Does religion give people better morality?

[Cops]

So basically no one is allowed to belive in anything or stand up for what they believe in?

You sound like youre covered in marxist shit. Should the whole world become a raceless, nationless, sexless no family structured load of liberal athiests?! Thats discusting and unnatural.

the last one was for kicks.

[Galleleo]

What is being said is that while the Christian religion evolved sort of speak, along with humanity (women rights, etc. etc.) the Islam is still about 100 years behind. I don't know exactly how true that statement is but I could understand how it is possible. When you look at the west you have a lot of people who are free from religion, and these people are to thank/blame whatever you wanna call it, for stuff like women rights and so Christianity kinda had to evolve along to survive. While in a lot of those countries the Islam is the leading religion and not that many people don't believe in it, and the ones that are not muslim are mostly afraid of standing up and speaking out, etc. So there is no need for the Islam to evolve. What you see in Iran for example is that State=Religion. They have the Islam laws which apply. And because that is not separated there is no improvement as far as women rights are concerned etc.

(This is just a theory, not a proven, well researched fact).

[iLDuce]

If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it? - Benjamin Franklin

[iLDuce]

If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it? - Benjamin Franklin

I'd feel a lot less guilty about all that casual sex, thanks for asking.

Edit: and porno.

[iLDuce]

I pretty much just wrote your essay for you, MetalHeadz.

You're welcome.

[Mythrandir]

So basically no one is allowed to belive in anything or stand up for what they believe in?

You sound like youre covered in marxist shit. Should the whole world become a raceless, nationless, sexless no family structured load of liberal athiests?! Thats discusting and unnatural.

What would be inherently wrong with a raceless and nationless world? I don't quite see how either of that can be disgusting or unnatural (which in itself is a meaningless statement, everything is natural by definition)

[D1st0rt]

It would certainly be boring at the very least.

[Mythrandir]

Ok. For the people arguing that good and bad are subject - im talking fairly simplistically; my definition of good is, 'co-operative, honest, loyal, positive' - attributes which would have been evolutionarily beneficial. My definition of bad would be, 'hateful, selfish, selfrighteous' - things which may have hindered primitive tribes in the past.

Thanks for clarifying. You could accuse me of nitpicking, but this is an insanely complicated subject so one can not be careful enough. We have documented two millenia of philosophers and other people who have pondered this question and have turned out to make basic mistakes in their reasoning - in hindsight. I am slightly familiar with a few church communities, and it seems pretty obvious that within-group people are more moral (as per your definition) amongst each other. This behavior of church members extend in varying degrees to non-members of their denomination. You sometimes see churches behave very immoral towards the outside world (hateful, self-righteous behavior).

So my tentative position on this is:
Religious people are more moral if you are a member of their group.

[Mythrandir]

It would certainly be boring at the very least.

Yeah. Then again, wars are more interesting than peace, too.

[MetalHeadz]

So basically no one is allowed to belive in anything or stand up for what they believe in?

Lol, not at all. What do you think I'm doing at the moment? I don't think that religious people should be so fuckin' self-righteous to believe that they're opinion is ultimate and unquestionably correct. I don't like the mentality that religion gives to highly suggestable, stupid people who kill people and discriminate against minorities and people of other religious beliefs.

You sound like youre covered in marxist shit. Should the whole world become a raceless, nationless, sexless no family structured load of liberal athiests?! Thats discusting and unnatural.

Sigh, you really are one of those Americans who's been told so many stories about athiesm and communism being the evil of the world. Dude, communism is nothing to do with a religion, it's a political position.

Since when did I speak of nationality or sex as being bad things to be identified as? I was speaking only about religious morality.

I don't accept that a world without religion would be 'disgusting' or 'unnatural' either. I think people would find other things to conform to, other ways of expressing themselves. Why do you feel that associating yourself with a completely illogical and dogmatic set of ideologies is so 'natural' and so 'righteous'. I think the world would be a lot safer aswell, for the record.

[MetalHeadz]

So my tentative position on this is:
Religious people are more moral if you are a member of their group.

This premise is the antithesis of social integration. It's this inside allegiance which causes so much civil disharmony in the UK at the moment, between Muslims of Pakistani/Indian descent and white Brits of not particular religion.

A point raised by somebody was that religious people do extremely magnanimous deeds in the name of religion. I agree that a religious conviction can lead people to do good things. But allow me to pose a question to those people:

Are you only good because of your religious beliefs?

If the answer is yes, then you automatically subscribe to the idea that if God wasn't there then you wouldn't do those things. You're essentially saying that without the 'big surveillance camera' in the sky, you wouldn't be the person you are now. In effect, you're good behaviour is only to please God or perhaps not to displease him. Surely this is a selfish action? Surely a 'free thinking person' who does a good deed without the mentality that they will be divinely rewarded, is the more principled person.

If the answer is no, then you're saying that with or without religion you'd be a good person. So what is the need for religion to guide people?

I believe that if the only reason you're motivated to live a moral and good life is to please God your position of supposed morality is valueless.

[MetalHeadz]

A lot of the Bible I find is metaphors, but the problem is the way a person views a piece of writing is completely different than I or you would look at it, there's a lot of good and bad things that can be found in most if not all religious doctrine.

Nice point Cops. This excuse of the Bible being 'metaphorical' (especially in the old testament) has been used widely by Christian moderate when asked questions about the dubious stories in the Bible. Whenever a rationalist would question some of the miracles, whether it be the ressurrection of Christ or the changing of water to wine, thinking Christians have the 'metaphor' card close to hand. So when does this barrier of truth and metaphor begin and end? I atleast want a heads up when to take these scriptures literally or not.

It's perhaps the story of Abraham which is the most uncomfortable for the religious moderate: it's a story found in almost every monotheistic scripture. The story, in brief, is that God orders Abraham to drag his son, Isaac, up Mt. Moriah and by showing his loyalty to God, kill Isaac as a sacrifice. At the last minute Abraham hears a holy voice telling him the arrangements cancelled, PHEW!

Now is this a metaphor to show us that we should be loyal to God? Or is it to be taken literally, that we should be all willing to kill anyone at any point in time, even our own children under Gods' orders? Surely God would not want us to go to such lengths to prove our dedication to him if he is really as loving as he's made out to be? Unfortunately, I think a lot of people get such metaphors mixed up, a lot of the time. See, Iraq - suicide bombers.

It's certainly not a story I would want to teach to my children and it's likely that my children will be atleast twice as intelligent as you're average redneck or muslim (lol, jokes - but religious people are fuckin' stupid).

Unfortunately, the fundamentalist doesn't think of their holy scriptures in terms of metaphors, it's all fact, every bit of it.

[Ronn]

Their are good moral people with or without religion the problem is that those people brake down barriers and let the masses run riot. Just look at our society now, after the 60s cultural war our women are walking around half naked, all sorts of vile degenrate things being tolerated AND ALL supported by dumbass liberals. The Christian standard in which all people once aspired and worked towards is now gone, it was brought to a nuaght by liberalsim then replaced with cultural marxism. Marxism basically says that anyone or anything should be tolerated and anything not in that core belief system should not be tolerated and treated as "extreamism" its destroying western civilisation!

All these people that follow the tune of the media are curropt and deep down follow marxist values knowingly or unknowingly. They may be good people inside or think they are but as a whole our society is imoral, its plain to see.

MetalHeadz you dont have a fkn clue about Christianity. You just lump it all together thinking you know it all.....youre parroting nonsense!

What would be inherently wrong with a raceless and nationless world?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FxPOANbmjI

beware cheesy music ^

[Cops]

Nice point Cops. This excuse of the Bible being 'metaphorical' (especially in the old testament) has been used widely by Christian moderate when asked questions about the dubious stories in the Bible. Whenever a rationalist would question some of the miracles, whether it be the ressurrection of Christ or the changing of water to wine, thinking Christians have the 'metaphor' card close to hand. So when does this barrier of truth and metaphor begin and end? I atleast want a heads up when to take these scriptures literally or not.

It's perhaps the story of Abraham which is the most uncomfortable for the religious moderate: it's a story found in almost every monotheistic scripture. The story, in brief, is that God orders Abraham to drag his son, Isaac, up Mt. Moriah and by showing his loyalty to God, kill Isaac as a sacrifice. At the last minute Abraham hears a holy voice telling him the arrangements cancelled, PHEW!

Now is this a metaphor to show us that we should be loyal to God? Or is it to be taken literally, that we should be all willing to kill anyone at any point in time, even our own children under Gods' orders? Surely God would not want us to go to such lengths to prove our dedication to him if he is really as loving as he's made out to be? Unfortunately, I think a lot of people get such metaphors mixed up, a lot of the time. See, Iraq - suicide bombers.

It's certainly not a story I would want to teach to my children and it's likely that my children will be atleast twice as intelligent as you're average redneck or muslim (lol, jokes - but religious people are fuckin' stupid).

Unfortunately, the fundamentalist doesn't think of their holy scriptures in terms of metaphors, it's all fact, every bit of it.

You're categorizing religious people into a category that dismisses their intelligence before you even know who they are. I think you should say 'In my honest opinion religious extremists are fuckin' stupid'. That would be a bit more politically correct. I do no factor someone's religion into their intelligence, I think that they are two separate things. I don't look at a Hindu and say you're half as intelligent as me, or look at a Christian and say you're part of the ***. I think the problem is that religion helps magnify our misconceptions about other people, and if we judge peple based on their religion then that is no more right than judging someone based on the color of their skin.

[Tone]

i fully endorse the movie Zeitgeist which was posted here:

http://forums.trenchwars.org/showthread.php?t=30891

some will remember that in June 2005 i posted a subject that Zeitgeist part 1 religion covered, long before Zeitgeist came out.