Cyprus-Forum.com

[miltiades]

Religion is a virus.
People are mentally raped and indoctrinated from an early age in believing this total mythology of a super creator.
Mary had a baby boy, they are told, but not through the ONLY method that a woman can become pregnant. God apparently , according to this medieval nonsense made her ....pregnant!! How on earh anyone with the minutest amount of logic can believe these utter bullshit written by none other than dark ages man!!
It took Moses 40 years to write the first five books of the OT.Another 700 plus years to complete the bible, each mentally disturbed
medieval man adding his own nonsense.
Modern man has been thouroughly inflected by this virus which mutates and spreads. Not pne iota of common logic, ots all mythological crap. Imagine, the almighty couldn't influence just one man, Pharoe to change his mind and let ....His people so he chooses ghastly things , horrid things such as dispatching his bloody angels down to earth to ....kill the first born Egyptian child !
What a load of bolloucs!!

[Get Real!]

"God is considered infinite" by the religious people. This is a circular reasoning i.e. to believe that "God is infinite" you FIRST have to already believe in God.

I’ve already mentioned in the past that for an entity to be considered a GOD (scientists also recognize this) it would need to satisfy some basic criteria, including…

* Eternality - Existed forever.
* Omnipresence - Present in all places at all times.
* Omniscience - Possessing infinite knowledge.
* Omnipotence – Having unlimited power.
* Omni-benevolence – Having perfect goodness.

So it’s pointless in asking if God was “made”… as it would fail the basic criteria.

First of all Scientists have nothing to do with any of that. Also, many religions have Gods which are only some or even none of those things. When you create a myth with Gods you can assign whatever powers you want to your Gods. So what you are telling me here is that your religion has created a myth about a single God, and assigned all possible powers to him. OK. So what? It is one thing to create myths about an entity with vast powers, and quite another thing to prove that those claims aren't just a myth. In the end of the day your arguments boils down to "There is a God who is infinite because my religion says so"

The concept of what constitutes a GOD is one of the few things that everyone agrees with... an entity would need to demonstrate the special properties I listed earlier.

You are essentially saying that you haven’t witnessed those properties yet in an entity, and I’m saying that I already have!

[Paphitis]

No of course I do not think it is better to live in the past.

What I am saying is that I tend to like the values of previous generations, like our parents and the generation before them. Some good old fashioned conservatism, respect for other people, kindness, and a good dose of humility. These things seem to be vanishing from current generations. I am not sure.

One of the reasons why I chose private schools, owned by the Church, is because I have concerns over the Government Funded education system and their curricula. I know that things like the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox Churches will not be socially engineering my children into weird notions of sexualisation, gender questioning, boys can wear skirts or use female toilets and vice versa. Yes this kind of stuff is happening all over the western world.

Now I got no problem with how children identify if that is the case, and I hope that these children always get the support they need, so they don't suicide or something, but sowing the seeds into young and fragile minds at an extremely young age is something I struggle with. Kids should just be kids. We are robbing them of their innocence too.

But if you agree that this era is better than the past ones then how "conservatism" is a good thing? And "respect for other people, kindness, and a good dose of humility" aren't any worst now than they used to be when you are comparing similar situations. Actually what you accuse the western world about "weird notions of sexualisation" is exactly all about kindness and respect to other people. Maybe the current approach isn't the best one, but what is needed is further progress, not conservatism. For example the current approach with genders is to create an ever expanding list of genders... my view is that the concept of recording the gender should just be eliminated all together, and record only the "sex" of each individual at the time of birth and this info should be requested only when it is relevant (e.g. for medical purposes). The toilets issue is even easier to solve: Just stop making those stupid public toilets where the door doesn't reach the floor! Make individual, totally private toilets that anybody can use.

There are many things about today that I do not believe are "better". But that is such a highly subjective thing.

The era is better yes. We have better technology. Our quality of life is better. Our healthcare is better. We have Netflix and we can go on and on.

But also, the family unit is breaking down. Broken homes are at a record high. We have higher crime and a lot of drug and alcohol abuse, depression and also a lot of suicide. So something is clearly going wrong too. Mental health is the big elephant in the room.

The Church is under attack in the Western World by the secularists. They want to destroy these institutions.

You may be more liberal than me, but I am not ready for such a radical change. As a result, I am quite supportive of these Christian Religions now, even though I am Atheistic.

I want them to exist and keep educating our young people.

[Londonrake]

I watched a documentary a few years ago: infinity. I thought it was pretty absorbing.

A fascinating concept. Although, essentially impossible for a person to fully grasp of course.

Imagine, in an infinite universe, anything that’s possible won’t just happen, it will happen an infinite number of times.

That would mean right now there are an infinite No of GRs arguing about religion with an infinite No of Koalas.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x65uv69

With an estimated 11 trillion galaxies out there, (although, that’s piffling if infinity exists of course) for me, it does tend to put the likes of not eating pork in perspective.

[Sotos]

"God is considered infinite" by the religious people. This is a circular reasoning i.e. to believe that "God is infinite" you FIRST have to already believe in God.

I’ve already mentioned in the past that for an entity to be considered a GOD (scientists also recognize this) it would need to satisfy some basic criteria, including…

* Eternality - Existed forever.
* Omnipresence - Present in all places at all times.
* Omniscience - Possessing infinite knowledge.
* Omnipotence – Having unlimited power.
* Omni-benevolence – Having perfect goodness.

So it’s pointless in asking if God was “made”… as it would fail the basic criteria.

First of all Scientists have nothing to do with any of that. Also, many religions have Gods which are only some or even none of those things. When you create a myth with Gods you can assign whatever powers you want to your Gods. So what you are telling me here is that your religion has created a myth about a single God, and assigned all possible powers to him. OK. So what? It is one thing to create myths about an entity with vast powers, and quite another thing to prove that those claims aren't just a myth. In the end of the day your arguments boils down to "There is a God who is infinite because my religion says so"

The concept of what constitutes a GOD is one of the few things that everyone agrees with... an entity would need to demonstrate the special properties I listed earlier.

You are essentially saying that you haven’t witnessed those properties yet in an entity, and I’m saying that I already have!

Other religions define Gods differently but that doesn't matter anyway. No, I haven't witnessed those properties in any entity because nobody did. What you can claim is that you imagined a God with those properties and accepted without any proof that what you imagined is true. If you hear a story about unicorns you can imagine unicorns and you can convince yourself that unicorns exist. But that is not the same as witnessing unicorns.

[Sotos]

But also, the family unit is breaking down. Broken homes are at a record high. We have higher crime and a lot of drug and alcohol abuse, depression and also a lot of suicide. So something is clearly going wrong too. Mental health is the big elephant in the room.

Sure, divorces are a lot more today than in the past. In the past lots of marriages were arranged and divorce had a social stigma. Is maintaining an unhappy marriage better than getting a divorce? Mental health issues were also under-reported in the past which is why there is a difference in the statistics. Yes, urbanization and globalization do have their negative aspects as well (e.g. easier to traffic drugs around the world), but the Church does not make any of that any better. Religious people aren't committing any less crimes than non-religious ones.

[Paphitis]

But also, the family unit is breaking down. Broken homes are at a record high. We have higher crime and a lot of drug and alcohol abuse, depression and also a lot of suicide. So something is clearly going wrong too. Mental health is the big elephant in the room.

Sure, divorces are a lot more today than in the past. In the past lots of marriages were arranged and divorce had a social stigma. Is maintaining an unhappy marriage better than getting a divorce? Mental health issues were also under-reported in the past which is why there is a difference in the statistics. Yes, urbanization and globalization do have their negative aspects as well (e.g. easier to traffic drugs around the world), but the Church does not make any of that any better. Religious people aren't committing any less crimes than non-religious ones.

Sotos,

marriage doesn't mean as much to a lot of people as it use to. Of course I do not believe people should stay in marriages if they are unhappy. But marriage has become a fashion accessory and people are committing a lot more adultery or having affairs.

And not just that, but marriages are breaking up for all kinds of things and opting for the easy way out as soon as it gets a bit rough, rather than rolling up their sleeves and working on their relationships with their partners. It takes work to be happy too.

Maybe mental health issues were under repoprted, but the daily grind and pressure to have everything and right now, has got many people into a very dark place. We are in the information age and there are too many financial pressures and pressures on our time. People don't have time for relationships anymore.

It might be ok for you in Limassol, but you try living in places New York, Hong Kong or Sydney. Your life is lived at a million miles an hour!

I do believe that the Church can and it does act as a good Physician to someone's mental space during their time of need. It's the closest thing to sitting on a shrinks couch. Some people say it is more effective too.

[Sotos]

Yes, marriage doesn't mean as much to a lot of people as it use to but the Church doesn't change this one way or another. Religious people will get married in a Church and are told that their marriage is a contract with the God that shouldn't be broken (or something along those lines) but they will still divorce anyway. But I agree with your last statement which is along the lines of what I said earlier about some people having a need for religion.

[Paphitis]

Yes, marriage doesn't mean as much to a lot of people as it use to but the Church doesn't change this one way or another. Religious people will get married in a Church and are told that their marriage is a contract with the God that shouldn't be broken (or something along those lines) but they will still divorce anyway. But I agree with your last statement which is along the lines of what I said earlier about some people having a need for religion.

Yeh it does. The Church changes a lot of things. I don't know if you're a Dad or not, but I actually think the Church is important, very important. I will explain why.

Firstly, I have been exposed to religion all my life. I went through the Catholic Private Education system for both Primary and Secondary school and early on I was exposed to it in quite a big way. I was even taught by Nuns in primary School back in the day, and ol boy they were pretty tough and strict.

It resulted in me actually valuing the Private Education Sector because of the things I was taught growing up in that system.

So now that I am a Dad. I decided to give my children the same as I got. They will be going to private schools that are religiously based - the denomination I exposed them too Orthodoxy, but they will then be going to an Anglican one after that.

Why do I think the Church is important? Well, I want my children to grow up with the Orthodox kids, and have Orthodox friends, and get married to an Orthodox Christian one day. I will go into a meltdown if they bought someone else into the house. My head would explode. I want them to hang out with good proper Christian kids and to be raised in that doctrine so that they can stay off the streets, stay away from drugs and any other vices that could take them down the wrong road.

Also, by growing up in such an environment, they will learn good proper virtues and when they are older they will value and work hard on their relationships with others and their marriage. A religious person is a lot less likely to throw their marriage in the bin than a secular person is.

That is my thinking. Of course it doesn't always work out so, but generally speaking, the statistics favor the believers.

[Sotos]

Statistics don't show that religious people divorce any less than non-religious, unless you are talking about ultra conservative ones, who are the ones who would stay unhappily together rather than divorce, which is even worst than a divorce.

In Cyprus the public schools are mainly Christian Orthodox children, religion is taught in all 12 years, the Church basically assigns the education minister etc. And guess what. There are drugs in our schools, gratify all over the place and lots of things that aren't "proper". Christian education has absolutely nothing to do with kids staying off the streets, drugs and other vices. I too send my children to a private school and one of my reasons is the opposite of yours: A school where there is no religious brainwashing and which is not controlled by the Church. There are kids from all over the world there, and they are just fine. What is common in all private schools, religious and non-religious, is that you have to pay and therefore the lower classes are excluded and also that they have more money than public schools to improve the education, facilities, security etc.