What irritates me about religion and it's followers, especially dealing with Christians (and it's various branches, such as Catholics) is this: plenty of them claim to live, breathe and follow the Bible, but they nitpick. I'm an established Muslim (not so much for the thought of a Higher Power but more of the morals and cultural influence that comes with it), and I have read the Christian Bible cover to cover. I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I did pick up a few things when relating the teachings from the Bible to it's modern followers. Firstly, the Bible is nothing more than a correlation of stories. Both the New Testament and Old Testament are chock full of tales filled with cultural and sexual biases. The only proof that any Christian has, is the Bible itself.

It may not pertain to the topic, but I feel that you cannot call yourself a dedicated Christian and not practice everything in the Bible. It informs you to follow it's teachings, and whatever to a tee. Ignoring the fact that the Bible has more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese, there are some genuine morals established within it's pages that would seem like good rules to follow for any respectable individual. But people tend to pick up only on the morals that they themselves feel fitting for their life. Like following Sabbath, but continuing to be an adulterer. Or anything like that. Even those who choose to follow all the implied rules of the bible still ignore things like sexism, which was a long running motif in the Bible.

Bible smackers and those who take religion for anything more than a set of morals that you should pick and choose held humanity back for years from being a united society. Even angels, and heaven; those are all over the top assumptions. The word 'Angel' isn't a confirmed direct translation. If I remember correctly, the word translated from it also means breath, or wind. They're all large metaphors that weren't taken with enough salt. It's like a video game, of sorts: there are preset control functions (religions). You can choose one to play your game by, or create your own. You can be successful either way.

Sorry if I sound incoherent, but I've never been someone who conveys ideas like this clearly.

You misunderstand. Everyone having the same/similar morals = potentially better society, regardless of the origin of those morals. Ignoring religion entirely, if everyone in the world knew for a fact and was 100% certain that cookies were the source of all evil, would cookies exist? Then just pretend cookies = rape, or something like that. If all of society shares the same morals, then there is a definition of what is objectively bad, and it's something we avoid. I'm not saying it would create a flawless society, or even that it's an idea I'm completely sold on myself, but I can understand how people everywhere would want to achieve such a world.

Yes there is, but I don't know if coorelation means quite what you think it does. Box below has some data. Numbers taken from vision of humanity (organization not related to any religious motivation). Images taken from some guy because I don't feel like making my own.



Obviously this doesn't mean much as far as causation. But there is clear correlation.

Terminx your thing is in impossible hypothetical and doesn't mean much. Yes, if a society was made up of people who believed in and followed to the letter the same moral code, the society would not have conflicts over their moral code. I can agree with that because it's pretty obvious. It's not very interesting though. It also wouldn't be a necessarily a good thing: though there would be no arguments over the code in this hypothetical, problems arise of there are holes or morality issues in the code itself. This would be the case with any moral code anyone could ever come up with, and is definitely the case with biblical christianity.

Dropping the statistics thing because it doesn't really seem like you're going to get the difference between observing before and after and I don't really think a million hypotheticals will help you. I will amend my last one because it was formulated a bit badly though. I shouldn't have said all 6s. I think what I said can be communicated more effectively like this. Imagine if I said I would roll 3-2-3-1-6-5, in that order, on a die, and then proceeded to do so. In that case, you would have suspicion to believe that I was cheating somehow. However, if I rolled that sequence (or any random other one), then it would be silly to say I must have been cheating because that sequence was so astronomically unlikely when you look at all the other possibilities. The chances for any single combination is very very small, but one of them must have happened, and the fact that one did is not indicative of and sort of foul play or divine intervention.

lol @ religion = morals

people who do the right thing because they're religious have weaker moral values than people who do the right thing despite not being religious
compare and contrast;
'i do not kill people because i do not wish to damage society and have a respect for the wellbeing of my peers'
'i do not kill people because god said so'

and would you attribute those figures more or less to things that statisticians hold as being directly related to crime rates (economic prosperity/diversity, racial/ethnic diversity, general population figures, political stability, etc.)
to prove a "clear correlation" between the two you would first need to somehow account for all other things that are known to correlate with crime rates, these pictures do not
also the global peace index downplays actual internal crime rates as factors when determining a nation's score - by a lot, in favor of things that affect the political spectrum on a more global scale (it is the global peace index), such as the number of wars fought throughout history and total military spending
this is why the countries in the third picture are ranked well and the us is ranked badly -- the us spends tons of money and soldiers (which are also used as a factor) protecting a host of countries, including nearly every country in the third picture, many of which have almost no military to speak of

again, there is no way to study a potential correlation between theism and crime rates because there's no effective way to account for other things that affect crime rates
if you see a "study" or picture that claims there is a definite and clear correlation, your common sense should be setting off alarm bells in your head as shenanigans are definitely taking place

You're thinking of causation, not correlation. Causation is the one that has to account for other things that affect crime rates. Correlation just means that as one thing trends, another trends with it, regardless of what's actually causing them. As I said, the data doesn't show anything as far as causation, just correlation.

literal correlation is so trivial as to not even matter in a serious discussion
citing that difference doesn't prove your point as taking the term literally is just a way to plug your ears and puss out of accepting logic
to put it simply, you get my point, don't be a pedantic f*****

Actually there is a difference
His original point was that there could be a theoretical connection between a wholly christian society and reduced crime rates etc.
I pointed out that the data suggests otherwise, since there is the correlation I talked about. I'm not and was never trying to show that religion causes increased crime/war/whatever. There isn't any evidence of causation.
Correlation isn't useful in showing what is causing something. However, it can be useful in showing the flaws in a proposed causal relationship, which is what I was doing.

http://forums.mcleodgaming.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=22919&start=1650
as you can see from my posts in this thread
there is a direct and clear correlation between hepatitis C and being a whore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Lovelace
however as you can see from this article whores will naturally obtain hepatitis c with or without sex, this woman invented deepthroating and f*** a dog, but she caught hepatitis c from a different body fluid

gene weingarten works for the washington post, no wonder he's got heps

james earl ray also has it, however that could be due to residual hepatitis left in the air after he shot the worlds only sane n*****
even so a correlation does not imply causation so i guess hepatitis c can be used to punish murderers too
then again he had such a n***** complex that he blew martin luther kings head off so maybe hepatitis c truly is natures anti-whore defense system

Wow, I learned something about hepatitis and whores today. Thanks KP

for a more complete list of whores and all their disgusting actions look here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_hepatitis_C

of f*** course wikipedia would have a list like this (they forgot to mention that wikipedia admins always seem to somehow have hepatitis)

Why do all the guys who got in in prison lie about how they got it. We all know.

Chopper Read you did not get Hep C from sharing a shaver.

You definitely have a point

but let me remind you that the Qur'an, has as many holes as a piece of Swiss Cheese as well. as they are both based on the same compilation of stories

I don't think people can call themselves dedicated Christians yet they try to find ways around what the Bible says instead of reading what is there and following it.

@KP about Hep C

a clear indication that following what the Bible says in terms of sexual lifestyle is actually brilliant.

If you keep your virginity until you're married, and you marry a virgin (who is human and of the opposite sex), and then while you're married you don't commit adultery, and neither does your spouse,

what chance is there of you getting some STD or STI? as these both originate from bacteria (can't believe I forgot the name) that is either created or attracted when foreign s**** are introduced to the host s**** (this can also happen through leftover s**** inside a woman interacting with the s**** of another man during intercourse, whether orally or otherwise.) and is passed on whenever that person has intercourse with someone else.





Anyway,

People have the wrong idea about religion. You don't believe in god(s)? That's okay. But why bash people who hold themselves to a higher standard by obeying a strict moral code? Wouldn't the world be a better place if it was free of greed and people treated each other with respect and kindness? Sure, there are fanatics and evil people in religion that will use their power over people to satisfy their own selfish desires, but the idea of religion isn't a bad one.

It's not all about going to heaven, nirvana, or hail-bop. Disciplin' be the word yo.

EDIT: and as some of the Christians have already pointed out in the topic, some of their beliefs are to keep the followers healthy.

There's nothing wrong with holding yourself to a high standard in reference to how you treat yourself and others, but that doesn't in any way have to relate to being religious, nor is it the only aspect of any religion. When I say that I think, say, Christianity is silly, it's not that I have anything against people who shall not kill or people who do onto others as they would have others do onto them. That's dandy. The silly part would be the rest of that ridiculous book.