Jesus Camp Trailer

[Lieva]

Furthermore, regardless of the atom bomb, there is no doubt in my opinion that Scientific development as caused more loss of life than anything else in human history... whether it be from the first bow that was made, the invention of Gundpowder, Napalm, or the use of other military hardware. Science kills more than religion! Without Science, these weapons would never have come into existence... that's undeniable!

sorry gandelf
dont agree with you there

science has actually created more peace (tho fragile) than any other thing on the planet. (mainly cuz of the fact people are terrified they will be nuked from exsistance but ya gotta go with it )
religion (or rather should i say - peoples views on a religion) has caused more.

[Lieva]

Personally I have no issues with going thru life for no reason whatsoever and doing my best to make people happy.

There is no meaning to life!
This is what so many people cant grasp, it scares em. WHAT NO MEANING!?!?
No you are a pointless animal that lives and dies, end of story, get over it.

EDIT : Yes fully embrasing the fact that there is NO meaning or point of ANYTHING you do will make you sad and desperate, depressed in some cases and maybe other bad stuff. But once you get over it you find as much peace as any cooked up God offers, trust me.

but if there is no meaning to life.
why bother with it?
its mainly full of pain and anguish - the news is full of hate rage and death.
Why continue?

[Heta]

but if there is no meaning to life.
why bother with it?
its mainly full of pain and anguish - the news is full of hate rage and death.
Why continue?

I ask myself the same question each morning, so did a friend of mine, only he dont anymore...

[Lieva]

I ask myself the same question each morning, so did a friend of mine, only he dont anymore...

[Selenia]

Were they natural phenomena etc?

First off, I believe that there is an almost symbiotic relationship between religion and science - religion sets the challenge that science attempts to prove/disprove. Unfortunately this also applies to religion indeed being the main reason why wars are started, but science being responsible for how wars are conducted and ended.

One thing we have to consider is that the language and understanding of those people who existed when the bible was written had a very limited understanding of natural phenomena and the science of the time. Also that the Bible is a book of metaphors and should not be taken 100% at face value. Yes there probably was a man called Jesus and yes he probably did do remarkable things. But was he the son of God? No, I don't believe he was. Moreso he was probably someone who had great knowledge of how things worked.

Take for example the who incident of being able to walk across water. People can do that nowadays and it's called "ice skating". Back then their knowledge of what happens when the temperature gets to a certain degree and freezing occurs was extremely limited. The same applies to many other incidents in the bible. Bringing people back from the dead? It could be assumed that Lazarus was in a coma but medical advancement was such that for all intents and purposes those onlookers thought that he was dead.

When I was studying Sociology I was brought to the attention of a quote that stated "Religion is the spiritual gin in which the slaves of capitalism drown their sorrows". This is the state that religion was created or imposed, whatever your views, as a method of social control. People are taught that if they conduct themselves according to the laws that the bible outlines and work hard for the rest of their lives they will reap the rewards in "Heaven". This "ethic" was great for the Church as it meant that they could extort money from their followers in the form of tithes and into the hands of the elite. To this day the Vatican State is one of the richest sovereignties in the world.

One thing though Gandelf, People may not be religious, but not many people die Atheists

[Luz]

but if there is no meaning to life.
why bother with it?
its mainly full of pain and anguish - the news is full of hate rage and death.
Why continue?

There is no point, yes you could aswell go jump of a roof.
Sadly humans come with a strong will to survive, which drives us over allmost everything else. Just like any animal out there.

For me its knowing that people around me would be very sad and upset that keeps me going day out and day in 9to5.. just because there is no point with it dont mean you cant make the best of it and enjoy it, kind of like casual sex.

[Mojo]

hmm maybe
but why would you believe that killing people was right when your religion says you should also uphold the law in your land which states you cant kill.
sure there has to be 'some' element of doubt?

Well this comes down to interpretation, which is another problem with religion. Im not sure what the Koran says exactly but using your example the extremists would over ride the "can't kill" with " But it's ok to kill the infidel", which is anyone that doesn't beleive. So can't kill gets twisted into "cant kill muslims but anyone else is fair game".

Don't qoute me, but i hope you get the point.

[Xest]

But if God doesn't exist and you don't believe in a God at all Ankh, then MY God in MY Bible can't actually be responsible. That's my whole point.

Yes it can be responsible, essentially when he's referring to your god he's referring to the imaginary being that exists in your mind. What he's saying is this fictitious character is responsible as an idea, because that's what god is an idea - he's claiming that the idea of god is responsible which it is. Understand now or still too confusing for you?

Furthermore, regardless of the atom bomb, there is no doubt in my opinion that Scientific development as caused more loss of life than anything else in human history... whether it be from the first bow that was made, the invention of Gundpowder, Napalm, or the use of other military hardware. Science kills more than religion! Without Science, these weapons would never have come into existence... that's undeniable!

The difference being that theory, experimentation and putting into practice are the underlying principles of science and also entirely natural to the human population, had humans not discovered how to make fire, how to make spears, how to make clothes they would have died out before even getting to the point where they could invent things like the Bible. Religion on the other hand is merely a human made creation, one that is needless and no longer serves a purpose yet exists due to the gullability of many people and the indoctrination of children across the world into various religions. So on one hand, we have science which is essential to our existence, without it we'd undoubtedly be extinct. Science is a tool, something, like a hammer that can be used for good or bad, by default a hammer can't cause any harm to anyone but if used as a weapon it can. In this respect science is entirely passive that is it is only as evil or good as the user of the tool, it doesn't care if you're black or white, christian or muslim. Now this goes for religion somewhat, however only to an extent because whilst some religious teachings are passive, many more aren't, Christianity does discriminate if you're gay or straight for example, just like some teachings discriminate against people who aren't of that same religion. What you're doing is comparing apples to oranges, you're comparing something passive that is also human nature to something that does explicitly make moral judgements and is entirely man made.

[Kallima]

Even the Hitler youth wasn't anywhere near as widespread as religion... As I say you also get the guy down the pub preaching race hate and recruiting for the NF but it's still extremely small scale compared to religion (and also an extremely small timeframe), religious brainwashing has occured across thousands of years, even Hitler youth, one of the more widespread in terms of people effected lasted what, 6, 7 years?

The hitler youth was effectively compulsory from 1938 onwards for every German child.

Obviously the communist youth movements were/are more widespread.

Most nations/political movements indoctrinate children in one way or another, some more blatantly. If you sweep all religions together and assume all their teaching of children however minor is indoctrination, then you should logically look at all political/national/racist teaching of children in the same way. In which case buying a child a model Noah's Ark is indoctrination, but so is getting them to salute your countries flag or stand for the national anthem.

In all things, I reckon its a bad idea to stick on generic labels. There has been good and bad done in the name of religion. Most people actually believe in something spiritual, however nebulous, at some time in their life. Is it right to force them not to because you don't? That is surely imposing your religious belief on others, even if it is in this case a lack of belief. Exactly that is being done in places today.

If you are going to forcibly eliminate all religions, what do you class as a religion. Falun Gong/Falun Dafa barely even counts as a religion, since I don't think it even suggests a deity. Its more like keep fit. It claims about 70 million followers in China, Chinese authorities make it a only few million. It was outlawed on 22 July 1999 and its followers are suffering heavy persecution in China, which has been raised in the west as a human rights issue.

I hate dentists and in my sweeping moments might say there has to be something fundamentally wrong with anyone's psychology if they choose to drill holes in peoples teeth. I had a bad experience with one dentist. I grudgingly admit there are probably a few dentists out there who don't have sadistic tendencies. I'm not actually suggesting dentists should be eliminated. <grins>

[Xest]

if this is the case why do alot of scientists actually believe in some sort of religion? (which has also been discussed)
surely if science is the answer to life the universe and everthing (and that answer isnt 42)..surely the scientists would actually be against the belief of a concious creator?

I'm not sure they do (Gandelf was lying/exagerating about many of his comments on that subject) and it also depends largely on how you define "some sort of religion". I beleive somewhat in many of the buddhist teachings but I don't beleive there's anything magical or mystical about them, I think a lot of their ideas (i.e. reaching a state of enlightenment through meditation) are entirely explainable. I know that I can think more clearly and such when I'm underwater, I know I can go to sleep with a problem in my head and wake up with a solution often, I'm sure practices to acheive enlightenment are just methods of forcing your mind into a state where it can think more clearly in much the same way as different conditions allow me and others to think more clearly. Likewise I beleive Jesus probably existed but I don't think he was anything more than an ordinary man albeit perhaps very clever in his ability to manipulate the weak minded.