This regards christians, jews, muslims.

Ill start with the big picture. Heaven and hell, telling this to a kid puts the emphisis on the afterlife. If you live in the afterlife for eternity, whats the point on trying so hard in this life, its only a measly 100 years MAX. Some kids dont try as hard to be happy, since they have this wonderfull place to try and get too. Also the thought of hell is pretty cruel to put in a childs mind. IT has also shown it can be perminintly scaring on a child who is constantly reminded of it. Burning for all eternity is a fucken scary thought for a kid who has no need to believe otherwise. Kids trust there parents when young, so they believe this stuff.

Its also damaging to teach a child not to embrase evidence and reason. The 2 things that are shaping our modern world.



Its doesnt matter wich book you follow, they all have fucked up things in them that you dont follow. Nobody can deny that, unless they go around killing people. You might tell your kid the good ones when there young. What if when they get to around 8 or 9 when they can start to think on there own, read this fucken book and find out its ok too kill people?

The worst problem with christianity is the fact that you can confess your sins.

You can do anything, you can fuck up and disobey the entire 10 commandments in a single day, including murder and all you have to do is confess your sins and god will forgive you and your back on yoru path to heaven.

Well how great is that for christianity, all those people that dont follow your rules can now come back into the religion by simply confessing. THat must keep the numbers at church nice and hi.

But what is this telling a child. Theres no consiquences to your actions. Punishment is a simple confession.

Its retarded!

I agree with most of that.

I've been raised in an islamic family and i went to a christian school. It realy fucks with your mind to grow up between two religions. The one side telling you they have the truth and you'lle go to hell if you choose the other and vice versa. Being afraid of god fucked with me the most, no drinking,pork or girls deprived me certain joys i could have expierienced long before i became an atheist.

It makes me sad to see my little brother go through the same shit.

What angers me more is people believe morals are only found in religions. They think athiests are moral lacking fucktards who oppose any form of control and kill, rape, and mollest small children for pleasure. Sadly the last time I checked, while it was a while ago so don't hold me to it, only 2% of athiests make up the incarcerated population. Christians were the majority. There are too many damn contradiction in most religions it makes your head spin, love all but stone gays, bad woman who daon't sex you up on command, and anyone who doesn't love god and follow what ever messaih they believe in. Though I must say alot of the more philisophical and such religions are mroe accepting, like bhuddists and the like. It seems western religion is inferior.

I agree.

When I was young, I was a devout christian.

I feared God sending me to hell for my sins, and constantly wondered if what I did was a sin or not.

I feared Satan, and worried he would capture me and take me to Hell if I wasn't a good boy.

Then I realized how controlled I was by that fear, and dropped Christianity at a whole.

Felt better ever since http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by Vai:

What angers me more is people believe morals are only found in religions.

Ya, its a rediculous thought. We can look at a family of chimpansese, and they have rules and the basic morals that its wrong to steal, hurt, and kill. And they dont worship a god, or follow the teachings of a book. Its nature.

I'm reluctant to beleive that people inherently know what's right and wrong. We develop this sense based on what society tells us. Most of the standards and taboos in western society stem from religous laws. Obviously the non-religious can be and are ethical people, but what I'm trying to say is that ethics and morality aren't inherent things, they're just determined by society, which has much of its basis in religion.

quote:Originally posted by HouseOnFireBRB:

I'm reluctant to beleive that people inherently know what's right and wrong. We develop this sense based on what society tells us. Most of the standards and taboos in western society stem from religous laws. Obviously the non-religious can be and are ethical people, but what I'm trying to say is that ethics and morality aren't inherent things, they're just determined by society, which has much of its basis in religion.

Yes, and the different morals in these books represent the morals of there time. They've changed today. So its not religion telling the religious people to do these things. Its infact a scary thought that theres billions of people out there. And the only thing keeping them from killing everybody, is a few words in a book.

Its like saying the only thing from keeping me from driving my car pissed drunk raging down the road, is the law.

I myself have more respect for the human race.

A way to test this would be to let a human grow up on his own in the jungle (lol at tarzan). Would he be this crazy, killing, nutcase of a being with no morals or direction in life. I dont think so, he would observe things around himself and come to a conclusion that its wrong, and observe other animals in pain, and suffering. And in turn come to the same morals as the rest of us

but there are holes in that test. Humans require attention from other humans. WIthout that it would fuck up the test, unless like tarzan. He gets his attention and effection from animals.



[This message has been edited by boozehound420 (edited 01-19-2007).]

I stated that people learn morals from the the society they grow up in, and that our concept of morality has been heavily influenced by religion. Like you said, people seem to know what is inherently right or wrong, and do not need to think about it and usually do not require assistance in thinking these things. We develop this sense of right and wrong from the society which we are raised in.

Regarding your idea of an experiment, I found a pretty interesting site about 'feral children' who grew up raised by animals and generally isolated from other humans. I haven't read that much on the site yet, but I did notice this:

"Quite simply, feral children are usually entirely unaware of the needs and desires and others. The concepts of morals, property and possessions are alien to them, and they can't show empathy with other people."

Edit: uh, forgot to add the link.

http://www.feralchildren.com/en/index.php

[This message has been edited by HouseOnFireBRB (edited 01-19-2007).]

^^^looks intresting. I'm goona give it a read tomorrow, its not organized enough for me to dig in right now. Too tired.