[The Crashing Tomato]

+1 although sometimes people use a faltered interpretation of thier religion to justify doing bad

Originally Posted by Josephd14

Bad people do bad things, it has nothing to do with believing in some religion, or not.. If someone feels they can be a better person by praying and believing in something, all the power to them, if they can do it on thier own, then all the power to them too..

Originally Posted by DucDave

There is no such thing as 'Gods Work'.

only if you don't have faith there is a God. Even if your faking it and use the 'God's Work' verbage as a crutch, it can be you simply helping your fellow human get through a bad/traumatic/life threatening/incurable disease/greiving/unexplainable situation. This is another tool that can help the community of humans get along without being self/ego-centered.

? to the athiest community, what do you base your good deeds upon? How do you decide what is right or wrong in any given situation? How do you determine a consequence for doing things out of your set of parameters?

Originally Posted by richw

You confuse God's work from what humans do in his/her name. Most religious people are good and use the tenets of religion to guide them in doing good.

+1

It is specious reasoning to say because of an infinitesimal percentage of bad that religion is bad. When I pee in the Atlantic should you stop swimming in it ?

Like saying Motorcycling is bad because the public interpreted a skewed statistic on accidents involving motorcycles when it's really only 1 -2 % of bikers that die while doing stupid and irresponsible things while riding and then crashing. Meanwhile the other 98% are gear wearing normal everyday riders in legit non fatal accidents. Should we all be considered squids based on the 1-2%??????

Originally Posted by richw

Religion and an all seeing God is the best tool to control barbaric behavior

Using fear and consequence in a responsible way is great resource for child rearing. Having a reference book (the Bible) and a third party (God/ your conscience) to consult for interpretation is not such a bad thing. Unless of course you are that evolved and based on your parents teachings know the correct/right thing to do all the time. Haven't met any people capable of this, believer or non-believer.


The children will be happy knowing there is:

A heaven where someday they will see Grand Pa again

HOPE

That bad people will get there come uppance some day by a just Deity.

JUSTICE

They would gain comfort by praying or asking for help from a compassionate Deity.

TRUST

Good behavior has a benefit and reward


CONSEQUENCE

+1 and bad behavior has a consequence Ok maybe just a


FYI Only folks that take their interpretation of the Bible as absolutely literate have a problem with evolution and the age of the earth.

The Darwin guys still need to find your missing links and transitional creatures.

My personal theory is environmental stress altering gene code in similar ways. This would allow for creatures as a group to change in both predictable and group ways. This as opposed to a single creature breeding a new master species.

None of this requires the absence of a God it just threatens organize religion and their dogma

Lefties have as much Dogma as anybody


ALL PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED
usually the answer is NO

Humans hate being told NO. NO is a boundary, and boundaries are bad???
Funny thing, most Lefties and some on the fencers I know don't use NO when rearing children. They substitute with indecision, which most of the time leads to confusion and a loss of parental control. It isn't until they lose all control that they try to say NO and by then it's too late. the child has already learned that doing whatever they want is ok and there are no consequences for acting selfishly other than Mom or Dad showing how much they have lost the "parental advantage" and yelling and screaming which is easily 'tuned out'.

Thus the evolution of the democratic experiment