Does religion offend you?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Charity is all well and good, but why does god get the credit when it is people who work hard for their money and people who donate and people who run the charity and people who distribute the food? Seems like this god character gets more credit than he's due?

If you re-read what I wrote, you'll see I wasn't crediting god, but pointing out a couple of good things that religious organizations provide.

Thump, the downside of Catholic charities is that it does it in the name of a dogma that in the past was used to kill innocent people.
You can see this war-god in the hands of every priest every morning: the Sacred Wafer, made of cheap wheat flour, with no salt, raised in the air and subjected to an occult litany in old Latin to convert it into the body of an obscure Jewish youngster who they say lived a parasitical life in Galilee 2000 years ago!!
NO!
Charity done in the name of that prefabricated christ is not good!
Yes, let other men do charity but WITHOUT failed Jewish messiahs.
"Give us today our daily bread" was a prayer that Jesus taught but NEVER produced results!
TWO THOUSAND YEARS of praying the same request while there is more and more famine & poverty in the world is enough proof that the pope is a religious charlatan like his priests-agents in my town!

Please stop preaching at me.  I'm well aware of the short-comings of religion.  I was merely pointing out that there are good things that come from religious organizations.  None of the above screed changes the fact that the Catholic Charities organization does do some good sometimes.

[Fininho]

Fair enough. I apologise.

[hunterman317]

Religion is basically a set of morals and that some God put them in place. The more people who believe in those morals but don't follow them, the worse the world gets. So yes, I am offended by religion.

[Asmodean]

Given the difficulty of it, mightn't others find legitimate value in a description (even brief) of how you arrived at stating it?

On a personal level, my statement is very simple. I live in a country, where very little ever happens in the name of any deity (or under its banner). Thus, religions in general have not been a thorn in my side except for some schmucks coming before sunrise with a pile of books. Religion does, however, demand the abandonment of reason by its followers in some important aspects of education and life in general, substituting individual thinking with a hive mentality which is often archaic, baseless and the like.

As such, religion does, in fact, do more injustice (as I see that last part of previous paragraph as an injustice to an individual's intellectual freedom and integrity) to their own than they do me in little more than mildly annoying me personally.

[Gawen]

I live in a country, where very little ever happens in the name of any deity (or under its banner).

I want to live there.

[Persimmon Hamster]

Given the difficulty of it, mightn't others find legitimate value in a description (even brief) of how you arrived at stating it?

On a personal level, my statement is very simple. I live in a country, where very little ever happens in the name of any deity (or under its banner). Thus, religions in general have not been a thorn in my side except for some schmucks coming before sunrise with a pile of books. Religion does, however, demand the abandonment of reason by its followers in some important aspects of education and life in general, substituting individual thinking with a hive mentality which is often archaic, baseless and the like.

As such, religion does, in fact, do more injustice (as I see that last part of previous paragraph as an injustice to an individual's intellectual freedom and integrity) to their own than they do me in little more than mildly annoying me personally.

For me, even if I lived in a country such as you (which, I agree with Gawan, I'd quite possibly love to...where is it?), the difficulty in arriving at a similar statement myself would be the complex and often unpredictable interconnectedness of society.  To take it to the extreme, even if I were a hermit living off the grid in a remote, isolated location (if such a place hospitable to hermit life truly exists today) and engaged in literally zero interaction with anyone but myself, I could still imagine scenarios in which religion might yet result in more harm to me than to its followers.  For example, if I fell victim to fallout from a fundamentalist show of force on a nuclear scale.  To lessen the extremes, if my world view was simply such that I felt the suffering of any or all of my fellow men-kind is ultimately shared by all (as in I highly value the survival and well-being of my species as a whole), any ill consequences of religion could be viewed as equally harming to everyone, including myself.  As one final scenario to consider, if religion has in some way impeded the scientific progress of man (I say that as though it were hypothetical...hah?) such that a looming cancer within my body will not be discovered as quickly or will not be as curable as it otherwise could have been and I die as a result, has religion done me an injustice...and how much of one in comparison to that of its followers?  All difficult scenarios for me to consider when evaluating how much relative harm it does one over another.

[Fininho]

Given the difficulty of it, mightn't others find legitimate value in a description (even brief) of how you arrived at stating it?

On a personal level, my statement is very simple. I live in a country, where very little ever happens in the name of any deity (or under its banner). Thus, religions in general have not been a thorn in my side except for some schmucks coming before sunrise with a pile of books. Religion does, however, demand the abandonment of reason by its followers in some important aspects of education and life in general, substituting individual thinking with a hive mentality which is often archaic, baseless and the like.

As such, religion does, in fact, do more injustice (as I see that last part of previous paragraph as an injustice to an individual's intellectual freedom and integrity) to their own than they do me in little more than mildly annoying me personally.

That's one most offensive part of religion: abandonment of reason!
Religion steals your brain: the biggest robbery in the universe!
Priests come to you and demand that you shut down your own most precious faculty and use theirs!
You are threatened to close down your most precious sense and go use that of a pope, a priest or any other religious charlatan and impersonator!
Religion is very offensive exactly because of that.
You lose your own brain, your mind, your heart, and have to use the defective one of your "spiritual tutor"!!
Yes, down with religion across the globe, for it is run by thieves.

[SomewhereInND]

In general, history/politics/humanity offends me,  sometimes, when I think about something that I have done, I offend me.

Why should religion be any different.

I hope that if everyone has the same view..........there might be hope for us.

[Fininho]

Humans are trying to build a better world for the next generations.
Religion has been a curse throughout history, with MANY innocent victims.
All done in the name of some fantastic god of love, mercy and grace!
A terrible disgrace!!

[Fininho]

Religion is basically a set of morals and that some God put them in place. The more people who believe in those morals but don't follow them, the worse the world gets. So yes, I am offended by religion.

All gods are anthropomorphic idols made in the image and likeness of the superstitious artist.
And they survive on the victims' CASH.

[fazFwQo83]

Charity is all well and good, but why does god get the credit when it is people who work hard for their money and people who donate and people who run the charity and people who distribute the food? Seems like this god character gets more credit than he's due?

If you re-read what I wrote, you'll see I wasn't crediting god, but pointing out a couple of good things that religious organizations provide.

Please stop preaching at me.  I'm well aware of the short-comings of religion.  I was merely pointing out that there are good things that come from religious organizations.  None of the above screed changes the fact that the Catholic Charities organization does do some good sometimes.

Thump, My argument wasn't specifically directed at you, just the principle of giving credit where none is due. Also, I do apologise if I came across all preachy, I don't mean to be ... it's just an observation. Please don't take it personally.

[Fininho]

It is sad that most Christians - as a conspicuous example - don't recognise that Christianity has been a redundant failure after two thousand years of evangelisation!
"Thy kingdom come" is a prayer that has been uttered - in my estimation - some 100 TRILLION times, and no nice kingdom ever came!
Besides, we are no longer inclined to kingdoms: they have all been brutalised tyrannies.
It is said that Yahweh invented the monarchies while the Devil preferred democracies.
The Bible describes a revolt in heaven, where a minority wanted to overthrow the tyrannical monarchy of Yahweh, but failed.
Lucifer wanted democratic rights in heaven: one angel one vote!
Yahweh wanted a dictatorship forever.
But Lucifer will have other opportunities; he is indestructible.

[Asmodean]

where is it?

Norway. We do a lot of good here, we do. For instance, imagine the map of Norway, Sweden and Finland... Without us here, Scandinavia would look eerilly penis-like  

[Thumpalumpacus]

Thump, My argument wasn't specifically directed at you, just the principle of giving credit where none is due.

Are you saying that religious organizations deserve no credit for their good works?

Also, I do apologise if I came across all preachy, I don't mean to be ... it's just an observation. Please don't take it personally.

If you reread my post, you'll see that my "preaching" comment wasn't directed at you.

[Fininho]

Religion deflowers your brain from its purity in thinking for yourself.
You are instructed to think with the deflowered brain of your religious tutor.
Children are terrible victims of this type of molestation.