+265 your not atheist, but after taking european history in school, you realize that religion screwed over more people than it helped, amirite?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No, I'm atheist.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

(MasonLN):I doubt anybody really cares what your faith is, but thanks for letting me know anyway.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No, I just said that because the post said "Your not atheist..." :)

by Anonymous 12 years ago

How about all the lives saved at Christian hospitals, how about all the kids educated through Christian schools, how about all the Christian charities helping third world countries, how about all the Christian relief services helping places destroyed by natural disasters, how about people who live good moral lives because of their Christian/Jewish/Muslim faith? Religion helps

by Anonymous 12 years ago

This is all true and religion is good, but all these things you list are recent events. Things that you will not learn a European history class. Although I do think schools tend to only point out the negatives of Christianity.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

while that is very true,the bad far outweighs the good when it comes to religion (historically, that is, I'm not speaking so much about in todays world)

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I think part of that is it is far easier to measure the bad than the good

by Anonymous 12 years ago

no i have to disagree there. It much easier to find the good in something from my stand point. But the Christians in European history have killed many many women just becausethey helped pregnent women give birth. And so to get the women out of the birthing buissness they called them witches and killed them. and no i am not making this up.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

What about all the money being spent into the churches instead of funding bigger and more organized charities? How about all the more successful schools? How about all the more industrious relief services? How about all the people who tried to live a moral life but ended up being killed by a religious war or psychopath?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Eh... you can't be serious? More successful schools? Christians through missionary work establish good schools in very undeveloped countries. These "good" schools you speak of tend to be centered around "good" developed countries....

by Anonymous 12 years ago

While this is going to be incredibly self centered and conservative--- Most of the world is fairly developed, and I wouldn't want a peace core member to drop into my country and change all my culture and beliefs.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Uhh... most of the world is most definitely NOT developed. And in most places when the only thing you're doing is dying, culture and beliefs get set on the back burner. Through missionary work and through the peace corp, people who would otherwise die are living and not only that, but also learning and becoming educated. Keeping their culture is something that the natives need to be responsible for. Just like the Jews in the Concentration camps during WWII

by Anonymous 12 years ago

FAIRLY developed, I don't mean sprouting industries and glorious government, I mean like... say Russia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2010_UNDP_Human_Development_Report_Quartiles_.png They are in good shape, not necessarily blossomed, but safe, they don't need help. The only places that need good help is Africa (China probably wouldn't allow it), and unfortunately, the entire world's total education put together > Africa's total education

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Isn't that just supporting my argument that Christians ARE helping them by going there with missionary work?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I admit they are, not as much as they can however.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

So the hitler wasnt all bad because he made the hitler youth?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Different concept. The sole purpose of the Hitler youth was to make a new generation of Nazi fanatics for the army

by Anonymous 12 years ago

the dark ages: christianity caused it. nothing they do now could possibley make up for everything that happened to people then.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

You don't need religion to help people. If a Christian scientist (haha) cures cancer, does that mean that Christianity helped cure cancer? No.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If a Christian leader starts a war, does that mean Christianity caused the war? No.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No. But if a leader goes to war for religious reasons, the war started because of religion.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

That's the worst analogy in the world, as of now. Christians are responsible for the Crusades, so you blame them, but Christians do missionary work, but they don't get praised for their accomplishment?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Christianity is not directly responsible for charities and whatnot. And even if it was, you shouldn't need religion to go out and do something good in the world. Religion was responsible for the crusades.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Wait wait wait... wait wait. You're saying Religion is responsible for crusades, but not for missionary work? How does that even work? Yeah, you shouldn't need religion to do good, but religion is responsible for good things that are happening, for that you HAVE to give them credit, or else with it, take away all the negative things you associate with it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Are they helping people because they think God wants them to, or because it's a nice thing to do? Just because they are organized by a church doesn't mean the church is what's helping. The goodness of people is what helps, not the religion that they believe in.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

What kind of question is that? Why don't you ask that about the crusades? Are they murdering because they think God wants them to or because they were bored and were looking for adventure? They might start out because God wants them to (in the case of missionaries), but as they continue on with it and grow in their trust and love for God, they end up wanting to do it out of the goodness of their heart. There are a lot of people who start out criminals or selfish and through Christianity realize they'd rather help others. However in the case of the crusades, the whole point wasn't to uphold God's ideals (for the most part), but for aesthetic ones.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

They murdered because they wanted the Holy Land. And I see what you're saying about the missionaries and reformed criminals, but my point is that you could do that just as easily without religion. You don't need religion to help people. It may influence good in the world, but it also influences and causes a lot of terrible things. Without religion, lots of wars/massacres, and individual murders would have been avoided, and people would still go to third world countries and save lives out of the goodness of their hearts. The good things that religion causes would still happen without it, but a lot of the bad things would not.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

You can look at today's society, how many people do you see going out and doing something out of the goodness of their heart? There are some, of course. But not nearly at the scale the church does it. Yes, that is what they claimed, but with anything if you dig deep enough into it, you realize it's not as it seems. Most of the people who went to "free" the Holy Land, ended up raping, murdering, stealing, and a whole lot of other stuff that the Bible forbids. You can't say these people were Christians. I'm not saying Christians are perfect, but I can say that if you purposely do all these things, then you're not a Christian.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

They murdered because they wanted the Holy Land. And I see what you're saying about the missionaries and reformed criminals, but my point is that you could do that just as easily without religion. You don't need religion to help people. It may influence good in the world, but it also influences and causes a lot of terrible things. Without religion, lots of wars/massacres, and individual murders would have been avoided, and people would still go to third world countries and save lives out of the goodness of their hearts. The good things that religion causes would still happen without it, but a lot of the bad things would not.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

They murdered because they wanted the Holy Land. And I see what you're saying about the missionaries and reformed criminals, but my point is that you could do that just as easily without religion. You don't need religion to help people. It may influence good in the world, but it also influences and causes a lot of terrible things. Without religion, lots of wars/massacres, and individual murders would have been avoided, and people would still go to third world countries and save lives out of the goodness of their hearts. The good things that religion causes would still happen without it, but a lot of the bad things would not.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

How about the fact that you don't need to be Christian to run a hospital or school, or to help third world countries/places harmed by natural disasters, or to be a good/moral person? You may as well have pointed out that [insert any group of people here] have some people working in hospitals/schools or helping people, etc. Every demographic has some amount of people who do all those things, religion has nothing to do with it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If you've ever taken European history, or even ancient history, you'll see that religion back in those days screwed people over. They lost their lives, their wealth. In the Renaissance period in Europe they gave indulgences as a way to pay off your sin. As a result, the church became very rich (and corrupt)

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Atheists: you realise religion has screwed over more people then it has helped

by Anonymous 12 years ago

inb4 massive comment war about religion

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Religion itself has never screwed over anyone. Misinterpretation of religion and religious fanatics, however...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I second that!

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Exactly!

by Anonymous 12 years ago

no duh. But its still centered around religion, and it doesnt change the fact its what caused it

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Sweeping generalization. Ugh. There's no way anyone will ever win an argument about this. You only ever hear about the horrible things that have come about from religion (wars, in particular) from history books and not so much about how many millions of people have been helped by religion personally in their own lives.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

That's what I'm sayin

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But you never hear about science starting wars...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Hitler? Kind of...? His idea of killing off everyone who wasn't up to his standard so as he could have a "perfect" race is to do with like genetics and stuff, and that's like science...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes but science doesn't make it any better. A war wouldn't be as bad if all it was was a bunch of people hitting each other over the head with Bibles. With science and technology was get to use this these things called bombs.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Same can be said for the KKK. Just because a select age got it wrong and apllied it wrong, doesn't mean it IS wrong.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

the KKK has always been against anyone who wasnt white, the fuck u talkin bout its not wrong?!

by Anonymous 12 years ago

(obviously...): I could be wrong, but it was my understanding that the KKK believe that the white race has been chosen by God as superior to others...which is obviously not true. Also, what are you swearing for?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

My not atheist?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Food screwed many people over too and caused many revolts (hungry 40's). Does that mean food is bad?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

My not atheist what?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Right, like ending slavery? (Wilberforce)

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'm atheist, but I agree that organized religion used to screw people over pretty badly. Also, people, note the bit about European history. Pretty much everything you're mentioning is fairly modern.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

/snickers

by Anonymous 12 years ago

im atheist. this is one of the reasons why. if god loves everyone, why would he have let all this senseless fighting and killing take place?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Free will?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

thats fucking stupid. these people have the free will to take away someone else' free will to live?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Well yes, free will is the power to make your own decisions. God is fair, humans aren't.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

You're* I can't believe that hadn't been done yet >.>

by Anonymous 12 years ago

HAHAHA. I was just about to post the exact same thing!

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Why don't you look at Social Darwinism? It's in the European history textbooks and it explains that the white race is better than the coloured race because they are much more "evolved". Hitler personally used that and believed that the Aryans were better than the Jews. He said, "Social Nationalism (aka Social Darwinism) is a cool and highly reasoned approach to reality based on the greatest of scientific knowledge". Hitler and other Social Darwinists misinterpreted the "On the Origins of Species". That doesn't mean that evolution is the cause of the Holocaust, just like how Christianity is the cause of wars. It is all misinterpretation.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I don't think it's that religion screwed people over, it's that people try to screw over religion by using it to start wars, kill and repress people.

by Anonymous 12 years ago