Atheist Discussion

Which religion is least beneficial for a better future?

Christianity in it's milder forms seems to work out better than Islam, pragmatically speaking. Both are not true, but looking at the Islamic world, I see little to recommend Islam from a pragmatic view. The Quran and hadiths contain too much bad ideas that keep feeding bad religious culture and cannot be utterly ignored like many Christians ignore the bad ideas of the Old Testament. It is far easier to become secular or an atheist from Christianity. Critical thinking seems to be more acceptable.

(11-18-2019, 04:45 PM)Phaedrus Wrote: [ -> ]Which religion is least beneficial for a better future?

Neither.

My position is those religions [at least] in and of themselves are morally neutral . By that I mean the holy books (and hadith  in Islam) each are  so contradictory, that a person can take  any position he chooses. That position will be determined by one's culture and level of mental  health.  

It is my perception that believers always cherry pick their specific beliefs and emphasis those beliefs will take . That there is no such thing as a religion of war or of peace. Without exception, each religion as it is practiced reflects the culture , fears,  hatreds and neuroses  of the believer .

(11-18-2019, 05:09 PM)Cheerful Charlie Wrote: [ -> ]Christianity in it's milder forms seems to work out better than Islam, pragmatically speaking.  Both are not true, but looking at the Islamic world, I see little to recommend Islam from a pragmatic view.  The Quran and hadiths contain too much bad ideas that keep feeding bad religious culture and cannot be utterly ignored like many Christians ignore the bad ideas of the Old Testament.  It is far easier to become secular or an atheist from Christianity.  Critical thinking seems to be more acceptable.

Look at the xtian world 500 years ago to make an equivalent comparison.  Both suck.  Both are equally false.  One is older and far more focused on making money than the other.

(11-18-2019, 04:45 PM)Phaedrus Wrote: [ -> ]Which religion is least beneficial for a better future?

Bit of a loaded question.  Any/all religious belief—particularly on a grand scale—is detrimental
to the advancement of society.  I'd phrase the question more like "which religion is the more
detrimental to a better future?"  And I'd easily answer "Islam".

Its tenets are cruelly archaic, even more so than Christianity's, particularly in the 21st century.
It's a divisive religion that seeks to insidiously infiltrate any non-Islamic or secular society with
threats of violence, political coercion, fear, education [sic ], institutionalisation, segregation etc.

I'm genuinely shocked and if I'm quite honest disappointed in the result so far. Last time I checked Christians weren't currently predisposed to stoning apostates, beheading people for witch craft cutting off people's hands for stealing slicing off little girls clitoris's and hanging or throwing homosexuals off tall buildings. They may have done SOME of those things in the past and some might express a desire to today but around the world Islam continues to do ALL of them in the present irl. I honestly don't get it, perhaps someone could help me understand. Also the question isn't clear, the poll asks which religion best benefits society but the OP's first post asks the opposite.

(11-18-2019, 11:45 PM)grympy Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-18-2019, 04:45 PM)Phaedrus Wrote: [ -> ]Which religion is least beneficial for a better future?

Neither.

My position is those religions [at least] in and of themselves are morally neutral . By that I mean the holy books (and hadith  in Islam) each are  so contradictory, that a person can take  any position he chooses. That position will be determined by one's culture and level of mental  health.  

It is my perception that believers always cherry pick their specific beliefs and emphasis those beliefs will take . That there is no such thing as a religion of war or of peace. Without exception, each religion as it is practiced reflects the culture , fears,  hatreds and neuroses  of the believer .

I'm in agreement with you, although I still think that what one cherry picks is not entirely a function of what one is personally attracted to. The particular cherry picking I did was what I was acculturated and socialized to as a child. My parents were drawn into the evangelical world primarily by my oldest brother, who was something of a hellion (from my parent's perspective anyway) and a Problem and was seemingly transformed by his contact with a local church, where nothing else had worked to reign him in and get him, so to speak, back on the rails. This all happened when I was 3 years old, and resulted in my own "conversion" at 6. It took me a long time to figure out that this ocean I was swimming in was actually a fish bowl, and then that became a feature rather than a bug -- I was one of the few who had found bedrock truth.

It was my investment in being right (and being right is, after all, mostly what fundamentalism is all about, never mind about being good so long as you are right) was what kept me with the particular set of cherry-picked ideas. Or to make it less unflattering to myself I could say, with some truth, that it was the fear of being wrong.

So I think your idea holds at the macro level, sort of, but not really at the individual level, it's usually more complicated. I could have randomly chosen to be a JW or Mormon instead of a standard-issue fundamentalist; or I could have become a liberal Christian -- say, an Episcopalian -- but those things were unthinkably wrong (JW / Mormon) or bizarrely alien, as well as suspect, to me (Episcopalian) and so for me it was more a question of staying with or leaving theism entirely. While I briefly cast about afterwards for other religious possibilities, it didn't take me long to figure out that they all suffered from the same problem: a total lack of respect for actual truth. It was unsupported assertions all the way.

I think your observation explains what sort of religion an areligious person would be attracted to, or what sort of religion an adult might associate with after losing contact with their childhood religion (perhaps because it never was very ardent to begin with). But it doesn't explain why people stay with religious abstractions which are not really working for them personally in multiple ways. It is what they know, and what is "safe". It is what does not alarm their social support system including immediate family. It is what does not threaten the stability of their existing relationships. It is not necessarily what appeals to them in a vacuum.

Both are shitty but living in Poland I only have issues with christianity. Islam is as much non issue here as it can be.

I have to agree with Szu.  When I see a muslim wearing some absurd costume I merely find them amusing.  Xtians, on the other hand, are always trying to shove their preposterous shit up my ass or into our laws.  They may not be cutting off heads.....although they would if they could.... but they sure as shit are letting women die by trying to deny them abortions.

Seems to me that Christianity is mentally brutal, Islam is physcally brutal.  These two religions torture people from  a different perspective.  If you don't follow the rules and regulations Christianity tortures you in the future,  Islam tortures you now.

(11-19-2019, 03:28 PM)Minimalist Wrote: [ -> ]I have to agree with Szu.  When I see a muslim wearing some absurd costume I merely find them amusing.  Xtians, on the other hand, are always trying to shove their preposterous shit up my ass or into our laws.  They may not be cutting off heads.....although they would if they could.... but they sure as shit are letting women die by trying to deny them abortions.

We also should not forget the knock on effects of Christian fundamentalism. There's a pretty extensive investigative journalism piece on CNN today about flat earthers -- not the classical ones but a separate, "modern" movement of more recent origin which appears to be gaining a surprising amount of steam. One thing I picked up from it is a LOT of them are evangelicals. It fits so perfectly with the evangelical mindset: the notion that you have special knowledge about reality that most don't understand, that you are in a proud minority that is not duped by the "system" (NASA is their biggest bogeyman, just as Satan and the secular state are to the evangelicals). This flat earth movement is different from the classical one in that it believes that space is "not real", that the earth is stationary beneath a firmament ... sounds suspiciously like the ancient Hebrew cosmology.

And of course, Trumpism is enabled largely by evangelicals and their authoritarian / dominionist leanings.

Even we unbelievers, I suspect, often don't fully realize how fundagelical "thinking" has metastasized into broader categories like this.

(11-19-2019, 03:28 PM)Minimalist Wrote: [ -> ]I have to agree with Szu.  When I see a muslim wearing some absurd costume I merely find them amusing.  Xtians, on the other hand, are always trying to shove their preposterous shit up my ass or into our laws.  They may not be cutting off heads.....although they would if they could.... but they sure as shit are letting women die by trying to deny them abortions.

They may not be cutting off heads but they aren't averse to terrorist attacks as preparations for one that police thwarted in Poland few days back show.

(11-18-2019, 11:46 PM)Minimalist Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-18-2019, 05:09 PM)Cheerful Charlie Wrote: [ -> ]Christianity in it's milder forms seems to work out better than Islam, pragmatically speaking.  Both are not true, but looking at the Islamic world, I see little to recommend Islam from a pragmatic view.  The Quran and hadiths contain too much bad ideas that keep feeding bad religious culture and cannot be utterly ignored like many Christians ignore the bad ideas of the Old Testament.  It is far easier to become secular or an atheist from Christianity.  Critical thinking seems to be more acceptable.

Look at the xtian world 500 years ago to make an equivalent comparison.  Both suck.  Both are equally false.  One is older and far more focused on making money than the other.

But we are not living 500 years ago.  In the West, we managed to pretty much tamed Christianity.  Islam is still where we were 500 years ago.  Some nations, like Indonesia are slipping into a more intolerant and aggressive Islam.  We have murderous Islamic movements world wide.  Al Qaeada, Taliban, ISIL, Shabab, Boko Haram, and others that spread intolerance, terrorism, and murder world wide.

As a disabled user of either crutches or wheelchairs, depending on the situation, I will say that I get proselytized quite a bit by Christians, but never have been by Muslims (maybe they don't do that? I'm pretty unfamiliar). So I do find them more annoying, but I also get why people---especially women--- hate Muslims.

The OP is different than the thread title, btw. So I will plead dumbness.

Quote:Islam is still where we were 500 years ago.

Yes.  That is exactly my point.  500 years from now islam will probably be fucking children up the ass and amassing real estate.  And jesusism will be a relic of a bygone age.

(11-19-2019, 07:10 PM)Minimalist Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:Islam is still where we were 500 years ago.

Yes.  That is exactly my point.  500 years from now islam will probably be fucking children up the ass and amassing real estate.  And jesusism will be a relic of a bygone age.

It won't take long before both will be shunned and looked at with ridicule. Christianity has been on the decline since the hippie movement. The renaissance for Islam occurred with the invention of the internet. 

Education is the enemy of religion, and as the world becomes more educated and the minds of the young become more trained in reasoning and rationality, the end of any credibility of religion is close at hand.

That will all happen before the end of this century, and even by the middle of this century we will see religious folks as a small minority, as it will become embarrassing to say you believe in any of these gods. No one will want to look like some idiotic throwback to the middle ages.

As I have said before, religion, in and of itself, is neither beneficial or toxic. It is those who possess and manipulate its power to dominate and corrupt the malleable minds of the intellectually illiterate to facilitate their own sinister interests.

Quote:No one will want to look like some idiotic throwback to the middle ages.

Ya think?

My Vote: I'm Stupid.

Needs a "Neither" choice.

No religion benefits society in any way.

Religion has no place in any civilized society.

rmfr

On a further note...

It shall always be most important to know how to think rather than being told what to think. Searching for knowledge and learning is what it means to be human. There is no shame in being self-taught, to search for learning and knowledge. The only shame is not searching in the first place.

Why should anyone cede to religion the right to tell us what is good and what is bad? Why should anyone cede to religion the right to tell us what we can and cannot think? The fact that it has nothing else to contribute to human wisdom and knowledge is no reason to hand religion a free license to dictate what anyone can and cannot do or can and cannot think.

Knowledge is the enemy of tyranny. Proven many times. In any disguise. Knowledge has freed more persons and peoples from poverty and oppression than ALL other ideologies and creeds in history put together. Every form of tyranny follows from tyranny of the mind.

What is knowledge? True Knowledge? True Knowledge of reality as it is, as opposed to how it may appear to be or how one may wish reality to be? What is the only system of thought that has been developed that is effective in distinguishing Fact from fallacy? Truth from myth? And, Reality from delusion? Science! Where do ALL the truths we know, as opposed to beliefs which some choose blindly, come from? As if the strength of their convictions could affect FACTS? Formulated Accurately Codified Truths in Science. ALL these have been revealed by the rational processes of Applied Scientific Method. Science alone yields a basis for the formulation of facts whose validity can be proved because they predict results that can be tested.

And yet, for thousands of years, humans of Earth clung persistently to their cults, superstitions, irrational dogmas, and impotent idols. They refuse to accept what their eyes alone should have told them—that the magical and mystical forces in which they trusted and which they aspired to command were the fictions, barren in their yield of results, powerless in prediction, and devoid of any useful application. In a word, they were worthless, which of course made any consequences harmless.

rmfr

It is 2019 right? Islam at this point in world history is by far the larger, stinkier fart on the planet.

Thinking is hard arakish, that's why so few actually do it.

Considering that Christianity and Islam are farily similar in terms of core values and principle we could say that both are tied in the realm of bd ideas. Yet, considering the weight of islamic fundamentalism in Middle-Eastern politics and it's association with fascist regime, it represents a significantly greater threat to humanity's flourishment then Christianity who has been expelled of the political life of Western Europe and North America.

Christianity was bitch-slapped into modernity in a way that generally precludes the possibility of it being the cause of a nuclear war. Islam hasn't.

(11-25-2019, 01:15 AM)jerry mcmasters Wrote: [ -> ]It is 2019 right?  Islam at this point in world history is by far the larger, stinkier fart on the planet.

In some places.....




In others, not so much.