People believe in God for different reasons. For some, it is because they have been taught to believe in it unquestioningly, or perhaps even that if they don't, bad things will happen. For others, it is something they believe they intuitively know, without the need to justify it in linguistic or logical terms. For others, they believe it is a logical neccessity.I don't understand WHY people believe in God in the first place. Ingenious idea of someone to come up with the idea that life was designed and that it was too good a coincidence for us to come along... I don't see how anyone can take any sort of Religion seriously when you have a book telling you things that to somebody with common sense seems ludicrous, especially Scientology.
People believe in God for different reasons. For some, it is because they have been taught to believe in it unquestioningly, or perhaps even that if they don't, bad things will happen. For others, it is something they believe they intuitively know, without the need to justify it in linguistic or logical terms. For others, they believe it is a logical neccessity.
A lot of people "find God" at times of crisis, that is true, but for a many it is not that way. You use the word "resort", which is loaded. Some may resort to inventing belief, for some it is a genuine discovery of truth.Some people have to resort to a "higher being" to cope with life.
Sorry, I phrased the first bit wrongly. I meant why believing in God came about, I can understand why people feel the need to find a higher being when they need a bit of luck or things haven't gone their way. But it shows a lot about how Humanity has mentally developed too quickly for it's own good. Some people have to resort to a "higher being" to cope with life. After all, we are just Human and I do not believe we are ready to understand the origins of the universe or life in general.
I don't understand WHY people believe in God in the first place. Ingenious idea of someone to come up with the idea that life was designed and that it was too good a coincidence for us to come along.
You seem to be under the idea that God and religion is synonymous with Intelligent Design. This is false. People are perfectly capable of believing in God and having faith in their lives without believing Intelligent Design.
On a side note, organized religion did create a large amount of negative affects on human society, however, I will agree that they are outweighed by the positive affects. Sure, they may have caused the Crusades, the Dark Ages, and the Inquisition, but they also caused Afghanistan to revolt against their Socialist government which ended up causing the USSR's Vietnam. Just that alone overrules any and all negative affects of religion because no one likes Communism. :lol:
...No I don't seem to be under that impression at all,
That is exactly what I said. That means you're under the impression that everyone or nearly everyone who believes in God also believes in Intelligent Design.but I can imagine it's what a lot of people think of when they start to believe in God.
I would love to see a statistic on how many people have died due to Religious wars/causes. Maybe then people would start to believe that religion is the problem. That they can still worship God as it were, without buying into the commercialism that is Religion.
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That is exactly what I said. That means you're under the impression that everyone or nearly everyone who believes in God also believes in Intelligent Design.
I can try to find some rough estimates on events mainly caused by religion if you want.
I said I imagine it's what a lot of people think, not necessarily me.
If you can find a rough estimate then yes I'd be grateful although religious wars are going on all the time so it would be hard to get an estimate anywhere near the true value.
A religion is basically just a belief, people with beliefs that are different will frequently clash in the world whether it be religious or not.
Having these large religions, almost commercialized ones just means that when these beliefs do clash, the effect will be much greater and that the original message can become severely distorted in such a large group.
The Crusades (1095-1291): Estimates range from 1,000,000 to 5,000,000.
Witch Hunts (1400-1800): Estimated to be between 50,000 and 60,000.
Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834): Estimated from 8,800 to 32,000.
The French Wars of Religion (1562-1598): Estimated at 2,000,000–4,000,000.
The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648): Estimated at 3,000,000–8,000,000.
That's a couple of events caused by religion...
religion was the excuse, the pretext.
you might as well blame the 3m killed in the us civil war on abolitionism, or the second world war on liberty.
WW2, Afghan war, Falklands, Iraq war, Vietnam, Greneda, Korea... all waged in the name of freedom. But you can't really say freedom is responsible for the suffering.As for the second world war, how does liberty fit into that?
WW2, Afghan war, Falklands, Iraq war, Vietnam, Greneda, Korea... all waged in the name of freedom. But you can't really say freedom is responsible for the suffering.
I can see how some of those were waged in the name of freedom but how was WWII in the name of freedom?
Freedom for the millions of Jews, homosexuals and all other people the Nazis didn't like, who were all being held in concentration camps perhaps?
religion was the excuse, the pretext.
you might as well blame the 3m killed in the us civil war on abolitionism, or the second world war on liberty.
Except that's not the reason we went to war. Otherwise why did USA join so late? Oh wai- they were attacked. They didn't care about human rights happening in Europe.
I can see how some of those were waged in the name of freedom but how was WWII in the name of freedom?
That is very true. But:
They still went to war in the name of freedom. Britain went to war when Poland was invaded, which you could say was 'in the name of freedom', as there was no direct threat to Britain at that particular point.
Nevertheless reasons for going to war are very different from what the war is fought in the name of.
