crazyhazey
Well-Known Member
im glad you can look at religion from a moral stand point, but by cherry picking these books and through different interpretations, its as if theres no right way to be a religion, so if you cherry pick a religion, are you truly that? i mean, if you completely follow a book this means you follow every last bit of it. i do have a problem with the institutions these churches put up, and by the scamming and corruption that takes place, i just wish people didnt look at it blindly and think about 10% of their salary going towards "a good cause", which is probably the priests wallet. not to mention, they preach how men are sinners, yet how is someone to judge whos a sinner if they are human. and ironically, these priests end up committing some sick things, i dont even have to mention what priests do, doesnt that mean anything? if you ask me thats just proof that making someone the leader of "judging" whos a sinner will only drive these people to be the thing he preaches against everyday. yes, religions may hold some knowledge about the spirit and all that, but much of the flawed info was never corrected, some still disregard science, thats the problem. i do agree with the idea that you shouldnt accept anything you dont believe, but much of the things in these books are just common sense. these lessons can be taught to you without having to search through opinionated texts, many of which go against the very laws of nature(evolution especially). and imagine how far ahead we would be without religious restriction on stem cell research, or abortion. dont get me wrong, abortion is a horrible thing, but is it better to raise a foster child who may have mental/physical health problems from not being properly reared by parents? if those who cant support a child want to get an abortion, the government has no right to step in and tell women what to do with something that is being created inside your body. not to mention fetuses and umbilical cords could be used to repair almost any tissue, im talking blind people being able to see again, paraplegics could possibly make some sort of recovery too with stem cells, yet we stand by and throw away these valuable cells since its blasphemy, but would "god" rather have sick people live again at the cost of a few stem cells, or save a baby that may never have a proper childhood. religion holds too much power, it shouldnt interfere with government matters, or better yet private matter like what a woman wants to do with her womb.crazyhazy, while you make some points in your op that are indisputable empirically, i think they're are some flaws in logic.
while there are many people who claim to "know" what God wants us to do based on reading what are some very old texts, indeed, this does not mean that those books were necessarily written for that purpose. Nor is it of any value (for argument's sake) that these religious texts are very old.
In my opinion, the purpose of the religious text is to provide a space for spiritual meditation or the contemplative pose. By and large, the world's religions preach similar primary messages: Love each other, take care of each other, and be happy. Many eastern religions focus this through the lens of divesting yourself of desire which, in western terms, means getting away from materialism. If one reads these texts--the vedas, the upanishads, the mahabarata, the bhagvad-gita, the bible (in all its incarnations), the tora and talmud, the koran, the writings of great religious leaders and philosophers--it can offer great instruction on how to approach, how to formulate and maintain, an existence in which love, peace, justice, and happiness are maximal.
I agree that many institutionalizations of these messages have fallen to the corruption which always becomes possible when power structures are invested in those institutions. what this means, i think, in short response to your op, is that the problem is not with the religion itself, but with the churches, mosques, temples, etc.
I think there is an instructive Buddhist vis-a-vis Hindu principle that you will find enlightening and agreeable: Do not believe anything that does not make sense to you. or, contrariwise, believe only that which makes sense to you.
NOW, the whole bit of searching for proof in all this, well, you will never find that. there is no proof. that is why these become matters of faith and debate. We can sit on and argue endlessly about the merits of rationale, emotion, spirituality; we can go back and forth on moral conundra forever; we can approach philosophical questions from diverse vantage points and still resolve nothing. Thats, in my suspicion, part of the fun of being a human being. God, or whatever you want to call the primordial force of the universe, had a pretty good sense of humor when he started the evolution of man on earth: now there's a whole big faction of our species that does nothing but sit around and argue about what our purpose in existence is when it has never changed: be happy.
my two cents
be easy
i will admit, you may find a good piece of advice, but really, why couldnt you just go out into the world and learn these things first hand, or better yet look at a book from this century? we've advanced as a species, we're much smarter than we were all those years ago. it sounds stupid, but the only way christians would get my support would be a new new testament, one that would actually prove useful during our age, and maybe no(or less) lies this time, and they should also pay taxes since their property could be supporting our government, rather they take the loop hole and pocket whatever they're not spending on "church missions" or "donations". saying your a religion restricts you from believe outside knowledge if you truly only believe that book, and lets get this straight, all those books dont teach all the lessons to life. they should be learned hands on, with an open mind, or possibly found in a book that is non-fiction.
and yeah, we can always debate faith, until those who say they have faith(remember, jesus said nobody truly has faith, if anyone had a grain of faith it could "move a mountain", christians even accept this, idk how they interpret it but i dont think they're taking it how they should) finally admit that they just dont want to do research and find the facts of life, theyd rather sit in a corner, read their fairy tales, and hope to get all the answer you would get by actually reading something useful or getting out into the world. also, another huge problem i have with religion is the idea of prayer, give me a fuckin break thats blatant laziness and we all know it, if you wanna go help someone go do it you lazy religious fatasses. and stop thanking god for the food at your table, if your "god" was providing the food everyone in the world should be eating.
if there is truly a god, which i dont believe(but i do believe our galaxy does have some complex secrets to it, the recent discoveries with orions belt have blown my mind), he certainly does have a sense of humor. he can just sit back while people kill each other over which "form" of him they believe, they cant just side their argument and accept their religion is just another knockoff. most of it originated from hinduism, im sure an educated person such as yourself notices the similarities in all these books, its just different names and slightly different stories.