re: Mass shooting at Tx baptist church

What country isn't warring? I don't think we have much room to talk about others "warring" we're just more technologically advanced (thanks frontal lobes) and we invest more into the military than the next 6 countries behind us combined. We're not "modern man" we're still the missing link between primate and modern man, we're just too ignorant to realize it.

Well then Im glad you have religion so we dont have another person out there who can't handle reality.

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Europe and America were founded by Christian principles, the security and safety that you enjoy there, is only because of the guiding principles of its foundings. You cannot argue that a lessened standard, is better than having started with no standard at all

You take Christ out of our foundation, and we are just the Indian tribes that were constantly at war over the same piece of geography

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you can take Western values, including the good parts of Judeo-Christian religions, without believing in the gods involved

i'm a huge fan of Western culture and I respect what roles Judaism and Christianity played in the development of that culture

i'm also a huge fan of many eastern philosophies that counter both (and don't have "gods" in the same way)

that's how i try to develop my morality and world view. sampling them all. religion itself isn't required, especially when you accept the role of man in the development of these religions.

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Within itself?

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We've had our issues, dont you think?


As many of you calling for the removal of the pr0g left filth, pretending everything is peachy is pretty ignorant no?

Things are way worse in africa, probably always will be, but it damn sure isn't because people have studied enough to know there's not demonstrable evidence for a supreme celestial North Korea. It's because they are dumber and acting on emotion. We have the constitution, we took everything good from evolution of other countries and "started over here", and STILL had the civil war. So if christianity and the bible is the only wall between you being peaceful and a murder spree, I support your every move to attend church this sunday, just don't act like if someone doesn't think like you they aren't as moral.

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just don't act like if someone doesn't think like you they aren't as moral.

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So you think all people are inherently "good"?

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I think false Religion is more pernicious/dangerous/harmful than Atheism, OD, because Belief/God is more powerful than non-belief. The former offers everything...the latter, nothing. There is no 'grey'...it's one or the other. Existence or non-existence. Love or it's opposite. Time...and evolution assures that.

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I agree with you here. Islam is far more dangerous than atheism and it shouldn't even be a debate. Atheists love life, and want to value the time they have while here, not spend it in a prison or dead. Take that same man and inject islam into him. "Yeah after you're dead you're going to heaven with a bunch of virgins and you'll live for eternity in bliss" . Try and convince an atheist of that and they'll laugh in your face and walk off.

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No

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Okay. So what, according to the society we live in, is the moral standard? If not God, then it's man's correct? So, if it's man's moral standard and man isn't inherently "good" it really can be just whatever man wants it to be.

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it really can be just whatever man wants it to be.

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Well, it could have been like that but humans quickly figured out, before modern religion, that killing, stealing, etc was detrimental to a society. We are pack animals, we survive as a community and anyone who can't help us survive from the inside hurts us from the outside too. We have the threat of police, retaliations and prisons now for that extra deterrent to be good within the community. To be fair to some religions the threat of hell and the promise of heaven definitely helps the easily swayed. But to say no moral compass would exist without a personal god isn't true, and millions of atheists prove that daily. Seems the religious (looking at you mostly islam) are more easily coaxed into negative actions than the non religious. Saying "god" has the moral code for man means really nothing to atheists given they think man made god in the first place. So yes, we still have psychopaths and people who can't function in societies that act on these aggressions, but that would fit in perfectly in a reality where mans moral code is his own.

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do you believe that religion was held in higher esteem by our nation 20-30 years ago?

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Marginally, yes. But since the 'woodstock' phenomenon where promiscuous sex became celebrated instead of frowned upon, the moral decline has become exponential.

I have been around a long time - and grew up with some pretty uncouth characters as acquaintances - but have never seen outright antipathy towards religion as it is being expressed today. And some of the uncouth characters I grew up around became religious as an adult - to a far greater extent than I ever was.

There has always been outright evil in the world - and always will be in isolated cases. But an overall moral ethic - which was due largely to the religious underpinnings of society acting as a damping agent to prevent that evil from becoming an attractive agent - was the thread that held our national fabric together.

Now, that damping factor is being minimized - even assaulted in its own right. The evil that exists is allowed to attract the marginal people who in early years would have been deterred and changed their ways - they are now being lured toward the evil side with no resistance. They are being encouraged by the ongoing mockery of anything promoting decency and morality.

And as that domino falls, the bar of 'what is so evil that it must be rejected by all' is moved a notch lower, so more people join the mocking crowd. In control systems this is referred to as 'positive feedback' - which is the death knell of any feedback controlled system. We are seeing that destructive process at work in our society.

You do not have to be a religious fanatic to recognize the fact that religion serves as a damper for runaway evil. Nothing in human existence is perfect - but we can all seek perfection. This is far better for society than the belief that establishing decent social norms is somehow 'religious bigotry' to be rejected and flouted with celebratory acclaim.

I am as far from an evangelical religious fanatic as possible - I never talk about my religion, mailly because it is such a lukewarm factor in my life. But I am wise enough to recognize that the country was founded with that ethos as its driving cultural definition - and that we became a great nation by loosely adhering to its unwritten tenets.

Knocking out those underpinnings just because you can point to some unscrupulous priest or amoral Elmer Gantry tent preacher is suicidal.