Prayer doesn't have a place anywhere
- added November 16, 2007
- 7 responses
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- arcaro
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I agree with Dennet, Dawkins, Sam Harris and even, to a certain extent Hitchens: god is not great.
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I disagree with you!
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Is this a serious viewpoint?
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Yes, this is a serious viewpoint. I believe that all religions are human creations that, though at times can serve positive functions, are increasingly destructive and harmful not only to individuals but to our whole human family. Why should the fairy tales created yield to "prayer?"
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I agree, religion is a dangerous and potentially terrible thing.
This is no fairy-tale there is a real God who made everything, whether you choose to believe that He exists or not. He has given us each our own free will and does not force us to be his little puppets, so it is your prerogative to choose not to believe Him. However, what your personal beliefs are will be irrelevant when the rubber meets the road and you meet Him after this life is over; The only thing that will matter is Truth and whether or not we lived according to it.
That said, God desires a relationship with Him and unfortunately people don't always understand this. They make up a list of do's and don'ts and rituals that must be performed--they choke out relationship and replace it with an empty "religion." They believe that this religion is the only way to keep God happy and it is their job to make everyone else follow their religious lifestyle. This is why religion is dangerous and has had so many negative things done throughout history in the name of "god"
true prayer is a channel of communication with God, people who really communicate with God will learn who He is and what He really wants from them. If anything, prayer is (if done rightly) a safeguard that helps keep religion from ever getting to the point where it is dangerous because someone really communicating with God will realize that our "religious duties" are not to force other people to believe in God or even to keep a strict regimen of rituals to keep us "pure" or whatever, but to see people for who they are--that they have value and to love them no matter what. -
Non-religious communities end in one thing: tyranny and ultimately genocide. Such forebears of a great non-religious community include: Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini.
It seems to me humanity isn't done with its need for religion, and it will never outgrow such essentials. -
Not likely we'll sway each other in this (or likely any other) forum. As Kant said long ago, "The danger is not that of being refuted, but if being misunderstood."
If you can't stomach Harris, Dawkins, et al, take a look at Freud or Durkheim: religion is a human artifact and, on the whole, has caused much more harm than good in the world. -
"religion is a human artifact and, on the whole, has caused much more harm than good in the world."--This is an unfounded statement. Religion is responsible for most of the good in the world today as well. In fact, good does not even exist apart from religion.
Furthermore, you make no distinction at all between religions, as if they are all the same! Everything done by religious folks are thrown into the same pot and shaken up so no one can tell who did what? It seems you have no response or care to explain why some of the most violent acts ever committed were done by "irreligious" people. "
"The attackers of religion have forgotten that these large-scale slaughters at the hands of "antitheists" (or atheists, irreligious) were the logical outworking of their God-denying philosophy. Contrastingly, the violence spawned by those who killed in the name of Christ would never have been sanctioned by the Christ of the Scriptures. Those who killed in the name of God were clearly self-serving politicizers of religion, an amalgam Christ ever resisted in His life and teaching. Their means and their message were in contradiction to the gospel." Ravi Zacharias
Mr. Kant himself was not able to build ethics apart from religion without huge oversights, because his fundamental "oughts" (borrowed from Christian morality) need interpretation for when they overlap. for example one shall "always tell the truth, unless telling the truth will lead to the death of another person." is telling the truth or saving life more important? it needs interpretation.
And as his post-goer Kierkegaard describes how to "logically" interpret such matters he throws "reason" out altogether.
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