Should religion be eliminated

[ding]

There's quite a bit of opposition to religion here. I am just wondering how many of you people believe religion should be eliminated. It's been tried before and failed, but don't let that deter you in your quest.

Learn from their mistakes and give it another try.

Why the Soviet attempt to stamp out religion failed | Giles Fraser: Loose canon

Every religion today is a lie. So yes they should all eventually be eliminated. I would hope a more evolved humans wouldn’t believe the Mohammad or Moses stories.

Everyone agrees with me. You just believe in one more religion than I do. You know the other thousands of religions are fake and should go away.

I don’t mean outlawed. I just mean less and less people buying into it so in 1000 years Christianity will be like the Greek gods. Kids will learn about ancient religions like Mormons and jehovas

Is there a line you will draw to eliminate religion?

What would you do to eliminate religion and what wouldn’t you do to eliminate religion?

 

[sealybobo]

A hopeless man is a dangerous man... Remove hope and men will fight for their very existence against you...

Hope for what? Make your life better. You only have one life. You are so lucky to have been born.

Enjoy the time now

 

[sealybobo]

There's quite a bit of opposition to religion here. I am just wondering how many of you people believe religion should be eliminated. It's been tried before and failed, but don't let that deter you in your quest.

Learn from their mistakes and give it another try.

Why the Soviet attempt to stamp out religion failed | Giles Fraser: Loose canon

Every religion today is a lie. So yes they should all eventually be eliminated. I would hope a more evolved humans wouldn’t believe the Mohammad or Moses stories.

Everyone agrees with me. You just believe in one more religion than I do. You know the other thousands of religions are fake and should go away.

I don’t mean outlawed. I just mean less and less people buying into it so in 1000 years Christianity will be like the Greek gods. Kids will learn about ancient religions like Mormons and jehovas

Is there a line you will draw to eliminate religion?

What would you do to eliminate religion and what wouldn’t you do to eliminate religion?

I wouldn’t do anything other than tell people what I believe now and again.

You want to go to church have fun

 

[ding]

There's quite a bit of opposition to religion here. I am just wondering how many of you people believe religion should be eliminated. It's been tried before and failed, but don't let that deter you in your quest.

Learn from their mistakes and give it another try.

Why the Soviet attempt to stamp out religion failed | Giles Fraser: Loose canon

Every religion today is a lie. So yes they should all eventually be eliminated. I would hope a more evolved humans wouldn’t believe the Mohammad or Moses stories.

Everyone agrees with me. You just believe in one more religion than I do. You know the other thousands of religions are fake and should go away.

I don’t mean outlawed. I just mean less and less people buying into it so in 1000 years Christianity will be like the Greek gods. Kids will learn about ancient religions like Mormons and jehovas

Is there a line you will draw to eliminate religion?

What would you do to eliminate religion and what wouldn’t you do to eliminate religion?

I wouldn’t do anything other than tell people what I believe now and again.

You want to go to church have fun

That’s all you do?

 

[sealybobo]

There's quite a bit of opposition to religion here. I am just wondering how many of you people believe religion should be eliminated. It's been tried before and failed, but don't let that deter you in your quest.

Learn from their mistakes and give it another try.

Why the Soviet attempt to stamp out religion failed | Giles Fraser: Loose canon

Every religion today is a lie. So yes they should all eventually be eliminated. I would hope a more evolved humans wouldn’t believe the Mohammad or Moses stories.

Everyone agrees with me. You just believe in one more religion than I do. You know the other thousands of religions are fake and should go away.

I don’t mean outlawed. I just mean less and less people buying into it so in 1000 years Christianity will be like the Greek gods. Kids will learn about ancient religions like Mormons and jehovas

Is there a line you will draw to eliminate religion?

What would you do to eliminate religion and what wouldn’t you do to eliminate religion?

I wouldn’t do anything other than tell people what I believe now and again.

You want to go to church have fun

That’s all you do?

That’s it. And I don’t mess with believers in real life. That’s mean. They have to discover on their own. I like helping agnostics like you

 

[sealybobo]

What reform movements do you support?

Maybe "support" implies too much. I'm not actively involved in any religious groups any more. I used to be more involved but gradually drifted away. But I mean for example that I used to spend a certain amount of time trying to persuade fellow Christians to adopt less fundamentalistic views on any number of religious topics, from the nature of the inspiration in biblical texts (and hermaneutics in general) to various ideas about salvation and the goals of a Christian life, and how to interpret changes in Christian theology over time and adapt them to the modern world. I'm more familiar with Christianity than other religions, but I guess all I'm basically saying is that I approve of efforts made by religious adherents to adopt versions of their religions that I think are more coherent with modern understandings of science and enlightenment values. Some would summarize that as saying that I support more liberal, and less conservative, versions of religion, but I think there's some possibility of interpreting "liberal" here to mean less serious, or in relation to the way those labels are used in US politics, and that doesn't seem entirely right to me.

Half the people in any church take the Bible literally and half don’t.

The ones that don’t take it literally are a hop skip and jump away from atheism

 

[sealybobo]

A hopeless man is a dangerous man... Remove hope and men will fight for their very existence against you...

What would you do if you believed god didn’t exist? What is belief in god stopping you from doing?

I don’t hope or believe in an afterlife heaven or hell.

But I do hope for a happy long life and a painless end.

You can always hope that tomorrow will be a better day than yesterday. If that helps. Us atheists hope for that.

I also hope humans live even after life on this planet is wiped out.

Atheists hope humans live forever. Theists hope they themselves live forever. Seems selfish especially when their religions deny science like global warming because they know how the end will come. It’s all in their holy book

 

[Taz]

Smart people have eliminated religions and have simply gone on a personal spiritual path. Simpletons still cling to the myths and folly.

 

[sealybobo]

There is no ‘opposition to religion’ on USMB.

No one advocates for religion to be ‘eliminated.’

Well what will happen to these religions when one day humans all understand that these miracles and god sightings in these ancient goat herder books are not to be taken literally?

Will Christianity continue even if Jesus was just a really good guy?

Eventually after no one takes the religion literally then they don’t take it seriously and they’ll leave. It’ll eventually be eliminated.

That might take muslims thousands of years.

There will always be jews though because they aren’t just a religion.

 

[sealybobo]

There's quite a bit of opposition to religion here. I am just wondering how many of you people believe religion should be eliminated. It's been tried before and failed, but don't let that deter you in your quest.

Learn from their mistakes and give it another try.

Why the Soviet attempt to stamp out religion failed | Giles Fraser: Loose canon

Every religion today is a lie. So yes they should all eventually be eliminated. I would hope a more evolved humans wouldn’t believe the Mohammad or Moses stories.

Everyone agrees with me. You just believe in one more religion than I do. You know the other thousands of religions are fake and should go away.

I don’t mean outlawed. I just mean less and less people buying into it so in 1000 years Christianity will be like the Greek gods. Kids will learn about ancient religions like Mormons and jehovas

Is there a line you will draw to eliminate religion?

What would you do to eliminate religion and what wouldn’t you do to eliminate religion?

I wouldn’t do anything other than tell people what I believe now and again.

You want to go to church have fun

That’s all you do?

On an atheist site I go to this woman asked if she should tell her 6 year old grandson she doesn’t believe in god. I asked her if she would tell a five year old Santa isn’t real. If you won’t do that, don’t tell someone else’s kid god is a lie. Huge no no.

I know when it’s appropriate.

You know you can have this conversation with jews just not hessidics.

If I’m talking to a Muslim I tell them I don’t believe Mary was a virgin or that Jesus was anything other than a man. They agree he was a profit? Anyways, so I don’t attack their religion but I let them know I think religions are lies.

 

[ding]

Smart people have eliminated religions and have simply gone on a personal spiritual path. Simpletons still cling to the myths and folly.

You mean like God Lite. All the good and none of the accountability. Makes sense.

 

[ding]

There's quite a bit of opposition to religion here. I am just wondering how many of you people believe religion should be eliminated. It's been tried before and failed, but don't let that deter you in your quest.

Learn from their mistakes and give it another try.

Why the Soviet attempt to stamp out religion failed | Giles Fraser: Loose canon

Every religion today is a lie. So yes they should all eventually be eliminated. I would hope a more evolved humans wouldn’t believe the Mohammad or Moses stories.

Everyone agrees with me. You just believe in one more religion than I do. You know the other thousands of religions are fake and should go away.

I don’t mean outlawed. I just mean less and less people buying into it so in 1000 years Christianity will be like the Greek gods. Kids will learn about ancient religions like Mormons and jehovas

Is there a line you will draw to eliminate religion?

What would you do to eliminate religion and what wouldn’t you do to eliminate religion?

I wouldn’t do anything other than tell people what I believe now and again.

You want to go to church have fun

That’s all you do?

On an atheist site I go to this woman asked if she should tell her 6 year old grandson she doesn’t believe in god. I asked her if she would tell a five year old Santa isn’t real. If you won’t do that, don’t tell someone else’s kid god is a lie. Huge no no.

I know when it’s appropriate.

You know you can have this conversation with jews just not hessidics.

If I’m talking to a Muslim I tell them I don’t believe Mary was a virgin or that Jesus was anything other than a man. They agree he was a profit? Anyways, so I don’t attack their religion but I let them know I think religions are lies.

Appropriate like with your dad?

 

[ding]

What reform movements do you support?

Maybe "support" implies too much. I'm not actively involved in any religious groups any more. I used to be more involved but gradually drifted away. But I mean for example that I used to spend a certain amount of time trying to persuade fellow Christians to adopt less fundamentalistic views on any number of religious topics, from the nature of the inspiration in biblical texts (and hermaneutics in general) to various ideas about salvation and the goals of a Christian life, and how to interpret changes in Christian theology over time and adapt them to the modern world. I'm more familiar with Christianity than other religions, but I guess all I'm basically saying is that I approve of efforts made by religious adherents to adopt versions of their religions that I think are more coherent with modern understandings of science and enlightenment values. Some would summarize that as saying that I support more liberal, and less conservative, versions of religion, but I think there's some possibility of interpreting "liberal" here to mean less serious, or in relation to the way those labels are used in US politics, and that doesn't seem entirely right to me.

Half the people in any church take the Bible literally and half don’t.

The ones that don’t take it literally are a hop skip and jump away from atheism

You believe that half of the people in the Catholic Church read the Bible literally?

Have you read the catechism?

 

[ding]

There's quite a bit of opposition to religion here. I am just wondering how many of you people believe religion should be eliminated. It's been tried before and failed, but don't let that deter you in your quest.

Learn from their mistakes and give it another try.

Why the Soviet attempt to stamp out religion failed | Giles Fraser: Loose canon

Every religion today is a lie. So yes they should all eventually be eliminated. I would hope a more evolved humans wouldn’t believe the Mohammad or Moses stories.

Everyone agrees with me. You just believe in one more religion than I do. You know the other thousands of religions are fake and should go away.

I don’t mean outlawed. I just mean less and less people buying into it so in 1000 years Christianity will be like the Greek gods. Kids will learn about ancient religions like Mormons and jehovas

Is there a line you will draw to eliminate religion?

What would you do to eliminate religion and what wouldn’t you do to eliminate religion?

I wouldn’t do anything other than tell people what I believe now and again.

You want to go to church have fun

That’s all you do?

That’s it. And I don’t mess with believers in real life. That’s mean. They have to discover on their own. I like helping agnostics like you

You’re funny.

God probably thinks I’m an atheist.

 

[percysunshine]

Would this mean the EPA would disappear?

 

[well named]

Half the people in any church take the Bible literally and half don’t.

The ones that don’t take it literally are a hop skip and jump away from atheism

I think there's a little truth to that, but it's complicated. I'm co-author of a forthcoming sociological study that investigates deconversion from Christianity via a content analysis of "deconversion narratives" written by people who have become ex-Christians. We weren't specifically interested in the question of whether or not "non-literalism" was a step on the way from Christian to ex-Christian, but I have some impressions from the data which I'll offer:

1) I think that ex-Christians coming from more fundamentalistic/conservative backgrounds seemed more likely to view liberal versions of Christianity as undesirable. Some of them did try adopting more liberal or "non-literal" readings for a while before rejecting them, but not most. My impression is that the problem for them was more about authority than literal vs. non-literal readings per se. They had put a lot of trust into particular interpretations (which were not strictly literal, necessarily) and more importantly the people who instructed them in those interpretations. They seemed to have trouble conceiving of a model of scriptural authority that wasn't rooted in the interpretations they were familiar with, and the destruction of trust in religious authorities made them very bitter towards Christianity in general. A lot of people had a sort of "all-or-nothing" view of the value of the Bible, so that the choice can only be between the kind of trust and authority they granted to it as conservative Christians, or else atheism. For this type of ex-Christian I think they would often agree with your statement

2) On the other hand, if you look at data on the rise of the religious "nones" (e.g. via Pew data) there are a significant number of religiously unaffiliated people who are not atheists, but hold some spiritual beliefs. Given that mainline churches have been losing members faster than evangelical protestants, I think it's reasonable to suspect that some of the "rise of the nones" reflects people with more liberal/non-literal views leaving those religious organizations. But not to become atheists necessarily! It seems like it might be more true to say that non-conservative Christian views lead more to a loosening of social commitments to traditional religious organizations, rather than leading directly to atheism per se. But here again I'm not sure this has much to do with literal vs. non-literal readings. I think it reflects the fact that the more conservative groups exert more social pressure on their members to conform, and that this kind of pressure is somewhat effective in preventing disaffiliation.

 

[BreezeWood]

A hopeless man is a dangerous man... Remove hope and men will fight for their very existence against you...

What would you do if you believed god didn’t exist? What is belief in god stopping you from doing?

I don’t hope or believe in an afterlife heaven or hell.

But I do hope for a happy long life and a painless end.

You can always hope that tomorrow will be a better day than yesterday. If that helps. Us atheists hope for that.

I also hope humans live even after life on this planet is wiped out.

Atheists hope humans live forever. Theists hope they themselves live forever. Seems selfish especially when their religions deny science like global warming because they know how the end will come. It’s all in their holy book

.

I don’t hope or believe in an afterlife heaven or hell.

are you only a piece of meat, do you regulate your heart rate ... hope does not regulate your physiology nor do you so whatever is keeping you alive, from where you came is something neither you nor atheism has an answer for.

Atheists hope humans live forever. Theists hope they themselves live forever.

evolution bridges the two above, there is a metaphysical transfer from one generation to the next ... proving a metaphysical guidance to life that an existing life could possibly return to after their physiology expires and disappears. the guidance would surly have a religion.

 

[Taz]

Smart people have eliminated religions and have simply gone on a personal spiritual path. Simpletons still cling to the myths and folly.

You mean like God Lite. All the good and none of the accountability. Makes sense.

It's better than being guilty and afraid all the time.

 

[task0778]

I have always thought it foolish and mentally lazy to denounce and deny all religions based on the knowledge and experience of one specific religion > Christianity. They number in the thousands and are quite different from one another, each offering their own concepts of creation, life, and meaning. There are a number of secular advantages to belonging to a religion, which probably ought not to be casually dismissed when your 1st religion wasn't satisfactory. Maybe it's kinda like going out on a 1st date that turns out bad and deciding thereafter not to go out with another person. (I deliberately kept it gender-neutral.)

 

[Karl Rand]

I don't really think it's possible to eliminate religion, per se. Religion (in a very broad sense) plays some fundamental role in what it means to be human. .

Speak for yourself.