I would like to revoke this comment I've made. I want to apologize to anyone out there who read this. I wasn't in the right frame of mind when I wrote this and looking back, I do wonder if I was hit by a rouge idiot brick before I wrote this.
I believe religion in general is going the way of the telegraph—antiquated and obsolete—but I don't fault anyone for believing it. Though I believe it almost never makes anyone do nice things, but it certainly makes a lot of people do awful things. Plus, on top of that, I just think it's incorrect. In science, you need to have evidence to make a claim. We know the Earth is not flat because we can measure the length of a shadow of the same object in two different places and calculate the circumference based on the ration of shadow lengths, for example. And there is no evidence for Christianity or any religion. Different strokes for different folks.
Whoo~! A fellow post-theist. At least, given what you described, that does fit into the bounds of post-theism. That is, the standpoint that religion was an important stage in the evolution of our society and political structures, but now holds very little relevance to our modern comings and goings, often being at least one of not rational or not supported by evidence.
I've never heard that word before but I guess that describes me lol. And I'm glad to have met a fellow Dwarf Fortress player!
I should've made that joke! XD But instead I'm a short, sturdy creature fond of industry. I need alcohol to get through the working day.
Wouldn't it be outright terrifying, if all this works in a similar way like in the old and overrated game Black & White? That god only cares for those, who gives him "belief points" to eat or gain power to destroy the devil and the rest of us, who don't give him power, are useless and nothing but ants to him who can get cooly wasted? What actually is supposed to happen to those who don't believe in any of the three abrahamic religions? Are buddhists and hindus doomed to go to hell right from the start? Personally, i agree with this rather blunt comment i read somewhere: After all it started like a cult, who got mocked like Scientology these days. I'm rather scared of the thought, that christianity could turn out to be true, because i can't believe in such old books without a real proof. I just can't. And then i would be so dead, just because i didn't believe. Unfair. Exactly the opposite of benevolence. God, devils, demons and angels= All of it is creepy as hell. I'd even prefer the older religions to it. There's more mercy left, it seems at least. Omg, why did i even write this. Maybe i'm doomed now, just because of this.
At best, religions seem to admit that members of other religions can be right on accident or be reincarnated into a religious person who isn't wrong. On the scale of human history, the concept that the Christian god would let people into his heaven even if they don't follow his religion is fairly new. What gets me is that, unless someone believes that all gods of all religions literally exist, they're partially atheistic since there are gods whose existence they deny. That puts the evidence for their deistic down to individual experience, which is always anecdotal since it has never been empirical. Essentially, understanding this means understanding that the only reason people believe in any gods is that they like the idea of a god(s) or they were raised to think that way. To a point, this applies to all people, excepting that submitting yourself to an empirical system of thought is a lot less vulnerable to everyday errors than submitting yourself to the values of whatever culture you were born into, or your personal whims. It's an intriguing bit of psychology. The only reason I bring it up is in the interest of honesty; believe whatever you want, but admit that those spiritual/religious beliefs are not founded in testable observation. To do otherwise is nigh deceitful, and while I respect people of all creeds I do not respect those who mislead others through a lack examination for their own beliefs.
I've already decided that I'm just gonna go ahead and go to hell. That's where all the good musicians go, so the concerts down there should be awesome.
I'm not a Christian. Was once. However, I have my thoughts on the religion. I listened to this pastor on tv once talk about the label, "Christian." To summerize his message, the first 'Christians' didn't call themselves Christians at all. That was actually a sort of derogatory term. They simply called themselves disciples. The pastor went on to say that Jesus said, "Love one another. By this the world will know you're my disciples." Seems pretty simple. Seems pretty simple. The human condition isn't. But it was the first time in a while I heard something come out of a pastor's mouth that I liked.
I don't have a lot of time at the moment but I wanted to throw out something interesting to see what people say. In response to this, could all religions be some form or another of the same religion? much like a spiritual game of telephone, could Christianity and Islam and Buddhism and the like all actually be different misinterpretations of one central religion? Im not really behind this Idea; its really a stretch, but interesting nonetheless. Just a thought. Interestingly enough, yes. It was written four decades later. A number shockingly close in date to it's actual event. Some other religious works are written upwards of 400 years after their events took place. Where this gospel has a possibility of being written by first-hand eye witnesses, albeit a small possibility, those other works do not have that possibility at all.
There's a lot to unpackage in that thought, but a lot of people do actually believe it, so let's try. First, when you say "misinterpretations", you're implying that there is, somewhere out in the universe, a true religion; you're also implying that these religions we're familiar with have been offshoots of that true religion and have gotten it wrong in some crucial way. Second, it's good to think about what a religon is. Religion doesn't just mean spirituality, it also refers to a set of general - if loosely defined - beliefs that are actually held by people. Therefore, the idea of a true religion further implies that there have been some people out in the world who got it right and held to this true religion. If we look at this all from a modern perspective, your working premise is that all modern religions are erroneous offshoots of the true religion. That means that we can only look back into the past for evidence of a true religion, since that's the only other information that we have access to. I think most people would be astonished by what they would find in doing so; history teaches us that the recorded beliefs of old and ancient religions reflect both commentaries on other religions as well as social needs and desires of the people forming the religion. This means that religions influence the evolution of other religions and also build upon them. Looking at the first and second points above, we can see that for this to happen, the oldest religion must necessarily be the truest. At this point, we can safely discard the notion that all religions are "misinterpretations" of some historical true religion. However, we can learn a lot about the nature of human superstition and social structure by examining religion, especially where spirituality is concerned. If you wanted to look at different spiritual ideas and say that they are all misinterpretations, then you're essentially doing what every other religion does, making such a rather unimpressive in terms of its originality. If, however, you wanted to say both that all hitherto known spiritual doctrines are wrong and that only a certain unknown spiritual doctrine is right, it would beg the question: what is the right spiritual doctrine? The only empirical answer is that there is none, and to bow in awe before the vastness of the unknown while seeking to know is one of the major philosophical motivators in empirical science.
Thank you for your take, Dilly Star- It is appreciated. This is a discussion topic among friends of mine, and while I agree with your analysis, I lack the eloquence to state it as well as you did.
Well, there was definitely a touch of my worldview in there at the end, but for the most part I just tried to look at what we definitely can know and what we can't be sure of. From there some inferences about what is or is not possible can be made.
One of my problems with religion is its tendency to inspire hatred towards others. If you want an example, look no further than the Westboro Baptist Church. They are known to protest funerals of homosexual soldiers.
They actually picket all soldiers' funerals that have a service outdoors and open to the public, and their signs tend to justify the death of the soldier by saying that it is their god's punishment for this country having gay people in it. The soldiers themselves don't have to be gay.
I want to start out by saying I am more than happy / more than inclined to say that there is an intelligent creator behind the universe, what that is, who knows. Do I believe there is such a thing in good and evil? Yes but it stems from human beings who are currently the only known highly intelligent life form. I would also like to believe that there is more to life than live and die, but even if that was the case we can still find purpose in everything we do. How to say this without ranting. Sorry if this offends anyone, actually I don't really care, but religion, at least your main stream religions are nothing more than control methods that are no longer relevant. Lets look at Christianity. Why are people Christians? To get into heaven, plain and simple. All christians say that believing in Jesus christ the lord and saviour will result in you going to heaven one way or another (other branches believing in a new world etc etc). It also preaches that everyone who is against this or does not follow Jesus will go to Hell, there is no cherry picking here, if you do not follow him then you will Suffer for all eternity in agonizing pain because you use your own free will (which God gave you) to live your own life. You could be 100% the best person in the world, help the homeless, do everything in your power to make yourself a better person / the world a better place but if you do not take Christ as your saviour then NONE of that matters. What an absolute load of *squee!*. Islam is even worse and it's a wonder such a barbaric religion is still around. Women have next to no rights, the penalty for renouncing your faith (apostasy) is death and the same applies here, you could be the most wonderful person in the world but happen to be born into the wrong Christian culture or use your own God given free will to choose your own life and eternal damnation awaits you. Hang on a second.... God and Allah are the SAME THING. So your telling me, automatically one of these ENTIRE religious groups is automatically going to hell. They both believe in God, both worship God, but have slight variations in their practices. So an all loving all caring God who create the world and everyone in it (just over 6000 years ago apparently) is pretty much condemning people to hell the moment their born, since it's stated that he knows exactly how peoples lives are going to turn out, wonderful. The simple truth is this, if you took heaven / hell out of the equation for such religions no one, absolutely no one would care about them. Why? Because there is no reward or no punishment for following it / not following it. This reply is just really scraping the thread on the absurdities that are in the Bible etc and I could go into much more depth. Religion is an outdated control method that was successful only before science / people took the step forward and started finding things out for themselves. Maybe I am wrong, maybe when I die I will go to hell for writing this? If thats true is it a God you would really want to follow anyway? Don't get me wrong, faith / belief in a high power can really help some people out and change their lives for the better which is fine. There are good morals to be found (cherry picking) in the bible however there are alot of horrific things like infanticide, homophobia, genocide, just to say the least (mainly old testament). My mother was a devout christian and one of the best people I have ever know and did a huge amount based on her faith that benefited others, so there is a living example of how it can work, but it's so outdated now and horribly abused. By the way, I am not just blowing all this out of my butt. My main studies have been in Religious studies / Philosophy to a very high level, so don't use personal attacks like I have no idea what I am talking about It's your life, do what you want, but don't use your fearmongring to brain wash others.
