Being a good person has nothing to do with belief in god. It should not take religious belief to know that it is not rig
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Machine Gun Preacher
yarik83 — 13 years ago(August 21, 2012 06:16 PM)
Being a good person has nothing to do with belief in god. It should not take religious belief to know that it is not right to kill another human being for fun and yet it you are a christian you are more likely to acknowledge your understanding that the only reason why you do not kill for fun is because you embraced Jesus. That is just plain wrong on so many levels.
Ex cons, ex junkies, ex adulteres, ex losers have turned life around because they wised up and figured that they could do better. If some of them chose to embrace religion is because it gave them structure. It is difficult to blend into society when you raped 20 young girls in your life time but if you compliment that sentence with "I found god and now help victims of rape and their families" that brushes off initial stigma off your record. Going to church also allows such people to find some sort of comradery. When was the last time you hung out with a heroin drug addict casually? Ohh that's right never. But if same person quit and started going to church you would be almost obligated to provide emotional support to him.
Atheism are not fighting any battles. In fact its religious people who are fighting to retain control over politics, finances, economy, power and control of population. Atheists are not trying to liberate themselves from anything. Less and less people go to church and with every generation more and more people refuse to go to church.
You are right to point out that religion is not going anywhere but you should also keep in mind that only reason why religion is staying is because religious families pass on religion to their children who pass it to their children and their grand children and their grand grand children.
As a side note christian pilgrimage to africa is done specifically to endoctrinate locals into embracing christianity. Show me a christian group that is doing charitable work there without preaching Jesus and I will show you a pig that flies. If christian groups were denied privilege of teaching christianity in africa, I doubt that you would see any christian groups going there at all.
And by that account what does that make them? This is a paradox is not it?! -
shagiferabi — 13 years ago(September 11, 2012 10:51 PM)
MACHINE GUN PREACHER is more of a "hero-myth" story based on an actual historical figure, not necessarily a Christian propaganda film. I recommend that you check out some of Joseph Campbell's work on the journey of the hero. Campbell had a fascinating understanding of how imperative the "hero-myth" has been to cultures and civilizations throughout history. But he never claimed that an extremely specific form of theism automatically trumps atheism.
Atheism means that a person does not believe in a deity that intervenes in human affairs, answer prayers, etc. Atheism is not a position of morality. You can be an atheist and be moral. You can be an atheist and be immoral. You can be an atheist and wish for the existence of an all-loving deity. Also, you can be an atheist and be an anti-theist.
However, theism must be a position of morality because the claims are that morals come from the main source: the theistic deities. Theism is constructed by ideas that come from living organisms (imperfectly evolved primates). Like living organisms, these ideas must survive by either dominating aggressively, or adapting to the surroundings. This is evident in the numerous denominations of Christianity; each specializing in making man-made decisions on how to preserve and evolve the ideology.
This is why Christianity, for example, cannot be the universal redemptive religion. It does not have a monopoly on truth. It does not have a monopoly on morality. There are some virtuous principles that can be extracted from all religions and cultures, but it's due to people injecting morality into theism. Theism, by default, does not give people morality; it is a feedback loop. -
jon_s_chan — 13 years ago(October 01, 2012 02:41 AM)
I am an atheist, but I think you make a good point. But do not diminish the quality of your argument by restricting your example to Christianity. Its called religion, and there are many religions in the world (far older and newer that Christianity) people turn to for hope.
People in pain accept religion to relieve themselves of it. This is how all these religions in the world came into existence in the first place. But it does not mean religious texts and preachings are the truth. If religion helps ease the pain for some, I say go for it.
The only major problem I have against people believing in religion is their belief that their religion is true word of god, but rest of the religious preachings are hogwash. -
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Jose Guilherme — 13 years ago(March 25, 2013 05:04 PM)
Very amusing that Christians thinks there is some sort of competition. One they are losing themselves. Catholics reeling from an inept boring governance that promotes pedophilia while Prosperity Theology makes Evangelicals the laughing stock. Religion is losing followers atheism is the result of how religion is becoming irrelevant not the cause.