What Is Religion?

Post Reply New Topic

I am not a believer of course, there is no man in the sky. It does not mean Aspies are immune to destructive cults. A religion that is optimized to trap Aspies is called Scientology. It is in my opinion one of the most personally destructive cults in current existence.
I see mainstream religion as an excellent tool of group manipulation, one of the most fit and refined of memes.

I was looking at Calvinism and the five points of Calvinism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism While Calvinism is no big deal now when Calvinism and Lutheranism came on the seen it resulted in the 30 years war, the longest continuous and most destructive war in modern European history.

I noticed Calvinism operated very similarly to a pimp / hoe relationship described in the book The Pimp Game by Micky Royal. This book is now banned on Amazon.
http://churchofthegreathunab-ku.weebly. ... -guide.pdf

I look at many common forms of religion as an exploit of human nature. We notice many of the logical flaws in religion But that is not religions purpose to be logical.
When I think of who was Jesus, the founder of Christianity, It sure is not the character that is commonly presented.
The real religion founder would be more like Joseph Smith or David Berg or even Charley Manson. Later they are cleaned up and edited as the Jesus character has been.

I know of an excellent answer to the question in the title of this thread. I once saw an image that said, "The difference between a cult... In a cult, there is a person at the top who knows it's a scam. In a religion, that person is dead."

This must mean that once the creators of a cult have died and there are still followers in the cult, the cult reaches religion status.

Faith is the belief in unprovable things.

Religion is the social and political expression of faith.

Faith without religion is spirituality.

Religion without faith is ... the current state of the Christian church.

it existed to understand life, and to then pass on this understanding through an instruction manuel so that others will know how to live it. The Gods of the ancient world gave us all that we know, ie: art, dance, fire, food, wine, everything had its origin in a God that started it, and this God had a beginning and was created under the confines of naturalism. We only existed to propitiate the Gods and they frankly did whatever they want. They killed us when they wanted to, they raped us when they wanted to, they caused a landslide or drought when they wanted to, they healed us of our sicknesses when they wanted to, everything was up to them, and so a constant act of propitiating the Gods with sacrifice was in order.

The judeo based faiths introduced linear thinking, that life wasn't just a cycle that went on infinitely, but it had a beginning, and that we are to progress ourselves with time.

That said, from the torah's understanding, no law is worthy of existence if it does not better the state of man. Therefore, no law exists just to make God happy. Even the commandment to Love God is a humbling omission by God that he is inherently difficult to love, and that if we can just push past the rough times where we don't necessarily feel his presence in our lives, his laws are there to better every other aspect of our life. The tendency to leave Gods laws following great turmoil is not new, the torah understood that, but it also knows that abandonment of Gods laws, even during the good times, would make a worse world.

In short, an entire belief system (usually accompanied with lifestyle choices/actions based on those beliefs.)

This would also include athiesm as a religion of sorts.

No, Atheism is non-belief.

It's as if you had said that not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Disagree. They may not believe in any of the self-stamped "religions" out there, but have decided to believe 100% in current popular science and live their lives accordingly.

Knowledge is belief in provable things.
Faith is belief on unprovable things.

Science is the expression of knowledge.
Religion is the expression of faith.

Science discovers new things.
Religion discusses old things.

Science flies people to the moon.
Religion flies people into buildings.

See the difference now?

you can't prove half of the theories of science. You can't even prove a land walking mammal became a whale, you can't prove there is a multiverse, you can't prove a whole host of things. That doesn't mean that those things are not provable. It just means either you don't have sufficient evidence or it is probable but untestable, currently. What is the word for theories you cannot prove but have strong belief in? You have faith in science's ability to provide a rational and logical answer, and perhaps too much faith.

What if the things that religion discusses are as relevant today as they were 5000 years ago? We are not a biologically elevated creature, progress is not transferred by osmosis, and the old is never outdated or irrelevant if it is true.

Religion is a flawed concept.

Such as ...

... the 30-cubit circumference of a circle that has a diameter of 10 cubits?

... a global flood that required the fitting of 2 of each animal inside a boat less than half the size of the Queen Mary?

... the interference of supernatural beings in human interests?

... a universe that is less than 6,020 year old?

... the halting of the Earth's spin about it's axis for 36 hours?

There is no valid empirical evidence for any of these things; thus, none can be said to be true. This makes them irrelevant.



Evolution happens. Osmosis is real. Slavery is true, yet it is outdated. Same for religion.

As long as people are willing to argue, fight, and kill others over baseless beliefs while ignoring verifiable facts, progress will be ret*d -- this is the legacy of religion.

Religion is the end result of humanities need to: follow the herd, have the answers, control the masses...

It is a tragedy that in our day and age many people do not see this. But it is convenient for those that rule.

The Noah's Arc tale is most likely not a Jewish creation, it is one most cultures in the world shared and I don't know the origin of the story. The point of Noah's Arc wasn't to describe a historic event but to explain the nature of God. Thats it. It took the pagan narrative and elevated it. The pagans had all sorts of reason why their heroin was picked. Either he was handsome, he had lots of Gold, was a great and loyal warrior... Noah was picked for his Goodness. The ancients explain the flood was because the Gods grew annoyed at our constant yammering, or a whole host of stupid reasons for destroying every living thing on the planet. The torah had it that God grew depressed with how people treated each other, and decided it was more moral to start over, one of three inroads he would eventually make to bring ethics to humanity(the first being conscious, and that proved it wasn't enough to just have knowledge of good and evil, and the third being to choose a people who he would teach his values to and they then would be his vehicle for ethics on earth.)

The lessons of the stories are to communicate the nature of God, to make a better humanity, and to kill polytheism. There are many other pagan stories incorporated into the text, just for the torah to make fun of in a demeaning way, and destroy.

Gods intervention in the life of man has entirely to do with how we treat each other. If you look at the text as explaining science, you are no better then creationists who are actually true fools for the foolish garbage they peddle and the people who they then alienate from religion with their nonsensical views of the text.

Osmosis is real but you are not different a human creature then Moses or Hitler or Socrates. The Child of Fnord will not have Fnord's value system and beliefs if that child is kidnapped by a bunch of Muslims who then choose to raise it in Pakistan. Regardless of Fnord's views that are far more elevated then most of the world today, Fnord's child will have no access to it, unless Fnord has some faith in his genetic makeup's ability to embue values and beliefs. Moral progress is not built into our biological makeup, values are what distinguish us from barbarism, and failing to pass that on, people will easily revert to moral primitivism. Religion is never outdated if it is relevant, and relevancy determined by truth.

Religion is largely about coping with death. The Abrahamic religions promise some kind of afterlife which should make the prospect of dying easier to take.

ruveyn

Religion is pointless in a society where people have free and easy access to the truth. Those who defend religion as valid -- or even [i]necessary -- are easily ignored.

The Abrahamic religions actually focus very little about what happens after death (judaism in particular). The same goes for buddhism.