don't be racist to antone if they reply!

i say no way!

I voted yes but with one provision, Catholic and Christian are 2 seperate things. I am a Christian I do not worship the Virgin Mary nor do I believe a mortal man can remove my sins.

oh...sorry if i offended you!

gregsandersfromthelab, dont worry too much....your question is quite innocent. I dont see how someone could get offended by that! And if they do, dont worry about it too much


As for me I answered sorta no.

I am not Christian or Catholic nor believe in their religion, but as with any religion they have lots of wisdom to share. I take it and leave the rest.

No offense taken I assure you.

I answered no way. why did you not choose all religions in stead of only christianity?

perhaps beause on this site....Christianity and Catholics take 3/4 if not more of the space.....

yea prety much that. it's really popular religon.

I voted yes, I am Catholic and Christian and I do not worship the Virgin Mary nor do I believe a mortal man can remove my sins.
copy & paste

I'm definatly a "no way" I was raised Catholic tho, so I was brought up with Catholic and Christian morals, and I'll raise my kids with the same. But the actual religion mumbo jumbo and the belief in a god or gods is too farfetched for me.

[QUOTE]twpdyp Posted Today, 11:54 AM
I voted yes but with one provision, Catholic and Christian are 2 seperate things. I am a Christian I do not worship the Virgin Mary nor do I believe a mortal man can remove my sins. [QUOTE]

Are you saying you don't believe in Jesus? If so, then you aren't christian. Christians believe Jesus died for our sins, and Catholicism is a type of christianity.

I am a believer in Jesus Christ, he did die for our sins. Sorry for the vauge answer I am at work and I got interupted in mid sentence.

Oh yeah, I'm a big Christian and it's part of every aspect of my life

What is not to believe in being good towards your fellow man, benevolence, honoring your enemy, loving all... etc?!

i answered no way. i follow the facts of science.

quote:

"Religion is incompatible with science. Although many, including numerous highly respected scientists, aim to show that religion and science are complementary approaches to understanding the world and our place in it, the truth is that religious views are intellectually inconsistent with scientific views.

Only sentimental wishful thinking and cultural conditioning allows the two approaches to understanding the world to inhabit the same head. Religion is the institutionalizations of prejudice.

Science looks for simple concepts that underlie the workings of the world and sets them out in a way that, given patience and guidance are, in principle, accessible to everyone. Religion is a denial of our power of comprehension and puts for purported explanations cloaked in obscurity: we are not supposed to understand religion's "explanations", for we are presumed to be intellectually too puny. Science respects the power of the human intellect; religion denies it. Thus, science respects humanity; religion despises it.

Ethics spring from evolution, pragmatism and thoughtfulness about consequences. How much more admirable it is to base society's constraints on behaviour on a knowledge of our animal past and ability to think through consequences than on religious fiats based on faith. Although the clergy may be astute, kindly, circumspect and wise, it is deplorable that they should ration pleasure and regulate personal behaviour on the basis of private faith and institutionalized prejudice. Religion, with its kindly face, thwarts the aspirations of humanity."

is this a answer that you hope to see for our decision?

if so, that's my reason.

Science can not teach you how to behave and live happily, Why don't you just kill me and eat me for survival?

and the bible can?


Burning of early Christian literature for not supporting trumped up dogma's. Original biblical (gnostic) texts which did not substantiate Christian sectarian viewpoints, have so thoroughly been destroyed in the early centuries after the death of Jesus that we have hardly any record left. Moreover the great library of Alexandria, said to have contained half a million volumes, was destroyed by Christian fanatics in 397 AD - one of the severest losses to history ever encountered.

Persecution of the Jews, who are supposed to have been responsible for the alleged crucifixion of Christ leading up to the holocaust, following Paulinian accusations: ...the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, the Jews who are heedless of God's will and enemies of their fellow-men.... (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16). After the reign of emperor Constantine it was considered a crime for a Christian to marry a Jew.

Persecution of homosexuals, mainly based on St. Paul's condemnation (although it has been speculated that he was a closet one himself. He never married, which was unusual at that time!). Homosexuals have been tortured, castrated and murdered throughout the ages, being condemned by God's supposed word. 'Homosexuals are filled with every kind of injustice, mischief, rapacity, and malice; they are one mass of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and malevolence .., etc. etc. (Romans 1:26-32).
Whereas homosexuals are believed to have contributed as no other sex to the advancement of civilisation percentagewise.

Condoning of slavery on the basis of some biblical texts (Ephesians 6:5: Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling....)
In Leviticus 25:44 Yahweh recommends buying slaves.

Subordination of women. (1 Corinthians 11:9 For neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.). But in fact science has discovered that the female species have much older genetic material than the male. Endocrinologist Prof. Dr. Netelenbos said that the receptor for the male hormone dates from around fifty million years ago, against 450 million years for the female oestrogen receptor.

Persecution of heretics, supposed witches and other lamentable members of the community who did not support church dogmatism. Eric Hoffer: "true believers of various hues ....view each other with mortal hatred and are ready to fly at each other's throat...". Heretics were tortured and slaughtered like cattle. Burning at the stake was justified by Matthew 3:10: ...every tree that fails to produce good food is cut down and thrown on the fire.

In 415 AD Hypathia, one of the last scholars to work in the famous library of Alexandria, was seized by Christians who scraped with shells the flesh from his bones and burnt the spillings!

In 1553 the Spanish physician Michael Servetus, who discovered the circulation of blood, was burned at the stake, by order of Calvin, for believing in the trinity (albeit nowhere mentioned in the gospels).

Obstructing advancement of science and culture. Great men who made amazing discoveries in science and medicine which might have benefited mankind, were being persecuted and forbidden to make their findings known. Nature need not to be examined as all explanations could be found in the Bible. Inventions were often considered the work of the devil. Discoveries by Leonardo da Vinci remained unknown for centuries. The creativity and constructional skills in building the pyramids were not matched until the 18th century A.D.

Philosopher Bruno was burnt at the stake, Galilei escaped it by lying. The theory of evolution was rejected as it contradicted the book of Genesis. Fossils were argued away as being from satanical creatures from antedelluvian times.
Christianity has so held Western civilization in its grip from the Dark Ages onward, obstructing advancement of liberal thought.

Teachings of other religions were suppressed. Buddhism, preaching compassion, was practically unknown till the nineteenth century. (See the Oriental Renaissance).
Blocking development of understanding life based on latest insight and advances in science. In some universities in the Southern states of the USA the theory of evolution may still not be taught. Many of their students believe that the earth was created some six thousand years ago in spite of the huge body of evidence to the contrary.

Imposing backward biblical notions on themes that could better human living conditions such as birth control and euthanasia. Not to speak of instilling fears for blood and natural bodily outlets as masturbation.

Disrespect of living beings. Animals, are supposed to have been created to support men. They have been slaughtered as sacrifice to god Yahweh.
Instilling a perpetual fear of an imminent end of the world. All gospels, epistles of St. Paul and specifically the Apocalypse herald the endtime and the Coming of Christ. This mistaken belief has cost the lives of countless Christians up to this day (Crusades, Jonestown, Heaven's Gate).
Brainwashing its believers that salvation depends on accepting on faith its incredible myth.
Belief in original sin instilling a traumatising fear in Christians from childhood onwards. This concept was thought up to account for almighty God making man's life a hell at times. But factually man pays a price for having been evolved from the animal kingdom to his present status. He is the one species capable of self-reflection. Endowed with creative powers and a vision of the Divine, his mind is yet incapable of grasping the why of it all

in response to Anthenia:

Even those with no faith have been brainwashed into respecting the faith of others. When so-called Muslim community leaders go on the radio and advocate the killing of Salman Rushdie, they are clearly committing incitement to murder--a crime for which they would ordinarily be prosecuted and possibly imprisoned. But are they arrested? They are not, because our secular society "respects" their faith, and sympathises with the deep "hurt" and "insult" to it.
Well I don't. I will respect your views if you can justify them. but if you justify your views only by saying you have faith in them, I shall not respect them.


Looks like religion teaches us to behave that way.

Amen, Hotoke.

There are written works (if you take any good ethics classes) that teach you how to be a good person with no mention of god.

Hmmm...
Aristotle
Nietzsche
Epicurus
to name a few

Let me see. Japan lowest crime rating in the world and 99% of the people do not believe in any religion. they only follow shintoism and buddhism because it is tradition Let us compare that with USA or France or Great britain. christianity is the main religion and most of them follow it but the crime ratings are insane. violence people getting killed drug use etc. conclusion Japan a country with no religion > any christianity following country. No religion > religion

*doesn't believe in god but, if you'll excuse a great deal of sarcasm towards people that annoy me, is a good person at heart *

Claiming that you need to be religious in order to have morals, or be a good person, lies somewhere on the line or offensive/stupid I don't believe in god, yet have never had the urge to rush out into the street and start randomly stabbing passersby, just because it strikes me as something exciting to do

Hotoke, this is very true. I lived in Japan for three years and the biggest thing on the news over there ever was impending doom from a tsunami or typhoon. No sex, no drugs, a lil bit o' rock and roll... and whao, no personal firearms.

AND some of the most graphic tv any children in the globe are exposed to So, let's see...we've blown.

1) Religious people are better morally.

2) Guns don't kill people, people kill people

and

3) TV causes violence.

What other crap can we use Japan to throw out of the window?

Ah that is not science...

When did I ever mention a God?

There are still good and useful teachings in Christianity that should be heeded even if one does not believe in a God.

We can all be good and better people if we listen to the teachings, warnings, prophecies, instructions, and rules that our history and ancestors throughout all the cultures and religions have given us.

Most spiritual laws give you something more and effect you in a way no material law can.

just about anything ... I wanna move back there when I grow up;)

"Science is actually one of the most moral, one of the most honest disciplines around — because science would completely collapse if it weren't for a scrupulous adherence to honesty in the reporting of evidence. (As James Randi has pointed out, this is one reason why scientists are so often fooled by paranormal tricksters and why the debunking role is better played by professional conjurors; scientists just don't anticipate deliberate dishonesty as well.) There are other professions (no need to mention lawyers specifically) in which falsifying evidence or at least twisting it is precisely what people are paid for and get brownie points for doing.
Science, then, is free of the main vice of religion, which is faith. But, as I pointed out, science does have some of religion's virtues. Religion may aspire to provide its followers with various benefits — among them explanation, consolation, and uplift. Science, too, has something to offer in these areas.
Humans have a great hunger for explanation. It may be one of the main reasons why humanity so universally has religion, since religions do aspire to provide explanations. We come to our individual consciousness in a mysterious universe and long to understand it. Most religions offer a cosmology and a biology, a theory of life, a theory of origins, and reasons for existence. In doing so, they demonstrate that religion is, in a sense, science; it's just bad science. Don't fall for the argument that religion and science operate on separate dimensions and are concerned with quite separate sorts of questions. Religions have historically always attempted to answer the questions that properly belong to science. Thus religions should not be allowed now to retreat away from the ground upon which they have traditionally attempted to fight. They do offer both a cosmology and a biology; however, in both cases it is false.
Consolation is harder for science to provide. Unlike religion, science cannot offer the bereaved a glorious reunion with their loved ones in the hereafter. Those wronged on this earth cannot, on a scientific view, anticipate a sweet comeuppance for their tormentors in a life to come. It could be argued that, if the idea of an afterlife is an illusion (as I believe it is), the consolation it offers is hollow. But that's not necessarily so; a false belief can be just as comforting as a true one, provided the believer never discovers its falsity. But if consolation comes that cheap, science can weigh in with other cheap palliatives, such as pain-killing drugs, whose comfort may or may not be illusory, but they do work.
Uplift, however, is where science really comes into its own. All the great religions have a place for awe, for ecstatic transport at the wonder and beauty of creation. And it's exactly this feeling of spine-shivering, breath-catching awe — almost worship — this flooding of the chest with ecstatic wonder, that modern science can provide. And it does so beyond the wildest dreams of saints and mystics. The fact that the supernatural has no place in our explanations, in our understanding of so much about the universe and life, doesn't diminish the awe. Quite the contrary. The merest glance through a microscope at the brain of an ant or through a telescope at a long-ago galaxy of a billion worlds is enough to render poky and parochial the very psalms of praise.
Now, as I say, when it is put to me that science or some particular part of science, like evolutionary theory, is just a religion like any other, I usually deny it with indignation. But I've begun to wonder whether perhaps that's the wrong tactic. Perhaps the right tactic is to accept the charge gratefully and demand equal time for science in religious education classes. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that an excellent case could be made for this. So I want to talk a little bit about religious education and the place that science might play in it.
I do feel very strongly about the way children are brought up. I'm not entirely familiar with the way things are in the United States, and what I say may have more relevance to the United Kingdom, where there is state-obliged, legally-enforced religious instruction for all children. That's unconstitutional in the United States, but I presume that children are nevertheless given religious instruction in whatever particular religion their parents deem suitable.
Which brings me to my point about mental child abuse. In a 1995 issue of the Independent, one of London's leading newspapers, there was a photograph of a rather sweet and touching scene. It was Christmas time, and the picture showed three children dressed up as the three wise men for a nativity play. The accompanying story described one child as a Muslim, one as a Hindu, and one as a Christian. The supposedly sweet and touching point of the story was that they were all taking part in this Nativity play.
What is not sweet and touching is that these children were all four years old. How can you possibly describe a child of four as a Muslim or a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew? Would you talk about a four-year-old economic monetarist? Would you talk about a four-year-old neo-isolationist or a four-year-old liberal Republican? There are opinions about the cosmos and the world that children, once grown, will presumably be in a position to evaluate for themselves. Religion is the one field in our culture about which it is absolutely accepted, without question — without even noticing how bizarre it is — that parents have a total and absolute say in what their children are going to be, how their children are going to be raised, what opinions their children are going to have about the cosmos, about life, about existence. Do you see what I mean about mental child abuse?
Looking now at the various things that religious education might be expected to accomplish, one of its aims could be to encourage children to reflect upon the deep questions of existence, to invite them to rise above the humdrum preoccupations of ordinary life and think sub specie aeternitatis.
Science can offer a vision of life and the universe which, as I've already remarked, for humbling poetic inspiration far outclasses any of the mutually contradictory faiths and disappointingly recent traditions of the world's religions. "

Of Course SCIENCE can't teach you how to behave and live happily, it is simply this:

sci·ence
n.

1.The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
a.Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.
b.Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.
2.Methodological activity, discipline, or study: I've got packing a suitcase down to a science.
3.An activity that appears to require study and method: the science of purchasing.
4.Knowledge, especially that gained through experience.
5.Science Christian Science


I especially like that last one,as it seems some Christians look to science for answers... BUT... science is the study of something in its basic form. What I MEANT to say, is ETHICS teaches us how to be good people and how to behave and live happily.



This only applies if you believe in the spiritual laws... Science gives me something more and affects me in ways no spiritual law can.

Rajin Cajun.,... we talked about that in another thread, lemme go find it for you... you hit the nail on the head.

found it... http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...showtopic=29350

scienc doesnt teach you good morals

aristotle-(if i remember, killed himself)

and America's princlples are baesd on the ten commandments

a country based on no religion has better morals then all the country's based on religion

hence the judeo-christian ethics;)

ooooo Hotoke, tho I agree with you there, you're gonna start a conflagration with that one;)

nothing's rong with it. and you should allways beleve in things like peace and stuff like that.
but the whole religon thing to me can seem sorta far feched.

no offence!

Nah, Americas principles are based on the dollar.

and your point is?

Down with materialism!!!

same here!