Richard Dawkins- The Root of all evil

[TeppicTheBloodLyn]

Part 1-1:
http://www.youtube.com/?v=CPaD6D54L4o

Part 1-2:
http://www.youtube.com/?v=TUy-Uq3WuhA

Part 1-3:
http://www.youtube.com/?v=8GgD3lgspQE

[Greatchickenman]

Richard Dawkins>Religion

[Sling]

I watched 1 minute of the first part to realise one thing.
Richard Dawkins is a complete idiot and knows fuck all religion. Everyone knows that the root of all evil is not the religion but the people who twist and extort the original messages of religion.
"Oh look at me, I'm a scientist from Oxford,!"
Big deal, Richard Dawkins is a sad sad person if he believes there is no God or afterlife just because "Science can't prove it". I would rather believe in God and have a chace of going to heaven than to take a chance and not.

[Greatchickenman]

That tends to be everyone's philosophy.

The way I see it, you're smiled upon by god or whatever it is that created us if you've lived long enough to reproduce.

You don't need to do all these crazy things for the sake of religion.

Personally, I probably would believe in all of these things if they werent distorted so many times. The bible contradicts itself in tens of hundreds of places. I'm sure the others do too. The bible was bastardized by so many people that the original message had to have been lost thousands of years ago.

[Sling]

So true. So very, very true.
But I don't think the bible contradicts itself that much. But you have to remember that the bible is seperated into 2 bits, the old testament and the new testament. Once the New Testament began a lot of things in the Old Testament became irrelevant and Jesus even says and also it was written by people and people always get things even if it was the word of God. You're right about the original message being lost though.

By the way, I love the fact that I can have such intelligent discussions about Religion with you.

[TeppicTheBloodLyn]

Big deal, Richard Dawkins is a sad sad person if he believes there is no God or afterlife just because "Science can't prove it". I would rather believe in God and have a chace of going to heaven than to take a chance and not.

I think he has a point about that, though. If there is no empirical evidence, how can you say with certainty that there is anything there beyond your own need to cope with your existental anxiety? Just because people can't disprove them doesn't mean there's something there. That doesn't pervent you from going there to look for evidence, but untill you've found it, how can you claim with even the tiniest bit of certainty that it is, not may be but is, in fact, true?

[Telephalsion]

If you have faith just because you don't want to be wrong or to be cheated out of a free ticked to heaven you've got the wrong reason to beleive in god.

It's not like you'll go to heaven just because you beleive in god anyways.

[Fitz Tayo]

Exactly. If somebody was good and perfect and stuff under whatever particular religion is right, should there be a correct religion etc.

Anyway if they were perfect and didn't believe in the religion and whatever its beliefs are, do they still get into whatever paradise lies in the afterlife.

P.S. Being neutral with religion is fun.

[HolsteinCow]

This video>That video

[Greatchickenman]

We're totally gonna own Australia.

[Teenr0cker]

And we will think we've ended the communist ways in Vietnam.

[Telephalsion]

I honestly never thought americans were that stupid, i hope that's just a freak occurence.

[Greatchickenman]

If you do a wide enough survey ANYWHERE you'll find people that stupid.

[Aegis]

Ho-ly fuck. People ARE pretty damn stupid, but I didn't suspect... I probably should have, really.

Anyway, those videos are one big logical fallacy. I'm serious. I wasn't so sure at the time, but I looked it up. Composition is the fallacy of assuming that something has a property because the parts if that something have that property. For example: All of the ingrediants in the cake are good, therefore the cake will be good. What he's saying here is that because Religion has been done badly, the very concept of religion itself is flawed. If that's not what he's saying, correct me, please, but I'm pretty sure that's what he's saying. He makes the same fallacy again, saying that because the people in a religion do fuck-crazy things in the name of that religion means that the religion itself is bad buisness.

I don't believe in the inerrancy of the bible, there are a few contradictions and more than a few places where god looks like a violent jerk. However, I don't believe in a huge conspiracy to purposefully alter the Bible, either. Virtually, maybe not so virtually, the only thing in the Bible that isn't human interpretation are the words of Jesus. So maybe, someone just interpreted it wrongly. This goes trippley so for the old testament, which mainly took place before history was recorded for the most part, includes a lot of things which were just myths which people considdered to be true. I guess I could be saying and arguing this better, but what I mean is that most likely, a lot of these stories were not written down as soon as they happened, so that over time, when it came time to write it down, the story had been altered like a myth to be somewhat different than what it originally was. This applies especially to very early stuff like Adam and Eve being thrown out of the Garden of Eden (I actually think that story in particular could be pretty accurate, but it's just a feeling and a bunch of obscure stuff). Another thing which could have happened is that myths which never really happened were widely believed to be true, or things which really happened had god or the supernatural added to them to spice it up a bit. Take, for example, the story of Sampson. If you think about it, it sounds just like a classic tall tale (Paul Bunyan, etc...). Another thing that could have been like this is the tower of Babel, which could have just been an attempt by humans to understand the differences of people's languages. Maybe Noah's Ark... Actually, probably Noah's Ark now that I think of it.
Remember, I'm not really certain of any of that.

The New Testament, however, was recorded all while it was happening. Because of this, we can be almost certain that those things are exactly what Jesus said. Dispite this, things in acts, while probably pretty good, aren't unquestionably absolute truth.

Now, what Dawkins was criticizing was Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. I haven't had much contact with the other two, but I know as a fact that main-line Christianity is pretty fucked up. When I was a lot younger, I went to a Church that believed every copy of Harry Potter is demon-posessed and that getting into heaven was a matter of giving your ten percent every month. Now, none of this is more than slightly biblically based. In fact, it's basically a bunch of Dingo's kidneys. Now, a lot of Christians say that Hurricane Katrina was a vengance from God on New Orleans. This is completely and utterly against what Jesus and the Bible stood for. Jesus preached to love your enemies, he preached non-violence. He went into the houses of the worst sinners to get them to change their ways, instead of killing them, like he would have according to these people. Right up there on the ten commandments is the commandment not to kill. I mean, "Vengence is mine, says the Lord", but isn't that about the afterlife?

As for encouraging people not to think out their beliefs, I've seen that preached a lot too. However, nothing Jesus ever said implies this, and nothing in the ten commandments does either. Coincidentally (or not), it is a very good doctrine for keeping church leadership in charge and controling what you think. Hmmm...

The point is that people definitely take the religion out of conext and just use it as an excuse to do evil, and far from being the Religion's fault, it's just the way the human race operates.

Please note that I'm not absolutely sure about this, and I haven't done a large amount of reaserch. So if you feel like saying that this whole post is bullshit and I'm an idiot (apparently something people like to do these days), in my defense, I wasn't saying that I was absolutely sure about it. Not that I think it's unlikely myself, either. It's just very far from 100%.

Also, there's still one prickly subject: people going to Hell. I haven't even come close to figuiring out a good explanation myself, so I won't even go into it.

One of his main points, the so-called "fact of evolution", isn't such a fact. I would go into it in a lot more detail, but that would tripple the length of an already long rant.

[TeppicTheBloodLyn]

Now, what Dawkins was criticizing was Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. I haven't had much contact with the other two, but I know as a fact that main-line Christianity is pretty fucked up. When I was a lot younger, I went to a Church that believed every copy of Harry Potter is demon-posessed and that getting into heaven was a matter of giving your ten percent every month. Now, none of this is more than slightly biblically based. In fact, it's basically a bunch of Dingo's kidneys. Now, a lot of Christians say that Hurricane Katrina was a vengance from God on New Orleans. This is completely and utterly against what Jesus and the Bible stood for. Jesus preached to love your enemies, he preached non-violence. He went into the houses of the worst sinners to get them to change their ways, instead of killing them, like he would have according to these people. Right up there on the ten commandments is the commandment not to kill. I mean, "Vengence is mine, says the Lord", but isn't that about the afterlife?

Well, there are a few cae where Jesus did not preach the word of peace. To quote from the bible: Matthew 10:34
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Luke 12:51
Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Also, there's still one prickly subject: people going to Hell. I haven't even come close to figuiring out a good explanation myself, so I won't even go into it.

Could you define prickly? I don't really see the problem with the subject as opposed to any other subject in religion.

One of his main points, the so-called "fact of evolution", isn't such a fact. I would go into it in a lot more detail, but that would tripple the length of an already long rant.

Well, actually it is an observed fact. I Japan, one has recorded the growth of a naturally produced bacteria, without any human intervention, which has the unique abillity to digest nylon from human factories. This would mean it had evolved in the last 30 years or so.

I'm sorry I haven't responded to the rest of your post yet, but I hae to catch the school buss and I don't have time for the research. I'll see what I can do when I get home. Thank you.