What do you think of religion?

Evolution= We evolved from monkeys
Plot twist= Monkeys still here on earth
BOOM

 

Not sure if troll or moron.

 

My feelings are hurt

 

BOOOOOOOOM IN YOUR FACE DARWIN

 

I've been reading this book called sapiens. It explained that as societies expanded they engulfed or extinguished the beliefs of the people they conquered. The major religions are a giant mix of what our primitive societies believed to explain natural phenomenae that could not be explained (rain, stars, the moon etc). Religion in itself was made to maintain cohesion among these conquered people and thus a form of control.
Modern religion is just bullshit though. It blinds people from the truth that they are not so special. Religion is a huge reason why I have so little faith in our species. There is no god or afterlife or gates to heaven when you die. How do you even come up with stuff like that?? Its just here for people to scam and make money off the masses. It is truly the opiate of the masses. Look at mormonism and scientology! Its easy to dismiss those as being totally F-ed up but whats makes them any different from Islam or Christianity or Buddhism. Pastafarianism is just as plausible 'because it cant be disproven'. It makes me sick.
Being spiritual and seeking enlightenment of the truths of our existence and our place in the universe does NOT mean being religious

 

Pretty beautiful stories from the thinkers of the ages before science and the scientific method.

The morals are not all bad. Think about the Book of Parables from the Old Testament. This is a general "how to live life scot-free and avoid shitty people" guide from the Jews. The Jews! Those poor bastards, getting chased all around by the dominant powers of the day. I'm not gonna throw out the book of street smarts that they put together in those times.

 

I think religion, like anything, is good in small doses. It's good as a vehicle to personal success and prosperity. However, I don't think it should invade our society via education and government. Without getting into specifics I'll just say I'm somewhat left-wing when it comes to what religion - and, specifically, the Bible - have to say about my rights.

 

Has someone who died let you know that?

 

No - its just my personal assessment based on past experience and what I have observed. There was no specific event that has lead me to believe this but rather the accumulation of what I have witnessed by the laws of nature. It is a grim reality to accept but what I believe to be the truth. I think that the flaws in our world are what make it perfect and I am very greatful to be able to experience the world even though its only once for a very brief period of time. I would rather know the truth than live a life devoted to false hope. There is great beauty in only living once and I wouldnt trade it for eternal paradise after death.

 

Wow. This thread is depressing. It kinda seems like most of the religious people here are reluctant to defend or explain their beliefs.

So here is my answer to the OP's question:

I am a practicing catholic. I believe all that our beloved church teaches. While it is not an easy life, it is a free one. By that I mean freedom from vice. It also gives great peace of mind.

As for religion in general, every culture in history has had some sort of religion. It is an instinct, hard coded into us, to worship our creator. (Although that instinct is not necessarily followed, as is the case with many people today.) Without knowing the revealed truth pertaining to God, cultures have developed their own religious beliefs. (Natural religion.) Again, this has been the case throughout most of the world in and before recorded history.

Before going any further, here is the definition of religion as explained by Fr. Leslie Rumble, a catholic priest:

• "By religion I mean that act of justice by which we render to God, both privately as individuals, and publicly as social beings, the honor, gratitude, and obedience due to Him, and in the way prescribed by Him."

I find a lot of what you all have written to be fascinating. Here are some of my thoughts on your thoughts:

Tell that to Isaac Newton, Antonio Vivaldi, J.S. Bach, Leonhard Euler, Nicholas Copernicus, etc. (All devout Christians.)

Actually, your idea of religion is just that: "man made bullshit." You say it's all invented by wise men, but that it's still just lies. Now what do these wise men stand to gain from such an elaborate scheme? I do not deny that there have been people who have deliberately taken advantage of the natural religious tendencies of others for personal and material gains, but I deny that that is the explanation for all religion. For example, Jesus Christ founded the catholic church. He led a life of poverty and suffering, and died a horrible death. His followers, who built upon his foundation, also led lives of poverty and suffering with horrible deaths. They were not thinking of temporal, material gains, or of any "mass control mechanism." They were following what Jesus taught and looking forward to their eternal reward.

In other words, this church has value because it inspires good works in society, but that's all it's good for. Don't get me wrong: it's great that the members of that church are doing charitable deeds. However, you seem to see religion as a means to a purely temporal end.

Agreed on all points except the last one. Religion should not presume to teach on matters of science. (And science should not presume to teach on matters of religion.) One cannot force someone to believe something, and should not treat them badly for different beliefs. To do so would be to lack charity. Ditto for the third point. As for the fourth, however, truth should always be treated as truth, and falsehoods as falsehoods. We have a firm conviction that the catholic faith is the true faith, and therefore inherently deserves to be treated as such. We are often attacked for "presuming" to hold our own religion as better than other religions. But if no religion is better than any other, then it must be because they are all equal. Since they all conflict with each other in doctrine, logically only one can be the one true religion. Given that, then if they are all equal, it follows that all religions are equally false and there is no true religion. This is simply an atheistic idea. But as you said you are an atheist, there is no surprise here.

Love, compassion, and common sense should be inspired by and go hand in hand with religion.

That's quite an assertion to make. Meanwhile, would you care to share with us your method for finding that solace?

The same could be said about atheists.

Wrong. No church that I know of teaches that the seven days described in genesis were literally 24-hour days. The catholic church does not have a definite teaching on the length of the days. They may have been thousands or millions of years long for all we know. That is a matter for science.

This is known as the Problem of Evil, and is regarded as one of the greatest arguments against the existence of God. That there is evil and suffering in this world is a fact. This fact is not incompatible with an all-powerful, all-loving God. One thing to remember is that compared to eternity, this temporary life is infinitely short. There is a lot more to say on this subject, but it would take too much space here. Here is a good article on the subject: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-problem-of-evil

To say those things with certainty is to jump to conclusions. Please enlighten us as to why you conclude that the bible is fictional, and that the God described therein cannot be the true God.

??

If by GPS, you mean science, then this is not such a perfect analogy. Religion and science are complementary. One is not a substitute for the other.

Yet another blind assertion. As for coming up with "stuff" like that, we can all agree that our natural goal is to find happiness, right? As we cannot attain perfect happiness in this life (due to the fact that this life and all material things in it end for us with death, plus the existence of suffering), our natural goal is invariably frustrating in this life, and can only be fulfilled in the afterlife.

Religions differ in their teachings and in the amount of truth that they hold, as well as other things. Some religions hold more truth than others. Logically speaking, only one can hold nothing but truth and be completely free of error. As for Buddhism, my understanding is that Buddhists don't even believe in God. It is arguably more of a philosophical system than a religion.

Really?

If you knew the truth, then there would be no false hope to be devoted to. However, I understand what you are saying. You don't want to prepare for the next life only to find (or not find) that it doesn't exist, right? You don't want to lose Pascal's Wager. (Look that up!) At any rate, please don't cease your pursuit of the truth.

Well, that's all I have to say right now. I hope this post helps somebody in some way, and would be happy to answer any other questions if I can.

Stay strong everyone.

 

What I meant is that God cannot be the object of your mental activity. You cannot think about God, because God is beyond thought. So any thoughts you have about God are at best pointers to a direct experience of God, as worst an idol that stands in the way to directly experiencing God. But your thoughts about God and any feelings that might arise from those thoughts are not really God. It's true that they can help prepare the ground for a direct experience of God, but I think teaching certain ideas about God takes a huge risk. The temptation comes in taking the stories about God as a real experience of God. Your thoughts and notions about God then become an idol that interferes with your direct experience of God. This is what has happened in the Western Church, I believe. God has become a story, a thing. And being a thing, a collection of thoughts and stories, God is then open to being manipulated according to our selfish wills. Thus you have all the different accounts of God (compares the Catholic Church's account of God with Calvin's, and Calvin's with the Anabaptist's) and Jesus that create division and conflict. However with the rise of science, skepticism and atheism, people have been losing their faith in God. This is a good thing, because what they have lost faith in was not God Godself, but the stories about God they have inherited from their culture. Their loss of faith is truly an opportunity to go deep into the stillness and the silence within themselves where they can truly find God, because, as Jesus said, "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you."

So I'm not too concerned about the number of people losing their faith. It seems to me that that is a good thing. We all have to die to our notions of God before we can be saved. That's perhaps why God's son had to die on the cross. Science, skepticism and atheism is helping people die to their own personal notions of God. We just have to show them the next step, to go deep inside themselves to the place where God dwells. But first we need to show them the way. The straight and narrow path. The path without the baggage of our judgments, our opinions, our thoughts about the world. As Jesus said "the rich cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."

I guess you can call me a "empirical spiritualist." That path to God which I previously mentioned is at the core of all world religions. It was taught by the Buddha, by Lao Tzu, by the great Hindu yogis, the Sufi saints, the Christian monastics and mystics. It is the reason native religions seem to be naturally monotheistic. It is the one fixed point in humanity's spirituality, and all religions are only elaborations on that points and, at best, maps on how best to get there. So it doesn't make sense to me to be focused so much on the marginalia and ignore the reality the marginalia are pointing to. Just like science uses tools to investigate the universe around us, so we can use mental, emotional and spiritual tools that the great sages of history have shown us to investigate this fixed point, which when you come to it is really unfixed, this place that creates movement but remains itself unmoved, the Unmanifested that manifests the entire universe, the Unborn that gives birth to all things, the Void that makes space for reality, the Formless that allows Form to be, the Cloud of Unknowing, the Godhead. That's why I yearn for, not stories about God that may be true or untrue. As the Buddha said, "The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon." I think the Western Church has largely forgotten that fundamental wisdom.

 

Man made =/= bullshit

Scientific method was man made. I guess that's bullshit too?

 

Religion is not opposed to mysteries. For example within the Christian faith the dogma of the Trinity is a Mystery of Faith. A truth revealed by God which is not contrary to reason but transcends it. Religion is not opposed to the incomprehensible nature of God. On the contrary religion works toward reconnecting limited beings with their incompressible Creator by meeting them at the level of reason and then assisting them to take that step which transcends reason called faith.

 

Be careful; this is not really a valid comparison. While the scientific method pertains to truths that we discover, religion pertains largely to truths that must be divinely revealed in order to be known. If a religion is purely man-made, then it lacks divine revelation and therefore lacks truth.

 

Yes, of course.

 

@P__phonic

I'm not atheist but I agree with your point.

I don't believe in labels to describe beliefs.

I have beliefs but I don't regard them as religious.

One of my beliefs is that when I die, I will transcend to the stars and be able to roam freely between the galaxies and systems.

I don't like traditional religion. I find them too "sheep and Shepard".

 

We are certainly not unable to think about God. It is true that he is incomprehensible to our limited minds in many ways. Moreover, there is a lot that we cannot know about God except by divine revelation. However, there is a lot that can be reasoned about him. (The works of St. Thomas Aquinas contain some very good examples.) True, teaching "certain ideas about God," such as truths that would have to be divinely revealed, is a serious business. It should not be done except by those given authority by God to do so, wouldn't you agree? The thoughts and notions about God that you speak of cannot interfere with a direct experience of God, because we simply do not have any such direct experience in this life.

Now the fact that there are accounts or stories pertaining to God does not predicate that such stories are false. While there are differing doctrines on God and his teachings, it is not impossible to separate truth from error. As for losing faith, if one holds the true faith, then it is certainly not a good thing to lose that faith. The "stories" about God that I believe in were not handed down through culture, but rather are given for all cultures. True, Jesus said, "the kingdom of God is within you." However, we must be careful not to take this out of context. This quote is from the passage beginning in Luke 17:20, in which Jesus is asked by the Pharisees "when the kingdom of God should come?" His response was to tell them that it is already present.

Based on some of the things that you've written, it appears that you believe that Jesus is the son of God. (Or are at least assuming so for the sake of argument.) Nowhere does he tell us that we must "die to our notions of God before we can be saved." On the the other hand, he does give us a very clear reason as to why he died on the cross: to pay for our sins. Indeed, the path to heaven is straight and narrow. However, Jesus did not say, "the rich cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." He said it would be very difficult, but not impossible. One can be wealthy and at the same time poor in spirit.

What is this Western Church you speak of? The church to which I belong is universal.

 

Here is a list of observations I've gathered during my journey.

1. I haven an intellect and a will. My nature points to my purpose which deals with knowing and doing.
2. Happiness is my motivation for all of my actions, yet my capacity for happiness is infinite which is why nothing finite can satisfy it.
3. I get bored easily, yet my capacity for knowledge is also infinite, which is why finite things can never satisfy it.
4. If I have an infinite capacity for happiness and knowledge then this means a part of me is also infinite. Since I know my body is not infinite, then I have concluded that the part which is, is what some would call a soul.
5. If nothing finite can satisfy my infinite capacity for happiness and knowledge, then my source for happiness is going to be found in the infinite or eternal. This brings me back to point 1, where I've concluded that my purpose for existence is to know and love a being that has no end.
6. Only one being can logically be the conclusion of the above characteristics and that is a God.
7. Without a God I have no objective purpose. This was a fact that I admitted indirectly when I was an atheist since when I removed God I had also removed objective purpose from my life. I had to either say there was no such thing as an objective purpose and that purpose was subjective despite the fact that nothing which exists has given itself purpose, but rather its purpose is inherent.
8. My purpose is to know and love God, but this is impossible to do on my own.
9. There can only be one God. If a being does not poses complete perfection in all things then that being is not God.
10. If two beings posses complete perfection in all things then they are not two beings but the same being.
11. If there is one God then there is one religion because there is only one truth.
12. If there is one God, and one truth, then His religion is one and universal, like science and mathematics.
13. If God was going to reveal Himself then there would have to be a way for us, through the use of reason, to test His claim.
14. God would have to pre-announce His coming since there is no other way to test a claim without this important piece. Without it any person could claim they're God or are a messenger from God.
15. Only one historical figure has been pre-announced and who has also claimed to be God. This person is Christ.
16. When Christ came He split time in two. I don't know about anyone else but that's pretty amazing. Especially considering that no other religious figure in the history of mankind has ever had that effect either before or after Christ. The supreme irony is every other religious figure who has existed or ever will exits will have to date their existence using Christ's life and even when I was an atheist my attacks towards religion and God also had to be dated by His life. God has an amazing sense of humor.
17. This man who struck time in two, who ended all Jewish sacrifice in the temple, and who is the only person in history who came to die rather than live, also started a religion; Christianity.
18. In the entire history of Christendom only one Church has been around for the entire time and that is the Catholic Church.
19. I'm Catholic and I remain open to truth. If it shows me Catholicism is not the way, then I will leave. That day has not come yet.

 

I believe that some things in this life/universe/sense of being, are not meant to be known.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Even if we discover gods of any kind, or discover the definitive answer to why the universe exists, we will have a new set of questions. Who created the gods and what created the creation blocks for the universe?

Then when we answer those, theres yet another question to be answered...over and over.

It's as if we are not meant to know the origins of origins on purpose.

But then who or what is stopping us knowing the origin of origins.

Which leads me to thinking also that nothing we see feel or know is actually happening at all and is not real. But just some failsafe mechanism for something similar to the matrix theory.

Yet what would be the orgin of the matrix theory conundrum.

And so I come back full circle.
We are not meant to know some things, and I can't answer why.

Life is basically like an infinite symbol. We go round and round and never actually get anywhere with actually knowing truths.

I love science but I find it funny that scientists are so convinced their findings are truths. But they merely are human understanding of aspects of our existence. It may be that that understanding is actually completely false to anyone but humans.

Which also leads me to our thoughts.

I believe that our individual thoughts are not simply ideas. But keys to realities.
If we can think it, it can exist and most probably does exist. The moment something is thought, it exists from that time onwards, just isn't yet discovered.
And I also believe things happen for a reason, as if it's a complex preplanned mechanism, and that our discoveries etc aren't spontaneous but in keeping with the preplanned mechanism. Almost like a program/event timetable.


It's all very interesting thinking about life in this way...too me at least.
This is very deep thought...I hope others share my interest.

 

I do share your interest in the mysteries of the universe and our being.

A good analogy about us not understanding everything, and God is like the way a child does not understand every choice their parents make. If they don't like a choice, they simply can't comprehend why it was made. However when they grow a bit older, they understand that everything their parents do is because they love them.

That's a bit tangential to what you said, it's more to do with the problem of suffering etc. I think. We just shouldn't try to understand everything about God - it's impossible while we are still humans.