RainStride

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said "Also, many religious do not believe all other religions are wrong." Yes this is a true statement. It is also a statement THAT I ALREADY CLEARLY SPECIFIED IN MY ORIGINAL POST. I literally said that not all religious believe other religions to be wrong. You apparently either didn't fully read my post or deliberately ignored what I said in order to try to make it look like I am arguing a weaker position than I actually am. This is yet another straw man fallacy. You seem to be fond of misrepresenting your opponent's views. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said "Muslims, for example, believe Jesus was in fact a prophet, and thus he is revered in that religion just as strongly as in Christianity." No. Jesus is not revered equally in Islam as in Christianity. Muslims have a rule that says that they have to tax members of other abrahamic religions (Judaism and Christianity) more than they tax Muslim citizens. This is strongly discriminatory. Muslims often like to try to say that they treat other religions charitably, but it is a complete and total lie. Their book literally instructs them to systematically discriminate against members of other belief systems. In fact, in the Quran there is even a rule that says that being an atheist is punishable by death. How is that supposed to be peaceful or harmonious or loving? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said "I'm just teasing, I understand what you mean. (:" No. You are not just teasing and you do not understand what I mean. You are wrong on both accounts. You have asserted that what I am saying is a load of "hogwash" but have provided no actual logical counterargument to any of my arguments. You have assumed many thing about me without evidence. You are spreading objectively incorrect information about several different religious (or non-religious) viewpoints. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said "But other things are used to control people as well, even more so than religion, imo.". It is certainly true that other things are used to control people. Nobody ever said that they weren't. But that is irrelevant to the argument. You are committing a red herring fallacy (an irrelevant distraction that confuses the audience to prevent the real point from being discussed). The question being asked is "Would the world be better (or would people be more free from control) if religion didn't exist versus if it did, all else being equal so that this is the ONLY variable being changed?". All other possible sources of bad behavior and influence are IRRELEVANT to this question. Economics and corrupt politicians of course have a bad influence and the world it would of course be good if we stopped them. However, economics and political corruption are independent of religion. The question is would the world be better with people making lots of blind faith assumptions (i.e. religion) or would it be better off with people making their decisions based on evidence and logic and secular ethics (i.e. non-religion and science)? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said "My point is religion is, imo, the greatest chance humans have for true progress towards world peace." Prove it. You are asserting that it is better for people to live based on blind faith assumptions than to live based on evidence and logic. This is an extraordinary claim and doesn't even appear to make sense. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Present your evidence. Why is your view correct and the opposition is not? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said "I find it funny how world peace seems to be associated with religion; i.e., 'I'm not religious, (thus) world peace is a fallacy.' Not everyone does it, but most of the people I've spoken with regarding topic seem to lean that way." No atheist I've talked to has ever said anything like that. It is completely logically incoherent. A person who lives a strongly evidence based life would try to avoid making such nonsensical statements. It appears that you are just making this up in order to make your opposition look bad. Religions are associated with peace only because they constantly spread propaganda designed to make their believers think that morality and religion are somehow synonymous. I have often heard religious people say "How can you be good without god?" or "How can you be moral without god?" or "What's to stop someone from committing evil if there's no threat of eternal hell?". Name one ethical choice made by a believer that couldn't be just as easily made by a non-believer. I find the idea that you need the threat of eternal punishment hanging over your head to prevent you from being evil to be very very creepy. Basically, what it implies is that you'd have no reason to be good unless you are threatened with punishment. The kind of person that that would apply to would have to be someone who is basically morally bankrupt and has no real concept of ethics. In the atheist and agnostic world, people are nice simply because it is the right thing to do. Why would you ever need divine retribution just in order to be nice? The very idea of it is disgusting. Ethical thinking shouldn't require you to be rewarded or punished for your deeds. You should do it because it is fundamentally right and reduces human suffering and increases well being, rather than for selfish after-life based reasons. I was honestly completely floored by your response to my post. I am not sure if you actually read the whole thing or if you really are that committed to not thinking honestly and rationally about this. Anyway, have a good day everyone.

@crimsonsun2xseries You said "But religion as a concept is benevolent, some people misuse it, as is the case with science.". Religions are all about faith, and faith is equivalent to blind assumptions basically. Blind assumptions can never be "benevolent". Blind assumptions can sometimes lead to good results, but the *justification* for a blind assumption is always non-existant by definition. There's nothing benevolent about pretending to know things you don't know. That's like arguing that driving with your eyes closed is benevolent. You assert that religion is benevolent but you have no evidence for it, and you are ignoring the evidence to the contrary. There are of course tons and tons of wonderful and nice religious people. But that's not what we are even discussing here. That is a red herring fallacy (i.e. a distraction from the actual point being discussed). We are discussing what is or is not true. Benevolence is irrelevant to that. Furthermore, name one good action that a religious person could do that a non-religious person could not. There aren't any. Thus the core difference between a religious person and a non-religious person is that the religious person is willing to assume things without evidence whereas the non-religious person requires real reasoning and coherent logic with proof. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You also said "You say you have studied hundreds of arguments against religion, aren't you just biasly coloring your view on the matter lest you devote the same exertion for the opposite viewpoint?" I will amend the number "hundreds" to instead somewhere between 50-100 arguments. These are all of varying sizes of course, ranging from concise arguments a couple of lines long to 5 minute youtube videos to much longer ones. Anyway, when you say "aren't you just biasly coloring your view on the matter lest you devote the same exertion for the opposite viewpoint?" you are assuming (with no justification or evidence whatsoever) that I haven't devoted as much time to considering the opposing view. Remember, I said I was raised baptist. I have read and listened to arguments made by the religious side, and have taken care to even seek out their strongest arguments. After doing all that extensive research, I have concluded that the religious side of the arguments is vastly weaker. You shouldn't make blind assumptions about me. You know almost nothing about me. Then again, it isn't surprising that you did that anyway, since making blind assumptions about things is the defining characteristic of religious behavior. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said "Also, no offense, really, but that was hogwash. I don't even know where to begin. Yes there are an infinite number of explanations, sure, but why is God rule of the list?". Why do you keep making straw man fallacy arguments against me? I NEVER SAID THAT GOD WAS RULED OUT AS A POSSIBILITY! You are pissing me off a little bit now. Don't say I said things that I never said. I said it is impossible to decide which of the cosmological arguments is correct, and that even included the naturalistic explanation (i.e. the "scientific default" of choosing the theory with the smallest number of extra assumptions, e.g. Occam's Razor). Ask any atheist "Is it possible that god exists?" and almost every single atheist will say "yes". I've literally never even met one who said "No". It is a common propaganda misconception of the religious that non-religious people think they know with absolute certainty that god does not exist. Almost nobody in the non-religious community thinks that. You are arguing a against a position that I don't even hold. Prove to me that there isn't an invisible and intangible unicorn sitting on your desk right now. You can't. The claim is not falsifiable, because it is inherently designed to be not falsifiable in order to always have an easy way out in any argument. The various cosmological arguments (including god, living in the matrix, etc) are exactly the same. They are virtually impossible to prove or disprove. They are thus pointless to pursue until evidence is found. This is the atheistic perspective. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You said "You say being non-religious gives you the freedom of being able to marvel at the mysterious questions of the universe, guess that excludes the god question altogether.". Again, I never said that god has been ruled out. God has not been ruled out. Almost no atheists believe that god has been disproven. Atheists and scientists in general are free to wonder and marvel at the world, and this includes wondering about and fantasizing about god and devising experiments to test for the possibility of god existing. Thus the point I made is precisely true. What makes you think you have the right to assume you understand atheism? You criticized me for not giving the religious side more study (despite the fact that I have actually studied it very thoughtfully and in depth) and yet you literally do not even understand the most basic premises of what atheists actually believe, otherwise you would not be asserting that I have claimed that god does not exist. Again, I never claimed that god does not exists. I said there is no evidence by which to decide upon the theories. Therefore, the logical choice is to disregard the theories altogether and live an evidence based life. THAT is basically all that atheism and agnosticism is, contrary to the propaganda religious people spread. You can fantasize about the cosmological possibilities all you want, but it is never correct or even ethical to presume without evidence that you somehow magically know the answers.