The Rev. Pat Robertson

[Highland Robin]

One thing that I absolutely do not believe in is any form of organised religion in any of the scriptures, such as the bible or the Koran, that can be found today. I believe these books to be fiction or at best cast exaggerations which have been adopted and utilised for the politicians and priests at the time to exert their power over the population. It is all lies.

I certainly understand that view BR - as I said, religious institutions have throughout history fallen far short of the ideals they claim to believe (as has every other form of institution humanity has ever come up with).  I can only come up with the old cliche 'By their fruits you shall know them' (that's from the Bible by the way).  For every example of abuse of power, violent suppression, bullshit preaching from a religious person or organisation, I reckon we could balance with examples of solidarity, compassion, etc etc.

e.g.  I am involved up here with the Regional Emergency Planning, and was doing some training in the middle of the appalling flooding which hit Cumbria and parts of Scotland.  In Cockermouth, it was the churches that were at the heart of caring for the community, feeding them, and providing emotional and spiritual support; and people at the tarining event, not at all religious, were telling me of the key role that faith communities have played in many situations like that.  And a  senior police officer said, quite publicly, how significant both for victims and for emergency services, the arrival of a minister can be at the scene of a tragedy.  That's at the local scale.  I won't go on and preach!!!  But I reckon most people can see, for instance, in the Gospels a vision of how we might live our lives that is good, wholesome and yes, revolutionary....and that's why human beings, both 'religious' and 'non-religious', have such difficulty living  it successfully.

[jayohaitchenn]

But do you like queers?

[Highland Robin]

Can't quite get hold of that question.....human beings are human beings, and I'm not particularly interested in any other classification.  We all live with who we are.  If you are challenging me about the way the Church (generally) addresses the gay question, I do not agree with it - either ethically or in the consequent patronising and cruel way it treats gay people.

[Barry Scott]

Ah, thanks for clearing that one up arriba.

I think he was stating that religion only has a foothold because of the way in which it (when initially indoctrinating people) capitalised upon the myth of heaven and hell. I.e. If you believe in god and it doesn't exist, it's not a problem. However, if you don't believe and he does exist you burn in hell in unimaginable pain for all eternity. Not a hard choice.

Religion teaches you to live your life in serinity, honesty, kindness, thoughfullness. There is nothing wrong with those. What is wrong is people taking those views to extreme and not respecting others opinions as much as our own which is what the Bible teaches.

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."

Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate in physics

[jayohaitchenn]

Can't quite get hold of that question.....human beings are human beings, and I'm not particularly interested in any other classification.  We all live with who we are.  If you are challenging me about the way the Church (generally) addresses the gay question, I do not agree with it - either ethically or in the consequent patronising and cruel way it treats gay people.

INFIDEL! Take him to the city walls and stone him!

[Arriba]

Ah, thanks for clearing that one up arriba.

A quick search on google came up with two interesting articles on the subject...

Wink and Scott (2005) found no linear relations between religiousness and fear of death. Individuals who were "moderately religious" feared death more than individuals who scored high or low on religiousness. Fear of death also characterized participants who lacked congruence between belief in an afterlife and religious practices. In other words, the ones who were nominally religious were the ones who adopted religion as a buffer against the fear of death, and I think it's people like that who lead you (and many others) to draw the conclusion you have made. The article did find that the most religious people (whatever that actually means) had little fear of death, but that doesn't necessarily indicate that the fear was a cause of their faith.
http://psychsoc.gerontologyjournals.org/cgi/content/full/60/4/P207

Dr Steven Reiss's "sensitivity theory" is that sixteen basic human needs actually motivate people toward religious consideration. Some of the other motivations include power, family, status, romance, and tranquility, to name a few. Dr. Reiss says that these are “needs embraced by every person but to a different extent”.
www.acperesearch.net/OK_News4.pdf

I also found a site talking about terror management theory. Terror management theory suggests that almost everything we know of as “culture”--religion, patriotism, politics, sexual mores, economic values—arises out of our subconscious understanding of, and terror at, the fact that we are all going to expire one day.

I find it quite an interesting subject. Unfortunately, far too many people make their own minds up without looking for any evidence or giving any justification.

you could find a report to back up any arguement.fox hunting is kind,smoking is good for you etc,etc.my point still stands

people who are religious fear death less, as they think they will go on to a better place when they die.
take the deluded muslim bombers for instance.they have no fear of their crimes as they are doing it in the name of their god and expect to go on to a great eternal life.they wouldn't think that if they didn't have their deluded beliefs from the dark ages.when christians die the services are filled with lines about going to heaven and a better place.it comforts people.i'm sure this is why religion took off in the way it did,life after death and your faith seeing you alright no matter what you do would and will always gain followers.

[Highland Robin]

Well, I don't know whether there is new life or not.....but if it all ends after 75, 85, 95 years, not even a pin-prick in the history of the universe, what's the point?  we might as well get what we can while we can  and to hell (or not!) with the rest of you....bit like Man city really. 

[reeves4england]

people who are religious fear death less, as they think they will go on to a better place when they die.
take the deluded muslim bombers for instance.they have no fear of their crimes as they are doing it in the name of their god and expect to go on to a great eternal life.they wouldn't think that if they didn't have their deluded beliefs from the dark ages.when christians die the services are filled with lines about going to heaven and a better place.it comforts people.i'm sure this is why religion took off in the way it did,life after death and your faith seeing you alright no matter what you do would and will always gain followers.

I agree that people who are religious fear death less, and I do understand that religion does appeal to many in that it provides an answer to death. However, that doesn't mean that all people of some sort of faith choose it specifically to negate the fear of death, nor does it prove that all religion has arisen as a reponse to the fear of death.

[pauld]

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."
Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate in physics

Or political ideology. Or science, come to that. That really is a load of bollocks.

As is the simplistic argument that religion causes wars, nutters to do bad stuff etc. It's used as an excuse by nutters, warmongers, bigots and so on, but if they didn't have religion as an excuse they'd use politics. Or ethnic differences. Or whatever.

It's like saying some people fight at football = football causes fighting = all football fans are hooligans.

[DMR]

you could find a report to back up any arguement.fox hunting is kind,smoking is good for you etc,etc.my point still stands

people who are religious fear death less, as they think they will go on to a better place when they die.
take the deluded muslim bombers for instance.they have no fear of their crimes as they are doing it in the name of their god and expect to go on to a great eternal life.they wouldn't think that if they didn't have their deluded beliefs from the dark ages.when christians die the services are filled with lines about going to heaven and a better place.it comforts people.i'm sure this is why religion took off in the way it did,life after death and your faith seeing you alright no matter what you do would and will always gain followers.

I think R4E's point was more that you're banging on as if what you said was a cut and dried fact on a subject that is completely individualistic (if thats a word) and subjective?

[Barry Scott]

Or political ideology. Or science, come to that. That really is a load of bollocks.

As is the simplistic argument that religion causes wars, nutters to do bad stuff etc. It's used as an excuse by nutters, warmongers, bigots and so on, but if they didn't have religion as an excuse they'd use politics. Or ethnic differences. Or whatever.

It's like saying some people fight at football = football causes fighting = all football fans are hooligans.

Very true. However, religion is perhaps the largest and most widely used/abused catalyst, so therefore that is their bandwagon of choice.

On a football related direction it's like the old, "where would we be without Simon Cox's goals?" argument. It's silly because we had Coxy and he did score all those goals.

We do have religion and we do have nutters. The fact that religion attracts a lot of nutters is perhaps indicative of blind-faith in its very nature? Regardless, if people want to believe let them. I just don't want them to preach to me and don't EVER want them to preach to children.

[BANGKOK RED]

I just don't want them to preach to me and don't EVER want them to preach to children.

Like this you mean?:

[Talk Talk]

Religion teaches you to live your life in serinity, honesty, kindness, thoughfullness. There is nothing wrong with those. What is wrong is people taking those views to extreme and not respecting others opinions as much as our own which is what the Bible teaches.

No it isn't. It is about perverting the minds of children and making them feel guilty for the rest of their life for something that they haven't done. All religions are basically the same.

The 'morality' that religion preaches is superfluous to modern living. We have common law that makes the initiation of the use of force against a person or their property, or committing fraud, a crime and punishable. It is also the common ethics of the vast majority of people in the world. You will always get 5% of a population who are nutters (extremists, rapists, murderers, thieves etc) because humanity is not perfect and if sky fairies really did exist then why would they let that happen?

Take the Christian sky fairy. The bible was written by a bunch of drugged up monks in the Middle Ages. Twaddle.

And to DRS, I say that you can believe in anything that you want, it makes no difference to me. And so you should be free to do that. If it makes you happy, then even better. But for me, it's a load of evil bollocks that provides an excuse for the 5% to use for forcing their views and harm on others.

[pauld]

Very true. However, religion is perhaps the largest and most widely used/abused catalyst, so therefore that is their bandwagon of choice..

I'd suggest over the past century or so political ideology has easily surpassed religion as the "bandwagon of choice" - Hitler and Stalin alone account for over 20 million deaths

[dell boy]

No it isn't. It is about perverting the minds of children and making them feel guilty for the rest of their life for something that they haven't done. All religions are basically the same.

The 'morality' that religion preaches is superfluous to modern living. We have common law that makes the initiation of the use of force against a person or their property, or committing fraud, a crime and punishable. It is also the common ethics of the vast majority of people in the world. You will always get 5% of a population who are nutters (extremists, rapists, murderers, thieves etc) because humanity is not perfect and if sky fairies really did exist then why would they let that happen?

Take the Christian sky fairy. The bible was written by a bunch of drugged up monks in the Middle Ages. Twaddle.

And to DRS, I say that you can believe in anything that you want, it makes no difference to me. And so you should be free to do that. If it makes you happy, then even better. But for me, it's a load of evil bollocks that provides an excuse for the 5% to use for forcing their views and harm on others.

Your figure of 5% is way too high. Five nutters in every 100, never. Just because they follow religion doesn't make 5% of the worlds populations killers/extremists.

The Ten Commandments, can you name them? Still hold good today, even for a modern society.