Should We Tolerate Religion?

Yes all of what you are saying is relevant BUT you still can't take away peoples' rights to throw their money away just because that is the way you see it, I may see it or anyone else for that matter, sees it.

I am not the least bit religious and believe that religion itself causes more wars in this world than any other reason BUT people have 'free will' to do with their life and their money, as they choose.

iblaze does have an excellent point in that you can't start separating people and judging them for reasons such as religion, race, sex, nationality etc or you are being discriminating against a "certain" 'group' of individuals.

Intolerance just breeds hate. Tolerance doesn't mean 'they' are right and you have to agree with them.
It just means that you are allowing them their free will to choose as they wish and not choose for them.

Peace

mountainSpliff said:

You think logically in a religious way. It seems that you don't tolerate certain aspects of religion as well.

I think this is what I am trying to get at. I think society should be less tolerant of the more radical aspects of religion.
In my country a certain group of nationwide churches decided to install ATM's in their churches. That to me is daylight robbery. How can people sell religion? I know a person who gives half their salary to their church every month. How can a church do that to people and have a clear conscience.
Oh and the priest in charge drives a BMW. lol.

People like this should not be tolerated. Yet because it's the 'word of god' it's tolerated.

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i have to totally agree with your last statement Spliff, that seems just wrong.

but i must applaud to Lacy. that all just seems right to me.

Lacy said:

Yes all of what you are saying is relevant BUT you still can't take away peoples' rights to throw their money away just because that is the way you see it, I may see it or anyone else for that matter, sees it.

I am not the least bit religious and believe that religion itself causes more wars in this world than any other reason BUT people have 'free will' to do with their life and their money, as they choose.

iblaze does have an excellent point in that you can't start separating people and judging them for reasons such as religion, race, sex, nationality etc or you are being discriminating against a "certain" 'group' of individuals.

Intolerance just breeds hate. Tolerance doesn't mean 'they' are right and you have to agree with them.
It just means that you are allowing them their free will to choose as they wish and not choose for them.

Peace

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I know what your saying. I don't think people should ever have any rights taken away. but

What's happens when someones 'free will' affects someone else in a negative way?

In South Africa, 'apartheid' was the free will of the white government. Black people decided not to tolerate it. Where as most white people were very tolerant of apartheid.

Even free will has to be policed. A radical example would be to release 100 prisoners and tell them to enjoy free will. It would be messy...

All I am saying is sometimes things need to be reviewed. Another example is that gay marriage has only recently been legalised in some countries.
Why was gay marriage illegal? Because religion says it is bad.

Society is already becoming less tolerant of religion.

Whether you like it or not and whether I like it or not,
people are moving forward.

I have met various fanatics of various religions as well as fanatic Atheists and both ends of the spectrum are as bad as each other.

Whatever people believe, they need to be able to question those beliefs (ie. Acknowledge that they might be wrong) to be able to be well rounded people, this would make most well rounded people Agnostic by definition.

However, I believe, dispite what has been said on this thread, organised religion does a lot of good around the world, and even though, as a concept, it has been abused time and time again, I would never judge someone for believing in ANY of the world religions.....only for not questioning those beliefs.

Everyone needs a Crutch afterall.......Mine is this lovely fat spliff.....what's yours?

agrees with jointsmith and would like to add that religion needs to be much more personal and much much less political to be effective (no matter what religion it may be)

Jointsmith said:

I have met various fanatics of various religions as well as fanatic Atheists and both ends of the spectrum are as bad as each other.

Whatever people believe, they need to be able to question those beliefs (ie. Acknowledge that they might be wrong) to be able to be well rounded people, this would make most well rounded people Agnostic by definition.

However, I believe, dispite what has been said on this thread, organised religion does a lot of good around the world, and even though, as a concept, it has been abused time and time again, I would never judge someone for believing in ANY of the world religions.....only for not questioning those beliefs.

Everyone needs a Crutch afterall.......Mine is this lovely fat spliff.....what's yours?

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Nice point on the agnostic thing. Nobody knows whats out there and if they claim they do know, there is no way to know if that person is true, crazy or manipulative.

You can however judge whether something affects people negatively or positively.

Politics and religion are my 2 least favorite subjects to discuss but I feel like I have something to contribute here.

First of all I am a Christian and am proud of it. That being said I don't go to church because of the propaganda aspect of it. Jesus did lots of things for me so he will do lots of things for you too if and only if you believe the way he wants you to. I don't buy that shit at all. The one thing I don't like the most about "organised religion" is evangilism. For those that don't know, this is the belief that is someone is not a christian I am supposed to sit down and talk them into becoming a christian. You know the whole "repent and you shall be saved" bit. Well fuck that. If you don't believe the way I do then it is not my concern. But what some of you atheists are doing is the same thing. You think that I am wrong and you are right. I don't know if I am right or wrong. But neither do you. Consiquently if you don't like me preaching to you then don't preach to me about how you don't believe. And that is preaching it is just in the opposite of what most people think.

Also I think it would a very bad thing to abolish religion. Alot of people fell happier when they believe in somehting. Abolishing religion would only take away something that makes them happy. Whether you believe it or not. You cannot take something away from anyone that makes them happy.

ViRedd said:

Show me a person who doesn't believe in God, I'll show you a person who hasn't experienced enough pain.

Vi

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bullshit. utter, profound, brainwashed rhetorical bullshit. god IS the pain this whole planet has experienced.

my family and friend's eronious claims to special knowledge about god and his will was the source of my pain for many years and will continue to be.

i HAVE to be wrong, and i'm going to die in armageddon: they all just KNOW that they're right. brainwashed sheep, the believers are. and any of you are also if you think that another person can tell you about god. your parents, your pastor and your church don't have any special knowledge about god, people. another human being told them what they know, and a human told that person, and so on. we're never going to wake and learn something if we just believe what people other say without demanding proof.

the god 'delusion' is the root of many, if not most, of the evils on this planet.

Reprogrammed said:

I've met plenty of Atheists who are pretty fucking ignorant.

It's not religion's fault that a lot of people misinterpret the messages or apply outdated ones to this day and age. There are also a lot of religious teachings that tell people to leave others alone who aren't of the faith. For God's sake, Gautama Buddha even said do not listen to him unless what he says matches up to your own common sense.

I fear the day when CLOSEMINDED people attempt to abolish religion altogether. They'll learn very quickly that it gives some warmth where there is only cold, and hope when there is only strife.

Understand what you're asking, and then speak.

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well put.

I'll be honest that I did not spend an hour reading through everyone's post. Flame away...

I just want to say that in my honest opinion, I dont think that its religion itself that's bad or negative. I think its the fact that governments and bodies of power have abused the general system of beliefs for so long that religion in general has an association with negative things when you're a non-religious person looking in.

I think the word religion needs to be clearly defined before you start asking people whether they should tolerate it or not. I for one am not what the general public would call religious, in any way shape or form. However, I do have a system of beliefs. Morals, ethics, boundaries that I live my life by. I believe that there is a conscious afterlife, though I dont necessarily believe in a God or Gods. The list goes on, and I'll bet that out there somewhere is a classification that someone could toss me into, saying that what I believe in is actively practiced somewhere as a religion.

This is a hard statement to make: I personally do not believe that the Churches or any representative of any religious movement should have anything to do with government. In my mind, the churches in the US (I dont know enough about Europe and elsewhere) are an extremely influential aspect of the government, and I can only hope that one day we have a president or governing body that does not have to swear to God on their patriotism. That right there is where war comes from.

The world will either need to come to terms with the fact that every living human being lives by different boundaries and morals than any other. En mass, there may be major similarities, but when it comes down to details my beliefs vary greatly from the three other men sitting in this room right now. If that simple truth cannot be understood then war will rage on in the name of some God until someone gets jumpy enough to launch that first missile.

If we dont tolerate religion then were being just as hypocritical as them

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Seems to me like nutters use religion as an excuse to gain wealth and power.
Who would Jesus bomb?

natmoon said:

Seems to me like nutters use religion as an excuse to gain wealth and power.
Who would Jesus bomb?

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Too true. However, people also abuse every other thing that is possible to abuse. Human nature I guess.

Sure, we have to tolerate religion. However some religions are just so full of bullshit. Bullshit that seriously fucks peoples lives up.

This is my whole point.
A genuine religion does not segregate or discriminate.

What did Jesus say?
What did Jesus do?
What did men write?
Why did men say that?
Why was Jesus's only actual contribution to the bible in Aramaic removed from the bible by the Vatican and classed as blasphemy even though he wrote it himself in Aramaic?
Do you know what it said?
Why did they change the recipe for holy anointing oil to use a poisonous cancer causing plant instead of cannabis?
Who really wrote the bibles of the world?

Jesus said none of this.
Forgive,help and love each other.
This is the only real religion.
All the rest are just power plays written by men and kings to control you and are basically evil.
Work it out for yourselves

I am the first person to not Trust religions due to the corruption from whithin it, but from what i've been reading on this forum the general concises seems to be that religion is the worst thing and other peoples beliefs should be disregarded. we must always remember a saying that still rings true to this day, "If you dont believe in something you will definitely fall for anything". As much as this quote can be debated we all have to understand that no matter how we slice it there must be a higher being, and that is what most if not all religions are preaching.

ventricle01 said:

I am the first person to not Trust religions due to the corruption from whithin it, but from what i've been reading on this forum the general concises seems to be that religion is the worst thing and other peoples beliefs should be disregarded. we must always remember a saying that still rings true to this day, "If you dont believe in something you will definitely fall for anything". As much as this quote can be debated we all have to understand that no matter how we slice it there must be a higher being, and that is what most if not all religions are preaching.

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How can you claim there is a higher being when you have no real way of knowing for sure? You're still just going on what people have told you.
As for your saying, "If you dont believe in something you will definitely fall for anything", that rings true for the majority of the people on this planet unfortunatly. It's a pity people can't believe in themselves.

mountainSpliff said:

How can you claim there is a higher being when you have no real way of knowing for sure? You're still just going on what people have told you.
As for your saying, "If you dont believe in something you will definitely fall for anything", that rings true for the majority of the people on this planet unfortunatly. It's a pity people can't believe in themselves.

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I agree... How can you claim that there's a higher being? What does this higher being do? What has it done? What will it do? These are all questions that no one can answer at this point.

The fact that you're stating there must be a higher being just solidifies any barriers you have around your mind. Drop the certainties, and join the rest of the club in the real world where the rest of us dont really know what's going to happen when we die, or whether something is out there pulling strings.

When i realized that life the universe and everything was actually impossible is when i understood that there must be some kind of creator.

What will happen when we die or whether he has time for us is beyond me.
I choose to believe in Jesus's own writings and i ignore the rest of the bible as i know that many men have tampered with it and ruined it over the centuries.

Even if there is no anything and a scientist says he has proof of nothing existing i am still going to choose to live my life as a stoned person who is practicing healing and learning to open my mind.
I think you'll find thats all Jesus really said anyway

mountainSpliff said:

How can you claim there is a higher being when you have no real way of knowing for sure? You're still just going on what people have told you.
As for your saying, "If you dont believe in something you will definitely fall for anything", that rings true for the majority of the people on this planet unfortunatly. It's a pity people can't believe in themselves.

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Well although there may not be a "document" (i.e religious texts, or scientific document) that proves to your understanding that there is a higher being. My belief in a Higher being alone acknowledges that i have an Open Mind. FYI most of the world does believe in a Higher being, although the rest of us may not know when we die....I dont think anyone does in my opinion Higher being or not! I dont believe in someone pulling strings because i have a firm belief in each person controlling their own destinies.