Religion Harms Society | Peter Millican | Oxford Union 

Religious people seem to like blaming non-religious ideologies despite religions having worse impact than ideologies since they encourage irrational behaviour due to mythical gods

@@agentsteve8263 While constructing a strawman of these non-religious ideologies...

It brainwashing people's, made people's become completely stupid or have mental disorders.n

@@agentsteve8263 yes, the christians even accusing a black dog are the devil propaganda tool to perform black magic, and killed the poor dog, they are in high levels mental problem status. Can you believe it??? 🙈🙉🙈🙉🙈🙉🙈🙉

Yep.

Agreed.

Yeah guy who had compulsory urge to chop human heads of. I mean i am not religious but there are as many stupid atheists as there are religious people so if you want to do wicked things you could do on the baisis of atheism. religious people on most part belive what is practical for them of course islam has extreme groups but most of them are born in culture and mold themselves around religion. there was once project of overturning religion with some sort of rational new religion even by robespierre and then by cont but it doesn't work so religion should exist like a ladder for more rational thought because as you read bible you can clearly see that it couldn't be possible that some guy was walking on water.

aka the paranoid lunatic who murder thousands of innocents

Ahem... Isn't that, what the Garden of Eden was all about...? Thou shall not eat the Fruit of Knowledge...Or U'll be burning in Hell...Go figure... Hahaa... Any scientific research then and even now was and is a poison Chalice to Religion...Religion knows that Science has proven that Religion and all it's dogmas and ideologies is just nonsense... But, the way to appease the masses is to spread fear in them. Cos, nothing feeds the Monsters of Fear than fear itself. It is self perpetuating. Religion knows how to break ones trust in oneself, man is weak. Easi Peasi...

Well, that is illogical at least in the sense that those who ecucate cannot be assumed to want that freedom. Look around and consider what Jefferson said of the common folk of his country : " this was the object of the Declaration of Independance. not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject; [. . .] terms so plain and firm, as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independant stand we [. . .] compelled to take. neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the american mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. all it’s authority rests then on the harmonising sentiments of the day, whether expressed, in conversns in letters, printed essays or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney Etc" Education killed that universal acceptance

I completely agree with everything you've just said.

just a quick follow up. on February 2020, Ramadan was formally charged with raping two more women and in October 2020, Ramadan was formally charged with raping a fifth woman.

Yeah I have to agree.

You said nothing specific. Then we should ignore you?

@@craigsmith1443 they didn’t cite examples but they’re being pretty specific here it seems to me.

You could try.

Same!

@@theagnosticdeist3373 Give it a try. If you cannot, then perhaps you only have 'beliefs,' not reasons.

@@theagnosticdeist3373 _there seems to be no tangible benefit by following a certain set of Rituals and commands_ In Christianity, some of those 'commands' are 'love your neighbor,' 'accept responsibility,' 'honor one another,' 'encourage one another,' 'do not lie,' and a rather long list of changes that we humans must make in order to have a workable society of trust and respect. I would think that these have 'tangible benefit.' Some argue that these are just 'reasonable' and that anyone could and would agree with them, but of course that is not true. Without God over our lives, what hierarchy of moral responsibilities do we live by? For most of our history, most of humanity has lived and still does live by a rational egoism that strives to build comfort and security for self even if it's at the expense of one's neighbor, and why not? Without God, why do anything different? That's the reason we have laws, courts, and police: people often quite justifiably try to find shortcuts to personal advancement in finances that we have to call 'illegal' with the force of punishment. People regularly fight with, cheat, and even kill each other over money and love. Here in America we're not doing very well with our rising crime rates in our big cities that have accepted a different morality from the one taught in the Bible. So I don't think that we can say that Christ's teachings 'have no tangible benefit' nor that 'what he taught is only rational.' Clearly it is not, and the majority of people show that every day.

@@williamschacht7076 That's no guarantee. Jacques Derrida, professor of philosophy, was often accused of not even knowing what he himself meant. Professors of all kinds, including philosophy, argue and accuse each other of being wrong. It even happens in science. Leonard Susskind is rather fond of telling of the arguments that he had with Stephen Hawking, for instance, and of course Einstein had quite public issues with quantum mechanics. Among the schools of philosophy, everybody disagrees with everybody else. That's part of the adventure, actually, but still it shows that 'becoming a professor of philosophy is not a guarantee of anything. Such a professor still has to ensure that his methodology is correct. Sadly, Millican does not. He does not define his terms (allowing us to wonder if he really knows what he's talking about), and he allows himself to contradict himself in stating that 'religion' (whatever he thinks that is) 'harms society' and yet he says 'We can all agree that religion is associated with good works' which by definition are not 'harm.' No, a PhD guarantees nothing.

That's another gem of Sagan's legacy.

Trump world

That can also be said of Mr Millican or Richard Dawkins or Chris Hitchens or Matt Dillahunty...

@@craigsmith1443 nice try, but still wrong.

@@kellydalstok8900 You could try saying something instead of just trolling.

It is indeed interesting when that happens.

#delusion

Then it must be just as humorous to you when an astrophysicist tells you that it is impossible for the human mind to perceive or even comprehend the scale, nature, and seemingly infinite mysteries of the universe, and then proceed to tell you all kinds of ways in which the universe works and does things. Yes, scientific inquiry and its conclusions are based on empirical evidence gained through observation of our natural world, which is a rather difficult method to apply to the supernatural (some may say impossible), but your line of reasoning does nothing for the argument against God or his mind or his will and sounds to me like an objection rooted in emotion over logic.

You laugh because you are stupid.Nobody argues to God who doesn't know that the Creator argument precedes, as it does in our Declaration and Constitution. Theism is NOT religion except to fools like you

Fortunately, not all religious beliefs are 'superstitious.' Jesus, for example.

@@craigsmith1443 -- Which of the 40,000+ versions of jesus? Luthran? Protestant? Presbyterian? JW? 6th Day? Mormon? “We are all Atheists about most of the gods humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” - Richard Dawkins

@@MasterSpade _Which of the 40,000+ versions of jesus? Luthran? Protestant? Presbyterian? JW? 6th Day? Mormon?_ What exactly does that matter? _We are all Atheists about most of the gods humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further_ Said Richard Dawkins with religious fervor. He doesn't 'go further,' he only goes against the one God that he he's heard most about but hasn't thought much about at all. So he replaces one religion with another and calls it 'atheism'; so he says that he's atheist. What he really means is that he's only atheist about the Christian God. Tom Holland says that since he's a westerner, he lives by Christian morality. Richard just doesn't know that because he doesn't bother thinking about anything except what he's talking about at that moment. Thus, he's wrong most of the time, for he ignores context, half of all meaning. Historians argue all the time. Does that mean that, oh, Alexander the Great or Abraham Lincoln or Henry VIII didn't exist because people disagree about them?

@@craigsmith1443 -- You didn't answer the Question = Which of the 40K+ versions of jesus is the correct one? If you say "none of those", then you just added another denomination, yours. "Religion is a phase a species goes through when it evolves enough intelligence to ask profound questions but not enough to answer them." - Bill Flavell

@@MasterSpade _You didn't answer the Question_ And I asked you what you think it maters? Bill Flavel: Anthropologist? Neurologist? Historian? Anything at all? Just someone who thinks in memes?

The empty is also simple.

@@craigsmith1443 His arguments aren't empty, though, even if they're not what you want to hear.

@@delilahhart4398 You are welcome to state your case.

@@craigsmith1443 Peter Millican pretty much sums it up, but I will add that Christianity is the creation of men, not a deity or deities, as are all other religions. Also, Christianity promotes slavery, sexism, homophobia, animal cruelty, sectarianism, and child abuse, so it's not a good belief system to follow.

@@craigsmith1443 islamic/christian/hindu/buddist terrorism. hundreds of thousands tortured/raped/abused/enslaved/murdered by orthodox/fundamentalist adherents. unapologetic slavery throughout the bookofgobbledygook

Nice one.

_All religious books can be classified as "The Goat-herder's Guide to the Universe"_ Then you have not read any of them.

@@craigsmith1443 The ancient Israelites thought the earth was flat, covered by a dome, and supported by legs. Mohammed thought the earth was like a flat map held down my the mountains, as paperweights. It goes back even further with what's written in the Avesta, or etched into a rock in Cuneiform. These people didn't know where the sun goes at night so why should I take spiritual guidance from them?

@@micahaalders9840 Perhaps you will understand that knowing 'where the sun goes at night' will not affect your spiritual knowledge? I'm sure that we will discover more yet about the physical world, but whether we build a quantum computer or not does not change 'love your neighbor' or 'tell the truth' or 'Jesus rose from the dead.' Jesus said, 'Follow me,' which is as true now as it was 2000 years ago, and Copernicus, Newton, nor Einstein have changed that.

@@craigsmith1443 yet these religious doctrines brought back humanity and various sciences e.g Ptolemy and Galileo who were forced to bring into public acception that the earth was the center of the universe in fear of persecution and being classified as heretics. Not to mention how deceptive iron age "prophets" were and how gullible people were during that time. Religion teaches to hate everything that opposes your philosophical viewpoint on life thus creating pseudo sciences and the rest. Denial of human kind as a member of the animal kingdom, making it a must to believe what we do not understand because we "shouldn't" understand. Just because their isn't an answer doesn't mean your answer is the answer. Maybe a giant spaghetti might have created the universe. Maybe its a simulation. Maybe were living in an atom inside an infinite paradox. If you place two mirrors facing each other,Did you create the infinite reflections?? No! Infinity can't be deciphered thus it is not finite.

Received Pronunciation it is called.

He definitely has a voice that brings the ear up.

She's too smooth brained.

It was a set up from christian people's to mock him and shut him off from all possible future debate, to shame him obviously but they failed yet again.

You prove that bad will first issues in stupidity and then into defending withour reason things like SODOMY, which Wilde did not "On November 28,1900, as Wilde lay dying on his bed in Paris, Robbie Ross called in a priest, an English Passionist, Father Dunne. Wilde was given conditional Baptism and was anointed. For a short time he emerged from delirium into lucidity, and Father Dunne, examining him, was satisfied that Wilde freely desired reception into the Church. Wilde died a Catholic on November 30."r

Asking the important questions.

It was a set up to shut opposed non believerd off from the debate, it is impossible stupid question so you cannot answer. Standard christian misleading propaganda.

Good question its some nice hair.

😂

Yet NEVER gives reasons while extolling reason. I like your witness to what an illogical dumb hypocrite really looks like, "I could debunk but I care so little about you that I will do NOTHING"

@@analogia_entisgives reason to or for what? What are you talking about?

That's a beautiful dream. Now wake up.

Yeah but people are sensitive in what they believe what do you expect?

Religion divides us, while it is our human characteristics that bind us to each other.” Religion tends to divide people more than it unites people. Religion has been dividing human society Causing violence and wars

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us. Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament of the other. Thomas Paine,

Till 325 AD, not a single historian or writer wrote about Jesus Christ or any of his disciples . BEFORE THE FIRST COUNCIL OF NICEA IN 325 AD, NOBODY ON THIS PLANET EVER HEARD OF THE NAMES JESUS CHRIST OR CHRISTIANITY. JESUS/ BIBLE / CHRISTIANTY WAS COOKED UP IN 325 AD, BY JEWESS HELENA , WHO SAT ON THE POPE'S CHAIR.. "Vatican is Evil terrorist satanic organisation." If Satan does exist, then he thrives inside the Roman Catholic Church. The dead sea scrolls covering the period from Birth of Jesus to 68 AD , does NOT say one word about Jesus or his 12 Apostles. Hellenistic philosopher Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (20 BCE-50 AD/CE)-alive at the purported time of Jesus, and one of the wealthiest and best connected citizens of the Empire- makes no mention of Christ, Christians or Christianity in his voluminous writings. Nor do any of the hundreds of other historians and writers who flourished during the first THREE centuries of the common era. The DEAD SEA SCROLLS were all written by Pagan Essenes . None of them have been edited by later Christians, as is the case with some other Jewish literature. All the scrolls (except a treasure map known as the Copper Scroll) can be dated prior to A.D. 68 or 69, when the Qumran settlement was believed to have been destroyed by the Romans in the Jewish revolt. The oldest of the scrolls probably goes back to the middle of the third century B.C. The people of Qumran belonged to a Pagan religious group known as the Essenes. Pliny the Elder, who died during the volcanic destruction of Pompeii in the year 79 A.D., described a community of pagan Essenes living on the western shore of the Dead Sea, close to where Khirbet Qumran is situated. John the Baptist was an ascetic Essene . He was a vegan and was uncircumcised . Various literary sources like Josephus and Philo tell clearly that Essenes were ascetics. We also know, from literary testimony, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the archaeological remains of Qumran, that the Essenes practiced many water baptisms for ritual purification-similar to a dip in the Ganges or the river Pampa or at Thiirunelli. At Qumran, however, all members of the community were baptized with water for ritual purification. Josephus writes, "And as for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary; for before sunrising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising" (Wars, 2.8.5). This testimony accords well with what we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Prayer and humility was one thing that the Essenes . When they cooked up stories about Jesus they wrote that Jesus Christ ate the Last Supper in the Essene part of town. Jesus is not historical character, The Dead Sea Scrolls have produced increasing evidence to cement the fact that Jesus Christ never existed and the whole story was cooked up at the First Council of Nicea in 325 AD. The FAKE gospels were written after 325 AD after Jesus was cooked up at the first Council of Nicea.. Twelve apostles of Jesus never existed. Jesus Christ names 12 apostles to spread his gospel, and the early Christian church owes its rapid rise to their missionary zeal. Yet, for most of the Twelve, there's scant evidence of their existence outside of the New Testament. The concept of using statistics to prove that 'God authored the Bible' is bullshit. Why was the library of Alexandria burnt ? The gospel of Thomas was not written by Jesus' disciple Thomas. Englishman Godfrey Higgins studied Greek, Latin and law at Cambridge . His two-volume, 867-page book Anacalypsis: An Enquiry into the Origins of Languages, Nations, and Religions, was published posthumously in 1836. In his treatise, Higgins writes " the mythos of the Jews and the mythos of the Greeks are all at bottom the same lifted from the ancient mythos of Hindus ; and ... are contrivances under the appearance of histories to perpetuate doctrines," and that Christian editors “either from roguery or folly, corrupted them all.” 1900, Scottish MP John Mackinnon Robertson wrote that Jesus never existed but was an FAKE invention by a first-century messianic cult. He wrote about the First Council of Nicea of 325 AD where powerful forces invented a new god to fit the needs of the society of the time .Robertson specifically mentions the Talmudic story of the Yeshu . Thomas says: "Simon Peter said to them, ‘Make Mary leave us, for females don’t deserve life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven’" (Thomas 114). AIYOOOOO -even Christians don’t like this When the master of James baby Jesus Christ never existed -- how can his disciple St James exist ? Even since the dead sea scrolls have been discovered CHRISTIANS and JEWS are jumping up and down like demented orangutans claiming that Essenes belong to them. Dead Sea text or Qumran Scrolls have absolutely nothing ZILCH, to do with the Bible of the Torah - never mind the diabolical lies of the Christians and the Jews. For arguments sake -even if messiah Jesus Christ existed , the gospels were written a even a century after Jesus' estimated year of death, by individuals who never met Jesus, and then were edited or forged over the centuries by unknown scribes with their own agendas. Dead sea scrolls have been written by Essenes of the sect of Apollonius।।।।

***** Yes, I'm well aware of that quote. However, you were asserting that secularism was associated with more peaceful, equal and prosperous societies. The United States is a secular country and it is anything but those things. Those who would lead a country who have no sense of responsibility towards its populace, who are, very much, sheep, and always will be, sheep, are not worthy of calling themselves either scientific nor moral.

***** That's just an excuse to institute totalitarian ideology. There is no excuse for oppression in that manner.

***** You're an idiot then.

+FinaleGoofups "The United States is a secular country"? So why is it that any declared Atheist can not be elected to even the lowest office? There is a separation of church and state but that doesn't mean it is secular. It's the general population and their attitudes and beliefs that make a country secular.

@@FinaleGoofups Triggered?

Interesting isn't it?

@@404_coffee9 Absolutely!

Astounding isn't it? That 21st century people aspire to live by the words of Iron Age people who didn't even know of earth's orbit. It's frankly shocking and hilarious had it not been unsettling af.

Exactly. The fact that religion justifies militant fanaticism. Is yet another reason we would be better off without religion

God bless america is actually the vatican pope brainwashing propaganda, the Vatican forced people's to worship the pope at god, it is an hinting religious propaganda.

Brothers fight because it is human nature to have disagreements with one another from time to time. Religions fight amongst each other and with the non-religious because their belief systems impose black and white thinking through indoctrination. There is no comparison.

@@miranda.cooper I'm not sure what do you mean by "black and white" thinking, I hope you don't mean aggression towards the opposition. It is logical that one religion doesn't accept another religion to be the same as it is. There are differences between religions and this fairly natural.

Do I have to accept your faith if I don't have one?

Yes

@@geertdecoster5301 You have the right to believe just as I have the right to mock that belief.

@@FactStorm Yes, you do, and everyone else will ultimately pitty you because of it.

@@geertdecoster5301 Speak for yourself

She was diverting, because nobody claimed that power, money an corruption aren't issues. It's a straw man and red herring of sorts

Like the modern value of murder the baby if you can't be bothered.

@@s-truth Jesus the intelligent designer LOVES spontaneous natural abortions...and the abortion of the child isn't enough for the blood lust of the tyrant Jesus...he also wants the mother dead. His unintelligent design of the uterus ( birth canal ) is the hallmark of Jesus incompetence of sociopathic love for miscarriages.... - 23.000.000 miscarriages worldwide per year - An estimated 1 in 4 UK based pregnancies ends in miscarriage (1 in 5 if we only count women who realized/reported the miscarriage) - Around 11 in 1,000 pregnancies are ectopic - About 1 in 100 women in the UK experience recurrent miscarriages (3 or more in a row) - Jesus loves to endanger women, cause depression and maybe a couple suicides... An abortion at least is done by medical professionals and not by the bad design of the "supernatural baby killah" from Nazareth.

@@Raydensheraj You do have a vivid imagination. Perhaps you should write books for children.

@@Raydensheraj Vatican politicized jesus christ into multiple third-party dictators image to shame the real christians people's. Vatican is religion fraudsters.

LOL I love her pissed off face. You can see her shaking her head in disapproval

Was thinking the same thing.

Religious apologists often show the most hostility because they can't fathom someone destroying their delusions

Don't want... Do! Create a RU-vid channel and share your thoughts.

You mean you want to be well-educated, thoughtful, articulate, and quick-witted. A worthy aspiration.

that's actually really wise!

I would like to understand why you think Christianity deserves a special case. It’s a cult all the same. If it’s not inherently evil, then no other religion is. Apart from Jainism that is.

@@bryangale8171 _I would like to understand why you think Christianity deserves a special case_ She didn't say that at all, in fact, she said the opposite, that it's like anything else. It can be misused. _It’s a cult all the same_ That's only a name, not a description. To label is not to understand. _If it’s not inherently evil, then no other religion is_ Perhaps no religion is. Name one that is and explain your reasons?

The thought that a person can be cast into infinite pain and suffering for believing something else , that you can cast your sins on a person and torture him to death , that there is this being in control of everything and designed everything makes thousands of kids die daily of thirst are fundamentally evil . and that is just the beginning . you may say there are good bits but you cant ignore the bad bits as you can do with other books . The bible is revealed truth and all of it must be accurate .

@@user-he4ef9br7z Your post is general and without evidence or even explanation: _a person can be cast into infinite pain and suffering for believing something else_ Because medieval writers said so does not mean that it is so. Can you give some sort of reference, an authority, for saying this? _that you can cast your sins on a person and torture him to death_ This is...foreign... to the Bible. Where does this happen? _that there is this being in control of everything and designed everything makes thousands of kids die daily of thirst_ And you know this because of what, exactly? _you may say there are good bits but you cant ignore the bad bits as you can do with other books_ Who does this? _The bible is revealed truth and all of it must be accurate_ What do you mean, 'accurate'?

He did so well.

His brother said that too. He is now a DEVOUT CHRISTIAN but that you can't accept because you suspended rational thought when the brother found reational thought :)

@@analogia_entis and what is this "rational thought" you babble about? Fairies flying in the sky?, invisible men? Magical creatures no one has ever seen, is that your "rational thoughts"? And also, people might believe on all sorts of funny thing, rational or not, including the deluded Hitchins brother.

religions are divided everywhere but you would probably be surprised to hear that even in Ulster many catholics & protestants live & work side by side & are friends.

@@THEWIGMONSTER Presbyterians were subject to some of the penal laws. Sounds like divide and rule to me.

@@THEWIGMONSTER Yes, its better now in Ulster but there's still deep divide

@@FactStorm I am descended from Irish Catholic Irish Portestant and English Protestant here in Canada. Religion is not an issue and we all get along at least as far as religion goes, although some people who are not Christian would dispute this statement.

Not according to some people due to it being subjective.

If practicing religion depends on cognitive abilities, why didn't God create everyone with same good cognitive abilities? Oh, never mind.

That's the issue, these texts are not direct but instead allow assumptions and interpretation to be made

Logic destroys the objection. The question is "iS MY REASON TO BE SUBSERIVIENT TO SOMEONE ELSE'S JUST BECAUSE i REASON THAT THERE MUST BE A CREATOR"

As much as I hate religion, I'm not sure 'publicly banning' is the answer (among other reasons: the law of unintended consequences. banning can sometimes make something more prevalent). But I would suggest that we need to stop (not stop with laws but just stop doing) any kind of public affirmation of religion. As an example I remember reading on BBC world news, about something that had a moral component and BBC had gone to the Archbishop of Canterbury for his opinion. I remember thinking 'why him, in what way is his opinion any better on moral issues than your average joe Blogs. At least joe Blogs takes his morality from modern day society and not bronze age society. I think one of the biggest lies that religion pushes (and people often believe without questing) is that they are in some way more moral than everybody else.

I have enough science fiction books to read already

mariam Sh Its best to make sure that what you're saying is correct

mariam Sh In order to state your case effectively, you have to be willing to put forth a lot of information. My guess is that if you write down a small outline , you'll be able memorize and present the information, and in it's correct order. Not looking down at your outline comes only with practice as well as familiarity with the subject matter at hand.

It's difficult to be on stage only to recite your points in their entirety. It's good in certain contexts to have things on hands as it can help you save time and iterate your points. I don't know why you're focused on this..