James wrote:

Metal Iain wrote:I could happily settle for a career in trying to work out the history of religion in Europe and the Middle East.

So could I!

So you're saying we should have a civil partnership, relocate to Jordan and become gay-lovers/historians?

There is no proof of anything, other than peoples willingness to believe.

I think he's a bad journalist, he's waaaay to biased and he doesn't let people speak in his interviews. I think he's a bad representation of an athiest, in the same way Michael Moore is of a socialist.

Of course he's mostly right, but that's beside the point.

i) he's not a journalist
ii) of course he's "biased", he's putting forward an alternative argument to religion. Although I'm not sure what you mean by "biased"
iii) I don't know what you're basing the interviews point on at all. In most media interviews I've seen of him it is him that is quickly talked down.

He seems to hate religion so much, he's immune to taking anything else on board.

Ok he isn't a journalist, blah, but stuff I've seen, he basically just starts laughing at religious people in interviews.

Honestly though, the kind of things people say to him ARE often laughable - I think he's remarkably reasonable when talking to religious bigots. All he does is point out how a lot of what they say makes no rational sense.

I don't believe any of it. I think when we're dead that's it.
If there was a god, then why are there hundreds of different religions?
Surely if there was 1 all powerful being, then there would only be 1 religion.

I do believe that there was a guy called Jesus Christ, but he was probably a fucking fruit loop that somehow convinced people that he was the son of God. Virgin Mary? Fucking hell, how dumb is Joseph for falling for that one. "Oh no darling, I didn't cheat on you, I'm still a virgin... God gave me a good seeing to in a dream last night, he's got a massive cock you know... Oh fuck, I'm pregnant too".
Joseph you gullable cunt.

Imagine when humans first started to ask the question, "where do we come from?". This is a time when there were no scientists or "really wise blokes!" So the answer was bound to be something stupid.
"ere mate, why are we ere lad?", to which the wise bloke says, "oh some all powerful being must have put us here".... I mean seriously, only a few hundred years ago we were killing people who we believed were witches, so what kind of stupid shit would people have come up with thousands of years ago.

I'm a science man myself. And a breast man.

I dunno...something must of created/started the universe but what created that and what created that....etc etc

Religion has some nice ideas like me kind to people, but the whole be kind to people or your going to hell or be good and you go to heaven, just imagine if suicide wasn't against the "rules" in the bible then people would just top themself just to get to god instead of moping about here waiting. The dogma of alot of religion brings them down and puts me off.

Though we are only going to find out when we die....if theres nothing then it doesn't matter because our minds are gone...if there is that'll be a nice surprise...or if you go to hell then just hope you can be a cenobite lol

GoreBastard wrote:If there was a god, then why are there hundreds of different religions?
Surely if there was 1 all powerful being, then there would only be 1 religion.

surely all monotheistic religions are pretty much just different versions of the same thing, if there is a god.

I don't know how the universe was created, but I'm willing to accept the fact that I'll probably never know, and I'm not going to make up something just for the sake of it. I don't believe in anything like this, and I think a lot of people never realise their true potential because they're waiting for a better life, which is a shame. I don't think there needs to be proof that there isn't a god - how could you prove something that doesn't exist? The very proof lies in the fact that there's no proof to show that there is a god.

I appreciate that some people have found comfort in religion and that it can change lives for the better. But when people turn around to me and tell me I'm going to hell because I don't believe in Jesus, as my ex-girlfriend did to me about four years ago or so, that's when I get pissed off. And for good's sake, if I was going to believe in anything it wouldn't be jesus, I'm Jewish! And there's another thing, I am a Jew and I come from a completely Jewish family and upbringing, yet I never believed in anything. None of it made sense, I always just saw the bible as a collection of fictional stories from which we could learn some morality lessons.

One thing though, it does irritate me somewhat when people go on about how religions are bad because they start wars. I haven't analysed every scripture, but from what I know, I'm pretty sure that most if not all religions teach you to be peaceful and love one another. If religion wasn't there, humans would find something else to start war about, because most people are cunts and that's all it comes down to. People should believe whatever they want to believe and let everyone else do the same.

jonny_boy34 wrote:One thing though, it does irritate me somewhat when people go on about how religions are bad because they start wars. I haven't analysed every scripture, but from what I know, I'm pretty sure that most if not all religions teach you to be peaceful and love one another. If religion wasn't there, humans would find something else to start war about, because most people are cunts and that's all it comes down to. People should believe whatever they want to believe and let everyone else do the same.

I agree that there would no doubt be wars without religion, but the intolerance factor certainly plays a big part. The fact is that people do not "let everyone else do the same". You have the Bible clearly telling humans to "have no other god before me", that God is a "jealous god", and that evangelism is not just good, it is a responsibility of being Christian! You then have Muslim's waving placards which say "behead those who insult Islam".

The world may not be a war-free zone without religion, but it certainly wouldn't have such a bloodstained history if religions actually held to the idea of letting others believe what they want.

Gods don't exist.

If you believe in a God, you need Hitlerized.

@Thrashduck

Dawkins is not a cunt, and the only reason why he comes off as arrogant is because religion is set up that every person that criticizes faith/god is a cunt or claiming to knowledge. The only thing Dawkins is biased for is logic and reason, and that is something that is good to be biased for. In the cases were Dawkins is said to be arrogant is not really true. He's trying to show the religious people that their claim to the knowledge is actually absurd, and there are more likely answers. It's usually the religious people that are actually arrogant because of their claim to knowledge without any evidence. Perhaps he gets slightly aggravated while talking to theists, but really their arguments are so pathetic.

@Jonny Boy
Religion teaches you to love one another and be peaceful?

Stone unruly childen: Deuteronomy 21:18-21
Leviticus 20:13: "A man who sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be executed."
"'Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people. For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to The Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death. The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. It will be a sign between Me and the Israelites forever, for in six days The Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He abstained from work and rested.'" (Exodus 31:12-17)
If a man still prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall say to him, "You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name of the Lord." When he prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall thrust him through. (Zechariah 13:3 NAB)
Luke 19:27, Jesus said, “Those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and kill them in front of me.”

That's not a good loving thing to be taught in the bible, and all the love stuff was invented before the bible. People would be loving and caring even without any type of religion, because was selected for in Evolution.

Also, if you are thinking that no body really takes that seriously, and sane people disregard that, then you aren't realizing that they are covering up and saying it's okay for people to believe it literally.

"Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things -- that takes religion."
-- Steven Weinberg


On the side note, if we can get rid of all the bad things about religion and only keep the good things, then it's fine; however, I don't see that ever happening.

swizzlenuts wrote:@Jonny Boy
Religion teaches you to love one another and be peaceful?

...Really?

As a book i once read said, "In a universe of infinate size and possiblity, anything could happen and eventually does"

So my answer is one of those vauge wishy washy ones you were not after. I think the chances are that there are some sort of all powerfull beings with powers beyond our imaginations is infact quite likely. Just the chances that the same being/s create us and the universe we inhabit according to christian (most religions) mythos to be quite unlikely.