So on this site I've seen many opinions and ideas from both religious and atheist points of view. Some of these points seem to hold very special places in the hearts of people. The one that causes the most visceral reactions from me is the idea of original sin and sin by association. Blaming people for the ill doings of others goes against my understanding of justice and is by far the most anger provoking thing for me that religion condones. What are some points about religion that get you up in arms? As for you religious readers, how do you feel about some of the bad parts of your religion cause I doubt even the most devote condone everything in the various religious books? How do you reconcile that it is ok for God to murder the children of evil doers? Specifically for Christianity that God has condemned you to death because Adam and Eve ate from the tree? That God is punishing you for things you never did and had control of? How is that Just?
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@Jackdanel
"Your strongest feelings about religious ideals."
First of all, I see "religious ideals" as an oxymoron. There are religious beliefs, myths, rituals and superstitions, but nothing I've heard from relignoramuses qualifies as an ideal.
The things religidiots do that hurt children anger me most of all. For example:
Mutilating the genitals of little boys and girls
Instilling irrational fears of hell and demons into young minds
Forced marriages, especially of very young girls
Preventing vaccinations (especially violent Islamic opposition against the campaign to eradicate polio)
Physical and sexual abuse of children by priests, and in church-run schools and children's homes
Campaigns to insert creationist nonsense into science education
What atheists do is not consider what is written in the word and what you SHOULD follow. They just consider people but of course theres nutters out there that give religious people a bad rep. But most of what you said is Islamic ideals, not christian. Im christian. At sunday school i didnt learn much about hell. which is good and bad at the same time. Your encouraged to watch christian TV and read the bibel which is what i did. Im okay and havent committed any crimes.
@ Josua Pryce
"Im okay and havent committed any crimes."
Just one. You have closed your mind. Unplug. Take the red pill...
rmfr
religion is fine with me as long it doesn`t get out of hand,priest abusing children is only 1% of the priestly population.why, don`t you have atheist doing all kinds of immoral things.the atheist doesn`t have no morals they don`t believe in moral absolutes for others just cross them and there the first to complain about morals.
When atheists say there are no moral absolutes it is usually referring to an objective view of the concept morality. If we lived in a different place and time period with different values, make no mistake our morals would be different. You are confusing saying there is no set moral standard to saying people don't have morals. My morals are pretty damn absolute to me. Along with most atheists, christians, and every other person on the damn planet. Atheists tend to apply their moral standards everywhere where modern believers tend to pick and choose from their own holy books what is ok and not. The bible says its fine to marry your sister. Have multiple wives. Kill your children for being rude. Doubt many people do that stuff. That is why atheists complain about morals more often than religious, cause we think about it more often as opposed to ignoring things that don't run in line with our ideals.
Where did you get that 1% figure?
Even if that figure were accurate, which it isn't it is about 4 percent (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/16/AR201004...), that reflects a similar estimated number of child molesters as the general population (1-5%). Its almost like priests aren't holy or special. Like religion isn't making them any better. Its like they are just people. And in the case of the child molesters, sick people.
He probably got it from the Churches own statements.
Wikipedia:
"In 2008, the Church asserted that the scandal was a very serious problem, but at the same time, estimated that it was "probably caused by 'no more than 1 per cent' (or about 5,000) of the around 410,000 Roman Catholic priests worldwide."
However, since then it has showed to be 4%. But as far as I'm aware, this is only a figure based on the actually reported and then convicted cases.
However, since these crimes often has been committed to children it can take the victims years just to understand what happened, and that it was a crime in the eyes of the law.
Those 4% does not include all the atrocities. There is fear of reporting the crimes, statues of limitation, lack of evidence, emotional extortion and threats of hell, and so on that hides many of these crimes from statistics.
But the problem is much worse than that.
When abusive priest have been attracting too much attention, the clergy's have been moving them to new parishes to get them out of sight. By doing that, they have not only hidden the crimes but enabled continued crimes by giving the abusers new victims in unaware parishes.
It has been a custom to ship them to places like South America, where there is less control, less support by laws, less reporting of crimes and worst of all lots of orphanages and schools run by the Catholic Church. In such places, the percentage of abusers has probably sky rocketed.
The Catholic Church are even actively working against allowing the abused victims to get an admission of being abused. Examples:
"Catholic Church spent $2M on major N.Y. lobbying firms to block child-sex law reform"
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/catholic-church-hired-lobby-fir...
"Opposition to child sex bill delivers petitions to Adelup"
"Bill 326-33 would remove the statute of limitations on civil litigation of cases involving accusations of child sex abuse. The bill passed the legislature in an unanimous vote and is now on the governor's desk awaiting determination by Friday."
http://www.postguam.com/news/local/opposition-to-child-sex-bill-delivers...
Their church leaders are trying to win sympathy by saying that their church will collapse if the victims are compensated.
Between 1950 and August 2015, the Catholic Church in the US alone has paid out $3,994,797,060.10.
I wonder what the total figure would be if all victims would get justice, and if all the lobbying against laws, hush money, moving of clergy members, lawyer fees, and so on where to be included in that figure.
And what would this figure be if it was world wide?
I sure wouldn't want to be paying tithing to sponsor this horrific farce.
[Edited to add:]
I forgot to mention that the Clergy who has been protecting and enabling these crimes should of course be added to the list of criminals and the cost for the church.
And by no means is the Catholic Church the only ones doing this. They are just the biggest and the worst at this time, at least as far as is known.
90% of statistics are made up on the spot!
@skeptical
"religion is fine with me as long it doesn`t get out of hand"
If I could understand what you wrote I'd probably be angry. I'll just say that as an atheist I've got a stronger sense of morality and live by it more consistently than anyone in your entire Catholic church, including all the crows, penguins, red hats and the old godfather himself. Nobody with a real sense of right and wrong could stay in that organization for a day.
Faith in god
What objective evidence do you have that a god exist?
What evidence do you have that objective morals exist?
As an Atheist, my morals are subjective. I treat people how I want to be treated, and I follow the laws society has.
by skeptical christian
"religion is fine with me as long it doesn`t get out of hand,priest abusing children is only 1% of the priestly population.why, don`t you have atheist doing all kinds of immoral things.the atheist doesn`t have no morals they don`t believe in moral absolutes for others just cross them and there the first to complain about morals."
-----------
Ethics and morality is a natural, innate feature of man. He is born with it. Let me ask you if I can hurt you. Your reply would be to the negative. I would respond in the same manner should you ask me that question. Similarly, let me ask you to help me with my burdens with the promise that I will reciprocate and help you with yours. This is the workings of ethics and morality, and it was recorded in man's behavior back to the beginning of the archeological record, and before, by evidence of his communal living in the prehistorical clues he left us to discover.
Pain and suffering are the two features of life all men are equally versed in. They all know they want to remove as much of those two features as possible from their individual lives. They also know that as a functioning group, they can work as a unit to better rid themselves of such calamities. This is the basis for, and binding fabric societies depend upon to overcome the miseries of life and create wealth and prosperity. Pain and suffering and how to collectively control them has been man's crowning achievement thousands of years before the biblical era came along and told all men that morality and ethics, the basis for their survival for centuries, was not of their own making but rather of (name your deity and belief system here). Man, being told by people who would bring pain and suffering back to him if he doesn't believe them, succumbs to the pressure and accepts the wild stories of gods and kingdoms thereof.
I would not be so fast to deduce that the atheist is unfamiliar with ethics and morality because he does not subscribe to anyone's theology. Remember, theology itself is a form of pain and suffering the atheist rejects because it does not conform to his natural, innate sense of ethics and morality.
"What are some points about religion that get you up in arms?"
Honestly, I have a real problem with how the Bible handles homosexuality and sexually deviant people. What have we ever done to you? Why does our existence perturb you? It's as ridiculous as a man walking into a donut shop and ordering a chocolate dozen donuts. The person behind him in line clears their throat and says, "Um, excuse me sir, but I don't like chocolate. In fact, chocolate makes me very uncomfortable. So, because of that, you are not allowed to order a dozen chocolate donuts." And then to the person behind the counter. "Get this man a dozen vanilla donuts. He is now cleansed." Why should the man wanting to buy the chocolate donuts have to live under someone else's belief? It's just wrong... And honestly, this topic was what drove me away from The Faith in the first place.
"It's as ridiculous as a man walking into a donut shop and ordering a chocolate dozen donuts."
I think it's worse than that. As I understand it, LGBT people don't have any choice about what they are, just I don't have any choice about what I am. So it's more like someone saying "I don't like blonde hair. Everybody with blonde hair should either cover it or dye it and pretend to be a different color. Because blonde is sinful." But that's religions all over, isn't it. They're all about us inside and others outside.
It is indeed a sick world where we can't have chocolate donuts. If you can't even choose the type of hole you want...I kid but it is pretty horrible. I think its pretty horrible that people claim righteousness while putting others down. Making people feel bad for existing is the way of the church. Worst part is I know a lot of religious suicides have been attributed to people being gay and hating themselves for it. Sick what indoctrination can do. I agree with the other thread that says religion should be r rated. You shouldn't be allowed to do that to kids.
For me it would be the whole idea of heaven and hell. You have this all-powerful God who has this weird need for human worship, but has bungled the creation of humanity so that most people fail to live up to his expectations. Thus, he creates Earth so that he can judge which of these humans he wants to spend eternity with. Instead of destroying the defects, God sets up an eternal torture chamber for them, especially those who could not believe that God would come down to Earth, impregnate a betrothed woman, whose son would be God himself and destined for the cross. But the sacrifice would be a sham since the son (God) would simply rise to heaven and sit at the right hand of God. Those who didn't buy into that line were prime candidates for hell. God has drawn a line in the sand and those who don't come over are destined for eternity in hell. God, of course, could have given these doomed souls enough opportunities to redeem themselves. The whole business of a FINAL judgment is insane and totally unnecessary.
The whole business of evil, of course, was due to God's fixation on the need for free will. At the same time God raised enough stumbling blocks to make sure that no one avoided sin. And, if there were any doubts, God made sure everyone inherited the sin of Adam and Eve! However, once God collected his choice crop in heaven, it was lobotomy time! Couldn't have those guys exercising their free will in heaven--and thus sinning! So, God manages to do without free will in heaven even though he couldn't get along without it on Earth!
Heaven and hell are loony tunes blown all out of proportion!
What religious ideals? Which religion? There are thousands of them. I am not sure I know enough about any of them to give a shit.
"What are some points about religion that get you up in arms? "
What does it for me is the passion and the barbaric things written in those ancient texts that lead people to doing horrific things. In our society now we may disregard passages saying to kill but at one point they were taken as law, and whats to say that can't happen again?
Look up the video "The killing of Farkhunda" and see how all those people can be driven to kill what later turned out to be an innocent woman. It's an event like that that makes me worry about religion
RE: " What are some points about religion that get you up in arms?"
The religious attempting to take the moral high ground.
There is no morality in religion. If you mother tells you to be nice to your brother and she will give you a cookie, and then you are nice to your brother to get the cookie, are you behaving morally?
If your mother tells you to stop bothering your brother or she will whip you with a belt and then you stop bothering your brother, are you behaving morally?
Christianity is a religion of moral dictates based on a Hitler type character in the old testament who changes himself into a nice guy in the New Testament and yet while remaining tyrannical and bigoted pretends to be loving.
A human being instructed to be moral by an all powerful being offering rewards of heaven for good behavior and hell for bad behavior is INCAPABLE of engaging in an act of morality.
Morality does not come from dictates, it does not come from a book, and it does not come from a magical invisible omniscient God. It comes from YOU. No one following the teachings of Christ can behave morally.
COMPLETE LACK OF RESPONSIBILITY:
It does not matter what you do, JESUS FORGIVES. This is the biggest lump of horseshit I have ever smelled! So murder, steal, rape, butcher, maim, steal some more, engage in inappropriate sex, and then beg Jesus for forgiveness. You will be forgiven and the kingdom of heaven awaits.
Never mind the lives you have destroyed, the people you have harmed, the damage you have done to others. You are forgiven and washed clean of your sins by the blood of the lamb. FUCK JESUS AND HIS SYSTEM OF JUSTICE.
The audacious and impossible lie about life after death. It has never happened, but the whole sugar coated death free comforter is shamelessly pushed as a fact. Death has not and may never lose its sting.
Its only zombie threads like this one that ever get resurrected.