Welcome to Gaia! ::

Now, before you new folks (I think the old ones know me well enough) think that I'm just being contrarian or trollish, hear me out.
This is for those of you who are old enough to have left the home and found your own religion.* When you go back home, and listen to songs of peace, of unity, and togetherness, does it ever ring false? It probably should.
Do you know why there are suicide bombers in the middle east? Do you know why countless innocents were killed in the crusades, the Inquisition, and a thousand other nameless massacres? Do you know how the Westboro Baptists justify their daily unspeakable atrocities? All in the name of the very same intangible god.
For all of you theists. Maybe you're one of the lucky ones. Possibly you questioned your own religion briefly and came back. More likely, you're so tethered to it that you took a few steps away, dramatized this time of doubt in your mind, and told yourself it was a difficult time before you came running back. Don't be too ashamed. The religion is fear-based. That's what "Hell" is for.
Point being, if you... Somehow incidentally found, through the power of your own mind and at the conclusion of your own spiritual journey that the one religion that was just right for you just so happened to be the one that was driven like a nail into your skull since early childhood, and just so happens to be what most of the rest of your family also practices, then this isn't for you. I don't think that I can say anything to really reach you.
For everyone else, who chose something a little different, whatever it is, how is your Christmas when you go home? Are your families considerate and tolerant, or do they glare when you don't pretend to pray at meals with them? Do they make little speeches about "The true meaning of the holiday" right in front of you and expect you to just sit there like a stooge, grab a spoon, and eat it up like the rest of them? Do they otherwise pretend you aren't even there when they otherwise pretend that everyone has the same beliefs? This is for you. You know what I'm talking about.
For me, Christmas is about good will towards my fellow man. I'll sit quietly during the prayers. I'll suffer the quiet insult of enduring their proselytizing sermon.
But if you become one of the people that leads the prayer, or delivers the sermons, don't you dare include unity, peace, or togetherness. You chose your deity/prophet, or holy person, and if someone disagrees with you, ******** 'em. It may be Christmas today, but Hell still awaits at the end, so it doesn't really matter.
So that's my reasoning. Keep Christ out of X-Mas. That's how I'll be keeping the holiday. I choose peace. Now you have your own choice to make, but let's face it; One way or the other, you've already made it.

*"Religion" here means series of beliefs. For the purposes of this discussion, consider atheism a religion. Furthermore, if you are a Christian because your parents were Christian, because you were raised Christian, and because you've always been Christian and you never left your religion, went through periods of doubt, and studied others before coming back, then you are no Christian. The same is true for any other religion. You're just a sheep.

I think at some point in life you question everything you have come to believe. weither or not that includes a religion really comes down to the person. I dont really care much for the holiday or the holidays in general. I go about my business as I would any other day.

See, the problem with religion is simply this. There are those who take it seriously, and there are those who take it TOO seriously. And, of course, there are those special few who just use it as a scapegoat.

For the ones who take it seriously, they're actually the good ones. I can honestly say that while I'd like to think I'm among this group, I'm not very devout in my religious practices. I'm technically Catholic, but I've decided I'm not having my confirmation. I believe and accept Jesus Christ as my savior, does that mean I go around starting Crusades? No.

Which brings me to the second kind. The people who take it TOO seriously. This includes three main types of people. The type who try to live their religion line by line, every second of every day, and end up forcing it down other people's throats (even unintentionally). Then there's the type who constantly bag on any kind of religion at all, blaming religion for the world's problems. No, God didn't start the Crusades. People did. Sure, it was 'in the name of God,' but who's to say someone didn't just make that part up? I'll admit that one downside to strict religion is it makes easy brainwashings. But doesn't the good side, the helping people for the sake of helping people, make up for it; at least a little? And the third type in this group; the people who take it so seriously, that it turns into a militant thing. Like the Crusades, and the Holocaust. We don't really know why the people who started these things ACTUALLY started them; we just know what THEY told us. Or what others make up about them.

And then the special people who use religion as scapegoats (people like Adolph Hitler, or Shaka Zulu, or Osama Bin Laden). They're the few that ruin the name of religion for all of the people who actually work to do good things. On a smaller scale, the same thing happens. Think of it like this; a high school kid is on the football team. He's valedictorian, highest GPA in the state, volunteers all his available hours at free clinics and soup kitchens. Then one day he gets in a fight, and winds up accidentally seriously injuring or killing the other guy. What will everyone remember about him? The good things he did for his school and community? Or that one person he hurt, on one occasion? Another such example; my own marching band. We're a really good band- and not just playing-wise. Everyone in the band is for the most part well behaved, straight A type kids. Then one day, a freshman kid who hadn't quite gotten the idea of how to behave got caught smoking pot. And then got busted for possession and sale of 5 pounds of the stuff. Now, even though he was kicked out of the band, everyone associates us with that one bad thing.

I figure it's the same for religion. One bad egg goes and does something stupid like start a war, or bomb a tower with an airplane, and suddenly the entire group is the bad guy. It's not religion, it's the individual. Religion is like communism, in a way. It would work extremely well, if it weren't for human nature. So don't blame Christ- blame the individuals.

Keep Christ in Christmas- maybe he'll be the one to redeem the few bad eggs who've succeeded in giving him a bad name.

You can say that about any popular philosophy, so then it wouldn't be a problem with religion, but a problem with humans acting in large numbers.


People who live their religion line by line- that's me. But that's because I think life isn't about making parts of ourselves into little packets. My faith is a part of me when I'm sleeping, awake or playing video games.

And we do know a good deal about the different military actions in the name of religion. There are public statements and then there are correspondences between leaders and first hand accounts of motivations.

Mmm, there is a sort of conformity that consistently happens with large groups, isn't there? Alone, yes, we are individuals. But within a large group, people judge others, ignore them and pay attention to the 'guy standing on a rock and shouting', or simply see what everyone else is doing. Probably even within a relationship, one tries to please the other or vice-versa.

Religon can be even worse, as it is wide-spread and often discussed, as is happening now. I think that the TOO serious ones may be the ones who are the hypocrites sometimes. Is there somewhere in the Bible that explicitly says something along the lines of 'those who don't follow my teaching will burn in Hell' that makes killing other denominations or religions okay? Yes, there are people who use religion as a scape-goat, but just because the good actions are covered by their bad actions doesn't mean that one should convert to religion for the sake of those good actions.
Religion or non-religion is a choice. I simply choose religion for now because despite the fact many people of the faith are hypocrites, I want to live by the teachings of a man who died for talking about them. Or didn't die, depending on if you believe he is fictional or not. Either way, Christmas is a time for family, or has become a time for family. That's what I think.

And this is why I opened the doors as widely as I did. Now we have a more than one-perspective debate and there's more for me to do than preach to the choir. When this horrible semester at long last comes to a welcome end, I will be sure to have the time to carefully read and give a thought-out response to this.
Of course if my teachers give me the much needed days to finish the assignments that won't be ready by then, it may take a bit longer...

I'm still low on time, so I will get to the rest of this, but right now I thought I'd stop in long enough to offer this:

I notice just how often here and elsewhere where you have said "So the problem isn't religion but" and then you've offered many, many other things, typically remarkably broad things, as the actual problem. So if all of these broad, social constructs (some of which are impossible to eliminate, some of them not even things that we would want to eliminate, entirely) all have been corrupted by some element which, from the perspectives of many, have been introduced by religion, just how many more things can be the problem, before the negative influence of religion is exposed and recognized? Or is there no limit?

The perspective of many doesn't sway me as much as facts do- otherwise the perspective of many that the earth is flat would have magically warped it into being such.

I argue that when you blame religion for bad things happening, you're no better than the people who use religion to justify doing bad things. It's the exact same behavior- it's the same scapegoating, the same false reasoning with the same handwaving- it's just being done by anti-theists instead of theists.

You've also refused to comment on the observed counter examples that would equally denounce things like militant atheism- which gives me reason to suspect there is an irrational bias in play, and because the counter examples are ignored- it shows a flaw in reasoning that undermines the conclusion you draw.

People choose manipulation. It doesn't matter if it is at the hands of the Atheist Communists that committed mass murder against the Eastern Orthodox Clergy or the attacks from the French backed by the Pontiff against the Cathars.

Not really. Dismissing something because of the way it was learned is always incorrect. You debunk arguments because they can be proven false- not because of how the argument came to be.

There is no correct way to use false reason.

It is though- if the compulsive liar is telling the truth, you have in effect let someone's death go unpunished. Instead, you check the facts of his story- if the person is walking around just fine, then clearly he wasn't telling tales.

You may have reason to suspect one way or the other- but that is not the same as actually supporting a position or debunking it.
In formal logic, this is known as poisoning the well. It's a well known fallacy- so I cannot take such an argument seriously when it's been mathematically and philosophically proven to be wrong.


Believe or not- I would go and check- and let my eyes verify truth or falsehood. Until I saw one way or the other- until there was evidence to the contrary, to assume that because something could be a falsehood it is false falls to another form of flawed reasoning known as an argument from potential.