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Dawkins is loathed by so many religious people because how he writes is so incisive and his arguments are practically impossible to dismantle. He talks a great deal of plain common sense. When I read some of his books my eyes were opened and I was filled with wonder with very similar emotions to when I began to read the bible 15 years ago.

"The God Delusion" is a tremendous book and fortunately it has saved many people.

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Post last edited by Saddletank on 05.31.2014, 03:02 PM.

05.31.2014, 03:01 PM

Orphic Okapi
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Sorry, Saviour. I have never read Dawkins, Hitchens, or Harris. I used Dawkins just because he's the most recognizable name in atheism these days. While I'm sure his arguments are well-reasoned, I don't like the way the condescends to the religious, something I have sincerely tried not to do. Being the son of two extremely intelligent believers, I find it hard to swallow his "all religious people are idiots" rhetoric. I think they are misinformed, yes. But not stupid.

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05.31.2014, 07:17 PM

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Is there a full name I can google? He sounds interesting.

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I am who I am.
I am Roarkiller.
No one else is me.

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quote:
Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

05.31.2014, 11:05 PM

Registration Date: 02.24.12
Location: Dhaka,Bangladesh
Posts: 1749

quote:
Originally posted by Orphic Okapi
Sorry, Saviour. I have never read Dawkins, Hitchens, or Harris. I used Dawkins just because he's the most recognizable name in atheism these days. While I'm sure his arguments are well-reasoned, I don't like the way the condescends to the religious, something I have sincerely tried not to do. Being the son of two extremely intelligent believers, I find it hard to swallow his "all religious people are idiots" rhetoric. I think they are misinformed, yes. But not stupid.

Does not that mean you are doing debate for the debates sake. I dont want to do that.

So why you are so angry when i say waste of my time.

@Saddle

If reading those books what made you think the way you think, i think you are misinformed about many things.

@Roar

Search these

Sam Harris-Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens

the amount of misinformation and twisted truth they give is really enormous. And people follow them just like they follow a prophet. many will give you death threats if you just write a article against them. Good reads though will make your thinking more concrete and well defined.

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Watch everything but only take the good things from it

Ask, think and learn. Because the more we know the more we grow.

Watching the wrong to happen is the same as commiting the wrong.

If it looks like things are forcing you to be creative, Then be creative.

its a uniquely Miyazaki film, one only he could make and its uniqueness places it beyond being easily critiqued.[About Porco Rosso]
taken from a quote of Saddletank and Orphic Okapi

Post last edited by saviour2012 on 05.31.2014, 11:43 PM.

05.31.2014, 11:33 PM

Registration Date: 09.28.06
Location: On your case
Posts: 10069

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
@Saddle

If reading those books what made you think the way you think, i think you are misinformed about many things.

No, reading them didn't make me think the way I think. I told you how my own thought processes and experiences of organised religion made me realise it was nonesense. It happened over a period of several years and it was the church itself that drove me away because of its inconsistencies. I started reading Dawkins much later, only this year in fact.

You know, since you know me so well, I'd have thought you'd have realised all this; you claim to know my motivations and personality better than I do after all.

I was even fed the "avoid Dawkins, he's evil" line by some of my church friends.

I'm curious to know why you think what he writes is misinformation and twisted truth, I really am genuinely curious. If we can find out what it is about what Dawkins writes that's a problem for you maybe we can move forwards.

I haven't read the other authors at all.

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Post last edited by Saddletank on 06.01.2014, 11:08 AM.

06.01.2014, 10:37 AM

Registration Date: 09.28.06
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quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012 many will give you death threats if you just write a article against them.

Hah ahah ahhaa, oh, my oh my, that made me actually laugh out loud.

Go tell that to Salman Rushdie or the cartoonists of Jyllands-Posten.

I seriously find it hard to beleive that a single atheist supporter of atheist authors would actually issue a death threat against an attacker of said author. I would like to see your evidence suporting this claim. Not just one or two death threats but "many". The use of "many" here implies either a majority or a large minority. And death threats from annoyed atheists (if such exist) would be just that, a means usually to vent their annoyance. There could be a couple out there - the world's full of crazy people, right? But "many"? No.

Death threats from annoyed Muslims meanwhile actually do result in murders of innocent people, often hundreds of them. 200 died as a result of the Jyllands-Posten incident. Religion doing what it does best again - causing death, terror and tragedy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-P...ons_controversy

Really saviour, if you're going to be a member of a religion some of whose practitioners are cruel, violent and xenophobic, at least admit that there are problems within Islam and maybe there might just be a better means by which to worship and obey god.

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Post last edited by Saddletank on 06.01.2014, 06:24 PM.

06.01.2014, 11:10 AM

Registration Date: 02.24.12
Location: Dhaka,Bangladesh
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quote:
Originally posted by Saddletank
quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
@Saddle

If reading those books what made you think the way you think, i think you are misinformed about many things.
No, reading them didn't make me think the way I think. I told you how my own thought processes and experiences of organised religion made me realise it was nonesense. It happened over a period of several years and it was the church itself that drove me away because of its inconsistencies. I started reading Dawkins much later, only this year in fact.

You know, since you know me so well, I'd have thought you'd have realised all this; you claim to know my motivations and personality better than I do after all.

I was even fed the "avoid Dawkins, he's evil" line by some of my church friends.

I'm curious to know why you think what he writes is misinformation and twisted truth, I really am genuinely curious. If we can find out what it is about what Dawkins writes that's a problem for you maybe we can move forwards.

I haven't read the other authors at all.

My problem about his writings in three sentences that he says

Religion is the root of all problem. Even though he did not read quran , because of his islamphobia he tries to attack muslim from different angles but not the Islam as a belief. One of his main problem is seeing the religion in the spectacle of its believer, but i support seeing a religion entirely by studying its materials.

I dont think saddle thats going to be helpful. Lets focus on the couple of months thing, ofcourse if you want to.

and the other part was directed to roar. It was not meant for you. Search the net you will find evidence supporting my fact.

06.02.2014, 02:07 AM

Registration Date: 09.28.06
Location: On your case
Posts: 10069

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
Religion is the root of all problem. Even though he did not read quran , because of his islamphobia he tries to attack muslim from different angles but not the Islam as a belief. One of his main problem is seeing the religion in the spectacle of its believer, but i support seeing a religion entirely by studying its materials.

Oh dear... *draws in big sigh* We are scraping the barrel here aren't we? A person does not need to read the Quran to know enough about Islam to understand it. It is disingenious to cast aside anyone's qualifications to be an authority on a subject due to a lack of reading key source material. Its the same facetious argument as saying that film critics are not entitled to review movies because they are not Peter Jackson or Steven Spielberg. Dozens of leading scientists are not expelled from their positions each year because they can't memorize the periodic table. That empty argument was dismissed in the first debating society meeting I attended in my junior school when I was 13. Try again.

I became a Christian without reading hardly any of the bible. That's what faith is, it causes you to beleive without evidence. If Dawkins can disbeleive without reading the quran, that isn't a reason to dismiss what he says. You dismiss what he says because you don't like it, because it rattles your comfortable system. Rather than accept that he has concerns and might have valid points you blankly dismiss him just because he hasn't read a certain book. This shutting out of his criticisms as 'invalid' allows you to avoid having to search within yourself and look inside your religious system and maybe, just maybe, begin to ask questions of your own.

Dawkins doesn't attack Islam specifically, he's not Islamophobic. He attacks all religions equally. He's a Religionophobe. A Godophobe. He's an equally strong critic of Christianity and other belief systems. The problem we face right now, in the middle of World War IV in case you hadn't noticed is the clash between Christianity and Islam and within these two religions which is causing tens, if not hundreds of thousands of deaths right now, as we type.

That's why Islam and Christianity are particularly attacked by him in equal amounts. You just don't see the attacks he makes on Christianity because they don't concern you. You think he's anti-Islamic and that is because of your closed in world, your closed mindset. Open your eyes, imagine how you'd feel if you were a bible-bashing TV evangelist in America that Dawkins was accusing of lying, exploitation and taking money under false pretences. Admittedly stealing money from people isn't so bad as murdering innocents because of a cartoon, but its still not cool.

Your trouble Saviour, is you are embedded so deep into your particular religion that you can't observe the world in a balanced way and experience other points of view. This has been a problem from the start of our earliest debates when we Tavern members suddenly discovered that to you and us "science" meant two quite different things.

Dawkins says in his 2-part TV documentary that god isn't actually the root of all evil, he himself didn't even choose that title for the series, his producer did, and he himself has never claimed that. His stance aligns quite closely with mine - by co-incidence I might add - that there is enough evil and wickedness in some religious people and practices to call into question the value of all organised religions. Personal religions generally tend to end up with not so many hateful practitioners for obvious reasons, but even then he calls into question the validity of any gods when the alternative is celebrating the validity of yourself and your own unique life.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
I dont think saddle thats going to be helpful. Lets focus on the couple of months thing, ofcourse if you want to.

To what are you referring here? The Salman Rushdie and Jyllands-Postern incidents? I can easily understand why you think that's not going to be helpful but by now you should have realised that these incidents are typical (and common) examples of the whole thrust of my argument against religion. Because Muslims get fanatically angry, murderously angry when a stranger in another country draws a cartoon of their prophet.

That's a big, big problem. Why should 200 innocent people die at the hands of such people? Why should a man have to live in safe houses and avoid all publicity for expressing his freedom of speech in a country where what he wrote was perfectly within the law? Why should religious beleivers many hundreds or thousands of miles away in another country think it is right to impose their laws and their punishments on him?

Please explain. Don't give me a link, explain. Defend your religion.

Explain this to me, justify this belief system. I really, honestly, truly want to hear from a devout Muslim what he thinks of these incidents and if this is reasonable behaviour.

The question I asked about and prompted you to respond to and you never did is essentialy the same one - what is good about religion when it has been used for centuries, in fact millenia, as a vehicle to justify murder? Where is a loving compassionate god in all this?

This is one of the central reasons I quit religion and cast away any belief in god. No-one has yet satisfactorily given me an answer. If you can I would be genuinely curious to hear what you have to say.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012 and the other part was directed to roar. It was not meant for you. Search the net you will find evidence supporting my fact.

Oh please. Please will you STOP doing this? It is incredibly tedious and not helpful at all. I have reminded you to not do this many times now. I don't want to go looking around "the internet" (I don't even know what I'm looking for your response was so woolly and all-encompassing).

I want you to tell me what your views are. This thread is full of me telling you what my views and beliefs and concerns are yet you have not once offered a single one of your personal views. All you ever do is tell me to go read books.

Stop this bullshit and actually debate with me.

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Post last edited by Saddletank on 06.02.2014, 09:42 AM.

06.02.2014, 09:31 AM

Registration Date: 09.28.06
Location: On your case
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For my own amusement I was re-reading this thread. I found your first post Saviour with your own mantras.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
Watch everything but only take the good things from it

Ask, think and learn. Because the more we know the more we grow.

Watching the wrong to happen is the same as committing the wrong.

It made me chuckle given the resulting debate and how you have proven to us that you don't observe any of those yourself, except probably the last one. I suppose I should take a little comfort in knowing that you feel remorse and guilt over 9/11. Maybe you should transmit the knowledge of that wrongdoing into some kind of personal action? Going to the USA and saying sorry in person to the relatives of the dead could change your life.

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Post last edited by Saddletank on 06.02.2014, 09:51 AM.

06.02.2014, 09:48 AM

Registration Date: 02.24.12
Location: Dhaka,Bangladesh
Posts: 1749

i meant when you said you will have time after a couple of months.

and saddle try use a little less adjectives because it does not make you comments a fact.

####however point one

quote:
Oh dear... *draws in big sigh* We are scraping the barrel here aren't we? A person does not need to read the Quran to know enough about Islam to understand it. It is disingenious to cast aside anyone's qualifications to be an authority on a subject due to a lack of reading key source material. Its the same facetious argument as saying that film critics are not entitled to review movies because they are not Peter Jackson or Steven Spielberg. Dozens of leading scientists are not expelled from their positions each year because they can't memorize the periodic table. That empty argument was dismissed in the first debating society meeting I attended in my junior school when I was 13. Try again.

do you understand what are you saying here.Lets dissect your arguments

1.A person does not need to read the Quran to know enough about Islam to understand it.

Then how do you do it? I mean Qur'an is the main foundation of Islam.

2.It is disingenious to cast aside anyone's qualifications to be an authority on a subject due to a lack of reading key source material.

If you have not read the source[main] material then how are you even qualified. It is like saying someone physicist who did not read the Newtonian Physics books in high school.

3.Its the same facetious argument as saying that film critics are not entitled to review movies because they are not Peter Jackson or Steven Spielberg.

You mean that you can critic a movie without even watching it?

. Not reading the material is same as not watching the film.

4.Dozens of leading scientists are not expelled from their positions each year because they can't memorize the periodic table.

Memorizing is different but a scientist who is doing research on physical sciences, life sciences and many other sectors of science must atleast read and understood the periodic table.

5.That empty argument was dismissed in the first debating society meeting I attended in my junior school when I was 13. Try again.

I hope after reading the answers of the four points it is unnecessary to reply this one. I can assume debating did not go well for you in junior school.

#### point two

quote:
because you don't like it, because it rattles your comfortable system.

No reason to answer this.

quote:
I became a Christian without reading hardly any of the bible. That's what faith is, it causes you to beleive without evidence

But being a muslim is not the same. We are encouraged to ask question or even question our religion. We seek evidence why we believe something. It is not practiced everywhere, specially not in the illiterate areas. But that is ignorance and definitely not a problem of the religion.

quote:
Rather than accept that he has concerns and might have valid points you blankly dismiss him just because he hasn't read a certain book. This shutting out of his criticisms as 'invalid' allows you to avoid having to search within yourself and look inside your religious system and maybe, just maybe, begin to ask questions of your own.

when did i blankly dismiss him. his concern are not wrong entirely but his methods are wrong top to bottom. His not reading Qur'an is a clear indication he has not searched enough to find a better solution. This is a rather lengthy thing many many things will come discussing why his methods are incorrect. so stopping here.

####Point three

quote:
Dawkins doesn't attack Islam specifically, he's not Islamophobic. He attacks all religions equally. He's a Religionophobe. A Godophobe. He's an equally strong critic of Christianity and other belief systems. The problem we face right now, in the middle of World War IV in case you hadn't noticed is the clash between Christianity and Islam and within these two religions which is causing tens, if not hundreds of thousands of deaths right now, as we type.

That's why Islam and Christianity are particularly attacked by him in equal amounts. You just don't see the attacks he makes on Christianity because they don't concern you. You think he's anti-Islamic and that is because of your closed in world, your closed mindset. Open your eyes, imagine how you'd feel if you were a bible-bashing TV evangelist in America that Dawkins was accusing of lying, exploitation and taking money under false pretences. Admittedly stealing money from people isn't so bad as murdering innocents because of a cartoon, but its still not cool.

Your trouble Saviour, is you are embedded so deep into your particular religion that you can't observe the world in a balanced way and experience other points of view. This has been a problem from the start of our earliest debates when we Tavern members suddenly discovered that to you and us "science" meant two quite different things.

I have never said he did not attack Christianity, rather his main points comes from that direction but his attack on islam is quite different you need to read a lot to understand that. Those are twisted facts so it is not like you will just understand them.

####Point important

quote:
The question I asked about and prompted you to respond to and you never did is essentialy the same one - what is good about religion when it has been used for centuries, in fact millenia, as a vehicle to justify murder? Where is a loving compassionate god in all this?

This is one of the central reasons I quit religion and cast away any belief in god. No-one has yet satisfactorily given me an answer. If you can I would be genuinely curious to hear what you have to say.

Your argument is invalid do you know why. It is because you believe that it is religion that made people do these murders. however the fact is men would done that already. This is very plain and simple see world wars and recents wars. specially that nuclear bomb, jew killing in ww2 and saddam hussein and many many other incidents. If you sum all these then you will get a spectacular number. The nature of doing bad is inherently inside human, so is the nature of doing wrong. And the violence and killing human did without anykind of religious intentions greatly outnumbers the killings they did for religion. Truth to be told men used almost every thing available to them as a weapon. Thats the nature of human. But as a weapon can kill people it can also save them. That why we need politics although we know that how bad are the politicians. We need a police a army even a secret service. It is not that these things have never did any bad. But still we cant just rule out the importance of these things. For similar reason we need religion. Religion can in-fact change the nature of any person who whole-heartedly follows it , atleast islam definitely can. I would definitely not like a society like GITS. I love my parents , i am truly grateful to them for the sacrifices they made just for us. The relatives i have, the love i get from them is something indescribable. I would like if it stays this way. And Islam in many way forces these things. If you think that my likeness toward a world full of love is my closed mindset then it is. And my other reason supporting islam is there is no way i can rule out the possibility of god and as i have shown there are numerous facts concerning these things come into Qur'an. So if there is a hell i would not definitely want to go there. If obeying Islam makes me gain happiness both in earth and afterlife why i should not follow it. The loving compassionate god theory is from Christianity, i dont have any authority to support that. But The reason why God sent his messenger is particularly of this reason so that man can behave and be a better person. As long as one follows those strictly nothing will go wrong.

Now my belief

We have three things one the instinct to do good, the instinct to do bad and the instinct to be lazy and always have fun. Our main objective in this world is to make sure that we fight against the bad instincts and then try to make as good as possible. To do these Islam includes four parts 1. Ibadat[ that is the prayers, fasts ,hazz etc] 2.Muasherat [that is your external behavior] 3. Muamalat [That is how you exchange items money etc] and 4. Akhlak [That is your internal instinct like honesty, truthfulness bla bla] .

Most of the muslim now follow only the first one the last three important[all are equally important] ones are always against the systems of islam. Thats why i get angry when you say bad things to me, although i should not. Muslims take bribe and also are deep into bank interest both of which is haram. And Akhlak is one of the worst nowadays in muslims, telling lie and doing fraud is very common is . Right now very few muslim are actually practicing islam.

Practically muslims are as corrupted as any other people so thats why God wont help them. If they followed Islam correctly then God would have surely helped them. World domination for 1200 years is something to consider.

thats is in a nutshell everything. The reason i never say them is these subjects are something that took me from birth until now to learn and still i dont know many many many things. So i might wrongly say many things.But I answered cause in the last few post you wrote a lot of things so it seemed appropriate to write an answer.

However the question is Are you satisfied. I dont know. maybe you know these answers anyway. Maybe you expected something extraordinary then i disappointed you. Still why i answered. Because this debates[the first ones] started because i really want to know if there is anything that will lessen the distance between people like us. The culture ,the religion almost everything is making us apart. And if i keep my belief and you keep yours then will it be possible to live in harmony. I dont know yet.

####to the other post
If you manage me the visa and the plane fair and other expenses i will do that.

And other parts does not need an answer.

06.02.2014, 01:56 PM

Registration Date: 09.28.06
Location: On your case
Posts: 10069

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
and saddle try use a little less adjectives because it does not make you comments a fact.

They were not used to make them facts they were used to express my passion for this subject and add insiciveness where I felt it was needed.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
Lets dissect your arguments

1.A person does not need to read the Quran to know enough about Islam to understand it.

Then how do you do it? I mean Qur'an is the main foundation of Islam.

You can understand and make meaningful comment on any institution by observing how it operates, how it's members act and the results of what it does. You can also learn a great deal about any institution by speaking to its members, and by reading books and papers written by them, interviews given by them, films made by them, and so forth.

You do not need to read the Quran to understand Islam and you don't need to read the Bible to understand Christianity. To claim that you do allows one to refute any criticism levelled at any institution by anyone who hasn't read their 'articles of incorporation' and that is just not true.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
You mean that you can critic a movie without even watching it?

No. You misunderstood my analogy. I perhaps should refrain from making analogies as the language barrier between us sometimes causes misunderstanding.

Anyway, let's move on from why I think any intelligent, open-minded academic like Dawkins is equipped to be critical of organised religion, its hardly important.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
No reason to answer this.

There is no reason for you to respond to anything I write, however I am curious to hear your views on that assertion.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
But being a muslim is not the same. We are encouraged to ask question or even question our religion. We seek evidence why we believe something.

The same is true of Christianity. However you will agree with me that to become a Muslim you do not need to read the quran. Numerous Muslims do not read and know all the hadiths either. This is a fact, is it not? I was reading posts from another Muslim on another forum about 2 hours ago and he has not read the quran fully.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
quote:
Rather than accept that he has concerns and might have valid points you blankly dismiss him just because he hasn't read a certain book. This shutting out of his criticisms as 'invalid' allows you to avoid having to search within yourself and look inside your religious system and maybe, just maybe, begin to ask questions of your own.

when did i blankly dismiss him. his concern are not wrong entirely but his methods are wrong top to bottom. His not reading Qur'an is a clear indication he has not searched enough to find a better solution. This is a rather lengthy thing many many things will come discussing why his methods are incorrect. so stopping here.

Alright, let's put aside the adjective 'blankly', let me just say that you dismiss him. Is that better?

Again you avoid answering my points. This is truly tedious. I want to read what you think about why Dawkin's views on Islam are not to be accepted or trusted and not just 'because he didn't read the quran'. This is the core part of our debate, so please give me your views.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
I have never said he did not attack Christianity.

There are a lot of things you didn't say, but what you did say was that he attacks Islam, and specifically you were critical of him because of that. I am bringing some balance to the discussion by mentioning that as he's an atheist he denies all gods, not just yours.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
Those are twisted facts so it is not like you will just understand them.

Just because I am not a muslim does not mean I am mentally incapable of grasping various ideas. Try me. I ask you to present to me these twisted truths he offers and we'll see if I can follow you.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
Your argument is invalid do you know why. It is because you believe that it is religion that made people do these murders.

Wait. What? Are you asserting that the riots that resulted in 200 deaths after the Jyllands-Postern incident and 9/11 and 7/7 and the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades were NOT perpetrated by religious people?

Well who did perpetrate them then?

Are these acts not religiously motivated?

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
Are you saying to me however the fact is men would done that already. This is very plain and simple see world wars and recents wars. specially that nuclear bomb, jew killing in ww2 and saddam hussein and many many other incidents.

I am not talking about world wars, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin or any number of other evil men and events (though as it happens there was much religious hatred and killing in world war 2 as well - Hitler was Catholic and Stalin was educated at a Rusian Orthodox seminary), I am fully aware that there are evil people in this world who are not driven by their religion. Pointing this out isn't necessary.

As an aside though "jew killing" as you call it does have its roots in religious hatred and many of the atrocities Saddam Hussein committed were driven by religious belief.

I am focussing on the millions of deaths down through history and occurring right now in Jerusalem, Palestine and Afghanistan caused because of religion. Are you denying this is happening?

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
And the violence and killing human did without anykind of religious intentions greatly outnumbers the killings they did for religion.

Supporting data please.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
The reason why God sent his messenger is particularly of this reason so that man can behave and be a better person. As long as one follows those strictly nothing will go wrong.

I agree with you fully, but since men are greedy and corrupt and cruel they use religion as a tool to do evil. You just can't deny this fact.

We cannot reach a concensus of how many people may have been murdered on earth if there had never been any religion because that is wholly a what-if, a supposition, impossible to calculate. We can however state with absolute conviction that millions have died because of religion, over the centuries.

quote:
Originally posted by saviour2012
Now my belief

Thank you for taking the effort to write this, I find it interesting.

However this part: "...To do these Islam includes four parts 1. Ibadat[ that is the prayers, fasts ,hazz etc] 2.Muasherat [that is your external behavior] 3. Muamalat [That is how you exchange items money etc] and 4. Akhlak [That is your internal instinct like honesty, truthfulness bla bla] .

Most of the muslim now follow only the first one the last three important[all are equally important] ones are always against the systems of islam. Thats why i get angry when you say bad things to me, although i should not."

This section summarises some of my key dissatisfactions with any organised religion. A holy book tells you how you should act... but people do not. The idealistic concepts become watered down, misused, misunderstood or worse, wilfuly misinterpreted until followers of a religion do terrible things in gods name.

I'm curious to know, what are your views on honour killings?

Is it a good thing or a bad thing for a Muslim father to murder his daughter because she was raped?

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Post last edited by Saddletank on 06.02.2014, 04:00 PM.

06.02.2014, 03:41 PM

Registration Date: 02.24.12
Location: Dhaka,Bangladesh
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The problem saddle is, Islam is only what it is. Very strictly. So no matter what you do just cant understand it clearly without thoroughly reading and understanding its key texts. No one is given the authority to represent islam. That why i am saying it is unquestionable. You can never ever treat islam by its follower.But to be an AUTHORITY[that is to be able to say something about it. It is same in everywhere. such as if i comment on computational theory or say something about UX design or different software design paradigms no one who understands will listen to me. Because i am not that well versed on the subject but if i was a Phd then if i give a speech if my speech is interesting they will listen. It is pretty basic stuff.] you must have a significant knowledge over the subject.

Dawkin's view can not be accepted because of that. More clearly my point is if Dawkin's really did go though all those materials he would have found that all his answers were in those texts. So in my opinion then if he was honest he would tell people that we need to change, our behavior need to change. Without changing ourselves we can not be happy in this world. And if we all become good muslims we can have a better earth and afterlife.[part of it is in last para]

If the current muslims are bad then it is our duty to be better muslim and then try to make them better too.

####
If anyone just does anything in the name of islam it does not make it valid in anyway unless supported by Qur'an and Hadith.

A muslim is anyone who just accepts Allah, but a Mumin is a person who practices Islam top to bottom. Only Mumin will go to Heaven directly others will go to hell for various durations unless forgiven by Allah.

So It is not entirely true that a person can be a true muslim without reading quran

1. To pray namaz you must know atleast 5 suras from quran, you can memorize it. But there are many facts involved specially the pronunciation, as the meaning gets changed with the change of how you pronounce it. There are different schools of thought but the key fact here is the suras you say in namaz must be accurate as much as possible. And i dont know any way of doing that unless i am taught by books that is seeing and reading with a help of a teacher. Directly memorizing accurately is only possible by an arab.

2.Not reading the quran fully is something different. not knowing ALL the hadith is similarly different.
3. In islam it is a must for every muslim to acquire that amount of ilm[that is knowledge about islam] so that i can live my islamic life to the fullest. As in my country the amount of knowledge needed for a Doctor, Engineer vs a farmer is very different. so they will gain different amount. Islam also makes it a must to double check what you hear.

#####
Just because I am not a muslim does not mean I am mentally incapable of grasping various ideas. Try me. I ask you to present to me these twisted truths he offers and we'll see if I can follow you.

how many? is five enough. I dont have much time.

#####
I am focussing on the millions of deaths down through history and occurring right now in Jerusalem, Palestine and Afghanistan caused because of religion. Are you denying this is happening?

That just politics, nasty politics with nasty people. Both sides know how to use the religion card.

#####
And the violence and killing human did without anykind of religious intentions greatly outnumbers the killings they did for religion.

Supporting data please.

The data is in the spectacular number i told you to sum up.

#####

Wait. What? Are you asserting that the riots that resulted in 200 deaths after the Jyllands-Postern incident and 9/11 and 7/7 and the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades were NOT perpetrated by religious people?

Well who did perpetrate them then?

Are these acts not religiously motivated?

and

some of my key dissatisfactions with any organised religion. A holy book tells you how you should act... but people do not. The idealistic concepts become watered down, misused, misunderstood or worse, wilfuly misinterpreted until followers of a religion do terrible things in gods name.

and

since men are greedy and corrupt and cruel they use religion as a tool to do evil. You just can't deny this fact.

these are basically the same things.

I think the only way for the betterment of humankind is self-purification. if you know any better way please tell.

if you agree then i dont see why you are disagreeing with me. Unless you want to be self-righteous. As religion has the best set of rules to follow.

If we just make it go away, it will be similar to cutting head because of a headache.

Post last edited by saviour2012 on 06.02.2014, 05:36 PM.

06.02.2014, 05:09 PM

Registration Date: 06.03.03
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You know saddle, I'm starting to think that you have a personal vendetta against religion. The way you argue gives of such an impression.

Also, I have to heavily disagree with you on several crucial points. Namely:

quote:
Originally posted by Saddletank
You can understand and make meaningful comment on any institution by observing how it operates, how it's members act and the results of what it does. You can also learn a great deal about any institution by speaking to its members, and by reading books and papers written by them, interviews given by them, films made by them, and so forth.

You do not need to read the Quran to understand Islam and you don't need to read the Bible to understand Christianity. To claim that you do allows one to refute any criticism levelled at any institution by anyone who hasn't read their 'articles of incorporation' and that is just not true.

The same is true of Christianity. However you will agree with me that to become a Muslim you do not need to read the quran. Numerous Muslims do not read and know all the hadiths either. This is a fact, is it not? I was reading posts from another Muslim on another forum about 2 hours ago and he has not read the quran fully.

Just from these alone I don't thing you understand the concept of the major religions at all in the first place, not even Christianity.

Having faith in a religion does not equal understanding a religion. I can have faith in my math teacher, but that doesn't make me a math genius. Likewise, one having a certain religious faith does not necessarily mean he/she knows that own religion well.

Your analogies are inaccurate from the get-go. You NEED to read a physics book to understand physics. You NEED to read a math book to understand math. You do NOT understand either just by observing physicists and mathematicians. Looking at the actions of people do not equate understanding their basis of faith. Saviour is right; you can't understand Islam without reading the Quran, no more than you can understand Christianity without reading the Bible.

So this point of yours is extremely egregious.

And if you are thinking of refuting this, think about it for a moment: how many different sects of Christianity are there in the world? If you claim that you can understand a religion just based on how the followers act, then which facet of Christianity would you be looking at? Would you consider Mormonism to be a general example? How about Jehovah's Witness? No you wouldn't, and in fact no one would.

And consider this: would you really understand everything about Christianity from observing someone who is a Christian only in name but does not practise it? If you "observe" only the outliers who kill or lie in the name of religion, would that really tell you about a religion?

And if you talk about the heads of religion, think about it: aren't priests or imaams humans too? They make mistakes, don't they? Or are you seriously saying that every one of their mistakes is because their religion say so, instead of their own lapse in intelligence?

Think about these for a second.

Religion is exclusive of the people who practise it; I've said it before and I say it again, and my view isn't held by only me. Two billion Christians in the world does not equate to two billion hard-core believers, as you yourself should know. Likewise, not every muslim understands or even follow Islam in their daily life.

So to say that you can understand religion just by looking at their actions is nothing more than judging a book by its cover. It's shallow. It's stereotyping. And it's just plain bad.

Do these actions put religion is a bad light? Obviously so. Do religions play a part? Clearly. But putting the blame on religion? Clearly you have a poor understanding of human nature.

Humans will cause grief regardless of faith. They will do so in the name of religion, and they will do so in the name of atheism, and they will do so in the name of science or logic or whatever else. It's called making an excuse to justify oneself.

Religion just happen to be one of those tools. If you blame religion, then you should equally blame everything else. Quantity isn't the issue either.

Perhaps, if you actually consider these, you will find that you, saddle, may have been equally close-minded as saviour.

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quote:
Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

06.03.2014, 11:32 PM

Orphic Okapi
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Registration Date: 04.08.07
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Thanks for bringing a new perspective to this debate Roarkiller. You raise some interesting points that might (if we're lucky) help bend the conversation in a more productive direction. I actually agree with you for the most part, but I don't think you take your argument all the way to its logical conclusion.

quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller
Your analogies are inaccurate from the get-go. You NEED to read a physics book to understand physics. You NEED to read a math book to understand math. You do NOT understand either just by observing physicists and mathematicians.

Let's get the obvious objection to this argument out of the way. The fact is you DON'T need to read any books to learn physics or math, as both disciplines have been studied far longer than the printing press has been in existence. You can, in fact, learn from by observing mathematicians and/or physicists, and you can learn especially quickly if they are trying to teach you, which is how information has been conveyed through most of human history.

But that's not important. What I really want to argue is that religious books differ from math and physics books in a way that makes the whole analogy invalid. Not because "religious books are wrong, math books are right" or anything silly like that, but because they contain fundamentally different kinds of information. Basically, religious books are made up of stories, and stories are always ambiguous in their interpretation. Physics and math are much less ambiguous; what's written on the page cannot really be disputed (it can under very special circumstances, but I don't want to get too sidetracked here). Basically, physics and mathematics can be tested and verified; there is no similar way to test and verify the meaning of a story.

quote:
And if you are thinking of refuting this, think about it for a moment: how many different sects of Christianity are there in the world? If you claim that you can understand a religion just based on how the followers act, then which facet of Christianity would you be looking at?

Exactly. Now think about this for a moment: all of these wildly divergent sects of Christianity claim the very same Bible as their own. They might have supplemental texts which they consider to be of equal theological importance, but no sect of Christianity actually rejects the Bible as a religious text. Now how is it possible that so many different denominations of Christianity could claim the same exact book as the basis of their belief system?

Because a religious book is not a math book. Everyone who reads a math book can basically agree that, for all intents and purposes, 2 + 2 = 4. There are countless proofs you can perform to verify this truth. But stories are never so clear-cut. Ten people can read the same novel and arrive at ten different conclusions (as anyone familiar with literary criticism is well aware). Whose truth is the right one? The best you can do is read the book yourself and pick a side, or, if you don't agree with any established interpretations, you can form your own conclusion.

But every one of these conclusions is informed as much by the reader as by the text itself. There is no other explanation for such radical division within religions based on the same book. "Humans are fallible" doesn't cut it. Yes, humans are far from perfect, and we are prone to dispute, but that hasn't stopped us from agreeing that 2 + 2 = 4.

quote:
And if you talk about the heads of religion, think about it: aren't priests or imaams humans too? They make mistakes, don't they? Or are you seriously saying that every one of their mistakes is because their religion say so, instead of their own lapse in intelligence?

And if priests and imams are fallible, and capable of lapses in judgment, then who is actually qualified to interpret a religious text? What happens when you have two well-educated theologians studying the same religious text who come to opposite conclusions? My parents are Christians; they have both read the Bible thoroughly and try, it seems to me, pretty hard to uphold the tenets of their religion on a daily basis. They also do not believe that homosexuality is a sin. Obviously, a lot of other Christians would disagree.

Christianity isn't the only religion suffering from this kind of internal discord. Buddhism, broadly speaking, is divided into two vastly different strains. Islam is similarly divided; a Muslim friend of mine once informed me that Sufism was emphatically NOT a part of Islam and all its practitioners were heretics. But...I mean, they read the same Quran, don't they?

I understand where Saviour is coming from when he says it is impossible to judge Islam without having read its holy book. But the belief underlying Saviour's argument is that there is one TRUE form of Islam residing with the text of the Quran. I can't bring myself to believe that, not with the fragmentation of Christianity (and other religions) providing such blatant evidence to the contrary.

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Post last edited by Orphic Okapi on 06.04.2014, 02:29 AM.

06.04.2014, 02:17 AM

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Before I begin, I'd just like to point out that neither math nor science are infallible. Both have, in their history, shown to have erred, I assure you. Science especially have been overturned so many times within the last two centuries.

quote:
Originally posted by Orphic Okapi
Thanks for bringing a new perspective to this debate Roarkiller. You raise some interesting points that might (if we're lucky) help bend the conversation in a more productive direction. I actually agree with you for the most part, but I don't think you take your argument all the way to its logical conclusion.

It wasn't my intent in the first place. I was pointing out an extremely (I am emphasizing this) egregious argument.

Also, my point isn't about books, it was about this idea that you can have an in-depth understanding simply by observing the practitioners.

Books are teaching tools in a manner of speaking. Argumentatively, they are the same as teachers, professors, etc etc. You can learn from them if they teach you, yes, in the same manner that a christian/muslim/buddhist/whatever can teach you about their faith.

But by only observing? No. Just... no.

I am in agreement with your last part, which is essentially the basis for my argument: humans are, by and large, prone to error. Regardless of status or wisdom or experience, they are prone to error. No exception.

But again, my argument was against the idea that you can understand a particular faith through any Tom, Dick or Harry - it just doesn't work like that. As you said, religion is rather ambiguous, which is precisely why you cannot judge a faith through the actions of any random practitioner, and obviously much less through extremists, for want of a better term.

What we can do instead is to actually search for and learn from someone who is not only well-versed but is also a devout practitioner. The chances of learning proper Christianity via a priest is higher than a drunk vagrant.

Will it 100% correct? Maybe not. But at least we have reduced significantly the chances of being misled. And if one is still unsatisfied by the answer, then it is because one of two things have occured: either the teacher is incapable, or the student is. And hence, neither is the fault of the faith.

The best non-biased parallel is economics. There are literally thousands of school of thoughts, and even the best PhD economist will be wrong sometimes. Religion is similar.

-----

Also, just putting this here, but contrary to what Saviour said, his "argument is that there is one TRUE form of Islam residing with the text of the Quran" is technically false. In fact, there will be FOUR schools of thoughts of Islam that will be accepted come judgement day (or so I've been taught).

Islam is far more flexible than credit is given. The ignorance and/or abuse of this, however, is too sad.

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quote:
Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

06.04.2014, 03:20 AM

Registration Date: 02.24.12
Location: Dhaka,Bangladesh
Posts: 1749

quote:
The fact is you DON'T need to read any books to learn physics or math, as both disciplines have been studied far longer than the printing press has been in existence

This is not completely wrongwell almost wrong. The fact is DOUBT. I have shown in the last debates that the whole concept of doubt in science was practically imported from islamic thinking. that is you directly dont believe what you are told. Thats why the questions against the greek systems arose. which eventually made in happen the Renaissance of science in Europe. Thats why the then scientists were so mad at newton because his mathematical theory with experimental proof made no space for them to comment. before then it just like some scientist debating around things and that was science.

quote:
You can, in fact, learn from by observing mathematicians and/or physicists, and you can learn especially quickly if they are trying to teach you, which is how information has been conveyed through most of human history.

So i hope you understand there is no clearcut way to learn science just by following a teacher unless he is someone extremely extraordinary like Prophet Mohammad [pbuh]. his teachings are called hadith and thats a very important part of Islam. but everyone is not like him so following directly is considered ignorance. So you need to read books to verify yourself up to a point.

quote:

Basically, religious books are made up of stories, and stories are always ambiguous in their interpretation.

and

Physics and math are much less ambiguous; what's written on the page cannot really be disputed (it can under very special circumstances, but I don't want to get too sidetracked here). Basically, physics and mathematics can be tested and verified; there is no similar way to test and verify the meaning of a story.

If mathematics is truly universal, me and mush are having a discussion about that but as a book Qur'an is fairly different it is quite clear and the interpretations of most of the unscientific things were already done in 600-900 AD. Only the scientific facts can not be interpreted correctly because many of those theories have not been yet discovered. And there are many way to verify the authenticity of Qur'an but of course those paths are difficult.

quote:
And if priests and imams are fallible, and capable of lapses in judgment, then who is actually qualified to interpret a religious text? What happens when you have two well-educated theologians studying the same religious text who come to opposite conclusions? My parents are Christians; they have both read the Bible thoroughly and try, it seems to me, pretty hard to uphold the tenets of their religion on a daily basis. They also do not believe that homosexuality is a sin. Obviously, a lot of other Christians would disagree. Christianity isn't the only religion suffering from this kind of internal discord. Buddhism, broadly speaking, is divided into two vastly different strains. Islam is similarly divided; a Muslim friend of mine once informed me that Sufism was emphatically NOT a part of Islam and all its practitioners were heretics. But...I mean, they read the same Quran, don't they?

I can only say things from Islam. That is you do not need to interpret Qur'an everyday. That is the interpretations of the text has been already done in the presence of Mohammad[pbuh]. there is a long history about it. In islam the authenticity of a person not only resides in his learning but also more importantly his practices. The four parts i mentioned . How much one person is able to reflects those in daily life on that it will depend how much should believe that person. The hadith that is today said to be correct is judged by that scale. In many cases a person who did not reflect a tiny bit of prophets teachings which is generally missed by everyone, was not considered an authentic person. So if you follow those guideline you can surely get the correct answer. So in my opinions only the Companions[sahaba] of Mohammad[pbuh] can be followed. And in most part the problems in Islam is mostly due to the negligence. If you carefully rewind the timeline of Islam you will see that more or less in most part it was the power that made the divide not the interpretations. It seems the more time goes the people gets more ignorant. Did not i say one time the difference of knowledge i[or many of my age] gathered up about islam vs the student three or four year younger than me is very high.

quote:
I understand where Saviour is coming from when he says it is impossible to judge Islam without having read its holy book. But the belief underlying Saviour's argument is that there is one TRUE form of Islam residing with the text of the Quran. I can't bring myself to believe that, not with the fragmentation of Christianity (and other religions) providing such blatant evidence to the contrary

Even if there is one TRUE form of Islam it will not be possible to get to that standard. But the question if there is A true from of islam that can be proved is more important to me which i right now have no answer. Still the divide in muslim is not about the interpretation its about practice[not the pillar practices like namaz, fast, hazz etc.] Which varies, some muslims think the different way of practicing is something intolerable other thinks as long as the main pillar faith are exact then it is fine. And it only includes the fine details of daily life. You have to understand that if the interpretations was so messed up then it would have been 1.5 billion people joining war not some bunch of crazy illiterate.

Post last edited by saviour2012 on 06.04.2014, 03:47 AM.

06.04.2014, 03:41 AM

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quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller
You know saddle, I'm starting to think that you have a personal vendetta against religion. The way you argue gives of such an impression.

Correct. I've been outside religion looking in, then inside religion looking out, now I'm outside again. My experiences have caused me to develope a strong and certain belief that organised religion is bad in all manner of ways.

quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller Having faith in a religion does not equal understanding a religion. I can have faith in my math teacher, but that doesn't make me a math genius. Likewise, one having a certain religious faith does not necessarily mean he/she knows that own religion well.

I don't understand how you think I don't understand religion. What you said above is the argument I've been using in this thread for a long while against Saviour. I have been in my time a strongly committed evangelical Christian. How am I not supposed to understand religion?

quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller Your analogies are inaccurate from the get-go. You NEED to read a physics book to understand physics. You NEED to read a math book to understand math. You do NOT understand either just by observing physicists and mathematicians.

I disagree. You can learn maths and physics from a good teacher. You do NOT need to read books. I was taught maths by a teacher stood at the front of class and telling me about calculations by writing on a blackboard. I have never read a single book about maths.

quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller Saviour is right; you can't understand Islam without reading the Quran, no more than you can understand Christianity without reading the Bible.

We will just have to disagree here, but at least my experience proves you wrong: I knew enough about Christianity to decide I wanted to become a Christian before I had even looked inside the bible.

quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller And if you are thinking of refuting this, think about it for a moment: how many different sects of Christianity are there in the world? If you claim that you can understand a religion just based on how the followers act, then which facet of Christianity would you be looking at?

A person can be a Protestant Christian without bothering about understanding Mormons, Quakers, Roman Catholics, Russian and Greek Orthodox, etc, etc, because Christianity (and this is a key part of my argument) is broken up into dozens of different beliefs, just as Islam is broken up into more than one principal beleif (Sunni, Shia for example). What you are saying isn't really valid because each Christian sect/belief system thinks it is right and all the others are wrong.

This is one of my main arguments against organised religion. If there's a God who wants to give his true word to humankind, why are there so many different religions all claiming they know the truth? They cannot all be right. In fact all but one of them must be wrong. Where does that leave us? With the knowledge that religion is deluding millions, possibly billions of beleivers. Where is the value of organised religion in that?

quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller Would you really understand everything about Christianity from observing someone who is a Christian only in name but does not practise it?

Of course not. I have met several examples of such people, 'social christians' if you will, and I wouldn't consider them true Christians. In fact it bothers me that there were a large number of such people in the church community I used to attend. Their presence was one of the factors that drove me away from religion.

quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller If you "observe" only the outliers who kill or lie in the name of religion, would that really tell you about a religion?

Did the Holy Inquisitors of Spain and Portugal know they were right? Did the Crusaders know they were right? Did the Englishmen who burned Joanne d'Arc at the stake know they were right? Did the men who flew the jets into the World Trade Centre know they were right? Yes, they all did.

Your point is largely irrelevant as the people who lie and do evil, do it in the name of their faith, and thus religion becomes twisted by evil men into a tool to do evil. This is the key element of my argument against religion as I've made clear all along.

quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller And if you talk about the heads of religion, think about it: aren't priests or imaams humans too? They make mistakes, don't they? Or are you seriously saying that every one of their mistakes is because their religion say so, instead of their own lapse in intelligence?

It depends what those 'mistakes' are. If its a Christian priest like Fred Phelps who rants and raves bigotry against gays using the bible to pour hate on them, then that is still a fault of religion because such evil people twist and abuse religion into acts of hate. If its a north London imam who preaches hate and whose sermons cause young men to put bombs in their backpacks and go onto the London underground to blow up trains and kill innocent people then, yes, religion is directly and specifically to blame, because twisted wicked men used it to do evil. If nutcases like Fred Phelps and those North London Imams are teaching the religion they think is true, then religion is at fault for providing corrupt men with a means to spread their hate. Its not the men who are at fault, but religion itself. Without religion such men would have no audience.

This has been my entire point throughout this thread. Nothing you are saying here is denting what I'm saying.

quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller Religion is exclusive of the people who practise it; I've said it before and I say it again, and my view isn't held by only me. Two billion Christians in the world does not equate to two billion hard-core believers, as you yourself should know. Likewise, not every muslim understands or even follow Islam in their daily life.

We have gone over this argument before and proven your viewpoint to be false. Religion cannot exist without those who have faith to beleive in it. Religion is belief in god, or a god, or a pantheon of gods, whatever the faithful choose to beleive. Without that act of belief their cannot be religion. Lets not keep stepping backwards in the discussion.

We know from social statistics of groups and organisations that any group of people will consist of ~90% sheep and ~10% leaders. It's the leaders who end up as the Fred Phelpses, the Inquisitors, the hijackers of passenger airliners and the suicide bombers. If religion only consisted of the 90% sheep it would be less of an issue (I'd still have issues with it but that's beside the point). Its the 10% of fundamentalist nutcases that cause so much pain, terror and misery on this planet. They've been doing it for millennia. It needs to stop.

When people like Saviour even deny that 9/11 was a religiously motivated act I simply despair at anyone ever progressing a meaningful dialogue with religious people.

quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller Humans will cause grief regardless of faith. They will do so in the name of religion, and they will do so in the name of atheism, and they will do so in the name of science or logic or whatever else. It's called making an excuse to justify oneself.

Can you name a significant incident where people have caused grief in the name of atheism or science? Atheism is a non-belief, a completely harmless thing,m a belief in the total absence of something. I also don't know where any scientist or cause promoted by science has significantly - and intentionally - done harm.

Regarding your closing remarks about human nature and other sources of suffering in the world - I have already gone over this ground previously and I'm becoming tired of making these same points over and over as though you are just not reading what I'm writing. I'm not denying that there is wickedness and suffering in this world that has nothing to do with religion - but in this discussion I am talking about religion and the additional suffering it causes and has caused and the barrier to scientific and moral progress it puts up to reduce suffering and harmonius co-operation in the world.

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Post last edited by Saddletank on 06.17.2014, 05:05 PM.

06.17.2014, 02:18 PM

Registration Date: 06.03.03
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Posts: 6077

This is the only point that stands out:

quote:
Originally posted by Saddletank
Your point is largely irrelevant as the people who lie and do evil, do it in the name of their faith, and thus religion becomes twisted by evil men into a tool to do evil. This is the key element of my argument against religion as I've made clear all along.

Because this point pretty much turns your own entire argument against you. You argue that religion is at fault while I argued that people are at fault. Yet here in this single line you went a full 180 and said that people are to blame instead of religion. In fact, a large number of your points are saying that it is the people who are at fault and not religion itself.

So, I don't know man. You're pretty confusing here.

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quote:
Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

06.17.2014, 09:14 PM

arren18
Administrator

Registration Date: 08.15.06
Location: Edinburgh
Posts: 10665

Just to add a little to the discussion: Saddles, you wanted an example of significant bad things promoted by science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

Because science is something which requires a great amount of study, the majority are not scientifically literate. Therefore, the few who do have advanced knowledge have a great deal of authority, and if they twist things, or perform experiments designed to back up their own misguided beliefs, many people who don't know any better will believe them. This is much the same as people being encouraged to support harmful ideas by religious leaders.

Both science and religion have the flaw that while they don't have all the answers (we can't prove religious teachings and science is always changing according to new discoveries), many of their proponents believe they have all the answers, and they use the framework of their religion or science to justify morally unsound things.

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06.17.2014, 09:20 PM