Not really.

The question is moot. If G-d dislikes sin, why did he allow it? If G-d is benevolent and of compassion, why does anyone suffer?

Both sin and Suffering are abstract concepts that you can argue about till the cows come home.(even bodily harm can be argued as many actions that people enjoy doing are forms of bodily harm) However, saying that god hates a certain type of genetic configurationn and therefore all those people who meet that configuration must die, then you come back to the question of why doesn't god get rid of it.

Most theologies have in thier basic tenats an explanation of why "things they don't like" must exist, because if they didn't then their philosophy wouldn't last longer than it took one person to come down to that essential question.

Sure Christianity and Islam are ment to be about peace, communism is ment to be about making everyone equal, doesn’t always work out like that. Doesn’t change the fact that people regularly go out on the streets with the only intention of hurting someone with a different religion, doesn’t change the fact that people have been murdering and bombing each over here for the past fifty years because of a religious disagreement years ago. Murder is justified by only religion and politics, Im not disagreeing with you daganev politics can cause just as much pain as religion can.

Religion gives murders the excuse to do what they want, it justifies their actions, it makes murder acceptable to them, it encourages them to hurt us. And I’m not going to just blame it on human nature, we can get along fine when we want to, I think everyones a good person really, just things can push them down the wrong path religion's just one of these things.

Sorry if I offend you though, I don’t want to post again though it’s upsetting sorry again

Well said, Ferlas.

To borrow gamer terminology, relativism is the belief in "instanced" worlds and realities.

Relativity is, depending on the flavor, a formula to convert disparate speeds into something comparable or matter to energy.

Einstein may have been a relativist (I honestly don't know), but his work is on relativity.

The reason why Church and State normally need to be seperated is not to protect the state from the church but to protect the church from the state.

I'm pretty sure thats what Thomas Jefferson said when he coined the phrase. as he was talking to a Baptist Church at the time.



You missed my point, it doesn't matter what the actual thoery is, your making philosphical conclusions off of things that arn't philisophical in nature... however your right, I think the sitution I was thinking about is the Wave-particle duality which enhanced realtivism, not Einstein's concept of different speeds of time.

I don't think it matters if relgion A is a relgion of peace and religion B is a religion of destruction... Relgion as a whole is not the driving forces that creates evil people. Evil more often comes in the form of a person deciding that they know better than X. The more that X encompasses the more evil that person will do.

Not in my books.

Well, I'm not sure what "your books" say... however this is what Jefferson said...

Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 to answer a letter from them written in October 1801. A copy of the Danbury letter is available here. The Danbury Baptists were a religious minority in Connecticut, and they complained that in their state, the religious liberties they enjoyed were not seen as immutable rights, but as privileges granted by the legislature - as "favors granted." Jefferson's reply did not address their concerns about problems with state establishment of religion - only that on the national level. The letter contains the phrase "wall of separation between church and state," which led to the short-hand for the Establishment Clause that we use today: "Separation of church and state."

The letter was the subject of intense scrutiny by Jefferson, and he consulted a couple of New England politicians to assure that his words would not offend while still conveying his message: it was not the place of the Congress or the Executive to do anything that might be misconstrued as the establishment of religion.

Note: The bracketed section in the second paragraph had been blocked off for deletion, though it was not actually deleted in his draft of the letter. It is included here for completeness. Reflecting upon Jefferson's knowledge that his letter was far from a mere personal correspondence, he deleted the block, he says in the margin, to avoid offending members of his party in the eastern states.

This is a transcript of the letter as stored online at the Library of Congress, and reflects Jefferson's spelling and punctuation.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. President

To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

intersting random thing I just learrned... the three american branches of governemtn, judicial, legislative and exucutive, come from a line in Isaiah that says ,god is my judge, god is my lawmaker, god is my king...

Here, (Old Europe) they were separated because otherwise Church had too much power in all areas of life. It started way back in the renacentism, one of the so called Golden Ages of the European Culture. The Church itself was a very political organization, wich seen in perspective looks like a great soap opera (Popes dieing and being replaced by their sons, two popes around at the same time, murders, blackmail...)

Basically, rich people and intelectuals were sick of the church appointing their leaders (Kings) and their laws, so they empowered their leaders to get rid of religion at least to some extent power-wise.
Uncultured poor people didn't have a say, as usual.

Religion is force for whatever purpose the people who practice it use it.

Let's admit a serious and well established religion is a good excuse to justify almost anything and get people to follow you.

If you say "that green tomato over there told me to tell you to give me all your money so your soul is saved" you can end up in a mental hospital, but the priests of endless religions have been saying "Give money so your soul is saved" and people actually gave them the money!

That made my day. <3

(and on second thought, <3 fried green tomatoes :yummy:)

Wow, do you really think people give to collections because they want to improve their own lot? How typically cynical. Atheists, peh!

Well, not long ago, Spanish was under a mix of militar and religious dictatorship (a militar dictator supported by the church as to be there "by the grace of God"). People actually gave money in the Church because if you didn't, that meant you weren't a good believer, and that meant you might be a comunist, and that meant that two guys in grey uniforms could come visiting you at home to see what were you hiding.

Also, the Catholic church has a story of selling forgiveness of their sins (the pope bulls, check on Lutero story for more info), collecting the money from rich families without heirs because that was a "sure way to salvation" and generally squashing the efforts of some religious orders like the franciscans who wanted the church to follow Christ message and be poor and not use the money to build incredibly big castles.

Also, on modern days, one of the ways to decide if a religious sect is a harmful one is that they use Religion (salvation, God, those ideas) as a way to convince people to give them money (or their work so the leaders can make money from it) in exchange of Salvation and acceptance.

So yes, people give to collections in some cases because they want to do the good thing to be _saved_ because somebody managed to threaten them with going to hell otherwise, and they believed it. The tomato just hasn't enough charisma compared to an onmiscent Father God (or Mother Goddess, or surprisingly enough Green Martian Creator, not being discriminatory here).

And you're calling me Atheist and using that as an insult showing how much your religion talks about prejudice and acceptance. I am not an atheist and frankly, you aren't doing a great work of accepting other people opinions as their opinions.

PS: Now that I think of it, the church used to get 10% of all the production of farms in pre-industrial era to sustain themselves. If they were fat and rich and the peasant just had not enough to eat, that wasn't their problem. In that respect, they acted basically the same as any other feudal lord, who also got their % from the peasant. I doubt the peasant was thinking about charity and more about obligations, threats, eternal damnation...

I was pointing out the negative view of human nature and of religion most atheists wear as a badge. It was in response to your rather shocking comment that people give to the Church to 'save their souls'. This is the 21st century. People give to the Church to preserve their way of life, to aid their local parish and diocese, to support missions and programmes for the less well off, and to generally benefit the good work they believe their Church does in representing morality in the world. Not through personal motives.

I'm not a relativist either; I've no respect for anyone's opinions if they are illogical or stupid opinions.

So, this 21st century, of wich we have lived not yet 6 years, scratch the previous thousands of years religions (not only the christian) have been in place?

Lately, people care each time less about their souls. This is causing endless trouble to the church wich is having a bit of problem trying to find out new priests and people willing to commit their lives to the Church (in the catholical church).

But when Religion was the focus point of the lifes of endless families (I am talking about 60 years ago in spain) and thus had much more influence, Religion was used and abused as a way to make power and money. Don't try to deny it because then you just are denying history.

Perhaps it was, but in its place could have been a million things. It does not change the fact that religion itself is a positive force.

It's a neutral force.

Human beings can use it to make a better life for you and others, and it can use it to start a war, get somebody to live in an unhappy marriage, feel eternally guilty for ending up in bed with somebody before marrying, write a book on how to beat your wife without leaving signals, hide children abuse, hate people of a different sexual orientation, save children in africa, say taht black people have no soul and thus can be slaves, try to get those slaves better work conditions...

And no, I am not talking about christianism only, wich I think you are. Because a religion where you sell your baby girl to the temple so she can be a temple whore for X years (baby as in less tahn 10 years old) so the family has more hopes of reincarnation or stuff like that is not a positive force, excuse me.

The above mentioned is a branch of some indian religion if I am not mistaken, would need to check.

I know so.

And I'm not an atheist, but I don't think organized religion is the best way out there.

Back when I used to go to church, and the reason I stopped was when they sent out a letter to all of their members.

They detailed how much money each person gave to the church.

It was set up in sections.

....................................................................there was a big
....................................................................sun up here
...............................................................
.......................................................
.............................................
.....................................
Earth was..............
down here......

on each line it had the number of people who gave that much money

20 people give 0-1 dollar per week
100 people give 1-5 dollars per week
20 people give 5-10 dollars per week
15 people give 10-50 dollars per week
4 people give 50-80 dollars per week
0 people give 80-150 dollars per week
1 person gives 150-300 dollars per week
0 people give 300-500 dollars per week
0 people give 500-1000 dollars per week
0 people give 1000 or more dollars per week

It had some inspirational messages on it, like how you should give more so you and the church could both be closer to god, because we were putting tens of thousands of dollars into building this huge white and gold ornate steeple to place on the top of the church building.

Yet in Sunday-school back when we were like 5 years old, we used to sing "the church is not a building... a church is not a steeple, god loves you.. and the church is the people!" Doing corny hand motions.

Now my church isn't all bad, don't think it is, after my mother died they used to send us pre-cooked meals once a week for about 4 months. They wanted us to know they still cared about us, there are some good people in that church.

My best friend stopped going to her church because of something similar "give us money.. blah blah", and when she did stop, they sent her letters. She was on the "prayer list" because she hadn't come to church in awhile, the letter informed her that if she wanted to get OFF the prayer list she would need to come to church... or mail in an appropriate amount of money.

I'm not saying all religion is bad, or that some places can reform, or even have reformed, but there is a lot out there that needs to be changed, and the nature of the institution makes that practically impossible to change, churches are supposed to be mortal high grounds, and so they resist temptation and resist change.

Edit:I forget.. is it still sinful for married couples to use birth controll, like condoms? Because it's viewed as killing life that would then result because of that?(and thus they view it as baby killing, as if you were running around a hospital with a baseball bat killing babies or something, just by using a condom) If it's not a sin, it used to be untill recentally. *needs to catch up on his religious news*