"Why believe in a god?, Just be good for goodness' sake."

...are you joking? Half of my family's impossibly religious and they choose to alienate everything that's less than 100% Christian or just dub it as satanic for not being in line with Christian beliefs. Y'see this is what's so lame about religion. It isn't so much the fact that it makes people believe in something but more the fact that people who follow it choose to be too damn subjective about what's good and what's not. Every Christian person I've ever met refuses to acknowledge other people's beliefs are good-spirited or merely non-satanic; and what's worse is that when you mention that their religion is just a big conception acquired from many different beliefs throughout time (some of which were even pagan before they were absorbed into the religion itself!!) they turn their face and ignore you, much like a five year old would.

Religion turns people stupid. This is why this ad campaign is so amazing; it tells us why to be good and why to accept people without having to judge first. I know I'm being totally contradictory with my 'bashing' of Christianity but the truth is that I don't hate the people who follow it (in fact I respect them for having beliefs, plus my super-religious cousins are awesome regardless), but moreso the fact that they turn into judgemental, closed-minded freaks who choose to alienate themselves from socializing with non-believers and peoples on lower levels of belief than them.

I myself was born and raised Christian (and mind you I'm not atheist) and I choose to believe that some almighty entity of some form exists. What Christian nuts understand from this is that only they will ascend to a spiritual rank higher than everyone else's, but they forget that nobody has the right to place judgement on anyone, especially religious-freaks who believe in an omnipotent and somewhat unforgiving God. I mean, after all, their God only forgives "believers," right?

...are you joking? Half of my family's impossibly religious and they choose to alienate everything that's less than 100% Christian or just dub it as satanic for not being in line with Christian beliefs. Y'see this is what's so lame about religion. It isn't so much the fact that it makes people believe in something but more the fact that people who follow it choose to be too damn subjective about what's good and what's not. Every Christian person I've ever met refuses to acknowledge other people's beliefs are good-spirited or merely non-satanic; and what's worse is that when you mention that their religion is just a big conception acquired from many different beliefs throughout time (some of which were even pagan before they were absorbed into the religion itself!!) they turn their face and ignore you, much like a five year old would.

Religion turns people stupid. This is why this ad campaign is so amazing; it tells us why to be good and why to accept people without having to judge first. I know I'm being totally contradictory with my 'bashing' of Christianity but the truth is that I don't hate the people who follow it (in fact I respect them for having beliefs, plus my super-religious cousins are awesome regardless), but moreso the fact that they turn into judgemental, closed-minded freaks who choose to alienate themselves from socializing with non-believers and peoples on lower levels of belief than them.

Total endorse.

And remember, such religious subjectiveness can blind people to other ideas and concepts that might not be religious but are still beneficial to oneself and society.

This post has been edited by Parakarry on Nov 18 2008, 12:09 PM

wow, you're so cool!!!
I'd love to hear anything else you have to say besides how lame everyone else is and how much you enjoy ice cream too

this isn't stupid propaganda for the sake of making it
nor is it to get people riled up

it's to spread a positive message about nonbelievers in a world full of folks who, for some reason or another, were taught that nonbelievers are the scum of the earth
and to get people thinking about what matters



also

hope you realise this is an ad campaign in Britian

and the British don't generally get on their high horse about religion like you yanks

the second one I mentioned is. the main one I'm talking about here, though, is in the US

a good point, though, is that countries that are more secular and less decidedly religious than the US actually have it better off:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3260,Rec...,Phil-Zuckerman
and thus all the problems in the world aren't caused by sinners and nonbelievers.

Scandinavia isn't awesome because it's godless; it's awesome because it's magic. And thus the magic awesomeness causes it's people to be rational thinkers who smile all day.

Many people believe in a higher power, as do I.
Some groups give these beings names, such as Yahway, Budda, etc.

These religions give people basic morals and standards to live by, and a hope for life after death.

Religion's not wrong, it's just giving people security in this hellhole we call life.

I work in the advertising business and I totally know when I see a good ad.
This idea is amazing. Striking, daring and most likely working.

Question: Is Religious Studies a mandatory subject in the US?

This post has been edited by Hippoman on Nov 18 2008, 12:51 PM

Still doesn't make a right lot of sense to me to shoot down believers though.

Extremists... well maybe, but again these types are veeeeeery few in number outside of the US. And 9 times out of 10 it's an education issue, not a religious one.

I get bored with the whole "religion is bad" thing. Something that can bring a small community together once a week in a Church or whatever isn't a bad thing, unless it's to discuss bad things (i.e. plotting to take over eastern europe or something). A lot of emphasis on bad things in this topic, like there always is, and my gut reaction is just to lock this topic and say "lighten up". The majority of countries in the world, including mine, have better things to do than argue about it.


I mean so what if Moses didn't part water letting peeps across. It's fun. It's entertaining for the kiddies. It's so much more nicer than a list of facts about how said thing couldn't possibly happen yada yada yada. Obviously there's no real truth to it but it's so much more entertaining.

Even when Creationism is on the brink of coming into our schools? I know it's an educational issue but so are all theistic believes. Hence why you can draw those nicely correlating graphs of education and believe rates.

I think it's more of a logical issue. They try and teach the kids good morals and stuff, and Aesop's fables don't last forever.

I'm sure given the chance they'd tell the stories from other religions, but Christianity's the most dominant because a) most western countries are prodominantly Christian and b) there's language barriers to overcome.

In the later years of Middle School we got taught bits and bobs from all sorts of religions. It's not like it's just one. The religious studies parts are often cut out of the school's timetable because they haven't got a worthwhile exam at the end of it. I've never been in a situation where I've been preached that Christianity is the one true faith. I think it probably says that in the Bible somewhere but the Bible says a lot of strange things. I mean there was a period of time where Christianity was up to no good and went out converting everyone randomly. But that time has largely passed.



And there's other issues that haven't been mentioned. Like say, a Church took you in overnight because your house burned down. So it's just common curtosy to try and give something back. There might be long standing ties with said Church because of similar circumstances.


There are a lot of religious nutters out there but I very much doubt MFGG is full of them. Or the whole internet for that matter.


As for the whole Christmas thing... well it IS a Christian holiday. It WAS thought up by Christians to be celebrated by Christians. I don't have a huge objection to non-Christians celebrating it but they don't really have a reason to. And the name shouldn't be abolished or anything stupid like that because well, why should it be changed? It's a Christian holiday.

So I forgot an H :U

and no, usually public schools aren't allowed to even touch on the subject of religion, unless it has to do with history class.

But I go to a private Christian school, so I don't run into this problem

Just like Mythology.

The stories of Zeus, the Greek gods, all that good stuff, that's awesome. They give old explanations that people thought how the world worked.

But they're just stories.

It's that you think Buddha is the god of Buddhism.

/:

Technically, I'm catholic, but I'm probably the least religious person you would ever meet.

I've gone to church three times in my entire life - once when I was born, and twice for two funerals that happened quite recently. My great-grandmother and great uncle had died, and it was pretty bad for my aunt since both her mother and husband had died, a month apart. Since I had never really gone to church before then, it just seemed like nonsense at the funeral, but I did my best to show respect for the people who had died, the priest, and everyone around me.

It just seems so odd to me that people don't believe in "magic" as far as fairies and the kinds of stories you get told as a little kid, but yet they believe that there is some kind of "god" that watches over you constantly.

Mostly, I think of the ideas of scientific proof, such as the Big Bang and evolution. But either way, if god created reality, did the Big Bang really exist? If he created the big bang, who created him? If the Big Bang existed out of nothing, how did god come to be?

It is a massive paradox that I just want to avoid. IMO, Jesus probably was just some guy who either pretended to be some sort of god for either popularity, or he was incredibly confused about his life and merely thought he was a god.

While I respect the people who are religious, it's merely a bunch of gibberish to me. Please do not try to see this post offensive in any way at all, but if it is, I'm sorry.

I've offended quite a large crowd of religious people in my day, so I can understand if you're mad at me.

Even though Christmas is a Christian holiday, that doesn't mean nobody else can celebrate it. Christmas is a time for giving, and love, and all that jazz. So everybody should be able to celebrate it.

As for the ads, I've always thought about that kind of stuff. I'm Christian, but I've always wondered how all the stuff in the Bible could be true. It doesn't really make sense. Plus, with so many religions, who's to decide which one is the right one?

Religion should just be what you want to base your morals and principles on. Not "Believe what I believe, because you're wrong."

The only people who would listen to this ad are the kind of people that don't need it anyway.

Also, fff Buddha. I laughed, gg.

This post has been edited by ChaosEmerl on Nov 18 2008, 03:48 PM

A big problem I have with the way we raise children today is that we reward them for believing our bull****, no matter how far-fetched. the santa claus story is completely unbelievable; how the **** is there a magic man that flies around the world instantaneously once a year dropping presents under the trees in everyone's living room -- but only if they believe in santa and if they've been a good little kid and if they've got parents that just happen to be able to afford those presents? it makes no sense, but we reassure our children that it's true, and we reward them with gifts. we teach them to believe the unbelievable. ditto for the easter bunny and the tooth fairy.
parents just lie to their children and teach their children to trust in their lies, in order to have an easy-mode for getting your children to behave, rather than teaching them why they should behave. (similarly with religion, it's easy-mode morality. thinking "oh, I should be nice to other folks because if I don't I'll go to hell" vs. realizing "oh, I should be nice to folks because treating other people poorly is kind of a dick thing to do")

logically, you'd hope that kids would realize "hey, if that whole santa thing was bull****, why should I trust you about that god fellow?" but perhaps the psychological damage of rewarding their unquestioning faith from their infancy is so great that this question never occurs to them. perhaps they're afraid of questioning it, since they've been taught that kids who don't believe in santa don't get presents, kids who don't believe in the easter bunny don't get candy, etc., and although it's been revealed to them that those were lies, the framework for that kind of mind-virus is still in the back of their heads. or perhaps they cling to their beliefs in god, now that all the other fantasies have been revealed to them as lies, and they don't want to lose all their imaginary friends.

but it really pisses me off that we raise many of our children to be unquestioning followers of whatever bull**** story someone tells them. we should be teaching them to be more cynical, more skeptic of such far-fetched ideas, before they can be at least supported by some reasonable evidence. we should teach them to be logical, to be intelligent. we should give them a mindset that's actually helpful to them in the real world, instead of crippling them.



so, in short, I really really don't like the thinking that it's nice for the kiddies. I actually think it's rather harmful. might be entertaining to folks who know to take it for what it is -- literature -- but not for kids who don't know better and who might be scared into believing it.