Religion is a disease, education is the vaccine.

It can be argued that different religions, like different diseases, are more or less extreme in their 'symptoms', but the fact remains; they are diseases of the mind.

The ONLY way to stop radicalism is education. Killing people does nothing, because twice as many will take their place the next day. We need to halt the indoctrination of infants/children.

When are developed countries going to start aggressively pushing education to the less fortunate parts of the world? Cutting out radicalism root and stem? is there even a way to deliver effective education to all these people? Discuss your thoughts.

 

Well, I have a bachelor's degree in science, two master's degrees (one in science), and was ABD (have all coursework, just didn't do the dissertation) for a Ph.D. My education strengthened my religious faith, not weakened it. Love the incomplete argument you made, though. Radicalism is not stopped by education. Osama bin Laden was fairly well educated as an engineer. Al-Zawahari was a surgeon.

 

So PRIOR to your education you were waivering a bit on whether to believe if the talking donkey and talking snake of the Bible were actually true, but after all the science classes that you took where the professor verified that animals can INDEED talk to humans, your belief in the truth of the Bible is now "strengthened"?

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Well, there goes the Obama administration's recent theory that "lack of jobs" causes terrorism right out the window.

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Yes, studies show that the more educated people become, generally the LESS religious they become, of course.

 

What is your vision of the world post religion?

 

That would include not indoctrinating them with the teaching of Atheism. Atheism is indeed a 'radical' position to take in view of the fact that most of the world is involved in some form of religion.

 

No, what's RADICAL is that there is some magic, invisible, incredibly shy, all-compassionate yet slavery-approving zombie in the sky who will let me survive my own death, who thinks I'm better than Gandhi and Ben Franklin just because I happened to pick the one correct super-hero out of the thousands on offer. Now THAT'S radical.

 

So are we talking about radicalism or religion?

 

My post in #6 describes a clearly a RADICAL position to take (invisible friend and all), so my point is that most all religions are radical - when the baseline is science, reason, critical thinking, and common sense, that is.
Have a great day.

 

Sounds like BS.

 

You hate religious people. We get it. You open this post in hopes to insult an belittle people with different views than you have. How civilized....

 

He seems to have supplanted individualism as a baseline with those that serve his agenda, while not even considering that in the everyday world, most people don't even give consideration to those items when in normal conversation. For that matter most people don't consider religion during normal conversation. A 'baseline' is a starting point... giving consideration to such things as science, reason, critical thinking, are usually associated with either some professional endeavor (if those things are the baseline) or some specialized area where the baseline is elevated.

 

We're in the longest war in US history, with no end in sight, and religion is the main cause of said war, and you apparently don't think this all-important issue is worth discussing!? He's not insulting people, just the belief in an magic invisible friend in the sky with no real proof....which as we are seeing by this war is a dangerous belief.

 

But compared to the criteria used by religious people (fear of death, superstition, tradition, fear of death, "revelation", belief in magic, and fear of death) the criteria of science, reason, critical thinking is far far better, one has to admit.

 

A world where people put much more value in life.

False. The lack of any knowledge of anything (excluding things that are instinctual) is the default for all newborns. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any gods. One must be taught about these gods in order to know about them and ultimately believe in them.

That's a total misconception and a pretty rude thing to slap on someone. I don't hate religious people at all, almost my entire family and most of my friends are religious. I hate RELIGION.

 

No, having an invisible friend who died 2000 years ago is a RADICAL belief, to be sure.

 

You are parsing words. you cannot hate a religion without hating those who practice it. Nice try, it don't fly.

 

That's because you likely LOVE science, reason, critical thinking, evidence, and common sense. You do this out of love, and not hatred. For example, if it was up to YOU you'd let, say, moral Hindus into "heaven", unlike the hateful supremacists Jesus and Allah. You show more love than Jesus/Allah any day.

Here, say I just gave you the cure for cancer.....would you keep it from people every day for 150,000 years (arguably what Jesus/Allah have done), or would you fall all over yourself to get it out to people - so that little girls with cancer right now don't die horribly painful premature deaths? I KNOW what the "all-powerful", "all-loving" (ha!) Jesus/Allah would do. The next time you look in the mirror realize you are ten times the man Jesus was.

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I hate the Oakland Raiders, but I love their fans and the people from Oakland. See?

 

...and that is not an insult...? wow...

 

weak... really ?

 

So you say. If you think you can prove that a child (newborn) is equipped only with instinctual information, then I would surely like for you to prove such. Do you speak Russian or Korean or Japanese? Yes... Languages as recognized by adult humans as a learned thing, but does not exclude the possibility and probability that a newborn also has a language that is understood by all other newborns.
See here: http://news.byu.edu/archive13-jun-babytalk.aspx The article also points out that this ability is usually around 5 months of age and is also a learned process.. Not all is known about what goes on in the mind of newborns.

 

Are ISIS member atheists? According to them you are an atheist. If God is real, it appears he thinks you are worshipping the wrong version since these religious ISIS people are beheading Christians faster than we can post about it. If their version is wrong why are Christians losing to them? Does your version have too many members or something?

 

What is ISIS? I don't keep up with the global situation... it is too depressing and boring. Anyone thinking I am an Atheist, must not know the difference between Atheism and Christianity. Oh well. As for the beheading of Christians.. that also is no surprise, as it is also predicted. Anything else you would like to add? My version? I don't recall claiming a personal and private version that I could say belonged to me and was my property.

 

If I said my 2 year old nephew has a magic invisible friend who he says lives in his closet, and is named "Captain Elephant", then I would not be insulting him by saying that he is wrong because he lacks proof of said invisible friend. It would be challenging him to provide said proof. If "god" was real then one of the billions of religious people who have ever lived would have provided jury-level of evidence for it already. But like Bigfoot, people have not provided that level of evidence.....that's telling of course.

 

ISIS is the religious group that is rounding people like you up and beheading you for believing in God the wrong way. Is ISIS wrong or are you wrong? Both versions of your (you and ISIS) Gods.....according to you guys both cant be correct.

 

Arguably Incorporeal (sorry, guy) and ISIS are on the same moral level, because I assume (but I'd love to be proven wrong) both are afraid to improve the texts of their religion, and both a fine with Jews/Hindus burning, burning, and yes, burning even more, because those people didn't buck lottery-like odds and happen to pick the one "true" super-hero out of the tens of thousands on offer, even if they are incredibly moral Jews/Hindus.