Its a miracle that if you are born in Saudia arabia you are a Muslim but in Italy you are a catholic…amazing how all the gods have carved up our geo-political map.
And in Ireland you have too many Catholics and Protestants but very few Christians. Actually, Christians, Muslims and Jews share the same “God”. Take a comparative religion or religious history course.
@@LeftCoastStephen Considering how many Christians worship versions of God so different from each others' that there is no way they could fairly be called the same being, your point isn't even pedantically true.
🤔 What's wrong with you people? Its called science🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️ if you teach a child this is the only way to get home they will believe it until they find out you were wrong💎 it's not rocket science 🚀🚀🚀
"Humans choose a religion based on their need to show conformity, not that religion's ability to show credibility." BAM! And we have a winner. Thank you, Mrs. Bowers.
Grew up in a small town and still remember the bus ride home, in the third grade, where all the kids stated what religion they "are," and it came to me and I said, "Christian." "But what kind?" they all demanded and I hadn't a clue, as we never went to church other than a wedding or two in my life. When I asked my Mom, she said, "Well, that's up to you and you'll figure it out later in life. Just ignore them." That was the best advise my Mom ever gave me. In middle school, my friend invited me to "Youth Group," every Wednesday night. Honestly, I've never seen so many sexually frustrated kids who attended just to hold hands at the closing prayer. And, after a few meetings, with the fairytales, "Just say no" junkie examples, "Scare straight" ex-inmates, and not so vailed hints about keeping my johnson in my pants, I was done after a few months. Thank you Mom, for saving me from all that insanity, by allowing me to figure it out for myself. RIP Mom.
humans DO NOT CHOOSE religion, the majority are indoctrinated against their will as children. Religion wouldnt be what it is today without brainwashing the young.
When I attended a Catholic College Prep school we did the telephone exercise where the first student is given a sentence to repeat to the next one until the last person in class repeats the gibberish he thinks he heard. The "theology" teacher then said something that has stuck with me for 56 years. "Remember this the next time you read a bible."
I’m an atheist now but was raised Catholic & went to Catholic school 10 of the 12 years before college. In 6th Grade, our teacher told us that the story of Jesus’s birth wasn’t true. At the time he was born, she said, his parents wouldn’t have kept any records (they were likely illiterate) or spent any time recording anything about the birth of their son beyond what was typical. She said after Jesus was crucified & more & more people learned of him, they wanted to know everything all the way back to his birth. So, some people filled in the gaps. Catholic Church takes so much heat (and for good reason) but I was taught evolution in Catholic school, and also that the world is way older than the Bible alleges. The Jesuits who persecuted people like Galileo are now the “academic order” of Catholicism who run most Catholic universities. The Vatican even has its own astronomical observatory. I still became a non-believer, but I didn’t emerge from Catholic school needing to retake basic math, biology, and other sciences.
@@justrosy5 For sure none of the students were going to turn him in. It was refreshing hearing somebody that lived in a rectory tell you the bible was fiction BS.
@@paradoxical_taco True. Also December 25th was picked because it was a civil holiday, fewer cops so easier for illegal christians to gather. Actual date was some time in spring of 4 BC. And I'm still waiting for the missing 20 years of his life ..... something fishy there, IMO.
Didn't their dear leader in Scientology discharge a log when he was in the Navy. I do know one thing he greatly exaggerated the things he did during his military service.
Mormonism was founded by a man who was run out of town as a con artist multiple times. Scientology, by a mediocre science fiction writer who, disappointed with his income, started a kind of science-fiction religion, partly based on ideas cribbed from a far better writer. (A. E. Van Vogt) One cynical writer commented "the purpose of priests is to separate man from his god, so he may then separate money from his wallet."
“The gods we’ve made are exactly the gods you’d expect to be made by a species that is about half a chromosome away from the chimpanzee.” - Christopher Hitchens
Smart aliens probably just pass us by thinking "Look at those superstitious primates killing each other while turning their world into a hellhole! Let's skip this place... "
I've always thought that Star Trek's Prime Directive was bollocks. If you saw a young child walking towards the edge of a cliff, with the lead of a puppy clenched in its hand, wouldn't you stop it from falling off and taking an innocent animal with it? Hopefully, aliens will have some empathy, and realise that we're fuckwits who need saving from our toddler leaders.
👽 - "GLORY! Now, take me to your leader." "Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child." - Robert A. Heinlein
That's funny, I asked someone about an hour ago: "Can your god create someone who is _more loving, more forgiving, more logical, more moral, more sensible, more pragmatic, more imaginative, more merciful, more just, more empathetic, more compassionate_ than itself?" All you need is one person, just one, who wouldn't send someone to an eternal torment for anything, let alone the imagined crime of not believing in a god, to disprove the infantile notion of Hell.
The father, being quite distraught, decided he needed some guidance, so he goes and sees one of the elders at Synagogue. As he walks in, the elder sees the look of worry on the father's face. He says "what troubles you, my friend?" The father says "well, I sent my son off to Israel, and he came back a Christian." The elder, after hearing this shocking news, responded "Funny you should mention that. I also sent my son to Israel, and he also came back a Christian." The two men were blown away at their coincidence, and decided they should speak to the Rabbi. They walked into the Rabbi's chambers, and the Rabbi knew there was something wrong. He asked "what troubles you, my friends?" The elder spoke. "Well, you see, we both sent our sons to Israel, and both of them came back as Christians." After a pause, the Rabbi said "It's funny that you should mention that. I also sent my son to Israel, and he also came back a Christian." After a few moments, the Rabbi decided they needed to go outside and pray. The three men went into the yard, held hands, and began to pray. All of a sudden, the clouds parted, and the booming voice of God speaks to them. "What troubles you, my faithful followers?" "Well", the Rabbi began. "All three of us sent our sons to Israel, and all three of our sons came back as Christians." After a pause, God's voice continues. "Funny you should mention that...."
Several years ago, my in-laws visited from Western China. When we all received an invitation from my parents to come over for Easter, they asked "what is Easter?" So I told them the story in my tortured and crucified Mandarin. And when I got to the part where "He rose from the dead" their faces were precious! They're much too polite to burst out with "Oh bullshit!" They looked at each other as if to say "Did I hear that correctly?" Then to my husband as if "Did she mean to say that?" "Is she pulling our legs?" Then back at me as if "Are we supposed to pretend that's not the most ridiculous thing we ever heard?" I had been keeping a poker face because I knew I'd be telling this story and I didn't want to tell them how to react. Then I told them that I didn't believe it, and we all laughed, and I think I'm glad I couldn't understand what was said after that.
@@dunn0r Modern day mainland China went through a fair bit of a cultural decimation since the revolution and especially since the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, so much of the population tends to be atheist. The old belief systems were largely shattered by a mix of destructive social chaos and older generations not passing on the beliefs. Traditionally, China's predominant system of morality was Confucianism which is actually far more akin of what Westerners call a philosophy (hence why Confucius is described as a great philosopher rather than the founder of a faith). It's a bit closer to how Stoicism and Epicurianism were major philosophies in the ancient West or secular humanism is a major philosophy in the modern West. The later Neo-Confucian school included more religious elements and in some ways echoed the role of the old Roman imperial cult in Roman history. China was also home to Daoism, which is a little hard to describe as a religion in the way westerners mean it, since it's kind of a mix of philosophy with lots of mysticism, but it certainly is a lot closer to western notions of religion than Confucianism. China is also one of the adoptive homes of Buddhism (originated in India, travelled up the Silk Road and evolved into new variations once in China). On top of that, there were all sorts of deities, supernatural beings and spirits tied to Daoism, local versions of Buddhism and local folk religion. Traditional Chinese culture tends to be syncretic when it comes to faith and thought (i.e. it mixes and matches the different belief systems) but the cultural damage from the 20th century means you don't see that much on the mainland anymore (mostly on Taiwan or in other countries with ethnic Chinese populations that predate the communist era). It's quite a complex co-existing mix of faiths and philosophies that can't properly be described as simply polytheistic, monotheistic or even non-theistic. You might follow Confucian morality, use Daoist influenced traditional medicine, pray to a bodhisattva for luck or health and leave an offering at a shrine for a local folk deity to appease them (or simply out of tradition) and even that explanation is just a very crude approximation. Hell, if you want to look up what might be the craziest and deadliest example of how Chinese culture was able to absorb foreign religious ideas and merge and mutate them to suit their local needs, read up on the Taiping Rebellion and its Christian-inspired leadership (the leader believed he was Jesus' younger brother and led a holy war to reshape China into his very peculiar Protestant-inspired utopia). The resulting Chinese civil war utterly dwarfs the American Civil War which happened roughly around the same time, or pretty much any other war in the 19th century, with a body count that rivals or exceeds WW1.
"When the most devout are the least moral" In our nation today, it is actually the most secular among us who are exhibiting a greater moral orientation - in the face of deadly threats - than the most devout among us, who are exhibiting the least. - Phil Zuckerman SALON
Well said! The majority of my relatives are catholic and few of them have the open mindedness, wisdom or genuine kindness of my secular friends. The weekly services do a good job of convincing them that they’re the truly morally superior ones.
You can just picture Pat Robertson, & Kenneth Copeland saying "We gotta baptize the aliens before they figure out there is no God & we're just scam artist masquerading as Preachers".🤔
Imagine using the word "alien" as if it isn't racist. You and this white individual Betty should be ashamed of yourselves. Immigrants are not "aliens". Congratulations, you just got yourselves reported for hate specch. Black Lives Matter! ✊✊✊
Same here. I'm Irish and remember how the church won a referendum on divorce during the 80s, it was really an anti womans rights stance from the church. It opened my eyes to how we were brainwashed. Imagine how we cheered when the churched lost to a Same Sex Marriage referendum...and laughed.
Yeah it seems to me the invisible sky wizard set Adam and Eve up for failure and then punish them when they ultimately failed and not just them but all their descendants. And yes I am quite aware that this is a fictional story taken from other Babylonian and Mesopotamian creation myths. But it would be like me punishing a four-year-old child for driving a car that I gave him the keys to. And not just punishing him for it but all his descendants that come afterwards.
And weren't Adam & Eve round 3? Round one was the angels.... they w're apparently too much in their creator's image. Then there was Lillith and some guy whose name I've forgotten. There were several problems with them, but the main one was that Lillith wasn't subservient enough. And just to ice the cake she preferred to ride him... I forget how they were disposed of. Next came Adam & Eve.
You would've thought that after thousands of years, we'd understand by now that Adam means "the first men" and Eve "the first mothers" and that their longevity refers to the life of the community and not of an individual (Same with Noah). But no, we keep arguing about whether they had belly buttons and about where was the "tree" of life planted (as if life didn't grow in all like a tree, from our human brain extending through the body, to the ideas we develop).
Betty at her acerbic best: The Fifth commandment is God shalt always be coy about proving he exits, see: that would be called evidence something human religions abhor. I love U Betty ❤️
But...it's even harder for atheists to prove God does not exist. First, they have to prove that the old testament is a bunch of made-up stories. I will give you that the creation story is made up to explain the world by a non-scientific culture and the story of Noah is probably an exaggeration of a local flood, but much of the OT was written over thousands of years by many different men and its consistency is much greater than other historical texts that are easily accepted as true. BTW, I have an extra-biblical, scientific proof of God that I would like to see refuted. Let me know if you want to discuss it.
@@karngray4340 "it's even harder for atheists to prove God does not exist." Well, that's b/c it's a logical fallacy to be asked to prove a negative. For examples, prove that you've never committed murder, or beaten your dog, or that the Loch Ness Monster doesn't exist. "prove that the old testament is a bunch of made-up stories" Well, there's the fact that the Egyptians were meticulous record keepers, and there are consistent records of even quite mundane things from multiple sources, and even from other cities, and yet no mention of Moses, the plagues, Pharoh's entire army being drowned in the de-parted Red Sea, or of Joshua's army destroying multiple cities. In short, if the OT were not just a bunch of stories, there would def be Egyptian records of them. "I have an extra-biblical, scientific proof of God" No you don't. Since there is no credible evidence for the existence of God, belief is a matter of faith, not of knowledge. You can believe God exists, but you can't know it, since you can't "know" something that is not demonstrably true.
"The word bipartisan means a larger than usual deception is being carried out" - George Carlin "The covid vaccine is safe and effective" - the Bipartisan slogan of Biden and Trump
@@extract8058 Bipartisan? Virtually every republican with a microphone is anti vax. Are you on crack? Who listens to politicians about medical technology anyway, oh yeah, I forgot, trumpies.
@@nathanielhellerstein5871 every Republican politician yes, Republican voters still want to prove Jesus is stronger than a virus. So far those voters are dying in droves and the politicians are laughing all the way to the bank.
I remember this US politician that was pushing for signs of the Ten Commandments being posted on signs at courthouses and schools and when asked by a reporter to mention them he couldn’t. I say, wouldn’t it be easier if he had them on a piece of paper in his pocket instead of spending all these tax money on signs because he suffer from amnesia. 🤔😂
It boggles the mind that after the age of reason and enlightenment, so many people still believe the religious nonsense of myths, superstition and the supernatural.
Picture this... Enrolled in a Catholic school. I was in first grade listening to the nun tell us how God was all powerful and could do anything, she followed up by trying to explain what were known as the "great mysteries" that we need to believe even though we don't understand it. The main one was the holy trinity. Father, son and holy spirit were all god and that it was something that we just had to accept. My 6 year old mind had to raise my hand and say the following. Sister, you just told us that God could do anything so the trinity is just an example of that. There is nothing to understand so why would it be called a mystery? Can anyone guess what my stand on organized religion is now? There is a huge difference between moral and religious.
The question no Evangelical Christian can answer... "Why do you call yourself a Christian, when all you do is quote from the old testament?" That's not Christ's teaching's... That's Judaism. Nothing wrong with Judaism, but it ain't Christian is it?
See, Christians believe that Jesus was prophecied about in the Old Testament. If that's true, it establishes him as the Jewish Messiah, found in the New Testament. If that Jesus ever existed, then the New Testament never shows his stopping being Jewish: quite the contrary. But modern Christians (of the last several hundred years) don't want to be identified with Judaism, so they teach that Jesus started a new religion around the time of his death and purported resurrection. They don't teach (unless pressed on the issue) that all the first Christians were Jews, and even debated over whether to require non-Jews to be circumcised in order to be considered "Part of the body of 'Christ' (the Messiah)!" Anyway, it's all based on anti-Semitic smoke and mirrors. There's no proof Jesus actually existed (only 2nd-hand accounts of 1st/2nd Century believers). No proof of a God at Mt. Siani, either, for that matter. People are free to believe what they wish, but that freedom ends where others' freedoms of safety and self-determination begin.
@@richarddraggan8290 That's the real, Hebraic name of what you call "The Old Testament." Might do you some good to research where the Bible came from (including prior to the Guttenberg Press).
At last I see the question I’ve been asking myself since I met evangelicals, or protestants for that matter. I was long time ago raised as a catholic and all this stress about Old Testament and the hysteria about it seems total nonsense and heretical in catholic countries
A minor point… belief is accepting claims without evidence. Faith is accepting claims despite evidence. Religion is codification of faith and belief. “Thou shalt believe without any proof” can be shortened to “thou shalt believe.”
@@JohnRay1969 wrong. A claim with evidence (proof is used in philosophy and mathematics) is called knowledge. I claim I have a quarter in my pocket. I ask if you believe me. I am literally asking if you accept my claim without evidence. You don’t have evidence I have a quarter, that I have American money, or even clothes on that have a pocket. You have no evidence to work from. But by asking if you believe me, I am asking “do you accept my claim without evidence.” With that fact your definition of faith is inherently contradictory (what is trust with proof without proof).The whole value of “a leap of faith” is accepting the claim that something can be accomplished despite evidence. If it were not the case, a leap of faith would have no value. Please don’t try to correct me when you are so easily demonstrably wrong.
@@EverettVinzant If you say you have a quarter in your pocket I trust you. When I see you produce a quarter from your pocket I believe you because I have proof, I saw you produce a quarter. There is no leap of faith. Faith in God is believing he has a quarter in His pocket without ever seeing whether he even has a pocket.
@@JohnRay1969 no, when I produce the quarter you KNOW I had a quarter in my pocket, if you accepted my claim before producing it you believed me. I didn’t say anything about having faith there is a quarter in my pocket. It would be REALLY nice if you address the things I say instead of making things up (straw man). However, since you demonstrated you need that… It would look like this in a thought experiment: The concept of a quarter is inherently contradictory. No one has ever seen a quarter before. The concept of a pocket is inherently contradictory. No one has seen a pocket before. It would require faith (accepting claims contrary to evidence) to accept there being a quarter in a pocket. Faith in god is accepting claims about god or gods actions when the definition of god is inherently contradictory and the evidence does not support the existence of a god or the actions attributed to a god. You’re still wrong, insistent, but wrong.
Brilliant. If a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down, then this should be force fed to every newborn until they’ll old enough to think for themselves.
"Slavery, polygamy, concubines, and abusing children." One of these things is not like the others, and an ironically Puritanical overtone. Consenting adults in healthy relationships with multiple consenting adults hurts no one. (This, of course, excludes situations in which women (or girls) are married off with only the flimsiest facade of fear-based consent. The many moral objections to these situations are just as objectionable when monogamous than when polygamous.)
The only real problems I've noted with polygamy are: 1. Usually, women are generationally dumbed down and used as slaves to their male Cult Leading Masters. 2. The children are rarely given a good look at monogamous families and then asked (in a safe space) for their honest observations and then their feelings about the differences. Kids are basically born into whatever circumstance their butts land in, and never given an informed free and clear choice. 3. The women are rarely married to multiple men, thus treated as truly autonomous equals. Rather, they are herded like cattle, all with one man's wishes as the center of their universe, and he uses "religion" as his excuse for his effectively human trafficking. 4. In "friends w/benefits" arrangements, there's always that one partner who isn't warned well enough that they are being asked to pretend they don't have emotions, and it's only their body/reproductive organs that the other partners care about. Also, finances are rarely discussed and contractually agreed upon. In some of these situations, that's a must-have, but a partner may be pressured to be afraid to even bring that up, and may not recognize that they can do better than that elsewhere. 5. Our society is simply not set up for polygamy, which makes it hard to navigate the financial and legal ramifications of trying it in a humane, ethical way. It rarely works out to everyone's real benefit. It usually ends in disaster for one or more partners, at least some of the kids involved, etc. While identifying problems just means creating solutions, it's time consuming and most people won't bother to do a thorough job from the start. Especially on the legal level. Polygamy is a choice. No one has to do it: that's one of the better things about it. So is monogamy. For most people, monogamy is just the easier choice, all the way around. Good luck to those who want to problem solve! Personally, I prefer no one at all.
@@justrosy5 First, I appreciate your thoughtful answer. 1. Both me and my partner's partner are first-generation poly. So is my partner, come to think of it. 2. All media and the vast majority of their friends will report on monogamous life. The kids--not mine by blood, but I've been here their whole lives and love them dearly--and I have discussed this at length on many occasions, as they were aware from elementary school that other families were a little different. It's interesting hearing their opinions. The girl gets particularly hung up on the lack of an accurate word for my relationship to her, and has gone with "big sister." I personally tend to go with "aunt" in casual conversation because it communicates responsibility without disenfranchising their mom, but like to honor her feelings on verbiage. Our household is unbelievably mundane, not dissimilar to any other functional household in our culture other than the extra adult living there also having a romantic bond with the father. 3. Polyandry is rare cross-culturally, this is true. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Nepal. Formal marriage is a political and financial contract above all else, and it appears there because inheritance is matrilineal, which is also rare. It's not uncommon in lgbtqa+ adjacent polycules, however. (Though poly isn't inherently associated with a single sexuality, these communities are unusually aware of what it means to be stigmatized for a romantic relationship.) I am vehemently opposed to women being forced into any kind of relationship, directly or by social pressure or brainwashing. What you're describing is awful, but not more awful than the current fears of Afghan women that they'll be "given in marriage" to Taliban fighters by the Taliban. This is typically monogamous. This is a problem of equality and consent, not how many people are in the marriages. 4. My partner was super transparent that he was already married. When he said that, but that he was interested in me, I immediately demanded to speak to his wife, because I don't play games or take extraordinary claims on faith. She confirmed. I said I needed to stop talking them for a couple of weeks to think, and did. A decade and a half later, we're still together. The financial question is an argument FOR a legal framework for polygamous partners, not against it. Most people don't have the legal knowledge or experience to handle the complex financial arrangements of marriage, and the laws around it protect them by default. 5. First, society isn't set up for a lot of things, not least women having a say in their lives. Things were less complicated when all property was immediately ceded to the husband upon marriage. This wasn't even two centuries ago, if memory serves. Society can and should change. Regarding the second part, there's a lot of confirmation bias going on, here. Much like normal marriage, it's extraordinary and typically awful cases that end up in the media, not the quiet polycule just doing its thing. Polygamy is a choice, yes. So is monogamous marriage. All marriage should be. Neither being atypical nor lacking extant legal framework is a reason something shouldn't exist.
Luv your stuff! When I was a kid being forced to take communion, even at a young age, it made me nauseous having to 'drink the blood & eat the flesh!' Dude, I still gag! That's just creepy! And, yet, I'm the weirdo...
