Interpretation of Sounds of Silence

"So this proves being religious in no way stops people from raping and murdering and by the way don't you ever lose your religion as I don't want you out there raping and murdering as its obviously in your nature to do these things and only controlled by your fear of a god."

I'd rather say it's about a sense of fairness...morality and conscience comes from God...if you believe in Him or not,  it does not negate the fact that He's there....like gravity...

Forget about religion  or the religious it is what it is...it's about Law and Order opposed to Chaos...and I know it's my opinion, but my opinion is based on the context of 50 years of experience and perspective...not saying it should be yours too...

I get your distaste in religious people, I have it too, many false prophets and charlatans around,  but there are many good hearted, honest people too, people doing selfless good work, but the monkey on your back blinds you to it...intolerance has got nothing to do with religion. 

Smowflake so every non believer has to have their own original thought as to why they are an Atheist????? 

So what is your original idea as to why you are a christian, come on now you have to come up with some reason that no other christian has ever had otherwise you cant be a christian Snowflake

If this is an example of your brain power it's no wonder you believe the bible.

And Dradd I know a lot of atheists  (around 50% of us Kiwi's are Atheist's) and they are just as law abiding kind and caring people and definitely much more tolerant to other peoples life choices as long as they are not harming other people with their actions. 

Seb people making claims are dime a dozen, even if there was a guy called jesus preaching peace and harmony it does not mean he is a god or a son of god, just means he was a preacher.

Hell I have taught my kids to be kind and caring and I speak the truth so I must be the 2nd coming according to you. On your knees and pay homage or its a poker up your arse and a eternity of dancing on hot coals for you. Also I will send you my bank account as I require a tithe of 50% of your income (inflation is a bitch) to get your own cloud to grovel at my feet on.

Also Seb you do know there have been other calendars and some are still in use today its currently 2565 in Thailand for your information. AD & BC prove Jesus existed and he is a god Bwahahahahaha wow if thats an example of your proof for god  its no wonder I am an Atheist

"And Dradd I know a lot of atheists  (around 50% of us Kiwi's are Atheist's) and they are just as law abiding kind and caring people and definitely much more tolerant to other peoples life choices as long as they are not harming other people with their actions. "

I never claimed Atheists aren't caring and kind. I said your belief or non belief in God  is of no consequence to His nature.

Oh the irony... Whoosh!!!

Reminds me of that scene from Zorba the Greek...Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates.

Alexis Zorba:
Why do the young die? Why does anybody die?

Basil:
I don't know.

Alexis Zorba:
What's the use of all your damn books if they can't answer that?

Basil:
They tell me about the agony of men who can't answer questions like yours.

Alexis Zorba:
I spit on this agony!

The questions of the man in agony...this includes us all at times...

https://youtu.be/oJajX6HAE8g

1. Ancient Greeks/Romans = progress.
Became world power for hundreds of years. Made more discoveries than mankind has ever seen, including capitalism and Democracy. 

2. Romans make Christianity the sole religion. Within 50 years, the Roman empire had collapsed under the rule of Christianity. 

3. The Dark Ages ensued.
The Church withheld much of the ancient knowledge to keep control of power. Much of the ancients knowledge was burnt, or withheld amongst the clergy. 
Western Culture goes backwards 

4. Renaissance - Cultural revival.
Ancient records of Greeks/Romans were discovered in the Middle East. 
This is used to continue the cultural progress to surpass the ancients. 

5. Modern-day world, people get less religious by the day.

6. Churches across the world are raided, discovering the most organised child rape organisation the world has ever seen. Top rankings officials in the Church go to jail, including the Arch Bishop of Australia.
It turns out the people saying that same-sex intercourse was against God's wishes, but here they are raping kids. 

As we can see Christianity has done nothing for civilisation. 
Our forefathers are the ancients, not the backward Church. 

Renaissance - Wikipedia

Yep, the Pope and Snarkhole will get along famously...and the plank doesn't even realize it...he's the other side of the coin.

1. Christianity is growing faster than the population.

Globally, Christianity is growing at a 1.27% rate. Currently, there are 2.5 billion Christians in the world. The world’s population, 7.7 billion, is growing at a 1.20% rate.

Islam (1.95%), Sikhs (1.66%) and Hindus (1.30%) are the only religious groups growing faster than Christianity, though followers of Jesus outnumber every other faith and are predicted to continue to do so at least through 2050.

2. Pentecostals and Evangelicals are growing the fastest and are still picking up speed.

Among Christian groups, Pentecostals (2.26%) and evangelicals (2.19%) are growing faster than others.

They are both also growing faster than they did just two years ago. In 2017, Pentecostals’ growth rate was 2.22% and evangelicals was 2.12%.

3. Atheism has peaked.

There are fewer atheists in the world today (138 million) than there were in 1970 (165 million).

Since 2000, atheism has rebounded slightly—only by 0.04%—but it is expected to decline again and fall below 130 million by 2050.

Agnosticism has maintained a small growth rate of 0.42%. After reaching 716 million this year, however, it is expected to drop below 700 million by 2050.

What is also shows you is that poor ol' Sharkie's assumptions and knowledge of this topic is a victim of his own vain imaginations.

The fact is SB made BS spreading a science.   I will comment on 1 sentence above.   He blamed Christianity for the fall of the Western Roman Empire and claimed it lasted for 50 years after Christianity became the official religion in 306 AC.   Fact it the fall of the Estern Empire came in 476 AC.    The Easter Roman Empire lasted until 1452.   

Neither had anything to do with the fact that the official religion was Christianity - in the case  of the Western Empire  it had to do with the fact that the Western Empire started to use German mercenaries as soldiers and some of the last series of emperors were in fact Germans who took over the reign and  that they were not Christians whatsoever. 

There are distinct similarities in what happened in the Western Romqan Empire in its last century after the death of  Emperor Constantine on the moral and political decay   and what is at present happening in the USA.    Unless that is addressed in the USA Democracy as a system is doomed.    Similarities entail the rise of crime - the increase in drug usage - the increase and growth of communism  as a means of repression of people are all bad signs for democracy. 

Believing the lies of people like Biden and Faucci is becoming the norm.   Spreading disinformation is the norm of people despising democracy as a system and that is done by the media idiots like you accept as real.    Enemies of democracy blame Christianity for all the problems facing the world.   Politics has become corrupted and that is not the fault of religion.          .     

Religions are corrupt, always have been and always will be.

They are a collection of  scam artists and conmen preying on the uneducated and gullible and use myths and legends to take money and give themselves power over people and as such it is no better or worse than politics.

As believers don't you question why your god lets so many of his followers be fooled by these people. He seems to quite happily let in excess of a billion catholics get screwed over and has done  for almost 2,000 years and thats just one religion. He must be a puny god if he does not have the power to stop these people or a callous god as he obviously doesn't give a shit about the billions of victims of these people

Dumb Mike, you do realise that the Eastern and Western Empires split? If memory serves me correctly, the East followed Greek orthodox for some time, before eventually some of these places succumbing to Muslim.

Muslim and Christianity are monolithic Gods. A communist Dictator, one true God, one truth etc. It is not Democratic, hence why these followers are not Democratic people. 

The Crusades and other military events, were trying to impose one religion on the world, turning the whole world into a totalitarian state with one religion. No freedom of choice, no Democracy.
Also known as the dark ages...

It is amazing that today these religious followers want to have freedom of religion, but when they were the majority- they wanted everyone to follow the same God. 

Henceforth , thye shall be known to all as ButtPlug...

"Religions are corrupt, always have been and always will be."

WTF happened to you? That chip is bigger than I thought...

Humans are corrupt and the religious are not exempt..nor the Atheists, but the religious are not more corrupt than the rest and all religious institutions and people are not corrupt...your obvious hatred for anything religious stems from some specific trauma or something...stop labeling everyone according to your own bias...you are doing exactly the same thing you are accusing the religious of doing....bigotry doesn't know religion...or lack thereof...it's not merely a splinter in your eye.

Yep, pointing out the obvious means I have a chip on my shoulder and something happened to me, just face it there are people that see religion for what it is and in this free world they are allowed to express their opinion no mater how butt hurt you get.

Its like you cannot comprehend how someone doesn't believe the same nonsense as you therefore they must have gone through some traumatic experience to end up like that. Well I didn't  I looked into your religion and cannot comprehend how anyone can think its true.

If I upset you that much just don't read what I post

SB

Christianity did not cause the split of the Roman  Empire  - it had had zero to do with religion.   Ever heard of the city of Constantinople - originally called Bizantium.     The Emperor Constantine.

The collapse of the Western Empire started in the 2nd century when wars between pretenders to the thrown.    At that stage Christianity was severely oppressed,    That came to an end with the reign of  Constantine - who managed to quell the instability of the Roman Empire.   He did proclaim that Christians are free to practice their faith  - but for most of his reign was NOT a Christian.    He was baptized as a Christian shortly before his death.   

Constantine whose mother was a Greek women realized that Rome was due to plagues and other elements the population of Rome became  non-Roman.    The average age of Romans declined drastically and by 300  AD was 24 years.    Due to various factors Roman residents became smaller in stature and the result was that the Roman army became predominantly Gaulish and Germanic.   Constantine realized that Rome became a cesspool and moved the capital to Byzantium.     As a result the Greeks     Up to about 380 the situation was stable and then started to unravel die to attacks on  the Western  part of he Empire and the capital was moved to Ravenna.   Ever heard of Atilla the Hun - he was only one of the attackers.   Odoacer who captured Rome and the new capital Ravenna in 476 - refused to accept the Emperor thrown and declared his loyalty to the Eastern Emperor.    

Effectively that ended the Western Empire and resulted in disintegration of that part of the Empire into smaller countries that were part of the empire  previously.   The fact is the whole story had nothing to do with religion at all.    Your interpretation of history is as flawed as  your brainwashed mind  is at present.    In the end Muslims captured Spain and was threatening the rest of Europe.     An invasion of what is today France by the Muslims was stopped in 732 at the battle of  Tours and led to the ultimate establishment of the Holy Roman Empire;   If that dd niot happen you today would have been a Muslim with no religious freedom.                         .                

"morality and conscience comes from God"

So, atheists or agnostic people can not have any morals or conscience?

"Fair point DA, but what about the opposite?...what if everyone knew for a fact that there was no such thing as an afterlife?"

It is precisely the lack of any proof of an afterlife, as to why people behave they do right now...... you are experiencing and witnessing your own scenario right now....live....

However, if there was 100% proof of a afterlife, I would like to think, and possibly almost guarantee it..... that "most" people would definitely behave differently to what they are right now

If there did turn out to be an afterlife it doesn't mean there is a god and also if there was a god behind an afterlife which god do you pick?

The odds of picking the right one is very small as it is estimated to be around 18,000 gods that man has created so you have 0.00555555% chance of picking the right one and that's if one of them is the right choice it is possible man hasn't even come close to a real god yet.

As Hitch said, they cant all be right but they can all be wrong.

Here is another scenario....

Even if there were only 5 000 Gods, and someone chooses to believe in only their one God and nothing else....... then that person only believes in one more God than I do...... and they are dismissing the other 4 999 Gods. 

It is interesting that since Trump is no longer president, many of the religious have now made Putin their hero. 

I fully respect anyone who believes in whatever religion that they do, but when comments are made that morals and conscience only come from God, you are basically saying that everyone else in the world, other than Christian people, have no sense at all of what is right and wrong........ which is complete and utter bollocks.

@Buttplug, at no point, have I said that an afterlife or "a" God does not exist. 
What I did say is that religion is a man-made entity. Man making God in his own image, and then thinking God made man. 

The young-earth creationists like Beeno and Draad, actually believe the earth is only 6,000 years old- and that God created Adam out of the mud. 
Kindergarten science is more advanced than this. 

The religious fear Dawkins, he is their bogey man.
They can see that no religious person has a comparable IQ, so it leads them to question if their own faith is nothing more than Cods Wallop. Why would God make non-believers smarter?

"Perhaps this one that we’re in isn’t the first one. Maybe all of us that made it here passed some tests in a previous existence somewhere else"

I 100% agree with this Plum, and it is also something that I have stated on this forum before

"The young-earth creationists like Beeon and Draad, actually believe the earth is only 6,000 years old- and that God created Adam out of the mud. "

Blatant lie. 

""morality and conscience comes from God"

So, atheists or agnostic people can not have any morals or conscience?

Of coarse they can...you don't have to believe in something for it to work...

Rugby Legend

4295 posts

"morality and conscience comes from God"

So, atheists or agnostic people can not have any morals or conscience

_____
Let's face it, most religious people believe this. Gods master race. Brainwashing stuff...

It is why Muslim suicide bombers do what they do and also the likes of Tarrant, the Christian mass murderer in New Zealand.  

How many suicide bomber atheists are there?