), it's also lead to some really bad things. Part of the 'Christians do good' theory that bothers me is that it assumes that without religion, people wouldn't try to help others on their own accord. I'm cynical but I believe if you are a philanthropist, you'd try to save others with or without God on your side.

And it's kind of a dick move trying to convert people.

[DoughBoy]

Good thing your intellectual conscience lets you ignore the immeasurable good that religion has done, such as charity work, missionaries that have saved millions of lives in South America, Africa, India, Southeast Asia, etc.

I'm not gonna have this argument for the 5th time on this message board. Atheists truly are as hated-filled and agenda driven as fanatical Christians/Muslims. If you can't see the fact that Man, not the Bible, is responsible for the world's evil, and Man would have been just as rotten with or without the Bible, then you are truly delusional, and are hanging onto a belief that is no less silly those held by militant religious groups.

Stalin and all his communist amigos were atheists, remember? If the entire world dropped religion, it wouldn't decrease body counts.

Hated-filled? Come again?

The bible is a book of stories written by man. Religion was made up by men to explain away those things that they can't explain and used as a tool to control the masses.

Sure, religion has done some good things... in its imperialist race to dominate the world. Your theory that religion is doing so much to better mankind ignores the simple fact that religion was INVENTED by man.

I know that man can be evil and many wars, deaths, and horrible things are based on humanity, but to try and claim that religion, an invention of man, hasn't caused just as much horrible shit is silly.

Then, to try and point at atheists who laugh at your actions of following something that claims to promote peace, love, and understanding, yet damns anyone to "hell" who doesn't agree with you, and claim that WE'RE the hateful ones.

I don't ignore the good that religion has done, I just temper it with the fact tht it is a load of shit.

I'm all for live and let live. Stay the fuck out of my life and I'll stay out of yours. Feel free to pray to whatever fairy tale that your parents fed you when you were born. I couldn't give a shit. Just don't try and force me to follow your rules. I live by my own.

I don't need some silly book to tell me that going and shoveling old people's driveways (for free), holding the door for someone coming into the same building, smiling and saying hello, and being a general good person is the right way to live. I know it because that is the way I'd like to be treated.

Oh, and please don't try to give me the horseshit line that there would be no moral conscious without religion... "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is just common sense, not the word of your silly god.

[Death Metal Moe]

It's a whole organization that uses the fear of death to enslave people. Now THAT Is Evil if I've ever heard it.

Thing that sucks for us athiests and agnostics is we don't have anything to sell. We don't have a lie to tell you. All we can hope to do is liberate you from the lie, and we get nothing for it except knowing we freed you from the shackles for the rest of your life.

I ususally just mind my own business. I wish Christians would do the fucking same. I know where you are if I want you,and I know what you're offering. Same goes for all those savage religions too.

Part of the 'Christians do good' theory that bothers me is that it assumes that without religion, people wouldn't try to help others on their own accord. I'm cynical but I believe if you are a philanthropist, you'd try to save others with or without God on your side.

A very good point. I don't belive in a Christian GOD but I still help people and try to live my life in a positive way that hurts no one else.

It's more of the brain washing. NOTHING good can happen unless it's rooted in THe Lord. FUck that.

I also REALLY love the double standard of "Love thy neighbor" but then Christians look down their noses at non-belivers and even other kinds of CHristians as they stick to themselves in little communities.

Very narrow view of the world folks.

[Irishcurse]

The only thing I find ironic is that if religous groups were doing the opposite then it would be a whole different story where the ACLU (Against Citizens Like Us) would be crying foul. If someone wants to follow a religion I say let them. If they dont then that is also fine. When one attacks the other it is just retarded. As said in an earlier post........ Stalin and Hilter made atheist states and that worked out pretty good huh? BTW I am not religous at all. After all we all worship at the alter that is O&A with some of the radical freaks worshiping Lil Jimmy:icon_bigg

[MetalSign]

Hated-filled? Come again?

The bible is a book of stories written by man. Religion was made up by men to explain away those things that they can't explain and used as a tool to control the masses.

Sure, religion has done some good things... in its imperialist race to dominate the world. Your theory that religion is doing so much to better mankind ignores the simple fact that religion was INVENTED by man.

I know that man can be evil and many wars, deaths, and horrible things are based on humanity, but to try and claim that religion, an invention of man, hasn't caused just as much horrible shit is silly.

Then, to try and point at atheists who laugh at your actions of following something that claims to promote peace, love, and understanding, yet damns anyone to "hell" who doesn't agree with you, and claim that WE'RE the hateful ones.

I don't ignore the good that religion has done, I just temper it with the fact tht it is a load of shit.

I'm all for live and let live. Stay the fuck out of my life and I'll stay out of yours. Feel free to pray to whatever fairy tale that your parents fed you when you were born. I couldn't give a shit. Just don't try and force me to follow your rules. I live by my own.

I don't need some silly book to tell me that going and shoveling old people's driveways (for free), holding the door for someone coming into the same building, smiling and saying hello, and being a general good person is the right way to live. I know it because that is the way I'd like to be treated.

Oh, and please don't try to give me the horseshit line that there would be no moral conscious without religion... "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is just common sense, not the word of your silly god.

Amen, sir. If you're running for pope, you've got my vote. Religion is the most destructive force in the history of the world. I'm also not having this argument again, so that's all I have to say about that.

[Diceman Cometh]

Holy shit, some of you people need to learn the fine art of point-by-point debating. You sound like broken records, repeating the same catchphrases all the time. Its amazing how atheists claim to be smarter and more "enlightened" to the truth, yet its JUST LIKE arguing with a closed-minded religious fanatic....


I didn't say that religion has caused MORE good than harm (it might have, but that requires a great deal of research and tallies of lives saved vs. killed). I am saying that religion has saved just as many lives and enriched just as many lives as it has supposedly destroyed....and again, I use missionary work in S. America, Africa, India, and S.E. Asia as an example. And I am also saying that if religion were wiped off the mind of Man, there would not be any less problems in the world. Sure, the battlegrounds might not be the same, but Man will continue to destroy Man, with or without religion.

Before any of you use the Arab-Israeli conflict on me, dont:

Before the creation of the state of Israel, Arabs and Jews got along fairly well. The Jew/Muslim conflict only started with Israel's birth. The Muslim hatred for Jews and Israel is not religious in nature, its political. They want the middle east for themselves, so with their political rhetoric, they supplemented religious rhetoric...either way, they would want the Jews out.

As I said before, Hilter, Stalin, and other mass murderers were atheists who happened to despise Christianity (little known fact: Hitler hated Christianity just as much as he hated Judaism).

Whatever the human race adopts at any one time - God or Atheism - there will ALWAYS be problems in the world (and good in the world)....because Man is Man, and thats what Man does, with or without a Bible.

And Doughboy, your argument that religion was created by Man just proves my fucking point. If Man created religion, and religion, as you claim, creates so many of the world's problems, then isn't Man to blame? Man created it, after all. The Book itself is not to blame, but the people who use it for evil.

It truly is heartbreaking that so many of those who claim to be the best representatives of a religion (kid-touching priests, abortion clinic bombers, etc.) have defiled the good name of a man who only wanted people to get along with eachother. For you people to blame HIM and not those who use his name for evil is ignorance. Those same people, in another world, in an atheistic world, would have been the same scumbags they are now, but with a political slogan instead of a religious one. In the end, my anger is with those people, rather than atheists. Those people defile the name of a beautiful and peaceful religion, and they themselves are responsible for bringing the heat on Christianity. When I hear a militant Christian talk about "heathen athiests," my response is "with people like you representing Christianity, don't be so suprised there are so many christian-hating atheists."

Oh, and please don't try to give me the horseshit line that there would be no moral conscious without religion... "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is just common sense, not the word of your silly god.

I never once even implied that, stop putting words in my mouth and argue like the honest intellectual you claim to be.

[Multiple Miggs]

Damn, and all I wanted was some porn. :icon_mrgr

[patbattlefield]

whether or not you believe in God, you have to acknowledge that religion has given every civilization a cohesive bond that keeps it from falling into lawless chaos. while you may do good without believing in God, the masses would respond differently without the fear of accountability to a higher being. law would have no meaning if there were no ultimate penalty after you die. and the laws and freedoms you enjoy would mean nothing and could be taken away because they would not come from god but instead allowed by whoever holds power over you in governmental form. you would have no inalienable rights you would have to live by the law of survival of the fittest. as george washington stated in his farewell address a society cannot exist without the pillars of morality and religion.

[GLENN_THE_TOOL]

i grew up coming from a very Catholic-oriented family. my father grew up in Scotland, and he's seen firsthand the hatred caused by religion with the whole Catholics/Protestants conflict. he was Catholic, but he'd have to avoid Protestant towns and neighborhoods or risk getting beaten or chased out of town. so he raised me without religion, not wanting me to ever have to face such a thing that he went through when he was young. so i guess because of that, i have the benefit of looking at both sides of the whole "how good/bad religion is" debate because i'm very much an outsider and can look at both sides without being biased.

true, religion can be the source of much of the wrong in the world, but it can also be the source of much of the right too. it really comes down to how every individual interprets what their religion teaches them and how they use those teachings. a lot of people like to use blanket statements like "all religion is bad" because it makes things simpler to lump people into easy-to-distinguish groups. the world doesn't work that way, every human being's freedom to choose how they interpret and use religion makes that impossible.

i don't adhere to any one religion myself, but i try to live my life with the best of intentions. the strange thing is, people i know who were raised with religion will often turn to me for advice, something i myself find a little odd since they're the ones raised with religion and should know better than me. i don't adhere to religion because i know the evil religion is capable of inspiring, but i respect those who use religion for good and benevolent reasons.

[Diceman Cometh]

i grew up coming from a very Catholic-oriented family. my father grew up in Scotland, and he's seen firsthand the hatred caused by religion with the whole Catholics/Protestants conflict. he was Catholic, but he'd have to avoid Protestant towns and neighborhoods or risk getting beaten or chased out of town. so he raised me without religion, not wanting me to ever have to face such a thing that he went through when he was young. so i guess because of that, i have the benefit of looking at both sides of the whole "how good/bad religion is" debate because i'm very much an outsider and can look at both sides without being biased.

true, religion can be the source of much of the wrong in the world, but it can also be the source of much of the right too. it really comes down to how every individual interprets what their religion teaches them and how they use those teachings. a lot of people like to use blanket statements like "all religion is bad" because it makes things simpler to lump people into easy-to-distinguish groups. the world doesn't work that way, every human being's freedom to choose how they interpret and use religion makes that impossible.

I agree completely, well said.

[Myhairygrundle]

I'm an athiest, sir. The bible and religion in general is a cause of oppression, violence, and hate around the world. You don't need some guy to tell you that some fake god says you need to pony up some cash and pay the man every weekend to validate your pathetic life. You just need to be good to your fellow man. No religion needed for that.


Lots of anger coming from you on this topic. What happened to you to make you so anti-religion?

Like it or not, I am going to light a candle for you, so take that.

[CM Mark]

Jesus = shitdick
Religion = crutch for the weak
Got a problem with what I say?

Go fuck yourself.

[Death Metal Moe]

Jesus = shitdick
Religion = crutch for the weak
Got a problem with what I say?

Go fuck yourself.

No problems here, carry on sir.

[THE FEZ MAN]

As usual I’m going to toss my two cents in and that’s it, I will not get into a debate on this subject my mind is made up and that’s that.

I am an atheist raised in a relatively roman catholic household, buy a mother that was relatively liberal and a Viet Nam vet (2 tours)
The fucking leach priest is here for block collection, get my purse.
Yes when people are shooting at you god is on your mind.

The atheist organization has the same right to distribute there pron to consenting adults just as much as the anti defamation league has the right to publish a list of white supremacist organizations, and hand them out to any one that wants it. Or the church of latter day saints to hand out bibles or hold meetings in a rented or properly reserved space. This is there right guaranteed under the first amendment to the constitution, end of debate..

It’s the whole “Constitution thing” that every one seems to forget. Our forefathers came to the new world to escape , in part, religious oppression. True, they were christens seeking there own form of freedom, (enslaving Negroes and slaughtering natives all the way) but they did have the forethought to leave open the door for the acceptance of all forms of worship, including the lack there of. My issue is with the misguided impression that God is the will of every one whether or not you choose to believe it. I dislike the great void in temperance between the believers and the non that has formed in this country and throughout the world. Every one has the right to worship as they please and NO one has the right to force there opinion down my throat or into the minds or my children, by way of force, or other means. To me organized religion is nothing more than another form of slavery and forced ignorance. If that is the path that you choose to follow, so be it. Vote for people that feel the same way that you do, but until the day when the constitution as we know it is gone. Keep your god out of my government. Its clearly spelled out in the blueprint of our nation.

Oh and yes, I want “in god we trust” off our money, and “one nation under god” out of our pledge of allegiance, since it was added in the 1950’s to combat the great red Hun, now were fighting the dirty Arabs that stole the holy lands from the children of god. Quite frankly I’m getting a little sick of people being murdered in his name.

[Myhairygrundle]

Jesus = shitdick
Religion = crutch for the weak
Got a problem with what I say?

Go fuck yourself.

Your opinion is respected. I will light a Jesus candle just for you and there is nothing you can do about it. If you feel a slight tingle, it's just the power of the Lord coming over you.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/coach_ditka/bhinn.jpg


One more thing, wasn't you precious "Latino Heat" Catholic?

[Death Metal Moe]

Your opinion is respected. I will light a Jesus candle just for you and there is nothing you can do about it. If you feel a slight tingle, it's just the power of the Lord coming over you.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/coach_ditka/bhinn.jpg


One more thing, wasn't you precious "Latino Heat" Catholic?

Don't you understand that it's this very attitude that makes us fucking hate religion?

You "know better than us" and we need you to save us. We are just lost at the moment, but you're going to bring us back to The Lord. Keep your fucking candle and your "holier than thou" attitude.

[patbattlefield]

benny hinn, huh? those televangalists crack me up. want some entertainment watch TBN at night.

[Myhairygrundle]

Don't you understand that it's this very attitude that makes us fucking hate religion?

You "know better than us" and we need you to save us. We are just lost at the moment, but you're going to bring us back to The Lord. Keep your fucking candle and your "holier than thou" attitude.


Don't be such a Serious Sammy.

You obviously don't know sarcasm. Lighten up.

Is Merry Christmas too much?

[patbattlefield]

You "know better than us" and we need you to save us. We are just lost at the moment, but you're going to bring us back to The Lord. Keep your fucking candle and your "holier than thou" attitude.

i personally believe in god and i share your sentiment. i used to be one of those people who thought i knew better. now, i don't try to push anything on anyone - if you believe you're right that's fine, i could be wrong and i don't have all the answers and neither does anyone else. but religion and faith are not evil it is how they are applied subjectively. self-righteousness and hypocrisy are human nature not the nature of religion.

[Myhairygrundle]

benny hinn, huh? those televangalists crack me up. want some entertainment watch TBN at night.


At least someone gets it.

[Diceman Cometh]

Jesus = shitdick
Religion = crutch for the weak
Got a problem with what I say?

Go fuck yourself.

You rebel you.

The visciousness and wit of that statement is only surpassed by a kid that called my mom a cum-dumpster back in Junior High....and meant it, gosh darn it.

Watch out for this guy, folks...he's a rebel that walks to a different toon than most people! I wouldn't wanna cross his path, no sir.:icon_roll

But seriously, dude, please don't say shit like that...it really gets to me...it gets to me almost as much if you actually made an intelligent, well-informed, rebuttal to my argument.

[abudabit]

Athiests are so fucking self righteous. They have the same attitudes as ultra religious zealots. It's a fucking joke, and they think they are open minded.

Agnosticism, the one true non-faith.

[patbattlefield]

Madalyn Murray O’Hair = cunt
atheism = people who found out there was no santa and got mad so they stopped believing in god.

got a problem with that? good, i'm trying to piss you off:action-sm

[Diceman Cometh]

Athiests are so fucking self righteous. They have the same attitudes as ultra religious zealots. It's a fucking joke, and they think they are open minded.

Agnosticism, the one true non-faith.


I agree...I have far more respect for agnosticism than atheism.

[BIV]

I choose you to counterpoint.

whether or not you believe in God, you have to acknowledge that religion has given every civilization a cohesive bond that keeps it from falling into lawless chaos.
So do dictatorships and Communism, but that doesn't make them any less wrong. When you take a person's free will away in exchange for stability you are commiting a crime worse than murder.


while you may do good without believing in God, the masses would respond differently without the fear of accountability to a higher being. law would have no meaning if there were no ultimate penalty after you die. and the laws and freedoms you enjoy would mean nothing and could be taken away because they would not come from god but instead allowed by whoever holds power over you in governmental form.
This makes me sick. I can't believe you have so little faith in your fellow man. Morality doesn't come from religion sir, it comes from mankind's intellect and need for society. Millions of years of natural selection has evolved our brains as only the human species that worked in communities survived. Government, led my the people collective, should be the final say, not religion.
you would have no inalienable rights you would have to live by the law of survival of the fittest.
Exactly. And the fittest are those who live as part of a society.

as george washington stated in his farewell address a society cannot exist without the pillars of morality and religion.
Washington, as great as a man as he was (and this can be debated) was a savage. All men at that time were savages. He was woefully uneducated compared to even a 5th grader today. And, as I would expect from an uneducated person, he didn't realize that morality comes from society, not the other way around.

[Diceman Cometh]

I don't completely disagree with what you just said, BIV, except this point:

So do dictatorships and Communism, but that doesn't make them any less wrong. When you take a person's free will away in exchange for stability you are commiting a crime worse than murder.

That is a matter of degree, no? Our society takes away a man's free will by prohibiting him from having sex with children, lying to shareholders, and jerking off in the middle of a children's park....and in exchange for that, we get stability. Is that exchange a crime worse than murder? The vast majority of people would say no.


And I really should be strangled with piano wire for spelling "tune" (as in show tunes) as "toon" a couple of posts back.

[Xyn]

Agnosticism for the win

I dont believe god doesn't exist, why should I? But I am not going to delude myself that he is having some kind of impact on my life that is somehow magicly unable to be measured.

One thing I dont believe in is the christian god, or any other religions gods/higher powers. There is too much bullshit in the world

god or no god, good does come from within not from religion. If it came for religion, then no one could be good. You cant be made to be good, that would be brainwashing (thats a whole nother issue of religion I'd prefer not to get into right now).

Like BIV says, we are the fittest who survived. Being fit doesn't mean being fast, or being strong, or being agile... If it were all about that, what the fuck would some of the small slow weak animals have on the planet?

In our case, being fit means working together as a society. Its a highly evolved form of the mammalian brain. We are in allot of ways the current pinnacle of the mammal family

Religion. whether devine, or as is more likely man made, is a way to help humans organise, but it is not the only way to make things run smoothly, and in many ways it is very outdated (at least we have already gotten rid of some of the worst aspects of religion).

Religion can be said to contribute allot of good, like through charities, but once again, is it really the religion, or is it the people? If someone truely is giving from their heart, they would do so whether there was a religion or not. If someone is fealing preasured to give by a fealing of religiously imposed guilt, that isn't really charitable, and its kind of pathetic.

I personally believe religion is good at organising charity, but it is far from neccisary. However, religion has very much been a direct part of war, from the beggining of known history all the way up until today.

I'm not advocating banishing religion myself, I mean, hell, I support peoples rights to be Nazis, KKK, communists, whatever, but I would sleep better at night if everyone suddenly gave up religion.

[crescentwrench]

Agnostics are the bisexuals of religious thought.

j/k. I'm agnostic too, just not the kind that brings up images of someone thinking the odds are 50/50 which is what is usually conjured up.

[DoughBoy]

Holy shit, some of you people need to learn the fine art of point-by-point debating. You sound like broken records, repeating the same catchphrases all the time. Its amazing how atheists claim to be smarter and more "enlightened" to the truth, yet its JUST LIKE arguing with a closed-minded religious fanatic....


I'll debate you "point-by-point":


I didn't say that religion has caused MORE good than harm (it might have, but that requires a great deal of research and tallies of lives saved vs. killed). I am saying that religion has saved just as many lives and enriched just as many lives as it has supposedly destroyed....and again, I use missionary work in S. America, Africa, India, and S.E. Asia as an example. And I am also saying that if religion were wiped off the mind of Man, there would not be any less problems in the world. Sure, the battlegrounds might not be the same, but Man will continue to destroy Man, with or without religion.

Ok so we agree on this: Man has an innate competitive nature that can (and in many cases does) leads to conflict (war/death/destruction/slavery/hatred/etc.).


Before any of you use the Arab-Israeli conflict on me, dont:

Before the creation of the state of Israel, Arabs and Jews got along fairly well. The Jew/Muslim conflict only started with Israel's birth. The Muslim hatred for Jews and Israel is not religious in nature, its political. They want the middle east for themselves, so with their political rhetoric, they supplemented religious rhetoric...either way, they would want the Jews out.

As I said before, Hilter, Stalin, and other mass murderers were atheists who happened to despise Christianity (little known fact: Hitler hated Christianity just as much as he hated Judaism).

Whatever the human race adopts at any one time - God or Atheism - there will ALWAYS be problems in the world (and good in the world)....because Man is Man, and thats what Man does, with or without a Bible.



Perhaps you should go back and read some world history. The cradle of civilization (and obvious immediate area) has been at war for all of time.

War between people of different religious beliefs, be it Muslim/Jew or two African tribes, has been around forever. It isn't religion that started those wars; It is MAN that does it, but religion is just a tool of man in it. To deny that religion plays a part in the control of the people involved in these conflicts is simple ignorance. You say it is political, not religion. I'm sorry sir, they're the same thing.



And Doughboy, your argument that religion was created by Man just proves my fucking point. If Man created religion, and religion, as you claim, creates so many of the world's problems, then isn't Man to blame? Man created it, after all. The Book itself is not to blame, but the people who use it for evil.


I concur. The book isn't to blame. The people that hide behind the book and use it to spread their grip of control are to blame. The people that cower to that book and those leaders because they refuse to see the fact that they're being manipulated are to blame.


It truly is heartbreaking that so many of those who claim to be the best representatives of a religion (kid-touching priests, abortion clinic bombers, etc.) have defiled the good name of a man who only wanted people to get along with eachother. For you people to blame HIM and not those who use his name for evil is ignorance. Those same people, in another world, in an atheistic world, would have been the same scumbags they are now, but with a political slogan instead of a religious one. In the end, my anger is with those people, rather than atheists. Those people defile the name of a beautiful and peaceful religion, and they themselves are responsible for bringing the heat on Christianity. When I hear a militant Christian talk about "heathen athiests," my response is "with people like you representing Christianity, don't be so suprised there are so many christian-hating atheists."


Now, what you refuse to accept is that religion is a tool invented by man because of this need to compete and be the best. It is a control method used by the powerful to control the 'powerless'. Fairy tales made up to get people to work hard in this life for their divinely inspired leaders so that they'll have a good place in the next life. Political power with the backing of 'god' has such a nice ring to it, don't you think?

This HIM that you bow down to doesn't exist. You don't need HIM to be a good person. You don't need to pay money to people claiming to be closer to HIM or pay their way through privleged lives.

If you truely believe that there is a god and that it is his/her will for you to be a good person, then do that god's work. Live a good life. I don't have a problem with it, nor your need to believe that there is a god that you need to ultimately be accountable to. What I do have a problem with is bowing down to these MEN pretending to tell you how to live your life in the name of that 'god'.

I don't disagree that some parts of religion have done good in the world. My aunt is a deacon and frequently (once a month) goes to 3rd world countries to help build schools, hospitals, and educate people.




I never once even implied that, stop putting words in my mouth and argue like the honest intellectual you claim to be.

If you can point out where I said that you did, then I'll apologize; HOWEVER, I never did. I simply stated something based on past experience with this topic. Someone is bound to bring it up, so I'd get it out of the way before it did.

[patbattlefield]

I choose you to counterpoint.


So do dictatorships and Communism, but that doesn't make them any less wrong. When you take a person's free will away in exchange for stability you are commiting a crime worse than murder.

since when does religion take away free will? belief in god is based upon one's free will to choose to worship the creator.


This makes me sick. I can't believe you have so little faith in your fellow man. Morality doesn't come from religion sir, it comes from mankind's intellect and need for society. Millions of years of natural selection has evolved our brains as only the human species that worked in communities survived. Government, led my the people collective, should be the final say, not religion.

governments led by the people collective have commited atrocities just as much as people under religion. the difference between your belief and mine is that i believe man is inately corrupt and you believe he is inately good. we will never come to terms on this and that is fine. i respect your views. i believe we all have need of redemption to help battle our selfish nature.

Exactly. And the fittest are those who live as part of a society.

i'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but this view sounds similar to why hitler killed the mentally ill and crippled. in my view of religion the strong uphold the weak. this goes completely against survival of the fittest.


Washington, as great as a man as he was (and this can be debated) was a savage. All men at that time were savages. He was woefully uneducated compared to even a 5th grader today. And, as I would expect from an uneducated person, he didn't realize that morality comes from society, not the other way around.

yes, and these "uneducated" men created the most stable form of government in the history of mankind where freedoms are protected.

[Xyn]

just some points

since when does religion take away free will? belief in god is based upon one's free will to choose to worship the creator.


At its worst, religion actively promotes banishing, imprisoning, or even murdering those who do not believe. Even at its best, many religions teach that if you dont fallow their ways, you will suffer some horrible fate. Not a direct removal of ones freedom, but it is a very elitist mentality, and one of the many reasons I despise organised religion. I dont mind most of the religious people, just the large religions themselves


governments led by the people collective have commited atrocities just as much as people under religion. the difference between your belief and mine is that i believe man is inately corrupt and you believe he is inately good. we will never come to terms on this and that is fine. i respect your views. i believe we all have need of redemption to help battle our selfish nature.


I dont know what BIV believes, so I won't speak for him, but I personally don't believe man is either inately good nor inately bad. If we were inately bad (as you say you believe), then why are infants innocent? Just becuase they havent carried out any of their evil plans? And if we were inately good, as you suggest some might believe, how would we get (or how did we ever get) so fucked up?

Instead, we are just people, animals capable of both good and evil, for the simple reason that we are self aware. Animals dont have sentience, so whatever they do is for survive or self preservation, and they cant choose to do anything else. Its what they are.

Saying that when people do good, its nothing but gods influence, or religion, or whatever, is just as bad as excusing the horrible actions that people do as being not their fualt. I believe people should be held accountable for the evil they do, and they should get full credit for the good they do.


i'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but this view sounds similar to why hitler killed the mentally ill and crippled. in my view of religion the strong uphold the weak. this goes completely against survival of the fittest.


Keeping crippled and mentally ill people alive and healthy doesn't make any sense from a natural selection point of view, and letting people with weak genes have children is just rediculous. That, along with advanced medicine is, is why we have stopped evolving physically as a species, except for the one area we are still growing, our brains.

But like I said befor, we are now the fittest species on the planet, not becuase we are stronger, faster, etc, but becuase we work together. A biproduct of the brain structure that allows us to create our societies, is that we feal compassion for our fellow humans. Thus, since we have such a surpluss of food and other resources (at least in this society), we support those who are disabbled.

We are the fittest, but we arent evolutionarily perfect.


yes, and these "uneducated" men created the most stable form of government in the history of mankind where freedoms are protected.

First of all, you may want to slow down on the whole "most stable government in the history of mankind". Stability means just that, its stable. Things stay how they are, undisturbed. The longer a society lasts, the more stable it is. We need several hundred more years under our belt befor we can make that kind of claim.

As for freedoms, I agree, that is a pretty kickass, but it was far from perfect back in the day. Remember that whole civil war thing? Not very stable, and allot of hype was created during it about this whole slavery thing.

Maybe they didn't think of that back in the day, sort of like they didn't think of the fact that women are capable of doing mens jobs.

The founding fathers got allot of things right, and considering the age they lived in, they were brilliant, but BIV is right, compared to modern day understanding, they were oppressive savages.

Its all a matter of relativity. I respect what they did back then, and it would be great to see that ammount of comparitive progress be made today, but we have built onto what they started, leaving their original work lacking.

Those ammendments arent there just to look pretty

[patbattlefield]

as an afternote to my statements above the reason our government still exists is because our forefathers knew the innate corruption of man's nature and set up a system of checks and balances to prevent the corrupt from gaining total power. in a system based on the premise man is basically good natured and the belief there is no god there are no balances and they have all failed(soviet union) or exist today with horrible violations of freedom and human rights(china).

[Xyn]

Not everything is black and white, good and bad

[patbattlefield]

just some points




At its worst, religion actively promotes banishing, imprisoning, or even murdering those who do not believe. Even at its best, many religions teach that if you dont fallow their ways, you will suffer some horrible fate. Not a direct removal of ones freedom, but it is a very elitist mentality, and one of the many reasons I despise organised religion. I dont mind most of the religious people, just the large religions themselves

well, there is some dispute over what hell actually is. i view it as a place outside god's dominion where you realize the truth and are forever separated from god's presence. i don't assume anything, in fact, i am always challenging my own beliefs. i realize as a whole you are right about organized religion and that is a sad fact that they do not practice unconditional love and acceptance, though they preach it to everyone.





I dont know what BIV believes, so I won't speak for him, but I personally don't believe man is either inately good nor inately bad. If we were inately bad (as you say you believe), then why are infants innocent? Just becuase they havent carried out any of their evil plans? And if we were inately good, as you suggest some might believe, how would we get (or how did we ever get) so fucked up?

Instead, we are just people, animals capable of both good and evil, for the simple reason that we are self aware. Animals dont have sentience, so whatever they do is for survive or self preservation, and they cant choose to do anything else. Its what they are.

Saying that when people do good, its nothing but gods influence, or religion, or whatever, is just as bad as excusing the horrible actions that people do as being not their fualt. I believe people should be held accountable for the evil they do, and they should get full credit for the good they do.

doing good is a choice just as evil is a choice. it is most times easier to be evil than it is to do good. many people have grown up in bad upbringings but some go against that and become great people, others fall into the cycle and repeat what they have been exposed to. what is the difference? why placed in the same situation do some people choose the higher road and others the low one? i can't say i have all the answers but i see it as a choice we are all given to give in to our primal urges or to make the choice to do what is right. faith in my opinion assists in doing the right thing.





Keeping crippled and mentally ill people alive and healthy doesn't make any sense from a natural selection point of view, and letting people with weak genes have children is just rediculous. That, along with advanced medicine is, is why we have stopped evolving physically as a species, except for the one area we are still growing, our brains.

But like I said befor, we are now the fittest species on the planet, not becuase we are stronger, faster, etc, but becuase we work together. A biproduct of the brain structure that allows us to create our societies, is that we feal compassion for our fellow humans. Thus, since we have such a surpluss of food and other resources (at least in this society), we support those who are disabbled.

We are the fittest, but we arent evolutionarily perfect.

i agree with your point about letting people with weak genes reproduce, but do you take that choice away from them? they are still human beings with emotions and free will. i'll just let the rest of that go, i don't want this to go into an evolution argument. i am a theistic evolutionist btw.:)




First of all, you may want to slow down on the whole "most stable government in the history of mankind". Stability means just that, its stable. Things stay how they are, undisturbed. The longer a society lasts, the more stable it is. We need several hundred more years under our belt befor we can make that kind of claim.

As for freedoms, I agree, that is a pretty kickass, but it was far from perfect back in the day. Remember that whole civil war thing? Not very stable, and allot of hype was created during it about this whole slavery thing.

Maybe they didn't think of that back in the day, sort of like they didn't think of the fact that women are capable of doing mens jobs.

The founding fathers got allot of things right, and considering the age they lived in, they were brilliant, but BIV is right, compared to modern day understanding, they were oppressive savages.

Its all a matter of relativity. I respect what they did back then, and it would be great to see that ammount of comparitive progress be made today, but we have built onto what they started, leaving their original work lacking.

Those ammendments arent there just to look pretty

i meant most stable with freedom. i know there have been many governments and civilizations over the course of history that have lasted hundreds of years. but most of them were brutal and dictatorial. with the exception of rome of course(which fell into theocracy) and some of the various native american tribal government systems, such as the five nations which is partly where ben franklin got the ideas for our system of government.

[Xyn]

well, there is some dispute over what hell actually is. i view it as a place outside god's dominion where you realize the truth and are forever separated from god's presence. i don't assume anything, in fact, i am always challenging my own beliefs. i realize as a whole you are right about organized religion and that is a sad fact that they do not practice unconditional love and acceptance, though they preach it to everyone.



Yeah, my mom has some of her own intersting views on the whole hell thing too. It would be nice to see more organised religion adopt a more consistant view of god. If he is merciful, then he would punish people as much as the deserved or less. An eternity of punishment is too much for any any sin IMO

Like I said, I got no problem with religous people myself. If only the organised religions werent so full of problems, maybe it would be easier to forgive and forget the historic evils that have been committed in the name of religion.



doing good is a choice just as evil is a choice. it is most times easier to be evil than it is to do good. many people have grown up in bad upbringings but some go against that and become great people, others fall into the cycle and repeat what they have been exposed to. what is the difference? why placed in the same situation do some people choose the higher road and others the low one? i can't say i have all the answers but i see it as a choice we are all given to give in to our primal urges or to make the choice to do what is right. faith in my opinion assists in doing the right thing.



I think by its very nature, good is very limiting in its scope. Evil has allot of options, and it is often the quick and easy way for personal gain. It goes along with the whole thing of society supporting the weak and the disabled. If we didn't support them, if we behaved more animalistic, the healthy, strong individuals would get more for themselves... for a time, until society collapsed.

You can make progress either under a free government or through brutal opression, but there is only so much you can squeeze out of brutal opression. Its in humanities bests interest to be good, thats why its good. Its in our own interests to be bad, thats why we tend towards bad. Thats my oppinion anyways.

I agree that faith can help people do good, sometimes for the wrong reasons, often for the right ones. But there are plenty of people without faith who still do good. Faith is a tool, whether there is a god or not. The question it raises is, is it too dangerous a tool? I'm not gonna answer that, becuase I dont believe in opressing people, so who am I to try to take away religion (as if it would work), but I would still feal better at night if there was no religion, or at the very very least, no organised religion.

My comfort isn't worth it



i agree with your point about letting people with weak genes reproduce, but do you take that choice away from them? they are still human beings with emotions and free will. i'll just let the rest of that go, i don't want this to go into an evolution argument. i am a theistic evolutionist btw.:)


Thats just the thing, we dont repress those with weak genes, we let them do what they want just like other people. It doesn't make sense from a perspective of evolutionary progress, but it makes sense from a societal perspective. The very bonds that hold our society together, also make us do irrational things like care for the handicapped and the weak, but that is what good is all about, and you can't pick and choose when it comes to good.

Don't worry about the whole evolution thing either, I don't much feal like covering that myself (I spent the entire weekend writing up a paper about why intelligent design shouldn't be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution. Not an issue of whether the idea of intelligent design is correct or not, its just not scientific. I'm fucking sick writing on the topic after all the research).

Good to hear you believe in some form of evolution though, not that I'm suprised to hear it. Evolution is such a wide open book, its anyones guess as to what exactly happened, so I can totally relate to both a athiestic and a theistic view of the subject. It just awes me though, that there are still some who say that evolution is complete nonsense. Of course, i'm also awed that some people think that modern evolution theories (key word: theories) are 100% fact.

I think bottom line, I just don't like extremists of any kind.



i meant most stable with freedom. i know there have been many governments and civilizations over the course of history that have lasted hundreds of years. but most of them were brutal and dictatorial. with the exception of rome of course(which fell into theocracy) and some of the various native american tribal government systems, such as the five nations which is partly where ben franklin got the ideas for our system of government.

True, there ya go. We do have a stable, large, and so far quite successful free society.

Again, I give credit where its due, for the time it was real progress. And adopting ideas from a group of native "savages?" Really quite suprising for the time.

Its all about relativity

I would say that most Americans today have a better understanding of freedom and equal rights for all than anyone several hundred years ago, and yet at the same time, we don't have anyone making the kind of social progress that they made in their time.

They wouldn't fit in well with our society (well, not without adapting to it), but we owe them for what we have.

May our children look back hundreds of years from now, and wonder how we survived today, being the comparitive savages that we are

[patbattlefield]

I am a Jew and happy with it.

I think this arguing about whether religion is good or bad is silly. If you're an athiest, good for you, if you a christian, Jew or an arab and you are not a crazy zealot, good too. What it all boils down to is if you a good person.


well said, sir. i can handle people disagreeing with me, but when they attack religion as a whole and throw all religious beliefs and faiths into a box and lump them together as detremental to mankind I get the same feeling I do as when religious people do the same thing with non-religious people.

[Multiple Miggs]

Not to be off topic :rolleyes: , but here's an interview of the president of the atheist group handing out porn for bibles.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10349028/

[Diceman Cometh]

Doughboy, I don't disagree with you for the most part, except this one critical point:

Now, what you refuse to accept is that religion is a tool invented by man because of this need to compete and be the best. It is a control method used by the powerful to control the 'powerless'. Fairy tales made up to get people to work hard in this life for their divinely inspired leaders so that they'll have a good place in the next life. Political power with the backing of 'god' has such a nice ring to it, don't you think?

We might be arguing semantics at this point. When you use the term "religion", you might be referring to the bureaucracy that Man has built around a spiritual concept, in order to hijack that concept for their own use. For example, the early Roman church hijacking the teachings of Jesus.

Now I agree that organized, bureaucratic religion has often been a tool of control and oppression. BUT the spiritual foundation of it was NOT MEANT to be used as such. Jesus's teachings, for example, cannot honestly be construed to be anything other than a message to be peaceful to eachother. It would be a stretch to say that he was trying to lay a foundation for an international organization capable of immense power, including the power to dictate people's lives by the edge of a sword. THAT is where the early Church comes in, and uses Jesus's teachings for their own gain.

What I am trying to say is that I have no problem with people being angry at the Catholic Church and other forms of organized, cohersive religion. That is completely understandable and rational, considering it's spotty record in human history. I DO have a big problem with people ignorant enough to say that Jesus HIMSELF, as a historical figure, should be held responsible for what has happened. All I want is an acknowledgement by atheists that the teachings of Jesus and the Gospels, BY THEMSELVES, did not advocate or intend the oppression or intolerance that the Church has caused over the years....because the message of Jesus was the exact opposite of oppression and intolerance.

And as for the assertion that he and the Gospels layed the foundation for oppressive men to command the weak, keep in mind these quotes of his, and ask yourself if he was a man that had a fondness for control freaks and the powerful:

Again I say to you, It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

"Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes, and to have salutations in the market places and the best seats in the synagogues(churches) and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."

He also warned to stay away from those that like to be called "Leader," "father," and who advocate violence against "enemies of the Faith."


Perhaps you should go back and read some world history. The cradle of civilization (and obvious immediate area) has been at war for all of time.

I didn't say otherwise - I said the Arab-Israeli conflict, which many people seem to think is as old as Islam, is fairly recent. And those ancient wars you speak of were in a pagan era, when Arabs and Persians were fighting political wars of power, not religious wars. They were far less religious before Islam, as is evident by their constant changing of pagan religions.




Factually incorrect,

While Jewish communities in Islamic countries fared better overall than those in Christian lands in Europe, Jews were no strangers to persecution and humiliation among the Arabs....

Yes, you're right about that, but their persecution wasn't about their religion, it was about the fact that they were different and weaker and easier to push around. There was no "religious war" between the two, as is percieved today. Muslims did not necessarily think Jews should be wiped off the face of the earth, and they did not think of Jews as the Ultimate Evil, as muslim clerics say they are now.

But really, my previous argument wasn't meant to extend to Islam, because the spiritual base of that religion (Mohammed) did, in fact, advocate religious war and violence against non-believers. I was mainly talking about Christianity. Islam and muslims picked up right where their spiritual leader left off - violent and imperialistic.

[KillGreys]

Where the fuck were these guys while i was in highschool and bible thumpers were handing out bibles as you drove out of the parking lot. Instead of throughing them back at them and hopefully hitting them we could have turned them in for porn!

[ShaunC1000]

I'm an atheist and I try to live a good life. I've done a lot of community service in my town (no - it was not court ordered), I'm always friendly to people, try to be polite, offer to help people at work/school all the time when I don't have to, often fix peoples computers as favors and never ask for any money (even though I'm unemployed right now and could use it). I think I live more as the Bible teaches than most of the religious people I know.. who spew hate when I have an opinion that goes agaisnt what their religion tells them to believe. I grew up in a religious setting, went to Catholic school from 1-4th grade, went to public cause I moved and went to CCD after school, now I'm in a Catholic college. I know more about the bible and religion than most religious people, and I find that most atheists know a lot about religion too.

I've only recently stopped going to church on a weekly basis because I've realized its all bullshit. Just because some man who claims to be the son of god can do a lot of magic tricks, doesn't make him god. Plus there are countless contradictions in this "perfect" book. Such as the 1'st commandment states ""Thou shalt have no other gods before me." yet there is Jesus. OH!.. sorry I forgot, Jesus is not only a man, but he's God as well. That's one of those unexplaned "mysteries" of the Bible and we should just believe it without question. Yes, the bible does teach a lot of good lessions, espically about loving your enemy, and I wish all people would live by Jesus' teachings. However, actually believing that this book was writen by god through man is outright dangerous because it serves as the justification of wars, and enslavement of other people.