Actually, not anymore. Even the Catholic Church announced its support for evolution. Most of the religious holdouts are either uneducated Americans or uneducated third world citizens.
Misinterpret? Since "God" isn't there to correct the interpretations, all of them are equally valid. As long as they can find scriptural evidence to support their own understanding, interpretation is objective.
As for Schutzekatze's other points, to dismiss them as simple ignorance is petty. Especially when I've heard those exact same arguments from the mouths of apologists. "If there is no God, why are you moral? Where does morality come from?" The base assumption is that without God, humans would be amoral creatures. I find that assumption to be troubling and in my opinion untrue.
deleteddeletedover 10 years ago
I hope you are majoring in something that doesn't make you write a lot, Rutab, because "alot" is not a word and evidently you don't know the difference between the word "is" and the phrase "were waged"
deleteddeletedover 10 years ago
Sorry you fell for the Christians caused the dark ages meme. Alot of wars and massacres that happened under the guise of religion is just so people would rally behind the cause. There's been plenty of atheisistic regimes who killed millions of people. As for selling forgiveness for money corruption happens in every institution and it's not a reflection of the religions themselves.
Religion and evolution can coexist depending on the religion. Also does believing in evolution affect you on a day to day basis? We went over half a million years before evolution became theory. It doesn't really matter.
deleteddeletedover 10 years ago
The only redeemable aspect of religion is the relationship an individual has with the being he or she considers their maker/creator/god. Having faith in something like that, someone who's more powerful than any human on the planet watching over you, gives you the psychological push forward you'll need to regain your step when you've hit the lowest of lows. For me, personally, it's a form of motivation/method of regaining lost confidence in times of agonizing hardships in life. Ultimately, every rational person wants to be happy and if believing in something like that can bring you peace of mind and happiness then you shouldn't pay attention to what others think about your belief.
I don't think religion preaching peace is going to stop any war, and preaching love sounds unnecessary.
Society's norms today are also for peace and love. Religion supporting those values is not needed and has bad reasoning behind it - you should do it because god tells you to. If people are moral because religion tells them to be, they aren't genuinely moral imo and don't see the actual reason why they should be.
I would argue that suppressing scientific advancement, the wars etc. are bad things done in the name of religion but are nothing to do with the fundamental values these religions represent today.
Nowadays most mainstream religions preach peace, love and make people happy. How is this bad?
The only bad is when people misinterpret or twist the fundamentals and say they're doing something "holy" or "in God's name" when in fact they are mentally ill individuals looking for excuses to commit atrocities.
I haven't read the whole thread so I don't know if it was mentioned, but religion is objectively bad.
Especially throughout history where it suppressed scientifical advancement because it defied religious beliefs. It also caused numerous wars and affected politics. (it still does in some countries!) Not to mention it used to take money from people to forgive their sins, although I imagine whoever believed in that deserved to be taken money from. There's also people who nowadays turn to God for health problems instead of going to a hospital.
I'm not against individuals believing, some find comfort in it, but religion as an organization is bad.
The only good thing I've seen from religion is its impact on art, especially architecture.
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