Are you religious?

[Zimmerman]

The point CK, at least with the most recent bit, is that it is far, far, FAR too easy to point to things specifically and solely motivated by religious belief having a detrimental effect on our world. I asked the question about give some examples of religion doing good to try and offer the way in for someone to point out specific examples of religion currently doing good things. I got irrelevance in reply (within the context of the good things at least trying to be comparable to the bad things). It's like you listing all the bad things about FIFA corruption over the last decade (assuming that many more of the facts were already public) and me responding by saying "well yeah but some people are made happier by playing football and they built a pitch in my village so..."

As for the bigoted - I'll accept that I am bigoted against religion, but I am not closed-minded about it. If someone can show me examples of it doing real good in this world that is even comparable with the level of harm it does then I will change my mind. Similarly I am bigoted against racism, is that a bad thing? I am bigoted against homophobia, is that a bad thing? I am bigoted against paedophilia, is that a bad thing? Being a bigot is only an insult if you can show that that specific bigotry does harm, otherwise it's merely a descriptor. Show me the harm I'm doing by pointing out all the damage religion is doing, right now, to people all over the world...

You asked for examples. He gave some.
Of course they are irrelevant compared to the most heinous of acts.

But he could (if he wanted to be obtuse or childish) turn it around and ask what acts of good has a non religious person done compared to the acts of bad by some non-religious? See how futile this is?


I started this thread… i'm bamboozled that people that still believe in todays day and age (certainly in the 'west'). Im appalled, disgusted or annoyed at some of the things that religion does or doesnt do (or the gravitas that its given).

But equally, I dont see the point in lambasting anybody daring to speak up on here. Id never ridicule somebody for it (here or in real life). I might question them. I might debate with them. I might express my own feelings.

About 10 pages ago people were calling out for the pro-religious to give their side and as soon as someone does, they are set upon/ridiculed (on the couple of occasions somebody has).

[Zimmerman]

But they are doing it.

Whatever the motive, it is a good thing.

Of course, and it would be disingenuous to suggest I was staying anything to the contrary. I was just making the point that if the best example of positive religion is someone doing something to save their soul it's a weak argument.

I wasnt. But you were (and you still are) dismissing the point.

[crispybits]

But he could (if he wanted to be obtuse or childish) turn it around and ask what acts of good has a non religious person done compared to the acts of bad by some non-religious? See how futile this is?

That isn't the point. I'm talking about acts done because God (religion) says so, not harm caused by someone that happened to believe in God. To make a proper comparison you'd have to list the harms done because the lack of a God says so, not by someone who happened to believed there was no God.

There have certainly been harms done by non-religious ideologies, but if we're going by that standard then you could argue Stalin's philosophy that killed 20 million in the gulags is actually fairly OK because non-Stalinsists have done more harm throughout history. And all non-Stalinists shouldn't point out the harm Stalinism does because they can be lumped in with every other philosophy they don't agree with just because it's not Stalinism...

With the possible exceptions of Jainism and western Buddhism, pick any religious philosophy you like and I'll bet you that I can find more harm done, current and historic, by that religion in the name of that religion - not coincidental - referenced with links - than you'll find good done by it.

[crispybits]

About 10 pages ago people were calling out for the pro-religious to give their side and as soon as someone does, they are set upon/ridiculed (on the couple of occasions somebody has).

If you pointed out that FIFA were ok because people get happiness from football and they built a new pitch in my village do you think I wouldn't get ridiculed for comparing that to the millions or maybe billions corruption has taken out of our pockets as fans over the years?

[crispybits]

Lots of good things have happened as a result of religion. It has inspired, influenced, or just outright given us a vast swathe of our literature, music, law, and culture in general, either through direct influence or in it's expression and thoughts on religion. For example we obviously wouldn't have the same Kierkegaard without religion, but we wouldn't have the same Nietzsche either. It's also been central in many drives to give education, alleviate poverty, produce equality.

You might ask me which of these actions make up for the deaths of people, but the simple answer is they don't [or will not in many people's opinions], and in that sense humanity can never make up for it's own failings. That's not the fault of religion, that's just the nature of humanity. Imagine if an alien race landed on earth and listed all the bad acts done by humans, you'd struggle to give concrete examples of things that balance them out.

I'll give you an example [the kind of thing you'd have as a cartoon to show how faulty I think anti religious prejudice is]...

1. Religious people build temples.
2. Those that dislike religion claim that religion has given us nothing.
3. Other religious people destroy a historic temple or religious artefact.
4. Those that dislike religion claim this shows that religious people are uncultured and destroying our heritage.

You see why I think this is somehow faulty...

I don't think a temple is worth anything in this discussion. Historic buildings are valuable to society, but they're valuable because they're historic not because they were once religious. I would have the same level of disgust if a 1000 year old pristine castle was bulldozed as I do if a 1000 year old pristine temple is bulldozed. I'd be more disgusted if an original Leonardo Da Vinci notebook was burned than if the dead sea scrolls were burned.

The example I gave a page ago about ISIS destroying historical religious artefacts and sites has nothing to do with any respect for religion, it has to do with respect for the lessons we can learn about our own history from those sites.

All the great artistic and technical minds of the day wouldn't have just vanished, they would have worked on other projects. We wouldn't have religious art or religious philosophy or religious architecture but we'd have something else instead, probably monarchist stuff as they were the ones with the other half of the money in the western world for hundreds of years.

[Carlos Kickaball]

The example I gave a page ago about ISIS destroying historical religious artefacts and sites has nothing to do with any respect for religion, it has to do with respect for the lessons we can learn about our own history from those sites.

You do realise that religious sites and culture you seem to value so highly in the context of its destruction wouldn't exist without religion. So by giving them a positive value, you're answering the very question what has religion ever done for us?

All the great artistic and technical minds of the day wouldn't have just vanished, they would have worked on other projects.

And neither would all the warmongers, murderers, plotters and bigots of the day....

I don't see why it's not obvious to you how inconsistent and prejudiced your argument is. You're loading onto religion most bad features about humanity, and at the same time saying anything that was good would have happened anyway.

Serious question, do you believe in God? - as for someone who doesn't you credit him with a lot of negative influence over humanity and it's tendencies.

[crispybits]

I'm not making a direct comparison between religion and racism in terms of base philosophy, bear with me.

Imagine there was never any publicly stated idea that people could be evil/worthless/subhuman/whatever purely because of the colour of their skin (like eye colour or hairstyle have never really been a cause for violent discrimination). Now sure there would still be violent people without racism that would still do violent acts, that's undeniable. But how many of the violent acts done throughout history because of racism were done by people who would not have done them if it weren't for racism? I didn't see the number of lynchings in the southern US staying constant just with different victims after attitudes about race changed than when the area was much more racist. Somehow I doubt official statistics were recorded to prove that point, but have you ever heard of mass lynchings of white men after race attitudes changed in the region? Seems people got (slowly and slightly) less shitty towards others as racism became less influential.

That's why my point is consistently that religion is bad, and not that religious people are worse than non-religious people. Humans are humans and will do shitty things given an excuse. Religion (the idea) is one of the most frequently abused excuses (again, not that religious people are evil, just that the philosophy leads them to believe that actual harm is "Godly" in many cases), and just like other things that are excuses for being shitty to other people wthout feeling like you're doing wrong if you take away the excuse some people with find a different excuse, and some people just won't be shitty to other people. Reducing the number of people with a shitty excuse to be shitty to other people is always a good thing.

I wouldn't claim that all the projects the great minds worked on would have been done anyway, a lot of them might have simply wasted a lot of their time on some useless rubbish. But their qualities in art or philosophy or architecture wouldn't have vanished, and we'd very likely still benefit from them in some way. Michaelangelo would still have painted if someone commissioned him. Christopher Wren would still be building something, just not St Pauls. They both did plenty of non-religious commissions too.

[Carlos Kickaball]

But religion in our society already doesn't wash as an excuse for doing bad...

Do you see the media reporting "Iraq war okay, as Bush was told by God"? No they laugh at him for such a pathetic reason, as do many religious people!
Do people say it's okay that the Catholic church abused children because they're religious? No (and again this includes religious people and almost all Catholics)!
Do people say 9/11 was fine, because it was religiously motivated? No (including almost all Muslims).

The amazing thing is more people voted that they were religious in some way, than that religion should be abolished, yet who do we hear the fanatical preaching from? Amazingly it seems to be the secular zealots filled with righteousness and sure of absolutes of right and wrong. I think most decent discussion has been hounded out by extreme views, I don't think I'd try and explain the nuances of my beliefs if I were religious.

FWIW I voted "I'm not, but not bothered religion exists" - and I voted ages ago.

[crispybits]

Bush didn't do the Iraq war because of religious reasons. They were an excuse, a shitty excuse if you like. And many Americans still feel he was right to do so despite ALL the other reasons than greed/oil and religion having been proven imaginary. I think he did it for the greed, but just because we look back now and say it was for greed, there is no denying that at that time he justified it in religious terms. I can't see how this does anything other than prove the point I just made some more.

As for the Catholic clergy sex scandal, that wasn't done IN THE NAME OF GOD. How many times do I have to make the distinction between acts done because the religion can be used as an excuse to get away with it and acts that happen to be done by religious people.

Those that share the same fundamentalist religious view as the perpetrators of 9-11 do say it was a good thing. Get ISIS on skype and lets ask them. Get the extremist Hamas militants on speakerphone and lets ask them. Yes not all muslims, not even a large percentage of muslims believe it was fine. But a significant minority think it was fine because of - guess what - their religion!

If you saw harm being done, and I mean real objective demonstrable harm being done every day to people in the name of a certain kind of philosophy then wouldn't you speak up to say "this is harmful and unacceptable" or would you just shrug and move on? I even posed the question about "show me the good things" because maybe I am missing something, and I got a ridiculous and assanine response. If those who think it's a good thing can't come forward with evidence that it's doing more good than harm then it's something worth speaking against is it not? Is it not worth presenting facts about what harms the ideology causes (again, not everything the proponents do, just what the idea causes)?

[Carlos Kickaball]

As Zim has already pointed out you've already had good responses, and you've dismissed them with poor or little reasoning.

Someone could make the kind of argument you make about religion about football. People commit violence, even killings in the name of football allegiances, football is full of corruption and has it's share of criminals, football has caused the death of thousands in disasters. What has football ever done to make up for this?

I suppose you might say it's done some charity work and brought joy to the lives of many people (you know like a religious person would say about religion.)

[crispybits]

But again, a lot of your points are harms done that happen to be done by people involved with football. Football isn't an ideology it's a sport, and it doesn't say "you should injure opposition fans" or "you should accept bribes for World Cup host votes" or whatever. Yes shitty stuff happens in football, but it's not because football demands that it happens. Religion does say "If a man lies with another man..." and religion does say "kill the infidels" and various other things used as justification by shitty believers. Now violent club tribalism, that causes hooliganism and I speak out against that when it's the topic. I speak out against corruption in FIFA. I call tragedies like Bradford, Hillsborough and Heysel tragedies and don't try and excuse them because "well, it's football".

Zim said I'd had good responses. I disagree. I pointed out why I disagree. I don't think missionary work and believers being altruistic (without any references to the kinds of world-changing good needed to balance the world-changing harm) are good reasons. I am simply stating that opinion. You are free to disagree with me as is everyone else. But my statement is "religious ideologies are responsible for much, much more harm than good".

It's also not true that every ideology causes more harm than good. Can you point me to the harms done in the name of pacifism? All ideologies are not equal, and the way we move discussions forward and make society better is to critically analyse each ideology and look at the good it causes and the harm it causes. In every other discussion about every other ideology we're absolutely fine doing that, but when it comes to religion that's somehow invalid. Lets not bring up the evidence and the facts, lets just go "awww but it's religion!" and shrug and walk away without any critical analysis...

[dead parrot]

But my statement is "religious ideologies are responsible for much, much more harm than good".

That is absolutely correct but doesn't mean that everything has to be dismissed nor that all is bad.
It does mean that it is necessary to filter the good from the bad.

[dead parrot]

For examples look at the life saving attempts of many medical missionaries in current and past times. Often these are the result of the faith of individuals sacrificing comfortable living in the west to live in the third world. Sometimes similar actions are carried out by people having no such beliefs but that doesn't decry the actions of those whose motivation has a background of faith.

The difference being that religious individuals carrying out this sort of work do so in the hope of eternal life and togetherness with the lord rather than for purely altruistic reasons.

really?
Have you asked any or all of them?
Is it possible that some are repeating the example of early followers of the christian church who said "we love because he first loved us"?

I should have added that one of the fundamental tenets of christianity is that doing good works has no bearing on personal destiny. Instead reliance is totally on what has already been done by Jesus Christ. There is therefore no direct pressure/motivation to carry out such work in the hope of eternal life etc. Though I agree your statement does apparently apply in the moslem world and in such as the catholic church (and lesser extent in church of england) where the underlying christian message has been corrupted.

[crispybits]

But my statement is "religious ideologies are responsible for much, much more harm than good".

That is absolutely correct but doesn't mean that everything has to be dismissed nor that all is bad.
It does mean that it is necessary to filter the good from the bad.

With what other ideology that does significantly more harm than good do we do what we do with religion, where even in the last two pages I've been told that it's just religion and to let it be?

Lets filter the good of fundamentalist islam from the bad shall we? Lets look at the increased happiness and purpose the fundamentalist muslims have in their lives because they are living according to a strict interpretation of the Qu'ran. Lets look at the fine work they do keeping thecitizens of Saudi Arabia much more lawful and well behaved on average than the citizens of, say, Italy. Lets filter out all the death and destruction and you'll see that really fundamentalist islam is not all bad and doesn't have to be dismissed as an ideology.

I'm also not saying abolish religion. I think that's thought crime and is a bad idea and unenforcable. I'm saying we should have the same open discussion and critical analysis of religion without this attitude of "welllll it's religion so you can't judge it the same way we judge every other ideology" - eff that. It deserves to be held up for inspection in the cold light of day just like every other idea and if the facts are upsetting to people because they are religious then that's something they will have to deal with, they don't get to play some sort of joker card to ignore it or even censor it because "God". They might leave religion, they might look to reform it, but it seems morally bankrupt to me to subscribe to and support an ideology and ignore the harm it does because it makes you uncomfortable to look at it...

My question still stands. Please, anyone show me beneficial effects of religious ideology that are comparable to the harmful effects that can be demonstrated and evidenced. As I said to Zim for Jainism and western Buddhism I think a case can probably be made. I don't know of any other significant religious ideology for which any sort of case can be made, but I'm open to being shown the evidence.

[DrBunker]

But equally, I dont see the point in lambasting anybody daring to speak up on here. Id never ridicule somebody for it (here or in real life). I might question them. I might debate with them. I might express my own feelings.

About 10 pages ago people were calling out for the pro-religious to give their side and as soon as someone does, they are set upon/ridiculed (on the couple of occasions somebody has).

As crispy has pointed out, it's not that the 'defenders' are being lambasted, they're just being treated in the same way that anyone arguing for any particular philosophical viewpoint would be treated. They don't inherently deserve better treatment than would be given normally bc the subject is religion. If their arguments are weak (as shown) then why should that not be highlighted?

Funnily enough this thread reads a lot like the UKIP threads, there aren't really any religious ppl involved so we're left with the "I'm not religious but" brigade. I don't think that's bc those with faith don't want to be "lambasted", it's bc they simply don't need their beliefs shaken. Most faith is weak which is why religious rights are so precious. It's very easy to disturb a philosophy built on such a weak foundation and that's the basis of faith. This is why one of the concepts I find most disturbing is the "chatty vicar" type who is willing to engage in a debate about the logical fallacies of his faith like is it more valid than that of someone of another faith or who allows their faith to be adjusted to fit the modern world.

For clarity, I find it surprising that ppl are surprised that there are strong views about faith; it pervades everything even in this supposedly enlightened world and when I hear someone taking the position that they don't have faith but aren't troubled by it implies that they haven't really considered the issue.

[Surprised]

I don't think religion per se is the problem. The major problem is people who have no faith but pretend to be religious in an attempt to justify their hatred. I think 99.9% of religious people observe their religion in a peaceful way and don't let it affect others. Then you get the zealots who use religion as an excuse. We see it with ISIS. To a lesser extent we see it with the fake Christians who fill Facebook, Twitter, and newspaper comments with their "I'm Christian and UK is a Christian country so we shouldn't let Muslims or foreigners in" or "Why should we save drowning immigrants?". How is that a Christian value? It goes against everything Christianity is meant to stand for.
The problem is people not religion.

[Carlos Kickaball]

As crispy has point out, it's not that the 'defenders' are being lambasted, they're just being treated in the same way that anyone arguing for any particular philosophical viewpoint would be treated. They don't inherently deserve better treatment than would be given normally bc the subject is religion. If their arguments are weak (as shown) then why should that not be highlighted?

Funnily enough I actually think a lot of the anti religious arguments made here have been very weak, in fact they are mostly childish, highly prejudiced, and show little amounts of rigour. It is questionable whether those that write arguments like this are even worth debating with [not generally but on this topic]. If your understanding of religion is basic and mostly comprises mostly of extremists, it's unsurprising that you think religion is a bad thing, but it says a lot about your limited understanding and experiences.

Most of CrispyBits argument is inconsistent and badly thought through, I'm not sure why this isn't apparent to him though it might be due to his already admitted bigotry against religion.

1) Everything bad associated religion is caused by it, and everything good associated with religion would have apparently happened anyway. This is wilfully inconsistent.
2) Religion is held to a higher standard than humanity in general by expecting it's worse crimes to somehow be balanced out.
3) Religion seems to be held as the cause of atrocities, then later said not to be the cause of atrocities only the excuse.

If you don't believe in God, how you can see religion as anything but human culture that comprises a wide range of both things you agree with and disagree is beyond me. There is a large difference between not thinking religion should having a special status, and deciding that religion is inherently bad.

For another example of a poor argument:

For examples look at the life saving attempts of many medical missionaries in current and past times. Often these are the result of the faith of individuals sacrificing comfortable living in the west to live in the third world. Sometimes similar actions are carried out by people having no such beliefs but that doesn't decry the actions of those whose motivation has a background of faith.

The difference being that religious individuals carrying out this sort of work do so in the hope of eternal life and togetherness with the lord rather than for purely altruistic reasons.

The idea that religious people would only do good to save their souls is a rather mean spirited catch-22. It seems to follow that anything bad done by a religious person shows that religious people are bad, but that anything good done by a religious person must show that they are just selfish. Not only that but it singles out religious people claiming their altruism is not true altruism. Quite a strange claim and I would have thought anyone sophisticated enough to construct such an argument would realise that it's possible to say most acts of altruism are undertaken really for the benefit of the individual doing them in some way, and that the idea of a true altruistic act is philosophically complicated in itself.

I'm not going to really bother too much with this thread, but I'd suggest that people use their open minds to go and ask some serious religious people about their thoughts on issues, and think more thoroughly about the influences of religion on culture throughout history, rather than attack their own childish cartoon understanding of religion.

[DrBunker]

Most of CrispyBits argument is inconsistent and badly thought through, I'm not sure why this isn't apparent to him though it might be due to his already admitted bigotry against religion.

That's a really devious trick you've tried to pull there CK. You've snipped out the bit where he admitted to being bigoted about religion without including ANY of the context about what he meant. Then you extravagantly announce that this discussion is below and pretend you're done with it.

Maybe you should stick around and try a little harder to explain to us why all your arguments are game changers and all the responses are "inconsistent and badly thought through"?

[Carlos Kickaball]

There is nothing underhand, the whole of the last 2 pages of the thread are open for people to read, so like you I suggest they do for context rather than take my word for it.

Maybe you should stick around and try a little harder to explain to us why all your arguments are game changers and all the responses are "inconsistent and badly thought through"?

I've already done so previously in the thread. I've also explained why his arguments are inconsistent, and directly addressed some of yours.

[DrBunker]

There is nothing underhand, the whole of the last 2 pages of the thread are open for people to read, so like you I suggest they do for context.

This thread is a lot longer than two pages. If you think that this is a fair summary of the rest of it then I question whether you have actually read any more than the 2 pages you reference: "If your understanding of religion is basic and mostly comprises mostly of extremists, it's unsurprising that you think religion is a bad thing, but it says a lot about your limited understanding and experiences."

[Carlos Kickaball]

Nope I haven't read all the thread unsurprisingly, but the last two pages have enough objectionable things in their own right and that is what I am talking about.

Devious trick you pull there, assume that I can't criticise anything said explicitly in the last 2 pages without reading the whole thread.

[DrBunker]

Redefining the argument to fit your own parameters again?

[Carlos Kickaball]

No you are...

Don't be daft, you've failed to address what's been put to you on numerous occasions, and people have directly addressed your points and answered you questions. You now are just not making any points about religion at all.

For examples look at the life saving attempts of many medical missionaries in current and past times. Often these are the result of the faith of individuals sacrificing comfortable living in the west to live in the third world. Sometimes similar actions are carried out by people having no such beliefs but that doesn't decry the actions of those whose motivation has a background of faith.

The difference being that religious individuals carrying out this sort of work do so in the hope of eternal life and togetherness with the lord rather than for purely altruistic reasons.

The idea that religious people would only do good to save their souls is a rather mean spirited catch-22. It seems to follow that anything bad done by a religious person shows that religious people are bad, but that anything good done by a religious person must show that they are just selfish. Not only that but it singles out religious people claiming their altruism is not true altruism. Quite a strange claim and I would have thought anyone sophisticated enough to construct such an argument would realise that it's possible to say most acts of altruism are undertaken really for the benefit of the individual doing them in some way, and that the idea of a true altruistic act is philosophically complicated in itself.

Consider this, if you were trying to explain to someone what you enjoyed about football, why you liked it, the rules, how it's played etc.... and all they wanted to do was ask you if you could justify fan violence and bang on about football tragedies and how football is racist and homophobic, would you bother?

[crispybits]

1) Everything bad associated religion is caused by it, and everything good associated with religion would have apparently happened anyway. This is wilfully inconsistent.
2) Religion is held to a higher standard than humanity in general by expecting it's worse crimes to somehow be balanced out.
3) Religion seems to be held as the cause of atrocities, then later said not to be the cause of atrocities only the excuse.

If you don't believe in God, how you can see religion as anything but human culture that comprises a wide range of both things you agree with and disagree is beyond me. There is a large difference between not thinking religion should having a special status, and deciding that religion is inherently bad.

You're not either reading or understanding my point or you're deliberately strawmanning it.

All ideologies should take blame and praise for all things done because that ideology commands/condones it, good and bad. As a society we should critically examine both the good and the bad of every ideology to see if it's something worth having in society. If the benefits outweigh the costs, then we want it (but efforts should be made still to see if it can be made better). If it harms more than it helps, it should be either modified or discarded.

This is true of every ideology, including religious ideologies. Christianity, altruism, Buddhism, totalitarianism, fascism, racism, pacifism, communism, socialism, nationalism, Islam, etc etc etc. None of these should have a "special place" that means we only ever look at the good and not the bad.

The way we do this is by looking at the evidence about the things that are done because the ideology either commands or condones it. Evidence of good and evidence of harm.

How is this stance inconsistent or weak?

I'm more than willing to give religion praise for the good things it does. I'm happy to give it credit for the charitable missions that feed the poor. Hell I'll even change my mind and grant that religious art, philosophy and architecture can be stuck on it's positive side. But these pale into insignificance to the horrible suffering, death and destruction it causes throughout history and into the present day. Overall, on the balance of evidence, I believe religion is bad for society. I can come up with example after example of religious belief causing harm to the believers and those around them, this isn't something I'm pulling out of my jacksy. I'm waiting for the evidence that I'm wrong. So far all I've had in return is charitable missions (that often are religious conversion exercises to boot), the general altruism of believers because of their faith and the undefined happiness believers feel because of religion. Against that I put hundreds of deaths every day, I put the suffering of thousandsof people every day, and I do all this with evidence. Where is the EVIDENCE that religion is doing more good than harm?

(Oh and to the football point to DrB, I've already explained why football does not command or condone violence or corruption, now you are just arguing dishonestly...)

[Carlos Kickaball]

I get it, I accept that you think the bad done in the name of religion or related to religion and religious ideology outweighs the good. I am glad you now accept the positive influences on our culture that have come about through religion, because that takes out a lot of the inconsistency that was there before and gives a much more rounded appraisal. What I would say and have said before, is that to ask that religion would be associated with good acts that can outweigh the bad ones is somewhat of an unfair test, as I don't think generally humanity can claim this, or even football.

Most religions, like football, and like society generally, don't explicitly encourage violence. Just look back recently and you'll see how many religious leaders were against the Iraq war, and indeed many wars.

I don't think religion is some wonderful thing, better than other human culture and thought, it's just part of it.

I'm not sure if you saw this before you posted, but it is worth considering this...

Consider this, if you were trying to explain to someone what you enjoyed about football, why you liked it, the rules, how it's played etc.... and all they wanted to do was ask you if you could justify fan violence and bang on about football tragedies and how football is racist and homophobic, would you bother?

[DrBunker]

No you are...

Don't be daft, you've failed to address what's been put to you on numerous occasions, and people have directly addressed your points and answered you questions. You now are just not making any points about religion at all.

You've said you haven't read past the last two pages yet you believe you're in a position to tell me I've not met your arbitrary definition of what constitutes a worthwhile answer. Who is really being daft here..?

[crispybits]

Like I said if you're bring up football after the point I made earlier about it, without addressing somehow why that point was wrong, then you're just arguing dishonestly.

But again, a lot of your points are harms done that happen to be done by people involved with football. Football isn't an ideology it's a sport, and it doesn't say "you should injure opposition fans" or "you should accept bribes for World Cup host votes" or whatever. Yes shitty stuff happens in football, but it's not because football demands that it happens. <snip>. Now violent club tribalism, that causes hooliganism and I speak out against that when it's the topic. I speak out against corruption in FIFA. I call tragedies like Bradford, Hillsborough and Heysel tragedies and don't try and excuse them because "well, it's football".

This is why I'm frustrated. Every time I turn around people are just making the same BS arguments. You deal with one, you openly offer the reasoning behind your viewpoint, and more often than not it gets ignored instead of addressed so the other person can go off on some other tangent (or even three in one post, Iraq, paedophilia, 9/11). If you think what I said about football here is wrong, then tell me why it's wrong. Don't just ignore it then bring up the exact same BS comment 10 posts later...

And after that - you say this to DrB?

Don't be daft, you've failed to address what's been put to you on numerous occasions, and people have directly addressed your points and answered you questions.

Excuse me?

[Carlos Kickaball]

You seem to expect a level of argument and respect that you do not give yourself. Framing the argument, calling someone daft, not addressing points already made are not things that exclusively lie with me. Are you suggesting that your conduct in this thread has always been polite CrispyBits [including the now removed bits]?

But even if football is a sport and not an ideology, why should religion be held to a higher standard than humanity in general?

I still think this is important.

Consider this, if you were trying to explain to someone what you enjoyed about football, why you liked it, the rules, how it's played etc.... and all they wanted to do was ask you if you could justify fan violence and bang on about football tragedies and how football is racist and homophobic, would you bother?

[crispybits]

Framing the argument? I presented real world evidence, and I asked those that disagree with me to do the same. The inability of those who disagree with me to offer such evidence is not me framing the argument.

Calling someone daft? Quote me doing that - go on, I dare you. One quote of me calling someone daft from the last two pages.

Not addressing points? I addressed your football point. Once again in this post you say you disagree, but there's no counter-argument. Just saying "you're wrong" isn't an argument.

There are plenty of ideologies that are net beneficial even with human nature. My response to that was asking if lynchings continued without race bias in the southern US as racism became less acceptable. What was your repsonse to that? Oh yeah you ignored it. My response to that was things like altruism, things that we can show evidence are net beneficial.

If you still think that is important then tell me why my response to it is incorrect with more than just "you're wrong"

[Carlos Kickaball]

I've not just said you are wrong in my last post. Dr Bunker inferred I was being daft, and you've had a post deleted in this thread even since I've started reading it.