Faith is an evil thing

[Chernosoth]

Religious belief seems to be a universal human need. Atheists tend to fill their need with belief in progress, socialism, capitalism, etc. Many isms can work for belief jism. The many screeds posted here shout that need in capital letters. The progress belief looks ready to start breaking later this year, and then they will need new religions and cults. Anyone planning to start a cult for profit and other types of exploitation could mine this site for data in how to pander to desperate suckers.

 

[JohnEngelman]

Obviously you have not bothered to read the Qu'ran
My name is not 'honey' and your lawn needs mowing

I have read the Koran in three English translations. I appreciate the fact that Muslims worship the same God as do the Jews and the Christians, although they perceive of Him differently.

I do not like the fact that the Koran commands the use of violence in order to spread Islam. On occasion Christians have used violence to spread Christianity, but nothing in the New Testament says that that is acceptable.

 

[JohnEngelman]

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Faith
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Morality

There are many Christian charities that help the poor. I used to volunteer work for one. I continue to contribute money to it.

I have never heard of an atheist charity that helped poor people. Have you, Wilson23?

 

[OpenMindedMom_MCHL]

I have read the Koran in three English translations. I appreciate the fact that Muslims worship the same God as do the Jews and the Christians, although they perceive of Him differently.

I do not like the fact that the Koran commands the use of violence in order to spread Islam. On occasion Christians have used violence to spread Christianity, but nothing in the New Testament says that that is acceptable.

I respect your beliefs and your opinions. All of us are the same yet very different.
Choice is given to us all

 

[Pavlovsdog6862]

Religious belief seems to be a universal human need. Atheists tend to fill their need with belief in progress, socialism, capitalism, etc. Many isms can work for belief jism. The many screeds posted here shout that need in capital letters. The progress belief looks ready to start breaking later this year, and then they will need new religions and cults. Anyone planning to start a cult for profit and other types of exploitation could mine this site for data in how to pander to desperate suckers.

LOL

 

[Rightguide]

I never have. Too pseudoscientific -- all deterministic theories of history are fundamentally flawed.

But Communism has had definite similarities to a religious faith, especially in the mid-20th Century: The Historical Dialectic was God, Marx was Moses, the Revolution was the Apocalypse, Lenin was Christ, the Party was the Church, Stalin was the Pope, the secret police were the Inquisition, and Trotsky was Martin Luther.

Nice metaphor, but let’s not forget reality. Marxism isn’t a faith; it’s a political-economic ideology that enslaved and murdered millions, including over 100 million Christians in Eastern Europe and the USSR alone. Lenin, Stalin, and their successors weren’t spiritual icons, they were ruthless power-brokers enforcing an economic theory, often with mass imprisonment, forced labor, and execution. Reducing this history to “Christ, Pope, and Inquisition analogies” is poetic, but it’s also morally and factually misleading.

 

[Wilson23]

Nice metaphor, but let’s not forget reality. Marxism isn’t a faith; it’s a political-economic ideology that enslaved and murdered millions, including over 100 million Christians in Eastern Europe and the USSR alone. Lenin, Stalin, and their successors weren’t spiritual icons, they were ruthless power-brokers enforcing an economic theory, often with mass imprisonment, forced labor, and execution. Reducing this history to “Christ, Pope, and Inquisition analogies” is poetic, but it’s also morally and factually misleading.

It is similar to a religion in being an all-encompassing belief system to which many people were willing to devote their lives with zeal. And both Christianity and Islam included new forms of social organization when they started, with congregational communism.

 

[TheNurseWithPrettyLegs]

Roughly half of human pregnancies end in miscarriage -- somebody has a LOT to answer for.

My bullshit meter just pegged at the top of the red. Got any actual statistics to back up that idiotic claim?

 

[SebastianHolt]

"people of faith" -- by analogy with "people of color,"

really ....

 

[ll74]

Wth is with all these dead threads getting revived?

Stop it.

 

[Wilson23]

My bullshit meter just pegged at the top of the red. Got any actual statistics to back up that idiotic claim?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage
Miscarriage is the most common complication of early pregnancy.[19] Among women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is roughly 10% to 20%, while rates among all fertilisation is around 30% to 50%.[1][7] In those under the age of 35, the risk is about 10% while in those over the age of 40, the risk is about 45%.[1] Risk begins to increase around the age of 30.[7] About 5% of women have two miscarriages in a row.[20] Recurrent miscarriage (also referred to medically as recurrent spontaneous abortion or RSA)[21] may also be considered a form of infertility.[22]

 

[SebastianHolt]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage
Miscarriage is the most common complication of early pregnancy.[19] Among women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is roughly 10% to 20%, while rates among all fertilisation is around 30% to 50%.[1][7] In those under the age of 35, the risk is about 10% while in those over the age of 40, the risk is about 45%.[1] Risk begins to increase around the age of 30.[7] About 5% of women have two miscarriages in a row.[20] Recurrent miscarriage (also referred to medically as recurrent spontaneous abortion or RSA)[21] may also be considered a form of infertility.[22]

man, you are smoking the kool-aid

 

[Wilson23]

man, you are smoking the kool-aid

Those are scientific facts, nothing more or less.

 

[SebastianHolt]

Those are scientific facts, nothing more or less.

yes it is a fact that you smoke too much of the kool-aid

 

[Wilson23]

yes it is a fact that you smoke too much of the kool-aid

One can NEVER smoke too much Kool-Aid!

 

[SebastianHolt]

One can NEVER smoke too much Kool-Aid!

yes, and you are proof of this! for once, you are right

 

[Wilson23]

There are many Christian charities that help the poor. I used to volunteer work for one. I continue to contribute money to it.

I have never heard of an atheist charity that helped poor people. Have you, Wilson23?

Yes, I have -- in Europe in the early 20th Century, there were Red Aid centers.

But I only know that because Orwell happened to mention them in "Homage to Catalonia."

 

[Chilllax]

Christian Nationalists have taken to calling themselves "people of faith" -- by analogy with "people of color," implying, "don't despise us for what we are." Not really fair -- you're born with your color and can't change it.

But what is far more disturbing is their wearing "faith" as a badge of pride.

The most odious, the most objectionable thing about Christianity is that it places VALUE on FAITH. You just can't get more wrong-headed than that -- faith is a vice, not a virtue. I am tempted to say a sin, since sloth is generally ranked as a sin and faith is a form of sloth -- it means giving up on any rigorous, skeptical inquiry into first things and just accepting what you're told.

Faith -- in the religious sense -- is NOT a good thing for human beings to have. It is not good for the state of your soul.

I wouldn't necessarily agree to this position. It's when the faith spills out onto the streets and infects every sphere of life and work that it becomes dangerous. It's when faith is blindly placed on unscrupulous people (religious leaders, politicians) that's when it becomes poisonous. Unfortunately the separation between church and state is becoming a blur across the world.

 

[Wilson23]

I wouldn't necessarily agree to this position. It's when the faith spills out onto the streets and infects every sphere of life and work that it becomes dangerous. It's when faith is blindly placed on unscrupulous people (religious leaders, politicians) that's when it becomes poisonous. Unfortunately the separation between church and state is becoming a blue across the world.

See post #14. Even faith you don't ACT on is what we might call an INTELLECTUAL SIN.

 

[TheNurseWithPrettyLegs]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage
Miscarriage is the most common complication of early pregnancy.[19] Among women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is roughly 10% to 20%, while rates among all fertilisation is around 30% to 50%.[1][7] In those under the age of 35, the risk is about 10% while in those over the age of 40, the risk is about 45%.[1] Risk begins to increase around the age of 30.[7] About 5% of women have two miscarriages in a row.[20] Recurrent miscarriage (also referred to medically as recurrent spontaneous abortion or RSA)[21] may also be considered a form of infertility.[22]

"

"Roughly half of human pregnancies end in miscarriage -- somebody has a LOT to answer for."--your words. "30 to 50%"---your techno post. Good job keeping the facts from getting in the way of the truth, simpleton.

Wikipedia is a great source of info.... not.