Why are religious people religious?

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Evolutions moral compass is "what works go with it". From a practical stand point the "golden rule" which most logical non-sociopathic persons know without the
need for religious concepts is the only moral compass a person needs.

A compass is useless, if there is no direction for that compass to point. If everyone's compass points in a different direction, the concept of a "moral compass" becomes nonsensical.

you only have morals set up as by how your church and your following their laws dictate your moral compass. you do not have the cognative function to do so on your own....you even freely admit it when you said "But the truth is, I'm a bastard, and so I'm so glad Jesus wasn't".



you essentially agree with me but mark it up with illogical religious rhetoric whereas i define it as what it is....moral compass is supposed to be a psychological function very much based off of empathy combined with the negative sensations and reactions. you have no such sensations and reactions so you adhere to the church to guilt you into having their moral compass and following their rules and guidelines. there is no spirit, it's called indoctrination.


i'm concluding that you couldn't come up with one on your own and that you can't make moral decisions for youself without the guidance of something like a church for which is why i say religion is still needed....i definately call for a reforming of the laws and rules because they're archaic and quickly becoming worthless and more of a detriment to society but i understand that most people haven't a clue on how to be good on their own.


if you had any knowledge, you'd know that i'm right about the moral compass and that religion has become a substitute for people who lack such a compass. it doesn't give them a compass, they just follow the laws like sheep and it creates a faux compass. it's like renting an apartment....do you have somewhere to live? yes. are you the one making decisions? somewhat. are you allowed to do what you want in terms of redesign and paint? hell no. you don't own it...it's just on loan. same with the moral compass provided by religion. unfortunately, they look to keep you in the renter's agreement through indoctrination.





the true compass is supposed to be empathy and how your actions affect those around you and your community. religion is a fake compass that creates a false community under the idea of a god...when really, it's just the morals of those in charge and normally those in charge are the ones who hold up the tradition first because...well...without tradition, religion falls apart because it's all a big sham.

Hi I'm back, Soph I'll respond to your question. I said I see more hypocrits outside my faith then in it. I'll explain, if a Christian says something is wrong, we are called selfrighteous or judgemental. More non-Christinans have said to me "Thou Shalt not judge" then Chritstians have. And when I say , "Read the next verse" I'm told that I'm forcing my faith down their throat, when I wasn't even the one who started quoting scripture in the first place. I don't drink, no verse says that I can't, but I choose not to. Why then when I've gone out with non-Christian friends, that if they drink, they make a big deal out of me not drinking???? I hear this, "It's a free country, you shouldn't have to explain yourself" yet because I don't drink, i get the ole, "Oh Paula, God isn't going to send you to hell just because you had a drink". And where are the athiest Charities? Where are their homeless shelters? They yell we Christians don't do enough, then when we do, we are critized. We are told we don't take stands, then when we do, we hear "Seperation of Church and state". Hypocrits in the Church will get reprimanded, oh yeah we have them, they make alot of trouble, sometimes they are told to leave, come back when they are willing to repent. One lady kept gossiping about other peoples teenaged children, yet her child.....well lets just say...OUCH! I mean really who was she to talk about other people's kids? So yeah we get em, we just don't, as a rule don't make excuses for them.

Oh I wanted to add something else. When my friend was dying of cancer, complicated by the aids virus, it was a Christian church that bathed him and changed his dressings. Where were his friends???? Ahh gee, I don't know.

cancer and aids all at once? what? was he chain-smoking and using dirty needles?

food not bombs is a great atheist charity who gives food to the homeless and if i'm not mistaken they also help them find shelter.

I ought to check it out ska.

I am a Christian because my own interpretation of both the bible and the facts surrounding it have led me to believe that much of it is inspired by God. My beliefs aren't predicated on not looking into things I don't understand and burying my head in the sand in the face of facts. I believe in evolution and my personal study of the bible has lead me to disagree with much of how it has been interpreted and taught (For example, I consider the stories of Adam and Eve and the Tower of Babel to be more parables that warn against the seeking of knowledge at the exclusion of common sense and the dangers of undertaking grandiose missions in the service of vanity moreso than a history of our species as I believe it has been incorrectly labeled).

I have really never seen athiesm or religion as a logical choice however. Really you are either believing in a God based off all the people who claim he has touched their lives and helped them along in some way or you are denying his existence based off an understanding of the universe which is still in its infancy. I know we have all these great brain scans and tests and many men who will tell me what a fool I am for what I believe and I have no doubt that if I were to hop in a time machine and go back in time to the ancient world and explain that the earth is actually round that the scientists of those days would tell me what a fool I was and prove to me with their level testing scales and maps that the earth is actually flat. Obviously, I could prove it to them with todays science but I would refuse to on the moral basis that I don't want to come back to my own time and find a world ruled by apes.

The only purely logical choice is to admit that we really don't know s**t about s**t. In the end my chips are on "There are more things in heaven and earth than dreampt of in your philosophy". Believe what you like and try not to be too much of a dick to others along the way.

And good job on trying to understand things from other points of view, Sopho. I wish more people would do that.

Hey Skafather, My friend who died of cancer, had skin cancer, no he did not smoke. He also did not use dirty needles. He was not an addict. Yes he was gay, but he was also a mortician,and once upon a time they didn't have the safety features they have in place now. Remember when aides first came out alot of mortuaries would not accept people who died from aides, they were afraide they'd get contaminated. My mom who worked with this guy use to tell him to be more cautious, she would say. "Bob I swear if you aren't more careful you are going to catch hipatitous," (I spelled that wrong) now whether he caught aides from his gay lovers or from his work, I don't know. Unlike you, I wasn't quick to rush to conclusions.And I still have not been told the names of the athiest charities.

food not bombs.


edit: so the aids is, invariably, his own fault. and more likely from a gay lover that he didn't have safe sex with (wrap it up and keep safe!)...unless he happened to be draining blood from an aids victim and had an open wound and the blood got to where that open wound was. aids is transmitted through bodily fluids so it's not a mystery where it comes from...unless he had really lax practices when dealing with the bodily fluids.


and christians do that for him? i thought it was hospital nurses.

We can point our fingers at others, as I see you do. Or put our differences aside and help, which I've yet to see an atheist do. Food not Bombs????? You keep saying that, so WHERE ARE THE ATHIEST CHARITIES THAT DO THIS? And with the places I've volunteered at, we never gave out bombs, but we gave out food and compassion. And buy the way, I really didn't need your aides lessons, my friend caught it before it was well known. And regardless, he needed kindness, not finger pointing, which Christians are accused of doing, and yet you seem to be so good at it. And I'll add, it was his non-Christian leberal friends who walked out on him. I know, I was there.

I'll add also, he wanted to stay at home as long as he could, he was in and out of the hospital, yeah he had nurses that would come in at home, but not all day. They taught his mom, who in turned taught the volunteers that would come in what to do. In the end he died in a hospital.

why does purple show up as a colour and not a flavour of cheese?

food not bombs is an atheist charity that gives food to those who need it.


to answer your question more thoroughly about atheist charities i'll divert here* mainly because i never really invested in whether a charity was secular or not. (*gasp* an atheist giving money to a charity regardless of the charity's religious association...how liberal and insane) only reason why i know food not bombs is specifically secular is because they're more predominant in the punk scene and they're a bunch of anarchists who do good works for people. i don't agree with anarchist political ideals but i respect the charity for the good works they do.


* http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9553.htm and http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=109405

Orwell's 1984 Ignorance Is Power. It is all down to reality control. As human being we have come to a false conclusion that intelligent rational thinking is a survival trait. The thing about reality control is that it is more flexible then the truth. Humans don't want to know the truth, or they would have discovered truth a long time ago. Only Aspies really want to know the truth.