Why do some people feel the need to denigrate the religious?

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Hmm ...
Anyway, this was supposed to be a topic about denigrating the religious, not just attacking Christianity and Islam because they're the worst religions. There are other religions and religious practices out there, which can be denigrated by others for whatever reason, which was the momentum of the original idea - why do people feel the need to engage in this behaviour. I just find it interesting that every time, people seem to restrict "religion" to "mostly Christianity."
For example I know someone who is a militant antitheist (worshiper of Richard Dawkins if you ask me) who, when we were watching a documentary about the ritual decoration, costumes and dance of the Kamayura people of the Amazon rainforest, chose to go on a rant about "uncivilized monkeys" doing "stupid primitive chicken dances."
This person had the same mentality - to attack the religious expression of those who were different, in a sort of display of superiority (as indicated by vocabulary, I thought). It's the same tick.

Actually, you're referring to Biblical Literalists. Their God is your One True God. ...the God that you so fervently believe in disbelieving in.

...and vociferously preaching your disbelief in.

You have a right to believe as you wish, of course, and your attraction to and interest in Biblical Literalism is your business.

Michael929

First off, I didn't mention anything about me being religious. And I said that religious people also forcefully push beleifs. I just see this happen more with atheists (personal experience, nothing more.)

Second, i assume you are referring to the crusades by 'religious ancestors who used the sword instead of decent arguments'. The crusades have a very complex background behind them. In the context of the first crusade, Turkish Muslim troops invaded Byzantine lands. The general of the Byzantines, Alexius Comnendus, took control of the empire and requested help from Europe. The pope, who had been in the process of trying to better relations with the byzantines quickly accepted, to achieve better relations with the Byzantines and drive out the Muslims, who were refusing to allow Christian pilgrims into Jerusalem.

All in all, I would see the first crusade is pretty well justified. There was a splinter group of crusaders, however, who left before the main group and committed unnecessary slaughter throughout small towns (Jewish in particular). At some of the seiges throughout the crusade, after victory the soldiers, who had lost friends in the fighting took it out on disarmed enemies and helpless civilians, but this was not the direct action of the leaders (with exceptions).

Things "happen" in time. Time is an aspect of our physical universe. So don't expect nonphysical events in time.

But things happen that aren't covered by any known law of physics. Oh, you didn't know that?

Which known physical law explains the acceleration of the recession of the more distant galaxies?



Believe as you wish.



Different explanations are needed in physics. The explanations need explanations, and the explanations are far from complete. They'll probably never be complete.

Real?

"Real" isn't metaphysically-defined. As for the physical world that a Materialist believes in, there's no reason to believe that it's real in any meaningful philosophical sense.

Michael829

One more thing:

If we're not limiting discussion to things that "happen", there are certainly things that aren't covered by the laws of physics. Numbers aren't covered by the laws of physics. Names aren't covered by the laws of physics.

Logical facts aren't covered by the laws of physics.

So don't worship physics too much.

Michael829

No one worships physics, it's not a religion. Everytime the evidence changes, we change with it. There's no belief involved, science is based on concrete evidence.

Religion is based on stupid books written by ignorant people over a thousand years ago, who are objectively stupid by todays standards. The beliefs can't change. You are simply stuck with the ideas, not matter how useless or stupid they are.

And to go back to the topic, this is why many people have a problem with religions. It's because they want to tell us how to live, based on what a small group of people wrote down in a book a long time ago, but these people didn't know a whole lot. Why is it wrong to be homosexual? Because god says so? That's not an arguement. That's dogmatic, outdated, and frankly a quite useless belief to hold in modern society.

I don't respect haters. That includes haters of other people's religion.



Has it occurred to you maybe not all religious people share your belief in the caricature of God that you believe in and hate?

You're a Biblical Literalist.

Michael829

I do not know why you would want to deflect from the mainstream religions, like Christianity and Islam, that do the most harm to our society, to third world tribes with Gods who are as foolish as the mainstream but likely have better morals.

Christianity and Islam are denigrated because they deserve to be as they are both slave wanting ideologies and that does not fit well in non-slave holding freedom loving nations like ours.

Regards
DL

I was not referring to the crusades.

I was referring to the many Inquisitions with Christians killing other Christians on minor points of ideology.

I was speaking to how Christianity, which now advocates for freedom of thought and religion, while ignoring that they themselves murdered many to deny them their religious rights.

Regards
DL

Slaves? I'm a Christian and I don't know that I've ever seen a slave, at least not in person. Does that make me a bad Christian?

Physics isn't a religion. Science isn't a religion.

Science-Worship is a religion.

It's sometimes referred to as "Scientism" or "Scientificism".

Science-Worshippers believe that science explains and covers all that is. The pseudoscientific Science-Worshippers want to apply science outside of its legitimate range of applicability. ...making them believers in pseudoscience.



Speak for yourself. You're describing the religion that you recognize (and believe in) as "religion". Yes, in a funny and curious sense, you believe in Biblical-Literalism, as the One True Religion, while not understanding that your Science-Worship is a religion.

You don't know all religious people. You haven't read all the religious positions. But you ignorantly and bigotedly spout off about what you don't know and haven't read.

You're the counterpart, the brother, and the identical-twin, of the other Biblical-Literalists, the ones whose meaning for religion you adopt when you refer to "religion".

Atheism is a peculiar belief. It's a blanket-denial whose object is unspecified, and unknown to the adherents of that belief.

Michael829







The beliefs can't change. You are simply stuck with the ideas, not matter how useless or stupid they are.

And to go back to the topic, this is why many people have a problem with religions. It's because they want to tell us how to live, based on what a small group of people wrote down in a book a long time ago, but these people didn't know a whole lot. Why is it wrong to be homosexual? Because god says so? That's not an arguement. That's dogmatic, outdated, and frankly a quite useless belief to hold in modern society.[/quote]

If you cannot hate immoral religions then you are not a moral person.

If you do not know how to hate, then you do not know how to love.

Hate is born of love. If you love freedom, for instance, you will hate all that impedes freedom.

Psychology teaches that as we develop a positive/love bias for something, we automatically form a negative hate bias against what we think goes against our love bias.

Has it occurred to you maybe not all religious people share your belief in the caricature of God that you believe in and hate?



I know they do not see as clearly as I do thanks to the lies from priests and preachers that they have swallowed.

They somehow think that a genocidal son murdering prick of a God is a good God.
That is how badly their moral sense has been corrupted by their religion.


[/quote]

Not in the least but do take it that way if my interlocutor does.

If I am going to show him that his views are foolish and immoral, I have to try to do it from his low level.

Regards
DL

I don't believe the compilers of the Bible were ignorant.

They just had a certain belief in the classic Abraham story, and what emanated from it.

They derive benefit from belief.

Sometimes, obviously, people use religion as a crutch---and to justify inherently evil actions.

But atheists do the same thing, too.

No.

Your slave holding ideology is what has corrupted your moral sense, as well as some of the other tenets Christians follow, like the immoral notions of substitutionary atonement where people think they should profit from the punishment of the innocent so that they might escape their own just rewards for their sins.

If you do not see those as immoral tenets, it just shows how corrupted your moral sense is thanks to Christianity.

Regards
DL

Oh, sorry--I missed part of your post, when I replied.

So, to continue:

You're stuck with the ideas of Biblical-Literalism. And you're stuck with the bigoted notion that you understand the beliefs and ideas of all religious people.



Many, most, or all of the established religions do make suggestions about how to live. Is that bad? Or are the suggestions of all of them bad? Have you read about the how-to-live suggestions of all of the established religions?

...and do you think that all religious people are trying to tell you how to live? (The word "religion" covers more than the major established religions (Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, etc.)



You're confusing religion with some old men who wrote the Old Testament. Theirs is only one of many religious positions.

The Old Testament, in the Book of Joshua, claims that God ordered and participated in the massacre of lots of women and children in Canaan. Do you really think all religious people believe that? ...or that God told Abraham to murder his son?

Michael829

Last edited by Michael829 on 05 Dec 2017, 11:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

@Michael829: It strikes me that you don't actually know what science is. Again, it's not a belief.

The goal of the scientific method is to find evidence to support theories, theories usually constructed from observing the real world. Once sufficient evidence has been found, it goes from theory to established fact.
Like for example the theory of evolution, it started with semi simple observations, and today we have millions upon millions of pieces of evidence, so much so that one would be a fool to deny it.

Religious people don't use the scientific method. You are stuck at the theory part, and are not bothered to find any evidence to support your claims. Of course the claims themselves are ridiculous to begin with, and are constructed from imagination, not from the real world. There is no proof that a god exist, none. I don't know why a god would exist in the first place, but that is of course what you people claim.

Your use of the term "biblical-literalist", seems to be a deflection to avoid aknowledging the fact, that the one book your entire religion is based on, is in fact completely ridiculous.