Deaths, injuries after reports of explosion at Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena — Page 7

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

"It seems that if someone is convinced that his god is his guide, the line of sanity/insanity easily disappears."

There must be something wrong with a person who reads the Quron (Koran) or is preached to and hears that he must go out and kill everyone who disagrees with him, and thinks that's ok.

Yes, definitely. And that doesn't happen overnight. This person clearly thinks Allah is his identity, because he is willing to kill himself for him. This starts in upbringing and indoctrination.

A couple of points:

* Discouraging the indoctrination of children and giving them a wide education (including a wide religious education of ALL religions, of reasoning skills and scientific methodology and facts) is not the same thing as replacing one indoctrination with another. My education system is teaching people how to think, not what to think. It's the opposite of indoctrination because it is not selectively giving people information. They are exposed to wide information they can be critical towards.



* The idea that some people claim this is thought police is also equally absurd because again - it's not telling people they have to think in a certain way or not. It's exposing people to wide ideas so they can choose. The exact opposite of religious indoctrination! The goal is not to round up religious people and gas them but to simply give them a wide education so they can choose for themselves.



* The claims that this belief system - of atheism and science is like a religion is also absurd. Religion is about faith. Atheism, science, logic is about evidence. And we know it works because planes fly. Computers run. Doctors heal (NOT prayers).



* The idea that I think religion causes all issues is not accurate. Of course not all issues are caused by religion. But this doesn't mean we don't pay attention to the issues caused by religion. The claim "they'll find something else to justify their hate" is also very thoughtless. It 1. downplays the causal relationship between religion and negative attitudes e.g. Towards gay people, and 2. The casual factors of religious belief in terrorism such as the belief in significant reward in the afterlife or that their behaviour is carrying out god's work. While I'm sure some people might try to use their religion to justify their behaviour don't forget that their behaviour can also be the result of their religious beliefs.



* Mister Matt, I think your idea that my first bullet point re: the negative impact of religion on attitudes, behaviours etc. is subjective says a lot about you. I mean yes I'm sure religion does a lot of good and an even whole lot more lot of nothing, but how anyone could ignore the impact of religion on outcomes such as gay attitudes, women's rights, terrorism, public policy, scientific progress etc. is just idiotic. Even just a small amount of negative outcomes does not justify people holding fictitious views about nothing.

Updated On: 5/24/17 at 05:55 PM

Amen

It seems Mister Matt is unable to let things go and know when it's time to walk away.... Been stuck in TX too long, dude.

If people are exposed to a wide education - a wide range of religions (and therefore can start to think about the contradictions between them and likely aiteology of religion), high quality science classes (and therefore can see that the world likely did not derive as described in genesis), reasoning/logic classes (and can therefore see that many religious claims do not make any sense, selectively attend to certain information or are contradictory) and then STILL choose a religious path, then so be it. I'd personally call that stupidity. But no one should be told what to believe.

I feel sorry for Miss Grande. She's a young and talented performer who will forever be linked to this tragedy. That's a lot to handle. I hope she has a support system to see her through this difficult time.

Out of curiosity Mister Matt, what kind of affiliation do you have with religion and religious beliefs? (you mention you have close family that work in that 'industry'. I'm curious if you are non-religious but sympathetic to it (and see it as morally wrong and impractical for us to go about eradicating it) or you are actually religious yourself.

Creepy is such an odd word that does not make any sense in this context, but ok. You see PalJoey it's so hard to respond to a post like that because there is no substance or argument in that post. All I can do is repeat what I said earlier that I come from perspective and share the same arguments as some of the world's most esteemed atheists and scientists, so I will sleep easy.

Of course, I know you're probably still bitter at me for the Hillary vs Bernie Sanders times. But I don't know what else to say except, you clearly ended up being wrong about that so perhaps it's time to move on :P?

qolbinau said: "If people are exposed to a wide education - a wide range of religions (and therefore can start to think about the contradictions between them and likely aiteology of religion), high quality science classes (and therefore can see that the world likely did not derive as described in genesis), reasoning/logic classes (and can therefore see that many religious claims do not make any sense, selectively attend to certain information or are contradictory) and then STILL choose a religious path, then so be it. I'd personally call that stupidity. But no one should be told what to believe.



"I think everyone should be exposed to a wide education and be taught how to think intellectually with ironclad reasoning and logic just like me. They should certainly be educated on all the religions so they can make an informed choice. And after understanding that all religions are contradictory and based on nothing, do not make any sense and basically full of crap, the informed choice they should make of course, is to recognize like me, that there is no logical reason whatsoever to have any faith based affiliation and there is no place for or need for religion in any competent thinker's life. If however, someone insists on still choosing to have some religious or faith based beliefs, I will view them as stupid but I can't force them to stop believing so I will have to accept it as misguided as they are."



Solid argument bro. Can't believe you're not getting more converts. Oh, and mad props to you for right after the bombing was announced, while the rest of us were shocked and consumed with profound sadness and concern for the victims and their families, you skipped all that and were already working back of the napkin statistical probability models to beat the rush in assigning blame. That is righteous! To quote the great Bill Murray, "I wanna party with you, cowboy!".

qolbinau I'll do the same thing again. And again. And again until hopefully people start to stand up and realise that there are some ideas that are too dangerous to be on this earth. I would have thought 9/11 would have been enough to demonstrate this, but clearly not.

You are a moron! Your comment about "too dangerous' ideas is another proof you are bat**** crazy. You are sounding like a rightwing fundamentalist. Your comment is making terrorists smile.

qolbinau said: "You have actually paraphrased my argument pretty well, I appreciate that.

I'm happy to let others #hug and #love and talk about how Islam is a religion of peace - I'm showing respect in other ways by thinking about how in the long-term we can ensure this will never happen again. And when this happens again (and mark my words it will, I just hope I don't know any victims or I'm not a victim) I'll do the same thing again. And again. And again until hopefully people start to stand up and realise that there are some ideas that are too dangerous to be on this earth. I would have thought 9/11 would have been enough to demonstrate this, but clearly not. "



So true!!! It's just a shame not everyone has your level of enlightenment and wisdom. If we could just 86 those pesky religious nuts, you know, the 7 billion people who have religious beliefs, not only would we never have to worry about a terrorist act like this again, but with all those people out of the picture parking downtown would be a hell of a lot easier. With no religion, we'd never have to fear terrorists acts again cause as we know, none have ever been done based on skin color or gender or sexual orientation or nationality or accent. It's religion man. Get rid of it and we'd never have this type of thing happen again, God willing... oops, sorry bro, my bad. Force of habit and all that.

Man, reading your writings is like going to college all over again only this time, I'm learning something. We should all just think exactly like you. And what I appreciate even more is that you just restate the same argument over and over again. If people didn't agree the first 9 times, surely with the exact same arguments being repeated, they'll see the light that 10th time. With you as our thought leader and with Old Racist Dave as your hype man, for the first time in a while, I have faith, uh, I mean I believe that we as a people have a chance. I haven't felt this good about things since the Rangers were in the Stanley Cup Finals 3 years ago. I'm sure you've forgotten more than I'll ever know but thank you for educating us on how to think (Not what to think but how to think... important distinction!). God bless you! Aw, damn, did it again. I mean rock on, my bro.