Poll: Better off without religion?

Overall, would the world be better off without religion?

  • Total voters
    17
B

BRUTALITOPS

on indefiniate mod break
Contributor
Overall, would the world be better off without religion? No christians being the morality police, no muslims having 72 virgins on their mind... what say you?
 
Religion is just one expression of the human condition. If we weren't fighting about religion, we'd be fighting about something else. Often I think, the umbrella term "religion" gets used as a cover, for conflicts that go much deeper than some stupid dispute about the koran or bible. It usually all comes back to money and power, in some form.
 
It is kind of like saying the world would be better off if people would just live together without government. Nice idea, perhaps, but totally unrealistic.
 
Don't you think though that believing in fantasy sky people that talk to you in the shower is a little more self destructive than possibly believing in.. say, a more tangible set of principles?
 
Having sky people tell you what to do is the only way many would get to better principles.
That or the fear of punishment (hell) if you misbehave.

Just the way we pitiful hoomans are.

Of course religion of all types gets corrupted with power and control...

A good Christian is a good person to live around. I am not talking about the fanatics or the yeah I go to church on sunday so I am a christian crowd.

But people that genuinely try to model their life after Jesus are good people.
 
Last edited:
Desh said:
Not all religion involves backwards thinking so I voted no.
Click to expand...

All religion involves backwards thinking. Even if a religous movement seems progressive at the moment, just wait a while. Remember, whenever the protestants first came out they were radically liberal. Now they're more conservative than the catholics.
 
uscitizen said:
Jesus Was a radical Liberal.
Click to expand...
He was a radical, but certainly not liberal. People just ignore many of his moral conservatism as well as his constant repetition that he came to cement, not change, belief in God so they can say this.

He wasn't political at all.
 
Liberal in the tru sense. Let the children come to me, dealing with women, Lepers, non jews could goto heaven, etc....
Not liberal politically, not really sure what liberal or conservative mean politically now a days anyway. Pretty much just republicans and non republicans.
 
No, the world wouldn't be better off. Can you imagine the behaviour of the superstititious people who are only stopped from committing the most heinous of actions because they think there's someone watching them the whole time?Take away that surveillance and all hell will break lose.

No, religion is a tool of social control. I think it's crap but I don't need an invisible overlord making sure I don't get up to something bad.
 
Damocles said:
He was a radical, but certainly not liberal. People just ignore many of his moral conservatism as well as his constant repetition that he came to cement, not change, belief in God so they can say this.

He wasn't political at all.
Click to expand...


I say he was political. A slobodan milosevic killed by the roman overlords at the request of political enemies within his own ethnic group.
 
The Politics of Jesus

http://www.geocities.com/savageparade/poj.htm#_Toc93340378
2. The war of the lamb



Christ renounced effectiveness – the control of history – and accepted impotence (Phil 2:6). He could have been much more ‘effective’ if he had joined in the Zealots and driven the Romans out of the holy city. On any calculation, it would have been the more reasonable thing to do. But he refused.



Throughout scripture, a Christian is one who does the same, renouncing effectiveness for the sake of obedience. The Lamb is praised, and then John the Seer sees that ‘our brothers and sisters’ have defeated the dragon ‘by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death’ (Rev 12; cf 2 Cor 4:10.)



Christ’s renunciation of godlikeness in the Philippians passage was his rejection of the temptation offered to Adam in the garden – unchecked dominion over creation; it was his rejection of godlike rule over society like that claimed by Caesar*. Paradoxically, it is because of this refusal to claim what was his right that God declares Christ to be victorious over the powers of the cosmos (Phil 2:9).



Too often this passage is spiritualised into a metaphysical*, heavenly decision by the Heavenly Son wondering how he was going to do things. But it was more than that: it was the earthly, costly decision made time and time again by an itinerant rabbi rejected by Jerusalem.



Interestingly, Martin Luther King* once said, ‘If I was not opposed to violence on idealistic grounds, I would be opposed to it on pragmatic grounds.’ By this statement we can guess that he would have refused violence even if it had cost him victory. But in this case, he saw it also as the most effective and pragmatic course for an unarmed, poor race of people trying to win democratic rights against an armed state.



Christ’s pacifism* is different to the type of secular pacifism which says that non-violent techniques are in the end the most effective means, the type of pacifism which says we can get whatever we seek by non-violence. Sometimes non-violent means do work best, like in the campaigns by Gandhi* and Luther King. But sometimes they do not, as mentioned at the end of ‘The Possibility of Non-Violent Resistance’ chapter; as seen in Tienanmen Square*; as seen by the Jews who refused to fight on the Sabbath in the book of Maccabees*.



The point of Jesus’ pacifism is instead that our readiness to let go of our goals (even legitimate ones!) whenever they can’t be achieved with just means is itself our participation in the triumphant suffering of the Lamb. We are participating in God’s struggle with a rebellious world – ‘the war of the Lamb’.



This only makes sense if Christ is really Lord. Most other Christian ethics can be rationalised on non-Christian grounds – on effectiveness or on ‘natural’ justice. But not this one. It makes no sense to the non-Christian. If the Lamb is not victorious, then we’re sunk - because it’s only in Christ’s return and final victory that we expect things to work out right.
Click to expand...
 
same source

The question about the denarii comes soon after this. These days, Jesus’ answer to 'render unto Caesar's what is Casesar's' has been twisted by spiritualisers to mean that Jesus was staying out of politics.



Instead, Jesus means that government claims and God's claims exist on the same level and it is our job as the church to untangle them faithfully. The loyalty God expects from us sometimes conflicts with the government. Especially when this happens, we must consider what is 'Caesar's' due.
Click to expand...
 
I want to point out that this is perhaps the only place in the world where the results of that poll would occur in this way.

I think if you had 15 Atheists in a room, more than 3 would disagree with that statement.

Ha this board is truly godless.
 
Warren said:
I want to point out that this is perhaps the only place in the world where the results of that poll would occur in this way.

I think if you had 15 Atheists in a room, more than 3 would disagree with that statement.

Ha this board is truly godless.
Click to expand...

Just as well, too many religious nutters make it difficult to think above the noise of chanting.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top