Religion is ethics for stupid people

You dont understand the modern justice system. The system deters some people, but that isnt the primary reason it works. The primary reason our justice system works is because our laws underline and sustain society's values.

Besides that, nice troll

[r3vbr]

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No. I think they are more concerned with jail as they know if caught there is about a 98% chance they will go to jail, barring some legal technicality. But the concept of hell is also there as a preventive measure, but it is assigned a lower probability. For some it may be as high as 50/50 "there either is a hell or there isn't."

Violent animals tend to think in absolutes and black and white "either/or" logic patterns.

But of course, burning for all eternity is far worse and permanent a punishment than 25 to life or whatever. Therefore to some the concept of hell may be an even bigger preventive measure than jail.

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You get my point. Amen.

[Spladle Master]

Read more; post less.

[malorum]

Hey Torquemada,
I loved your post.

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The law is insuficient to deal with crazy dumb people. We need the religion with the hell penalty. I mean, criminals aren't afraid of the death penalty nowadays... you need to threat them with LIVING ETERNITY IN FIRE AND DOOM for them to respect other people.

Doesn't everyone agree?

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Rock on Baby

[RJT]

Ethics without Religion is stupid, people.

[NotReady]

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Religion is ethics and morality in a pretty story, dumbed down to the level of the masses


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Sounds like you're trying to say if God didn't exist we would have to invent Him. Or maybe religion is the opiate of the people. Or maybe it's the revolt of the slaves against their masters.

[Siegmund]

I have a lot of sympathy for where the OP is coming from. A lot of ritualistic displays -- whether its bowing your head to pray, listening to the choir chant dies irae ides illa solvet saeclum in favilla to a thunderous organ accompaniment, or saluting everyone with a stripe on his uniform you walk past -- serve one basic purpose, reminding the downtrodden of their insignificant place, with a veiled threat that anyone trying to advance himself can expect to be swiftly and brutally pushed back where he belongs.

How critical of a societal need this serves is open to debate.

But here we have a problem:

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If the paragraph saying "you will go to hell" is erased from the bible, and the pope says on TV "we were wrong about going to hell, there is no hell" then faithfull catholics would sharply drop till it reached zero, and the religion would end instantly.

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See, that paragraph wasn't in the bible to start with, but "the masses" can't be bothered to crack open the big book and discover this for themselves. Five representative lines of what the Bible actually says will happen when you die: "His breath goeth forth, he retumeth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." ""For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten." "Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun." Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence."

But who ever let the actual words of the bible get in the way of a good debate about Christianity?

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From another poster late in the thread:
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Sounds like you're trying to say if God didn't exist we would have to invent Him.

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I think there are a significant number of people on this forum who will assert that God doesn't exist and he was invented to serve the above mentioned social needs, among others. In fact you'll find a great many respectable books on mythology citing a universal need to make up supernatural stories to explain the unknown, stories that get abandoned when something more believable comes along. (But those fine upstanding Christian authors were talking about those other gods that those poor confused foreigners made up, not their own One True God, of course.)

[RJT]

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From another poster late in the thread:
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Sounds like you're trying to say if God didn't exist we would have to invent Him.

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I think there are a significant number of people on this forum who will assert that God doesn't exist and he was invented to serve the above mentioned social needs, among others. In fact you'll find a great many respectable books on mythology citing a universal need to make up supernatural stories to explain the unknown, stories that get abandoned when something more believable comes along. (But those fine upstanding Christian authors were talking about those other gods that those poor confused foreigners made up, not their own One True God, of course.)

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Sig,

NotReady was being facetious. He was quoting Neitze, Marx and not sure the last allusion (possible one of the two again). In other words -it has been said before.

RJT

[Siegmund]

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NotReady was being facetious. He was quoting Neitze, Marx and not sure the last allusion (possible one of the two again). In other words -it has been said before.


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Yes. Long as he's aware of the fact that this thread is going to get a lot more posters agreeing with Nietzsche and Marx than agreeing with what they heard in Catholic sunday school, all is well. I just have been particularly amused by articles I've read that point out sillinesses of one mythology in one breath and then only virtues of Christianity in the next.

[RJT]

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NotReady was being facetious. He was quoting Neitze, Marx and not sure the last allusion (possible one of the two again). In other words -it has been said before.


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Yes. Long as he's aware of the fact that this thread is going to get a lot more posters agreeing with Nietzsche and Marx than agreeing with what they heard in Catholic sunday school, all is well. I just have been particularly amused by articles I've read that point out sillinesses of one mythology in one breath and then only virtues of Christianity in the next.

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I am not sure that NotReady would have a problem there. (He is a Protestant brethren. I am Catholic, btw.). [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]