I use the traditional Catholic/Christian view as my example representing all religion indirectly.
There was no way to disprove religion until now. There was no source of evidence back then so they made it up to keep the populous in check. To keep everyone on the same page. Without religion serving as their glue, the powerful wouldnt be able to keep their societies together. There was no way to stop people from creating anarchy and there was no central explaination for existance. So they created fear of death through heaven and hell(and many other variations from different cultures regarding death) and the creationist theory because there was no way to question it pre science and it being a very easy to believe existance theory. Religion served as a primitive law being that it was the one thing that could totally control the living and they did this by harnessing their fear of death. Fear of the unknown. It was hard to have “Laws” like we have now and enforce them. How does a soldier with a basic combat abilities and no transportation other than say a horse and walking stop murder and crime? You cant prevent this by killing, because its close combat, they could kill you just as easily. They have no fear of death because you havent created this for them, they just know that you die, who knows where you go after that. They wouldnt care. So how do you create fear…hmmmmmmmmmmmm weellllll you start by telling them that they will go to hell and burn for eternity with satan if they dont do what you say. How do you control them? You tell them how to live(crime and disease prevention), how to breed(population control), and how to worship(go to church and pay for these lies when you can just have faith yourself, why do you need a church?), and control insolence such as science(I.E “Behead this traitor because he says the world is not flat” or “Or kill him because he says the world isnt the center of the universe” PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE THEY WERE RIGHT and were killed by the people that were wrong.
You dont need a constitution when you have a society of fanatics controlled by fear of Santa Clause
Well some religions were created by the state, yes. But on the whole, I think religion was created for more personal reason then adapted to the state later on. Christianity for example, was created by a bunch of Bohemian- hippy - Jew guys. It didn’t help the stability of any government at first, probably did much to weaken the Roman empire (thats why they kept on burning them). Then the Roman empire took Christianity because it was so good at what it does, and put it in service of the state. So its the opposite way around, I think.
hmmm well it is and isnt. Good point though for sure. Some small group would have had to create it, it is not like established states all of a sudden say this is our doctrine, but you can do this like the romans through slaughtering.
Primitive tribes probably started the roots and they grew from there. When you have no understanding or resources to use to understand your environtment or why something happened, you make up stories to make yourself feel better. Even if they arent true. Im just saying someone in power at some point used religion as a control and it grew from there to what it is now.
As long as beliefs are your beliefs and you dont force them on others, I dont mind religion, but that is the nifty feature of it. Religion itself drives people to convert non believers, gather them for the collective, its disgusting. Drives them to force their beliefs on others, to ignore personal freedom and understanding. Even mental freedom for the love of god. Its horrible. You should be able to do whatever you want in your private life as long as it doesnt injure someone else, if you dont like them then too bad. You cant jsut make them illegal because you disagree…
Surely people in power use religion. But my position is that Religion was never created expressly for that purpose. Governments use entertainment as well to control the population. Does that mean that entertainment is a creation of government to control the population? Of course not.
Most of the major religions were created by one guy, and especially with the Buddha or our friend Jesus, they didn’t have much political power.
My position is that religion is a primitive instinct. Thats why you find it in primitive tribes everywhere, controlling everything. As a primitive instinct however, it functions to preserve the social unity of a group- like an ant-hill, which by the way is very necessary when you are part of an ignorant primitive tribe in the middle of nowhere.
Well, I believe that when you know the truth, and you believe you can help people with it, you ought to share it. But Christians are just duped. They believe it so much, that they are actually sharing the “good news” with people. I don’t blame the Christians themselves, except sometimes perhaps for their stupidity or laziness. And even those things are natural human characteristics.
Sorry again too general and missed the point. I agree with what you are saying completly. It does support social unity in a sea of ignorance. But we are no longer in a sea of ignorance. So what do we do. It is still performing its prime function, its just they are forgeting that their are other people in the world besides them. The traditional way of dealing with this would be to convert them, through force or brainwashing,
FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. But you cant do that anymore, that would be barbaric. So they spread it in other ways, like influencing law.
Who knows if Jesus or Mohammed even existed? Like they are a hero in a story, a fabricated history/explaination of things. Religion itself as we know it was created. It existed before in collections of tribes, as their beliefs, their social glue. And some genius harnessed it for power. As humanity became civilised religion stayed, growing and evolving with the times.
You think people then, as now, are so dumb to just believe what you tell them to?
Even if you put a knife to my throat I will merely confess with my mouth and pretend to believe, but act out in ways entirely not in keeping with what I am forced to say I believe.
how many people do you seriously step outside their beliefs and question the reality of heaven and hell? I would say maybe 30% ever question their beliefs and of that 30% maybe 3 - 5% step outside themselves.
So, yes I would say that people generally believe what they are told without question… A good example and case study would be the internet, and as was posted here, the junk mail saying that bushes officer is going to ban birth control. The poster believed it totally on the faith of who was sending it to them. Not even for a moment researching it to find the validity of the topic.
I have a co-worker at work, who calls himself “orthodox catholic” I ask him what he knows about catholicism, and he tells me “nothing, I don’t need to know anything about it to believe it.” I would say the majority of faithful are exactly the same way.
Dread, You have alot of good ideas in that clump of a post. Next time try using the enter key to seperate it to make it more readable.
They are indoctrinated as children to believe in the Man Upstairs, who delegates his authority to specific people - those who preach the message their parents listen to, and, later in life, whoever comes closest to that same unchanging message. We will not defeat magical superstition and unreasoning fear by shouting at it. I don’t know how we’ll defeat it; the magical, closed mind protects itself from upgrade and enlightenment by interpreting all messages from any but the tribal elders as malicious attacks and lies, and arguments based on logical reasoning as word games made up by Satan to trick the hubristic into doing evil.
(Incidentally, the most vicious and debasing insult I have ever used on people is to call them “incurious.” )
Will you accept just anything I tell you? And even if I argue my case and not just say, “I told you so”?
Therefore you have you yourself as evidence that what Dread is saying is false, or to put it strictly logical: at least not true universally and possibly false universally. And where you should have doubted yet you accepted what was told you, uncritically. Thus you are demonstrating the very irrationality that you attributed ‘others’ with.
Perhaps the greater insight here is to examine yourself, and asked yourself why do you believe somethings and not others, or someone and not another? Certainly the evidence, the rationale and the logic for the content of the belief is not as important as the person proposing the belief to you, as in your Catholic co-worker above. But are there yet other reasons? Like you just simply want to believe what you want to believe? And if so, why?
“The lie that is known to be a lie is half eradicated, but the lie that even intelligent
persons accept as fact - the lie that has been inculcated in a little child at its mother’s
knee - is more dangerous to contend against than a creeping pestilence!”
-ASL
Chan, what do you think I am trying to “tell you”? I am only giving basic general observations on my part. I know I stray from point, but my main statements are that there is no evidence that god exists for one, there is no evidence that he doesn’t exist for two, and religion is simply outdated, like monarchy, for three. I come to the conclusion that religion is not divinly oriented because of many reasons, and I try to point them out in my rantish writings.
We have no way of knowing the past for sure, aside from what one mind writes down or tells you(this requires someone that you can see and here you know that right?) at any given time. Soooo someone you could see and hear would be a human right? How do you know to trust them? How do you know to trust a priest or a cleric, or a monk etc? Do you even think about it really?
We can validate authenticity of our history with similar accounts recorded by other people during the same time or “evidence”. Not claims of the unknown with nothing to show for it but the various religous infrastructures we built. How do we know that a historical document like the bible isnt fiction? There are no other ways to validate their claims. Oh and how do you choose a religion? Go to the religion bazaar and pick which one sounds the coolest? I dont get it. You should chose it right? Not just settle with what is available, or what you are exposed to, or imprinted with, wouldnt you want to make sure that the one you chose is right? How do you know its right?.
You are brought up in a culture completly convinced of the truth of some ancient doctrine and belief, while some guy your same age is covinced of a completly conflicting religion with yours in some other country, supported by their culture. How can you explain this other than the fact that they evolved as a society and as beings in a different place. But wouldnt they vaildate gods will as well? Wouldnt you validate theirs? Wouldnt god speak his doctrine through them to? It is the fact that religions contradict. Its obviously a human creation, not divine at all. And believe you spoke of Jesus in previous writings, some guy that said he was the son of god thousands of years ago. How do you KNOW for SURE that this is true? Because a book told you so? Beacause a priest told you so? Because you grew up being imprinted with it? Because you were so dumb to believe what someone told you? There is no evidence. No real logical, rational evidence. If there is tell me.
Ok so what do we seek then? Nothing? What do we aim to validate? What do we seek to discover? So you are saying that everything is false? It is all a illusion?
Because truth would have to be “told” to you and there is no real way of knowing that anything is true because you can only directly experience your own mind? Well yeah. Who knows, but the illusion is well made if this is in fact what it is. This being a possiblity as well. But still the illusion being “made” would still not validate religion, maybe a creator/creators or controllers even, a possiblity as well if you think about present technology and its realistic potential. I think the matrix suggested this well. THERE ARE SO MANY POSSOBILITIES SO MANY, and so many supposed “real” answers. Im not giving an answer, you choose what you want, but this is how I see it and like anyone else that disaggrees with someone, I am going to “tell” you how I see it. If no one told anyone anything what would we do then? Sit there and stare at eachother?
Parishoners debate with their church leaders on matters of doctrine all the time, at least in small Protestant churches. If they don’t stand up and holler in the middle of the sermon, it’s because they’re polite, not because they’re cowed. In larger churches with hundreds of members, this may not happen as much, because parishoners simply don’t know their ministers well enough to sit down and talk with them. If all you know about church-life is what you gain by sitting in a pew and zoning out, then I can see why you’d have the impression that parishoners never argue or disagree with ‘religious authority’.
Since when is the term 'generalizing' shorthand for 'making stuff up'? If you're making a generality, show me some statistic that supports the idea that parishoners [i]generally[/i] accept whatever the church leaders tell them, or that they are more beholden to authority than the average person. Because firstly, I don't see how you could possibly know something like that without extensive experience in churches of several different denominations, involving actual participation in church management. Also in my experience, the reality is exactly the opposite-church leaders have a very strong demand on them to preach what the parishoners want to hear, or else they can lose their jobs.
I worry that your 'generalization' just comes from the fact that you have a hard time accepting that so many people believe the way they do, and that painting these people as defecient in some way is the only explanation you can come up with. I'm sure painting 'fundamentalists' as ignorant and easily manipulated helps soothe the sting the the recent election results, as well. But that's not good philosophy.
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