Truly impressive Lykus... like the bigotry from you. Glad I stopped playing you.

Lykus, whats wrong with Christianity? I mean Ya in religion somethings aren't all right. But shouldn't it be about looking at what makes it good and not what makes you hate it.

Thanks for the opener RvW.

I am an athiest. I don't hate Christians or any religious people, that's just stupid and prejudiced, but I do hate some of things that are indoctrinated into people.

The worst one from Catholicism atm is the contraception thing. Millions of people in Africa are contracting HIV because of the churches abstinence only policy of contraception.

Catholicism also has a history of huge cover-ups of child abuse in my country(Ireland) and around the world. The Church's reputation was more important than the welfare of the hundreds of children getting abused by priests.

@Moros:

|> B: He wants to send only a certain group of people to heaven. Then I think he'd choose the brightest, strongest and most humble (i.e. Übermensche) to heaven. So it would be not of anything good to send a book (the Bible, the Koran, or anything else) down to earth, full of impossible stories with giant floods and seas disappearing. He would know that someday scientists would discover that those miracles are impossible, which leads to global atheism in a few hundred years.

Could you please use another word than "Übermensche", that has a very nasty connotation ("bij-klank"). Thank you.

There's a little flaw in your reasoning; people are not born as adults, they spend a lot of their life growing up, forming a personality. Sending a book to Earth letting people know what you consider "good behaviour" would actually make a lot of sense for a god.

Also, a lot of those biblical miracles are not so impossible as they may seem. I can't find the link any more, but a while ago I came across a page discussing that exact theme. For instance, Mozes parting the Red Sea seems to be actually possible given an exactly right combination of an earthquake and very strong wind.
Is it rather unlikely to happen at exactly the moment Mozes raises his arms? Of course. Is it already considerably more likely to happen when he struck up camp for a few days (and in later retelling it became "when he raised his arms"), yes, but still pretty unlikely. Is it actually rather likely that at some point in history it happened, there was someone to see it happening and in later retelling it got incorporated into Mozes' story? Difficult to put an exact number on of course, but at least it starts to sound at least semi-credible.

|> And against gays? If there is a god and he made them that way, why don't you let them be like that?

The problem here is the comparison with criminals. If god created someone who likes to murder people, we sure aren't going to let him be like that; he either "voluntarily" suppresses his desires or he's going to jail.
The difference is of course that a murderer inflicts harm on other people, while a gay does not, but "tiny little details" like that are remarkably difficult to explain to people if they're fanatical enough. (Not to mention "but I can see them holding hands and I know what they do when they're alone; that hurts my morality" (answering: "you being a self-righteous idiot hurts my morality, so grow up, get a clue and stop whining" never seems to have the desired effect...))

O simple ones, learn prudence; O fools, learn sense.

Proverbs 8:5

I don't think the right way to start a discussion about religion is by stating 'I don't know much about it, but I hate Christianity'.
That's usually how you start a flame war.
(OK, I don't want anyone to start a flame war, just thought I'd point this out).

As for my views:
Yes, there are bad apples in any religion and those are generally the most vocal about their beliefs. Yet, a majority of the USA is christian in some way or another, and I'm sure most keep their beliefs to themselves (note: I've never actually been in the states, and I don't think my country is really comparable to the US in religiosity, but still I imagine not all christians want to force their belief on you there, just a vocal minority. (Wait, is *religiosity* even a word? No idea really,though it probably should be. But I'm completely straying off topic here)).

Anyways, I think that goes for religion across the world in general.
The 'nutjobs' might despise their religious opponents, and try to force their beliefs on the rest of the world, but the majority just wants to get along with others.
I've had some great conversations with some christian friends (I'm an atheist myself), where we don't try to convince the other party of our own (lack of) belief. It works as long as it's based on mutual respect. That's the most important thing about these
discussions: respect the viewpoints of others, as long as they respect yours too.
And you won't get nor deserve much respect when you start by stating you hate the other party.

I'm not sure how this world could possibly be overseen by some "higher power." Would things be like this if we had a benevolent, omnipotent being watching over us?

How do you rationalise your beliefs with the suffering, inequality, war, genocide etc. the list goes on.

|> The worst one from Catholicism atm is the contraception thing. Millions of people in Africa are contracting HIV because of the churches abstinence only policy of contraception.

Which cardinal was it who said "An HIV virus is smaller than the pores in a condom, so condoms can't work."? ([possible sources](https://www.google.com/search?q=condom+pores+hiv+%28+cardinal+OR+church+OR+vatican+%29)) Well, water molecules are smaller still, so just fill a condom with water, notice how it's *not* leaking and see for yourself how valid that theory is...
What really offends me though is that he *must* know he's talking bull, he *must* know there's countless people (mostly in Africa) who blindly trust anything the Church says, so the only possible conclusion is he's deliberately risking other people's lives!

|> Catholicism also has a history of huge cover-ups of child abuse in my country(Ireland) and around the world. The Church's reputation was more important than the welfare of the hundreds of children getting abused by priests.

There's (apparently) a huge difference between Christians in general and "the Church" in particular. Please don't judge the first group by the acts of the second (also, not all cardinals and higher ups are bad of course).

Sorry, ^that question is an open one^, not directed at anyone in particular btw.

|> How do you rationalise your beliefs with the suffering, inequality, war, genocide etc. the list goes on.

Oh, that's simple, with the assumptions things would be much worse still if there was no god. Either that or the "God's testing our faith" line...

|>There's (apparently) a huge difference between Christians in general and "the Church" in particular. Please don't judge the first group by the acts of the second (also, not all cardinals and higher ups are bad of course).

Of course ordinary Catholics weren't at all to blame for the cover ups, and I hold no grudge against them(otherwise I wouldn't get along well with my mother :P).

However, these higher-ups claim to be bastions of morality and constantly claim that there is no morality without religion. I would argue that religion is not only completely unneccessary for living a moral life but actually forces you to defend immoral things e.g. denying gay people rights

Ace:

Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.

Matthew 15:16-19

|> Oh, that's simple, with the assumptions things would be much worse still if there was no god. Either that or the "God's testing our faith" line...

God is omnipotent, surely then he knows what everyone will do? He exists outside of everything that we know i.e. space and time. Then there can be no test. He knows all, doesn't he?

And things would be worse? That's just silly. He makes things a little better then? But still allows all the horrors that occur? Sounds more malevolent than benevolent.

Yeah yeah Jesus, I get it, we're all terrible on the inside. Thanks for giving us original sin so you could come down and play hero though, smooth.

Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your heart?

Luke 24:38

lol..never start a thread about: religion, sport/fav teams, racism. they will always be a mess

Go Blackhawks! (Whoops)

okay i didn't real *all* of some of those long posts on the first page, ill come back to them later.

I don't base my opinions solely off the extreme cases that are on TV and shit. I see it all, from the "facebook christian" to the people who live their entire lives carrying a bible, and everything in between.

@Ognian: I guess i didn't make it clear, I meant that i don't know much about *other* organized religions like Catholicism or Islamic, which is why I was only commenting on Christianity.

@Richard: Bigotry is like stereotypes, If its 100% true, is it still wrong? Go ahead and believe that God snapped his fingers and created the entire universe in 7 days, while you're at it, go kill 90% of your friends and family because they've done work on a Sunday.

@Ace: <3

|> Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.

Come again...!? Wasn't it usually love which comes out of the heart (I mean, we *are* speaking metaphorically, right?)...
And how is "stuff which goes into the sewer" (how did that make it into the Bible anyway; the sewer wasn't even invented back then...) any better than stuff you just puked out?

@Ace:
Just to be perfectly clear, while I'm technically Christian (baptised, first communion, confirmation) I wouldn't describe myself as such. Sure, I do believe in the "core" ("don't do upon others (..)", "love thy neighbour" (they meant [like this](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265208/), right? ;) ), etc. -- in short, the "just be a decent person" rules) but that's about it.

The way I see it (more or less following Moros' approach here), if there is no god, it doesn't matter anyway. So let's assume there is one. Then either he [1] made me exactly how I am (again, no point fighting it), or I have at least some free will, so let's assume that I do.
Now, there's (in broad strokes) three ways this god can judge whether you're fit to go to heaven. Either he determines how well you paid lip service (did you pray every day, did you go to church every Sunday) or he determines how well you lived by the rules, the third option is taking both into account.
In the first case, I don't particularly like this god at all anyway; why would I even want to go to a place run by someone who only cares about keeping up appearances?
So I'm putting my money on the second case.
In the third case, it would greatly help if the second part is (preferably by far) the most important. But hey, if I was created by god, it's his own bloody fault my mind is not wired up in such a way to make me able to believe in him; it would be a pretty nasty trick to then use that against me, right? Besides, what else am I gonna do? Be one of those "agnostics" that pray everyday "because it doesn't hurt"!? I sure wouldn't want to have to answer the question "I see you prayed to me everyday... yet in your heart you don't believe I even exist, how come?"... (And again, I wouldn't much like any god who'd be impressed by any answer I'd come up with, since no matter the exact wording, it still boils down to "Better sure than sorry".)

---

[1] That's just a practical abbreviation for "he/she/it"

Lykus, A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back. (Proverbs 29:11)

RvW, When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent. (Proverbs 10:19)