The role of religion

[ShadowTemplar]

I've got one of those too:

 

WHY GOD NEVER RECEIVED A PH.D.

1. He had only one major publication.

2. It was in Hebrew.

3. It had no references.

4. It wasn't published in a refereed journal.

5. Some even doubt that he wrote it himself.

6. It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?

7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.

8. The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.

9. He never applied to the ethics board for permission to use human subjects.

10. When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it by drowning his

subjects.

11. When subjects didn't behave as predicted, he deleted them from the

sample.

12. He rarely came to class, just told students to read the book.

13. Some say he had his son teach the class.

14. He expelled his first two students for learning.

15. Although there were only 10 requirements, most of his students failed

his tests.

16. His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountain top.

17. No record of working well with colleagues.

 

http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/Just4Fun/Jokes/

[Kurgan]

So I guess that concludes our discussion. Next week's topic:

 

Cosmology: or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Big Bang

 

 

Coffee & Doughnuts are available in the lobby.

[SkinWalker]

Or is it, perhaps, only the christian religions that have this motivation? This is a copy/paste from Yahoo! news, notorious for having non-persistant links, otherwise I would have simply linked to it and summarized:

 

Sunday January 16, 5:13 PM

 

Villagers furious with Christian Missionaries

 

 

Samanthapettai, Jan 16 (ANI): Rage and fury has gripped this tsunami-hit tiny Hindu village in India's southern Tamil Nadu after a group of Christian missionaries allegedly refused them aid for not agreeing to follow their religion.

 

Samanthapettai, near the temple town of Madurai, faced near devastation on the December 26 when massive tidal waves wiped it clean of homes and lives.

 

Most of the 200 people here are homeless or displaced , battling to rebuild lives and locating lost family members besides facing risks of epidemic,disease and trauma.

 

Jubilant at seeing the relief trucks loaded with food, clothes and the much-needed medicines the villagers, many of who have not had a square meal in days, were shocked when the nuns asked them to convert before distributing biscuits and water.

 

Heated arguments broke out as the locals forcibly tried to stop the relief trucks from leaving. The missionaries, who rushed into their cars on seeing television reporters and the cameras refusing to comment on the incident and managed to leave the village.

 

Disappointed and shocked into disbelief the hapless villagers still await aid.

 

"Many NGOs (volunteer groups) are extending help to us but there in our village the NGO, which was till now helping us is now asking us to follow the Christian religion. We are staunch followers of Hindu religion and refused their request. And after that these people with their aid materials are leaving the village without distributing that to us," Rajni Kumar, a villager said.

 

The incident is an exception to concerted charity in a catastrophe that has left no one untouched.(ANI)

 

Where is the kindness of Jesus in the actions of the missionaries?

 

Luke 6:30 "Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again."

 

Matthew 5:42 "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."

 

But christians aren't the only idiots trying to exploit the indigenous victims of the tsunami. There are also reports from other sources that indicate radical islamic organizations and the church of scientology are competing for "souls" in the region.

 

So what does this tell us about the role of religion? That organized religion's main purpose is to unify as many people as possible to their own worldview in spite of the fallacies associated with it? Maybe.

 

But I think it boils down to money. Religions have been good at fleecing money from the poor for thousands of years. In each of the regions that the tsunami affected catastrophically, the only buildings to survive were those built on the money of capitalism or the money of religion. Hotels, mosques and churches. The hotels were built through the funds of willing investors. The mosques and churches were built through funding of exploited investors. Willing, but exploited.

 

Show me the church that's built of thatch so that the villagers can build of brick, and I'll show you the church of Jesus.

[TK-8252]

Christian generosity at its finest.