Namaskar,
Humankind has witnessed many religions & none of them has given us a lasting solution so far. On the contrary in the name of religion many have abused it to the extent where it has put eveyone of us to utter shame. What is religion? Religion is based on dogma-centered philosophy. Dogma-centered philosophy is a blending of matter-centered and self-centered philosophies. So religions are a blending of partly matter-centered philosophies and partly self-centered philosophies. Matter-centered philosophies are mostly pure dogma, while self- centered philosophies are a blending of dogma and sentiment. Religions sometimes survive for a long time, even though they are full of dogma. This is because they know how to twist their teachings to deny the truth and adapt to different circumstances. Their purpose is to secure the interests of a special, privileged class. Some religions have also survived because they have associated themselves with God-centered ideas, although they are not God-centered. They make some dogmatic propositions about God an important part of their teaching, and on this basis they sentimentalize the minds of the people. These sentiments penetrate deeply into the human psyche. The main weapons of dogma-centered philosophies are:
The propagation of stories, myths and parables to create superiority complexes;
The propagation of stories, myths and parables to create inferiority complexes;
The propagation of fear complex and inferiority complex amongst the people, especially the toiling masses (shu’dras).
All religions viz., Christianity, Hinduism, Islam etc use these three types of complexes to inject superiority complexes, inferiority complexes and fear complexes into the minds of the people. They propagate parables, myths and stories to inject complexes into people’s minds. Is it not a fact? All religions are based on dogma – they are not based on logic – and they propagate their dogma through stories, myths and parables. All religions propagate that “My God is the only true God. Other Gods are false gods.†When some religions claim that their god is the only true God, it is an example of a dogma- centered proposition. All world religions are based on such dogma- centered theories. So before claiming that we belong to a particular religion/caste/clan etc…think a thousand times. We all are essentially a part of that Supreme Consciousness & are to merge into it sooner or later.
Namaskar, Snigdhananda
Religion may have evolved to your description in the general public sense but, for the individual it is not.
Religion is hope for something better a belief that you will achieve greater things. When the average person gets up in the morning and faces another day of work strife and pain, they need that hope, it helps them to smile, laugh and get some happiness and comfort. The average person is not ignorant. They know their beliefs are based in faith and hope. Religion is a treat for the soul. If it did not get that treat, the reasons to continue as a contributing member of society will poof go away.
The average religious person does not think that all parts of their sacred texts are 100% true. They just have faith that is is possibly close to it.
Look with out a promise of a nice afterlife all the work, pain and crap you go through in this life is useless. Life is about living, but, to think that this is it, sucks and really makes no sense at all. Infact it makes less sense than religious beliefs do. Why go through all of this if there is nothing else.
Bringing to task the group and removing its belief, harms the average individual. Forget the group and see the individual and what their beliefs give them.
Snig - I have a question. Are you claiming that religious dogma is a bad thing? I can’t tell. Certainly you have made no argument that what you describe is a bad thing. And certainly a case could be made that your description is accurate, and that it describes an important social function, serving important social exigencies.
I never get tired of posts that begin by being an grand attempt to put all religion on the same level (the level of baloney), to outline the mechanisms and devices that make it click, to rip aside the curtain, dispell the illusion, to bring us back to calm, collected sense of reason, and then summarize with something like
What, like whatever yogi or self-help book you've turned to is free of all psychological manipulation, or the merest [i]potential[/i] of psychological manipulation?
This, in general, why I don't like to argue with alleged atheists anymore (at least, about their atheism). If all they are is an atheist, then all they are is an anti-me-ist. They get to criticize, I get to defend, and it goes on forever until someone gets bored. I can lose if I'm not on top of my game, but I can never win, because the atheist hasn't presented anything to attack. No. An atheist isn't just an atheist, he's a [i]materialist[/i], a [i]naturalist[/i], perhaps a [i]humanist[/i]. These things can be criticized, these things are vulnerable.
So, Snigdhananda. What are you, other than an anti-religionist? You gave us a little taste of it at the end.
Snighananda, I find you a truth-teller. At best, religion is a placebo that one can do without! It is psychological then for people to have to have one, not a real reason to have one. Theists love to obfuscate. Literalists have far-fetched notions to buttress the contradictions of the Tanakh and the Testament and inerrantists have metaphors that do not answer why Yahweh caused the Deleuge or endorse slave ry, genocide,etc. Others can find wrongs in other scriptures. I am schizotypal ,supposedly a believer in the supernatural and the paranorman, but I abjure both! Theists just die ,since we let them know that they ought to face the world without their imaginary friend! Fellow anti-theists, =D>
Ucci - you raise an excellent point. There is a sense in which there is no such thing as a mere atheist, as someone who is simply an atheist. For it only shows what we are not. Which isn’t usually very intersting, by itself.
Does anyone have anything to state about any other religious texts?While Mahayana Buddhism has no gods , it does have the phony notions of karma and reincarnation.What about Jainism and Sikhism? In The Transcendent Temptation," Paul Kurtz makes excelent points about several religions. =D>
Fellow anti-theists, =D> 