Religion = Waste of Life. Is that clear?

YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT.

The point is not that organized religions are divine. The point is not that there aren't actually inconsistancies in the tenets of various religions. The point is not that modern religions don't have their roots in other religions. The point is that the fact that the majority of human beings are self-serving and mean-spirited doesn't make the core values behind most of the religions I can think of (which center around being nice to other people and yourself) worthless. I also can't really see the point in denouncing said in such a rude, condescending manner, particularly since it's the exact same type of evangalistic blinkerdom you seem to be railing against. I also cannot see how you can lay any claim on being agnostic when you have clearly defined ideas of what God is not. There is actually nothing which precludes any of the world's religions, flawed creations of humanity they may be, from being an accurate description of divinity because no one has been able to prove what divinity is. Your entire position is predicated on you inhabiting a place of moral and spiritual superiority. Given your posts on this thread, particularly since you started the whole thing off by quoting as your main example a site that contains some truly hateful anti-Semetic statements, I think your base assumptions of moral and spiritual superiority are deeply flawed.

Nude Spock -- dude, chill. Really.

Without trying to say you're like this person -- and you're not like him -- this sounds to me like the way someone like D***P****l responds to criticism, or rather the attitude behind the way he responds to criticism. There are better ways. :-)

"Religions" are Recycled Myths

As an example of how religious dogma is derived from political and material gain, let us look at the western tradition of good and evil as held by the Judeo-Christo-Islamic traditions. Most people think that these systems come out of the Hebraic interpretation of God/Devil, which was revealed directly from God. What few people realize is that the Hebraic interpretation is a direct lift from older cultures such as the Phoenician, Babylonian, Sumerian, Zoroastrian, Indian and Egyptian, et al. The majority of people have not bothered to study the evolution of religion enough to realize that practically every culture has "borrowed" (stolen) the spiritual traditions of other cultures, reworked them and made them to revolve around itself. This is particularly true regarding cultures that have merged through invasion. Most folks are not students of history enough to know that throughout the past 6,000 years of known history peoples have migrated and moved all over the place, so much so that it is impossible here to name the migrations. During these various migrations, which were often caused by the need to find better, less exploited, more fertile territory, invaders absorbed the cultures they invaded. To do this, they usually had to make the presiding cultural gods into either sub-deities under their own god or gods, or into demons and devils. This is precisely what has been done throughout the world, whether one realizes it or not.

God and the Devil are One

In the case of the Hebraic tradition, the Semitic group of people that later became known as the Jews engulfed and incorporated into its pantheon of prophets, patriarchs and deities the gods of other cultures, such as Brahma, the Indian creator god, who becomes the patriarch Abraham; or Mises, the Sumerian/Egyptian superhuman hero-lawgiver, who becomes the prophet Moses. What few people realize is that the principal God/Devil of the Old Testament are also derived in this way from older traditions, specifically the Egyptian, Indian and Zoroastrian. In fact, the God/Devil construct comes in part from derivation of the Dual God ofPersia, Ahura-Mazda/Ahriman, or the Egyptian Horus/Set. Set and Horus, for example, were the Dark and Light aspects of the one God. These were the first elements out of the Void, as even the Hebraic bible claims. Set, or "Darkness," was the primary god in a number of very ancient cultures along the Nile River. It is of the Temples of Set, in fact, that we have possibly the oldest identified ruins on earth. Set eventually came to be the God of the South, where his peoples resided. At that time, Horus was only a vague entity somewhere to the North. As the peoples migrated towards the North, Set, as symbolized by the South Pole Star, began to become less and less visible, and it came to be believed that Set was descending into the underworld to become God there.

Sooner or later, as the people continued to migrate north and became more focused on the Lord of the North Pole Star, Horus, they began to view Set as less important and Horus of greater significance. No doubt this led to conflicts. Set continued to be worshipped along the Nile, but it became clear that factions arose who desired to make Horus supreme. This ploy would be, once again, for political and material reasons. The movements of the astral bodies that corresponded with and symbolized these entities, such as the Pole Stars, and the Moon and Sun, were crucial to life along the Nile. These heavenly bodies were closely charted and calendared. Such movements provided a semblance of order in what would ordinarily seem like a chaotic and unkind world full of yearly flooding, terrific sandstorms and unbearable heat. By measuring the movements of such planetary bodies, those who later became regarded as priests of these bodies could determine when would be the most auspicious time for planting, reaping and harvesting. This was intrinsic to life along the Nile, and without it there was no life.

If, as happens frequently in history, some sort of natural calamity or disaster were to strike a particular culture, group or people, the priests would look towards the displeasure of the god behind any one of the various planetary bodies or elemental forces such as wind (which was represented by the Egyptian "Shu"). The priests would then determine that such deity needed to be propitiated so that order would return to the world. The priests would sometimes battle as to which god would be appeased, and during difficult transition times - for example, the movement north when Horus came to usurp Set in importance - these conflicts could become ugly and violent. Indeed, the priests would resort to all sorts of name-calling and propaganda to make sure their particular interpretation was set in stone, so to speak. In the case of Horus and Set, Set - who was once considered an equal of his twin brother Horus - became viewed as something bad or evil. Set, as "Prince of Darkness" and "Lord of the Underworld," came to be seen as an enemy of the people. This characterization also came about because of the fear of the dark and the insecurities felt throughout the night. But, as can be evidenced by the later story of the Greek god Hades, the Lord of the Underworld was not always, and did not continue to be, viewed by all peoples as evil. Hades was, in fact, simply another god doing his job. It was a certain bias that eventually led to the establishment of the Prince of Darkness and Lord of the Underworld as an evil and sinister character.

So, in this case, "blaming the many for the actions of the few" doesn't apply. We're not attacking the people, but the religion itself, which has dubious origins. Smooshing together several myths to create a new "true" religion is a little foolish, don't ya think?

More interesting, to me, was reading Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe", leader in M-theory, and seeing that, in the end, he was more than willing to chalk it all up to the divine and routinely refers to the universe as intelligent.

Yeah, "I read it in a book." I didn't discover Quantum Mechanics myself. Oh wait, I'm sorry, I read it in several books that are more than mere recycled myths. Still, my interpretation of it all makes sense to me, but I will not be crushed if it turns out to be completely wrong. That's the beauty of real, ongoing education.

Part the pink sea indeed

(All caps hers, not mine.) If you look into Judaism, Zionism, Islam and Christianity there is no doubt that the above statement is true. Presenting an "anti-semitic" link as ethan did creates an unfair slant, as I'm sure he was aware when he did so. It is especially suspicious since there is a caveat at the top of the page he linked to, which is the only statement that is her own.

Religion does not equal racism. Religion does not equal sexism. Some religions are sexist (if we take an equality of opportunit base for that word). Some religions are racist (though actually very few are explicitly racist as if a religions job is to be inclusive then the fact that the "truth" is exclusive suggests it may noot be the truth). Self-hatred, snuffling round this board I'm pretty sure that many of the agnostics/atheists knocking round here could have come up with the basics of self-hatred by themselves thank you very much.

Religions = Speciesism. Well yes, lots of religions are : but Buddhism most certainly isn't. And to be fair science certainly is speciesist - if we are talking animal testing et al. Ditto exploitation, slavery and war. Phrases like "Become Religiousness" are meaningless.

Science is a religion. Science is equall a story, as much of religion is. Science happens to be a relatively consistent story (one which I rather like the look of), but there is nothing intrinsic in it which says its any more true than a dung beetle pushing the sun across the sky every day. The interesting question is, has religion ever done any good (before we ban it altogether). I s giving people false hope of a happier after life necessarily a bad thing if they only discover they are wrong whenthey are no longer in a fit state to discover anything anymore?

Whatever floats your boat. Its all stories. And I like my story better than yours.

On fire tonight = burnt as a heretic.

Buddhism Speciesism