What is your religion?

xnagashi10490x said:

A loaded statement arrived upon by something that cannot be proven in this most pointless discussion. A set of morals may be equivocated to a set of beliefs known as a religion, but the first statement is correct in that morals can exist without religion, given the true basis for any religion is simply conviction.

Now I believe this is NOT a thread for debating religious/philosophical beliefs (since only amateurs do that), but for just stating your own religion.

xnagashi10490x said:
Now I believe this is NOT a thread for debating religious/philosophical beliefs (since only amateurs do that), but for just stating your own religion.

Dozer said:
Before I read through this thread, let me just say that you are wrong. Morals were originally based off religion.

khorven said:
Morals are logically equivalent to religion, that's the point, they postulate the 'existence' of some-thing intangible.

xnagashi10490x said:
Now I believe this is NOT a thread for debating religious/philosophical beliefs (since only amateurs do that), but for just stating your own religion.

Kaiserpingvin said:


I don't get what you mean with that bolded part. Explicate.

Kaiserpingvin said:
Also, we're trying our hardest here to make the thread worthwhile. If it was just people stating their convictions one after another it'd be worthless, amounting to nothing more than a higher post count.

onyx02 said:
I don't have or believe in religion and it's going to stay that way :)

Dozer said:

Before I read through this thread, let me just say that you are wrong. Morals were originally based off religion.

Baman said:

Many morals may indeed be based of religion, but that is not a necessity. The idea of doing to others what you want them to do to you, belongs neither to Kant nor to Christianity, and even in the absence of religion, a society would still have to develop morals.

Dozer said:
Indeed it would have to develop morals, but I don't see a society whitout religion seeing a need to develop morals in the first place. Such a society would be contempt with gaining advantage over your peers, gettin your way, and doing everything for your success whitout careing for those around you. Now in the long run, that just doesn't cut it. But whitout religion, a non- religious society could never advance from that point.
We stopped embraceing warfare and did away with "might makes right"(hopefully more than only on a theoretical scale) long ago for a reason.

Dozer said:
Indeed it would have to develop morals, but I don't see a society whitout religion seeing a need to develop morals in the first place. Such a society would be contempt with gaining advantage over your peers, gettin your way, and doing everything for your success whitout careing for those around you.

Dozer said:
We stopped embraceing warfare and did away with "might makes right"(hopefully more than only on a theoretical scale) long ago for a reason.

Kaiserpingvin said:
Religion is not a reason to have a set of ethics, it's a justification.

Kaiserpingvin said:
You apparently have a very rosy view of humankind, because what you're describing us as not being is how we've always been, now included - greedy, warmongering, egocentric, short-sighted, heartless, in short moronic. And then most societies were religion-centric until just a century or so ago. Many are still.

Baman said:
Did we really? Might DOES make right, the only difference today is that people mask their true intentions with grand words such as "Justice" and "Freedom". The US marched on Iraq despite the protests of the UN. And why should the US listen to the UN? America have the most powerful military anyway, so there's really no one to oppose them, at least, not unless the entirety of the EU join together with Russia or something, and they would never do that.
I wouldn't say we've done away with barbarism. It's simply changed form, think only of the West's economic predation on the third world countries. Might makes right.

Kaiserpingvin said:
"Morals" are merely ways to get a society to work, to begin with they were anything but religious, they were most pragmatic. Religion is not a reason to have a set of ethics, it's a justification. They need to exist to make sure a society works.

Baman said:
Any society needs morals in order to function, and if it doesn't develop any sort of moral or legal guidelines, it wouldn't be able to advance beyond tribal stage, and probably not even reach the tribal stage at all. As you say, such a society would be short lived, with everyone vying for power.
But such morals is by no means exclusive to religion, as morals are essentially created by the people in power, in order to secure law and order in the society, and above all else, to secure their own power. Religions are only an additional institution in this chain, threatening people with eternal damnation just as the judicial system threatens with legal action.
Even if the leaders in a society never came up with the idea of organized religion, they would still create some sort of legal system to control the populace.

Dozer said:
Oh, we are a lot softer on each other then we were millenias, even centuries ago.
At the very least, people in positions of power have a small amount of respect for those underneath them. Yet again, I can not imagine mankind becoming like this had religion not given us morals.

Dozer said:
Don't mistake the criminal justice system for morals guys! That only serves to make some order inside the chaos. (Most) Authoritive figures only care about making sure troublemakers are dealt with. They don't care to change peoples mindset. I know, I know, conspiracy theories, Big Brother and whatnot, but even those forces wan't to just turn us into sheep, not give us morals. Morals are guidelines as to what is right and what is not, in all fields of life(in b4 sage), and no form of governing rule(democratic, royal, dictatorial etc.) can give people that, mostly because it doesn't care to.
This is where religion comes in.

Kaiserpingvin said:
If we accept this softening as true, note that it has come together with increased secularization, materialism, irreligiosity and freethought.

And religion didn't give us anything, least of all morals. It justified ethical systems ("Mom, why am I not allowed to have sex with another boy?" "Uuh.. Because God said so! Now go eat the actual flesh of your dead Lord and Saviour!"), nothing more. Morals are "evolutionary" in nature - societies that had none fell apart and died.

Kaiserpingvin said:
Law is the institutionalization of an ethic code. A society is an image of an ethic code.

Also, this means you mean that not even god could give any morals, as he's a ruling force. Nor could any institutionalized religion - your own included. You're quite right, of course, but I don't think you intended to be.

Dozer said:
Like I said, don't confuse laws with morals. Laws could be practically unetchical in their entireity. Would you still call that morals?

And a church is not a ruleing force. Not now at least. But even if they were, the laws it would make and the morals it would spread would be mutually exclusive from eachother. Laws punish you for doing crimes and scare you away from doing them.
Morals, on the other hand, make you realise what is right and what is not, and especially, why. Laws can't make a person better. Morals can. And alone, a ruleing force can not provide someone with morals. Religion can. If these two forces happen to be the same at a time, it just so happens. But it's not a requierment.

Even if God would rule, it would be very different if he would not provide any morals for mankind.

Baman said:
Religions are usually not ruling forces these days, there's luckily not many theocracies around (if any), but they are still a part of the authorities, even if not on officially. Religion do scare people away from doing things they deem as bad, with promise of eternal damnation to those who stray from the religion's moral codes.
And why should not a ruling force be able to provide people with morals? Do with others what you want them to do with you, is an example. That was not conceived from religions.
As for the possibility of unethical laws, laws are practical rules derived from morals, but they serve the same basic function by telling people how to act, even if they provide different reasons for following them, as presented by Kant in his description of morality and legality.

Dozer said:
Religions don't exactly scare people away(why am I thinking about Scooby Doo right now?) but try to bring up a better arguement against child rape than 25 to life(something most people think they can evade).
And laws are things made up by a goverment. They can be changed any time at will.
Instead of an example, let me just say: Godwin.

Dozer said:
First of all, why in the world would respect of human life by people in superioir positions of power neceserraly bring bad things(freethought excluded) with itself? I just don't see how one leads to another...
Also, you are bringing up your example, something that is common decency, a thing that requiers to be justified. If religion points people back to their sanity and strenght of willpower, all the better.
By the way, as to morals being evolutionary in nature: Bring up one society whitout religion that survived AND was good to it's people!

Dozer said:
Like I said, don't confuse laws with morals. Laws could be practically unetchical in their entireity. Would you still call that morals?

And a church is not a ruleing force. Not now at least. But even if they were, the laws it would make and the morals it would spread would be mutually exclusive from eachother. Laws punish you for doing crimes and scare you away from doing them.
Morals, on the other hand, make you realise what is right and what is not, and especially, why. Laws can't make a person better. Morals can. And alone, a ruleing force can not provide someone with morals. Religion can. If these two forces happen to be the same at a time, it just so happens. But it's not a requierment.

Even if God would rule, it would be very different if he would not provide any morals for mankind.

Dozer said:
Religions don't exactly scare people away(why am I thinking about Scooby Doo right now?) but try to bring up a better arguement against child rape than 25 to life(something most people think they can evade).
And laws are things made up by a goverment. They can be changed any time at will.
Instead of an example, let me just say: Godwin.

Sayalol said:
I love these type of threads. They always bring out peoples intellectual arguing sids....I would join in and make an opinion, but I'm rather too lazy to read what's been said. So I'll read everything after this post so I know what is in fact going on.

Moonlapse said:
Religion is for fools.

Azamat said:

I kinda agree with you, but i wouldn't go as far as calling religious people "fools" if i were you.
As i see it; People who seek comfort turns to religion. People who seek truth turns to science.

It's as simple as that.

Azamat said:

I kinda agree with you, but i wouldn't go as far as calling religious people "fools" if i were you.
As i see it; People who seek comfort turns to religion. People who seek truth turns to science.

It's as simple as that.

Ai-Hime said:
I've been Catholic all of my life and I still am. :)

ladyxzeus said:

Oooh, what about people like me, who seek a comfortable truth? =p You have 50 seconds to solve this problem. :o

I've met many scientists, many professionals and all of them amazingly good on what they do. Guess what: most of them are religious in a way or another. It's a distinction people should not do, science does not annulate religion or vice-versa. They can live together and they can help each other, science explaining the religion and religion explaining what science can't.

Baman said:
But most religion would imply that raping children would give you a ticket to the underworld. Their objective is not to scare people away, but rather attract them by telling them how not to end up in Tartarus, Hel, Yomi or Hell.
While it is true that laws can be changed, the moral that these laws are built upon is not so easily swayed, and once again, I'd use Kant's Categorical imperative as an example. It is only natural for humans as social beings to return a kind act with another, and that is what basic morals develop from. Further specific morals may be added by religious institutions, such as the Judeo-Christian notion of passivity by "turning the other cheek", and such morals are comprised in religions, but the basic ones that some may call "common sense" and universalists would call "common moral truths" is present in all cultures despite their religious differences.

Kaiserpingvin said:
You missed my point. You said that without religion, no moral - and then you said that we've been softer on eachother as time progressed, and I pointed out that you thusly are disproven. Hoist by your own petard.

Kaiserpingvin said:
Regarding irreligious society that survived and was good, well, what a hell of a question is that? Good is subjective. In my own view, I'd say the Paris Commune was dang nice, the same with Barcelona 1936 (pre-Soviet dabbling). Of course, they vanished, but not by intrinsic nature, but because of external forces.

Kaiserpingvin said:
Yes, laws ARE sets of ethics, whether you agree with them or not. Saying they are unethical is presupposing your ethics to be "true", which is bad argumentation.

Right and wrong doesn't exist per se, they are definitions out of an ethical system. Moral doesn't make you realize anything, the moral in itself IS the conviction of right/wrong.

A ruler provides an ethical system no matter what. Actions set examples. Institutional workings demand, codify and institutionalize certain types of action. AAs I said, a society is the image of an ethical system. You can't get past ethics, because you have to act according to some principle. That's probably the reason I don't call myself nihilist - because everyone does have a set of ethics, even if they can't (or won't) justify it.

Kaiserpingvin said:
Better argument: Not letting society create child rapists to start with, good therapy, and that jazz.

And morals are just things made up by individuals. They can be changed at any time at will. Your point is?

Azamat said:


I would like to hear your definition of a 'comfortable truth', since something "comfortable" is relative. It depends on who you might be asking.

And i can't stress this enough; "A scientist you might have met" and Science is two very different things.
To be a Scientist is a kind of profession.

Whilst Science is the effort to understand how the physical universe works (with observable evidence as the basis of that understanding.)

Science and Religion cannot get along, since religion promotes things which cannot be proven. And therefor rely on the logical fallacy "negative proof" which states that;

"X is true because there is no proof that X is false."
or
"God is real, because there is no proof that he isn't."

This makes it easy to see that the very definition of science denies religion since religion doesn't base it's statements on any kind of evidence.

Dozer said:

But it should be noted that whitout religion, cultures would steadily but surely drift away from morals and common sence. It was always religion that that kept society on the right track, no matter how much faggotry it may have done during it's more retarded times.

Dozer said:
Don't try to trick me Kaiser, I'm better than that. We grew softer on eachother because we had religion to make us grow softer. If there wasn't any, it would still be dog eat dog out there. And the thing that separates us from animals, mostly, is that we are above dog eat dog. Mostly.

Dozer said:
Oh yeah, right and wrong do exist! Just ask someone who had a significant other killed off.

Dozer said:

Okay first of all, society doesn't create child rapists. Devious sexual acts(as well as most criminal acts, excludeing special cases) are concious, self made decisions, upon which society has no effect at all.

Dozer said:
Wether those newfangled morals last or don't, is a whole other story(and no, the most basic morals were funded by religion agter inspiration from God).