Where/what is religion?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by water, May 3, 2004.

  1. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    Where/what is religion?


    I often wonder about religions: When I talk to a religious person, I talk to that specific person, I don't actually talk to religion itself. Another person, belonging to the same religion, may tell me something else about the same issue as the first one. And when I read the scriptures they both believe in, I may even read something else than what both of them told me. And if I meet them to explain a certain verse to me, they may give me different explanations, even contradictive.
    I have experienced all this.

    Also, some even say that scriptures are written down and translated by men, so mistakes can be in them. But how can one know which verse is "as originally dictated by God" and which one is a human mistake?


    So whom or what should one rely on as a valid source for religious thought and argument?
     
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  3. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    Rely on the Word of God.

    Some people say it's the Bible, some people say it's the Koran.


    But they all agree to rely on the Word of God.
     
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  5. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    God isn't an author, he doesn't have a magazine, he hasn't written a book or even an article, he doesn't have a tv show and his voice never bellows from the clouds.
    Where is this 'word' we are supposed to rely on? God has never in history said any words so there is nothing to rely on.
    Religious literature and scriptures were obviously written by human beings. You are relying on human beings that you don't even know.
     
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  7. firdroirich A friend of The Friends Registered Senior Member

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    It is a path which leads somewhere. It is felt only by those who walk it, seen by those who don't. It is ever there, you only have to choose to walk it.

    In the book "Toungue of the dumb" a vivid picture is drawn with these words : "The moth, if it could think, might well believe that the candle flame is desirable because it seems to represent perfection. The flame is the product of the wax, the wick & the spark which kindles. Is the human moth seeking the flame or the spark itself? Observe the moth. His destiny, to be destroyed by the flame, is visible to you & hidden to him."
     
  8. Circe Registered Senior Member

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    Look within.
     
  9. Katazia Black Mamba Registered Senior Member

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    SouthStar,

    Not quite. They all agree and imagine that it is the word of a god.

    Kat
     
  10. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    Yes. And then religious people don't believe me. They say I made it up, or that I am presenting invalid arguments.
     
  11. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    Yup. And then a person that belongs to an organized religion talks to you, and sees that you have a different opinion than them. Then they use their scriptures to argument their point. You don't want to present a bad argument to oppose them, so you look things up in their scriptures. And then they say that that's not it, or that you don't understand it, etc. Just something.

    The point is that there doesn't seem to be a way to discuss religion with religious people.

    Anyway, it's pointless.

    I just wish that those who proclaim themselves better and claiming to know the ultimate truth, and trying to educate everyone else -- would be more consistent in their arguments.

    I mean, if a religious person wishes to convert you, and then tells you to "look within" -- why are they angry and hurt afterwards, if what one finds "within" is *not* what they preach??

    They just don't see that they are spitting onto their own plate with their inconsitency.

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  12. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

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    Religion traces the development of morality in mankind according to their God/gods. All Holy books are is the record of the interaction with God/gods that illustrates the place and centrality morality occupied within the development.

    I might be wrong, though... haven't put much thought into it yet.
     
  13. Circe Registered Senior Member

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    And why should that bother you? The truth is in the eye of the perceiver.
     
  14. Q25 Registered Senior Member

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    this
    www.atheists.org
     
  15. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

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    The emphasis should be on a discussion that produces understanding on both sides, not a discussion that produces your understanding or my understanding. Only from a mutual position of understanding can we strart speaking of any kind of 'truth'. However, since you will argue about Scripture from the perspective of someone believing it's a myth, and I will argue from a perspective that recognizes it's validity, I'd say it will be a difficult consensus to reach under the best circumstances.

    If you don't believe the basics, for instance in God's existence, then the details will always be of little consequence. You just can't use the Bible to prove that God doesn't exist.

    Really? Is that the truth?
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2004
  16. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    Circe,

    And why should that bother you? The truth is in the eye of the perceiver.

    Thank you.

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    Why it bothers me? I'm afraid that I am, or at least used to be too polite, too understanding. And because of that I just wished to understand the other person's POV, at any price. And then it hurt me that people were there, calling themselves righteous and good, and yet I saw how inconsistent and offensive they were.
    Now, I know better than then. We actually have a saying, "Beware of those who call themselves good people! beware of those who call themselves your friends!"
     
  17. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    I never attempted to use the Bible to prove that God doesn't exist. I think he does exist -- there are just MANY different ways to talk about it.

    The religious person I was talking to claimed that there is only one God, and that his is the right one, and mine is the wrong one.

    Did you read the last post I wrote to you on the "What makes a holy text holy" thread?
     
  18. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, thanks, although I didn't respond to it because you seemed to have a very sober view already

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    It also seemed to me the 'faith vs. knowledge' issue wasn't really applicable there, or was I wrong?

    I'm just worried about one thing that I pick up from your posts. You seem to want an honest look at religion in general - as far as they're applicable in real life - but you're unwilling to admit that all of them can't be equally true. It's possible to make your religion a system of beliefs that isn't defensible... like being 'spiritual' without believing in God.

    And that's the real problem with many atheists. Some are so intent on proving "religion" wrong (however they define "wrong"), that they can't see the forest for the trees, so to speak - since it's politically incorrect to presume that one truth is more valid than the other claims to it, everything must be equally wrong. But that's not true; truth does exist. Sure, it doesn't belong to anyone, but it's quite possible to know the truth with applying it, or have the truth without accepting it - and that's what we call hypocrisy. You get that inside religion as well as outside.

    I'm not sure what you believe, but I can assure you "wrong" is an oversimplification of any belief. Not because it's relative (it isn't), but because it's a generalization. You can believe in the right God and have the wrong beliefs about Him, or in any god and have the right attitude. It's not simple. That's why my main concern on these forums are to further an understanding of who Christ's Father was. It's just too easy to imagine a generic god and denounce it (or worse, accept it).

    Jesus said something similar (in the words of Isaiah: 'These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me'). But who are "we". Do you belong to a religious group? I don't think paranoia is the answer; there are people who are true friends.
     
  19. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    Jenyar,
    Thanks for your post.

    I think it was, from the POV of the question of the topic: logical explanation for a *non-religious* person was sought.

    And it is in this sense that I made my first reply there: I offered a *description*, from the POV of sociology and history, of phenomena that are connected with religion and holiness.
    I did not attempt to explain the *content* of 'holy'.
    The description I provided is applicable to most religions. I only described the *external* phenomena of holiness, the phenomena that are visible to an outside observer. And I think that from *this* POV, *that* conception of holiness is acceptable.


    I stick to "true is what one believes to be true." In this sense, all religions are equally true. Some may be more consistent in their claims in the sense that verse 234 doesn't say the opposite as verse 235.
    Also, some may be more "practical" than other when it comes to applying them in this world. You cannot thrive in the western world and have an ascetic religion like zen budhism, for example.

    Why wouldn't all religions be equally true?

    Yes, but aren't you then also saying that peson A is worth more than person B? Aren't you saying "A's identity is worth more than B's identity"?

    My position is that we don't know or understand the world and ourselves in the strict sense of "to know" and "understand". We are only acquainted with them and are able to live with them.
    Also, and this is paraphrased from Hawking, "A theory, an explanation is just a (mathematical) model and it is not in place to ask whether it is adequate to reality. We can only ask whether the predictions this theory makes are in accordance with observations."
    In this sense, I stand for theories that have to do with real world phenomena as in the Hawking paraphrase.

    Religious scriptures provide the whole cosmogony, ethics and morality values, psychology, ... -- the whole world, as seen from a certain POV. -- And they mix it all up, and that can be confusing and misleading.
    "It rains because water evaporates from the ground ....... and then falls down as raindrops," says science.
    "It rains because people need food to survive, (and food can be grown only if it rains)", says one religion. Another rleigions says "It rains because the gods are angry", and a third one says "It rains because so that there can be rainbows afterwards, and this is pleasing to the eye."

    I simplified the explanations to get my point across. Neither of these explantions are wrong, but they should show how strongly religious explanation of phenomena can vary -- and it can therefore be badly badly abused.

    In the end, someone can say, according to religious logic: "God created man after his image. We are white. This means that God is white too. This means that God did not create black people after His image." Sounds familiar?

    Or, a practical example, up into the mid-seventies, blacks were not allowed to Mormon churches, because they were regarded as filthy -- the Book of Mormon says that sinners became darkskinned because of their sins. So blacks are black because of their sins.

    It is because of such things that I do try to shun religious explanations as much as possible.

    I do not try to prove religion wrong. I don't remember when *I* last started a discussion about the content of religion. It is usually so that a religious person questions me, and then I only defend my ground.

    The 'we' was as 'in our culture'. I could say it's a Bosnian or a Slovene saying, but with both being so utterly unknown, huh, I don't know. It's the problem of being from a small nation. Slovenia? What is that? Food?
    I don't belong to a religious goup or anything like that.

    Of course, there are people who are true friends and people who are good. But my experience is, that those who are truly good and those who are your true friends, don't go around parading with it, and that's what that saying is about.
     
  20. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

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    In other words, you believe that truth is relative, and religions are valid or not relative to your position? While I can appreciate this, it doesn't have much practical value (which is what you're ultimately aiming for, isn't it?).

    But to argue from your POV, if your demands from life suddenly changed drastically - say, you found out you had two weeks left to live - then wouldn't certain things become more true? But if they are true then, weren't they also true before, and you just couldn't appreciate it? That's why John preached repentance; people had to realize they were guilty before God before forgiveness could make any sense to them, and before they could change their lives to reflect this new appreciation of what God was doing.

    No, not at all! It has nothing to do with intrinsic worth, but with realized worth, as I explained above. If I say it's true that you were created in God's image and you have no idea what I mean, that truth will be diminished. It will be relative to you, even if it were absolutely true in reality. You are worth more to God than you realize, but if you don't think it's true you won't accept it, and you won't ever realize your worth.

    But you imply that there is nothing more to know than what we can predict, as Hawking describes. But this is continually proven wrong as we learn more about the world! We know there is more to life than we realize, but we can't prove it until it has been "proven", and even then most people won't understand it.

    That's just one half of the argument. What about how science is abused? Your view of science might leave you with the smallest chance of being "wrong", but what about being wrong? God says you are of eternal worth to Him, science says you're an cosmic accident destined to die. What's the truth?

    I repeat what I said above: explanations aren't everything. They're not all that's truth.

    Do you shun every truth if it has been abused? Be honest. A lot of evolution is based on the concept of survival of the fittest; it can be considered a "truth". Then why was what Hitler did wrong? Wasn't he the "fittest", wasn't it because of their weaknesses and inability to adapt that he could conquer other countries? But does that mean "survival of the fittest" isn't ever true in nature?

    Or to use your example. "God created man in his image". Can you tell a black person's blood from a white person? Who decided that "man" meant caucasians? The people who wrote that sentence were semitic - eastern. They weren't white either. And where does the Bible say anyone is better than another? It says "all people sinned, all have strayed from righteousness".

    People who stop thinking about what they're doing with their faith are just as dangerous as people who stop thinking what they're doing with their science. Selfishness and hatred is destructive in any context - and that is what God considers sin. Sin is sin no matter what you believe, and so is God.

    Bosnia, as in Bosnia-Herzegovina? At least I know where it is. Not many people have much knowledge about South Africa either, so I can sympathise

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    In other words, their pride makes them less likely to be true friends. That's because they are are more likely to look out for their own interests than yours. A true friend shows it with actions, not words.
     
  21. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Religion is a method of understanding.
    Understanding what?
    Who/what you are, who/what God is, these are the two elements regarding religion. All religions have a basic set of rules and regulations which asks you to adopt and live by, if you wish to be successful in your understanding. These rules and regulations are the first line in your journey, and the aim is for you to have some measure of control of the over-demanding senses. With control comes clarity, with clarity comes better understanding.
    The essence of religion is found in 3 ways, from self-realisation, from a person who is God-conscious, and from bona-fide scriptures, and like any other subject matter, you only advance to the level of your own mentality, which is why there are rules and regulations.

    Jan Ardena.
     
  22. tablariddim forexU2 Valued Senior Member

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    Religion is a delusion. Religion is an object of control. There is no god in the accepted sense and no god ever uttered any verse of scripture. Religion is a state of mind and therefore completely personal and subjective; based more on cultural ethics than any fundamental truths, though fundamental truths certainly exist in all religions. Religion works, simply because the subject is hypnotised by it; the mind becomes receptive and believes in the canons and philosophy that any particular religion tries to convey.

    The cocept of god is an enticing enigma that challenges the mind, that is either force-fed and believed in blindly, or searched for and sometimes 'found' and sometimes searched for and found again, or searched for in vain, but ultimately, it is a futile exercise based on wishful thinking.

    Religion is basically a waste of time and potentially dangerous; grow out of it and think for your self.
     
  23. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

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    *************
    M*W: Religion can be addictive, a form of personality disorder which may lead to mental illness. It can manifest as an OCD. It may be triggered by the molecule DMT. (Don't ask me to spell it! It's on the web). This molecule causes religious hallucinations in some people. Further study needs to be done. Have you ever known someone whom all they talk about is religion? Think about it. It's almost as if they're out of touch with reality. It's impossible to have a conversation with them about anything else! Usually these people test higher on the MMPI to have "magical thinking." It is an addiction. In my day, I've only seen Christians with this mental illness.
     

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