What Is The Christian View On The Dinosaur?

[Rlyeh]

There are places science can't go. Science doesn't ask: Why peace? Why kindness? Why forgiveness? Why love? Why redemption? Why responsibility? Why morality?

Isn't that social science?

[Yamato]

Isn't that social science?

If you find the codex from the social science department that answers these questions that you're implying religion can be thrown overboard in its stead, I'm all ears.

[shadowhive]

There are places science can't go. Science doesn't ask: Why peace? Why kindness? Why forgiveness? Why love? Why redemption? Why responsibility? Why morality?

That's religion's job! Suit it up! Unless...unless we expect the government to do all of that for us. *shudders*

Atheists seem to believe morality is created out of thin air the way Keynesians think money is. Sometimes their explanation is that they were lucky enough to have good parents. Oh I love that one. How convenient! Sorry, killing off God and trusting in the nature of man sounds like a bad idea. To be fair, I won't let the theists have any 6,000 year old dinosaurs either.

The problem of religion is that it takes the morals of man, sticks the label 'god says so' on it and the morals endure because of it, even if the morals weren't valid in the first place. Religion essentially becomes a dictatorship with a dictator that has no real form.

Take christianity. The morality is 2000 years old. Some of the morals are, thus, out of date. Even modern day christians acknowledge this. Another example is the old central American religions (like Aztecs) who were able to convince the population that human sacrifice was not only acceptable but necessary because religion mandated it.

The problem with raising a religion up as the sole source of morality is quite simple and obvious. Not everyone is that religion. Here in the Uk, there are christians, muslims, jews, atheists, pagans and more. Why should a pagan (for instance) be forced to follow christian morality? After all, they are not a christian. The answer is they shouldn't. As such there is a more general set of laws in place, one that follows generally accepted morality. Thus it is more flexible and more applicable to everyone. Of course religions manage to find ways of it not applying to them (which I think is wrong) but generally the system works better.

Trusting in the 'nature of man' is ultimately what everyone does. It's just smeties it has the label of god attached.

As for dinosaurs? I think some people can be quite deluded, especially if they believe that dinosaurs were 'planted there', are fake or whatever. Thankfully christians in general seem to be more intelligent than that.

[Yamato]

Actually, science and atheism are not without moral principles; for instance, a very simple one is that we are a societal and intrinsically emotional species, and thus it is mutually beneficial for all of us if we generally don't kill each other, steal each others' possessions, hate each other, etc. I'm no expert on ethics, but in general, I think it behooves us to simply follow the Golden Rule.

It's best that we don't steal each others', or it's best that you go steal theirs. If we trust our hypocrite politicians to teach us this lesson we're kidding ourselves. Following the Golden Rule can be likened to following my own suggestion; and where did the GR come from?

I'll take atheism seriously from a moral standpoint the day I see their moral works outshine the mean/median.

.

[Yamato]

The problem of religion is that it takes the morals of man, sticks the label 'god says so' on it and the morals endure because of it, even if the morals weren't valid in the first place. Religion essentially becomes a dictatorship with a dictator that has no real form.

Take christianity. The morality is 2000 years old. Some of the morals are, thus, out of date. Even modern day christians acknowledge this. Another example is the old central American religions (like Aztecs) who were able to convince the population that human sacrifice was not only acceptable but necessary because religion mandated it.

The problem with raising a religion up as the sole source of morality is quite simple and obvious. Not everyone is that religion. Here in the Uk, there are christians, muslims, jews, atheists, pagans and more. Why should a pagan (for instance) be forced to follow christian morality? After all, they are not a christian. The answer is they shouldn't. As such there is a more general set of laws in place, one that follows generally accepted morality. Thus it is more flexible and more applicable to everyone. Of course religions manage to find ways of it not applying to them (which I think is wrong) but generally the system works better.

Trusting in the 'nature of man' is ultimately what everyone does. It's just smeties it has the label of god attached.

As for dinosaurs? I think some people can be quite deluded, especially if they believe that dinosaurs were 'planted there', are fake or whatever. Thankfully christians in general seem to be more intelligent than that.

Why raise only one religion? Let the Muslims be Muslim, Republicans. Let the Christians be Christian, Democrats. Government-hugging partisans with a political agenda are a terrible replacement for 2000-year old moral code that works well and true enough for me thanks. And when atheists put their works where their mouths are, they'll be ready to be taken seriously.

Trusting in human nature is ultimately what everyone does? That's a tall order! Is the anarchy in Somalia the evidence for this? Where's the trend?

And please explain the problem. Explain how religion slighted you today. Explain how this dictatorship ruins your life.

[shadowhive]

Why raise only one religion? Let the Muslims be Muslim, Republicans. Let the Christians be Christian, Democrats. Government-hugging partisans with a political agenda are a terrible replacement for 2000-year old moral code that works well and true enough for me thanks. And when atheists put their works where their mouths are, they'll be ready to be taken seriously.

Trusting in human nature is ultimately what everyone does? That's a tall order! Is the anarchy in Somalia the evidence for this? Where's the trend?

And please explain the problem. Explain how religion slighted you today. Explain how this dictatorship ruins your life.

I raise one religion as an example. Should I have listed all of them? No, because it's overkill and causes the point to be lost.

The problem with that is that atheists can put 'their works where their mouths are' and, from your attitude, you'd reject it out of hand, simply because they're atheists.

Yes it is what everyone does. Take christianity. Christians in different parts of the world (and over different parts of history) act very differently, while claiming to hold the same underlying morality. A few centuries ago, very few people could read. Thusly their only understanding of the bible came from their pastors. Thusly they were placing their trust in these humans, people that had great power and could, essentially, get others to do, say or believe what they wanted. Even now, the same thing happens.

The trend is simple, sometimes people put their trust in the wrong people (sometimes genuinely by mistake, other times through outright manipulation).

That, again is simple: because the majority of religions are content with treating me like a second class citizen, even those of my own country. They are willing to try and influence the law to try and keep that in place. They want exemptions to continue to do so even when laws change.

The secular government has laws in place which ensure I'm not treated in such a way, but religions have exemptions and still get away with it (or try) whenever possible. I dread to think what would happen if christianty was the sole source of morality.

Edited June 19, 2012 by shadowhive

[Chooky88]

I'm a Christian and believe in the miracle of Jesus. I still believe in dinosaurs as fact. The new testament is close to history. The old is pretty much mythology. Remember the bible like the tara and the Koran were written by men. Not god. But you can't taint all Christians with the same brush and I speak only for myself. Want an official answer? Ask an Arch Bishop or the Pope. Sick of these Christian baiting questions. Make your own mind up.

[Nick D]

A good topic to start, but I can't help but think of this:

Christian - '(dinosaur fossils) God put them here to test our faith'

Bill Hicks - 'I think God put you here to test my faith, dude'

As SwampGator said, avoidance en mass

[Mr Right Wing]

The existence of dinosaurs in the earths history contradicts the events in the bible. In the Genisis stories God created earth with modern day animals.

I'm looking for the "oficial" christian explanation on this. I didn't post this in the Skeptic forum because I'm trying to start that debate...just an answer if there is one and if there is not maybe a debate between christians(or bible historians).

If you become involved in a Christain fraternity they have a different idea about what Genesis is about.

Its a story from which you infer Gods architectual plans for the universe. Its called Sacred Geometery and produces things like the Platonic Solids. It isnt meant to be taken literally used more as a guide from which to infer the plans.

[Yamato]

I raise one religion as an example. Should I have listed all of them? No, because it's overkill and causes the point to be lost.

The problem with that is that atheists can put 'their works where their mouths are' and, from your attitude, you'd reject it out of hand, simply because they're atheists.

Yes it is what everyone does. Take christianity. Christians in different parts of the world (and over different parts of history) act very differently, while claiming to hold the same underlying morality. A few centuries ago, very few people could read. Thusly their only understanding of the bible came from their pastors. Thusly they were placing their trust in these humans, people that had great power and could, essentially, get others to do, say or believe what they wanted. Even now, the same thing happens.

The trend is simple, sometimes people put their trust in the wrong people (sometimes genuinely by mistake, other times through outright manipulation).

That, again is simple: because the majority of religions are content with treating me like a second class citizen, even those of my own country. They are willing to try and influence the law to try and keep that in place. They want exemptions to continue to do so even when laws change.

The secular government has laws in place which ensure I'm not treated in such a way, but religions have exemptions and still get away with it (or try) whenever possible. I dread to think what would happen if christianty was the sole source of morality.

A trend is a general direction in which something tends to move. I don't see the trend in "sometimes trusting the wrong people". That's more of a constant than a trend, and far too often the results are far too terrible to accept. That's why organizations of less power are inherently better than those with more. Sometimes trusting people is neither exclusive nor excusatory to either religion or its alternatives, so I find it hard to accept that as a swipe uniquely reserved against religion.

Literacy rates from hundreds of years ago and the constraints of illiteracy has affected everything, including religion. If you can't read or write, obviously you need someone to show and tell you what to do. Morality isn't something you can just assume. It must be taught; it must be practiced. But religion has no monopoly on hypocrisy. It's just easy for thin-air moralists to smack religion around because religion actually has standards people can be compared to, imagine that. I think it's often quite the religious exercise to weigh people morally according to their own professed beliefs. Sinead O'Connor sticking it in the eye of her priests and bishops makes her quite the Christian when the actions of the church are anything but Christ-like. But doing that constantly to someone over time may provoke them into swearing off their religion and taking the easy way out. Why should they be inconvenienced by such imperfection and hypocrisy? They had good parents, or a college degree in the social sciences, or a professor they were lucky enough to find themselves in class with, or high-speed internet access, air conditioning and an endless supply of clean drinking water, so what's our excuse? Tough luck for us? I don't think so. If the social sciences have taught us anything it's that humanity isn't going to fall into place in universal harmony without an endless chain of failed experiments in force control. We must be extremely careful with who we empower and rely on. Even parents are often crap at their responsibilities, and we shouldn't turn our backs on alternatives that exercise as little force as possible.

[G3N0M3]

I didn't read anything but the first post...

The common reply to that has and most likely will always be:

"God put them there to test our belief"

or

"The heathens (or non-believers) put them there in spite"

lol, in any case, in the bible people lived for hundreds of years, they were never specific on what animals were created, just another generalized version. In the book Genesis, it tells of pangea. I'll be as accurate as possible; “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear" and it was so. (one version)."God had then created a great mesa rising and splitting the waters and called this, land and he said this is good. He called the waters sea and said that this is good." (another version)

Both tell me that the bible agrees with pangea. then the next several verses usually talk about seeds firstly, then animals in the water and birds in the sky.... after all that then humans were created, in the bible itself it says that we were created last, it does not describe all the species of animals, just that they would be abundant. Now both that for life and birds to spread seeds, the bible is emplying that evolution happened...

That's the bible though, anyone can interpret it differently.

EDIT

Check the internets different versions of the bible.

Edited June 19, 2012 by G3N0M3

[Arbitran]

It's best that we don't steal each others', or it's best that you go steal theirs. If we trust our hypocrite politicians to teach us this lesson we're kidding ourselves. Following the Golden Rule can be likened to following my own suggestion; and where did the GR come from?

I'll take atheism seriously from a moral standpoint the day I see their moral works outshine the mean/median.

.

I don't give a damn about politicians. The Golden Rule has been unanimously discovered and taught by every culture in the history of the human race. Why did it have to 'come from' any particular place?

[Arbitran]

I raise one religion as an example. Should I have listed all of them? No, because it's overkill and causes the point to be lost.

The problem with that is that atheists can put 'their works where their mouths are' and, from your attitude, you'd reject it out of hand, simply because they're atheists.

Yes it is what everyone does. Take christianity. Christians in different parts of the world (and over different parts of history) act very differently, while claiming to hold the same underlying morality. A few centuries ago, very few people could read. Thusly their only understanding of the bible came from their pastors. Thusly they were placing their trust in these humans, people that had great power and could, essentially, get others to do, say or believe what they wanted. Even now, the same thing happens.

The trend is simple, sometimes people put their trust in the wrong people (sometimes genuinely by mistake, other times through outright manipulation).

That, again is simple: because the majority of religions are content with treating me like a second class citizen, even those of my own country. They are willing to try and influence the law to try and keep that in place. They want exemptions to continue to do so even when laws change.

The secular government has laws in place which ensure I'm not treated in such a way, but religions have exemptions and still get away with it (or try) whenever possible. I dread to think what would happen if christianty was the sole source of morality.

We know what happens when Christian ethics are the only source of morality in society: the Dark Ages.

[Arbitran]

I'm a Christian and believe in the miracle of Jesus. I still believe in dinosaurs as fact. The new testament is close to history. The old is pretty much mythology. Remember the bible like the tara and the Koran were written by men. Not god. But you can't taint all Christians with the same brush and I speak only for myself. Want an official answer? Ask an Arch Bishop or the Pope. Sick of these Christian baiting questions. Make your own mind up.

As a note, the New Testament is actually less historically-verified than the Old. Most of the documents are forgeries from centuries after the events they describe are supposed to have happened; and of course, even if Jesus really did exist (which I think he probably did), that doesn't mean that he had superpowers.

[Arbitran]

I didn't read anything but the first post...

The common reply to that has and most likely will always be:

"God put them there to test our belief"

or

"The heathens (or non-believers) put them there in spite"

lol, in any case, in the bible people lived for hundreds of years, they were never specific on what animals were created, just another generalized version. In the book Genesis, it tells of pangea. I'll be as accurate as possible; “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear" and it was so. (one version)."God had then created a great mesa rising and splitting the waters and called this, land and he said this is good. He called the waters sea and said that this is good." (another version)

Both tell me that the bible agrees with pangea. then the next several verses usually talk about seeds firstly, then animals in the water and birds in the sky.... after all that then humans were created, in the bible itself it says that we were created last, it does not describe all the species of animals, just that they would be abundant. Now both that for life and birds to spread seeds, the bible is emplying that evolution happened...

That's the bible though, anyone can interpret it differently.

EDIT

Check the internets different versions of the bible.

I used to think that the Bible taught evolution. It doesn't. Land animals were created after birds in the Bible; that's not how it actually happened. Avians are descended from the theropod lineage of the superorder Dinosauria; all known taxa within the superorder are land-dwelling creatures. Also, the Bible states that plants were created before any members of the kingdom Animalia; this is also false. The colonization of land by plant life did not occur for millions of years after life first arose in the sea; in this span of time there arose an abundance of marine organisms.

[Yamato]

I don't give a damn about politicians. The Golden Rule has been unanimously discovered and taught by every culture in the history of the human race. Why did it have to 'come from' any particular place?

Because it doesn't fall out of the sky or appear out of thin air. Not giving a damn about politicians might seem smart at a glance and make you feel above it all, but it also makes you the one who isn't going to get the GR-based policies that you just claimed are simply all the world needs. When you're sitting around not caring, who's going to care enough to stand up and defend what you want? After you're done nonchalantly removing yourself from the institutions and speaking grandiose about all the cultures of human history, who does the discovering and teaching in your culture? How does your culture promote the Golden Rule? How do you enforce it? On one hand you concede that 2000 year old moral code is all that's necessary and on the other hand you ignore that it's horribly violated on a regular basis? We can't even talk about the Golden Rule anymore without some people getting snippy about it. We've evolved so well in this country we can't even suggest it without American voters who do give a damn about their politicians standing up and booing it.

[Arbitran]

Because it doesn't fall out of the sky or appear out of thin air. Not giving a damn about politicians might seem smart at a glance and make you feel above it all, but it also makes you the one who isn't going to get the GR-based policies that you just claimed are simply all the world needs. When you're sitting around not caring, who's going to care enough to stand up and defend what you want? After you're done nonchalantly removing yourself from the institutions and speaking grandiose about all the cultures of human history, who does the discovering and teaching in your culture? How does your culture promote the Golden Rule? How do you enforce it? On one hand you concede that 2000 year old moral code is all that's necessary and on the other hand you ignore that it's horribly violated on a regular basis? We can't even talk about the Golden Rule anymore without some people getting snippy about it. We've evolved so well in this country we can't even suggest it without American voters who do give a damn about their politicians standing up and booing it.

Firstly, the Golden Rule is much older than 2,000 years. And secondly, yes, I should have phrased my last post better. Yes, I do have thoughts and such about politics, but we weren't discussing politics, we were discussing ethics.

[shadowhive]

A trend is a general direction in which something tends to move. I don't see the trend in "sometimes trusting the wrong people". That's more of a constant than a trend, and far too often the results are far too terrible to accept. That's why organizations of less power are inherently better than those with more. Sometimes trusting people is neither exclusive nor excusatory to either religion or its alternatives, so I find it hard to accept that as a swipe uniquely reserved against religion.

Literacy rates from hundreds of years ago and the constraints of illiteracy has affected everything, including religion. If you can't read or write, obviously you need someone to show and tell you what to do. Morality isn't something you can just assume. It must be taught; it must be practiced. But religion has no monopoly on hypocrisy. It's just easy for thin-air moralists to smack religion around because religion actually has standards people can be compared to, imagine that. I think it's often quite the religious exercise to weigh people morally according to their own professed beliefs. Sinead O'Connor sticking it in the eye of her priests and bishops makes her quite the Christian when the actions of the church are anything but Christ-like. But doing that constantly to someone over time may provoke them into swearing off their religion and taking the easy way out. Why should they be inconvenienced by such imperfection and hypocrisy? They had good parents, or a college degree in the social sciences, or a professor they were lucky enough to find themselves in class with, or high-speed internet access, air conditioning and an endless supply of clean drinking water, so what's our excuse? Tough luck for us? I don't think so. If the social sciences have taught us anything it's that humanity isn't going to fall into place in universal harmony without an endless chain of failed experiments in force control. We must be extremely careful with who we empower and rely on. Even parents are often crap at their responsibilities, and we shouldn't turn our backs on alternatives that exercise as little force as possible.

There are many countries on this Earth right now, operating independant governments. Statistically some of those will always have 'bad' leaders. However how bad they are varies. Are they just corrupt, or will they commit acts of genocide? Right now several 'small' countries are treating their people much worse than most larger ones.

As for organisations with large amounts of power being worse? Well religions often have far more power then any government. It's not an issue unique to religion, hwever it does have a large amount of power and can (and does) exercise it when it can.

I bought it up because people got their morals 'from christianity' when actually it was just from the priests, priests who could have said anything and the people would have no choice to accept it as truth (indeed, they left a lot of places stunted culturally because of it).

A key problem with that is that, christianity at least, has a 'get out clause' when it comes to hypocrisy. Built into it's teachings are 'we are all sinners' so anything they do, regardless of how bad, doesn't really mean anything. Tehey can just say 'oh, they're human, humans sin' and shrug it off.

Religion isn't the sole source of morality. It also isn't the best one. Yes, it does havee some good teachings. I'm not saying we just disregard everything that religion says is moral just because 'religion says it'. The problem is that when it comes to morality religion crosses a line. It goes from saying things that we can all agree are wrong (like murder and rape) to things that are obviously not (like interacial and interfaith marriages, sex before marriage). Things are kept as moral because 'god says so'' (or more accurately the church and it's leaders say so) rather than if they have value or make sense.

The world isn't perfect. Will it ever be? I somehow doubt it. I do think we can improve things, but I don't think religion can. It's had it's go and it's been incompetant. Religion has proven time and again that it is a dividing, rather than a unifying force. Will the secular system work out better? I hope so.

[Yamato]

Firstly, the Golden Rule is much older than 2,000 years. And secondly, yes, I should have phrased my last post better. Yes, I do have thoughts and such about politics, but we weren't discussing politics, we were discussing ethics.

If a 2000 year old fascimile of something even older is still the best we can come up with that doesn't bode well for the evolution of morality. We were discussing where the universal morality we both agree with comes from. Are we born with it? No. Do we exclude and/or ignore those not raised with it? I hope not. You don't want it from religion. Do you want it from government? Do you believe government can make you a better person? It's hard at work trying to do exactly that.

[Yamato]

There are many countries on this Earth right now, operating independant governments. Statistically some of those will always have 'bad' leaders. However how bad they are varies. Are they just corrupt, or will they commit acts of genocide? Right now several 'small' countries are treating their people much worse than most larger ones.

As for organisations with large amounts of power being worse? Well religions often have far more power then any government. It's not an issue unique to religion, hwever it does have a large amount of power and can (and does) exercise it when it can.

I bought it up because people got their morals 'from christianity' when actually it was just from the priests, priests who could have said anything and the people would have no choice to accept it as truth (indeed, they left a lot of places stunted culturally because of it).

A key problem with that is that, christianity at least, has a 'get out clause' when it comes to hypocrisy. Built into it's teachings are 'we are all sinners' so anything they do, regardless of how bad, doesn't really mean anything. Tehey can just say 'oh, they're human, humans sin' and shrug it off.

Religion isn't the sole source of morality. It also isn't the best one. Yes, it does havee some good teachings. I'm not saying we just disregard everything that religion says is moral just because 'religion says it'. The problem is that when it comes to morality religion crosses a line. It goes from saying things that we can all agree are wrong (like murder and rape) to things that are obviously not (like interacial and interfaith marriages, sex before marriage). Things are kept as moral because 'god says so'' (or more accurately the church and it's leaders say so) rather than if they have value or make sense.

The world isn't perfect. Will it ever be? I somehow doubt it. I do think we can improve things, but I don't think religion can. It's had it's go and it's been incompetant. Religion has proven time and again that it is a dividing, rather than a unifying force. Will the secular system work out better? I hope so.

How do you mete out the secular system? With government. And meanwhile it's governments that are kidnapping, jailing, raping and killing their own people and thankfully those regimes hold as small a dominion in the world as they do. In light of all that, how does religion have power greater than any government? That's quite a statement!

People have proven time and time again that they are a dividing force and this isn't unique to religion or solely in the presence of religion. Surely psychology doesn't need religion to validate itself.

[shadowhive]

How do you mete out the secular system? With government. And meanwhile it's governments that are kidnapping, jailing, raping and killing their own people and thankfully those regimes hold as small a dominion in the world as they do. In light of all that, how does religion have power greater than any government? That's quite a statement!

People have proven time and time again that they are a dividing force and this isn't unique to religion or solely in the presence of religion. Surely psychology doesn't need religion to validate itself.

Like I said, some regimes are going to be bad. It's bound to happen unfortunately. The key is having systems in place where such a regime can't take over. Most secular nations have such systems in place, lessons which are learned from the past. it's important to try and get those regimes out of power, but as a practical matter it's easier said than done.

How does religion have more power then government? Well, any government's power (even a powerful one), is limited. Now religion isn't so constrained. Let's take christianity. There are christians within the vast majority (if not all) of the nations on this planet. People in those countries do things because the 'bible says so'. Doing what the bible says is often more important than doing what any government says, even their own. in many countries, even secular ones, policticans propose laws and amendments often solely on the basis that the bible says so (and they even get through at times).

It isn't unique to religion, that is true, but religion is perhaps the most dangerous of the myriad forms of it. The worst kind of justification is 'because god wants it'. Even now people kill others because their god tells them to (or at least, because they are told that). It seems you can get people to sign of on any horror with the simple addition of 'god wants it' (or variations of that). Religions also promote us vs them mentalities, that aren't very helpful (especially in socities where that religion isn't the sole one). Often this even extends to fostering internal conflicts in the religion itself.

The hypocrisy is that most religions claim to be 'religions of peace', when in reality they just offer new problems instead of promoting the peace they claim to stand for.

[psyche101]

If you become involved in a Christain fraternity they have a different idea about what Genesis is about.

Its a story from which you infer Gods architectual plans for the universe. Its called Sacred Geometery and produces things like the Platonic Solids. It isnt meant to be taken literally used more as a guide from which to infer the plans.

Umm, 2 pages before the post, PA informed us that the poster you responded to has passed away.

Is this thread still about Christianity's views on Dinosaurs?

Edited June 20, 2012 by psyche101

[Yamato]

Like I said, some regimes are going to be bad. It's bound to happen unfortunately. The key is having systems in place where such a regime can't take over. Most secular nations have such systems in place, lessons which are learned from the past. it's important to try and get those regimes out of power, but as a practical matter it's easier said than done.

How does religion have more power then government? Well, any government's power (even a powerful one), is limited. Now religion isn't so constrained. Let's take christianity. There are christians within the vast majority (if not all) of the nations on this planet. People in those countries do things because the 'bible says so'. Doing what the bible says is often more important than doing what any government says, even their own. in many countries, even secular ones, policticans propose laws and amendments often solely on the basis that the bible says so (and they even get through at times).

It isn't unique to religion, that is true, but religion is perhaps the most dangerous of the myriad forms of it. The worst kind of justification is 'because god wants it'. Even now people kill others because their god tells them to (or at least, because they are told that). It seems you can get people to sign of on any horror with the simple addition of 'god wants it' (or variations of that). Religions also promote us vs them mentalities, that aren't very helpful (especially in socities where that religion isn't the sole one). Often this even extends to fostering internal conflicts in the religion itself.

The hypocrisy is that most religions claim to be 'religions of peace', when in reality they just offer new problems instead of promoting the peace they claim to stand for.

People do things because the law says so. If you're a law-abiding citizen you don't do something because it's against the law. And if you do do that something and get caught, you might get put in a cage for it. You might be beaten, tortured, humiliated, raped, or killed. That is physical force. Religion in the secular/democratic states of today don't have that power. At all. Maybe we underestimate how bad such actions are for other people in our understanding of power because they haven't happened to us yet. "Because God wants to" can be a strong motivator but it doesn't compare to the barrel of a gun.

The power of belief that you're referring to shouldn't be underplayed either, but that too isn't reserved to just religion. You can be a fanatical believer in nationalism and the state, and that's far more dangerous than fanaticism in religion because the state has all that physical force.

A bad regime can mean anything we want it to. The Obama Administration is a bad regime. Other than term limits, there were no (effectual) safeguards to prevent the catastrophic damage he's caused this country already. There are bad regimes all over the world. Finding a government with a fiscal clue in its head is annoying at best. Estonia. Scandinavia for the most part. Perhaps Iceland these days. I'm keeping an eye out.

[Yamato]

Sick of these Christian baiting questions.

Amen to that.

Putting my actual views on dinosaurs aside, I don't see how Christianity is particularly villainous, I don't think that Christianity should enjoy a monopoly on morality either, nor suffer any kind of forced removal from society.

I'll exit with a question to all the Christ-baiters: Are we going to eradicate our culture of employment too because bosses make you feel like 2nd class citizens? No, of course not. (Bosses hire you and give you $$).

When the church no longer offers you anything, it's suddenly time to get rid of it....great thinking.

[Arbitran]

If a 2000 year old fascimile of something even older is still the best we can come up with that doesn't bode well for the evolution of morality. We were discussing where the universal morality we both agree with comes from. Are we born with it? No. Do we exclude and/or ignore those not raised with it? I hope not. You don't want it from religion. Do you want it from government? Do you believe government can make you a better person? It's hard at work trying to do exactly that.

Why do you so wantonly exclude the notion that we're born with it? I think we are. It's not hard. If you're suggesting that we learn our morality, that is only partially true; some things we learn, others are intrinsic. Even an orphan knows it's wrong to kill someone.