why do i care?Why does anybody care? First let me say i do not hate religious people just religions..
I CARE BECAUSE
1)history has shown and still shows today that whenever religion is put in any position of authority it abuses it.You get witch hunts, inquisitions, torture and dont say thats ancient history today saudi arabia still stones people to death and can arrest you for sorcery.
I CARE BECAUSE
2)there are 4800 or so religious sects on earth right now all claiming they know the one true path to salvation
I CARE BECAUSE
3)followers of any and all religions NEVER completely follow their holy books rules for example they want the ten commandmants visible in all schools yet love to watch football on sunday clearly violating "remember the sabbath day and keep it holy"by the way the penalty for this in the bible is death..so religious followers are LIARS when they say they do gods will..
I CARE BECAUSE
4)religion has and still tries to supress education and discovery...many countries still dont allow girls in school,people have been killed or tortured for showing others the truth...why?because the more humans learn about earth and the cosmos the less relevant and realistic religion becomes thus exposing their LIES
I CARE BECAUSE
5)religions allow people to believe the stupidest things and lose all abiilty to judge with common sense...examples half the world jewish population died in the holocaust yet they still believe in a kind compassionate god DUMB....Mormons adhere to a religion created by a man who 4 years earlier was in jail for FRAUD...DUMBER..i will gladly continue this but i know despite all the EVIDENCE and PROOF against religion believers just stay dimwitted walking towards their ever extinguishing light and for the record i dont disbelieve in a god i just believe its better to ask question then to pretend to have answers
Some of your statements are true, but I think some of them are inaccurate for the present time or narrow.
1. While religions have been the source of many horrendous events like you mentioned, so has secular movements. If I got my facts right, oppression in China is caused by a secular Communist party that is atheistic, and so was the Khmer Rouge. Religion may give bad ideas, but so can racism and extreme nationalism, which do not come from religion. Religious and atheistic people in authority are all equally capable of being a stain on humanity.
On the other hand, religion, as well as secular ideas, is capable of spawning noble causes. The American abolitionist and women rights movement were all started by evangelicals Christians.
2. Having many conflicting religions doesn't mean they're all worthless. Science has many conflicting ideas on how the universe started, how the dinosaurs died, or whether global warming exists. However, this doesn't make science obsolete.
3. Quite a few religions acknowledge that their followers will never be able to keep all the religious rules. That's why a good number of religion makes repenting of sins a main goal because being perfect is impossible. The followers of a religion are usually called to to do good, but it is acknowledged that doing so at all time is impossible.
As for watching football on Sunday, I'm not aware of any major Christian sects that have proclaim that watching TV on Sunday is a sin though Orthodox Judaism might have it as a sin. Religion change and is continually being reinterpreted. Your third statement might be true in the past, but is no longer true in most Christian sects. A lot of the things in the Old Testaments, such as death for various crimes, has been discarded.
4. Without a doubt, there are those who use religion to stifle knowledge, but the religion has been some of the greatest advocate of scientific knowledge.
Many point to Galileo's persecution as proof of religious intolerance of science. Yet, the truth is more complex. I quote from Rice University's Galileo project, "During a court dinner, in 1611, at which Galileo defended his view on floating bodies, Barberini (Pope Urban VII) supported Galileo against Cardinal Gonzaga ... Upon Barberini' s ascendance of the papal throne, in 1623, Galileo came to Rome and had six interviews with the new Pope. It was at these meetings that Galileo was given permission to write about the Copernican theory, as long as he treated it as a hypothesis." It should be noted that Urban VII was also Galileo's patron, which meant he funded Galileo's research and publications, which includes saying that the Earth revolves the Sun. While Church politic lead to the Inquisition, it would seem that the pope at the time agreed with Galileo but was unable to help.
The same was with Copernicus who came up with the notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Cardinal Nikolaus von Schönberg, Archbishop of Capua wrote this to Copernicus, "Some years ago word reached me concerning your proficiency, of which everybody constantly spoke. At that time I began to have a very high regard for you... For I had learned that you had not merely mastered the discoveries of the ancient astronomers uncommonly well but had also formulated a new cosmology. In it you maintain that the earth moves; that the sun occupies the lowest, and thus the central, place in the universe... Therefore with the utmost earnestness I entreat you, most learned sir, unless I inconvenience you, to communicate this discovery of yours to scholars, and at the earliest possible moment to send me your writings on the sphere of the universe together with the tables and whatever else you have that is relevant to this subject ..." practically begging Copernicus to share his views about the Earth's movement. When Copernicus hesitated, the Cardinal Nikolaus von Schonberg and Tiedemann Giese convinced him to publish his
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, explaining the planetary movement. Pope Paul III even had it dedicated to to himself, shielding Copernicus from much criticism. The source for this can be found here with some fascinating text written by Copernicus.
http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/year-text-Copernicus.html5. The question of why suffering exist if God is benevolent is one that I still question. I've heard many theories for it, and haven't been satisfied with any yet.
6. As for your later post, it must be understood that the Bible is not literal in all instances. For example, most Christians would probably not claim that the story of the Good Samaritan occurs literally, but that it was used to convey a message. Another example is that the Catholic Church no longer believes that the story about the creation of the world in seven days should be taken literally. A theory put out by the church says that the seven days used to create the world can be interpreted as seven ages or simply a long period of time, because a day for God could be eons for the material world.
Most importantly if we are to assume that God is all powerful and omnipotent as some religion says, then science can not prove or disprove the existence of religion. An example is that I work in a pharmaceutical lab. The countless bacteria cells that I work with will never know that I'm observing their lives. They simply don't have the mind to comprehend my presence and action in their lives. If God is all powerful as some religions says, then our science will never be able to prove or disprove the existence of God.
