Religion is Evil!

Fair enough, I have killed two birds with one stone myself in the past. Who here isn't a smartass?

I believe that most, if not all conflict in History can be traced to a spiritual conflict. The Holy Spirit in this corner. And over there, _____________. God is not always on the side of America, either!Of course, I believe in One way to God, so it follows that I define the conflict thusly. Kinda like money, eh Dan? Money is not the root of all evil. The Love of Money is the root of all evil. Right? I agree. Jesus hung out with partiers and not Pharisees. I agree, Mike. Be it a Bible or a Boeing 767, we hope that whoever holds it knows how to use it. Reminds me of the joke that I heard: Jesus Saves. Moses Invests. [This message has been edited by Phatboy, 02-17-2004][This message has been edited by Phatboy, 02-17-2004]

DC85,Three comments:First, religion is to spirituality as engineering is to math. Use math to build a suicide bomb, and you have evil engineering. Use it to build a bridge, you have good engineering.Second, non-hypocritical biblical religion is limited to caring for widows and orphans, and correcting your own mistakes. At least, that's what is written in the bible as the only valid or non-evil religion. Obviously, all the other religions that claim to be based on the bible are hypocritical to start with. They move on to other evils from there.Third, throw spirituality away with false religion, and you have fallen into really nasty spiritual trap.Stephen[This message has been edited by Stephen ben Yeshua, 02-17-2004]

I am an agnostic What are your thoughts on that? I WANT FULL HONESTY! NO just being nice I want your opinon about me!

As Mike the Wiz points out religion is just one of the more popular vehicles by which power and greed travel. The real question is why is it so easy to manipulate religious masses? Imo, it is due to the same factors involved in any successful manipulation of the masses:
1) lack of or limited education/information
2) no tolerance for questioning or strongly discouraged
3) human tendency to feel superior over others (moral or whatever)So, I would say "More wars/conflicts/people killed have been IN THE NAME of religion and/or god" a small but important difference. Hate, now this I would say has a stronger correlation for being religion-related.

Okay a quick opinion on religion. First, I am a Christian. I have no religion. It's called a relationship. Second, the reason that so many wars have been started (when they have anything to do with religion) are because almost every single religion involves killing Christians and Jews. Plus, Christians and Jews(like the rest of the world) aren't perfect.If you took a strong, knowledgable person from every single faith and brought them together, I bet you would quickly realize what is up. However, unfortunately there are so many people out there who say one thing, but don't show it in their actions. I guess here I am not really trying to say one way or another, I am not involved in a "religion" but I can be classified into one, as well as every person alive. And, these don't really seem to change anyone's minds anyway...

"First, I am a Christian. I have no religion."
What?!!?I believe the evil one is the human, there's no rule in any "good" religion to kill. Instead they tell us not to kill and do goodness.
Not the religion which is evil, the human is.Now, if we don't have religion from the beginning, would there be people who give donations, do goodness to others, etc. ?
I think people would be greedy, and do what ever they like, no rules, don't care to other. (Why should we care, we only live ones, so let's have some fun.)I believe, what GOD gave us is good if used in right a way and a right portion.
Extacy: used in some doses for elders. (To stimulate them).
Weed (marijuana): in some doses helps your methabolism.
Nuclear weapon: could be use to destroy meteor. But instead man use it to destroy other man.It's humans who is evil, since Adam & Eve ate the fruit.. they could die and they do sins. And the genes go pass-trough us.

I would like to add something.Instead blaming religions being evil, why not blaming satan (source of evil) for decieving Adam (and now us) in to evil? And try to be his enemy.
It's like a saying: Barking to the wrong tree.

Well, if we're going to take that route, why not go further - why not blame God for letting Satan do it?

Well, it's a free-will, right?
GOD did tell Adam not to eat from that tree.
If GOD didn't let Adam eat the tree, it's the same like forcing and there's no love in forcing somebody to love.

Well, now, wait. Who exactly are you blaming? Adam, who did it; Satan, who suggested it; or God, who left the tree there in the first place?

quote:

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Second, the reason that so many wars have been started (when they have anything to do with religion) are because almost every single religion involves killing Christians and Jews.

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//rrhain mode-on//
Blink! you didn't just say that, did you?
//rrhain mode-off//
seriously now, who told you such a blatant lie?
almost every single.. give me a break most religions didn't, at the time they were formed, have a concept of Judaism let alone Christianity. I'm presuming, "almost every single" is supposed to mean: That single evil religion, we all know you fundies detest.
Open your eyes and get some education.

I said that to defend GOD, WHO you were blaming and to point the free-will.
Not just free-will but He also gives rules to Adam, so He didn't intend to make Adam like that.
Also to ilustrate:
Same like us, God gave us His words to people. And it's up to people to choose wether they want to believe it or not.I'm blaming satan, Adam n Eve were being decieved by him.
I think.. God left the tree there, so Adam could choose.. to obey Him or not. If there's no tree how would Adam choose? Adam had no knowing of these things before he ate it. God only forbid Adam for eating from that three.

What I want to say is.. don't blame GOD for providing the free-will options for us.Upps, I think this is going out of topic.. is that, OK?

Welcome Chris. Please don't turn this into another Adam and Eve debate about the tree. It's been done so many times here, and I'm sure there's a relevant thread you could use.I agree with you that it seems to be the human's fault concerning wars etc. As you have correctly stated that - many teachings are peaceful. Infact, Tagless made a good point that people IN THE NAME OF religion do war etc. But personally I think there are many very good peaceful religious people who DO follow their religion quietly and without offending or being prejudice towards others. Where we see tolerance of other races/religions in the world we usually see more peace between people. Tolerance and working together despite our differences seems to be a possible way forward. However, as I said earlier (or did I ) people will find any excuse to get their guns out, if it isn't religion it will be something else.