I would love to have an intelligent discussion. I am being completely civil. My last quote was sarcastic admittedly, but it was only to prove how meaningless your point was. As you can see it can be applied to just about anything.
Please. Continue
sorry, it’s hard to not be a dick to someone stupid enough to be willfully ignorant to massive amounts of evidence for no good reason at all.
oh wait i lied, i’m not sorry.
I’m not sure how pointing out how the scientific method succeeds where religion fails is helping your position…
Obviously people who choose to believe in a supreme being are lower life forms and should be executed in the street
Or just properly educated so they don’t shun perfectly valid theories and facts because they don’t understand it.
And yes I know that it was sarcasm.
We can make very educated guesses. How do you think we know about how the sun works, or what makes up its interior without ever being inside it?
How do we know about black holes without ever having seen one?
Didn’t we finish this debate some time ago?
Anyway, history is not science. Science is a series of laws governing reality. Gases react, momentum is transfered, its all predictable and provable. History is different. Its can be changed by the smallest things, the most minute of coincidences. A man catches a flu, doesn’t go to some event, never meets his wife, they never have a kid, and bam, history could be changed completely. Thats just a tiny little change. Now remove religion, the central pillar or founding value of many nations for millennia. You remove that, history not only changes, it become unrecognizable. We cannot know if its for the better or worse, and we cannot make an educated guess. Religion is too massive.
Didn’t we finish this debate some time ago, S? The one where religion WASN’T the pillar or founding values of nations?
No, it was. If I agreed otherwise it was probably to shut someone up.
The entirety of Europe (and as a result the Americas) is built on Christianity and Europe dominated and changed the world. Not to mention the whole reality that Religion was created by the first civilizations and as such has been ingrained the human mind since civilization began.
Surely you cannot be so stubborn or thick as not to admit that Religion is one of the biggest forces in the history of humanity. Its undeniable.
Sure, and I’m a Jedi.
Thats pretty cool. Seems like thats a good life skill.
Religion isn’t a force or anything like that. As far as the impact it has on history is/was concerned, religion is a device, a tool, to manipulate the masses. At least in European history.
Europe wasn’t built on Christianity. Religion is a product of culture in general. Of course it has been a very big part of history and of our culture, but it wasn’t built on it.
Burb: brofist
Only he’s wrong. Religion is more than just a simple tool, and even if you so wish to call it such there was no tool like it. Yes, it is a method of controlling the people, but what would replace it? As we approach the modern world we see ideas like democracy or communism become pseudo-religions, but at the time? Nothing.
And this has nothing to do with it as a fundamental foundation of our world. I need only point to the Catholic Church, which you cannot deny is based upon religion, and European history is based upon it, be it through its control of the people or the people’s resistance to it. Not to mention the entire legitimacy of most of the absolutist movement that allowed for the replacement of the church was divine right. No religion, no authority, no rule. There is truly nothing else that can do that, even in the modern world.
You can call religion a tool all you want, but the fact is, as a tool, it built europe into what it is today. [color=black]See what I did thar?
I deny that European history is based on the Catholic Church. It was a major player in European history, sure, but it’s not BASED on the Church.
It provided the legitimacy (i.e. divine right) for the kings of Europe, meaning without the Catholic Church, there is no reason for people to follow a leader, meaning there would be no stable european states, and stability is the foundation for progress.
They would’ve found some other way to legitimize their rule, I believe.
Would they? Pre-printing press, ideals like communism and democracy could not have been spread fast enough and ingrained deep enough to provide a foundation, and no foundation the printing press doesn’t get invented. Religion is unique, a concept seen no where else in the world. You like to claim it to be just another tool, but there is no other tool with the same power.
Catholic Church is basically Roman power structures combined with Christianity and pagan customs and rituals.
The divine right stuff is basically kings saying “ok I’ll convert to your customs so I’ll have an easier time of keeping you in check.”
Religion is a product of culture. It’s a (very big) part of history, culture and society, but it’s not the foundation for it. Far from it.
I could argue that art is the foundation of history, since it plays a major part in it and is prevalent throughout, and has a huge effect on it; but, like religion, it’s an important part of history, a product of culture and often a tool for those in power, or for those trying to achieve, protest or overthrow them. Not the foundation.