Catholics are making it up.

If your idea is that these things are either literally scientifically true or they're utterly useless, then congratulations, you think like a Christian fundamentalist.

I don’t know what “literally scientifically true” means. When the evidence for an explanation is so compelling that no alternative explanation can stand that is as good as the science can get. As far as the religious stories go, the evidence for fairy tale status is quite compelling and as such, yes, they are useless. To think like a fundamentalist requires the fairy tale fantasy. Science is the complete opposite. To show the religious fantasies as hopelessly false is not anything like the fundamentalists insistence on their TRVTH.

What these myths mean is more important, and that varies widely throughout faith communities.

Accommodate religious delusion by finding some kind of transcendent meaning to their delusional myths? Really? If this were some Shakespeare or Miller play with the reality of the human condition in masterful view then I could excuse the weakness of the fictional plot in favor of the experience of the message. But, regardless of the message, religion requires its adherents to believe the fairy tale plot is reality ignoring its illogic and absurdity. Additionally, even when the message is absurd or hateful or violent, the adherent is required to believe and obey the message on pain of everlasting torture in a “lake of fire”. How fucking wonderful.

Some, such as yourself, try to accommodate religion in society by trying to excuse its poisons by pointing up those myths that can teach worthy memes and saying religion does some good for some lost or despondent souls. But the history of religion, all religion, is one of poisoning relationships between individuals, communities and nations, stifling intellect and advancement and enslaving the mind, the spirit and the soul of all humanity. This far outweighs any good you may see in it.

That religion is so enmeshed in the fabric of modern society is an indictment of religion for the insidious way it poisons the human mind. Activist atheists cannot accommodate anything in religion because despite any good it may do in individual cases religious organizations perpetrate ignorance and bigotry around the world. And, as we have seen in our own country in these modern times, allowing religion to influence public and international policy has been a horridly bloody abomination.

These facts make religion the greatest evil on the world stage today and every effort needs to be made to expunge religion from human consciousness. I am not naïve enough to think we will succeed in this anytime soon. I have my doubts whether, thanks to the illogic of religious thinking, we as a species can survive long enough to see the day when religion’s influence is finally broken the whole world over. But we do have to try.

Is any of it made up by the Catholic Church or by the current pope? If not then the example is not supportive of the OP.

A side topic broke out.

I'll stop.

AZPaul3 writes: A side topic broke out. I'll stop.

It's not a side topic. The Catholic stuff was in the news, I used it as an example of how religions just make stuff up, then drop their beliefs when they're found out or they become an embarassment and a recruitment problem. They're just examples. I finished the post with this.

So, religions make stuff up and change their beliefs to suit the times they operate in. What pragmatic, flexible corporations, these religions are. One wonders just what else they might have made up......

You provided another list that NoNukes couldn't dispute, he's just trying to shut down the argument, presumably because he can't actually answer it. Do carry on.

You provided another list that NoNukes couldn't dispute,

For what it's worth, I did not try to shut down AZPaul. I find that the points he made are already well responded to. But if in fact, the subject of this discussion is that the Bible itself is made up, then that seems to be distinct from the subject in the OP. It seems to me that Paul is in some agreement on the point.

MrH writes: Religion (like language and similar cultural constructs) is much more about tribal markers, and throughout history it has (unfortunately) made it easier to divide populations along political lines. Trying to reduce this complex set of social conditions to a set of false beliefs is what keeps the internet debate culture afloat, but it doesn't engage with how enmeshed religion is in the fabric of modern civilization.

You have a bad habit of straw man building then tilting at them; you do it in pretty much every post you make. If you addressed the arguments being made instead of creating the argument you'd prefer, you might make more progress.

There's a lot of good things to say about religions and no-one could argue that it isn't an important part of our culture. But this thread is about how religions have made up their belief systems and are now dropping them because they no longer fit with our real knowledge of the world or because they just seem silly now. This leads to an obvious question of just how much has been made up?

But the history of religion, all religion, is one of poisoning relationships between individuals, communities and nations, stifling intellect and advancement and enslaving the mind, the spirit and the soul of all humanity. This far outweighs any good you may see in it. That religion is so enmeshed in the fabric of modern society is an indictment of religion for the insidious way it poisons the human mind. Activist atheists cannot accommodate anything in religion because despite any good it may do in individual cases religious organizations perpetrate ignorance and bigotry around the world. And, as we have seen in our own country in these modern times, allowing religion to influence public and international policy has been a horridly bloody abomination. These facts make religion the greatest evil on the world stage today and every effort needs to be made to expunge religion from human consciousness. I am not naïve enough to think we will succeed in this anytime soon. I have my doubts whether, thanks to the illogic of religious thinking, we as a species can survive long enough to see the day when religion’s influence is finally broken the whole world over. But we do have to try.

All I'm going to say is that there would not have been universities or universal education if it hadn't been for Christianity. All the great universities of Europe for instance, and Harvard was founded to train Christian pastors, and most of the other great universities of America were founded for Christian education as well. The education of children was begun in America to teach them to read so that they could read the Bible.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith writes: All I'm going to say is that there would not have been universities or universal education if it hadn't been for Christianity.

In my country the oldest and also the major internationally recognised Universities were started as a result of funds and expertise from the mining industry, mining magnates, Governments who realised that the economy depended on the mining industry, etc.

Science was first, the churches intervened and took over later.

Faith writes: All I'm going to say is that there would not have been universities or universal education if it hadn't been for Christianity.

Al-Azhar University

Location: Egypt

Established in: 970 AD

Al-Azhar University was established as early as 970 AD in Cairo, Egypt. Originally a ‘madrasa’, teaching students from primary to tertiary level, Al-Azhar University was first known as a center of Islamic learning but has since developed a modern curriculum of secular subjects, ensuring its survival. Through its time, the school has seen much political instability, most notably in the 12th century when a new dynasty took power and destroyed over 100,000 texts. Today, Al-Azhar University is ranked 701+ in the world rankings, and 37th in the QS University Rankings: Arab Region 2015, with a current enrollment of approximately 20,000 students. In addition to traditional studies, the school also offers programs in business, economics, science, medicine, engineering and agriculture.

Faith writes: All I'm going to say is that there would not have been universities or universal education if it hadn't been for Christianity. All the great universities of Europe for instance, and Harvard was founded to train Christian pastors, and most of the other great universities of America were founded for Christian education as well. The education of children was begun in America to teach them to read so that they could read the Bible.

If we want to thank anyone for founding early Western universities, we'd have to thank the popes--according to you, Faith, no true Christians at all. Instead, the roots of universal education reach to the Enlightenment, particularly its American inheritors.

Those early European universities weren't founded to train pastors in the common, Protestant sense of the word, but priests, monastic scholars, etc. Without the infusion of early science and math from the Middle East, they would have had little to teach except the Bible and Aristotle, and even so, in the Medieval period, were chained to doctrine and contributed little beyond such empty doctrinal exercises as scholastic philosophy.

So the creation of a tradition of knowledge and evidence-based learning in universities largely hinged on the ancient pagan Greeks and more recent Muslim contributions. The history of scholarly glory for western universities began with and paralleled their growing independence from religious authority.

Christianity was involved in nearly every "advance" in European history because the Catholic Church held so much secular power; Christian doctrine and persecution of heretics considerably retarded real scholarly progress for centuries.

Whether on balance learning in the West was more hurt or hindered by Christianity is an open question, but I lean towards the hurt. Even when Christians appeared to promote learning, they were anxious to keep it in shackles.

Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

My mistake apparently. Put it another way: there would have been no universities IN THE WEST without Christianity.

In America all the original universities were founded for Christian education.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Colonial_Colleges

The original motto of Harvard was Truth for Christ and the Church:

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University

Harvard's original motto is Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae ("Truth for Christ and the Church")

Yes the European universities were founded by the RCC, which was the only Christian influence at the time with enough influence and wealth to do so.

Catholicism has definitely been an influence for "hurt" overall. Nevertheless some Christian truth got through their wall of pagan lies. If that hadn't been the case there couldn't have been a Luther or any of the other Reformers. There had to be enough knowledge of truth as a foundation for showing the lies of Rome.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith writes: Put it another way: there would have been no universities IN THE WEST without Christianity.

Or perhaps we'd have had them sooner and better--we can't re-run history to see.

Or perhaps we'd have had them sooner and better--we can't re-run history to see.

Where would it have come from? Who would have filled the vacuum of the Roman Empire?* It happened to be the papacy. The RCC is the heir of pagan Rome. Which barbarian tribe would you nominate for the source of a better education? Would you have been happier if Islam had won its war to conquer the west?

ABE *Ideally the true Christian church would have prevailed, but it didn't have the ambition to power the RCC had due to its Roman pagan roots. You are right of course we can't rewrite history. I think it's sad that every time the true Christianity has asserted itself it has succumbed over time to the forces of evil. That's what happened to all the originally Christian universities in the US. But of course you celebrate this along with most of the rest here. If God doesn't enlighten you I certainly can't.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

AZPaul3 writes: As far as the religious stories go, the evidence for fairy tale status is quite compelling and as such, yes, they are useless. To think like a fundamentalist requires the fairy tale fantasy. Science is the complete opposite. To show the religious fantasies as hopelessly false is not anything like the fundamentalists insistence on their TRVTH.

The point I was making is that you have the fundamentalist's black-and-white picture of myth: it's either literally True, or it's completely useless. Obviously the fundie believes it's True and you don't. But you both share the unimaginative approach to myth, one that ignores any meaning other than the literal one and lacks any nuance whatsoever.

Some, such as yourself, try to accommodate religion in society by trying to excuse its poisons by pointing up those myths that can teach worthy memes and saying religion does some good for some lost or despondent souls.

That's not really what I'm saying. I'm saying that religion is a vast historical construct that message-board atheists have oversimplified in order to foster debates. I'm a nonbeliever, but I think saying "religion is bad" is just about as silly as saying "language is bad" or "culture is bad." I don't think religion should be immune from criticism; I just think the criticism has to be a lot more informed than what we've come to expect here in the digital sandbox.

But the history of religion, all religion, is one of poisoning relationships between individuals, communities and nations, stifling intellect and advancement and enslaving the mind, the spirit and the soul of all humanity. This far outweighs any good you may see in it. That religion is so enmeshed in the fabric of modern society is an indictment of religion for the insidious way it poisons the human mind. Activist atheists cannot accommodate anything in religion because despite any good it may do in individual cases religious organizations perpetrate ignorance and bigotry around the world. And, as we have seen in our own country in these modern times, allowing religion to influence public and international policy has been a horridly bloody abomination. These facts make religion the greatest evil on the world stage today and every effort needs to be made to expunge religion blah blah blah

This is exactly the sort of stale rhetoric that people have come to expect from atheists, and it doesn't reflect well on our level of skepticism or education. It's the Tonka version of history and philosophy, sold to us by scaremongering ideologues who make careers out of debating.

Look, I think there are plenty of aspects of religion that are downright disturbing. There's a religious dimension to the way young men are radicalized in the Middle East. The Catholic Church's admonitions against birth control have killed millions in Africa. Creationism is a conspiracy theory that shouldn't be taught in science classes. However, none of these issues has to do with just believing false things. They're complicated social problems that won't be solved by puerile sloganeering. These things won't go away if we just stereotype and demonize religious believers loud and long. If you want to show what a freethinker you are, quit parroting the cheap generalizations of celebrity atheists.

Edited by MrHambre, : No reason given.

MrHambre writes: The Catholic Church's admonitions against birth control have killed millions in Africa.

Nope, the reluctance of Christian Churches in Africa to accept and 'preach' birth control has resulted in millions of children starving to death. And their children starving to death.

It's so easy to do though; teach that if you can't feed a child; don't breed the child. That's what should be taught.