Wouldn't you think it is more likely for someone who is violent to turn non-violent than it is for someone who is passive-calm to turn violent?? If so, wouldn't this make the study irrelevant??

So well said.

/thread

I don't know why we would assume this to be true.

Idk, maybe I am wrong, but isn't it easy to realize that you are doing wrong when you are violent. What would cause a passive/calm person to become violent after x amount of years?? He would have to be influenced by someone right?? To me it seems harder to go from good to bad than the other way around. Maybe you can explain why the 2 are equally likely??

Still waiting for concerto to answer(yes/no) if ganstman is purusing the truth by believing in Judaism or if Borg7 is right...

This question is really easy to answer. Some societies without religion are better than some societies with religion and vice versa.

Sure me. Not that i was violent but some of my moral views were based on the biblical God and they were immoral.


Your argument is as bad as the opposite one that religion only does bad. You would only allow it to good and give it no ability to do bad by pawning off those bads onto something else.

If religion is like a gun and its not right to blame it for bad because bad would of happened anyway, then its not right to give religion credit for good. After all those goods happen outside of religion so they would of happened anyway.


This is one of the things that bugs me most about religion. If it inspires good it takes credit for it. If it inspires bad its something elses fault and that bad would of happened anyway.errr

I don't think so. People are generally aware of God and Judaism. If they want more information or guidance, I will happily provide for them what they need. But imposing religion on others is not a good thing. If people are not genuinely open to the religion, then even if they go through the motions the feelings won't really be there.

As for those who are unaware, I feel that God judges them accordingly, so there's nothing to gain by imposing on others.



Sure. Some people use irrational beliefs to provide themselves with comfort or to help reduce stress. Or some people believe that throwing salt over some shoulder brings good luck -- I believe this motivates those people to do better.

And in the show Scrubs, episode "My no good reason," Nurse Laverne Roberts, who believes everything happens for a reason, says:

I'll agree. Religion is a path for discovering yourself, whoever you may be.

That's not what follows from the statements.

"Science flies you to the moon, hockey gives you concussions".

To be consistent, if hockey doesn't give you concussions and religion doesn't fly you into building then science doesn't "do things that are useful" as claimed... men do things that are useful and use science to do it. We need to keep both in the same frame.

But then, if we can say "men do things that are useful and use science to do it" which is really what is conveyed by "science is a useful activity", we can say ( whether someone else agrees or not ) that "religion is a dangerous activity".

"guns don't kill, people kill". is a rather silly way to discuss the topic of guns, religion or science.

Are you claiming science for atheism?

This is a very weird analogy comparing science to religion.

Also some very weird things have happened in history when politics have married science. We got the A bomb, etc.

Also religion is no greater a threat to people than atheism. You're confused and have attached emotionally laden values to labels but evil people with evil motives exist under all labels...if they didn't how come the atheists in the Soviet Union didn't stop the other atheists from executing roughly 20 million Christians in the USSR some of whom were good communists?

Im sure before the advent of religion peace and harmony was the order of the day for all mankind.

Im positive the ancient peoples all treated each other with mutual respect and dignity. No marauding tribes of men roaming countrysides, raping and pillaging just didnt happen. Children were never forced into slavery.

The romans, vikings, visigoths, never woulda gone on conquering rampages, had it not been for religion.

The world would have been much better off under the rule of noted atheists, like Hitler, PolPot, Mao, Stalin, etc.


So, yeah, things woulda been much better.

I never claimed religion to be the sole cause of men roaming countrysides, raping and pillaging,...
I'm only saying that religion is a cause of violence, injustice etc. in our world and I don't think you can argue with that.



It's funny that people always bring this up. The people you named above did not mass-murder because they're atheist and were following an "atheist ideology". They were mass-murderers who murdered for various other reasons and happened to be atheists. By the way, Hitler was not an atheist but that's not the point of my argument here.

How can a "would be murderer" not murder for the fear of God when God explicitly motivates Christians to commit murder?
Of course those people amongst religious people who actually murder someone for religious reasons are the vast minority but nonetheless the problem of religion being cause of murder remains. This cannot be tolerated in my opinion which is why I appeal for the abolishment of religion.

ganstaman, I'm going to quit arguing with you because I feel like you are not acknowledging what I say and therefore the whole point of a discussion vanishes.

How do not all forms of Islam encourage violence when there are explicit appeals to violence in the holy scripture? I'm certainly not making inaccurate generalizations when I say that. Religion in general is in fact a potential motivation for violence.
Yes, you could say "Politics flies you into buildings" and yes, politics would be bad if the downsides of politics would outweigh the upsides of it which is not the case with politics. It is on the other hand the case with religion because there are no upsides to it as I explained earlier.

I dont agree with that. I didn't discover your lifestyle was sinful. I was taught it by my religion. Religion teaches some things that are good and it teaches some that are bad.

Poppycock (fun word isn't it?). You don't even need religion to know some activities or lifestyles are "sinful" or "perilous".

All you have to do is watch the news and the people around you's reaction to it.

Its not poppycock. I was taught by Christainty that some activity's are wrong and some are right.

If im going to give credit to religion for some good things im going to give it credit for some bad. If its not going to take credit for the bad it can get none for the good.


Btw all of these arguments on why religion does no harm fit well in the threads asking what good religion has done. Its done none apparently. You guys are making the anti religious arguments for them.

Not that i agree as i think it has done some good and bad.

Ok. So what does follow?


I don't see the relevance of this to what I was saying. My claim is that claiming that "religion flies you into buildings," i.e. that religion causes terrorist violence, is incorrect because it incorrectly generalizes from a specific religious ideology that does lead to terrorist violence to all religion. It would be as if I claimed that playing any sport causes concussions because playing hockey causes concussions.

Oh you think you will play pick and choose which beliefs are good and which are bad? You think you can second guess God on what's good for the individual and society?

Do you think an individual can establish order in society better than God?

"As soon as Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire by imperial edict (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]
The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
[DO19-25]"
No religion doesn't have blood on their hands. Even Buddhism used to be a violent religion.

Because many Muslims do not believe that their holy scripture advocates violence, or if it does, only in the form of state-sanctioned violence such as is common to all societies.
Yes you are. Do you think that someone who is a Quaker, a Mennonite, a Zen Buddhist, etc. has a greater potential for violence than the average person?
You didn't explain this. You claimed this without bothering with the whole evidence thing. In case you're interested, here are a bunch of potential benefits to religion: social harmony, personal happiness, increased care for the poor and general altruism, encouragement/preservation of scholarship, determining your purpose in god, forming a personal relationship with god, deeper understanding of the nature of reality, and so on.

Also, do you know what else has costs? Trying to abolish religion.

This post doesn't have anything to do with the heart of my argument, so...

I think it does.

You said some things are good and some are bad above.

Did you ever consider "a house divided cannot stand"....that is Lincoln...quoting the bible.

Consider each belief as a brick that builds your house. If you haven't got all the bricks can you build a steady foundation and house?

My post is about religion having no bricks.