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| Author | God and Religion |
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Oh and by the way, i was not trying to mix up Law enforcement with Religion :P
I was just trying to put my point through this, that just like the way law enforcers try to enforce things through law, the religious leaders try to enforce things through God etc. | Just a few comments on the last page(ish) of posts.
People do what is morally right because of peer pressure. As a society we live by sets of rules (laws) some social and others scientific. We follow social rules because our environment has conditioned us to do so. If you break these rules you can expect to be judged by your peers and punished, probably fairly appropriately and quickly, at least before you die anyway. This is in total opposition to most religions where the understanding is that 'god' will judge you and there are just 2 possible results: eternal suffering or eternal pleasure. No different levels. Someone who has stolen, killed or numerous other 'bad' acts will get the same punishment as someone who lives a 'good' life except for a single rule break. But wait ... these same religions have a reset clause, believe now and you can getto heaven too! Yes even the serial killers.
Jails are full of people from all sorts of religions and for the majority of people I would think that it is not religion which stops them breaking the law. If these same people from the same background had never heard of religion they would not behave any differently. Just as young children learn to follow rules before they understand religion.
Btw, sorry to religions which deal with being reborn better/worse than before etc as my points sort of ignore you.
Re: mods and religion. We are here to keep the forums safe for everyone, like everything else you will always get a small minority who think it their right to bully, beg, curse or threaten. We are here for them and to help others where we can.
((On a little mod note: please don't keep quoting large blocks of text from previous posts, it is not necessary, makes it hard to read or spot important info and it is AGAINST the rules so please stop it) | IMO religions like to claim a monopoly on morality because it enables treating those outside the religion as morally inferior and enables poor treatment of those that do not indulge in the same beliefs.
I think that is like putting the cart before the horse. I think most religions claim monopoly on morality because what they preach are basically natural moral laws added with a bit of mysticism to make it more interesting or convincing. Religious people may not know this consciously but why bother thinking too much when the bible is only copying natural laws anyway? The details may differ, but the practical message is basically the same: get along or else.
Also, people have used all sorts of excuses to justify superiority over everyone else. Race. Nationality. Ideology. Gender. Ethnicity. Amount of money owned. Science. When I see religious themed violence, I do not see messed up christians/muslims/whatever. I see messed up humans. Humans simply have the horrible tendency to warp things, religion included among others. | | [Post deleted by moderator Worf // Don't troll please; it's not Russian OGF here.] | God exists.
It depends on who you think god is.
I think good people as my god.
My parents are my god. | for bitch fap please :
really? thats almost unbelievable xD | And there are plenty of patients in mental institutions who believe that god talks to them, or that they are jesus, or perhaps even Napoleon.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/australian-man-claims-to-be-reincarnation-of-jesus-recalls-crucifixion-96955/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/inri-cristo-claims-jesus-reincarnated-2997318
Equally you'd probably find plenty of people from other religions that claim that their god speaks to them. So who to believe?
The simplest answer would be to withhold belief until you are presented with real evidence of such an entity. And while religions are chock full of miraculous claims, they are notoriously short on evidence.
Usually the closest they get to evidence is claims of "personal experience".
When your best "evidence" is no better than those who claim encounters with UFOs you can't help but wonder why the such people expect to be believed.
Grunge | And there are plenty of patients in mental institutions who believe that god talks to them, or that they are jesus, or perhaps even Napoleon.
You sound like you're trying to associate religion with mental illness. That is not fair. The majority of religious people that I meet don't claim that their gods talk to them. They're just normal people trying to get through life. The common christian folk and the few odd muslims I've met never gave me grief. In my family there are probably only three of us who aren't religious and we get along fine with everyone.
Also, I believe that people are entitled to some degree of eccentricity.
The simplest answer would be to withhold belief until you are presented with real evidence of such an entity. And while religions are chock full of miraculous claims, they are notoriously short on evidence.
But that neglects people's need for comfort and security. I did not become a happier person when I stopped being religious (I think of myself as agnostic when I'm alone but for practical conversation purpose I'm an atheist). Some people cannot be bothered to think hard about the nature of reality, they have their hands (minds?) full trying to cope with life's indifference (which they may interpret as active hostility) to them.
The thing about religions is that the people who flock to them are the ones who need them and the people who gave them up are the ones who no longer need them. I believe religious tendencies is one of the things that makes humans resilient and we may have evolved to find religious and mystical meanings in things as part of our survival strategy. Religions (cults?) have even grown around things like sex and drugs. | You sound like you're trying to associate religion with mental illness.
No, I don't think so. I'm trying to show that when there are claims that are equally unbelievable they are not treated equally.
If someone openly claims to be Napoleon no-one is likely to believe them and they would almost certainly be institutionalised.
However if someone openly claims to be Jesus, unless there are other significant indications of mental illness, they are left to roam free and in some cases attract a significant following.
In both cases their claims are likely to have equal amounts of evidence (none). But apparently one claim is more valid than the other.
But that neglects people's need for comfort and security.
I don't have a problem with this. However religion as a package includes more than just providing people with a social group and a way of coping with the inevitability of their limited lifespan.
Christianity includes a pronouncement to kill witches.
http://thetaleofbittertruth.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/suspected-witches-burned-alive-by-christians-in-kenya/
In some religious sects people are told that god will heal them and that they should avoid medical treatment.
http://time.com/8750/faith-healing-parents-jailed-after-second-childs-death/
Traditionally the Catholic Church has always advocated against condoms in all cases. Even when condoms have been shown to be the most effective way to prevent STDs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_HIV/AIDS
And almost all the arguments against same-sex relationships and marriage are based on religious doctrine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage
Religion tells people that there is a magical place they go to after they die - and you can supposedly go there too. Remember that comfort and security thing you were talking about?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2476751/Polish-girl-Maria-Kislo-12-hangs-missed-dead-father.html
If religion was only a concern for the people involved in it, there wouldn't be a problem. However that is not the case. And when religion interferes with the lives of people who don't participate in it, then that is a problem.
Especially when there is no real evidence for any religion that I have encountered.
Grunge | However if someone openly claims to be Jesus, unless there are other significant indications of mental illness, they are left to roam free and in some cases attract a significant following.
Do you honestly believe that someone claiming to be Jesus would be believed more than someone claiming to be Napoleon by the average christian? I don't know what kind of christian folks you're familiar with but I have serious doubt if the ones I know would take that kind of claim seriously.
If religion was only a concern for the people involved in it, there wouldn't be a problem. However that is not the case. And when religion interferes with the lives of people who don't participate in it, then that is a problem.
You have given extreme examples and also seem to ignore individual variances in religious practices and beliefs. There will always be extremes (often violent) in any facet of human behavior. Replace "religiosity" with "sexuality" and you'll find some disturbing stuff too. And even among christians there is dissent in certain aspects of faith. Do you believe that all christians oppose condom use or same sex marriage?
This is what I know: I work in a place where there are homosexuals and even those who try to modify their bodies with hormone treatments. I swear, there are dudes here who look more feminine than women. They aren't being hassled by any christians or muslims. I think a couple of them might even be christians. There was a dude (from a fundamentalist sect, I think, calls himself "christian") whom I personally heard said something about what women and men ought to dress like but that's about it. He gets teased all the time for his rather extreme religious views. By other christians.
This is what I gather from that: people take what they need from religion and generally ignore stuff that they could live without. Of course, there will always be people who take religion more seriously than others (sometimes more seriously than the believers themselves) but those are rare. | This is what I gather from that: people take what they need from religion and generally ignore stuff that they could live without. Of course, there will always be people who take religion more seriously than others (sometimes more seriously than the believers themselves) but those are rare.
I agree. But notice how this is pretty much equally true for all religions. However these religions generally teach that they are true and other faiths are false (and usually implied to be evil).
Just this information alone makes any individual religion seem implausible IMO and inclines me to think that the really useful part is the social groupings themselves rather than the religious doctrine that they come wrapped in.
Do you honestly believe that someone claiming to be Jesus would be believed more than someone claiming to be Napoleon by the average christian? I don't know what kind of christian folks you're familiar with but I have serious doubt if the ones I know would take that kind of claim seriously.
Once again, I agree. And yet these people claiming to be jesus have followers. And it's not just christianity that has this problem. People have claimed to be messiahs for judaism and islam as well. There are people that have claimed to be buddha too. It seems that people claiming to be god is an issue for all faiths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_messiah_claimants <-- check out the links at the bottom of this article too.
But there is an inherent problem here. Most religions are based on someone who is claimed to be god. In every case the "evidence" for such claims is essentially non-existent and "faith" is required. If the claims regarding these modern messiahs are not considered credible, how come the claims of divinity for the messiahs of existing religions *are* considered plausible? Isn't there equal evidence for all of these messiahs? At least we can be sure these modern ones actually exist!
Once again I ask - why believe in any of these religions until such time as there is some reliable evidence that such a religion is "true"?
Why not simply join a social group of like minded people? That way people can avoid the cognitive dissonance inherent in professing belief in a religion whose teachings the followers largely ignore anyway.
If the "best" feature of religion is the social framework, why not discard the silly trappings that come with all religions (and apparently causes some people to behave irrationally and in an anti-social way)? Why not adopt a social framework that has a positive outlook on your fellow humans? Something unifying rather than divisive?
A reasonable example is probably humanism, which come in many flavours, including deistic humanism if belief in a god is something you feel you can't do without.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism
What is the point in engaging in religion if it can so easily result in harm to others when taken literally?
Grunge | I was watching a video, rather a public survey which I randomly came across on FB, which asked people how old they thought the world is. To my surprise, majority answered around 10,000 years. The source of their knowledge being what has been inculcated in them by their religious tales. Wow, that's the kind of stupidity these holy books have resulted into.
Now that's scary isn't it? We already have enough evidence to support the fact that the Earth can roughly date back to a few billion years. Although such evidence exists, we still have majority who do not accept this evidence and still consider their religion to speak the truth. That's human stupidity at its utmost.
Many say that Religion is an easy way to apply ethics and morals on a mass population. Yes that's right, considering the mass population is as good as a herd of brainless sheep. My point is, if there were no religion, would you be going around mass murdering people? Of course No. Because your natural senses tell you that it is wrong. You don't need to be "Taught" that.
The problem with any Religion is that it is considered to be the Way of the Divine. If Religions truly were what a
Super Perfect Divine Creator wanted humans to go about like, then I would consider it to be flawless. But instead
it contains so many fairy tale like situations which are forced unto people to be thought as True Events. It's as good as me telling everyone Toy Story is real, you just need to have faith. | As time passes we come to realise that there are its and bits of these holy books that contain flaws that only humans can make, oh wait, weren't they supposed to be the word of God? Why do they suddenly seem like slowly turning into the word of Humans. This flawless God had no problems when there is world hunger, when there are natural calamities, when children are enslaved, but he has the biggest problem when Gays marry? Doesn't it rather seem like the thought of some man who convinced everyone into believing that this is the word of God?
God is God by "Definition". Except for this definition, there is no other evidence towards God. Ofc we cannot include personal experiences, for i constantly feel loose motions, doesn't mean God is indicating his presence by giving me loose motions. (If you found this offensive, I'm glad, because it was meant to be)
I've had people asking me things like, if we came from monkeys why are there still monkeys? If all creatures evolved then why do beings like Tapeworms, Flatworms who do not have eyes still exist. Why didn't they evolve eyes? My answer is always the same, THIS IS NOT POKEMON. | | AKA for president :p | What all believers tend to ignore or not be able to comprehend is the span of "TIME" we talk about when we consider evolution. To make it simple, think of how long it took for us to go from Pinhole Cameras to DSLR. Less than 3 centuries. So it took us less than 300 years to replicate what a human eye does. How long could it have taken for our Eye to develop? Ten thousand years? One million years? (Now don't say, Oh wait, the Earth isn't that old, how could this be possible -_-) No. We are talking about Billions of years. Trust me it is very very hard to comprehend this Time Span. This is solely because our life span is Insignificant compared to such numbers.
Here we talk about multiplying the time taken to make a camera by 10,000,000. That is HUMUNGOUS. Even if there was 0.00001% change every year in our eye, and also considering years where they was no evolution at all (insignificant evolution) we easily get what we have today. Fortunately we are the beings to have distinct 3D color vision. There are other beings who failed at undergoing such evolution, and were left either colorblind or without depth perception. But what we heavily fail to realise, is that our eye is NOT the best eye. There are beings such as Hawks and Eagles which have evolved their eyes Better than us.
Here I talked only about an Eye, imagine when several body parts are trying to evolve for Billions of years. | | All religions have done, is divide humans. Divide humans based on their stupidity.
If there isn't an answer to something, the answer doesn't become God. If I don't knoe the answer to 1+1, i don't write it as 1+1 = Miracle of God. It is just my lack of knowledge that has barred me from getting an answer. And the easiest way to hide or cover my lack of knowledge is to say it's God's miracle.
Just think of it this way, there are two situations, either you believe in God or Not. Let's assume I do not believe in God. What will happen? There are two sub situations. If God Doesn't exist then NOTHING will happen. My body will either be cremated or buried. If God Exists, is he going to punish me for using the brain that he himself gave me and for asking an honest question all my life whether he exists or not? Is this All Benevolent God going to send me to Hell for simply asking if he is There or Not.
If I believe in God. There are again the same two sub situations. If God Doesn't exist then NOTHING will happen. But if God exists there are again two more sub situations. If I've been praying the right God or Not. If it's the right God, does that mean except for my religion all other humans will be sent to hell for their lack of knowledge? Is God this cruel to punish humans just for their lack of knowledge. So does that mean if I'm a rapist and i've believed the right God, i'll be sent to heaven? I shouldn't be sent to hell because i've asked for forgiveness to the right God my whole life. And God believes in Forgiving right? Now what if i've been praying to the wrong God. That's an instant ticket to hell isn't it.
Now a third situation, let's assume ALL religions have been preaching the wrong God. Rather NO HUMAN knows the actual God. We wrongly ignored the actual God and imagined Gods of our own. So now the actual God is furious. He is pissed over the fact that he is not being preached at all. So that means he is going to send EVERYONE to hell? That would be sad. ;) | We've got religions that consider Atheism as a crime and the result of which is Execution. Like seriously? I am going to create a community which considers believing in God and Religion as a crime and I'm going to Bomb You All. Am I sounding violent? Am I not letting you believe in something by your own free will? Well, earlier you did too.
It is sad to see that religion, the biggest lie of all, has been force fed unto so many generations that it has gradually become the truth. It is time we use our brains and think over it. Think over the fact that aren't religions divinding humans into inferiors and superiors? Would you like it if you were called an inferior being just because some book says so. You would definitely not like it. We've god figures like Popes or Gurus who tend to command a superior spiritual level. Seriously? I know for a fact that any simple Shaolin Monk can kick their ego out of them physically, mentally and spiritually.
We all are equals. This is an earnest request to everyone, stop preaching someone. They don't deserve it. If there is someone you should preach, it is yourself. | | i thought i was the only one who wasted time on irrelevamt things :) | | I didn't have anything to do. Bored studying. So removing my frustration on the keyboard. :P |
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