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If Religion is so AWESOME tell me WHY?


soulpowertothenthdegree

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We live in a world where religion is paramount to our existence as a human. You are either on the side that believes or doesn't believe the stories of the Bible, Koran, or numerous other religious based texts, but I just have a very basic problem with this religion concept. It has absolutely no basis for existing if the the fundamental reason is to extoll the virtues of righteousness.

How can you pray to a GOD about anything one minute and then be completely immoral the next? Religion is steeped in hypocrisy. Do you really need to have religion in your life to know what is right or wrong? I don't. I know what is right and what is wrong.

Ask yourself why you are buying Christmas presents and celebrating a ridiculous notion that is the basis for the economic stimulus we use to survive in our fake commercialized society?

I watch the news and see stories about the Pope having a desire to change the way the Vatican operates; that would be great, right? If it wasn't a crock of poop.

The fact is, as long as there are homeless people and starving people living on this planet, religion is a farce.

Could religion have merits? Sure. But as it stands right now, there is no merit at all to believing or praying to any fake GODs for the sake of redemption in your afterlife. Give him your sins? Really? How about just not sinning. Sure, you see this and think of me being on my soap box with my high horse, but I am not a fake and I completely understand that we all can make mistakes; learning from them is the key and not hurting others deliberately is paramount.

I don't need religion to understand right from wrong; do you?

Soul

Edited by Daughter of the Nine Moons
Removed large annoying font
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Religion is man made. God made man. Religion is as subject to wrongdoing and harming others as any individual human is. Belief in and the seeking out of our Creator is, to me, not about religion - it's about finding spiritual fulfillment through faith in the unseen. All the sins you placed at the doorstep of the "church" (religions) are accurate to one extent or another but I disagree that no real benefits can be said to have come from man's attempt to codify and spread the spirit of the Creator in the form of holy texts and charity to the suffering.

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AT above provides a reasonable context for this kind of discussion. Diatribes against religion for hypocrisy, inherent contradictions and buttressing a godless economic system are a dime a dozen. Perhaps some emotional energy devoted to the 20 million victims of failed atheist seminarian Josef Stalin; the unspeaksable and innumerable crimes of the megalomaniacal Hitler, murderer of Jews, Christians, gay people, the Roma, people with physical disabilities and mental health diagnoses and countless more; the godless miscreant Mao Zedong, his acolyte Pol Pot and on and on and on, and perhaps there might be some balance in your reportage. As it is, atheists, agnostics, non-believers of all stripes have no claim to any moral high ground I can see.

Had I lived in Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich" (the coward only made it for 12) I would have been incinerated because of my medical diagnosis. I know of no institutional Christian or Jewish expression that would do anything but its level best to keep me alive as long as possible (I am undereducated about expressions of Islam). Things that make you go "Hmmmm. . . . . ."

Edited by DeWitz
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Hitler did have a religion though. He did black magic and summoned demons.

Edited by LostSouls7
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Hitler did have a religion though. He did black magic and summoned demons.

Sorry what now?

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I think some aspects of religion are great; the rituals and processions (so long as they aren't bloody), the great buildings and wonderful music, the provision by many religions of places peace and safety for people to go to, the counseling (as long as it is well trained) and charitable work religion often motivates.

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I believe religion was only created to explain the things that couldn't be explained. Once we figured out what thunder was and why volcanoes erupt we don't need an invisible man in the sky to blame when the mountain on the island over there explodes

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I believe religion was only created to explain the things that couldn't be explained. Once we figured out what thunder was and why volcanoes erupt we don't need an invisible man in the sky to blame when the mountain on the island over there explodes

I think religion obviously has been used for this sort of thing, but I doubt it is the real reason for religions.
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Religion is a tool to comfort the weak sick and dying. Its no longer needed but still has a purpose that take to it for those very reasons.

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I saw in the body of the text of the OP a complaint that people can try to be good and right at one moment, and do wrong the next.

I'm reminded of an exchange in the video game Fallout: New Vegas, where the player character interacts with a Mormon leader/missionary. His status as such a prophet/holy man of high status made his blunt honesty hit home so well:

Joshua Graham: We must do our best to walk in the footsteps of our Lord and teach others to do the same. For many of us, the road is a difficult one, but the path is always there for us to follow, no matter how many times we may fall.

Courier: Do you ever "fall"?

Joshua Graham: Every day. Some days... are harder than others.

"Falling" being doing wrong. This man, though a holy man and teacher to others, knew enough to realize that he was not, nor ever will be, perfect, yet would not let any failure in being and doing right stop him from trying. It was the belief in his God that helped him with this endless fight. He understood that people could, and do, bad things, yet it doesn't make them liars/hypocrites. It only makes them human beings.

You seem to be able to fight this fight on your own, and while you may or may not be fit to tackle this in the long run, some don't feel the same way. There are people of all different backgrounds and situations, many of which you wouldn't understand. This alone should probably stop you from trying to judge their choices, which aren't the same as your own.

Lastly, a reasonable atheist's answer to you would be that 'right and wrong' are subjective ideas, and religions help form what right and wrong should be to people. This would be considered a fundamental aspect of religion. Not 'extolling' righteousness, but defining it.

Why is religious AWESOME?

I don't know, but I know it can do a lot of good, or a lot of bad. But such is life, right?

Edited by Daughter of the Nine Moons
fixed formatting
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Hitler did have a religion though. He did black magic and summoned demons.

The idea that Hitler was an aficionado of the occult or the "Black Arts" is overdone. There's lots of stuff out there in the public domain referencing Hitler's quest for,for example, the Spear of Longinus, putatively the implement that pierced Jesus' side as he hung from the cross.. Hitler was a monomaniacal narcissist who used anything, anybody and everything he could to attempt to enhance his damaged, murderous and souless psyche. It is more probable that the evil Corporal was on a vendetta against the Allied powers because they gassed him in WW I, than he was an earlier version of Steve Ditko's/Marvel Comics anti-hero Dr. Strange.

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I think religion obviously has been used for this sort of thing, but I doubt it is the real reason for religions.

Religion is a tool to comfort the weak sick and dying. Its no longer needed but still has a purpose that take to it for those very reasons.

Almost all of us will one day be weak, sick and dying (multitudes are there already, starving, dying of treatable and even curable diseases).

Does it not stand to reason that we all may "need" religion as a result of your cogent analysis here?

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Whether in time of trouble we turn to religion or not is a matter for each person. Some will find it helpful some won't.

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We live in a world where religion is paramount to our existence as a human. You are either on the side that believes or doesn't believe the stories of the Bible, Koran, or numerous other religious based texts,***

Actually there is another option. Those like myself who consider themselves agnostic. In other words I don't know if there is a God and truthfully I am not too troubled by it either way.

***removed large formatting from quote because it is annoying

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I have moved this thread to SvS. As a reminder:

'Spirituality vs Skepticism' board guidelines Please always respect the beliefs of other members - the bashing of specific religions, countries, races or belief systems is strictly disallowed. Several of the topics in this section cover some sensitive areas and it is important to respect the views of others; this means no flaming, no flamebaiting, no trolling and no personal attacks. We must also ask that members do not use the forums to promote or 'preach' their personal spiritual beliefs to others.

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I think religion obviously has been used for this sort of thing, but I doubt it is the real reason for religions.

I believe 100% that this was the reason for religion and why there are so many religions. Something happens that can't be explained? It was the work of something higher up... even the second step in the AA 12 steps is "came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity". Too much faith has been put into faith and not looking for the real answers

Edited by Rye17
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I don't need religion to understand right from wrong; do you?

Soul

You don't need religion to understand what is right or wrong and i don't it either.Religion is man made to take control over people.

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You don't need religion to understand what is right or wrong and i don't it either.Religion is man made to take control over people.

yes to steal money from the people, and control them!

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Sometimes religion is used to steal money so preachers can have rich lives; other times it is use to raise money to help the poor and elderly and handicapped. When giving money have your eyes open.

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Also being agnostic I don't know if religion is awesome or not. Agnostic is the way to go though.

It seems so ironic to me that everyone searches for an answer to a question that we are all destined to get answered. We all die, we will find out what awaits us if anything.

Emotionally It doesn't bother me whatever other peoples beliefs are. People can preach to me doesn't bother me none. I say this because it seems to me that the OP has negative emotional reactions to people believe in a religion.

Edited by spartan max2
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One way I heard religion explained recently was that it is there to provide for some expectation of After. After dying. It is a social mechanism where by the masses are encouraged to act in socially acceptable ways in order to qualify for this afterlife. Without religion, there is no direct motivation to act socially responsible, and so crime, immorallity, selfishness and other harmful behaviors can all be rationalized by the individual in their own mind to be a good thing. Even if the thing they want to do is harmful to others, if it is beneficial to them, they can justify doing it.

Maybe religion is not for you. Perhaps you have the morals and ethics and behaviors that are not harmful to yourself and others. Such people do exist. But for the overwhelming majority of the ignorant masses, religion is what keeps them in line with society.

I tend to look at it this way. If you follow a religion, what do you loose? Unless you're in a cult where your freedom is being restrained, you can come and go as you want, donate money (or not) as you want, believe in general what you want. If the religion is turn out to be real in the Afterlife, then you had that insurance, and if it was not real, what have you lost? 2 hours on sunday morning.

Then after you become a member of, say, a Christian church, you have new friends, sometimes hundreds of them, all very helpful and kind. And these people will help you in basically any situation. I've seen people give other people in their church jobs, cars, homes, money, food, cloths, pets, insurance.... How can you beat being in an organization that will provide you with free stuff, where they don't demand money, or effort from you, only your time and attention.

Edited by DieChecker
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This seems like a rather pointless topic, in my opinion. It will most likely lead to a whole lot of ego-stroking & anger. Hell, it's probably already happening in this thread & I just haven't read that far into the topic.

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Ask yourself why you are buying Christmas presents and celebrating a ridiculous notion that is the basis for the economic stimulus we use to survive in our fake commercialized society?
Presents and family. That is my only reasons. Any mythological god man is long dead.
Could religion have merits? Sure. But as it stands right now, there is no merit at all to believing or praying to any fake GODs for the sake of redemption in your afterlife. Give him your sins? Really? How about just not sinning. Sure, you see this and think of me being on my soap box with my high horse, but I am not a fake and I completely understand that we all can make mistakes; learning from them is the key and not hurting others deliberately is paramount.

How do you not sin when religions make human nature and free thought sinful?
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We live in a world where religion is paramount to our existence as a human. You are either on the side that believes or doesn't believe...

...I don't need religion to understand right from wrong; do you?

Soul

Like others here I'm an agnostic but I find your view on religion to be overly simplistic. It's not just about teaching "right from wrong". Just off the top of my head; creation, redemption, salvation and the after life are just a few of the other tenets of faith.

Why am I not religious then? Well, maybe those issues aren't that important to me, but the last thing I'd do is spend time belittling the people who do find those things important in their lives.

P.S.: Thank you Daughter of the Nine Moons for removing the 'god awful' fonts (pun intended).

Edited by Likely Guy
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