Richard Dawkins- The Root of all evil

[Sling]

How is religion the root of evil? The root of evil is, has only ever been and only ever will be humans and the devil.

[TeppicTheBloodLyn]

How is religion the root of evil? The root of evil is, has only ever been and only ever will be humans and the devil.

Notice the question mark? In the interview, he say that it is of course not the root of ALL evil, but the prosess on non-thinking and using abstract concepts such as the devil to explain physical or psycological and sociological phenomenon often leads to situations where people do things that can be considered evil. Anyway, evil is a subjective concept, not obejective, so in different cultures almost anything can be considered evil.

[ReaperGal]

Notice the question mark? In the interview, he say that it is of course not the root of ALL evil, but the prosess on non-thinking and using abstract concepts such as the devil to explain physical or psycological and sociological phenomenon often leads to situations where people do things that can be considered evil. Anyway, evil is a subjective concept, not obejective, so in different cultures almost anything can be considered evil.

Hear hear.

[Sling]

Non-thinking? Abstract Concepts? Obviously you know nothing about Christianity. Hohoho, now you've asked for it. Better get a cup of coffee coz' this post is going to be long.
Anywho, I didn't bother watching that video as I lost interest in the whole Richard Dawkins thing after seeing the first few minutes of the first video.

I am a scientist. I can find no scientific evidence which gives any reason which I should believe in God.

That is where he lost the argument. Now, that is non-thinking, trying to prove the existence of God using Science. Hello, God is a spirit being, therefore he is not bound by the laws of physics and any other field of science. If any of you have seen the program Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson ascends into a higher plane of existence, essentially becoming a Spirit Being and is able to do things no human could, such as apparate out of thin air. Even though Stargate SG-1 was fictional the theory/thinking behind Spirits and Spirit Beings is not. A Spirit Being is something that exists but has no physical form. If it does not exist physically we can't use physics to prove it exists. And also we have to take in the age old concept of "Just Beacuse we can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist". Take the wind for example. We can't see it, but people say they can feel it. People can't see God but some people claim to have felt some kind of Holy Prescence. Encounters with God etc are dismissed as figments of our imagination but how do we know that the wind is not a figment of our imagination? Science itself is an Abstract Concept and a process of Non-thinking as we have to "prove it" using Earth science which is limited to our current knowledge and methods. Not to mention Science contradicts itself as according to science we can't call scientific evidence scientific because no one has "proved it". And obviously Satan is not the sole reason there is evil world. Satan merely started a chain of events which caused all of humanity to sin and commit evil. And before you go saying God etc doesn't exist, yes, there is no "scientific proof" proving God's existence, but there is no "scientific proof" disproving God's existence. And also, you shouldn't judge an entire religion based on the beliefs of a few of that relgion's supposed followers. Take Islam for example, Islam teaches that Suicide is wrong but here we get suicide bombers. Just becuase some people are of the same religion doesn't neccessarily have exactly the same beliefs. For instance, take my Dad and I. We are both Christians. We believe in Jesus and all that but quite a few of our beliefs are very different. My Dad believes that all Rock, Metal and Punk music is evil and the spawn of Satan. I quite enjoy these music genres. And could harp on about how wrong you are but I can't be arsed to waste my breath on any single-minded people. And before you go saying I'm single-minded you can just shut up. The only reason I am a Christian is becuase some guy proved it to me using a wide selection of methods, not only Science, and it made the most sense not becuase it was drilled in to me and so on, not to mention I'd rather believe in an afterlife and a God who loves us then believe in bugger all.

Anywho, let's get on topic. The root of all evil, hmm, now that's easy.
Now, before I start ranting on like Alanthreonus Phillipe Strataphachar on Steroids and helium, let's get one thing straight. Nothing you can say can disprove God and Religion as they have already to been proven to me using all kinds of evidence which you probably could never even think of.
Now at the dawn of time God was sat there twiddling his thumbs and whipped up a bunch of materials. It even says this in the bible.

Genesis Chapter 1Verse 1 In the beginning God created ths sky and the Earth. Verse 2 The Earth was empty and had no form.

No the Bible is pretty vague(there is a reason for this which I may explain later), but we can draw up a number of theories from that.
Some people believe God snapped up the Materials and the Earth formed when he told it to instantaneously. I believe God used the Big Bang to put everything in place. Now after God had finished that, he made Heaven and all the Angels. Now one of those angels was called Lucifer and was the most magnificent angel around. He was second only to Jesus and God.
God then made Adam and said to Lucifer to bow to Adam to accept him as an equal but Lucifer had become proud and arrogant becuase of his power and beauty and refused and in fact became quite angry and tried to overthrow God but was defeated by another ArchAngel named Micheal and had had his name changed from Lucifer to Satan and was thrown into the firey chasms of hell. Even though we are not told this in Genesis these facts were revealed to Jeremiah later on. Satan was quite pissed at this and deeply resented God and hated Adam and Eve and all humanity.
That is the story behind the Devil becoming The Devil. Even though Satan has no direct control of people he has the power to tempt them to do evil.
Now Evil depends on viewpoints etc as you have said but it doesn't matter what you're beliefs are Satan will always be there to tempt you. Whenever you have a feeling or a little voice in the back of your head telling you to do something you know is wrong, it Satan combined with your own Human Nature. Now Satan isn't solely responsible for the evil in people, he merely multiplies it.

Now an explanation behind the Bible, the Bible contains all the information we need to know. If something is missing or vague it becuase we don't need to know or to give a reason to study the Bible to find answers or to go and find answers elsewhere. Many people believe the Bible contradicts itself, this is not true. You have to remember that it is split into 2 sections, the old and the new testaments. The Old testament contains all the stuff people used to have to do to please God, tells the History of the Earth and also gives clues to things in the new testament. Whereas the New Testament is an account of the Life of Jesus through the eyes of his followers, states the New Laws we should follow and gives an insight of the future. Also note how many things described in The Revelations have happened despite being predicted around a thousand years ago. For example, in the book of revelations it says that the star of bitterness which was named Wormwood would fall to the Earth and pollute a third of the world. Now my Russain may not be top notch but Chernobyl means Wormwood and, as I recall, the Nuclear Fallout polluted a large area and the wind spread the radiation further polluting a large area of the Earth.

Revelation Chapter 8Verse 10 Then the third angel blew his trumpet, and a large star, burning like a torch, fell from the sky. It fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. Verse 11 The name of the star was Wormwood. And a third of the water became bitter, and many people died from drinking the water that was bitter.

As I said before Chernobyl is Russian for Wormwood. Wormwood is the name of a very bitter plant. Now if I can see from those verses thet it depicts Chernobyl(no matter how remotely), and I am mentally disabled and if a cannibal were to crack open the contents of my skull, there wouldn't be enough for a single meal, then I think others should be able to see this too. Somehow I don't think is all coincidence. Scientists have found evidence that events from the Bible happened they've just been hushed by other Scientists and Corrupt Governments becuase they don't to be proven wrong. You should also bear into accoun that the original texts were written thousands of years ago and we can't ignore he possibility of human error. Now, I've already yacked for too long, and don't go complaining to me. You brought this upon yourselves. I have resisted the urge to rant on about the Bible before but you tipped me over the edge.

Now let's look at religion itself. Most religions centre around the existence of a God or divine being/entity of some shape or form. Now, all 3 of the Abrahamic Relgions(Christianity, Judaism and Islam) have Relgious laws. Most, if not all, of these laws are what can be described as good deeds (e.g. One of the 10 commandments is "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thou love thyself). However, these are the Original Religions. Over the years people have broken away from the main religions forming their own sects and cults which are spin-offs of the main relgion they used to follow but shaped to individual's liking. For example, Henry VIII wanted to divorce and remarry, but this was prohibited by Catholism so he started his own church where divorce was allowed amongst other things. So if someone claims to be from a relgion but are in fact from a spin off of that religion they are not from the religion they are claiming to be from, if that makes any sense. So if a Catholisist claims to be Christian then they are lying just like if a Suicide Bomber person says they are Muslim, they are also lying.

Well that's enough for now. I'll be around if you want to ask me any questions about Christianity. See ya.

[Greatchickenman]

You just gave about 6 paragraph's worth of information trying to explain something that can't be explained.

Its an easy solution.

God cannot be explained

Therefore,

Some people believe in God

And others don't

[Telephalsion]

... A Spirit Being is something that exists but has no physical form. If it does not exist physically we can't use physics to prove it exists. And also we have to take in the age old concept of "Just Beacuse we can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist". Take the wind for example. We can't see it, but people say they can feel it. People can't see God but some people claim to have felt some kind of Holy Prescence. Encounters with God etc are dismissed as figments of our imagination but how do we know that the wind is not a figment of our imagination?

Okay, sorry to shoot you down after making a post that acutally had some good points. I was ready to accept most of it but then I read this. For fucks sake,m you don't know what wind is?
Wind isn't ethereal, wind can be proved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind

Read it through.

Winds, to be simple, is gases moving in a direction. Meaning that it's composed of matter, meaning that it can be measured.
Meaning that it can be scientifically proven
Meaning that you just said sometihng very stupid.
I'm sorry but I can't take someone seriously who thinks the wind can't be proved.


Though, as far as spirit beings I'm not going to say that they can't exist. I'm not a beleiver of ghosts and such but I'm very open to suggestions.
Seeing that all things are made of the same stuff, there should be no real limit to what can be made, it's just a mater of likelyhood.
E=mc2 says that an amount of mass is equavalient to a certain amount of energy.
Meaning that the rock outside your porch is just a special form of energy.
Why should there be limitations to what kinds of energy there can be?

[Strayed Wanderer]

If you didn't know that we already knew wind existed, Sweden has worse schools than the U.S..

[HolsteinCow]

If you didn't know that we already knew wind existed, Sweden has worse schools than the U.S..

I don't think that's something they teach you in Swedish school, Bob.

[ReaperGal]

I'm going to make this incredibly simple.

Religion has all the answers. That is the problem.

I'd rather not sit on my ass and see the world regress. I want some fucking progress and that's never going to really happen unless we stop being religious.

The world is so much more incredible when there's stuff to learn. Belief in god is terribly depressing to me.

EDIT: Just to note... I was raised buddhist, so I've never really believed in god anyway.

[Fitz Tayo]

I'd rather not sit on my ass and see the world regress.

Hear hear! Tha's mo' like it! Foo' etc.

[Strayed Wanderer]

I'd rather not sit on my ass and see the world regress.

I'd rather just sit on my ass than do just about anything...

[Sling]

For fucks sake,m you don't know what wind is? Wind isn't ethereal, wind can be proved.

Yes, I do know what wind is. I was giving an example of something which exists but can't be seen. Obviously wind exists.

I'm sorry I ranted like that, but I was trying to prove that:
a) Not all Religious Stuff is complete bullshit.
b) Not all people who belong to religious groups are single-minded.
c) Why we should at least consider the possibilty that God exists.

Religion has all the answers. That is the problem.

I'd rather not sit on my ass and see the world regress. I want some fucking progress and that's never going to really happen unless we stop being religious.

The world is so much more incredible when there's stuff to learn. Belief in god is terribly depressing to me.

EDIT: Just to note... I was raised buddhist, so I've never really believed in god anyway.

Religion does not have all the answers. I'm pretty damn sure I covered that. Some things have been left out so we can try to discover these things ourselves, or something like that.

Not all Religions stop progress. The world is going to regress anyway. Our countries still persist in their usage if fossil fuels. In 30 years all our oil is going to be depleted and becuase the world is too fucking lazy to convert to wind power we're going to destroy the environment in the process.
Some guy is going to join the world into one cashless country with no beliefs and a universal currency. Relgious people will be killed for no reason and there will be a massive money crash and everyone will be left without a pot to piss in.

[ReaperGal]

Religion does not have all the answers. I'm pretty damn sure I covered that. Some things have been left out so we can try to discover these things ourselves, or something like that.

Fine. Give me an example.

Not all Religions stop progress.

Yes, religions do stop progress. There's 'Moral' blockades we need to get pass. America's science programs used to be the best in the world, and now they're seriously behind, due mostly to groundless religious beliefs that say (for example) a fetus is more important that a living and grown human being. Also, if we believe that there's an afterlife where everything is perfect, what incentive is there to make this world better?

The world is going to regress anyway. Our countries still persist in their usage if fossil fuels. In 30 years all our oil is going to be depleted and becuase the world is too fucking lazy to convert to wind power we're going to destroy the environment in the process. Some guy is going to join the world into one cashless country with no beliefs and a universal currency. Relgious people will be killed for no reason and there will be a massive money crash and everyone will be left without a pot to piss in.

Oh, and you know this, huh? The part about running out of oil is the only certain part of that statement, the rest is groundless prophecy or opinion.

[Telephalsion]

If we run out of oil we have uraniium, sure lots of people are against it now, but when faced with the choice of no power or nuclear power many people would proably chose the nuclear way.
And nuclear power has great potential, and even more likely so if we manage fusion reactions.

At least that's what I think.

Oh and sling, you said that you wanted to prove tghat not all religous types weren't single minded. You don't need to with both reaper, and to some extent me, here.

I just think taht there are too many humans around, not to be mean but that's just what i think.
Especially when so many humans want equal rights.
If we all ha equal amounts of, say money. Nobody would have anything really.

[Sarcasm]

Tele, In that last post, You've sounded so much like my father its frightening.