(February 12, 2016 at 11:07 am)Rextos Wrote: i have more reason to hate christianity than most people simply because i was brainwashed at such a young age and it made me feel like everything bad that happened to me in life was my fault and i was a failure, and that caused me emotional suffering that i still deal with today and which is a huge reason why i am agnostic these days cus it makes me feel like all religions are just condescending bullshit.  but at the same time i feel like if christianity was completely gone, then it would be like "every man for himself" and all those christian charities and missions that help people in 3rd world countries and even homeless in the US would be shut down and people would be a lot meaner cus everyone would believe in "survival of the fittest" - so i kinda feel like it's a double edged sword, cus i can't stand condescending and bigoted people, but at the same time not all Christians are like that and a lot of them do actually want to help people and make this world a better place.

and i have been in situations where i was looking at being jailed, but i felt like its because of christianity the judge and social workers had compassion on me, that i was able to turn my life around, otherwise i may be dead today even.

No but I do fantasize about how the planet would be able to progress without christianity both in terms of our humanity, our connection with the earth and our technology.

Christianity has nothing to do with treating people with compassion.  Christians do not have a monopoly on compassion, in fact, I would argue the exact opposite.

What religion definitely DOES have is a monopoly on holding humanity back from making real progress in a number of key areas.  It gives humanity as a species a superiority complex that teaches them that its ok to exploit our environment and ignore the realities of our existence in a way that is extremely damaging to our species.  Christianity also has an agenda to subjugate women which holds us back as a whole as well.

Christianity is simply a bad thing for humanity on a number of levels.

I think it depends pretty much on whether the religion dies slowly, or all at once. In a slow death, at least the most likely one to befall modern christianity, it'd just continue hemorrhaging adherents until nobody worth a damn is left and the whole shebang is so irrelevant as to make its death meaningless.

On the other hand, were this to be a sudden thing, if suddenly we discovered something that makes christianity a completely untenable position- if, in other words, current day christians were suddenly thrust into a world where their treasured religious beliefs were invalidated explicitly and undeniably- then I think we'd get some very dramatic flouncing going on. See, particularly fundagelical christians are more likely to take disagreement with their positions as a personal affront, and they aren't exactly apt to take correction well either. I can see those types giving up on their charitable works and so on in the most public, loud way possible, making it half punishment for daring to disagree with them, and half overly theatrical argument from consequences to try and get people back under their nice comfortable status quo anyway. For a lot of right wing christians the whole charity schtick has never been about helping others anyway, just about projecting that image. Every other cherished tenet of their religion has been used as a weapon to get at dissenters before, I can't exactly see their "charity" being used any differently if they needed to.

I think we're safe from that scenario, which I agree sounds very plausible, because entrenched fundamentalists are experts at ignoring any and all facts that contradict their narrative.

They will most likely only stop being Christian when they die. And by then, they'll be replaced by more liberal ones, until the whole thing either dissolves or becomes paper Christianity like in England.

(February 12, 2016 at 12:51 pm)robvalue Wrote: I think we're safe from that scenario, which I agree sounds very plausible, because entrenched fundamentalists are experts at ignoring any and all facts that contradict their narrative.

They will most likely only stop being Christian when they die. And by then, they'll be replaced by more liberal ones, until the whole thing either dissolves or becomes paper Christianity like in England.

Maybe when they suddenly realized that they're religion is now extinct, we should find a bunch of hungry lions before they all freak out and start rioting?

Christianity will just dwindle. Will it ever be gone, doubtful. Look at the Zoroaster's.

Worry, nope.

(February 12, 2016 at 11:07 am)Rextos Wrote: i have more reason to hate christianity than most people simply because i was brainwashed at such a young age and it made me feel like everything bad that happened to me in life was my fault and i was a failure, and that caused me emotional suffering that i still deal with today and which is a huge reason why i am agnostic these days cus it makes me feel like all religions are just condescending bullshit.  but at the same time i feel like if christianity was completely gone, then it would be like "every man for himself" and all those christian charities and missions that help people in 3rd world countries and even homeless in the US would be shut down and people would be a lot meaner cus everyone would believe in "survival of the fittest" - so i kinda feel like it's a double edged sword, cus i can't stand condescending and bigoted people, but at the same time not all Christians are like that and a lot of them do actually want to help people and make this world a better place.

and i have been in situations where i was looking at being jailed, but i felt like its because of christianity the judge and social workers had compassion on me, that i was able to turn my life around, otherwise i may be dead today even.

It wasn't their religion that helped you. It was their evolutionary empathy. The fact they falsely attributed their compassion to that old book doesn't change that. 

All religions point to their pretty motifs and depictions of kindness. That should tell humans something. That should tell us that our ability to be cruel and compassionate is in our evolution, not the clubs we falsely attribute our behaviors to.

Our species was around long before the first written religions, and even back then we had compassion and empathy. And since then religions have come and gone and we have still displayed cruelty and compassion.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins explains why humans gap fill. But Victor Stenger's "The New Atheism" adds to that in later chapters comparing a variety of world's religions and the common ideas of kindness, but also points out despite that, labels also don't magically make an individual do good. 

Our species ability to be cruel or compassionate is in our evolution, not the placebos humans create as gap fill answers.

If we could invent a time machine and go forward 10,000 years we would see our current religions morph into different forms or die out completely, and humans would have new false perceptions they call clubs they would attribute their good acts to.

(February 12, 2016 at 11:31 am)Minimalist Wrote: Jesusism serves roughly the same purpose in society as venereal disease.  It warns humanity that having fun can hurt you.

We get it.  We don't need jesusism any more.

its kinda funny that you mention this because if by fun you mean sleeping around/drinking/etc, when i was growing up in texas, i noticed lot of the people in my "youth ministry" would show up sunday morning with hangovers, and they all girlfriends, and etc - and as dr fuzzy, statistically atheists are less likely to have abortions, be divorced - so in a way atheists are better Christians than Christians lol.  but im surprised the divorce rate is so high, does that mean atheists in general are less likely to get divorced because they know that relationships take work and you can't expect god to make life perfect? or is it only because there are less atheists so less divorces?

(February 12, 2016 at 11:07 am)Rextos Wrote: and i have been in situations where i was looking at being jailed, but i felt like its because of christianity the judge and social workers had compassion on me, that i was able to turn my life around, otherwise i may be dead today even.

It may have been...other peoples motivations are, ultimately, a mystery to most of us.  OFC, depending upon how many people helped you pick yourself up...it's also entirely likely that one or two were agnostics or atheists.  If christianity is somehow behind making better of your life, awesome...I'd consider it payment for a debt owed to your childhood.

You have to realize "survival of the fittest" is the natural law between "species" more than each individual comprising that species.  This key point is particular important among mammals since empathy is a key strength of the species survival.

And both religious and secular alike still play by this natural law because we treat other animals a lot lesser than we treat other humans simply because we fill we are more 'fit' to do so.  And in my opinion, since I'm not a peta person or anything, this is a very good thing because it straightens out our priorities to keep humans on surviving above all the inferior stupid animals on this planet! O.o.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nigel-barb...65108.html

Here's a HuffPo article that claims that Atheism will Defeat Religion by 2038.  It does have some good sources.