The Debate About Religion Topic

[JWeinCom]

ReimTime said:

JWeinCom said:

ReimTime said:

Ok JWein, I have some stuff for you to look at. Feel free to pick apart my interpretation that I posted a while ago in a different thread:

Here's the thing: I believe religion was first created out of the fear of the unknown. The fear of what happens to us when we die. When we became self aware as a species, we had the drive to figure out everything around us. Since then it has been a debate of to-know-or-not-to-know; a fear of the unknown but also a fear of knowledge.

I think fear of the unknown was a large factor.  I wouldn't say the sole factor, but a part of it for sure.

I look at Religion in one way: it is a set of rules to live by so that we may stand as a community against the fear of the unknown, and a warning to stay human instead of seeking out all there is to know about our Universe. It's like saying ignorance is bliss because ignorance is safe.

Again, I'd say part, but not all.

Not the best example, but look at most Japan, a culture that seems to have always been very accepting of death; much more so than Western cultures. Japan has little to no Westernized Organized religion, only adopting such principles as Christian Weddings. Japan is spiritual; not religious.

Can't really comment.  It seems right, but I don't know all that much about Japan.  Only what I learned from playing Shenmue and watching anime.

Now onto religious stories that warned us of knowledge.

Look at the Biblical story of Adam and Eve. They follow the rules and live in blissful ignorance. The snake (which I see as Natural Human Curiosity) tells them to eat from the tree of knowledge, which makes them self aware of their true existence, and they get thrown out of Eden.

Pandora's box in Greek Mythology; a myth that has many different interpretations, one such being this: Prometheus steals fire from the heavens and gifts it to the humans, which angers the Gods, and Zeus decides to punish them to compensate for the boon they were given. The Gods gift Pandora (the first woman on Earth) to the humans, and she brings with her a box which contains many evils. She was told to never open it, but she grows curious of the gift which she brought with her, and opens the jar, unleashing disease/famine etc upon the world.

With so much unknown in the world we are told to place our faith on a deity, so we might feel safe and communal. This deity is the only thing we have to believe in. We miss out on all the other knowledge, but we stay blissfully ignorant of all the evils that may be lurking within that knowledge.

So many people grew so many different interpretations of religion over the years. Wars were fought over holy ground, ideas and people were rejected because perhaps they were a little different to what they had grown up believing. It is hard to advocate change in a system that I believe is all about keeping things the same; staying safe and secure.

Yeah.  Sure.

There are also good things that I take away from religion. I do like the feeling of community that one gets while going to church. I do like many teachings from Jesus (the person) and Muhammad, who preached a peaceful existence. Siddhartha Gautama and Guru Nanak also preached many good things. Pope Francis (the current one) is a very bright spot on the Catholic Church.

Like everything else in life, I am free and welcome to accept some aspects while rejecting others. This is how I see it. I grew up going to Church and believing in God, and I still think that there are some things that cannot be explained. Is that because I was conditioned to believe so? Who knows, that is a conversation for another day.

The thing is, it's fine to say "hey I liked this thing Jesus said", so long as you're evaluating it.  The danger is when some people say "Jesus said it so it must be true".  I actually happen to like the current pope, and I agree with a lot of the things he believes, even if I came to those beliefs without the spiritual component.  

It's fine to draw on all sources for philosophy, but when you are told "this book is perfect and inerrant" then you're set up for trouble.

Forgive me if it seemed a little strange, it was directly copied and pasted so I did not really tailor it to the thread as best as I could. First of all, what do you mean by "Yeah. Sure."? *edit* you edited your comment so I'm editing mine:

*No. And that is because I am perhaps more interested in the world around me than your average dude. I want to know what runs the world around me, and I want to know what goes on inside a human's thoughts. Everything from the atomic level to the universal level is an interest.*

Anyhow I could look at the Bible in several different ways. One being that the Bible is a book of morals written by wise men, in the hopes of the human race staying communal, peaceful, ignorant (not in a bad way) and safe. In this same "questioning" viewpoint I could say that God is a loose term mean to explain all the things we do not know how to explain yet. In this way, God is a shrinking definition (for example, Greeks used Gods to explain natural phenomena such as earthquakes. Now that we know what earthquakes are, we have discarded those gods as myths). What do you think of this viewpoint?

When I said Yeah sure.  I just meant I agree, but wasn't entirely sure if you were trying to prove something.  It makes more sense knowing it was from a different topic.

On your viewpoint, I don't think the authors of the Bible were particularly wise.  Perhaps they were wise at the time, and what they did made sense back in the day, but it doesn't now.  But, if you view the bible as just rules written by men (wise or otherwise) you're free to pick and choose what you want.  So, that's fine.  If you think Jesus or Moses or whoever said something that made sense, by all means listen.

As for the shrinking god, I agree.  There is a concept about this called "god of the gaps".  But, I don't think we need to plug in a god.  It's ok to just not know certain things and to not shoehorn in explanations that cannot be proven or justified.