The very existence of this thread helps to prove how terrible religion is.


EDIT: This discussion is on the fence but the point seems more suited to RGT than Politics. Moving. RGT mods, if not appropriate for your forum feel free to move back to Politics, lock or delete.

Yes, because everyone knows that only religion (not to mention all religion) has discriminated against people for their sexual orientation....

Religions, specifically the religious organisations, are the cause of all prejudice and discrimination, yes.

Wow

Lol.

lol

I agree with [Phill] imo

imo the church of scientology's tax exempt status is especially ridiculous.


they got tax exempt status, got it removed, and then got it back after striking a deal with the IRS, even though they infiltrated and wiretapped government offices and stole documents - operation snow white, the largest infiltration of the US government in history.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_snow_white

should the church of scientology lose their tax exempt status? imo, absolutely they should again

Lirva,

But all the other religions are just as bat**** as scientology. If you go after one you should go after them all. The catholic church lied obfuscated and covered up the fact that their priests were raping little children. Should they keep their tax exempt staus?

tom,

I'll bet you a nickle he doesn't think they should. LirvA hates all religion almost as much as Phill does. He's just picking some low hanging fruit here. And trying to equate Scientology with other mainstream religions.

I agree with [Phill] in that they all should lose it.




Negatory. I don't hate all religion equally. I pretty much hate christiainty more than anything in this world, and all other religions combined don't even come close to getting the same amount of hatred from me imo.


I'm cool with some religions. Buddhism is fine. Wicca. Neopaganism and what not.

I do think that Atheism is the most logical religion ...

Lirva, "religious humanism" is what you mean there. Im unconvinced on the positives or negatives of religious vs secular humanism.

Fwiw i dont hate religion per se but what good ideas they have hidden in the mysticism has been corrupted by its believers. When dutch cartoonists need to go into hiding, when priests abuse children and are protected by the pope, when catholic irish bomb protestant irish, when christians gas millions of jews and jews bulldoze the houses of innocent muslim palistinians because other muslim palestinians fire rockets at other jews - the list just goes on and on.

Weirdly enough its usually the monotheistic religions that make the bigger noise, though Hindus havent treated sikhs or muslims all that well in india in the past.

Anyway, if you want to follow a religion, good for you i guess, but when your views are forced onto others one way or the other then i kinda have a problem. As i said earlier Religions, specifically the religious organisations, are the cause of all prejudice and discrimination" - if the organisations acted less dicklike id have less of a problem with them.

When did Christians gas millions of Jews? I always thought that was the Nazi political party that did that.

Well, to be fair, some of those people were Christians, and correlation = causation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity

Oh I see.

Come to think of it, a lot of them were scientists and did a lot of cruel and inhumane **** to people in the name of science...so wait....

Also, I guess we can just forget about that one time an atheist killed millions of people.

So when the government manipulates religion for its own nefarious purposes, the fault lies with religion, and not the government. Got it.

You can argue that religion is a mind virus that weakens the mental immune system and makes one more susceptible to other crazy ****. I'm in no way supporting phill's comment though as I think that's a very large over reach.

I think organised religion is pretty clearly -UEV as a whole. Spirituality and religion in general I'd be pretty confident but not certain in calling -UEV because of the opportunity costs especially with respect to technological progress.

To be fair, they forced Pagans to convert or murdered them, stole their holidays and ritual sites and superimposed their fantastic story of the super hero baby jesus upon the Pagan holiday Yule.

And of course they continue to discriminate and oppress to this day and pretend christmas and other holidays are really theirs.

But so is nationalism/tribalism also a mind virus, and it's hard to quantify which is more infectious. I mean, plenty of evil **** has been done in the name of religion, but virtually all of the worst of it that's been carried out has been done simultaneously in the name of a state and with the full authority thereof. Religion without the state is just some guys wandering around Palestine or the Arabian peninsula or India saying a mix of weird and nice things.

Nuclear fission has wrought all sorts of carnage, too, but that doesn't make it intrinsically evil. It sure can be abused by the government, though, geez.

The hatred of Jews leading up to the gas chambers mainly spread from Christianity. For instance the term ghetto is derived from the area of Venice they forced Jews to be segregated to. Plus some of the bible with the crossing of Jesus to the Romans is just anti semitic propaganda.

Yeah, my original statement should probably be rowed back from, but its not as far from the truth as some seem to think.

When the government believes in a religion and uses that religion the fault can be sliced up between the two factors, but without one the other would not have a significant impact. I guess you can argue we need to get rid of governments, but that quickly hijacks the thread

Talk about hijacking a thread. Your statement about gas chambers is ridiculous. Instead of debating that in this thread (and thus hijacking it) maybe I should start a thread on revisionist history.

Oh my. How can you claim the Bible is anti-semitic propagand? Give me a break. I'm sick of the anti-semitic card every time. Jesus and his apostles were Jews, so stop this bs.

When John stated that the Jews wanted to kill the Christ, was John anti-semitic, or just stating the facts?

Jesus said "Synagogue of Satan" in the New Testament. Oh noes. Ban the New Testament.

The Ukrainians who made up most of the staff in the camps didn't like Jews because of the Holomodor. No need to blame Christianity for everything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazar_K..._for_Holodomor