I have one question

[bare]

the peoples crusade WAS THE PEOPLE, the masses,the common man, average joe, the mindless sheep blindly following the popes edict and their church leaders!
i'll say this
religion is not innately "evil" in my opinion
its the people who understand how to use it to their gain are the evil, and the fools who blindly follow. because once religion enters the picture the masses, hoi poloi, their brains quit working. its like a child believing the infallibility of his parents, "well my daddy said" or "my mommy said" and no amount of reasoning with them can change their mind.
and yes sooner or later they come around and realize their parents arnt the gods they thought they were. just like society!
it was once believed that gods controlled everything. the weather the sea the rain the food, everything. because they didnt understand, couldnt comprehend the world around at the time. so they fell back on the "my daddy" belief. slowly god got pushed back, society grew up some
oh the weather is not oversaw by god
oh the food grows without god
oh the sun is not controlled by god
oh
oh
oh
slowly we've come to realize the world CAN exist without god, and just like adolescents coming to the realization that their parents arent super-humans, there is a variety of reactions. rebellions, depressions, denials, acceptance, etc, etc, etc.
its painful in some cases to let go of your parents
society is in that stage now

[porphyry6734]

Man you've got some problems. Did you find the edict? Then I'll believe the crap that comes out of your mouth.

[porphyry6734]

Furthermore Bare; the same could be said for you. You're like a child who reads Freud for the first time, thinking him and his psychoanalytic theory is infallible. It's not. He even admitted that his opinions on religion were not based on facts but his opinion. Religion for Freud was the nucleus of all nerosis. It seems reasonable to him that God is a creation of the mind to replace one's parents after they die or after it is learned they will die one day. People cannot deal with being alone in the world and thus create an eternal Father that lives in Heaven and watches down on them. Do you have any thoughts of your own? See, there's a problem with choosing beliefs that only sound good. There's a lot of beliefs that sound good but are horribly mistaken and one would be that Freudian junk you so religiously espouce. If this is true, explain away the Eucharistic miricles of the eighth century, healings at Lourdes, Stigmata, thousands upon thousands of volumes of Greek and Latin literature on philosophy of God and the Blessed Trinity over the centuries. Explain away all the history in the Torah and the New Testament and why these were doubted only a few centuries ago (1800s) when all your ideas and new brand of atheism was born. Explain how it could possibly be the most massive conspiricy ever to be conceived not by one person but thousands upon thousands of people throughout history! As I see it, you brain quit working first when you gave this idea any consideration.

[vertigo]

Bare, I enjoyed reading that. Thank you.

[bare]

man porphyry6734 have you got me pegged.......except

i have only read maybe a total of 10 pages of freuds writings, none of which talked about what you mentioned, i find freud dry, boring, conjectional, and wearisome by having to hear about how its always the damn parents fault for every damn thing. i wish i had read what you mentioned, might have made my reading worth while.

to quote someone with a slight twist
"There's a lot of beliefs that sound good but are horribly mistaken and one would be that catholic junk you so religiously espouse."

there are tons of miracles
the american indians havem
the oriental indians havem
the buddists havem
the hari krishnas havem
the taoists havem
the muslims havem
the witch doctors havem (i dont know what there religion is...sorry witch doctors, no offense)
the ancient greeks hadem
the romans hadem
the irish hadem
the hindus havem
you can go on and on with tons of people to back them up, so dont try to pull some crap outta your pants and try to feed it to me!

and why did it take so long for atheism to gain steam?!!!
because science had advanced far enough for THINKING humans to realize that god wasnt needed to run things. the world ran of its own steam and you could finally start to have this insight without getting killed for it!
people were tiring of the noose religion imposed upon them

[meatbyproducts]

It is the "god of gaps" theroy. you need something to explain what you fear or dont understand, like death, where we came from and stuff like that. Well the Greeks did not understand lightening so they had a god throwing it, easy answer. You dont want to tell your kids that granpa is dead and thats that so you say he has gone to heaven and is with god blah blah blah. I grew up in a agnostic home and watched my uneducted sister and my dimwited parents become fanatics. It sickens me to hear the crap that is spewed in the name of crist. you know where there only documenttion stating a man named Jeuse lived ? (btw thats not his name it ws a greek translation of his name) the only place he is ever listed is in a buhdist text about a visitor from a far of land, he studied there for aobut 12 years, and if you read the bible and filter out the crap that has been added over the years you can see that the messages he brought were very similare to what is taught at a Buhhdist temple. I am an atheist and is am accepted by a temple, they let me come meditate. I have gone to many churches and said not one word aobut my belifes untill they are about beat out of me, the only reason I set foot in a church teses days is for the sake of my freinds and thier belifes.

I was bord an athiest and I thought something was wronge with me becuse I could not belive like the other kids did, I jsut relized one day that I was smarter then the rest of the children and could see what is truely out there. . . math and science. (but not spelling, I am sorry for any spelling errors I was a history major not english)

[guerrillasaint]

How much time have you spent studying the bible and how much time have you spent studying Buddhism?