Religion is Evil!

I think he was talking about war, not hockey.

Straggler is saying that religion just so happened to have picked it up (poorly, I might add), but really has no stake in it. What you seem to be implying is that since most religions have that as some sort of basal motto, religion must be right or that religion must have coined it. You even threw in the "even you atheists agree" or something like that as your attempt to point out that religion gets to take credit for it.What you fail to see is that religion has utterly failed in it's execution of this motto, while humanism has taken the ball and run. Humanism at it's core espouses the motto. It's blindingly obvious that you attribute everything to religion and jesus, but this one just doesn't fit.

Message 197
Sounded a bit to me like an insinuation saying "well isn't that what jesus said??" Feel free to correct me. Message 200
If not trying to attribute it to religion, why bother saying this? Message 205
I see the word eternal in there which is the religious way of shoehorning in god without saying god. You even go on to acknowledge that straggler would possibly disagree. Why? Because of your use of "eternal" perhaps? And you would be wrong. But I can see why you would want that to be so.
{abe}
I'm pretty sure that as soons as humans acquired sentience, we realized that we kinda need to get along in some form of society in order to survive. In order for a society to function, it just doesn't pay for every individual to be wholly selfish. For humanity yes. Me? Hesitant to disagree? Surely you jest..Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

No, you specifically mentioned religions then went on to say that "even "you athesits" believe it" as if we should be averse to any and everything religion does just because religions do it, good shit be damned. I don't "want" it to be anything. I see the evidence and there isn't any evidence for any "higher power" or anything eternal. There IS, however, evidence that human beings need to work together in order to propogate our species. Until there is evidence of or you can prove the existence of something "beyond ourselves", you are doing nothing but wishing and dreaming and believing in fairy tales. Yea, those people are called religionists. Atheists/skeptics have a tendency to not believe in things we can't prove or know. In societal animals (like the rest of ourgreat ape cousins) I am sure they do have to cooperate in order to survive otherwise they wouldn't be a societal species.

I would hardly consider conclusions based on evidence "beliefs". I'll let you religionists "believe" things. You most certainly have heard of, and are familiar with, Occams Razor. We have explanations (from both myself and Rahvin at least) that do not require some magic jewish pixie. Until there is sufficient evidence for this divine fairy, it does not need to be disproven. We all know you know this. I don't need to prove it doesn't exist because you've not sufficiently proven it does, whereas I have given evidence that this "golden rule" is a mere human construct, a byproduct of our being a societal species. No zombie jews required. Again, Occam's Razor. HUH?? You said "We all believe things we can't prove or know." and I responded saying that only faith heads do that. "Believing" something is an extremely poor way to examine reality let alone come to a conclusion.

I see your point. It is fair to say that we "believe" the sun will rise tomorrow morning. But is it a belief in this context? I don't think so. "We stand on the shoulders of giants" so they say. I don't think I can conflate trust in the scientific method (because it can be replicated and has proven since it's inception to the absolute most reliable method for observing the world we live in) with belief in the same sense. I don't "believe" that my car will start when I get in it to go to work...I hope like hell it will! And if it does not, I don't "believe" there to be any reason it won't, I have to investigate why it will not. I don't "believe" evolution to be true, I trust those scientists who study because they have yet to give reason to not trust them, unlike the religionists who oppose them.Having said all that, it is because of the current religious crop that I leave even the word belief to religionists. I hate to use the word myself because they have bastardized it beyond recognition. I disagree. The data is there and can be tested and retested. The only "belief" in this sense is one that our senses are not lying to us: solopsism. Are you a solopsist?

I have no doubt that most all other intellectually honest scientists who have faith do as well. Precisely my point. But you make these educated guess based in prior knowledge, not willy nilly off the cuff shit, right? You are presented with a problem that most likely presents itself in a very similar fashion to a previous problem, however your previous fix may not quite work. You've been in your field enough to have seen some problems that your "gut instinct" on hearing of a particular issue is most often correct not because gut instincts are more often correct, but because you've been trained in your field. You have a working knowledge that lends itself to make good "guesses".I could say that this "belief" you say is a fine way to put it, but I personally do not like to use the word because in my opinion (as I've already said) religionists have made it almost utterly useless and will jump on any and all atheists who even mention belief "see see see YOU DO believe and that justifies MY belief".....

In the strict usage of the word: no, they don't. I don't feel as though I have attempted to make any argument that the word belief should never be used outside of godspeak. if I have made it sound as more than a personal preference (and it is very likely that I have), I apologize. However, I do personally feel the need to differentiate between belief and trust and personally cannot stand the word belief simply because of the social stigma I feel it carries. Fair enough and I tend to agree in that context. I just prefer not to used the word belief.

I know which is why I went on to explain the difference (at least I thought I did). My main point as I said in a previous post, it has been in my experience that religionists (especially the type that this board is geared towards) will jump on any usage of the word belief by atheists to say "see see, you believe that scientific fact so belief is good (that justifies my belief in jew fairies)". I am very well aware that the word belief has value in intellectual, reasonable conversation...just not with religionists.

I've actually no problem not using it and using other more precise words in place of it. They can keep it for all I care. Besides, I don't think I actually believe anything anyways....That said, I think I can see the entrails of this horse.....