The Fight Against Scientology

[Frank the Tank]

Originally Posted by Snakeeye

None of the Mormons I know have been forced to give every penny of their savinngs to the church.

They are expected to give a LARGE percentage of their annual income to the church or face expulsion.

And if we are going to get into the semantic of it all, Scientology is considered a religion.....

[White Doors]

I'm not sure how some people being scientologists affects anyone who is not?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by White Doors

I'm not sure how some people being scientologists affects anyone who is not?

Well, the whole point of this thread is to riducule Scientology.

"Normal, sane, not-crazy people" according to the author of this thread should share this view.

Cheese is just pointing out "normal, sane, not-crazy people" should also have the same concerns about any religion. Although the trappings may be different, they are all formed from the same fallacies.

[Knut]

Originally Posted by Snakeeye

None of the Mormons I know have been forced to give every penny of their savinngs to the church.

Mormon's are expected to give up to 10% of their income to the church... now this is not required.... but you are pretty much pushed out of the church if you dont....

if you want to see where this money is going.. take a tour around the Temple grounds in Salt Lake city...

In the grand scheme of things..... all religions have varying levels of control they like to impart on their members... Scientology and Jehovahs witnesses tend to be more strict... while anglican and other protestant sects tend to impart less control.

I beleive the point Cheese i making is that religions tend to corrupt those in power and lead those underneath to beleive that they are protected from their sins they commit... so... as a religious leader with power over a large population you can make them do immoral acts and rationalize it easier than if you have a population of secularists/atheists who will be harder to control.

Personally, i beleive that one can have faith in a higher power without resorting to being involved in a religious group. However some people like the community involved with being in a church... which i can understand as well... you meet new people and you are part of a community....however i dont beleive that someone who goes to church is any holier than someone that chooses to believe on their own.... or even any holier than the normal atheist. A religious person that commits a crime is no different than an athiest that commits a crime.... a crime is a crime is a crime...

Sure church groups do a lot of charity... but are the people there doing it because they feel it is the right thing to do... or are they doing it to advance their standing within their church/peers ??

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Do you not consider Mormans part of Christianity?

Actually? No, I don't.

[skins]

Originally Posted by Cheese

"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."
- Albert Einstein

"The more I study science, the more I believe in God"
- Albert Einstein

maybe that's the quote he's refering too? kind of confusing, but the impression I get (from both quotes) is that he believes in a higher power. this belief stems from the obstervation that the universe posseses remarkable order and structure in almost every area of science. so he thinks someone was behind it and that it wasn't by chance, maybe?

Originally Posted by Cheese

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
- Thomas Jefferson

all respectable historians do not deny the existance of Jesus (ie. he was not a "mystical generation"). whether you like it or not, all reliable evidence suggests that he was a real person. he is mentioned in many historical documents, secular and religious. the question is, was he the God, was he crazy, or was he just a good moral teacher?

I've always thought that "Agnostics" believed that you can't prove without a doubt that a God does exist and you can't prove one doesn't exist either, so there's no way of knowing. "Atheists" believe there is no God. "Theists" believe there is a God. So if you can't prove if God exists or if he doesn't exist (this is true, right?), then does't it take faith to believe in Theism and Atheism?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by skins

all respectable historians do not deny the existance of Jesus (ie. he was not a "mystical generation"). whether you like it or not, all reliable evidence suggests that he was a real person. he is mentioned in many historical documents, secular and religious. the question is, was he the God, was he crazy, or was he just a good moral teacher?

Paging Cowperson. Paging Cheese.

Actually, most "respectable" historians see no reliable evidence for a historical Jesus. I think it would be intellectually dishonest to say there was reliable evidence. And even if there were a historical Jesus, we could safely say with close to 100% certainty that he was not the divine son of god, was not born by virgin birth, did not walk on water, was not resurrected, etc. Jesus is a mythical figure (and not a very original one either if you study other religions from that time and place).

Any evidence for a historical Jesus is hearsay and not contemporary.

Here we go again:

http://www.jesuspuzzle.com/

http://atheism.about.com/od/historic...s1/index_r.htm

http://atheism.about.com/gi/dynamic/...om%2Fexist.htm

No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus. Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus got written well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings.

Atheism does not involve faith IMO (although Margaret Atwood has argued atheism is like religion because it is dogmatic):

http://www.skepdic.com/faith.html

Those of us who are atheists, and believe that everything evolved from natural forces, nearly universally maintain that theists and supernaturalists have a very weak case for their belief, weaker even than the case for Bigfoot, Nessie or Santa Claus. Thus, our disbelief is not an act of faith, and therefore, not non-rational as are those of theists and Christian apologists. However, if Christian apologists insist on claiming that their version of Christianity and the rejections of their views are equally acts of faith, I will insist that the apologists have a non-rational faith, while their opponents have a rational faith. Though I think it would be less dishonest and less misleading to admit that atheists and naturalists do not base their beliefs on faith in any sense close to that of religious faith.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by troutman

Well, the whole point of this thread is to riducule Scientology.

"Normal, sane, not-crazy people" according to the author of this thread should share this view.

Cheese is just pointing out "normal, sane, not-crazy people" should also have the same concerns about any religion. Although the trappings may be different, they are all formed from the same fallacies.

tut tut, a fallacy is able to be proven to be false. You can't prove that God doesn't exist, hence it is not a fallacy. Illogical? perhaps, but not a fallacy.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by White Doors

tut tut, a fallacy is able to be proven to be false. You can't prove that God doesn't exist, hence it is not a fallacy. Illogical? perhaps, but not a fallacy.

I think I could come close to proving that all the Gods that mankind have invented are false (in a literal sense). There still might be a god(s), so I guess in this sense I am an agnostic, but I imagine the truth of all this is much stranger than anything we have dreamt up.

[Knut]

Originally Posted by troutman

I think I could come close to proving that all the Gods that mankind have invented are false (in a literal sense). There still might be a god(s), so I guess in this sense I am an agnostic, but I imagine the truth of all this is much stranger than anything we have dreamt up.

Alien overlords!!!!

[evman150]

The lower parts of society need religion to live their lives.

Those in the upper echelon of society are (necessarily) the most intelligent, the most successful, the happiest, the most free to live their lives. These people do not need religion to give their lives meaning like the dregs of society do.

I really have nothing against those individuals who believe in God if it gives their lives some sort of (false) meaning. Just don't try and tell me these people are of the same worthiness to society as the rest of us.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by evman150

The lower parts of society need religion to live their lives.

Those in the upper echelon of society are (necessarily) the most intelligent, the most successful, the happiest, the most free to live their lives. These people do not need religion to give their lives meaning like the dregs of society do.

I really have nothing against those individuals who believe in God if it gives their lives some sort of (false) meaning. Just don't try and tell me these people are of the same worthiness to society as the rest of us.

That's a dangerous take.

Religion is a "virus" (Dawkins) that affects people from all walks of life.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explains why God is a delusion, religion is a virus, and America has slipped back into the Dark Ages.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feat...ins/index.html

[skins]

Originally Posted by troutman

No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts.

no, but there are archeological discoveries that prove the accuracy of those who did write about him

Originally Posted by troutman

All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people...All documents about Jesus got written well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings.

of course, they come from historians. the escapades of Alexander the Great where written hundreds of years after he died, yet many historians believe what was written about him. There are first century manuscripts that mention Jesus. this was only a few generations after he died. an example is Josephus' works called The Antiquities and Testimonium Flavianum. his writting was corrobarated by a Roman historian named Tacitus (who was probably the most important 1st century Roman historian).

Originally Posted by troutman

There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus.

that could be true. although Tacitus (a Roman historian) mentioned that the Christian movement was based on a man who was crucified under the Roman governer Pontious Pilate. Although I don't think Jesus' name is explicitly mentioned.

Originally Posted by Hesla

Alien overlords!!!!

isn't that what the "Raliens" were all about?

[troutman]

http://atheism.about.com/gi/dynamic/...o%2Fsupp10.htm


JOSEPHUS UNBOUND
Reopening the Josephus Question



Although it may well be that we owe Josephus’ survival through the Middle Ages to the unknown Christian interpolator who gave us the Testimonium, it is time to release Josephus from his Christian captivity—and from the bonds of those who continue to claim him as a witness to the existence of an historical Jesus. But if the weight of argument would impel us to acknowledge that Josephus seems to have made no reference at all to Jesus, what implications do we draw from this?

Here is a Jewish historian who was born and grew up in Judea shortly after Pilate’s tumultous governorship, with its presumed crucifixion of a Jewish sage and wonder worker, a man whose followers claimed had risen from the dead and who gave rise to a vital new religious sect. Here is an historian who remembers and records in his work with staggering efficiency and in voluminous detail the events and personalities and socio-political subtleties of eight decades and more. Can we believe that Josephus would have been ignorant of this teaching revolutionary and the empire-wide movement he produced, or that for some unfathomable reason he chose to omit Jesus from his chronicles?

Destroying the credibility of the Josephus references inevitably places a very strong nail in the coffin of the historical Jesus.

Tacitus et al debunked:

http://atheism.about.com/gi/dynamic/...y%2Fchap5.html

Contrary to what some apologists (not necessarily McDowell or Wilson) have suggested, it is not just 'Christ-mythicists' who deny that Tacitus provides independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus; indeed, there are numerous Christian scholars who do the same!

[evman150]

Originally Posted by troutman

That's a dangerous take.

Religion is a "virus" (Dawkins) that affects people from all walks of life.

I'm not saying it's black/white. But if you were to plot a graph of IQ vs % of believers....I'm going to do this now...

Very rough...and obviously not accurate to any reasonable degree, but it does give the general idea...

[skins]

Originally Posted by troutman

Here is a Jewish historian who was born and grew up in Judea shortly after Pilate’s tumultous governorship, with its presumed crucifixion of a Jewish sage and wonder worker, a man whose followers claimed had risen from the dead and who gave rise to a vital new religious sect. Here is an historian who remembers and records in his work with staggering efficiency and in voluminous detail the events and personalities and socio-political subtleties of eight decades and more. Can we believe that Josephus would have been ignorant of this teaching revolutionary and the empire-wide movement he produced, or that for some unfathomable reason he chose to omit Jesus from his chronicles?

Josephus was not ignorant of Jesus, nor did he omit him. He was a political historian, concerned with matters such as the Jewish-Roman war. the intentions of his writings were not the advancement or debunkment of christianity.

Originally Posted by troutman

Contrary to what some apologists (not necessarily McDowell or Wilson) have suggested, it is not just 'Christ-mythicists' who deny that Tacitus provides independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus; indeed, there are numerous Christian scholars who do the same!

As I mentioned above, Tacitus' writtings don't implicitly name Jesus as a historical figure. Some scholars think it can be implied, others don't.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by evman150

The lower parts of society need religion to live their lives.

Those in the upper echelon of society are (necessarily) the most intelligent, the most successful, the happiest, the most free to live their lives. These people do not need religion to give their lives meaning like the dregs of society do.

I really have nothing against those individuals who believe in God if it gives their lives some sort of (false) meaning. Just don't try and tell me these people are of the same worthiness to society as the rest of us.

Ha ha ha.

You probably shouldn't hack on everyone who believes in a supreme being because it's pretty obvious you believe in one too -- you think you are god.

[evman150]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Ha ha ha.

You probably shouldn't hack on everyone who believes in a supreme being because it's pretty obvious you believe in one too -- you think you are god.

No, not at all.

I am but one person among millions who believe (to whatever degree) what I believe. None of us is special, but together we make up the intellectual bourgeoisie.

[daveyboy]

Originally Posted by Cheese

well if he was a budhist hes a theist. LOL. How can you be a non theist and believe in any God? Id call him a fence sitter...unsure what side to sit on.

Buddhism by definition is a non-theistic religion/philopshy/way of life.

From the Buddhist prespective, talking about whether or not there is a god/s does nothing to eliminate Dukka and atain Nibana.

If theism is the belief that there are god/s who exist and play an active role in the universe then Buddhism is most definitely non-theistic.

There are 'supernatural' elements in Buddhism (especially Tibetan Buddhism) but those would be better classed as Shamanism/Anamism and they relate more from the Bon religion of the past.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by evman150

No, not at all.

I am but one person among millions who believe (to whatever degree) what I believe. None of us is special, but together we make up the intellectual bourgeoisie.

Laugh. You've got to be kidding me. You actually believe you are part of some intellectual ruling class? Aren't you a student? You must be, because only an undergrad would come up with, and claim membership in, anything as pretentious and silly as an "intellectual bourgeoisie".

Anyhow, what constitutes "success" to you? Lots of money? Political power?