Religious hindrance.

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

The biggest problem I found in religion was how it hindered my life. This may not apply to everyone who is religious. But in my case I believed in God strongly.

Even though I believed in God, I really never cared to take certain things seriously, because look how many people dont!

I ate whatever I wanted, pizza, mcdonalds, cokes and cokes; I drank coke like water. Sure the body is the temple of God but who really takes that seriously? I knew I was in God’s hands, even if I did die, which would be later most likely with a heart attack, I’m going to heaven!

Physical Fitness? Who needs that? I was going to get a new body in heaven, and the opposite sex? Well, God would provide me with someone if I prayed enough who would look good, be a virgin, who didn’t drink or party, and who had a great personality, but also wasn’t a prude (Good luck with that!) People used to tell me, even christians that this would be hard to find, but I trusted God.

Talents? Jobs? Doing my best which requires alot of attention? Ah that’s a sin, God comes first and money shouldn’t be an object.

In fact these are just three examples, but once I stopped believing in God, I actually eat correctly, care more about my body, workout lifting and running almost everyday, and pursue my goals with more effort. I’m not saying this is a problem with every religious person… but if God doesn’t exist, what have they done to themselves?

Of course you can say, ahh don’t take it so seriously, well my religion taught me that’s what it was all about, however who really took it seriously? Maybe a small few, I would think if God existed and it was so important Christians would be studying ways to defend their faith instead of skimming through Lee Strobel books and giving blind faith answers, such as well I don’t know but I’m sure somehow I’m right because I believe in God.

What do you guys think, do you suppose we will eventually get to a time where religions have died out? Or will they keep ignoring and calling knowledge, philosophy, and science the devil? It’s funny I have a friend who is now religious again after all the time I spent trying to get him away from drinking, smoking weed, and ruining his life. He calls me everyday about some new verse, hardly understands what he’s talking about and I just have to lie to him and say, yeah it’ll be cool when God comes back, yeah… I guess weed is a spiritual plant that God meant for us to use, yada yada, because I’d rather him be religious and have a hold on his life than not be and go down the drain which is the other extreme people try to take with religions.

Does anyone see any connections with this? Discuss

2

No wonder you lost your faith.

3

Yours sounds like it was a childish faith. That kind of faith is typical of kids who grow up in evangelical or fundamentalist families where they are indoctrinated into religion before the onset of abstract critical thinking. Sometimes their beliefs last through high school if they have a strong believing peer group. Many times if they go to a secular college their faith is doomed. The religious indoctrination can’t survive the kind of questioning imposed by the assault of pluralistic ideas and values. Exposure to a plethora of ideas on the internet probably has a similar effect.

4

Quite the opposite really felix. Not sure how much you got on here back in the day but I was well studied into defending my faith, I’m sure I knew more about how to defend from secular questions more than my pastor and most of the people in my church. When you really think of it, it is rare that you find a highly religious person who studies philosophy and apologetics in depth, especially in this era.

You totally miss the point if you think this felix. If I had blind faith I would have lost my faith. But I don’t believe in things blindly, I believe in certainty, and certainty doesn’t show religion on top anymore.

But please, anyone want to get back to the topic? The effect that religious expectations and doctrines have on lifestyles and your personal life?

5

Religion is supposed to aid in the art of living – to smooth out the rough patches and bring out the good.

Unfortunately, humans are generally fairly lazy creatures and the institutions that were created to enoble us become co-opted and are used to justify the worst aspects of ourselves. People inside of religious traditions have to carefully guard against this type of sloth and inertia both inside and outside of the faith.

Jesus spent a lot of time berating Jews who had lost sight of their faith and assumed that they were saved because they were Jews. In the modern world, there are many Christians making this very same mistake.

But this isn’t a Christian-only problem. Confucianism, as a religious tradition, has been all but driven to extinction because of complacancy. Daoists are protesting KFC commericals when they should be focusing on more important things . . .

The list goes on and on. But it has pretty much always been this way. The point is to recognize these flaws and prevent them from happening to us first. If we can prevent them from happening in us, we can move on to try and inspire others to not go down that path or to reverse their progress along it.

So, yes, “No wonder you lost your faith,” indeed. The question now becomes: what next?

6

Yes, it’s very sad that people don’t follow religions more correctly and worry about the stuff that really matters. In fact this is why most people who don’t believe in God don’t believe in God. Simply that they are hypocrites, and I don’t blame them for being hypocrites. Maybe deep down only a few really truly believe in God, the rest just do it for socializing, to keep themselves in line, to meet others, to feel like they’re doing a good thing, etc.

7

I didn’t say blind, I said childish. Right, you were an studious defender of fundamentalist doctrine. You had a superficial understanding of an anti-intellectual interpretation of religion. A potent poisonous mix. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Your belief in certainty is a part of the problem. Science is about probability not certainty. Will you go from fanatical Christian to fanatical anti-christian? What’s the probability of that?

8

Sadly there is a thread of anti-semitism running through some of the books of the New Testament. Many historians think that it came into the picture after Jesus’ death when the early Jesus sect was in competition with other Jewish sects. They doubt the historical accuracy of Jesus’ words against jews. He was a jew after all and it unlikely that he saw himself as starting a new religion. In the Gospels, anti-semitism is more evident in Matthew and John. During the canonization process there likely was a tendency to choose books that blamed the jews instead of the Romans who actually crucifed Jesus. After all, that would work against the religion’s acceptance by the dominant majority in the empire.

9

liveleak.com/view?i=afc_1176484646

10

I was thinking more about the Goats and the Sheep as opposed to out-and-out anti-semitism. From my (limited) understanding of the Bible, I see it as being less prejudiced and more chiding.

11

Lol. I said I was having doubts to my mother, she didn’t get that mad or act like she was going to ban my christmas, but she did raise her voice about how I think about stuff too much and she knows God was there when her mother was dying, what do you really say to that. I still go to church, but I can’t do any of it sincerely, and I don’t bash those who do. Anyway that video is a great example of why there are many hypocrites; people are too scared to come out. I’ll never come out as an atheist even though I don’t really consider myself an atheist, just a weak agnostic, but even at agnostic it’s not acceptable for the full both sides of my parents family, who are pastors, theologians, etc. But none of them have dug into this stuff as much as I have either, at least not from the other side.

The old thought to go out and look up at the sky and the land and think that it couldn’t have all happened from nothing in a bang was just plain stupid. Astronomy class helped clear that one up. But yet I still see older Christians using this as I did myself, and I find that sad whether they’re Christian or not

12

I’m glad to see you back here, Club29. Have have you been these last few months? You were pretty down in the dumps when you left; you seem better now, more at peace.

13

Hey, I’ve been great. Definitely more at peace for the moment. However, the future is scary. I keep wondering what will happen when I’m older, when I get married and have kids. I know my parents will want to see my family in church, and the thought of living the rest of my life hiding the fact I don’t believe from church friends just seems miserable. Being agnostic or atheist is almost something you seem to have to ‘come out of the closet’ with. I think atheists are one of the number one hated types. I could ask a friend who doesn’t care at all about church or living how the biblical God would want him to, and when I talk about atheists he says those people are stupid, “it’s stupid to try to prove God doesn’t exist” to quote him. He totally misses that atheism and agnosticism are ‘certainties’ just like being religious is a certainty.

Other than this problem, I love the fact I feel more control of my life. And this is what I’m discussing here. I don’t think alot of people who go from religious to agnostic or atheist will go nihilistic, I think they’ll be fine. Nihilism seems to come more from a depressive state of mind, never feeling like you can find the answer, so you stop believing there is one, there may be some truth to that. One friend of mine who is atheist, has never been religious, and he was asking me last night actually if I ever felt like life was pointless for me, because he can go for weeks like that he said. I truly think he needs something to love, and that’s what I told him.

Anyway, religion may not be a hindrance on your life. If it isn’t you are a very strong and humble person to be able to believe something so strongly you can ignore personal values. And I only say this because this is what the Bible at least asks of many Christians, Catholics, etc. I don’t think it’s healthy to totally block areas of life that need to be dabbled in unless you’re going to live in tibet with monks. This riding the fence was always hard for me, now there is no fence, and I can feel much clearer, I don’t feel bad everyday for all this semi bad stuff I did.

14

Club:

Gods not your problem, religion is. if you want to get to know God then hit rock bottom for a while.

15

Club, glad to hear you’re back…I remember you mentioned how cloudy things were for you when you left. I’m glad to hear things have become more clear.

I agree 100%. Religion, as Dawkins argues, de-values life. If there is a much better life promised in the future (after this life), wouldn’t it inevitably make this life less valuable, compared to believing this is the only chance you’ll ever get at consciousness? I personally think so, but what are others thoughts?

And as for this:

Is this your opinion? I think it is an interesting, but unique, one. Most who are “religious” would disagree with you methinks. Maybe religion is supposed to be an evolutionary tool to expedite the advancement of our communicative skills.

16

Maybe you’re right, but how do you know when you’ve found God and not your own imagination? How do you know that feeling of God’s presence isn’t some pyschological feeling you’ve created with reinforcement?

17

That’s why you need to hit rock bottom, no ego and no hope will take care of any bias or imagination cuz you wont have anything left of yourself. That’s one way to know and hear the Truth loud and clear and I promise you will know it is Truth without a doubt at this point of despair.

18

Your definition of religion is an extremely narrow caracature. It’s just another version of the straw man argument. Buddhism teaches mindfulness. Mindfulness involves living in the present moment. Living in the present moment makes life more valuable. When Jesus was “demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:19-21. Being within you, the kingdom of God, as defined Jesus, who is considered the founder of a major religion, is present not pie-in the sky when you die. You define religion by it’s negative aspects not it’s good ones. If I do that with atheism, we can talk about soviet communism etc. I won’t do that because I would be responding in kind to your statement above.

19

I think the bolded quote is pretty accurate. A religion is meant to be a “good” thing in a person’s life right? So, what it “religion”, in the general sense (not speaking of any particular religion with its unique images, mythology, etc), is “supposed” to do is, by definition

  1. From dictionary.com

meant to increase the quality of one’s life.

Most people who are “religious” don’t have any kind of level-headed, “objective” view of religion outside their own faith, so I don’t think their idea of religion is applicable in a context outside their own subjective experience.

I think this is a pretty cool idea. I don’t think religion only applies to one’s communication tools; however, I think if one is constructively using religion (which I have to think you consider an impossiblity, from your agreeing with Dawkins that religion (always) devalues life) they will be acting according to a system of ethics that calls for sensitive, interpersonal communication with other people. There is the very simple “golden rule”: treat others as you would like them to treat you. You want to be understood, yes? You can only understand someone else if you recognize that accurately decoding a message that someone encoded to you takes some effort (we don’t all encode our messages the same way, using the same tools; one should take the time to find the read-me file before attempting to (absolutely) decode the message).

I think the statement would be more accurate if it was changed to “Religion practiced in such a way that harms oneself or others (either physically, emotionally, or mentally, whether through pain or the inhibition of one’s potential) de-values life.”

Any religion person who ignores the present because they feel secure in the future doesn’t represent religion’s potential. Most religious people aren’t “spiritual” at all, they are uncomfortable child-minded apes looking for security.

Instead of thinking of one’s lifespan as “life” let’s consider the smallest moment/change (time is change) we can subjectively experience (which, think we think, would be the appearance of a new thought) as “life”. Life is every moment where you can act. Now let’s think of afterlife as any next moment where you can act.

This idea of an afterlife, and acting in such a way that influences that afterlife (karma), fits with our modern cognitive-behavioral therapy. At every moment, with every thought and decision on how to act, you are programming how your mind will interpret future perceptions.

The seperation between science and religion is due to ignorance. Those that believe religious metaphors as facts aren’t using their minds.

I remember some quote… I forgot who said it… something like : I refuse to believe in a God who has endowed us with strength of reasoning and intellect, and then forgoes its use.

Most religious people today aren’t educated, and they have been so brainwashed that they will go to hell if they don’t have faith that they refuse to accept established facts about the universe due to fear that they’ll burn in fire for eternity.

It has become an ingroup/outgroup issue (which is the very core of human conflict; me versus it on a group level). The religious think they are the pure, the people of God, and those that don’t accept their beliefs are not people of God (which makes them spawns of Satan).

The problem is the word “religion”, for most people, pretty much connotes a conflict with scientific facts.

Both “sides”, the religious and those that see themselves as belonging to a group conflicting with the religious, continue in a struggle of proving to themselves that the other is wrong, and thet are right, increasing the gap between them, and making communication more difficult.

I just had to reply… you still seem to be in the bad habit of generalizing religion to its worst (and, unfortunately, most common) examples.

20

Yes, my apologies, I should be more specific. Generally, when I speak in generalities, it will pertain to the general concept of the generality in question. =P

Meant to be by whom? Do you mean viewed as a good thing by other religious folks? Spirituality perhaps is meant to be a good thing, but I disagree that religion is. I think that’s controversial.

Well, first, perhaps by your definition of religion it would be constructive, but not by the common definition. I think you can act according to a system of ethics that calls for what you mentioned WITHOUT religion.

I like Buddhism. :smiley:

I agree, the problem is that semantics hasn’t really been given enough attention, because people (myself included) have in depth arguments operating from completely different definitions of the same word…no wonder we never get anywhere!