Poverty and Theism

[Shell B]

Someone is going to have to split this thread. Geez.

To the OP, I'm not sure I agree with the premise, but that's solely based on my experience. I grew up in abject poverty and have been an atheist since my teens. Before my teens, I was technically an atheist, but didn't think about god enough to form a real opinion. I only went to church when someone religious died or got married. I was sometimes forced to go to church with friends when I had weekend sleepovers. I mostly just found it strange.

[Brian37]

Someone is going to have to split this thread. Geez.

To the OP, I'm not sure I agree with the premise, but that's solely based on my experience. I grew up in abject poverty and have been an atheist since my teens. Before my teens, I was technically an atheist, but didn't think about god enough to form a real opinion. I only went to church when someone religious died or got married. I was sometimes forced to go to church with friends when I had weekend sleepovers. I mostly just found it strange.

Bu bu you are an atheist, isn't their some secrete code we share, some secret oath promising to drink goats blood and barbecue kittens?

[Shell B]

You know you guys are so blind

Oh, and it must be you who can see, right?

, you speak of North Korea as if it were a religious state. It is not it is the worlds most pure atheist state. Sure they treat Kim like a God now, but the philosophy of that state is atheism.

You can't be atheist and worship a deity at the same time. Their belief system is very religious.

Atheism is the religion of Communism.

Atheism is not a religion.

But you as an atheist don't want to be associated with the truth that atheistic societies oppress people, especially religious people.

There isn't a society on Earth that doesn't oppress some people, but the most oppressive societies on the planet are, and always have been, religious.

North Korea is one of the worlds worst persecutors of Christians, not due to religion, but due to the fact it is banned. Religion is banned.

Good for North Korea. Even a broken clock . . .

Sorry if i appeared a little short with you ... but it gets under my skin that your philosophy hurts not heals the world and you parade it around as if it were the worlds saviour. See yo are still under my skin.

You don't sound sorry at all. You just described religion as a negative. Religion hurts, and it's paraded around as if it is the world's savior.

[Minimalist]

Actually he sounds like just one more asshole who believes fairy tales are real.

Dismissed from further consideration as a rational person and relegated to the dustbin of lunacy along with dripshit & MK.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

both ...when this life sucks, you make sure the next one will be better...

Exactly, which shows the wisdom of God allowing us to suffer by all sorts of things.... according to hadiths attributed to the Imams, God favored the poor and oppressed over the rich, and is trying the rich and well off people by the oppressed and poor.

Paradise was meant for poor and oppressed, and rich have to earn it through how they treat poor and oppressed and strive for their rights.

Humanity will one day all be wealthy according to hadiths (a real economic utopia as well as moral utopia) when Imam Mahdi establishes justice on earth but until our hearts are ready to love one another and love his chosen guardian and through his channelling of God's Love, God then for the most part wealth is a trial by which Quran warns not to feel that God has favored anyone through but rather are being tried and for the most part people perish due to it.

And sometimes education makes one according to Quran like past nations, feel pride in the knowledge they are given, and not in need of the higher type!

What a stinking, inhumane, pustulent load of manipulative ad hoc crap THAT is.

The reason that the poor tend to be more religiously-mined than the wealthy is that the poor are easier for the priest class to manipulate - the wealthy aren't usually attracted to the promise of a better life in some imaginedhereafter, as their lives here-and-now are already pretty fucking good.

But the poor (and I'm not talking Too-bad-we-can't-buy-Jimmy-that-new-bike-for-his-birthday kind of poor, but Too-bad-we-can't-buy-Jimmy-any-food-this-week kind of poor) tend to be in such dire straits that they are the low hanging fruit of the missionary world. Just be good, do what [insert name of beloved imaginary friend here], give us what little money you have, and you will - after another 30 or 40 years of watching your malnourished, diseased, vermin-ridden friends and family die from everything from scurvy and diabetes to starvation and exposure - get to Paradise.

Fuck you, MK, you heartless prick. Fuck anyone who thinks like you, and - while I'm at it - fuck your false Prophet and his even more false God. You are a boil on the buttocks of compassion.

Boru

[CapnAwesome]

Poor education results in both poverty and religiousity. Not shocking.

[Flavius]

I don't believe it is due to religion that poverty occurs. If anything it is the needy have a greater reliance upon God. The bible says it this way "deny me riches and poverty, riches least I forget God, and poverty least I steal and profane the name of the LORD may God".

On a personal note God has always helped me get richer, more prominent, never less. The current job that I have I truely believe god gave me. Six months ago I applied for a job with the government, but was rejected. At the time I prayed and said to God "if you think I can do this job, please get it for me some how". Six months latter a job agent asked me if I was interested in a job with the department of education, I was going to say "not really interested", but God prompted me strongly to apply. Through a feeling deep with in me. So I applied. Got the job, and it turns out it was the job I had applied for six month earlier. I find the job easy and rewarding.

To top this off I pray blessing over my clients, or I did I should say, when I worked in my own business, or for general employers. I distinctly remember after praying for many weeks for a client to be blessed, God spoke to me as I worked and asked me the question "How would you like to work for channel 9", chanel 9 was a free to air TV station in our country. I was working on a clients Website at the time, the one I had been praying for, so I was super careful with it in case it was put on TV. That was the feeling I got. A few weeks latter the client came to us and said they were asked by channel 9 if they could appear on TV. They got a spot on A Current Affair, and when the show went to air, their business received thousands of sign ups in one night. It was a boon for the brand, and a blessing both to them and me. To them for their business, to me to know God has answered my prayers for them.

Sorry to stop you there, but your first sentence is faulty, therefore your entire argument is resting upon that first prejudice. I did not say religion results in poverty, or the other way around. I was explaining that they are both interconnected, so whenever poverty increases, so does the chance of resorting to theism.

EDIT: Notice the word "chance."

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Someone is going to have to split this thread. Geez.

To the OP, I'm not sure I agree with the premise, but that's solely based on my experience. I grew up in abject poverty and have been an atheist since my teens. Before my teens, I was technically an atheist, but didn't think about god enough to form a real opinion. I only went to church when someone religious died or got married. I was sometimes forced to go to church with friends when I had weekend sleepovers. I mostly just found it strange.

Believe me, I never said this is crude spot on evidence and this is what the world revolves around. It just heightens the chances, I also grew up in a not-so-wealthy family for a period of time, and despite that I managed to stray away from religious beliefs. This is just an interesting correlation I found because humans are addicted to patterns.

[The Industrial Atheist]

If you're a Christian believing in the non biblically mandated tithing thing, losing %10 of your dough doesn't help.

[Mystic]

The reason that the poor tend to be more religiously-mined than the wealthy is that the poor are easier for the priest class to manipulate - the wealthy aren't usually attracted to the promise of a better life in some imaginedhereafter, as their lives here-and-now are already pretty fucking good. 

According to Quran, those who love the life of this world and are satisfied with it, they are not meant to know God so as to enter paradise.

Indeed our nature is to crave something higher than this world, a path of ascending realities that get us closer to God....but people who are satisfied with their lives in this world....

What can be done for them? You can only see the true living sufficient treasure we are meant to know and is better to have then anything in this world through the eyes of love.

Love demands respect for most people and in case of God it demands it to the extent of shivering quacking hearts when his name is mentioned. 

The way I look at it, is you are right, oppressed are easily manipulated into false religions because they quickly want to be satisfied with answers to feel they have something, but at the same time, it's always them who do give ear to the Prophets and appointed Guides when they come.

The rich then scorn the poor like Satan took pride in his ethereal fire nature over that of physical substance of Adam, but it's a deluded type.

So yes they are easily manipulated but they are also easily guided by the right guides....because they are searching for answers.

But their belief in God and love of God over the perishing world motivates them to seek answers....way to hastely, which is why Quran didn't come all at once, but said slowly God will show them the signs and teach them the truths and insights.....

Indeed the poor crave spirituality to the extent they want answers too quickly and do end up manipulated and the rich scorn it to the extent they are allergic to the truth. 

However from the poor will be the truth seekers.....that is not say rich can't be truth seekers, it's just majority are from the poor and oppressed.

This is not to say rich people can't be guided, it's just a lot harder on them and they are easily deceived by their wealth and the deceiving promises of the false life and false world.

[Isis]

Poor education results in both poverty and religiousity. Not shocking.

What about all of the educated theists out there, though?