Did faith based religions put us back 2000 years?

I've heard many things about how faith based religions, Christianity being the major one, have put us back 1 or 2000 years. Many brilliant thinkers agree that if science was accepted back in the time of the dark ages, we would be far more advanced, scientifically and I believe spiriturally as well. Not only could this have put us back a couple thousand years, but it also could have shaped our world in the current condition it is in today (in other words, the fact that our race is on the brink of destroying itself could be connected to the Crusade and the Dark Ages).

Alexander the Great had a huge library that consisted of all the scientific theorys and work put together by the great thinkers of that time. To our dismise, this library was destroyed (read about it here).

Carl Segan used to talk about this in his tv series "Cosmos". He believes that if it weren't for the Crusades and the Dark ages (and the destruction of Alexander's Library), that right now the human race would be so technologically advanced that right now, during this time, we would already have spaceships that could carry us to distant stars and solor systems.

So, what does everyone else think about this?

I think it is probably true. Religion makes scientific discoveries hard to get to the public. :/

Maybe.

The reason they had religion in the first place was to control the masses and give them answers for why things happen.

"religion is the opiate of the masses" -Karl Marx (most famous quote pertaining to this subject) :bowdown::bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

First of all, you must recognize that humanity will always seek religion, the reason for which is clear and embedded in every religious person in the world, and even most atheists will come to recognize it eventually. So i doubt that there would ever be a world without religion without a state of forced atheism, which in truth is a religion in itself because it's not provable, it is a paradox. However, if the library of alexandria was not destroyed, perhaps we would have been advanced a few hundred years, but not like you describe it.

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we would already have spaceships that could carry us to distant stars and solor systems.

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This statement is a bit of a cop-out imo, the reason why is because we have the technology to do this today, we just don't have the will or the money. If the president of the united states (the next one, not bush, he's lost too much respect) were to say the same thing kennedy said in respect to space travel but with the goal being to get a man to alpha centauri, i believe that rocket could be launched in less than 30 years from that statement. The only thing those morons in washington have to do is bring out the plans for a nuclear pulse propulsion rocket (which they already have from 45 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion), and we'd be very close. It's the stupid limited test ban treaty that keeps us from advancing into space in this case, not religion. But enough logistics, back to the topic.

The truth is, religion itself does very little to influence science. Einstein believed very strongly in a god, so did almost every other revolutionary thinker in history. It's when bad people use religion to get control, when science starts getting repressed. God doesn't do jack squat, belief in god doesn't do jack squat, a good scientist will separate what he personally believes from what the research demands. The term is called "intellectual sloth", when a government or organization forces a philosophy on its people which represses their ability to think independently, this was done in a way by the catholic church in the dark ages, 50% illiteracy, only high priests knew how to add and subtract numbers. If this was averted, we would be perhaps 300 years advanced, not necessarily thousands. The truth is, science could not have been adopted back in the dark ages, because science did not exist, in mazlowe's hierarchy of needs, people were acting on level one: survival (because of the plague), in combination with the chruch's intellectual repression there was no such thing as science to the ordinary man.

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Einstein believed very strongly in a god, so did almost every other revolutionary thinker in history.

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No Einstein didn't

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"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly."

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What other revolutionary thinkers are you talking about. Newton wasted his late years of his life on alchemy so that isn't a good example. Da Vinci had similar views to Einstein, oh and most of his work was ripped up showing how religion is even more bad, his work was branded as herecy.

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The truth is, science could not have been adopted back in the dark ages, because science did not exist, in mazlowe's hierarchy of needs, people were acting on level one: survival (because of the plague), in combination with the chruch's intellectual repression there was no such thing as science to the ordinary man.

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Rome was a good example of how civilation can advance quicker if their was no religion oppression. We are seeing religion destroying people abillity to do science today, creationism popularity is a perfect example of how religion makes everyone dumber. If it wasen't for religion Gallieo would not have been put on house arrest and people banned from learning the earth revolved around the sun. Plus without religion to full on to most people might search for truth by scientific means not just a text book. See religion is a form of non thought and not thinking is bad. See would could have advanced further without religion as people would look to science after the collaspe of Rome and then the Enlightenment period would soon come. Also without a form of religion everything would go faster, look at china as a example its grow is incrediable and most of it is because of science and mathematics.

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Originally Posted by wendylove

If it wasen't for religion Gallieo would not have been put on house arrest and people banned from learning the earth revolved around the sun.... look at china as a example its grow is incrediable and most of it is because of science and mathematics.

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My point was originally that religion itself is not bad, the people who use it as a tool to oppress the masses are the problem. God didn't put gallieo on house arrest, the church did. China is a perfect example of why no religion is a BAD thing, they advance carelessly whilst their people starve for basic necessities, they take no safety precautions on most experiments because they view people as expendable. If you want proof, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4oAQm4r5sI

Rocket accident, come on. So the US had no rocket accident, man worse counter example ever.

And so what a few people get hurt, have you seen brooklyn and other ghettos, new orleans springs to mind. No one cared about and was not doing nothing for all the black people left behind. Nine days it took for even a rescue attempt to go on the way.

The point is this, although china is not economically fair. The advancement in science means that the living conditions of the whole country will get raised. After it has its revolution then everyone would be much better, and what do we thank science not religion.

China knows that science is the anwser thats why its educational system is so heavily maths and science. See and china knows that religion is bad thats why it does lots of things to stamp it out. And know china is advancing at a rate which has not been seen in the whole of history, now!

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they advance carelessly whilst their people starve for basic necessities,

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China is actually addressing this fact, one of the leaders said that to substain economic growth they need to invest in poorer people and they are doing this.

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they take no safety precautions on most experiments because they view people as expendable

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Again your using a space shuttle accident as your reasoning, which is flawed as hell, as america and russhia had many accidents. Plus people are expendable, see its the concept of greater good i.e. would you kill a child to save thousands? I would say yes. Would you?

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Originally Posted by wendylove

And so what a few people get hurt, have you seen brooklyn and other ghettos, new orleans springs to mind. No one cared about and was not doing nothing for all the black people left behind. Nine days it took for even a rescue attempt to go on the way.

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NO ONE CARED???? Are you freaking joking? Every freaking news station was covering the katrina disaster for days, corporations donated millions of dollars to give aid, everyone in the united states knew about it and most even donated money themselves to help the people of new orleans. The failed rescue attempt was because of the inept government procedures, not lack of care, i assure you.

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The point is this, although china is not economically fair. The advancement in science means that the living conditions of the whole country will get raised. After it has its revolution then everyone would be much better, and what do we thank science not religion.

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No. You assume, like so many others that pure/true communism is not only possible but that it works. The government represses its people's knowledge by cyber censorship and regular censorship more than any other country in today's world. The living conditions of the entire country will never improve in a communist dictatorship that is china because like every other communist country the system is inherantly flawed, the government takes the surplus for themselves, science only helps the inner party, the upper class, the lower class proletariat will always suffer a society like that, no matter what scientific progress is made.

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China knows that science is the anwser thats why its educational system is so heavily maths and science. See and china knows that religion is bad thats why it does lots of things to stamp it out. And know china is advancing at a rate which has not been seen in the whole of history, now!

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China mandates that religion is bad, not "knows", for communism to work, the government must not only maintain universal athiesm but enforce it. Yes, china is giving more and more science and math instruction in schools, however, there is no history class that is not censored and there is no language class that supports the healthy and free expression of ideas.

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China is actually addressing this fact, one of the leaders said that to substain economic growth they need to invest in poorer people and they are doing this.

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Politicians say a lot of things. Half the world is outsourcing menial labor jobs to china because the chinese government keeps their currency artificially inflated to create a sense of control over the economies of the world. I assure you, they have no intention of investing in their poorer people, PR is PR, as long as they say "conditions are improving" the masses will be satisfied, even if conditions are steadily getting worse.

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Again your using a space shuttle accident as your reasoning, which is flawed as hell, as america and russhia had many accidents. Plus people are expendable, see its the concept of greater good i.e. would you kill a child to save thousands? I would say yes. Would you?

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I suppose i would, but that is beside the point, china was not saving anyone with their space launch attempts, they were killing hundreads in the political hope of making the country look just a little better. I don't think people are expendable, not for political causes at least. Yes, america and russia did have quite a few accidents, but america (i don't know about russia) NEVER covered up its accidents the way china did. In america, when 3 men died in apollo 1, the country knew about it and we mourned for them, we installed safety precautions so the situation would never happen again. When challenger exploded on takeoff, the country knew about it, safety precautions were taken on the flights after it and the same accident never happened again. When discovery exploded on reentry, the country knew about it, safety precautions were taken (i'll admit, not as many as they should have taken) but they felt secure that it would never happen again. It is this spirit of learning from our past mistakes as opposed to just saying they never happened, that got us where we are today. In the case of china, long march 2 exploded, they took no safety precautions, most of the country was kept in the dark about it (i know this because if they had let the country know, the villages around the launch site would have evacuated before launch), then they took no precautions with long march 3 and an even worse tragity occured.

EDIT: this is completely unrelated to the topic, but i finally remembered where your avatar was from wendy! I was like "i know i've seen that somewhere"... then i remembered, it's from Clockwork Orange, huh?

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Originally Posted by wendylove

No Einstein didn't

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Einstein was very religious. His religious beliefs got in the way of his work, he could except the fact that everything in the universe can't be explained, and he wasted most of his life trying to prove that he was right.

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In the case of china, long march 2 exploded, they took no safety precautions, most of the country was kept in the dark about it (i know this because if they had let the country know, the villages around the launch site would have evacuated before launch), then they took no precautions with long march 3 and an even worse tragity occured.

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No safety precautions, it was a accident. I think china's scienctist thought everything would go alright, however then a accident happen. If you look at china's lauch procedure now it is done in isolation from everyone so this won't happen again. Again your government surpresses information look up watergate for a example or when the CIA killed millions of people by starting a coup or when they put president like Mobutu in charge. Have you seen pictures of abu grave prison and how they send people with no charges to get killed or tortured oversea. Again I don't see your government sticking to something called human rights

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The failed rescue attempt was because of the inept government procedures, not lack of care, i assure you

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So let me get it your blaming china for not having correct safety procedures, however your country couldn't deal with a flood. Stop blaming china for being some how bad when your country couldn't handle a disaster any better.

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The government represses its people's knowledge by cyber censorship and regular censorship more than any other country in today's world.

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Talking about censorship, have you seen your news. Fox news is the worst, now a headline from the news was does Democrats cause terrorism. O'Reilly being popular shows how the media itself is bad. Also you goverment is trying to pass this http://youtube.com/watch?v=G5RQrxkGgCM so what about cyber freedom. Online gambling being banned is another example,oh yeah I forgot racing and state lotteries were not banned under the bill, since the person who wrote the bill was getting payed huge sums of money by racing online companies http://youtube.com/watch?v=6U8WjAmhgsU

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science only helps the inner party, the upper class, the lower class proletariat will always suffer a society like that, no matter what scientific progress is made.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3746409.stm
As I say China admits it has a proverty gap, however their taking steps to try and stop this. America and England have a poverty gap too nearly all other countries have a poverty gap. If their was a easy solution then china would do it, however their is not.

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I suppose i would, but that is beside the point, china was not saving anyone with their space launch attempts, they were killing hundreads in the political hope of making the country look just a little better.

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Again the crash was a accident, it not like everyone in the project did it to purposely kill all the people. Plus what is hundreds of people compared to the scientific advancement the space launch and scientific progress made to build the space shuttle. Again their are 1,321,851,888 nobody cares about a few hundreds of people as they are expendable, however I guess you don't share my concept of greater good.
China is developing now, when it has developed then maybe they can start work on the poverty gap.

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The debate, both within China and internationally, is how much it matters that the significant progress made in cutting poverty has been achieved at a cost of growing inequality.

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Again it is being talked about. It not like china wants to stay a country off extreme riches and poverty as that would be economically bad and politically bad. Again compare china to a country like Africa and then your see how china is not that bad.
When America was developing it did worse things then china, lynching black people and racism is a good example. So it is not like america is a shining example of fairness. Think about how much slaves where needed to make america great, so america is not a good example.

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Originally Posted by wendylove

No safety precautions, it was a accident. I think china's scienctist thought everything would go alright, however then a accident happen. If you look at china's lauch procedure now it is done in isolation from everyone so this won't happen again.

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The thing i was refering to was the fact that they didn't learn from long march 2 because of your very reasoning "oh, it's only 6 people, no need to change anything", then it takes 500 people dead for them to change procedures, when the whole accident could have been averted if they had listened to the first accident. At least they finally have precautions in place now.

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Again your government surpresses information look up watergate for a example or when the CIA killed millions of people by starting a coup or when they put president like Mobutu in charge. Have you seen pictures of abu grave prison and how they send people with no charges to get killed or tortured oversea. Again I don't see your government sticking to something called human rights

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The us government never surpressed information on watergate, the president almost got thrown out of office because of it. The CIA killing millions of people in Congo, that is an interesting statment there. Wikipedia says that it was a "bloodless coup", since wikipedia is an international effort i imagine it would be a lot harder to censor than just one newspaper, if you want to get the word out there that the CIA did that, please edit wikipedia and have the debate there, i have no direct knowledge of the subject, but i doubt the government sensored it. Yes i have seen pictures of the abu grave prison and i have knowledge of the other secret prisions the US operates in military bases around europe where they hold and sometimes torture people without trial (sometimes even US citizens). I am deeply ashamed of my country for doing this, it is not becomming of a civilized first world country and for once you have a very valid point. However, i must point out that the fact that my country has flaws and sometimes does bad things does not prove that religion is the motivator, this is war we are going through and in war, it is forgivable to put religion aside, or at least the people who are committing these atrocities believe this and are acting outside religion.

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So let me get it your blaming china for not having correct safety procedures, however your country couldn't deal with a flood. Stop blaming china for being some how bad when your country couldn't handle a disaster any better.

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No, i'm blaming china for not recognizing the value of 6 human lives as enough to change procedures. Yes, my country didn't handle it well, i'm not going to debate you on all the specifics because frankly i believe that (this is just me) there is a difference between a natural disaster which no one expected to happen and building a rocket next to a village and KNOWING there was a chance if a "gust of wind" came then hundreds of people would die, and if they didn't know then it's even worse because then their engineers screwed up.

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Talking about censorship, have you seen your news. Fox news is the worst, now a headline from the news was does Democrats cause terrorism. O'Reilly being popular shows how the media itself is bad. Also you goverment is trying to pass this so what about cyber freedom. Online gambling being banned is another example,oh yeah I forgot racing and state lotteries were not banned under the bill, since the person who wrote the bill was getting payed huge sums of money by racing online companies.

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News rarely "censors" anything as you describe it, they sometimes do bad journalism, and they are sometimes very biased, but the government could never ever go in and tell the news stations what to air, that's called "prior restraint" and it's really really really against the constitution, and there would be a huge fuss made, it would probably go to the supreme court, everyone would know the government tried to censor, and everyone would be pissed off, and the crap would still get released. You mention net neutrality, i really don't know why the fuck they're trying to pass that, and i'm pissed off at it, that really is legalized censorship. However, i have faith in the liberal congress not to allow the bill to get passed. The online gambling bill was passed because real gambling is not allowed under the age of 18, and the internet can be accessed by all ages, they didn't want children gambling away their parents money and other bad sh1t that can happen because of underage gambling. Also, not everyone like Bill 'O, there's even news programs that basically say "orilly is a moron" and explain what he said wrong.

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Plus what is hundreds of people compared to the scientific advancement the space launch and scientific progress made to build the space shuttle. Again their are 1,321,851,888 nobody cares about a few hundreds of people as they are expendable, however I guess you don't share my concept of greater good.

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Ok, what if one of the children in the village that was annihilated was going to be China's Einstein in 30 years?

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Again it is being talked about. It not like china wants to stay a country off extreme riches and poverty as that would be economically bad and politically bad. Again compare china to a country like Africa and then your see how china is not that bad.

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but that's the problem, it's NOT economically bad and it's not politically bad for them. All the people who are trying to "fix" the poverty are in the upper class, if they fix poverty they would need to allow for a middle class in china, and that's politically bad for communism. As far as economically bad, half the world outsources labor to china because they have a very poor lower class, if they fixed that disparity the country would loose a large amount of international business. No, china's not bad compared to Africa, but hell isn't too bad compared to africa either :p
[/quote]When America was developing it did worse things then china, lynching black people and racism is a good example. So it is not like america is a shining example of fairness. Think about how much slaves where needed to make america great, so america is not a good example.[/QUOTE]
No, america was not a shining example of fairness, there were a lot of bad people who think that one race is superior to another, but those people did not base their choice on religion, in fact as I said, one must put religion aside in order to do something like that, because one of the fundamental teachings of the bible is "don't kill people". However, every country has at least some bloody stuff that happened in the past. China has tiennamien square, america has the civil war, russia had its revolution, england and france fought constant bloody wars, france itself had a bloody revolution, germany had its bloody past. the thing that really seperates the first world countries from the third world countries today is: first world countries have already had their bloody past and have learned from it, and third world countries are still learning.

Well, the US was working on a spaceship called the Orion. This ship used nuclear exposions to reach a speed that would be 10% the speed of light. This ship was in serious development in the US, until sometime during the 1970's, when a bill was passed to ban nuclear explosions in space (oh my god, how stupid is that?). The ship would take off in space away from earth.

Other design have been proposed for even faster travel. This would consist of a huge funnel-like machine, hundreds of miles across, that would suck in all the atoms in space (theres about one atom every 10 cm), accelerate them through the ship, and shoot them out the back at the speed of light. This ship would be huge. It would have engines the size of small worlds. As I've heard, this ship won't be practical for another 1000 years, or even longer. The designs we have now are about as close to the real thing as Leinardo's designs were compared to the super-sonic jets of today.

WE WOULD HAVE THESE SHIPS RIGHT NOW IF PEOPLE WOULD HAVE ACCEPTED SCIENCE.

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Originally Posted by wer

Well, the US was working on a spaceship called the Orion. This ship used nuclear exposions to reach a speed that would be 10% the speed of light. This ship was in serious development in the US, until sometime during the 1970's, when a bill was passed to ban nuclear explosions in space (oh my god, how stupid is that?). The ship would take off in space away from earth.

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Nuclear explosions on the launchpad = fallout
Nuclear explosions in the atmosphere = fallout/radio disruption
Nuclear explosions in space/upper atmosphere = EMP

Nuclear explosions just aren't safe until you get outside the earth's effective magnetic field, that's why they passed the bill, because one country detonating a nuke in space effects every other country.

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if you want to get the word out there that the CIA did that, please edit wikipedia and have the debate there, i have no direct knowledge of the subject, but i doubt the government sensored it.

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It was not a bloodless coup, I watched a program about the CIA like how it got set up by Nazi's. Thousands of communist got killed in the coup.

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However, i must point out that the fact that my country has flaws and sometimes does bad things does not prove that religion is the motivator, this is war we are going through and in war, it is forgivable to put religion aside, or at least the people who are committing these atrocities believe this and are acting outside religion.

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Again thats a american perspective, muslim people think that america is attacking their religion and using 9/11 to justify anything. Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11 and yet when you look in the news a stupid person would think their connected as Fox says it is. Religion slowing down science is shown in your country like creationism crap trying to be brought into the science classroom. And what about war, I thought the reason for war was god told Bush to invade Iraq. Don't get me started on US support of Israeli when they destroyed palestine.

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next to a village and KNOWING there was a chance if a "gust of wind" came then hundreds of people would die, and if they didn't know then it's even worse because then their engineers screwed up.

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Again it was a accident and your country has had similar stuff went wrong, oh yeah and testing the nuclear bomb. People thought their was a chance nuclear bomb could destroy a lot of people as they didn't know how strong it would be, however they tested it anyway. So stop saying that china some how anti safe, again the scientist would have thought their would be a very small chance of this going wrong like how people testing the nuclear bomb would think the same thing.
Again their is a project called LCH, now if they turn it on their is a small chance of the world being destroyed. It would be stupid not to do anything as their are risk on anything. Again I might get run over today if I go out, it would be stupid to stay in all day or I might cause other people to die, however their such a small chance.

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News rarely "censors" anything as you describe it

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Well, it does not get censored, however it is rubbish. You can just about call Fox a news channel, and plus Rupert Murdoch would proberly end up buying all the news outlets. Even then the channel has to get good rating so it ends up being more of a entertainment show, Paris Hilton on the news comes to my mind.

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first world countries have already had their bloody past and have learned from it, and third world countries are still learning.

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If I remeber america is actually the one who is in a war now. Iraq is a mess and thousands of troops have died, for nothing or next to nothing as Iraq is in a worse state. See america has alot to learn, starting with do not destroy other countries.

I do believe that Einstein DID believe in a hire being.

Take another great mind, Leonardo Da'Vinci. He was put under house arrest several times because of his absurd??? - ideas.
How many more like him were not as lucky.

I said this in another relating thread. The church kept people ignorant so they were easier to control.
The same concept as a true dictatorship.
Why do you think that all these nations like Iran North Korea and others are not allowed any other perspective but what their ruler wants them to see?

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Originally Posted by wendylove

Again thats a american perspective, muslim people think that america is attacking their religion and using 9/11 to justify anything. Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11

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this is a statement based on imperfect knowledge. The government has things they can't tell us about the conncetion between 9/11 and iraq, i'm not justifying them keeping secrets but i am saying there certainly are some, however, they could support your point as well as mine, they could prove the war was for oil, or that bin laden was dealing with saddam, either way i believe there is a connection, nobody knows what though. All i do know about the situation in iraq is this: america is not fighting "insurgents" in iraq, they are fighting al queda. This is no FOX news bullshit either, it's right from first hand accounts of soldiers fighting there. There IS a connection, if we're fighting al queda in iraq, you can't possibly say there's no connection. (source: http://forums.somethingawful.com/sho...&pagenumber=12 not sure what page it's on, but there's references to it all over.)

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Religion slowing down science is shown in your country like creationism crap trying to be brought into the science classroom.

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religion has never slowed down science in schools, only proposed an alternative to it. The hardcore fundamentalists believe science is fake and nothing can convince them otherwise, and the rest of the people listen to reason and learn science, but they realize also that science is not the answer to everything, and until it is, the fundamentalists still have a valid arguement.

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And what about war, I thought the reason for war was god told Bush to invade Iraq. Don't get me started on US support of Israeli when they destroyed palestine.

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Ok, there's two big problems with this statement. Firstly, the thing about bush invading iraq because god told him to is a bunch of left wing rumors and frankly it's "rubbish" as you would say, not at all true in the least bit, and even if it was, there is no possible proof of it. Secondly, the US supports Israel unconditionally because strategically they are both our only ally in the middle east and politically because they are the only true democracy in the middle east, if we don't support israel, i believe (this is just me, not fact in any way) there would be a second holocaust at the hands of the muslims/Palestinians, because there is just SO MUCH hate towards israel from all sides, we give them defense systems and money and all these things so they can survive. There is a terrorist bombing of israel every freaking day, every freaking day, i don't doubt for a second that muslim countries would jump at the chance to kill every last jew and christian in israel SYSTEMATICALLY if they had the chance, that is what my statement is based off of.

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Again it was a accident and your country has had similar stuff went wrong, oh yeah and testing the nuclear bomb. People thought their was a chance nuclear bomb could destroy a lot of people as they didn't know how strong it would be, however they tested it anyway.

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Ah, yes, the MAC (massive atmospheric conflagration) arguement, they proved that false before they did the trinity nuclear test, the government documents have recently been declassified.

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So stop saying that china some how anti safe

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It's not just me that's saying china's "anti-safe", you're saying it too when you make the arguement that "people are expendable", that's the very definition of anti-safe.

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again the scientist would have thought their would be a very small chance of this going wrong like how people testing the nuclear bomb would think the same thing.

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the difference between us testing the nuclear bomb and china testing their rocket is this (even if you don't believe my previous statement about MAC being disproved): the development of the nuclear bomb was both incredibly necessary and incredibly time urgent, if we had not developed it in time for japan, we would have lost hundreads of thousands of soldiers, and if we had not developed it before the germans did, we would have lost even more civilians and risked loosing the war. My point can be summed up in this analogy: if a patient is dying of cancer, and they are going to die if they don't get surgery, but the surgery has a small chance of killing them, of course they are going to do the surgery. This is just like america's development of the nuclear bomb. China's rocket experiments are like cosmetic surgery where there's no chance of the patient dying currently, but they elect to undergo surgery that has a chance of killing them, or marginally improving the patient's life if they live.

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Again their is a project called LCH, now if they turn it on their is a small chance of the world being destroyed. It would be stupid not to do anything as their are risk on anything.

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the possibility of the world being destroyed by a micro black hole in the LHC has been disproved by hawking radiation
EDIT: Ok, i can't say "completely disproved" in relation to anything, but that's like saying, "i can't completely disprove the possibility of voldemort destroying the world."

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Well, it does not get censored, however it is rubbish... the channel has to get good rating so it ends up being more of a entertainment show, Paris Hilton on the news comes to my mind.

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Finally, something i can agree with you completely on. The US news stations have become a bipartisan circus lately on the channels that actually report good news, and the channels that don't report good news report bullshit about Paris hilton and sh1t to get their ratings up. I completely agree with you there.

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If I remeber america is actually the one who is in a war now. Iraq is a mess and thousands of troops have died, for nothing or next to nothing as Iraq is in a worse state. See america has alot to learn, starting with do not destroy other countries.

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yes, iraq is messed up, yes thousands of troops have died, and perhaps it is even in a worse state than when saddam was in power, however, this is not an "america versus the world" situation. we are fighting an enemy that wants to destroy us just as much as we want to destroy them. We build bridges and firestations and public works projects in iraq for the people, and al quaeda blows them up to spite us, because they believe that "america is the great satan" and anything we do for the people is polluting their minds with our western culture. Iraq is a battleground, nothing more, we have done no more to harm the iraquis than al queda or saddam has done to them, and in fact i believe we are the only one of the three that has actually tried to help them, both as a country and as a people. This is where it ties back to religion, if there was no religion in america, there would not be donation drives to help the iraqui people, there would not be any concept of moral responsibility to help the iraquis after we came in and overthrew their dictator, we would have gone in, got out and left the country in chaos.

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however, this is not an "america versus the world" situation.

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Well define americas enermy, the war on terror is pretty vague.

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religion has never slowed down science in schools, only proposed an alternative to it.

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Well, no as creationism being popular just proves how it slows it down.

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If the United States fails, one day in the future you might visit your doctor and be seen, via video-conferencing, by a doctor in Tokyo, Bangalore or Kiev.

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http://www.csmc.edu/6603.html
The point is this if you have a large percent of your population believing in pseudo science, it is very bad. Biology would proberly be hit really bad because of religion as you need knowledge of evolution to actually be a good biologist. See if it was not for religion then people would easily except evolution as true. Again scientist in your country are getting worried that they would lose their statue in science, how can a country who does not believe in science compete with a country that is educationally mad, mad being a good thing here. Maths is a good example as http://www.edu.cn/20010903/200988.shtml people say that china would become the leaders in maths in the future, comparing a chinese maths student to a american maths student, the chinese would generally be better.

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There IS a connection, if we're fighting al queda in iraq, you can't possibly say there's no connection.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War#Militias
First of all their is no evidence that the main threat to Iraq is al queda, Iraq is still fighting because two groups called shia and sunni are fighting each other for power. Again their is no connection between 9/11 and Iraq, Sadam Hussain didn't like Al queda as they posed a threat to his power so they killed them and any other terrorist group that was in Iraq, they were doing you a favour, I would like to point out that we actually armed Sadam Hussain and Al queda to fight against communist forces.

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Initially, Iraq advanced far into Iranian territory, but was driven back within months. By mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive against Iranian human-wave attacks. The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism.

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http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
So we have to forget that in the 80's Iraq was supported by US.

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There is a terrorist bombing of israel every freaking day, every freaking day, i don't doubt for a second that muslim countries would jump at the chance to kill every last jew and christian in israel SYSTEMATICALLY if they had the chance, that is what my statement is based off of.

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Okay ignoring the fact that a democratic state reflexs the views of the people, do you know how many people got killed because of Israel stupid war campaign that did nothing. So it worked Palistein is really good now and democratic. See a solution does not make the problem worse and now did the rocket attacks stop, no they got worse.

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if a patient is dying of cancer, and they are going to die if they don't get surgery, but the surgery has a small chance of killing them, of course they are going to do the surgery. This is just like america's development of the nuclear bomb. China's rocket experiments are like cosmetic surgery where there's no chance of the patient dying currently, but they elect to undergo surgery that has a chance of killing them, or marginally improving the patient's life if they live.

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If it wasen't for your space program we would proberly be about 20 years or maybe 10 years behind in technology. Now technology can save people, so I guess china is trying to develope quickly so more people are saved. You have to sacrifice a few so the vast can live, or you can't make a omelet without breaking a few eggs. Like thousands of slaves had to go through hell to get the country they live in now, china is doing the same.

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Iraq is a battleground, nothing more, we have done no more to harm the iraquis than al queda or saddam has done to them, and in fact i believe we are the only one of the three that has actually tried to help them, both as a country and as a people.

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Again a solution or helping is mean't to make something better. Some people will argue Iraq is in a worse state now, and I agree with them. I remeber a show on Newnight they had the person who knocked down the sadam statue, he was locked up for about ten years because his sons took his motorbikes and he complained about it. He said Iraq was better when Sadam was in charge. Again everything has got worse, including the death rate, economy value, safety, education e.t.c. Again if you class robbing a country of oil as helping, I don't know what you mean by helping.

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This is where it ties back to religion, if there was no religion in america, there would not be donation drives to help the iraqui people,

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Again their would be no war as Al aqueda would not exsist. If people only give money because their religion tells them too then the human race sucks. Seriously do atheist not give to religion or something.

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there would not be any concept of moral responsibility to help the iraquis after we came in and overthrew their dictator, we would have gone in, got out and left the country in chaos.

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Again religion is not morals and I think atheist are moral. See atheist don't go around killing and raping people because they don't have religion.

Atleast I see your running out of decent reason, morality argument. Al queda

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Links between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda, as claimed by the Bush Administration (which formed a crucial part of the WMD justification for the Iraq invasion), were non-existent or exaggerated, according to the report of both the United States Government's 9/11 Commission

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#Iraq
Again their is no link.

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Nine out of 10 times, when it names a foe it faces, the U.S. military names the group called al-Qaida in Iraq. U.S. President George W. Bush says Iraq may become an al-Qaida base to "launch new attacks on America." The U.S. ambassador here suggested this week al-Qaida might "assume real power" in Iraq if U.S. forces withdraw.

Critics say this is overblown, and possibly a diversion.

"Such speculation is unrealistic," Amer Hassan al-Fayadh, Baghdad University political science dean, said of the U.S. statements.

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"They'll just say al-Qaida," Venzke said of the U.S. command, "and the media frequently simplify it to that level because they think nobody thinks there are other groups."

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http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...nemy-No.-1.php
America is not fighting al-qaeda they are fighting the two rival parties called Shia and Sunni, which are both in a civil war. Well, it mainly the Shia, however they are fighting and struggling for powers. I remeber hearing about death squads even police death squads, if a shia gets captured by a sunni or vice versa the person would end up dead. I see if I can find the film of a Iraq police death squad in action. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle731535.ece

Possibly... not 2000 years but the 400 years or so of the Dark Ages.

Technology grows exponentially. Look at the past 100 years versus the past 2000 years. Look at the past 2000 years versus the past 10000 years (or whenever humans began to exist).

But then again, had the Dark Ages never happened, a nuclear war that may be on the horizon may have happened in 1750.

When we Europeans (thus the ancestors of Americans) were still trowing rocks at each other and being all barbaric, societies in what now is Iraq and areas around there already were making some brilliant discoveries in Math and other fields.

I do think Islam really intellectually raped those regions.

As did monotheism restrain European and later American progress. Certainly.

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However, the ancient greek (and also the romans I guess) did fare well under a religion. I read in an article how polytheistic religions often cause better mutual understanding, a more free society. Something like that. I can totally understand. If there are 1000 gods, you don't really care if people believe in one that you don't follow. If people have some different opinions, that too is fine.

Point being: Only in monotheistic societies people are burned alive for saying the world revolves the sun. So probably only monotheistic religions have been 'bad' for the progress of the civilized world as we know it.

At one point in Christianity, there were 3 seperate Popes in 3 different locations. There was zero credibility to the church. I wonder how Christianity survived. Just imagine 3 different groups each of them claiming their leader is the hand of God on Earth. Good thing people couldnt read back them. Also the church gave its sermons in latin when latin was well past a usable language. So the people preaching religion couldnt understand it and passed on useless words to their followers. It is like me saying "God is our savior" to a bunch of people who only speak and understand Chinese. They dont know what you're saying. No I dont think religion set us back, but the institutions that govern the religions did.

I don't think Einstein was religious, in theway he believed in God. Can't a be a religiousd shopper, as in a go often and at the same time? As in he didn't God when hesaid it, because he also said:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and i have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

arggg i hate to chime in like this but...

Let's say religion did hold us back from scientific exploration. I now ask you, where do you think we would be if science was taken seriously back then? Do you think we would be here right now? If right now on the earth we have enough nukes to kill the world a hundred times over i would hate to see what kind of fire power would be in the hands of world leaders if we had an advancement in science. Now im not saying that even if we did posses a weapon far greater then the nuke we would use it. But the past shows that leaders will do anything for money/power/oil/land. So IMO there probally won't be a year 3000 or even 2500.

^That's just stupid.

Again, human arrogance takes the better of you, and the inability to accept that you can't even f****** imagine how anything would ahve turned out.

And Nukes was a poor example. This thread is dead, please let it stay that way.

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Did faith based religions put us back 2000 years?

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No, it was people choosing to wage war and feel justified in their right to do so. Do not treat religion as the scapegoat for this as Carl Sagan did, this is just the simplified way of getting to the real problem.

When people wage wars and kill each other with religious means, they are deluded and self-justified by a dogmatic faith that they fervently adhere to in order to make themselves feel proper and in the right for their actions. When Pope Urban II declared the crusades, it was immediately followed with religious justification (ie. "God looks kindly on those that die in his honour"). Islamic fundamentalists are promised a plethora of virgins if they are to die in the name of Allah.

However, the important thing to look at is why are these proclamation so enticing? Because they appeal to the hedonistic selfish impulses of people (males, for the most part) and perpetuate their selfish and brutalistic desires for power and dominance.

Furthermore, it is a removal of the individuals room for individuality and expression that causes great wars. Religion is simply the most common culprit for this action. Religion is not the body that does this, it is the people saying, "God would want the Aryan race to dominate the world for they are the most pure" etc. etc. Which is, invariably, their way of avoiding making any sort of individual responsible decision of their own.

My point here is that, if religion were miraculously removed, we would not hear "Kill, in the name of God and you will go to heaven!" but instead, "Kill, in the name of me and I will have lots of money! I might give you some land, if you live!". Does that sound like anymore of an incentive? No, not at all. However, promise of an afterlife or an honorable death are very appealing to humans for obvious reasons.

What do you think...?
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what's a non faith based religion

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Originally Posted by Mrs. Jones

what's a non faith based religion

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Well, it depends. I would consider Satanism, Buddhism, Vedanta Hinduism, Taoism and Confucianism barely faith based, if at all. And if you call them faith based, then in a very different meaning than when speaking about Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Scientology etc.

but aren't those philosophies?

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Originally Posted by Mrs. Jones

but aren't those philosophies?

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Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism are definitely classified as religions, as far as I know, while Confucianism is a philosophical system and Satanism is a Left-Hand-Path religion which kind of makes it a mixture. It really depends on the definition that you're using, so we're basically arguing semantics.

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Originally Posted by Korittke

we're basically arguing semantics.

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oh then i won't get into that. :D

I believe in a kind of social karma - although I do not like the word, I know no other term to describe it. It is obvious that the society affects the way we think and feel - and this is what I call social karma. This social karma evolves in steps, and in my opinion it would not have been possible to skip the time of blind faith. It would've been a necessary requirement to have the kind of science-based society that we now have.

And the science age is far from ideal. Most people in the world still suffer, so there is a long way of progress ahead for mankind. I believe that a unification of science with religion will be the next step, next stage in mankind's development.

I believe that in the age of science all religions are detrimental to society.

Instead of "non-faith-based religions", we should focus on "religion-free faith" (i.e. keep the "personal relationship with deity" component that gives some people an easier time to come to terms with the unknowable, and throw out the dogmatic bs).