Should Faith/Religion Have Such a High Value In Our Society?

[lambsy_uk]

I'm not here to trample all over people's faith/beliefs but to ask if/why such beliefs should hold such high value in our society?

So where am I comming from? Well we can freely question almost anything in our society/lives; morals, political beliefs, actions and reactions, motivations, interactions, foreign policy, education, welfare, how we raise our children, law and order and so on..........

However we are positively discouraged from questioning people's faith/beliefs/religion! We are also actively encouraged to accommodate and allow for people's religious beliefs, and this is the bit that really irks me! Why is it that if something is done in the name of a religious belief/practice then we are expected to accept it with little fuss where if any other excuse were used we'd be up in arms?

We endure arguments of whether animal rights should take precedence over religion, whether saving the life of a child should take precedence over their parent's beliefs, should freedom of expression take precedence over religious sensitivities?

For me you may as well base stuff on the football team you support;

"I can't comply with the company dress code because I'm a United fan and therefore I must be allowed to wear a United shirt at work."

As far as I'm concerned this is no more ridiculous than anything done/not done in the name of religious beliefs!

So why do religious beliefs hold such high status and is it right that they do?

[lambsy_uk]

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@bankhaunter wrote:

I'm not sure that can be relied on.

Especially as there are no signs that he has bothered to do much in the past 2000 years apart from watch as his badly made planet does it's best to kill thousands of people at regular intervals.

I would say he is a somewhat unreliable guardian going by that evidence.

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One minute it's the people killing the planet and now the planet kiling the people. Is this the ultimate war because if so my money is on the planet! (Not such a badly made planet in my opinion)

[lambsy_uk]

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@**bustysinclaire** wrote:

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You will see soon enough that God is carrying out his promises, but sadly for many it will be too late.

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In your opinion.

[saasher2012]

As one of the others I can only say you have given your answers but with no facts to back them up& so we will go on asking for them & you will go on repetitively quoting from a book of beliefs that holds no water in a none believers eyes,& if we challenge them , you keep saying the same old thing & so it goes on & on,
This world of ours will go on , only the humans in it will destroy not the earth but each other, either through wars, famine, disease etc, all species of life go through it, it's called evolution as one declines another takes it's place in one form or another!.
Each day another new disease is found but science cannot keep up with the cures at some point the diseases will win. It has nothing to do with a God, it's the price we pay for living longer than we used to!.
People who believe in a faith are entitled to that belief , but a question I keep asking & I never get a straight answer to is this,
Why are there so many faiths if there is only one God! & if there is a God why are so many wars & murders committed in his name?
Sorry that's more than one question. lol. Until somebody can answer this to my satisfaction without quoting from patronising scriptures,
I want no part in a God that allows these atrocities to be carried out in his name.

[cee-dee]

Your answers are neither reasonable nor factual. In fact, you've evaded the questions put to you.

The unreasonable "facts" you bang on about are not facts at all. All they are is mumbo-jumbo with NO basis in fact.

Show us where "god" spoke, said or "promised" anything? All the so-called "facts" emanating from people claiming "god" spoke "through" or "to" them are just words from the mind of those spouting them.

The one true fact is that the Sun is in control of the destiny of this Planet and as sure as eggs are eggs, it WILL cause the end of the World as we know it. When that will be is debateable because there may be several "ends" before the final destruction. There have already been several "ends" to this World in times past, the final end really will be THE END.

At The End, if this World isn't swallowed by the Sun only "just" roasted, by the time the Sun has shrunk to a block of Carbon, the World will end up being a frozen lump which could sail off in to Space for ever unless it hits something. There will be nothing anyone can do to change that and anyway, by that time there'll be no-one left here!

[suzieseaside]

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@merehazle wrote:
Polluted oceans cause squid to grow lungs.

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Really?!  The source of this bizarre comment seems to be Freaking News.  Spoof.

It's a Photoshop contest website, not real news.

[bankhaunter]

I can only give you the facts

But you don't give facts, you simply make assertions with no real evidence to back them up.

I cannot make you believe them

Those who believe without evidence are capable of believing anything without evidence no matter how nonsensical.

It's that which leads to the extreme stupidity seen here, a person who seems to think that just because dinosaurs lived in certain conditions that must be okay for mankind.

Watch it an weep for us all, with people like this there is no hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7h08RDYA5E

[bankhaunter]

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And so we die out, yet one more species to become extinct, planet Earth will get over it though!

Like the planet cares if mankind is just another transient species like so many.

If Gaia did exist she would be more bothered about the Sun that about the microbes crawling around on her surface.

[suzieseaside]

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@bankhaunter wrote:

I can only give you the facts

But you don't give facts, you simply make assertions with no real evidence to back them up.

I cannot make you believe them

Those who believe without evidence are capable of believing anything without evidence no matter how nonsensical.

It's that which leads to the extreme stupidity seen here, a person who seems to think that just because dinosaurs lived in certain conditions that must be okay for mankind.

Watch it an weep for us all, with people like this there is no hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7h08RDYA5E

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That Shimkus gets to speak such nonsense on a Committee for Energy and Environment beggars belief. 

Still, not much surprises me in US politics.  

[**bustysinclaire**]

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@**bustysinclaire** wrote:

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@cee-dee wrote:

When oh when is all this ridiculous nonsense going to end?

All this "god" stuff is the invention of Man, no more, no less.

People believe what they want to believe.

If this "god" won't let Man ruin the World, why does "he" have a good try at doing just that?

If "he" controls everything, why does he cause vocanoes to erupt, destroying lots of the World and killing lots of people who hadn't caused any problem in their part of the World and why, (for instance) did he cause toxic gas to escape from lakes in Camaroon killing over 1000 people and their animals, people who'd done no harm to the World. Why did "he" cause the under-sea earthquake in the Indian Ocean which produced the tidal wave that destroyed large tracts of land and property killing  over 200,000 people? "Ours is not to reason why" won't do as an answer either.

The World will end in about 5 billion years time when the Sun runs out of Hydrogen and starts converting Helium to Carbon causing the outer layers of the Sun to expand and the heat consuming the inner Planets. If it doesn't consume this Planet, it'll certainly roast it and everything on it!!

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With the greatest of respect to you CD,Bank and others who have been posting with similar sentiments all I can say is, time and again you ask the same questions and I answer with sound feasable answers and you just won't acknowlege them.

I can only give you the facts, I cannot make you believe them. You will see soon enough that God is carrying out his promises, but sadly for many it will be too late.

How sad that will be.

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I am sooooo sorry, that post was really a poor selection of words, I am giving myself the credit for giving you the facts when all credit should be going to Jehovah God, the Almighty God of our whole universe. He has provided an abundance of facts and proof over many many years, and allowed you to decide for yourselves whether you want it or not.  I am a mere human messenger just doing what he askes of me, and willingly because I owe my whole life to our almighty creater.

I therefore ask for his forgiveness in seeming so prosumptous.

I soo look forward to a time where mankind can live in a wonderful new world in peace and security.

[saasher2012]

Yawn!! Once again no facts to back up your answers just hearsay! From a book written by a person who heard it from a person, who heard to from a person etc , etc, & so on & so forth. No proof or substance!!.

[bankhaunter]

He has provided an abundance of facts and proof over many many years,

An example please.

[merehazle]

........

 Well thank you for that. 

 Now if you or anyone else can bare it Google these words:

''Images for ocean rubbish dump twice the size of Texas''   And click on the more images underneath. 

Be warned anyone who is squeamish.  Lots and lots of 'reality' pictures that really bring this story home.

[tommy.irene]

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**bustysinclaire** wrote:

With the greatest of respect to you CD,Bank and others who have been posting with similar sentiments all I can say is, time and again you ask the same questions and I answer with sound feasable answers and you just won't acknowlege them.

I can only give you the facts, I cannot make you believe them. You will see soon enough that God is carrying out his promises, but sadly for many it will be too late.

How sad that will be.

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I am sooooo sorry, that post was really a poor selection of words, I am giving myself the credit for giving you the facts when all credit should be going to Jehovah God, the Almighty God of our whole universe. He has provided an abundance of facts and proof over many many years, and allowed you to decide for yourselves whether you want it or not.  I am a mere human messenger just doing what he askes of me, and willingly because I owe my whole life to our almighty creater.

I therefore ask for his forgiveness in seeming so prosumptous.

I soo look forward to a time where mankind can live in a wonderful new world in peace and security.

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I have been hearing the same **bleep** for the last 75 years and when i die i want to be burnt.

[cee-dee]

Come on, where are these "facts"?

Where and when did these "facts" emerge?

The fact of the matter is that you have no answers, just repetition of the same old nonsense.

People could be forgiven (couldn't they?) if they got so fed up of "the messenger" spouting the same old rubbish that the time honoured old saying about the messenger was enacted.

[suzieseaside]

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@merehazle wrote:

........

 Well thank you for that. 

 Now if you or anyone else can bare it Google these words:

''Images for ocean rubbish dump twice the size of Texas''   And click on the more images underneath. 

Be warned anyone who is squeamish.  Lots and lots of 'reality' pictures that really bring this story home.

---

I'm sure many are aware of the huge mass of floating rubbish that concentrates in the centre of ocean gyres, merehazle, not to mention the vast amount of plastic and other non-degradable rubbish that washes up on remote inhabited islands.  Those awful pictures of stomach contents containing lighters, bottle caps and all sorts of plastics completely filling the guts of decomposed seabirds and other marine life killed by our rubbish are a stark reminder of how little mankind cares about the environment.  

I believe it will get worse.  I see more litter left lying round in our countryside and discarded into the sea than ever before, and that's just this country.  Nothing by comparison with the amount of plastic drinking water bottles and other waste that tourism has created in countries where it is not safe to drink the water.

And that's just the pollution that's visible.  The stuff that isn't visible but concentrated in food chains will bite man back in his dependence on the ocean for food. 

[suzieseaside]

Is it true that JW's don't believe in evolution?

Yet it is happening all the time, and it is quick in organisms with short life spans - so we can see it happening by natural selection, such as the evolution of antibiotic resistance by bacteria.

If JWs don't believe in evolution, where is the proof that it doesn't happen?  I see vast amounts of proof that it has happened throughout geological time (and I won't buy into 'God' putting the fossils in ancient rocks!), and is still going on. 

[**bustysinclaire**]

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@cee-dee wrote:

Your answers are neither reasonable nor factual. In fact, you've evaded the questions put to you.

The unreasonable "facts" you bang on about are not facts at all. All they are is mumbo-jumbo with NO basis in fact.

Show us where "god" spoke, said or "promised" anything? All the so-called "facts" emanating from people claiming "god" spoke "through" or "to" them are just words from the mind of those spouting them.

The one true fact is that the Sun is in control of the destiny of this Planet and as sure as eggs are eggs, it WILL cause the end of the World as we know it. When that will be is debateable because there may be several "ends" before the final destruction. There have already been several "ends" to this World in times past, the final end really will be THE END.

At The End, if this World isn't swallowed by the Sun only "just" roasted, by the time the Sun has shrunk to a block of Carbon, the World will end up being a frozen lump which could sail off in to Space for ever unless it hits something. There will be nothing anyone can do to change that and anyway, by that time there'll be no-one left here!

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I have

I have to repeat another posters comment, "In your opinion"

Wheres your proof CD?

[bankhaunter]

I have

As I said earlier, you have merely asserted.

Assertions are not facts.

[bankhaunter]

I might also say that basing beliefs on a collection of writings, written by men, chosen or discarded by men and assembled into the book you call the Bible by men, is probably not a good idea.

Added to that can be the fact that much of it is mistranslated some has been forged or altered and bits removed.

I would recommend study of the pantheon of gods existing at the time the Israelites entered Caanan and how that pantheon ended with just the one god, you might just find it interesting and an eye opener.

[cee-dee]

More evasion, no facts forthcoming again. Just where have you given any FACTS?

The facts of the life of the Planet are there to be seen, the ultimate fate of this Planet can be seen happening in Space.

All the "Holy Books" have been subject to revision over time with things left out and other things inserted so they're not to be relied upon as FACT.