What good is religion?

I'm just piggy-backing on to gabmux's premise, with my own, likewise-proven, complaint. Namely:

Wolves do not NEED to howl at the moon--
they should just cut out, all the racket.

 

If that's truly the case, couldn't any RELIGION claim it's primary work was to UN-CONVERT people from ATHEISM, & similarly godless lives? (Or, like the rest of your thread's arguments, are you the only one allowed to use that logic?)

 

Another person saved from his own choices, by the superceding wisdom of GABMUX:

Excuse my unabashed devotion, everybody, but the personal & human needs for religion,
any individual's purpose--
what DOESN'T gabmux know?!!

 

Yet RELATIONSHIPS are considered by all psychological experts-- save our lay-expert, gabmux, apparently-- as VITAL to psychological health.

 

What good is religion?

That's easy. It provides a moral framework for life that people can follow. It provides answers for people who are uncomfortable with mystery. And of course belonging to a congregation provides some social structure for life. I don't use religion myself but I certainly understand its value.

 

While any reasonable person would concede that alleviating MISERY is a human need or, at the very least, a worthwhile purpose; I know who I am addressing, so I won't rely on that. I will point out, though, that even you included the implied caveat that unaddressed misery cannot be allowed to persist, without remedy. You merely offer your own personal nostrum, for attaining happiness, no more proven (in fact less so) than any other patent medicine.

As laughably ludicrous (and unsupported) is the contention that RELIGION is no different from ALCOHOL, it is all the more damning of your excuse for an argument that, even accepting that speculation, I can PROVE that your thread's "suggestion," is UTTERLY IMPRACTICAL.

My proof? PROHIBITION-- we even made alcohol ILLEGAL, and not only did it fail to, "bury," this vice, but that drastic measure could not even significantly lessen its use!

This PROVES-- unless gabmux is maintaining that we COULD stop people, writ large, from drinking alcohol, by CHOICE, no less-- that his tying-in religion with alcohol (and w/ drug use, which our WAR ON DRUGS has also proven to be futile & fruitless), provides the very analogy to underline the point that
THIS THREAD'S POSIT IS EXCLUSIVELY HYPOTHETICAL, i.e., in real terms, MEANINGLESS.

 

Presenting
THE WAR ON RELIGION--

GABMUX'S CRUSADE:

THE SPECULATIVE,

THE POMPOUS,

AND THE ABSURD,

(P.S.-- "WORDS," represent things, both physical, & conceptual-- which does not make a thing, necessarily, any less real, since
LOVE, HATE, & GOD,
are all, "just words.")



PLATITUDE ROLL:

 

Unless, of course, who a person, "really is," is not a static thing, but something which, itself, grows, evolves, & changes.

 

Does what is emboldened mean that if I comment on what follows it, I will be "on-topic?"

The logic of your thread, according to your above description of it's purpose, is on par with someone trying to outlaw abortions, thinking that if legal abortion were eliminated, that would prevent the termination of pregnancies, as well as make everyone who finds out they're with child, happy about bringing a new life into the world.

It sees everything backwards: not that there are different religions, in part, because people want to be divided into their own clans, but that, darn it, if not for the different faiths causing us to be divided, we would all get along so much better! I mean, look how ecstatic everyone was over desegregational school bussing (not knocking the policy, only noting that it didn't exactly end racial bigotry). Now if we could only get the KKK to take in minority members...Calling that understanding, "simplistic," barely begins to cover it.

I have long believed that people getting to know others who are of different religious, ethnic, & racial groups, is the best way to fight prejudice; but preventing people from worshipping as they choose, or insulting, lambasting, or shaming them for it, seems counter-productive.

 

Well done! See you can make a point without 5 billion extra words!
I knew you could do it.
But still you have not offered anything other than an imagined "need" for religion.

 

Have never told you to leave...you just get upset and say you are leaving.
Three times now you have graciously made an exit...only to return a short time later.
You are addicted to this thread the same as people become addicted to "religion".
It's just a habit that humans are drawn to. They can't resist...neither can you.

 

Yes that all has a very nice ring to it...
But obviously "religions" don't "bind civilization",
they only form separate groups...all of which think they are right...
implying the other groups are wrong. Just like political groups.

 

Which I did not do. Again.

I asked for a quote last post, which you ignored.

You answered one of your lies with another and I do not have time to just keep correcting you about the lies you say I put.

Regards
DL

 

I hear you.

He just did it again.

Regards
DL

 

So science has to prove your god real, because you cannot.

Is that what you are saying?

Who is your god?

Regards
DL

 

Does that make you mad that science can not create life but god can?

 

Let’s think about this. Life is most definitely of a divine nature. Science claims life came from gasses that turned into amino acids, that later developed into RNA, which later developed into DNA. Yet scientists can’t even recreate all the amino acids necessary to make RNA. So there is definitely something divine or god like at play.

you can get all defensive that’s fine but it won’t negate the fact that god exists. To prove that he doesn’t you’re going to have to prove he wasn’t there or needed to create life.

 

<Rule 2> Science has created primordial life.

What proof do you have that your god of the gaps is any more real than the scientific god of the gaps?

Where did you get your first hand information on god?

<Rule 2>

Regards
DL

 

I, nor anyone living, can prove a negative.

Thanks for the reverse onus. <Rule 2>

Regards
DL

 

Ummm no they have not

 

Nor have you yet to respond to a single one of my points (though, in fact, I have described a reason for its need, which you dismissed out of hand, w/o debate). It is a perverted argument that requires others to prove the need for something that all consider everyone's inalienable right. You can dress up your opinion in all the specious reasoning you want; you have not, & by this point I can predict you will not, convince me that there is anything, "enlightened," about advocating the abolition or severe limitation of people's freedom of religion. If you would retort that you are preaching no such thing-- as it is beyond credibility that people, en masse, will abandon their religious faiths, in response to the supposed logic you have offered, then what is the point of your argument? Is that something you can answer, or will you hide behind your usual excuse, that supplying the point of your thread is not part of the thread's, "topic?"

 

It’s the truth. I’m sorry you feel you’re on the side as a defendant for some weird reason. Either way. Science has not gotten even close to making life. You can research article after article and they never claim to do so. The only thing that ever has created life is god.
And what a good man he is. <Mod Edit>

 

Your false statements are an ineffectual response, presented in their quoteless nakedness. Far from ignoring your request for a quote, I provided 8 of them.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/what-good-is-religion.588493/page-23#post-1072752082

Did you not get the message notice? If your claim is that these quotes do not prove what I claimed-- & it is no credit to you that this should need be explained-- the honorable way of doing so, would be to face those quotes I offered, & argue why they are unsatisfactory substantiation.
Saying that I, "answered one of (my) lies with another," could hardly be much more vague of a contention.

One of your quotes, for example, was
Greatest I am said: ↑
I agree that a supernatural god does not exist.

Now, if you wish to make the case that this does not support either, or both, of my claims about what you had said-- that God is not a real thing, and that you are an atheist-- you could certainly do that, while still having the decency to not call me a liar for what should be abundantly clear, even to someone without your self-claimed, superior degree of interpretive insight, would be an honest, "mistake," in my understanding of your words.

It is one's actions which speak the loudest. And your way of handling this dispute-- trying to dodge the truth, & slandering me with false allegations-- presents a very poor example of what it means, to follow the neo-Gnostic path.

 

This thread is about beliefs is it not? So my beliefs that god does love him is not worthy of a mod edit. So I’m going to say it again. I believe god loves him and the mod who edited my beliefs out

 

This world would be a much worse place if not for the faith many carry in our great nation. I’m a firm believer in that.