Name one benefit religion brings that cannot be achieved by secular means.
That's like asking to name one benefit homosexuality brings that cannot be achieved by heterosexual means.
no. sexuality is just a preference, it supports nor supplies any ideas. Believing in a religion requires you to believe things, its not just a taste or preference. Every religion requires you to accept or deny certain factual claims about reality. beliefs =! preference. I already outlined the hazards of religion, how it has indisputably been used to destroy and restrict scientific research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference
Preferences ARE choices you make concerning ideas and beliefs. If you want to start getting into semantics, let me know so I can stop debating you, because I'm not into that shit.
Okay i meant preference as in a taste. Like I like the taste of chocolate, I don't have to think of any concepts, have any belief or claim, if chocolate goes in my mouth I like the taste, much like I'm sure some people enjoy the taste of cock.
My point is its possible to be have a preference/taste for homosexuality, and not even be aware the concept exist. Religion is a set of ideas, in order for you to believe in a religion you have to be aware of the concepts otherwise you don't have them to believe in.
Fatcat is confusing atheism with agnosticism. Having no good reason to believe in God is not the same thing as believing that there is no God, although the first belief may be a step toward the second belief.
No I'm not. People keep making claims about my beliefs and I keep correcting them.
I've made the point several times that Atheism does not mean believing there is no god.
Atheism means lack of theist beliefs. It does not mean disbelieving theist beliefs. There is a marked difference between not believing something is true and believing it is not true.
Agnosticism refers to forms of knowledge. If we go by the strictest sense of knowledge, I am an Agnostic Atheist. I cannot possibly claim to know for sure there are no supernatural entities as I would have to have total knowledge of everything to say for sure, but I do not believe the claims of any supernatural entities have sufficient evidence for me to believe.
Now, if we are talking in a more practical, day to day form of knowledge, then I actively believe there is no god, based on a few things. Obviously its impossible for me to have the necessary knowledge to fully support this belief, so if we cut down to the wire I will accept I do not know, but I believe no super natural beings exist, just like I believe no leprechauns exist, even though there may be one on some distant planet somewhere. I have made this distinction between Atheism and Agnosticism several times during this thread, and have made my position on what I class my beliefs several times as well. If you disagree with my definitions then fair enough, but it does not change the ones I will use.
You're making far too many blanket statements to be correct. Judaism recognizes that there are other religions out there and that just because other people are not Jewish doesn't mean they're evil or "sinners" or any stupid crap like that. Although it seems that you in your atheist religion believe that about Jews. Strange how the atheist is more dogmatic and religious about his beliefs than several of the religious people here.
See this is my main point I tried to make. I never claimed that all religions say all other religions are wrong. I am fully aware there are many sects of traditional and modern organised/non organised religions that are accepting of other beliefs.
My point is of one of objective reality, how we measure reality. If one person says there is only one god and nothing else, and you say that his god exists but others do, you are contradicting each other and cannot be both simultaneously right.
Any claims that things can be contradictory and true at the same time, then they aren't contradictory, merely conflicting. Heres the difference:
It is possible for some supernatural entity to exist in one form and several others. Now even though attributes of the form may conflict with each other, if all those entities can exist at the same time without making it impossible for others to exist, then there is no contradiction.
My hand cannot be 100 celcius and 0 celcius at the same time, from the fact that each state makes the other state impossible to exist, this is contradiction, and impossible to occur in reality except in abstract concept. This is what I mean by
contradiction.
If you think that there is more than one god/forms of supernatural entities, then that is your belief, but it is not possible for that belief, and the belief that there is only one god and no others to be true at the same time. You can accept that their god may be real, but if part of their religion means part of yours would not be true, then you cannot accept both religions to be true.
You're making far too many blanket statements to be correct. Judaism recognizes that there are other religions out there and that just because other people are not Jewish doesn't mean they're evil or "sinners" or any stupid crap like that.
Show me where I made this point and I will retract it. I made no claims whether religions dislike or denounce other religions, I have merely claimed that contradictory beliefs about reality cannot be simultaneously true, or they are then not contradictory, by very definition.