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GOD:True or false
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<blockquote data-quote="Grayson" data-source="post: 24136" data-attributes="member: 18"><p><strong>Re: GOD:True or false</strong></p><p></p><p>Oohhhhh, I love this place...</p><p> </p><p>But, to the debate-mobile...</p><p> </p><p>Ever since man started praying to gods, religion has grown as an institutional power. Until the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment, religion had organized itself into the dominant power governing all spiritual and secular affairs of man. Prior to 1700 AD, all affairs of society were under the domination of religious hierarchies. </p><p></p><p>In the process of wielding its enormous power, religious institutions have held the human race in a vice-grip of irrationality and have made every conceivable effort to suppress rationality and science. Only in 1998 did the Roman Catholic Church admit its error when it condemned Galileo in 1543 for pronouncing that the earth revolved around the sun, instead of having the sun revolve around the earth as demanded by the Bible. </p><p></p><p>Only the complete absurdity of its position forced the Pope to admit grudgingly that there might be some validity to the theory of evolution. He then explained the previous lapse by proclaiming that God had arranged for evolution to take place.</p><p></p><p>Evolution is a scientific fact and a Law of Nature. Evolution is not a theory any more than the Theory of Relativity is a theory. Institutional religion has oppressed rationality and has held humankind in a devastating chokehold for more than 2000 years. </p><p></p><p>We will gain nothing by describing the horrors that religions have inflicted on humanity in the name of their gods. From the crusades and the inquisition, to its devastating cooperation with the aristocracy in fettering and enslaving man?s body and man?s mind, religion has taken a heavy toll on humankind and on rationality</p><p></p><p>The horrors of religious institutions are now obsolete and part of the past. As we enter the third millennium, the power of religious institutions is waning, albeit far from dead. The influence of organized religion on the affairs of man is declining steadily. This development is due to such events as the French Revolution, the United States Constitution and the inevitable spread of democracy as the only political system seen to be compatible with freedom and the innate nature of man.</p><p></p><p>Man still interacts with religious institutions on the individual level but the political power of the church over the affairs of man has disappeared, with the temporary exception of a few Islamic nations.</p><p></p><p>This drastic change in societal power struggles was a product of the Age of Enlightenment. This step up the ladder of evolution was the result of the rational intellect of a new breed of philosophers like Voltaire, Rousseau and Locke. Their visions of a social contract replaced the institutions of feudalistic and religious slavery.</p><p></p><p>The advances in the enlightenment of man over the last five hundred years were pioneered by a few intellectual giants and by a small minority of rational, intelligent philosophers, scientists and visionary firebrands. A large majority of humanity still goes to church on Sunday, fears its gods and prays for salvation </p><p></p><p>The masses of men remain emotion-driven animals that have neither the intelligence nor the fortitude to throw off the shackles of religious irrationality. The man who goes to church and prays to god is still carrying the demon of religion on his back.</p><p></p><p>The next step in the evolution of man must wait until the mass of men has evolved to a higher plane. Intellectual freedom and honesty will allow man?s rational mind to exert its full powers and will enable man to assert a higher degree of control over his primitive emotional system </p><p> </p><p>A rational examination of the origins and sources of religion, as well as the benefits and disadvantages of religion, is unlikely to change the mind of anyone who is afraid to examine these concepts objectively.</p><p></p><p>People who approach the subject of religion with trepidation or who cannot distinguish between reality and superstition, find it difficult to apply logic to their thought processes. It is much easier to belief in miracles and pseudo-science than to acquire facts and engage in incisive, rational thought.</p><p></p><p>We can observe many members of society who appear to be intelligent and rational in the pursuit of their daily life. However, on Sundays they go to their church or temple. There they participate in incomprehensible and irrational rituals involving magic, prayer and other activities demeaning to their rational minds. Their rational mind tells them that a god does not exist and yet, there they sit and pray to him. </p><p></p><p>It has been suggested that religious people compartmentalize their thought processes in order to avoid otherwise inevitable and destructive conflicts. In this manner, rational and irrational thought processes can coexist in separate, locked compartments of the brain without connectivity. Yet, one wonders if there is some inevitable leakage from the irrational to the rational compartment, surreptitiously contaminating rationality. </p><p></p><p>Even some bright people may feel too frightened to face life without the consolations of a religion, cult or sect. Their upbringing has imbued in them the belief that it is safer not to subject the teachings of one?s church or temple or mosque to close scrutiny. Furthermore, becoming an agnostic or atheist can cut one off from the comfort and companionship of co-believers in a religion. This potentially damaging consequence of doubting one?s belief system is a strong deterrent to questioning deeply imbedded religious beliefs.</p><p></p><p>Religion may also satisfy an irrational human need for cosmic significance. Some persons yearn to be more than the grain of sand in the vastness of the universe that man really is. As long as men and women feel week and insignificant in the face of awe-inspiring natural forces, logic will not be as important as religion and man will prefer the sanctuary of imaginary, all-powerful beings.</p><p></p><p>Thus, people tend to associate in communities of like-minded people. Believers restrict their circle of friend and family to other believers. They surround themselves with mirror images of themselves.</p><p></p><p>If people wear blinkers successfully, then the young and na?ve among them hear nothing but the desired belief. No reputable person in his or her sphere of life ever disagrees with or objects to the tenets of their common belief system. As time goes on, people in a mentally incestuous society consider it normal that all seemingly intelligent people believe as the community believes.</p><p></p><p>When a believer encounters non-believers, the shock may be great. The believer asks, "How can they not believe? Doesn?t everyone believe?" The believing community usually provides a convenient answer to that question: The non-believers are evil or they are possessed by an evil power. If you hang around them enough it might be contagious. </p><p></p><p>As a result, the believer becomes paranoid and afraid of non-believers, because he fails to understand that non-believers do not need to believe in anything. Non-believers rely on reason, logic and the factual evidence of the real world.</p><p></p><p>Instead, the believer sees non-believers as abnormal and undesirable. Thus, religious belief maintains itself through self-affirmation, insulation and demonization of non-believers.</p><p> </p><p>The archaic belief systems of religion and the supernatural are the dominion of primitive, prehistoric man. Modern man is engaged in the accelerating process of replacing religion and superstition with science and rationality. Superstition and religion will eventually disappear in the dustbin of human history.</p><p></p><p>However, evolution is an excruciatingly slow process, and the institutions of witchcraft, religion and the supernatural are in no eminent danger of demise. Evolution is unappeasable and relentless, but it deals in centuries and millennia, not in years or decades. </p><p></p><p>What does the future hold for the conflict between rationality and religion? We merely need to examine the underlying trend of evolution. Evolution will continue to exhibit the same trend that is has exhibited for the last four billion years. Evolution has steadily enhanced specialization by means of increased complexity.</p><p> </p><p>It is interesting to note that the degree of involvement with the supernatural, including religion, is directly proportional to the degree of factual knowledge available to a person. The bell curve, depicting the graphic display of variances in intelligence within a population, places 80% of the U. S. population in the I.Q. range from 85 to 115.</p><p></p><p>It is interesting to note that 90 % of the U. S. population is also involved in religions or other irrational belief systems. The September 1999 issue of the prestigious Scientific American magazine published a repeat-survey, confirming previous surveys: </p><p></p><p>Whereas 90% of the general population has a distinct belief in a personal god and a life after death, only 40% of scientists on the B.S. level favor these beliefs in religion and merely 10% of notable scientists believe in a personal god or in an afterlife. Contrary to the notion fostered by so-called creation-scientists, Albert Einstein did not believe in a personal god.</p><p> </p><p>Eutychus: That was the finest rebuttal argument that I have enjoyed here on a religious debate, I salute you. Curiously, I am a believer in God. It is difficult to have survived 4 cancer episodes and not believe. 'Sides that, without God, I'd've never been born. I just like to argue...</p><p> </p><p>Sue: Good, but traditional reply there.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Grayson, post: 24136, member: 18"] [b]Re: GOD:True or false[/b] Oohhhhh, I love this place... But, to the debate-mobile... Ever since man started praying to gods, religion has grown as an institutional power. Until the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment, religion had organized itself into the dominant power governing all spiritual and secular affairs of man. Prior to 1700 AD, all affairs of society were under the domination of religious hierarchies. In the process of wielding its enormous power, religious institutions have held the human race in a vice-grip of irrationality and have made every conceivable effort to suppress rationality and science. Only in 1998 did the Roman Catholic Church admit its error when it condemned Galileo in 1543 for pronouncing that the earth revolved around the sun, instead of having the sun revolve around the earth as demanded by the Bible. Only the complete absurdity of its position forced the Pope to admit grudgingly that there might be some validity to the theory of evolution. He then explained the previous lapse by proclaiming that God had arranged for evolution to take place. Evolution is a scientific fact and a Law of Nature. Evolution is not a theory any more than the Theory of Relativity is a theory. Institutional religion has oppressed rationality and has held humankind in a devastating chokehold for more than 2000 years. We will gain nothing by describing the horrors that religions have inflicted on humanity in the name of their gods. From the crusades and the inquisition, to its devastating cooperation with the aristocracy in fettering and enslaving man?s body and man?s mind, religion has taken a heavy toll on humankind and on rationality The horrors of religious institutions are now obsolete and part of the past. As we enter the third millennium, the power of religious institutions is waning, albeit far from dead. The influence of organized religion on the affairs of man is declining steadily. This development is due to such events as the French Revolution, the United States Constitution and the inevitable spread of democracy as the only political system seen to be compatible with freedom and the innate nature of man. Man still interacts with religious institutions on the individual level but the political power of the church over the affairs of man has disappeared, with the temporary exception of a few Islamic nations. This drastic change in societal power struggles was a product of the Age of Enlightenment. This step up the ladder of evolution was the result of the rational intellect of a new breed of philosophers like Voltaire, Rousseau and Locke. Their visions of a social contract replaced the institutions of feudalistic and religious slavery. The advances in the enlightenment of man over the last five hundred years were pioneered by a few intellectual giants and by a small minority of rational, intelligent philosophers, scientists and visionary firebrands. A large majority of humanity still goes to church on Sunday, fears its gods and prays for salvation The masses of men remain emotion-driven animals that have neither the intelligence nor the fortitude to throw off the shackles of religious irrationality. The man who goes to church and prays to god is still carrying the demon of religion on his back. The next step in the evolution of man must wait until the mass of men has evolved to a higher plane. Intellectual freedom and honesty will allow man?s rational mind to exert its full powers and will enable man to assert a higher degree of control over his primitive emotional system A rational examination of the origins and sources of religion, as well as the benefits and disadvantages of religion, is unlikely to change the mind of anyone who is afraid to examine these concepts objectively. People who approach the subject of religion with trepidation or who cannot distinguish between reality and superstition, find it difficult to apply logic to their thought processes. It is much easier to belief in miracles and pseudo-science than to acquire facts and engage in incisive, rational thought. We can observe many members of society who appear to be intelligent and rational in the pursuit of their daily life. However, on Sundays they go to their church or temple. There they participate in incomprehensible and irrational rituals involving magic, prayer and other activities demeaning to their rational minds. Their rational mind tells them that a god does not exist and yet, there they sit and pray to him. It has been suggested that religious people compartmentalize their thought processes in order to avoid otherwise inevitable and destructive conflicts. In this manner, rational and irrational thought processes can coexist in separate, locked compartments of the brain without connectivity. Yet, one wonders if there is some inevitable leakage from the irrational to the rational compartment, surreptitiously contaminating rationality. Even some bright people may feel too frightened to face life without the consolations of a religion, cult or sect. Their upbringing has imbued in them the belief that it is safer not to subject the teachings of one?s church or temple or mosque to close scrutiny. Furthermore, becoming an agnostic or atheist can cut one off from the comfort and companionship of co-believers in a religion. This potentially damaging consequence of doubting one?s belief system is a strong deterrent to questioning deeply imbedded religious beliefs. Religion may also satisfy an irrational human need for cosmic significance. Some persons yearn to be more than the grain of sand in the vastness of the universe that man really is. As long as men and women feel week and insignificant in the face of awe-inspiring natural forces, logic will not be as important as religion and man will prefer the sanctuary of imaginary, all-powerful beings. Thus, people tend to associate in communities of like-minded people. Believers restrict their circle of friend and family to other believers. They surround themselves with mirror images of themselves. If people wear blinkers successfully, then the young and na?ve among them hear nothing but the desired belief. No reputable person in his or her sphere of life ever disagrees with or objects to the tenets of their common belief system. As time goes on, people in a mentally incestuous society consider it normal that all seemingly intelligent people believe as the community believes. When a believer encounters non-believers, the shock may be great. The believer asks, "How can they not believe? Doesn?t everyone believe?" The believing community usually provides a convenient answer to that question: The non-believers are evil or they are possessed by an evil power. If you hang around them enough it might be contagious. As a result, the believer becomes paranoid and afraid of non-believers, because he fails to understand that non-believers do not need to believe in anything. Non-believers rely on reason, logic and the factual evidence of the real world. Instead, the believer sees non-believers as abnormal and undesirable. Thus, religious belief maintains itself through self-affirmation, insulation and demonization of non-believers. The archaic belief systems of religion and the supernatural are the dominion of primitive, prehistoric man. Modern man is engaged in the accelerating process of replacing religion and superstition with science and rationality. Superstition and religion will eventually disappear in the dustbin of human history. However, evolution is an excruciatingly slow process, and the institutions of witchcraft, religion and the supernatural are in no eminent danger of demise. Evolution is unappeasable and relentless, but it deals in centuries and millennia, not in years or decades. What does the future hold for the conflict between rationality and religion? We merely need to examine the underlying trend of evolution. Evolution will continue to exhibit the same trend that is has exhibited for the last four billion years. Evolution has steadily enhanced specialization by means of increased complexity. It is interesting to note that the degree of involvement with the supernatural, including religion, is directly proportional to the degree of factual knowledge available to a person. The bell curve, depicting the graphic display of variances in intelligence within a population, places 80% of the U. S. population in the I.Q. range from 85 to 115. It is interesting to note that 90 % of the U. S. population is also involved in religions or other irrational belief systems. The September 1999 issue of the prestigious Scientific American magazine published a repeat-survey, confirming previous surveys: Whereas 90% of the general population has a distinct belief in a personal god and a life after death, only 40% of scientists on the B.S. level favor these beliefs in religion and merely 10% of notable scientists believe in a personal god or in an afterlife. Contrary to the notion fostered by so-called creation-scientists, Albert Einstein did not believe in a personal god. Eutychus: That was the finest rebuttal argument that I have enjoyed here on a religious debate, I salute you. Curiously, I am a believer in God. It is difficult to have survived 4 cancer episodes and not believe. 'Sides that, without God, I'd've never been born. I just like to argue... Sue: Good, but traditional reply there. [/QUOTE]
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