'the standards of free will'
What?

...you just said that far less than one percent of those people managed to stand up to the cult leader... How does that help your argument that most people can overthrow their beliefs?

I haven't skewed anything. I took exactly what you said and displayed contradictions. I didn't gg your posts, you gg'ed your posts. That's what I said. I'm not completely disregarding your point, I'm pointing out that it is flawed in presentation terribly.


You've presented a lot more irrelevant information to our discussion (disregard what the topic was originally about) than this. Once again, I haven't been gg'ing your posts. I pointed out your flaws that you just continue to ignore. All you would have needed to do was rephrase a few sentences.


I think I went to a protestant preschool, so I probably went to church there however often. I don't really remember it at all though. My parents never really raised me in favor of any religion, and never really took me to church. Both of my parents believe in some type of a god, and their beliefs on anything else religious probably vary from there. Probably couldn't go too much more into detail without becoming redundant.

Well in this case she didnt want to die for the leader so she spoke against Jim Jones. But if the others decided to listen to her rather then the man then they would of overthrown their belief. But as I mentioned before how they were brainwashed they chose death over freedom. It just shows that even though there were over 900 people at least one person refused to abide by the cult.

As in when you said extent it contradicts it.

There can't be an extent because all have that ability and any human can use it even if it means their life but at least they die a free person.

This was referring to me thinking anti was making assumptions about what religion does harmfully to people as a whole. Afterwards he replied saying that he was not doing so. So that becomes the end of that.

Now you were saying how my examples didn't relate to one's (dis)belief in god or religious affiliation and so now I'm showing how his didn't either. This becomes a different issue from what my first quote was replying to. This is now responding to how religion affects the identity of a child in the sense that being taught religious things will automatically make you religious. I only provided examples of how it sometimes doesn't turn out that way. When I said that religion does not affect the identity of a child, it was meant in the context that being taught religious things won't always make you religious. Otherwise, had I truly meant that it does not affect the identity of a child at all, I would be contradicting and "gg"ing myself because as we all know, religion sometimes does affect the identity of a child (but how they are affected or influenced becomes a different thing). So yes what they were taught sometimes does have affect in what they become, but it doesn't always lead in favor of one side over another, which is the main point that I was trying to make. For instance, a child can be taught religious things and then use those teachings as grounds to stand firm in their beliefs. Likewise, a child can use those same teachings taught as grounds for why they would not believe in God or not be affiliated with any religion. My quote was responding to the statement saying that when a child is taught religious things, they will turn out to be religious (and in short, become harmful). This is probably where the miscommunication occurred. But now that I look back at this post, you're right maybe I should have been a little more careful in my choice of words.

Religion is what gives people morals, and society doesn't function half as well without any good morals.

Yes, in a perfect world where everyone chooses to do good of their own will, then logically, religion is wasting time, but for one, this is not a perfect world, and two, whether or not it logically makes sense, there is a god.

Is being doctors the common factor in all these people with screwed up lives? No, so his examples do make sense.

And yet you can still change what happens to you, it's not like it is set in stone, even if it is more difficult to change for some people.

There is none, it's called faith, something you have to find for yourself, not from 'scientists'

You're the one choosing to come to a forum for a game meant for kids, if you want adult forums, maybe choosing a gaming forum was a bad idea.

That one person was in a minority (no pun intended).

But they didn't.

I... see.

I... I'm not even going to try.

Yup, sure.

Also, Why Won't God Heal Amputees?
And the forums, where you can debate about religous stuff.

I will.

Morality, or rather ethics, within family/tribe, was beneficial to individual fitness during our evolution, simple economics and game theory show that trust and cooperation is beneficial to every long term association. Morality is natural and human, it exists because we do. Religion adds nothing to morality. It has no justification for it's authority, and can even be used to convince good people to do acts of evil (jihad, crusades, etc.)

Meh, the topic has gone completely off road. I'll think of a new subject.