Keisuke-kun wrote:Well in this case I don't hate the players. Christians are nice most of the time until they start talking about their religion. In my opinion all religions should be banned but I know that will just create havoc before it creates good. But eventually things will be better.
Banning religions is a bit extreme... There are theories that human beings are innately hot-wired to be spiritual or religious creatures. And I suppose the facts that we're (A) self-aware, (B) mortal, and (C) frightened little animals when it comes down to it helps to explain why many people need to believe in some kind of higher force, for their own sense of personal security in a big, scary world. There, of course, is much more to it than that, and you have all of us non-religious heathens to account for... But I think, in the grand scheme of things, we're like a 10% minority, with the other 90% of the population believing in SOMEthing.
Also, believe it or not, there really are those who are genuinely better people because of their religion. Religion can inspire people to both wonderfully beneficit and horrifically destructive ends, and in that sense it's just like anything else with us humans (we are as capable of great evil as we are of great good). On the other hand, I'm personally of the philosophy that sound moral convictions and belief in (a) supreme being(s) need not go hand in hand; you can be a good person without believing that there is a god telling you to do so "or else".
WE MUST THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Speaking of which... It always does piss me off to see children who are essentially brainwashed into following the faith of one or both parents. I prefer the scenario where an adult discovers a religion of his or her own accord and deliberately chooses to follow it. In my perfect world, parents would raise their children in strong moral grounding without coercing them into following this god or that, as that would be the child's choice to make at the appropriate time.
But, then, this is coming from someone who was raised by heathenistic parents who gave my siblings and I the freedom to follow our parents' footsteps only if we desired. We didn't have to be vegetarians, but we all decided to carry on our parents' lifestyle. With regards to religion, my brother and I both decided that we wanted nothing to do with it, whereas my sister discovered one of those earth-based pagan faiths that so many "barbarians" were persecuted for in centuries past. (But, hey, Christians were themselves persecuted by pagans at one point, so it's just a matter of "what goes around comes around", right?
)
Ultimately, I am open to the possibility that there is something out there that people have been worshipping as this god or the other, but my general feeling about divine beings is that, "If no one is around to worship you, do you really exist?"
Originally posted on: 11-Sep-2004, 12:47 GMT