hi guys
i am new to this site. i was born in lebanon at the end of a 15 years non stop sectarian civil war. the war came back for a few years and then it stopped. but the main problem remained, i grew in a country where people hate each other. the politicians here are still the same for the past 30 years. they make sure the sectarian hate remain in the country so they can steal the government's money and of course they can remain in the same position. we have 19 sect in this country and i can tell you that each one of them hate all the others. oh,.. i was born in a christian family but at the age of 17 i realized that all of this is a lie. people here have no sense of humanity to the other party. a month ago a car bombing happened in a shiite ( muslim, shiia) region in the country and many people died so the people in another sunni ( muslim, sunni ) region started celebrating in the street and distributing sweets to the people !!! all this left no room for improvements in the country. the only remaining culture in the country is the war culture. religions destroyed us and our country and it can't be solved in the near future. because the surrounding country are a bit similar to us at the south borders we have israel, jerusalem to be more specific. all the religions in the middle east or maybe in the world wants this land. this is causing more stress in the region. well i'm an athiest and i realized that religions is blocking the way for evolution and killing people ! don't you think this should be stopped ?
thanks for reading, i thought i would share this with all of you
( im sry for my english maybe its weak but im working on my writting skills )
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First off, welcome to the site! Even though I'm pretty new here, too :)
Also, thanks for sharing some of your background; I like hearing-or reading- about others' experiences with religion. I like to think it gives us atheists some diversity :)
The situation over there sounds horrible! I couldn't even imagine what living there must be like! Examples like the one you provided are why I am a staunch supporter of the separation of church and state (I'm from the US).
However, I'm not anti-religion either. I think that people should have the freedom to choose whatever religion-or lack of religion-they want to follow. I even think that religion can be a positive influence in people's lives, in the right doses; for example, there are plenty of charities with religious roots, and as long as they help people I'm all for it. It's just that when things become so extreme-and interfere with politics-that's when I draw the line.
Also, for a second language, your English is pretty good; I couldn't even imagine having to type all of that in French!
Anyway, sorry my response was so long, but there were a lot of interesting topics you brought up that I wanted to address.
Good luck!
Well said I would have said almost everything the same but would not have apologized for the long response. Religion in my opinion needs to be stopped whenever it tries to influence politics or laws.
Religion wants to have a stranglehold on every that they can't control. By taking over politics and the lawmakers, religion can effectively become more powerful in any country in any part of the world.
Its been in the news and feel sorry for the loss and for what was happening through the years.
Religions should be guide of people how to be righteous, the worst thing is that some people translate it differently and become selfish.
Most atheists think that one factors of war is religion but I think this is only a small factor compared to politics, greed, want of freedom and corruption as the major causes of this seemingly never-ending war. I think if there is no religion, there will be war still.
As an atheist who kind of *does* think that religion is one of the factors of war, thanks for reminding me to see the bigger picture :) However, I think that people's greed and inhumanity allows them to use religion as an excuse to go around waging war.
Unfortunately, if what I've seen of people so far is true... we can take away every single one of their excuses, and they're still find one more new one to use to do whatever they were going to do anyway.
No matter what country or part of the planet, and soon outer space, we are in, there is always going to be someone waving that big excuse per religion flag and screaming for martyr-ism.
No offense OP, but I think the Middle East can be considered the Earth's armpit. I am so tired of reading about the hate and corruption over there all in the name of religion, greed or just intolerance. Now that I'm on the subject, this goes for any place on this planet that is like that. They are leading us all to our deaths and ruining this planet for future generations to come. Let people live and prosper, if you don't like them or what they stand for, either speak up with a solution or go about your business.
You are lucky that you are still alive and in good health.
So, as New Jersey is to America, the Middle East is to the world at large. Interesting.
I have several friends working in the middle east too so, I hope that the situation there is getting better.
It is already proven in various places that people can live peacefully despite difference in beliefs or religions. That could be true everywhere as well as in the middle east.
the shame of it all as I see it is that the Middle East is such an amazing ecosystem with such a rich history and culture. Knowing that people would destroy the past and the future for something petty in the present is just sad!
I really want to visit some countries in Middle East but I'm the terrorism going around is really disturbing. I hope these terrorist groups would stop their nonsense.