(August 8, 2010 at 8:27 am)solja247 Wrote: Not at all. You claimed that religion was a manipulative tool and yes in the wrong hands, correcto. However, it can be a tool to enlightenment and understanding. If I was an atheist I would most likely never entered into higher thinking, it was that I wanted to see if my belief system was right, according to the history, Bible and etymology. If I was an atheist I cant really prove my belief system correct, I can go to any sacred text, I cant look at history to see if Im on the right track so I would of been one of those atheists who just go, 'lol you Christians are stupid, go read Dawkins!'
But you really can't. It is a faith-based system, so whatever evidence you find that doesn't follow your predetermined answers is thrown out. If you were to look at it objectively, especially 1st and 2nd century christianity and the wide variety of doctrines that were both combined and eradicated by the orthodox church, you wouldn't believe in christianity anymore. Before christianity was ironed out by the church, before the various permutations of it were crushed by the church, it was a very weak, and widely varied system of beliefs that did very little to substantiate the historical accuracy of the modern bible. The Christianity you believe in was created over the course of centuries, it wasn't a set doctrine or a set cannon from the beginning, which would be what it was were the effects of the 12 apostle's preaching accurate in relation to the bible. The actual history of christianity was a very brutal, very bad larve like consumption and destruction of itself to create a single uniform doctrine.
"In our youth, we lacked the maturity, the decency to create gods better than ourselves so that we might have something to aspire to. Instead we are left with a host of deities who were violent, narcissistic, vengeful bullies who reflected our own values. Our gods could have been anything we could imagine, and all we were capable of manifesting were gods who shared the worst of our natures."-Me
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." – Francis Bacon
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." – Francis Bacon