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World Peace and Religion

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Those using apologetics see at as meaning reasoned argument to justify a religious point.

What i see is moving goalposts, using a time machine and even out and out misrepresentation of the point
Okay, I get it... We believers and nonbelievers tend to see things differently, but I hope it is nothing to fight over. :)
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
I agree.

Dividing the world into "us v. them" is a human instinct, which some have stronger than others. As Jonathan Swift intimated, if we don't divide by religion, politics, class, race, nationality, or ethnicity, we would start dividing by which end of the egg we crack.
That's true. I do not even agree with all Baha'is about certain things and we all have the same scriptures we are reading from.
Why can't they see it my way? :rolleyes:
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
“Pretty much anything we do we get assistance with if we ask and we have faith in God, even though we cannot see that assistance.”
So you claim.
So I believe, but I cannot claim it because I cannot prove it.
“No, not at all, because being a good person is still possible even if we do not get assistance from God.”

Which literally means that gods or belief in gods, is not at all a requirement to be and act good. The point exactly.
They are not always a requirement but even when they are not required, they do help. It is not the belief that helps; it is the actual teachings of the religion because they act as a guide to right living.
“There are some things an atheist can do that are perceived as bad, because an atheist has no fear of God.”

If you don't do certain things out of fear of punishment, then you are not acting morally.
That's what I call a corrupt motivation.
I did not say fear of punishment, I said fear of God. There is no way to know what God might do to us, but God is omnipotent, so God is an Entity to be fearful of. With no God belief, there is nothing to be afraid of, nobody higher than yourself.

Moreover, anything goes as long as you consider it moral, so there are no moral guidelines, only what YOU consider good behavior.
“You are correct, if the only reason we are good is because we fear God that does not say much about our morals.”

Right. So why are you even mentioning it?
That we fear God should not be the only reason we are good, but it can be a legitimate reason.
“That does not compute. If one is religious and fears God, it is more difficult to be bad because there are consequences for one’s actions.”

You JUST agreed that having that as a motivation to not do bad, has nothing to with morality.
No, I did not admit that. Morality and fear of God are not mutually exclusive. In other words, one can do God because they fear God but also because it is the moral thing to do.
“Conversely, if one is not religious and has no fear of God, it is easier to be bad because there are no consequences for one’s actions.”

Actually, there ARE consequences. And they are infinitly more real. Like jail time etc.
You fear imaginary after-life punishments. The boogey man under the bed.
But these same consequences of jail time accrue to religious believers, in addition to what they might fear in the afterlife.
Take a baseball bat, go out and start smashing random people's face in. See what happens.
I guarantee you there will be consequences for you. And I guarantee you that your god won't have anything to do with them.
That is true when behavior hurts other people, but if you just hurt yourself nobody is going to care and there will be no consequences if you are not a God believer.
“My point was that “some people” do not need the fear of God to be good and that is why belief is not necessary (for everyone) in order to be a good person.”

And those people, I will call moral.
Those who don't do bad because they fear big brother is watching, is what I call immoral people.
But that does not mean that believers are immoral just because they fear God because there can be other reasons they are moral, because it is the right thing to do.
“But belief is necessary for “most people” to be good people.”

Is it?
Reality seems to disagree with that.
For example, why is that atheists are so completely underrepresented in prison, compared to the "free" population?

If your statement was correct, I'd expect to see a disproportional HIGH number of atheists in prison. But the reverse is true.....
There is an easy explanation for that. Most people are believers since atheists constitute only about 7% of the world population, so you won’t see many atheists in prison. Also, those who are in prison might say they belong to a religion, but in name only. If they really believed in God, they would not commit crimes because they would fear God’s punishment. One exception to this might be if they were a Christian who belief that they are saved and forgiven regardless of their behavior.
“because fear of God is the only thing that will keep them in line.”

So most people are psychopaths who are utterly incapable of moral reasoning and who require an authority to fear and who's commandments must be followed?

Seriously?
I did not say most people are psychopaths, as psychopaths are not a very high percentage of the general population. But most people do require a belief in God to live a moral life. That does not prove that atheists are immoral, it just shows that belief in God is keeping the believers on the straight and narrow.

There is no way to prove what would happen if there was no religion, but I do not think it would be pretty. If you think it is bad now with all these competing religions just take religion away and it would be chaos. Sure, it works okay for a small percentage of people to be atheists, but that percentage is not running the world. Those who are in positions of power are believers.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
As a small sidenote on this one..............

Salah Abdeslam and Abdelhamid Abaoud were bad news.
Small crumb street criminals. Dealing in weed, speed and xtc. Being nasty with and to girls. Got into fights out of boredom. Robbed people in the streets. Stuff like that.

Then they found "faith" and started believing and fearing god.

This fear of god then turned them into ISIS soldiers. I don't think I need to explain what happened next. These were the plotters and part of the squad of the Paris attacks. Some of their friends, who pretty much have the same story, were part of the squad that did the attacks on Zaventem and the subway in Brussels.

And these guys (except salah, he's in jail) ALL died completely believing they were acting out their moral, ethical, religious duty.
They feared their god and believed.

And that was the result.

Yey religion and blind faith?
I hope you know that does not prove anything about belief in God, because most believers do not behave this way, and in fact most Muslims are moral people who respect others and revere God. So these ISIS Muslims are the exception, not the rule.

To generalize from the few to the many is illogical.

Then we have all the other religions who live by the golden rule so you cannot say that fear of God and belief in God causes violence in most cases. If it was not for religion the world would be complete chaos, as I just said in my last post.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Okay, I get it... We believers and nonbelievers tend to see things differently, but I hope it is nothing to fight over. :)

Nothing to fight over unless threatened, and trust me, there are many believers who used threats and even violence in the name of their faith
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
Religion does not do that, religious people do that. ;)

It is virtually impossible to have religion without people who subscribe to the religion. If nobody believes in a set of religious dogma, the religion dies. You cannot separate the two. Religions do not spawn themselves.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
It is virtually impossible to have religion without people who subscribe to the religion. If nobody believes in a set of religious dogma, the religion dies. You cannot separate the two. Religions do not spawn themselves.
It is true that a religion would die, as far as being active in the world, if nobody subscribed to it, but the religion would not be dead because the scriptures would still exist...

God spawns religions by sending Messengers of God who reveal religions. Then people join those religions and after a while they really mess up what the Messenger revealed. That is one reason God sends a new Messenger with a new Revelation in every age, to renew the religion that came before. The other reason is that we need a new message in every age.

“And now concerning thy question regarding the nature of religion. Know thou that they who are truly wise have likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needeth a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God. Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requireth a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 81
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
It is true that a religion would die, as far as being active in the world, if nobody subscribed to it, but the religion would not be dead because the scriptures would still exist...

God spawns religions by sending Messengers of God who reveal religions. Then people join those religions and after a while they really mess up what the Messenger revealed. That is one reason God sends a new Messenger with a new Revelation in every age, to renew the religion that came before. The other reason is that we need a new message in every age.

“And now concerning thy question regarding the nature of religion. Know thou that they who are truly wise have likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needeth a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God. Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requireth a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 81

A book containing a religion that nobody practices contains a dead religion.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
God spawns religions by sending Messengers of God who reveal religions. Then people join those religions and after a while they really mess up what the Messenger revealed. That is one reason God sends a new Messenger with a new Revelation in every age, to renew the religion that came before.
So God would send a messenger who would give a message to a people that was meant for them for that time and place. But, they'd mess it up. So God would send a different messenger to some other people with a different message that was meant for them in the time and place they were at. But, they'd mess it up. And God kept doing this?

Now in all those previous religions, how many people do you think really put the message from God into practice? I'd say probably not a lot. Why is it going to be different with the Baha'i message? You still have people that will not follow the message 100%. And, you still have people running the religion. Are they perfect? Will they ever be perfect? Will there still be those who don't believe in the Baha'i Faith, so they won't be following the laws that God has supposedly ordained for this time and place. So is God or the Baha'i authorities going to force those people to obey? Are Baha'is going to be forced to obey the laws of God? If not, then how are things going to be any different? People are still going to be disobeying the laws of God... including those that say they belong to the God's religion?

So if "God's" people don't obey the laws 100%, how's that going to bring peace and change the world? The religion loses its credibility. Then, of course, if everyone is forced to obey the laws of God, that's even worse. There's probably going to be some people rebelling against it.

Now, if Baha'i never gain a majority, then how are they going to bring peace and harmony amongst the different religions, when they've already made it clear that all the other religions have messed things up?
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
So God would send a messenger who would give a message to a people that was meant for them for that time and place. But, they'd mess it up. So God would send a different messenger to some other people with a different message that was meant for them in the time and place they were at. But, they'd mess it up. And God kept doing this?
Yep.
Now in all those previous religions, how many people do you think really put the message from God into practice? I'd say probably not a lot. Why is it going to be different with the Baha'i message? You still have people that will not follow the message 100%. And, you still have people running the religion. Are they perfect? Will they ever be perfect? Will there still be those who don't believe in the Baha'i Faith, so they won't be following the laws that God has supposedly ordained for this time and place. So is God or the Baha'i authorities going to force those people to obey? Are Baha'is going to be forced to obey the laws of God? If not, then how are things going to be any different? People are still going to be disobeying the laws of God... including those that say they belong to the God's religion?
I think a lot of adherents to older religions put the teachings into practice, but they were not perfect... Why do people have to be perfect?

I think that eventually the Baha'is will be more spiritual and obey the laws better, but that is a process and it takes a long time. We are still living in a very corrupt society.
So if "God's" people don't obey the laws 100%, how's that going to bring peace and change the world? The religion loses its credibility. Then, of course, if everyone is forced to obey the laws of God, that's even worse. There's probably going to be some people rebelling against it.
I do not think this is the primary problem with its credibility. Most people do not even know about the laws or who obeys them.
Now, if Baha'i never gain a majority, then how are they going to bring peace and harmony amongst the different religions, when they've already made it clear that all the other religions have messed things up?
This is not going to happen for a very long time, so why worry about the future? We have enough problems in the present. Nobody knows what is going to happen or when.
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
Religion has been responsible for creating peace and for disrupting peace.
in 1914, during World War I, there was a cessation of hostilities as people from both sides celebrated Christmas together. Some even refusing to go back to fighting each other.
In the 2018 Olympics, North and South Korea joined together to compete as a single team.

Emperor Theodosius was the last Roman Emperor to rule over a united East and West Roman Empire.
He declared Nicene Christianity to be the official state church of the Roman Empire, he allowed the temples of the old religions to be destroyed, and he banned the Olympics because they were pagan. Historians use his death to mark the beginning of the Middle Ages.

When we consider that religion is the basis of a common bond among people. It seems that World Peace hinges upon religion. Religion will either Save the World or it will Destroy It.

Thoughts?
I think that it is dangerous to attribute too much or too little to religion, which is also difficult to delimit and to characterize in the first place.

But above all, I think that far too often movements that claim to have religious nature end up resorting to artificial external enemies in order to promote a claim of internal bond. That is something to watch for and to remove.
 

The Reverend Bob

Fart Machine and Beastmaster
I don't think "World Peace" hinges on religion whether that means somehow religion will bring us it or ending religion will bring us it. I don't think "World Peace" is at all possible whether we have religion or not.
 

tayla

My dog's name is Tayla
When we consider that religion is the basis of a common bond among people. It seems that World Peace hinges upon religion. Religion will either Save the World or it will Destroy It.
Religion is divisive; there can only be one true religion. Consequently, one of two options: (1) all religions will finally be wiped out in a true unity of humankind, or (2) religious wars will destroy the world. But probably there will first be a global civilization collapse and it will be back to the dark ages.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Religion is divisive; there can only be one true religion. Consequently, one of two options: (1) all religions will finally be wiped out in a true unity of humankind, or (2) religious wars will destroy the world. But probably there will first be a global civilization collapse and it will be back to the dark ages.
Or (3) everyone can unite under the the Baha'i Faith, which is the latest religion that God has revealed, and give up their old outdated religions. I know they don't want to hear this, but that is just too bad. :rolleyes:
It really is the only solution and eventually it will come to pass because it is the Will of God.
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
True, but it is never nobody who practices what is in the book...
There are always some people who do.
Okay, lets's assume that someone practices what has been in all the historical religions that have come and gone, and in some cases come again. Your contention is that
Religion is divisive; there can only be one true religion. Consequently, one of two options: (1) all religions will finally be wiped out in a true unity of humankind, or (2) religious wars will destroy the world. But probably there will first be a global civilization collapse and it will be back to the dark ages.

Actually, there can also be no true religions.....
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
True, but it is never nobody who practices what is in the book...
There are always some people who do.
Okay, let's just go with that and say that somebody, somewhere, is practicing what was written in every religious text that has ever been written in the history of mankind. I have no idea how you would ever go about supporting such a claim, since we can have no assurance that we currently know of every single such text that has ever been written. So I will leave it up to you to demonstrate that your assertion is true.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Okay, let's just go with that and say that somebody, somewhere, is practicing what was written in every religious text that has ever been written in the history of mankind. I have no idea how you would ever go about supporting such a claim, since we can have no assurance that we currently know of every single such text that has ever been written. So I will leave it up to you to demonstrate that your assertion is true.
I said that within each religion there would be some people who practice their religions. I never said that we know about every religious text that has ever been written in the history of mankind.
 
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