KAGEHOSHI Horned Wolf
Seraphim Initiative.
CRONOS.
3064
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Posted - 2012.09.07 18:46:00 -
[1] - Quote
I'm surprised this thread is still around, I suppose it's technically a recruitment thread so that makes it different.
Anyone want to debate?
I find it odd how people can believe so strongly in something that they have no evidence for, especially when there are much more rational and empirically backed-up explanations with verifiable physical evidence. If a Muslim was born in the Vatican, then he would likely just as easily end up being Catholic. Science doesn't have all the answers, but the answers science finds have been growing exponentially as time passes. Science isn't error free, but it changes its conclusions when new evidence emerges instead of being a set unchanging dogma that. At least the answers they do find over time are based on observable measurable reality, so it doesn't make sense to me when people believe something written in an ancient book over hard evidence when the 2 contradict.
Religions with all knowing gods that punish people with hell doesn't make sense to me either. If God is all knowing, then free will cannot exist. If God knows everything, then he knows what you will do before you do it, and the only way he could know that is if the future is already decided, and your choices cannot go differently (hence no free will). If there is no free will, then it makes no sense to punish someone with an eternity of suffering over something they had no control of; such a God would be evil. Even if free will exists, it doesn't make sense that finite actions with infinitely tiny effects on the universe as a whole would deserve infinite suffering, after a few hundred years you wouldn't even remember what it was that you did, or that you were ever alive on Earth... seems excessive. I know Islam does have a thing where someone looking up from Heaven can bail you out of jail if they take pity on you, but what if they don't?
Religion in general does have purpose of community and morality, but both these things can be achieved without religion. Nationalism for example (as dangerous as it is) has been extremely successful at creating a sense of community, or basically any ideology. Morality is largely built in, and evolved in not only humans, but various social animals (altruism and senses of justice in chimps for example). Children too young to have learned any moral codes have been shown to instinctually have empathy. Morality exist as a way to maintain group stability; if everyone was allowed to murder, then there would be no sense of security, lying is considered wrong because if everyone lied all the time then language would become obsolete, etc. All that is required for a moral code is the basic understanding of what is good or not good for human happiness and well being, and some empathy.
I must say though 800-1100 AD was a great period for science and mathematics (concept of zero, Arabic numerals which we use today, stars mapped and named, al-gebra, al-gorithms, etc). Bagdad was the intellectual center of the world with free exchange of ideas between a variety of religions and doubters, but then this a$$hole imam called Hamid al-Ghazali decided math was the work of the devil, and destroyed the intellectual enterprise of Islam. Islam deserves some credit. |