Government Hypocrisy

[Hartley]

>>I was thinking of starting the church of gambling<<

Father Buckeye?

[reno]

I'll tell you how bad the Catholic Church is. The worst long-term problem in the world is over-population, and the Catholic Church's stand against birth control is utter insanity and has dire future consequences for the entire planet. And why is the Catholic Church against birth control? Because they want more Catholics.

And why do these Church's "help" the poor?
Their ulterior motive is to gain more converts to their religion, more sheep for the flock.

If you want to see the negative effects of Catholicism, go to the Philippines, where everyone goes to Catholic school. The people there, as a whole, are utterly brainwashed and almost seem lobotomized. I had relationships with some Philippine women, and they were all in dire need of heavy de-programming. It was almost as if they had lost the capacity for free and deep thinking.

I may have gone off on a bit of a tangent, but in my opinion it was still within the context of the post. Furthermore, everything is interrelated. Most Christian churches do not believe in a live and let live philosophy. They have a moral agenda that they seek to impose upon society. And included in that agenda is a strong anti-gambling stance. The U.S. Government's stance against sportsbetting can, in part, be attributed to America's Puritan-Christian heritage. Vote Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell into the Oval Office and you can bet that the Government crackdown on sportsbetting would intensify.

[AussieVamp2]

go reno

Cons, you sure about that Germany weirdness? Atheism being a tax advantage is pretty cool

[AussieVamp2]

the odd religion has started the odd war or two thousand here and there, too

[Hartley]

I agree to some extent Reno. It's funny how religious groups can be so anti-gambling but have no problem running bingo or monte-carlo nights. It's almost as if they're saying "gambling is wrong... unless it profits us."

BTW you wrote

>>I had relationships with some Philippine women, and they were all in dire need of heavy de-programming<<

Thanks for the great excuse to any man who is caught cheating by their wife
- "it's not as it looks dear, I'm just de-programming her." I wonder if it would work?

[Shawn]

Yes, AV2, Cons is right about the German laws. In a somewhat public story last year (all her taxation issues are big news) Steffi Graf renounced her ties to the Catholic Church to avoid having 10% of her annual income automatically transferred to Rome.

As to religion, I'm a diehard atheist but in the early 90s I belonged to the Church of the Suffering Patriots. Three hour services every autumn Sunday where we repented allowing Victor Kiam to lead our flock. Alas, we had no Monday Night services until Kiam was excommunicated. Occasionally I lapse and return to watching services. Sunday's crusade was a very satisfying mission to Tempe Arizona for instance.

[Cons]

Hey let's insult everyone... Catholic church being against birth control just to so there's more Catholics, Muslims being so religious they think planting bombs is their ticket to the Great One, Jews turning the holocaust into a money-making machine, Puritans being so...

Anyone else we can add? Just don't send my address to the Libyans...

No seriously Reno, some of those arguments are pretty dire. Have you ever thought that the Phillipine thing isn't entirely caused by religion? It's like saying they're in dire need of "reprogramming" because they... drink coca-cola. Well, so do many other people around the world and yet they are normal.

Hope you had a good time "reprogramming" them though!

[reno]

Cons, we're all products of our genetic heritage, culture, and environment. The Philippinos were docile Islanders who the Spaniards were easily able to subjugate, and brainwash with Catholic dogma.

We could bash every religion, but the bottom line is that any belief system that is contrary to science, logic, reason, and free thinking diminishes Man's capacity to exercise real intelligence and take appropriate action.

[Hartley]

>>but the bottom line is that any belief system that is contrary to science, logic, reason, and free thinking diminishes Man's capacity to exercise real intelligence and take appropriate action. <<

Tell me about it. I actually bet on Green Bay to beat Seattle by more than 4 points in the second half despite how badly they played in the first half. Must have been the damn religion that made me make that bet .

[Hartley]

Actually Reno let me play the devil's advocate a little here. I believe that a lot of the good people do in this world is caused by a belief in God and the afterlife. If you took away that general belief from the majority, I think you would have chaos.

You can probably argue that the only thing stopping someone from robbing his neighbor is a fear of being arrested but I like to think it's more a matter of morals, which in turn is caused by fear of God. While there are quite a few atheists in this world I think more are agnostics - i.e. those who don't think they believe in God but don't steal, rape, murder etc. just in case they're wrong.

But to the majority they do believe in God or some form of religion and this in turn causes them to behave morally.

If someone came out and proved that God doesn't exist and there is no reason to fear the afterlife I think you would see a lot more Hitlers, "trenchcoat mafia" and Nunzios in this world who would do whatever the hell they wanted as long as it benefited them.

My opinion anyway.

[Cons]

I fully agree that we are all products of our genetic heritage, culture, and environment. That is as precise as it comes. Unfortunately, although the two of us agree with this, there are those that scream murder when confronted with a similar view.

There was an extensive study done in Australia on Aborigines. The outcome was that genetically, they were a weak race. If they were part of interracial marriages, then by like the third generation the kid would have hardly any of the Aboriginal genes left. The genes were so weak they would simply lose out to genes of other races. There were other conclusions done, but they're too long to write about. Still, this caused an uproar there, and it was quite silly because it was basically people not agreeing with science and siding with just plain feelings of "you shouldn't say that," "it can't be so," or "only a racist would say that." Hard to believe some people won't accept this even though it's scientific proof. They think chanting slogans will make things different.

It's good we can agree on this one.

[Hartley]

You got to love Bettorsworld huh? A post about an article regarding government's hypocricy over gambling turns into arguments about religion, brothels and genetics .

[STING]

OH MY GOD!!! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY THREAD????
;(

[reno]

Cons, you are getting into a subject that, as Jimmy the Greek found out, is taboo. And maybe that is for the better. Think of the potential social chaos if scientific studies detailing and rating the various innate capacities and limitations of the different races in different areas of life were published and widely circulated. Thomas Jefferson stated that all men [or races] are created equal. But, obviously, as your example points out, that statement is debatable.

Hartley, even Buddhists, many of whom don't believe in a God, still believe in Karma, the law of cause and effect. They point out that Karma, although seemingly a metaphysical principle, is identical to the physics law which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Christianity teaches the same thing,that as a man sows, so he will reap. Hinduism is also rooted in the principle of Karma. So, the idea that one's actions will come back to one is a universal religious principle that, whether true or false, does serve to help maintain social order by motivating people to do the "right" thing. However, the problem, as earlier stated, is that some misguided Christian religions think they are doing the right thing by imposing their own ideas of morality upon society.