Enlightenment needs your support

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Mettyx
Posts: 182
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 1:00 pm

Enlightenment needs your support

Post by Mettyx » Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:34 pm

In this age of technology, over population and rampant religious lunacy and superstition in so many countries it is important to be counted.

So please take a few moments to fill this up.

Don't forget to share this with others you know online and offline.

Also if you are seeing this and you are still a slave to superstitious nonsense and unreason which you got through childhood indoctrination(religions are geographically fixed), which is also colloquially known as tradition, knowledge contained in these books will greatly help you:

1.God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, V.Stenger(physicist)

2.Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith, A.Thompson(psychiatrist)

3.Religion Explained, P.Boyer(cognitive anthropologist)

4.The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, Loftus, Barker(former priest)

Thanks

N7SC
Posts: 179
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2007 7:22 pm
Location: Sunny Florida, where dead people vote 3 times in a county they never even lived in!

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by N7SC » Wed Dec 19, 2012 4:36 pm

You are lucky that almost all of the members here are both educated and easy going. If you posted that on any other forum, you would be flamed to death.

And, no one that is still "a slave to superstition" is going to read those books unless they are already on the verge of giving up their irrational beliefs.

I used to call people who were ignorant and Christian, participants in the largest, most complex real-life game of Dungeons and Dragons. I've never played any computer games, so if I chose the wrong game for an analogy, oops. But, viewed rationally, they are just letting themselves be led into a huge game of "this team vs. that team." And it is all based on make-believe. What a waste of time!

xan_user
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 2269
Joined: Sun May 21, 2006 9:09 am
Location: Northern California.

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by xan_user » Wed Dec 19, 2012 5:26 pm

its interesting that ~80% of us "rationalists" went to college.
no wonder the religious nut jobs always want to cut school funding.

Mettyx
Posts: 182
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 1:00 pm

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by Mettyx » Wed Dec 19, 2012 10:40 pm

xan_user wrote:its interesting that ~80% of us "rationalists" went to college.
no wonder the religious nut jobs always want to cut school funding.
Yes, that is a well known correlation for almost a century now. But not only that, the more economic stability and social safety also less religiosity.

It is all thoroughly explored and explained in this book-

Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment

mercyfull_fate
Posts: 23
Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2012 4:57 am

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by mercyfull_fate » Thu Dec 20, 2012 1:30 am

wow what a religious believe you guys have that other views are wrong:P

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by edh » Thu Dec 20, 2012 1:48 am

mercyfull_fate wrote:wow what a religious believe you guys have that other views are wrong:P
Like any religion believes in any better? We're not calling for conversion or death to those who don't think our way, unlike many religions do.

It's not a religious belief anyway. It's a school of thought and we work on evidence.

mercyfull_fate
Posts: 23
Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2012 4:57 am

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by mercyfull_fate » Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:40 am

you work on assumption like any good science would, objects move towards each other so you asume there is something like gravity. Religions are not that dissimular from science but are often more oriented on origanation and morality then the here and now.

as for the conversion or die asumption you make, i can't think of any religion that advocates/teaches that, altough i know of some interpertions of that (like the crusaders to give a historical example). As far as what i know about them most religions actualy advocate love and peace.

and science has actualy simular examples like hitler killing of handicaped people based on that they are bad for the gene pool, even tho i can't refute the science in that i still don't agree

tim851
Posts: 543
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:45 am
Location: 128.0.0.1

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by tim851 » Thu Dec 20, 2012 5:22 am

mercyfull_fate wrote:wow what a religious believe you guys have that other views are wrong:P
How I hate this crappy "argument".

Science is not a belief. The way it works is: if you prove to me your God entity, I will believe it exists.

If you experience things that can't be scientifically observed, so be it. If you live your life according to things that can't be scientifically observed, so be it.

It's just that if you want me to live MY LIFE according to them, I'm gonna need proof. If you can't provide me with it, I'm sorry, but I can only live by things I EXPERIENCE TOO.

That is science. The common denominator. For public affairs, we need to agree on things we ALL can EXPERIENCE.

andyb
Patron of SPCR
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Location: Essex, England

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by andyb » Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:57 am

Over 25% of the UK population is now "openly Atheist", I say "over 25%" because all of the information that we have at hand suggests that parents are more likely to be Religious than their children and as we know parents will fill in the Census often not even giving their children the choice. Also people who turn up to Church for Weddings, Christenings and Funerals (such as my family) may often put themselves down as Christian. Finally the huge influx of migrants from overseas ((mostly Poland) may have also skewed the Christian population up as the country is officially 87% Catholic)

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_290685.pdf

Personally I wont bother filling in that online form as the religiousness of the UK is dropping rapidly (except for the Muslim population which is rising due to immigration and breeding).


Andy

Spoon Boy
Posts: 168
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2005 11:44 pm
Location: London

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by Spoon Boy » Thu Dec 20, 2012 4:56 pm

Am i the only one who has missed the point of the OP?
Why do i care what others believe, if children believe in Santa Claus and it makes them happy who am i to take that away from them.
What ever someone believes is up to them as long as they don't try to force there beliefs onto me as i have my own :)

Mettyx
Posts: 182
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 1:00 pm

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by Mettyx » Thu Dec 20, 2012 7:01 pm

mercyfull_fate wrote:wow what a religious believe you guys have that other views are wrong:P
LOL, this post is so incoherent and wrongheaded I took it as a troll post or a parody of what super ignorant jesus-cultist would say.

Not all religions preach violence, but all religions preach a respect for faith.
Faith is belief without evidence. When you believe things without evidence there is no way to check the validity of what you believe, and if believing without evidence is respected then there is no way to condemn those who do morally repugnant things in the name of their faith.

Faith provides no mechanism for moral decision-making, for self-examination, for discerning what is true.

That is why it is dangerous.

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Re: Enlightenment needs your support

Post by andyb » Fri Dec 21, 2012 8:35 am

Not all religions preach violence, but all religions preach a respect for faith.
I have no respect for someone who believes something magical with no evidence, therefore I have no respect for "faith" itself and even less for those who preach it. I also find the whole concept of "Blasphemy" immoral and so repugnant it attempts to defy a basic "freedom from religion".


Andy

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