You're blaming religion for evil, instead of blame evil people for evil. Evil people will use and abuse others in any way they can, whether religion exists or not, and since nobody can prove there is or isn't any God, there's no reason to put down others' beliefs by saying all they're good for is evil just because they have been abused by evil people who will find something else to abuse if there's no religion around anyway. Fanatics exist anywhere.

What is anything good for? Assuming there is no God, nothing matters and everything will perish. For some people, religion is comfort. Or whatever else helps them have a normal happy life. You have your own set of beliefs, morals, cultural elements, that help you do the same. As long as you don't hurt anybody else, where's the problem? And if you do hurt someone, I'll blame you rather than your beliefs, or your motives for doing so (opening one's eyes?) as regardless of any of that you're responsible for your actions.

Woosh.

Agnates said:

What is anything good for? Assuming there is no God, nothing matters and everything will perish. For some people, religion is comfort. Or whatever else helps them have a normal happy life. You have your own set of beliefs, morals, cultural elements, that help you do the same. As long as you don't hurt anybody else, where's the problem? And if you do hurt someone, I'll blame you rather than your beliefs as regardless of any belief you're responsible for yourself.

These are good questions.  There are no easy answers and like you say later each one of us has to find what works for them.  It's not always easy to deal with and some people go mad trying to deal with it all or turn to drugs, to politics, to work, to sex,  to the pursuit of money ... to the pursuit of god which not always but most often ties them up with religion.  What ever gets you through the day.

Hence, I can only speak for myself ... this life is wonderful enough however ephemeral.  There is so much to do.  One can keep trying to learn more and better themselves in ways which will help make them useful to their fellow man.  One can try to do good for others in so many different ways.  One can try to be creative in one of many already established channels or invent new ones if they can.  Fight injustice and inequality.  Stand up for those that are treated unjustly.  There is reward enough in doing these things, I don't need the promise of eternity in an ever green garden, neither literal nor metaphorical.  This life is quite enough.

As for people who take to religion because it helps them as you say "have a normal life" (I will resist asking what you mean by "normal") ... sure let them have it.  If it helps them be good people and do good ... let them have it.  If it helps them fill the emptiness of their own existence, sure let them have it.  Anything that helps them be good and be happy is a good thing even if it's an empty promise.

Hey now Agnes, don't go editing your posts. My joke does not make any sense now

What I have trouble with is the following. Why does religion get credit when something positive happens in its name, but when something negative happens it is the blame of the individual? Case in point when something bad happens you blame the individual, even though religion is sometimes responsible. But when something good happens, why is religion credited then? It is like getting your cake and eating it too.

Many religous people thank God for all the god things that happen in their life, but when something is wrong it is all to blame on the individual. It is not religion they say, but in the name of religion.

Agnates said:

What is anything good for? Assuming there is no God, nothing matters and everything will perish.

The question then arrises, why did God create us?

Agnates said:

I didn't say I credit religion for good people do so, ask someone who does that.

So, you age saying that religion is pretty much useless? In they way that all good and bad things that happen is because of our actions and not some higher power?

Agnates said:

As for people thanking God for their life, how is that absurd, if they believe he created life in the first place? Also, that's a different topic. Thanking God isn't thanking religion. Religion is the reason they thank God. Someone could believe in God and  thank him while disliking priests and other things religion involves for all you know.

It is absurd. You have a God that is omnipotent and omniscience. He knows all and can do all. So sure he gets all the credit for the good thing. Why not the bad things also? He is omnipotent, he could stop it from happening. He is omniscience, he could definitely see it coming. So in all fairness, he should get the blame for all the bad thing that happen in the world. No?

Agnates said:

I'm not sure what you mean with that last quote of mine that says "assuming there is no God [...]" yet then you ask me why he created us. Er, "assuming there is no God", he didn't create us. Obviously.

No, I meant assuming there is a God, why did he create us? What is our reason to exist?

Iga_Bobovic said:

Yoda, there is a blog on GS about religion and atheism.

I already put my toughts and comments in the comments section. I think I already covered all of it pretty well, but if you have anything to add. Go for it!

You covered what you covered very well, but I deconstructed the entire thing. The sentiment similar to the recent "skeptics schism" that religion be exempt from skepticism.

Agnates said:

You're blaming religion for evil, instead of blame evil people for evil.

For the most part, this is fair. However, consider the following simplified scenario.

1. Brainwash someone to believe everything you say is moral
2. Make them believe those who believe otherwise are wicked
3. Instruct that person to kill a non-believer

Unless being a good person makes you immune to indoctrination, then whether or not the person would have been good without the psychological abuse is irrelevant. It's a matter of believing things for good or bad reasons.

Agnates said:

I'd probably fit under "agnostic", I have no way to know and I certainly don't just blindly trust what men have written to support or disprove the idea.

Then you're an atheist.  You don't accept the proposition that a god exists.  Gnosticism pertains to what you know, theism to what you believe -- they aren't mutually exclusive.

Agnates said:

Everyone has beliefs, morals, a sense of right and wrong

That's also not true.  Sociopathy or psychopathy is characterized by a distinct lack of empathy and concern for others.  You also presupposed nature as opposed to nurture, and that everyone's nature is roughly equivalent, and I don't accept that.

1. Yes, I understand that, what did I say against that? I saw a pov calling religion in general, something without a will, something without power, evil, so I countered it with my own pov explaining why I think that's not the case. Feel free to continue arguing our povs, or to simply agree to disagree.

2. Silly image with a mere man's reasoning for divine (in?)action, and one that doesn't counter anything I said. The parents not being all knowing and all powerful makes no difference to my example. As long as both twins have free will one may turn out evil and one may turn out good and the good person will thank the parents among other good deeds and the evil person will just do evil deeds. Free will is integral to many religions, so the same applies. If evil can't occur then there's no free will. If there's no free will, there's no good.

Also, Epicurus was not an atheist, he simply believed Gods did not concern themselves with humans at all. It's actually likely that quote is not his at all, considering Greek Gods of the era were many, and certainly not all described as "good" so he had no reason to argue against the existence of a single God with all those three contradicting traits. Epicurus also lived during 341 BCE – 270 BCE rather than 33 A.D.

As for the drowning stuff, you're still arguing belief semantics rather than religion, as if you're trying to convince me to become an atheist, or to ridicule Christians, or whatever else. I didn't enter the discussion saying Christians are right, or Muslims are right, or Budhists are right, or anything of the sort, for you to bring up some religion's specific beliefs and how they're crazy or contradicting. I simply discussed the concept of religion, which was portrayed as almost evil, and argued against that alone, as it is my belief that it is not. I can't defend any specific religion's semantics as I'm no scholar and have no desire to and didn't enter the discussion for that.

3. I didn't say that if you don't believe in God nothing has meaning. I asked that question earlier. The retort was to make a joke. My point was asking me the meaning of religion was as silly as me asking for the meaning of life. That will differ for every individual, it's hard to explain, and has little to do with the discussion I was having (ie, the evilness of religion). Should it even have a meaning to exist at all without being evil as it was described? I don't see why you quote that part of my post and say that though, they seem unrelated.

1) There was no disagreement, only a question!

2) Do you even know what all powerful means? It means you can do everything. Even things that are contradictory. So you can have good without evil. So it does make a difference in your example. If God was not omnipotent, or had a evil counterpart like Ahriman in Zoroastrianism than your free will defense would be applicable.

3) The quesion you asked is a common one. You might have known Niezche famous quote "God is dead". Well that was popularized in his work "Thus spoke Zarathustra"

From Wiki

Wikipedia said:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

          —Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr.

"God is dead" does not mean that Nietzsche believed in an actual God who first existed and then died in a literal sense. It may be more appropriate to consider the statement as Nietzsche's way of saying that the conventional Christian God is no longer a viable source of any absolute moral principles. Nietzsche recognizes the crisis which the death of God represents for existing moral considerations, because "When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident... By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands."[1] This is why in "The Madman", a passage which primarily addresses nontheists (especially atheists), the problem is to retain any system of values in the absence of a divine order.


           The death of God is a way of saying that humans are no longer able to believe in any such cosmic order since they themselves no longer recognize it. The death of God will lead, Nietzsche says, not only to the rejection of a belief of cosmic or physical order but also to a rejection of absolute values themselves — to the rejection of belief in an objective and universal moral law, binding upon all individuals. In this manner, the loss of an absolute basis for morality leads to nihilism. This nihilism is that for which Nietzsche worked to find a solution by re-evaluating the foundations of human values. This meant, to Nietzsche, looking for foundations that went deeper than Christian values. He would find a basis in the "will to power" that he described as "the essence of reality."

Do you understand my nihilistic joke now?

bugsonglass said:

I tried playing Afro Samurai earlier in the year, also on PS3.  Like you I loved the visual style, the music etc.  Every so often though I would just get lost and not know where to go next.  I expect this to happen in an RPG or some kind of free-roaming game.  When it happens so much in a very linear action adventure ... then something is wrong.  I gave up on the game after about two bosses.  It just wasn't worth the frustration.  It's a shame really as I liked many things about it.

This is due to the fact that they went with the no-HUD philosophy.  At any time you can press down on the cross pad and Ninja-Ninja will appear showing you where to go (much like -- but more subtle than -- the blue line in Dead Space).