Having taken into account all of the arguments on both sides, no one will ever convince me that Christians, or for that matter any other group that relies on fear to spread their teaching is good for mankind.

For every argument there is an equally valid counter argument, I could spend the rest of my days trawling through libraries and the Internet and I'll guarantee that I'd be none the wiser at the end of it all.

A "bad" man dies early or from some horrible affliction, and the religious persons of the world will tell you that "their" god punished him. The same happens to an innocent child or a deeply religious person and they will tell you that god called him to a better place early to save him from the sins of this worldly life. It might fool some kids, but I grew out of boogie man stories when I reached school age.

Do not make statues of gods that look like anything in the sky or on the earth or in the waters. Do not bow down to them or worship them. I am the Lord your God. I am a jealous God..."

Deuteronomy 5:8-9

That doesn't sound like anyone I would want to worship or emulate. He sounds like a god with feet of clay to me. If he didn't wish for man to sin, well,....he had the abillity to make him such that he could not, problem solved.

Choose the relevant chapter and verse of the book to suit your needs, then interpret it the way you want, Lo and Behold! you have a religious man. this applies equally whether you are Christian, Muslim, Calathumpian or other.

Nahhh! it's all just far too "convenient" for me......

^^^
hear hear

Originally Posted by Infern0

^^^
hear hear

Hehe no arguments here either.

Without religion imagine the world... no moral compass to guide our lives... what's that you have a moral code devoid of religious roots or context? Let's hear it.

And MontyB, psssst, the people who follow the Torah are called Jews and they live in this country called Israel. They seem to have some problems of some kind with their muslims and muslim neighbours. And you might want to ask the majority Buddhist population of Thailand their thoughts on Islam, jihad and all that, they seem to also some sort of problem with them as well.

Originally Posted by bulldogg

Without religion imagine the world... no moral compass to guide our lives... what's that you have a moral code devoid of religious roots or context? Let's hear it..

Be honest. Would you call me a person totally without moral compass?

I'll bet you a month's wages that I have higher moral values than many of our more religious brothers and definitely the ones that I know personally. I'm certainly more tolerant than most "Christians" that I know. The most glaring example of their intolerance lies in the fact that they can't even get on with other types of Christians let alone people of a completely different persuasion.

Too many "followers of the faith" (whatever it is) seem to think that they have a prior claim on morality, and it just ain't so in my experience.

Originally Posted by bulldogg

Without religion imagine the world... no moral compass to guide our lives... what's that you have a moral code devoid of religious roots or context? Let's hear it.

And MontyB, psssst, the people who follow the Torah are called Jews and they live in this country called Israel. They seem to have some problems of some kind with their muslims and muslim neighbours. And you might want to ask the majority Buddhist population of Thailand their thoughts on Islam, jihad and all that, they seem to also some sort of problem with them as well.

Yeah but much like the various other religions they don't on these boards all I see is someone I strongly doubt is a particularly pious type jumping on the religion bandwagon to push a hatred which oddly enough sounds a lot like the bin Ladens of this world.

Originally Posted by bulldogg

Without religion imagine the world... no moral compass to guide our lives... what's that you have a moral code devoid of religious roots or context? Let's hear it.

ER...i'm not religious. i believe in no god.


by your reasoning i should be out raping, pillaging and murdering.


if the only way you can keep your "moral compass" is to base your life around a book 2000 years old...i think you have bigger issues my friend. words in a book can be twisted, bent to others will....or to justify actions that have no earthly justification


at the end of it all, the only person you should hold yourself accountable to is yourself. having some invisible, vengeful and jealous entity hanging over your head is counter productive imo

I asked for your moral code. I passed no judgement on you. I asked a question. Does the code you live by have roots free of any religion's tenets? Shall I rephrase the question to enhance understanding?

What are the guidelines you live your life by and judge right from wrong on a daily basis? And what are its origins?

My guidelines are based on one thing, Personal Integrity.
From this stems all of the other aims that I try to aspire to. Honesty, Tolerance, Loyalty, etc.

I guess it all comes down to an innate sense of duty to my fellow man. Having no desire to cause ill feeling or damage to those who wish me no harm. There's nothing special about that, because in reality it is no more than a form of self preservation that still allows me to have pride in myself and the way I live my life.

This is what I mean when I state that the "religious" have no prior claim on morality.

Senojekips, you have a good point but most of these ethics you speak of actually originate from religion. These days they often pull God away from these messages that were brought to the world through religion.
Even people in America who say they are not Christians actually display a lot of Christian values and beliefs despite the fact that they do not believe in God.
The Protestant work ethic for example is NOT universal.
Honoring one's parents is rooted in religion so old that we don't even know what it originally was.
Do you feel okay with your body being left out to be eaten by vultures or would you rather your body be buried? Usually it is the latter and that too would be something from Christianity.
Do you feel that owls would make a strange meal and that roaches are disgusting? These attitudes often come from religious teaching roots. For that matter, Muslims find dogs and pigs to be disgusting (though this is changing).
Obeying societal rules and negative views on crime also have religious roots.
This is not to say that all people who believe in religion have an excellent moral compass.
We have people in the military who sell military secrets for profit.
We have judges that accept bribes.
Either way I hate arguing about religion. It's an endless cycle of argument that leads to mutual hatred. This is the one thing about Christianity I sometimes dislike... at least the Korean organizations. They go to other countries and practically force feed Christianity to the local populace. I believe that is wrong and brings about useless conflict. To teach others about Christianity is good, to force feed is another matter altogether.
I believe that many of these moral ideals and values that even secular people exhibit originate from religion and now that the world is a bit more comfortable people are thanklessly throwing out religion and ignoring all the GOOD that it's done in the world.
Religion on earth is not perfect because it enters the realm of people and people, regardless of what they stand for, can go wrong.
There are many flaws with religion when it comes to people run organizations but people are overlooking the many good that it has brought to us.
I am by no means a good Christian and for a large part of my life I have been an athiest but I believe a lot of these values we hold to be right and true originated from religion, in my case, Christianity, and therefore I will think twice before throwing it out so unceremoniously.