What will do you think will be the downfall of man?

Yes, but that only applies as long as it's large powerhouse nations conquering insignificant backwater nations.

If two larger nations decide they must resolve their differences through armed conflict, it will be a whole different ballpark of destruction, especially considering the lunatic world leaders with their fingers on nuclear triggers.

The effectiveness with which modern technology allows us to take human life is terrifying.

Having said that, I don't think the downfall of man will come any time soon, and I'm hopeful that we will wise up to our self-destructive tendencies before they end us, whether that be through war or destruction of the environment, or what have you.

 

Religion is just a symptom of collective stupidity, not the underlying cause. Religion will never be the end of humanity, indeed, it is being more and more phased out and taken less seriously than ever before.

 

Smart people can be indoctrinated as well. It is absolutely the root cause of a great many problems. It is being beaten back further and further but thanks to faith it will never be completely gone. Do you care to address ANY of the questions I asked about Islam? In Britain Muslims are completely outpacing the natives in terms of breeding, they're having babies like rabbits and the collective stupidity is growing.

 

Yeah they do. I never became a christian. I was born one and fed all of their propaganda from birth. I actually thought it was a fact the christian god existed and that all atheists were crazy til i was like 7.

And i thought the flying spaghetti monster religion dispute got intelligent design dropped. Or was that just in one state?

 

Yeah I was sent to Christian school halfway through kindergarten because my teacher said I was ahead of my class and they started feeding me garbage about heaven and hell and the need to accept jebus, so I would spend like an hour every night repeating to myself that I really accepted him in order to not burn forever in eternal fire. I wonder how many kids have to go through that and for how long.

If I'm coming off hateful or spiteful that's really not what's going on in my head. There are built in taboos that make criticizing this sort of thing a no-no. It makes fair critiques impossible, if I were talking about politics it would come off much less offensive ... think about it.

I heard of the flying spaghetti monster and the celestial teapot from Dawkins first, I know there are many bible belt states that still teach I.D. as a scientific theory.

 

Individuals are smart, people are stupid.
I'm well aware of many of the problems with religion (I read "The God Delusion" too )

While religion is used as an excuse for a lot of bad shit in the world, it's not the underlying cause. The cause is the stupidity of humanity as a collective.

 

Yeah i went through that stuff up til i was about 14. Always paranoid about going to hell. It sucked.

Yeah, Dawkins used the flying spaghetti monster in his book but he didn't come up with it. I don't think he came up with any of them. Theres also the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

 

Is it stupidity or just apathy?

I don't think that we are that stupid.

 

Ehhh. No such thing as an individual in society. I guarantee you rely on somebody for something and that you got your beliefs from something someone else created. I hate the illusion of being an individual. I prefer to use the term "Free Thinker". No that this really has anything to do with anything.

 

Yeah, and you're a cool guy, I understand where you're coming from.

Howzabout Isreal and the Gaza Strip? Would Jews be fighting Muslims constantly for control of that territory if religion dropped off the planet? Does its designation as the holy land contribute at all to the conflict? How does humanity's stupidity compare to idealogical stupidity in this case?

Their blood is so mixed at this point I don't think it's about race at all anymore.

 

Whichever word you want to use to describe the flaw in humanity that makes us kill, rape, hurt, deceive, manipulate and exploit each other - that's what it is.

I mean when it comes to opinions and thought patterns. On our own, we are mostly pretty clever. As a collective, we tend to be pretty stupid.

If religion dropped off the planet, people, industrious and crafty as they are, would find another excuse to legitimize killing each other. We need to understand, as a collective, that killing is a really, really bad solution to any problem.

You would be able to find examples of thousands of conflicts that started under the guise of some religious agenda, but at the end of the day, people are always the ones behind.

I'm not denying that a lot of terrible things have been done in the name of religion. I'm just saying it's not the reason why those things were done to begin with, only the excuse the leaders used to justify the bloodshed to their subjects and/or other nations.

 

Dude you're reaching here Of course religion is always paired with people, they're the only carriers of these retarded ideas. If you want to keep saying it's the people and diminish the importance of their dogmatic ideas, you found a loop that is easily repeatable. I'm just saying there are countless examples of people doing terrible things that they would nEvEr EvEr do without faith leading the way. There are really no examples of religious people acting morally in a way that a good person who held no belief in any supernatural power could not act based on evolutionary empathy.

I think you're saying that religion is a convenient excuse, but without it people would still preach the sins of condoms, fight over sacred plots of land, and strap bombs to themselves in order to receive 72 virgins in the afterlife? It's my feeling that any leader would be hard pressed to sustain such ridiculous notions if faith in the supernatural did not exist. Do you agree that certain serious problems are actually caused by religion?

 

The Jews will destroy us all.

 

You're right. Newclear holocaust inc.

 

There are countless examples of people doing terrible things excused by a vast number of things. Religion is just another excuse. People will kill each other regardless, as long as they keep finding excuses. You made it clear that you understand by now that this is my point.

I also agree with most of Dawkins' points that you reiterate.

Well, not directly.

I feel this way because I think it is entirely possible to be religious without doing any of these crazy, murderous things religious zealots are often associated with. It all comes back to people interpreting things in their own destructive way, and the guy who goes and blows himself up because of something he read in an ancient book was likely going to do something stupid or destructive anyway.

I don't think religion is inherently a good thing. But I don't think it is inherently a bad thing, either. Like anything, it is what we make it. Some people use it for good - you can't deny that various churches have done a lot of good throughout the years - and some use it for madness. But it's not the cause of the good or the madness.

Of course there will be examples of things that can be directly attributed to religion. But generally I don't feel this is the case. Abolishing religion is not the answer. Ensuring people understand murder is wrong is.

 

Maybe hitler will come back from the dead and gather an army of bunnies and they will rule the world