Religion offers not so much salvation as hope. Hope for a better world than the one we have. This hope gives humanity motivation and energy. It brings out the life in all life.
I don’t claim this idea to be original; it was just a nice thought that I had, and a very true one also.
despite any religion’s validity, it gives us a set of rules to live by…that is where most of our morality comes from(Ex. killing innocent people is wrong)
but what if you didnt believe in any religion…would that make you deprived of hope for a better world? would this world be a better place if everyone was an atheist?
our basic everyday morality stems from religion…without it there would be no morality…we would just go about doing whatever feels right…i might want to go kill someone just because i find it correct? does that make me right? and for you to have no source of morality…who are you to say if im right or wrong?
believing you have to “treat your neighbor like yourself” does not require a 2000 year old book or even the idea of god. all it requires is that you interact with other people and notice that when they do bad things to you, it is “BAD”, when they do good things, its good.
you know how to hurt people, you dont need god to tell you that stabbing is not nice.
as for the relief that comes from believing we will continue to live, i believe the reason why it is relieving is because it is the natural thing to believe. i think death is the weird thing. death is what does not jive with my experience. it makes more sense to me that death is the bridge to somewhere than death is the end of existence. i have never experienced ending an existence, only the ending of a body that doesnt seem to be essentially connected to me (since nobody has ever seen memories written inside a brain)
why is it that atheists embrace “the fundamental meaningless” of life? doesnt that feel bad to you?
The drive behind religion is control of people through fear of the unknown. It claims to have knowledge of an “after-life”, which it has no knowledge of, and this gives people “hope”.
Religion is nothing but a control mechanism for the ignorant masses.
I must disagree. You are perhaps confusing religion with politics. I genuinely believe that the founders of most religions seek (and believe they have found) unique knowledge of the human condition. They also tend to be rather poor and uninfluential during the span of their lives.
No I’m not confusing the two. As the saying goes, Religion was the first form of government.
So you’re saying that even the founders of religions desire only power?
On the Evolution Of Religion
In Human, All Too Human, Friedrich Nietzsche commented on the origin of Religion begining with a lack of the conception of natural causality. That the acts of the person are merely ceromonious to getting a supernatural enity to do what it is they want to accomplish. This is exemplified when he said: “The whole of nature is in the conception of religous men a sum of actions by conscious and volitional beings, a tremendous complex of arbitrariness.”
Religion as an idea is a wonderful thing, however it is the actions of Religion that make it one of the worst of things. If one studies the Evolution of Religion, they would notice how the steady incorporation of universal knowledge is embedded into one belief after another. Thereby, the more detailed the Religion, the harder it becomes to disprove. One would be so keen to compare Roman Pantheism with Roman Catholicism and find a distinct difference in the amount of information both provide on the nature of spirituality.
Of course, one could not evolve Religion unless one were to evolve a god or goddess. The need to simplify a belief structure is key to the Evolution of Religion. Organizing the elements of many gods into one, developing theories on the nature of spirituality that befit the current era and cultural development, and refining the concept of morality to work in conjunction with the norm of society. To evolve a diety is to merely have a more simplified understanding of it.
~From The Book Of Gnosis
Pretty much. I’m sure there were some honest founders of religion. I don’t believe that all the founders of religions were corrupt but I’d argue that most just wanted power. As for the other religions, evenutally–over time–they became about obtaining power as well. I.e. I believe Jesus, if he existed, was honest in his religious teachings but overtime, the Church and then the Roman Empire–under Constatine–manipulated his teachings and the Bible to suit their needs, because they wanted power.
Quite true…after all…the New Testament was written between roughly 35-100 C.E. What does that tell you about validity?
It speaks for its validity. Jesus died around 33 years AD…two years to gather stories seems reasonable; as for the last written was by an Apostle who, according to Tradition, was young when Jesus was alive, and lived to a good old age (not to mention the redactors doing their job afterwards.) So I don’t think there is a problem there.
un chevalier mal fet,
the scholastic attack!
The only part of the new testament that was written about 35 C.E were Paul’s letters. The youngest gospel (Mark) was written in the 60s or 70s, also, I believe that it was Mark who some scholars think was an apostle, but that also means that Mark was in his 50s when he wrote the Gospel.
Also, most scholars believe that Matthew and Luke deprived most of their gospel from Mark, as entire sections seem to be copied right out of Mark’s Gospel.
John’s Gospel was written in about 100 CE, and is very poetic and “wordy” compared to the others.
How would you like it if we discussed the drive behind all atheism? (As if there were enough theists on this board to start a discussion!) We could characterise athiests as immoral – they don’t ascribe power to God, they want it themselves. Or maybe it gives people hope? – put on Imagine one more time! And did you know (as i have read) that Marx faked his statistics? And Darwin converted on his deathbed?
We’ve heard it all before on these boards – against religion.
Are you writing social analyses – or diatribes?
un chevalier mal fet
Okay, Username, I forgot the Epistles were earliest. But in their time oral tradition was very strong – you could surely pick up stories after two decades and have them factual. No?
?
You are more than welcome to start that discussion but I think it is worth pointing out that you just provided a false analogy.
This thread is not titled, what is the drive behind theism , it is asking what is the drive behind religion.
In order for your analogy to be valid this thread would need to be titled “What is the drive behind theism?”
And how is a non-theist going to argue against atheism?
(Looks like you just had a Freudian slip. Want me to delete this so you can delete yours?)
My point was that religion and theism are not the same thing.
I am not following what your point is. Perhaps you could clarify?
my real name, i think LAATF means “what is the need for christians to eat special bread, jews to wear hats, and muslims to pray so incredibly often?”
we can all agree that its pretty natural to treat your neighbor like yourself, and also to hope and believe that there is an afterlife.
what doesnt seem natural to most people who write here is the idea that god loves it when you follow specific rituals.
why are the members of these things so dedicated to something that doesnt appear to bring non-power-of-suggestion goodness.
why would they believe that god loves their specific stuff so much when other people seem to have seen the same messenger, and heard about a more logical, non-time-wasting way to respect the universe.