Ugh I fucking hate Christianity

The absence of religion does not mean absence of morality. People can live and thrive on a code of morals and ethics without a higher power. For me, this kinda ties back to how religion came to be. It's closely relative to the which came first, the chicken or the egg dilemma. People of religion could say their god or higher power came first and then that higher power divined their moral code and guidelines to live by. I think the moral code was just a part of mental and psychological development. Furthermore, I think a person's own conscience and inner voice were mistaken as being something divine. Sometimes I think there's a greater chance we were put here by "aliens" as a social experiment more so than anything of a spiritual/divine nature.

| Have you heard of the golden rule? It had been scientifically proven that living positivity and/our helping others as a matter of course can have positive physical and emotional effects. Living such a life is part of some religions. Thats like attributing flies and maggots spontaneously come out of rotten meat left out - you're taking an equation of A=B, that is, positivity = happy life, and saying religion = positivity, thus religion = happy life. This is a LOGICAL FALLACY.

Lol "religion = happy life" wasn't what i said. I said that it could improve one's life. But it's a little hard to discuss something when someone is vehemently against something especially if they've been that way since childhood.

Religion just equals belief and belive it or not, belief is a powerful thing. No religion guarantees a happy life, but the belief in something more or a greater cause, ultimately bringing an inner peace that without belief just doesn't happen. Don't believe that? Then you might as well stop trying to be happy in life thru anything. As for Abrhamic religions being evil? Believe as you wish. That's the great thing about unproveable things, you can't prove or disprove them. The real issue I see on this planet is not religion, but humanity. People can twist things to suit whatever purpose they desire, but to assume it's religion's fault is a bit asenine. I more than understand not believing and I understand hating fanatics/extremists. But blaming the teachings for the actions? Nah, we make choices on how we see the world and what we do with that information. Taking religion out of the equation will not solve the problem, I can guarantee you that. Again, all I see here is bitterness and bigotry. Good job on that inner peace thing, buddy.;)

Religion is what people turn to when they want to stop thinking, or they want to con their neighbors out of money. I was raised catholic, so I understand why religious people are religious, but I came to realize that although they claim to know all this stuff, they don't know ANY of it. Science at least gives us actionable truth, all religion can offer is comforting lies.

I know this is going to garner anger but I'll say it anyway. Anyone else notice how much acidic and hateful attention this is getting towards religion or people who follow/are religious? Maybe it's more Likely for four someone to be evil not having religion.

The absence of religion does not mean absence of morality. People can live and thrive on a code of morals and ethics without a higher power. (I am responding to the original poster, not to veruca) This is true, but it is still a fact that religion has helped instill moral code into people for 100s of years. People have tried to manipulate that into hate and prejudice for years as well, nothing new...religion doesn't have anything to do with positive or negative, that is based on the person. You may have some little old lady who gives her money to charity, volunteers to help people, goes to church everyday, and is nothing but positive and encouraging to her family...maybe when she was going through hard times, she found religion to help her get by. For you to hate on that is spiteful and selfish...just because other people use religion as an excuse or a mask for hate. If someone is going to be evil, negative, and not considerate to their fellow humans, it doesn't make a fucking bit of difference what religion says or does. Again, it comes down to this...the only people who hate on religion are people that are filled with hate and negativity. To try to categorize a person or identify them by religion is just silly. If you hate someone so be it, but you should do it for the right reason...because they are a bad person, but to judge someone you don't even know by religion, or to judge a religion at all, is pretty damn petty. Humanity itself is destroying itself with the Abrahamic religions - Christianity is the largest. War, famine, hate crimes, all in the name of Christianity. <--- 100% wrong If you really think that is true, you need to forget everything you know and start over with an open mind. That is a very unhealthy belief, thoughts like that are what caused the holocaust. If you look at the facts, since the death of Allah back 1500 years ago, Islam is the religion that is STILL living in the dark ages. Do you know what Shariah Law, Honor Killings, etc? Where do you find whole ARMIES of Catholics going around threatening to murder and kill everyone who doesn't convert to their beliefs? Which Catholic country do they stone gay people? Which Catholic countries do they state they want to erase a whole people/religion off the planet? Which Catholic countries do they treat woman like slaves and property, kill daughters who try to leave the barbaric system, etc etc. If you want to talk about a religion of hate that is mostly beyond redemption, you have Islam. But wtf? Christians are the victims, except in specific cases where it is just some crazy evil bastard...please give me examples of Christians causing war and famine? Hate crimes are done by hateful people, they are not done because of religion. I can't even repeat this enough times. The word "hate crime" is such a joke, it is just used when it is convenient...again, it comes down to hateful people being whatever color or religion. Most of the time a "hate crime" occurs, they throw out the law because it doesn't fit the agenda they want to advance...so black people yell racist slurs and beat a white guy, its nothing...white guy gets in a fight with a black guy, hate crime...it's all a fucked up game, when it comes down to bad people filled with hate doing stuff they shouldn't. Consider the absence of religion does not mean the absence of hate and prejudice. Someone like you so filled with hate, will always find something to hate. You don't even seem to understand the basic tenets of religion. You are trying to imply that corruption comes not from corrupt people, but from the religion itself. It is like saying that guns are by nature evil. You can kill a person with a rock, a gun, or a bare hand. If someone is racist and hateful, they may try to manipulate people to be racist and hateful as well, in the name of religion. Christian beliefs are not racist, and they don't encourage violence against gay people. Just because they say something is a sin, it is also a sin to treat people poorly based on something as petty as that. For people to try to imply a religion built almost entirely on kindness, charity and forgiveness is full of hate and vitriol, it simply isn't so. Again, I understand that in the Bible, a book written by human beings...not by Jesus or God, a book they wrote to further an agenda and try to control the masses, they wrote some stuff that said gay marriage isn't right...and maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but in a time when infant mortality was sky high, and when raising large families was important for the survival of the species, to go against nature and ignore the reproductive cycle was something that they had to worry about then that we no longer do. I have several catholics in my family and they aren't hateful at all. Because some guy you saw on tv said he beat up someone or killed someone because of religion, or even if it happened to you, how many people out there are not bad or evil or bigots. A billion Christians is an astronomical number, it is 3x the amount of people in the US! If you even go into a classroom or a place with say 30, or 50 people, you see so much diversity of character, belief, personality, and just moral compass...you can't lump people together by religion. You need to stop hating, it accomplishes nothing! Again, I am 100% not religious, so I am not some zealot trying to tell you what to think, but negativity and hate does nothing but breed more of the same and push away positive stuff. If you want to hate, find people to hate, not ideals. Keep in mind, the bible and the koran were written by people, and interpreted by people. To just blindly hate a religion is wrong. To blindly hate a religion for all the wrong reasons, or just to try to make something fit your agenda or belief is silly. People were killing each other long before religion, and even people of the same religion kill each other over silly stuff like which day of the week to pray on or something trivial and pointless...I have news for you, conflict and hate will be there just the same without religion. Get over yourself, turn all your hate into something positive if you want to be any better than the hateful people you are condemning...go do some charity work to help animals, or I don't know...but instead of just trying to spread more hate and vitriol, do something positive and stop being a hateful lemming!

the crusades were totally a thing. There many other examples up to the modern world as for now: There are some Christian African nations right now that are doing some pretty horrible stuff like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia Its not really about hate of the religious, its hate of the deceit I was brought up under. I hate the fact that I was told this was true, when they didn't know it was true. I hate the fact that they told me that I would burn in hell fire for really stupid stuff, so I grew up in constant fear.