Is religion a necessity for society?

[Narland]

There is literally no reason to find this funny. History understands he’s not warlord, why don’t you?

He took Mecca and Arabia with calls to battle and force of arms, demanding obeisance to his authority of the cities, tribes and land he conquered. That makes him a warlord.

In a sense it also makes him a community organizer, but not the kind most people think of.

[Terabithya]

Vatican II is mostly heresy. A Catholic can't accept its teachings (or many things "Pope" Francis said) for they're mostly heresy. Some things certain Popes said was obviously forced upon them by lodges which entered the Vatican. But Catholics should praise the encyclical Humanae Vitae.

[North German Realm]

Vatican II is mostly heresy. A Catholic can't accept its teachings (or many things "Pope" Francis said) for they're mostly heresy. Some things certain Popes said was obviously forced upon them by lodges which entered the Vatican. But Catholics should praise the encyclical Humanae Vitae.

What right does a Catholic have to decide whether what the Pope decides is or isn't acceptable though? I mean, isn't claiming you know the religion more than its organic source pretty much heresy itself?

[Neanderthaland]

Vatican II is mostly heresy. A Catholic can't accept its teachings (or many things "Pope" Francis said) for they're mostly heresy. Some things certain Popes said was obviously forced upon them by lodges which entered the Vatican. But Catholics should praise the encyclical Humanae Vitae.

What right does a Catholic have to decide whether what the Pope decides is or isn't acceptable though? I mean, isn't claiming you know the religion more than its organic source pretty much heresy itself?

If he has complaints, maybe he should write them all down somewhere, and put them up where the clergy can see them. You know, nail them to the church's door, or something.

[The Federal Government of Iowa]

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my own idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my arguments against God collapsed too-- for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist-- in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless-- I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality-- namely my idea of justice-- was full of sense. Consequently, atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should have never found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pages 38-39.

[Southern Lainne Oniordia]

Religion is not a necessity for society. But it is helpful. Not everyone will choose to follow the religion even if it is required so there is no use in requiring every person to follow the religion because some simply will not.

[Insaanistan]

The Universe has laws, yes, but they seem to sometimes be defied by somethings.

100% of the time it is because our understanding of such laws is incomplete.

Is it not probable that there is a higher being capable of defying the laws of the universe they created, capable of what humans are not, and purposely prevents us from seeing or exploring or understanding certain things?

No, it's not. These laws preclude the necessity for such a being to exist in the first place. Other points I made against the validity of religion have not been addressed - and suspiciously, never are every time I enter in a debate like this.

If you have a holy book, and firstly, it is in countless versions, and secondly, it in itself by is based not on what God said but on what man thinks God said, how is it correct?

It is not. We agree here.

How is it correct if it has been changed and been created by interpretation.

The Qu'rân itself is interpreted in different ways by different Muslim groups.

God promises in the Qur’ân that He will always preserve the Qur’ân.

God's existance is also in doubt.

How could they know at the time that it would remain the same, if not for what God said.

They could not. Just because their "prediction" happened to be accurate does not mean they could know the future in any way. If Muslims believed that the Qur’ân must be preserved then they will make the effort to do so. Congratulations, you have succeded. Where did God intervene? Nowhere.

The Qur’ân was not in a book form at the death of Muhammad pbuh, but there were several hafiz, memorizers of the Qur’ân. How many people today have memorized the original Bible in Hebrew or Aramaic and understood it? And NGR as also said, if I’m not mistaken, that the Qur’ân is copied from the Bible. May I remind you, Muhammad pbuh was illiterate.

How does this address any concerns about the text's validity, let alone of Islam in general, let alone of religion as a concept in general?

Again, perhaps maybe we’re not meant to. Maybe God let’s us understand or explore somethings to a limit, because he has ordained that is all we will understand. Maybe somethings are meant to be outside human comprehension.
The Qur’ân, unlike the Bible, was not created from human interpretation: How is rules are implemented in real life is. Don’t you think it’s a bit too much of a coincidence that the Qur’ân is the only one of the thre Abrahamic texts to be successfully preserved?
And no one ever actually thought about preserving it in book form until a while after Muhammad pbuh’s death.
I am sorry if I did not address your points correctly. Please let me know if my answers do not satisfy.

[The Federal Government of Iowa]

100% of the time it is because our understanding of such laws is incomplete.

No, it's not. These laws preclude the necessity for such a being to exist in the first place. Other points I made against the validity of religion have not been addressed - and suspiciously, never are every time I enter in a debate like this.

It is not. We agree here.

The Qu'rân itself is interpreted in different ways by different Muslim groups.

God's existance is also in doubt.

They could not. Just because their "prediction" happened to be accurate does not mean they could know the future in any way. If Muslims believed that the Qur’ân must be preserved then they will make the effort to do so. Congratulations, you have succeded. Where did God intervene? Nowhere.

How does this address any concerns about the text's validity, let alone of Islam in general, let alone of religion as a concept in general?

Again, perhaps maybe we’re not meant to. Maybe God let’s us understand or explore somethings to a limit, because he has ordained that is all we will understand. Maybe somethings are meant to be outside human comprehension.
The Qur’ân, unlike the Bible, was not created from human interpretation: How is rules are implemented in real life is. Don’t you think it’s a bit too much of a coincidence that the Qur’ân is the only one of the thre Abrahamic texts to be successfully preserved?
And no one ever actually thought about preserving it in book form until a while after Muhammad pbuh’s death.
I am sorry if I did not address your points correctly. Please let me know if my answers do not satisfy.

Can you prove that the Bible was written from human interpretation and that the Qur'an was not?

[Insaanistan]

There is literally no reason to find this funny. History understands he’s not warlord, why don’t you?

He took Mecca and Arabia with calls to battle and force of arms, demanding obeisance to his authority of the cities, tribes and land he conquered. That makes him a warlord.

In a sense it also makes him a community organizer, but not the kind most people think of.

Actually, he insured no harm came to his enemies after they surrendered, and basically said, “If you don’t rebel, I’m cool with you.

[Necroghastia]

Gotta say, I have a lot of disdain for the idea that "maybe there's things we don't understand because God says we can't." I refuse to sell humanity short like that. Are there things we don't currently understand about the universe? Of course! But that's no reason whatsoever to think that the answers are beyond our grasp.

[North German Realm]

He took Mecca and Arabia with calls to battle and force of arms, demanding obeisance to his authority of the cities, tribes and land he conquered. That makes him a warlord.

In a sense it also makes him a community organizer, but not the kind most people think of.

Actually, he insured no harm came to his enemies after they surrendered, and basically said, “If you don’t rebel, I’m cool with you.

I'm sure the people killed in Ahzab, the people killed in Banu Qurayza, the people killed in Khaybar and the people who he cut the water to in Badr would love to know that.

[Freakoland]

Vatican II is mostly heresy. A Catholic can't accept its teachings (or many things "Pope" Francis said) for they're mostly heresy. Some things certain Popes said was obviously forced upon them by lodges which entered the Vatican. But Catholics should praise the encyclical Humanae Vitae.

I'm pretty sure denying Papal authority , as a Catholic at least, is heresy, first of all. You claim to be Catholic and yet you refute an entire Counsel on the premise of your own ideas. Sure, you're entitled to you're opinions, but the fact of the matter is that you're belief that Vatican II is heresy discredits any serious allegations you have because you're not playing within the boundaries of the Court. Second of all, like NGR said, what right do you have to say that Vatican II is heresy? What are you comparing it to? What makes Vatican II heresy? The Bible? Christ's message of universal love and salvation? What exactly are you refuting?

[Freakoland]

What right does a Catholic have to decide whether what the Pope decides is or isn't acceptable though? I mean, isn't claiming you know the religion more than its organic source pretty much heresy itself?

If he has complaints, maybe he should write them all down somewhere, and put them up where the clergy can see them. You know, nail them to the church's door, or something.

Lmao I'm dead hahahahaha

[Freakoland]

Vatican II is mostly heresy. A Catholic can't accept its teachings (or many things "Pope" Francis said) for they're mostly heresy. Some things certain Popes said was obviously forced upon them by lodges which entered the Vatican. But Catholics should praise the encyclical Humanae Vitae.

What right does a Catholic have to decide whether what the Pope decides is or isn't acceptable though? I mean, isn't claiming you know the religion more than its organic source pretty much heresy itself?

That's probably the most articulate refutation of arguments against people who claim that Vatican II is heresy I've ever heard.

Bravo!!

But I all seriousness you're totally right. The very nature of being Catholic is submitting to the rule of the Vatican whether you like it or not. If you don't like it, go join an Evangelical Church or something, no one is making you be Catholic.

God certainly isn't lol.

[Neanderthaland]

He took Mecca and Arabia with calls to battle and force of arms, demanding obeisance to his authority of the cities, tribes and land he conquered. That makes him a warlord.

In a sense it also makes him a community organizer, but not the kind most people think of.

Actually, he insured no harm came to his enemies after they surrendered, and basically said, “If you don’t rebel, I’m cool with you.

I mean... so did Genghis Khan.

[North German Realm]

Actually, he insured no harm came to his enemies after they surrendered, and basically said, “If you don’t rebel, I’m cool with you.

I mean... so did Genghis Khan.

I mean, this statement is kinda false on both accounts.

[Ankenland]

In this thread, I have so far:

1) Demonstrated that people are naturally selfish and that they have no material reason not to be

2) Demonstrated that religion uniquely offers to society the service of convincing everyone of an immaterial reason for which the rewards and punishments for good and bad behavior are guaranteed and inescapable

3) Demonstrated that central reduced supposition of all religions, the existence of a meta-reality governing our own, has always been an unknown probability possibility, and as we move closer to confirming our theoretical capacity to simulate a very large number of subrealities, it moves closer to being a near certainty.

Best case scenario, the probability of existence of a meta-reality cannot be evaluated from within reality.

Worse case scenario, at the end of the history of our universe, a very large number of simulated sub-realities ("matrixes") will be created in our own image and populated with AI constructs who will perceive themselves to be human, and we will use these for all sorts of research and experimentation on the evolution of general intelligence and the organization of general intelligences into cooperative hierarchical systems.

When it is over, we will have made ourselves the Gods of a million worlds, for whose inhabitants our relative Deity will be an unfalsifiable claim, and for whom the probability of our reality, their meta-reality, will be immune to evaluation.

Once we realize what we have done and its terrible implications for our own condition, we will install karmic afterlife into those subrealities, in order to hedge against the (at this time, very likely-seeming) possibility that we are, ourselves, in such a level of information-relative-to-matter, and that the level of matter superior to our own (to which we are, relatively, information) has already installed such a karmic afterlife at our level

I understand why the Christians and Muslim in this thread have wanted to add seven additional pages of discussion of the history and doctrine of their own religions - what I do not understand is why the atheists seek to engage them in this.

This can only be a sign of what we already know about atheism - that it is a vacuous belief system, a negation of something that does not attempt address the problems previously solved by the thing it negates, and thus any atheist who dwells upon or identifies with the negative of atheism, instead of moving onto some other thing, is just another person who has not yet gotten over religion.

In this way, he is the same as the religious person, except that the religious person's conclusions follow from their premise, while the atheist can never escape from their inability to justify their most supremely magical and destructive superstition, which is their doctrinal belief that they should personally care about what other people believe.

[Neanderthaland]

I mean... so did Genghis Khan.

I mean, this statement is kinda false on both accounts.

I should have clarified. It only works if you surrender up-front. Which is a good incentive to do so.

But the point is, that by any reasonable definition, both men were warlords. You can talk about the good aspects of their rule all day long, and it doesn't change that fact.

[Swindenland]

In this thread, I have so far:

1) Demonstrated that people are naturally selfish and that they have no material reason not to be

2) Demonstrated that religion uniquely offers to society the service of convincing everyone of an immaterial reason for which the rewards and punishments for good and bad behavior are guaranteed and inescapable

3) Demonstrated that central reduced supposition of all religions, the existence of a meta-reality governing our own, has always been an unknown probability possibility, and as we move closer to confirming our theoretical capacity to simulate a very large number of subrealities, it moves closer to being a near certainty.

Best case scenario, the probability of existence of a meta-reality cannot be evaluated from within reality.

Worse case scenario, at the end of the history of our universe, a very large number of simulated sub-realities ("matrixes") will be created in our own image and populated with AI constructs who will perceive themselves to be human, and we will use these for all sorts of research and experimentation on the evolution of general intelligence and the organization of general intelligences into cooperative hierarchical systems.

When it is over, we will have made ourselves the Gods of a million worlds, for whose inhabitants our relative Deity will be an unfalsifiable claim, and for whom the probability of our reality, their meta-reality, will be immune to evaluation.

Once we realize what we have done and its terrible implications for our own condition, we will install karmic afterlife into those subrealities, in order to hedge against the (at this time, very likely-seeming) possibility that we are, ourselves, in such a level of information-relative-to-matter, and that the level of matter superior to our own (to which we are, relatively, information) has already installed such a karmic afterlife at our level

I understand why the Christians and Muslim in this thread have wanted to add seven additional pages of discussion of the history and doctrine of their own religions - what I do not understand is why the atheists seek to engage them in this.

This can only be a sign of what we already know about atheism - that it is a vacuous belief system, a negation of something that does not attempt address the problems previously solved by the thing it negates, and thus any atheist who dwells upon or identifies with the negative of atheism, instead of moving onto some other thing, is just another person who has not yet gotten over religion.

In this way, he is the same as the religious person, except that the religious person's conclusions follow from their premise, while the atheist can never escape from their inability to justify their most supremely magical and destructive superstition, which is their doctrinal belief that they should personally care about what other people believe.

So what if we do? Atheism is about negating religion, it doesn't give philosophical answers, because it is just a negation. If you wish for a secular way of thinking, philosophy and purpose then check secular humanism. The reason why we atheists are so involved in these debates is because we care. We are aware that some people are religious and that it completely fine with us, but too often religion (especially when the majority is religious) crosses the line and causes real harm - oftentimes it comes out in favour of discrimination, other times it resists progress, exploits the poor, justifies unfair structures, is again against civil rights and denies their children access to science. That is when we atheists get angry.

[Ankenland]

There is no "we atheists" and now that I read those two words, used together in that way, I need to abandon this thread so that I can immediately go get myself some chemotherapy, because I think I just got brain cancer from reading it.

[Purple Rats]

There would be no point of this forum, if we would just "move along" when someone points out something we don't agree with. Polite debate is always encouraged, imo.

[Vivolkha]

100% of the time it is because our understanding of such laws is incomplete.

No, it's not. These laws preclude the necessity for such a being to exist in the first place. Other points I made against the validity of religion have not been addressed - and suspiciously, never are every time I enter in a debate like this.

It is not. We agree here.

The Qu'rân itself is interpreted in different ways by different Muslim groups.

God's existance is also in doubt.

They could not. Just because their "prediction" happened to be accurate does not mean they could know the future in any way. If Muslims believed that the Qur’ân must be preserved then they will make the effort to do so. Congratulations, you have succeded. Where did God intervene? Nowhere.

How does this address any concerns about the text's validity, let alone of Islam in general, let alone of religion as a concept in general?

Again, perhaps maybe we’re not meant to. Maybe God let’s us understand or explore somethings to a limit, because he has ordained that is all we will understand. Maybe somethings are meant to be outside human comprehension.

Our tools to understand the universe are mathematical approximations. There are two points when these approximations break down, which we arbitrarily designate as the beggining and the end of the Universe. In fact, it is more complicated - when the Universe is scheduled to die, physics do not break down as much as nothing else can really happen in the entire Universe, forever. In that sense, it is beyond our comprehension, and therefore there is no point in asking what is beyond there (as far as modern science goes, because the existance itself of this comprehension barrier is an ongoing scientific and philosophical debate). Hence why God is unfalsifiable. But while there could be evidence suggesting (but never proving) that God does not exist (see below), there will never be any evidence of what's beyond the beggining of the Universe.

You might be interested in reading about the cosmic censorship hypothesis, which tries to address the existance of these barriers from a purely scientifical point of view (that is, unfortunately, highly technical).

The Qur’ân, unlike the Bible, was not created from human interpretation: How is rules are implemented in real life is.

Doesn't that stray away from the concept of a universal religious truth?

Don’t you think it’s a bit too much of a coincidence that the Qur’ân is the only one of the thre Abrahamic texts to be successfully preserved?
And no one ever actually thought about preserving it in book form until a while after Muhammad pbuh’s death.

But I don't think it's a coincidence. I think it is the natural result of Islamic cultural/religious views without any need for any God to intervene at any point - just the belief itself in God, which does not require God's existance.

I am sorry if I did not address your points correctly. Please let me know if my answers do not satisfy.

To be honest this wasn't or shouldn't have been directed at you personally but I've never seen anybody address these points:

My closest attempt at discrediting the validity of religion (again considering that strictly speaking their statements are unfalsifiable - else there would be no religious people to begin with) consists in pointing out that arbitrary religious rules derived from similarly arbitrary, unfalsifiable religious teachings/texts are occasionally harmful to human health (e.g. purdah, FGM) or directly contradict basic human biology (e.g. sexual abstinence requirements), with catastrophic results (e.g. priests abusing children).

These points, as well as the outdated understanding of the world of many holy texts (e.g. geocentrism) and the comical, desperate retrofitting of modern, proven scientifical facts that discredit them into religious teachings signal that, as unfalsifiable religious statements may be, evidence suggests they are false.

[Ankenland]

My closest attempt at discrediting the validity of religion (again considering that strictly speaking their statements are unfalsifiable - else there would be no religious people to begin with) consists in pointing out that arbitrary religious rules derived from similarly arbitrary, unfalsifiable religious teachings/texts are occasionally harmful to human health (e.g. purdah, FGM) or directly contradict basic human biology (e.g. sexual abstinence requirements), with catastrophic results (e.g. priests abusing children).

These points, as well as the outdated understanding of the world of many holy texts (e.g. geocentrism) and the comical, desperate retrofitting of modern, proven scientifical facts that discredit them into religious teachings signal that, as unfalsifiable religious statements may be, evidence suggests they are false.

[Ankenland]

This is the most tiresome thing about arguing with atheists - they never seem quite sure what they are arguing about. If you address the general claims of religious philosophy, they argue against the historical actions of specific religious institutions. If you address the historical actions of specific religious institutions, they argue against the specific claims of specific religious philosophies. If you point out that a true statement is not false because it was written on a page containing other false statements, they attempt to retreat into discussions about theoretical physics which have nothing to do with the subject of metaphysics.

Can they even tell the differences between these things?

Can they address any of the three arguments I made in this thread?

[Insaanistan]

There is literally no reason to find this funny. History understands he’s not warlord, why don’t you?

He took Mecca and Arabia with calls to battle and force of arms, demanding obeisance to his authority of the cities, tribes and land he conquered. That makes him a warlord.

In a sense it also makes him a community organizer, but not the kind most people think of.

Actually, what he did was conquer these areas, forgive and forget pretty much every time, and allowed people to generally continue life like before. Conversion to Islam was voluntary.