Sunday Morning Theology

[polysciguy420]

After having the same conversation with my Mom for the 1,000,000th time and inevitably reaching the same conclusion, it became evident that sooner or later we would have to agree to disagree. The question I posed to my mom (and to you as well) revolves around the true nature of religion. Why does everybody claim that their belief is the only true belief (regarding God) or perhaps even a step further, why do people believe in a higher power at all? To me the answer lies in the nature of life itself. Religon can inspire men to do what the law cannot. In this sense religon can be viewed as a tool regulating human behavior. While different religions may disagree on this point or that, it would seem to me, that true followers of any religion are required to conduct themselves in a manner that is surprisingly similar. For example, while Christians and Muslims may disagree on the Messiah, there is little disagreement as to what is acceptable human behavior. In this way relgion can be viewed as a way to control the actions of men by giving them a sense of morality. From this perspective, relgion is greatly needed, but is a need for something that does not yet exist proof that it indeed exist? Religon is needed if only for the benefits that it confers on society (rule of law, order) as oppossed to any truth found in any specific religous doctrine. Humans have been endowed with the ability to invent things. When there is a need for something humans find a way to invent that thing in order to satisfy there needs. That point I feel needs no further explanation. With that being said, no matter what "faith" you are, mostly all would agree that there is a need for a "being" with the attributes that we attribute 2 God. But since when has the need for a given thing been proof that the thing you need even exist? From this point we've only been able to establish 2 points. There exist a need for "God" in this world, the reasons for this require no further explanation. The 2nd point being, as human nature has proven time and time again, when there exist a need for something not yet created, humans invent the thing in order to satisfy their need. Which then brings me to the question of, how can everybody be so SURE that their faith is true beyond a shadow of a doubt, when there exist multiple "faiths" and "religions" that make this claim but are directly at odds with each other on this point or that. So is God the creator of man, or is God the creation of man? lol I realize this a very rough argument, one that is not written into stone, but one I feel deserves at least some consideration. All that I ask is that people open their minds and allow themselves to consider points of debate that may be in contrast from what they've been taught is "right". Feel free to agree or disagree, feedback, and thoughtful insight is always appreciated :)

[Obamanaut]

1. Is that really one paragraph? nt

[polysciguy420]

2. maybe like

two or three or four...lol but I'm just writing a thread and not an essay so I didn't really break it up. Sorry if it's hard 2 read!

[ZombieHorde]

27. Posts need to be broken up. They don't need to be technically perfect, but they need to be

readable without eye-strain.

[Why Syzygy]

30. Seconded.

I haven't read the OP yet. Maybe I won't. :shrug: You know how picky I am ;)

[Obamanaut]

28. I actulally looked at the time of the post to see if maybe it was after

4:20, thinking that might have been the reason.

[RandomThoughts]

3. Well for me, the existence of God is proven

But some call that faith.

Its hard to read your post, break it up into groups of a few lines, and its alot easier to read.

[polysciguy420]

8. That has 2 be

faith. Otherwise this thread would be pointless because I would already have the answer to my question. Alot of people believe as you do, and honestly, I would love to be able to know for proof positive that God exist, alot of people claim to know this proof for themselves, but no one has been able to give me the evidence that I desire.

[RandomThoughts]

24. Well its odd, first you have faith

Then the proof shows up. At least thats how it worked for me. Its hard to explain it thought, it gets so complicated (and might require a perspective), that explaining it in terms of proof is difficult.

[sufrommich]

4. Where is your proof that "men" need to fear a man in the sky

as a "tool to behave morally"? History will show that behaving morally is optional in regard to religion.

[polysciguy420]

6. but

without a higher power that sets the rules for humanity to follow what makes it "logical" for humans to be moral. Religion makes it logical. For example, let's look at stealing. Stealing is agaisnt relgious "moral" standards, and followers of almost any religion through the teachings of the relgion build up a resistance to this type of behavior. However, viewed outside the context of their religion they may realzie that stealing is actually beneficial to them while it may be a problem to the society as a whole. So absent of any moral authority such as God, what gives the people the incentive to actually be moral as oppossed to just not getting caught for their actions. In other words, what will be the consequence for acting immorally besides the fear that others may act in a manner you deem immoral towards you.

[sufrommich]

11. Are you arguing that the consequences of an

afterlife in hell is the only thing stopping us from breaking laws?.It's not the afterlife that causes most humans to live within the law,it's human nature to crave a civilized society.Building civilizations are what humans do. It's got nothing to do with fear of retribution from on high.Do you honestly believe that without that fear that you would be living in anarchy,and if so,why? Rules are made by humans, not a god.

[polysciguy420]

13. ahhh

I don't think I'm making myself clear. I agree that rules are made by humans, and I lean towards the position that "God" was made by humans as well. Since we both agree that rules are made by humans, i'm saying that what reason do humans have to follow the rules outlined by OTHER humans absent of divine intervention. Take the law of any jurisdiction for example, the laws put into place may be to the benefit of SOME, most likely to the people who created the law, but the law may not be beneficial to you. In this case, absent of some higher power that gives creedence to some moral code, what makes your morals any better than mine. It's simply human opinion as to what is the right way to proceed. But with a higher power, right or wrong transcends human opinion and becomes universal rather humans accept it or not. Am i making myself clear? lol maybe i'm still not.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. But then you argue about who received the true message from the higher power

and so it still ends up being human opinion.

[immoderate]

23. You are not making yourself clear because your thinking is not clear.

Humans know stealing is wrong because they have a built-in, hard-wired capacity for empathy. They are naturally reluctant to do things that they would not like done to themselves. Religions differ widely on the nature of god, but all of them have some form of this "golden rule." Because that is innately human. Notions of morality come from withing us, not from a higher power, because that higher power simply does not exist. (Even if yours does exist, then the rest of them don't, but they still have morality.)

(BTW, my pet peeve is using "alot" as if it is one word. You do that a lot.) :)

--imm

[Why Syzygy]

31. The "higher authority"

comes from the society in which you choose to live. The sheriff of your hometown is a higher authority than you. If you want to drop out and live in a shed in the woods, and send mail bombs, you have clearly shown you reject all those higher authorities of what would otherwise be your society.

[polysciguy420]

7. how do you regard it as

"opitional" Now it may be true that people who claim to follow a certain religion may behave immorally, but when they do they are not acting in accord with the doctrine they purport to believe in/follow.

[RandomThoughts]

32. I was speaking of the proof of the existence of God n/t

After having faith, the proof of the existence and love of God showed itself. But it still can be called faith, since it includes perspective.

[WeDidIt]

5. Pleasuring herself with a dildo of deceit

[H2O Man]

9. "Why does everyone claim ...."

Maybe you need to meet more people.

[polysciguy420]

14. not everybody

BUT, people who DO claim to follow a religion, claim that there doctrine is correct. Well maybe everybody, because even people who do not follow religion per se, such as atheists still claim that their position is correct. The original point of my question was to just understand how people can be so damn sure. To me you won't find an answer in this life that will be able to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, and yet people claim to have the proof for their position all of the time.

[H2O Man]

16. But not everyone

claims a monopoly on truth, or that what is right for them must apply to everyone else. It's a big world out there, with lots of people.

[JerseygirlCT]

29. No. That's also not the case

Really. You ought to do a little bit more reading and getting to know people, I suppose.

Not everyone who follows a religion believes their doctrine is the only correct one. Not everyone thinks there IS only one correct doctrine. They likely, however, believe that for THEM, they practice a religion that is correct.

Stereotypes are a dead end. They're going to lead you absolutely nowhere illuminating, I promise you.

[deutsey]

10. You pose an interesting question, but it's hard to read...

Not being a grammar nazi here, just saying I couldn't follow the text easily.

So I may have missed some important points. However, I'd say in response to your question, I think that many people who have a religious experience (which can be a very profound, life-changing thing) believe they have had an encounter with a divine reality that has given them "the answer" to life, eased their anxieties, etc.

To sustain this experience, many people will turn to orthodoxy, scriptural literalism, moral absolutes, and religious heirarchies, all of which closes the initial experience to outside influences. Others see it as the beginning of a more fluid, ongoing, open-ended process of self discovery. For me, this is the difference between religiosity and spirituality.

The former experience is pretty much always theistic and sees an all-powerful GOD apart from creation, the latter can believe in a Deity but doesn't always require one. Some may experience a unity in all life that they don't see as separate from a Creator Being.

I think there's such a diversity of religious experience because there's a diversity of human beings. We each cultivate and experience sources of meaning that are personally significant to who we are and then we seek out others who share that source of meaning.

Often in religion, that's where it stops and believers shut themselves off in exclusionary groups of similar believers. While many of the great religious leaders have emphasized the need for personal and shared experience, some have are also at odds with many of their true-believer followers in that they went one step further and engaged "the outsiders," even in some cases saying there really are no outsiders, that everyone is in some way a part of a larger mosaic of spirituality.

If everyone was the same theological size and color, there'd be just one big, boring block. If you know anything about mosaiacs, it's in the diversity of shapes and colors and sizes that a larger, more interesting picture can be seen.

The trick for me as a spiritual person is to realize I'm only a part of that picture, not the picture itself. My faith journey keeps opening my awareness to wider and deeper views of that picture, but I'll never have the complete view.

I don't know if that answers what you're asking, but it's my take on some of the issues you raise.

[polysciguy420]

15. thanx

for the thoughtful consideration.

[The_Commonist]

12. I think religion is all a bunch of bullshit.

We are quantum beings living in a universe that is SO MUCH WEIRDER than any of us can possibly comprehend.

I think that we all get little glimpses of the quantum weirdness every once in a while, and our brains have no way of even beginning to process it all. We make shit up to try to explain the unexplainable, and then it gets handed down through the generations and becomes mythology and "truth."

As far as the behavioral control aspects of religion are concerned, seems pretty obvious to me. We'll always find a way to codify what is right and what is wrong. Religious law "worked" for a long time. We're in a phase of history where all that is moving to secular law, although the religious types are struggling against that. They will loose in the end.

Personally, I believe (and hope!) that we are in the last throes of being a religiously insane species. If the religiously insane don't destroy the planet (which I think some of them want to do, so as to never be proven that they are "wrong") maybe we can finally evolve into our true potential as a species, and be mostly rational and get ourselves out to the stars. There's a big, weird universe out there for us to explore and once we can truly leave the confines of this pretty little blue-green marble, maybe we can make something of it.

It's the religiously insane among us who keep us mired in the muck that prevents us from moving along into the future...

[Peacetrain]

17. The Golden Rule is found in all major religions..

In Christianity it is the foundation for all that is written.. I would propose that it is the true voice of God..

So simple and yet so to the point..

___________________________________________________________________________________________

All things that you would want done for you, Do for others.. Matt. 7:12
Christianity

What is hateful to you, do not to your fellowman...Talmud: Shabbat 31a
Judaism

Hurt not others in ways that you would not find hurtful Udana-Varga 5,18
Buddhism

This is sum of duty, Do naught unto others, which would cause you pain if done to you.. Mahaebharata 5,1517
Brahmanism

Surely it is the maxim of loving kindness: Do not unto others that you would not have them do unto you
Analects 15,23
Confucianism

Regard your neighbors gains as your own gains and your neighbors loss as your own T'ai Shang Kan Yingp P'ien
Taoism

That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself
Dadistan-I-Dinik 94,5
Zoroastrianism

No one os your is a believer until he desires for his brother which he desires for himself. Sumnah
Islam

[Peacetrain]

19. I am dyslexic so it is difficult for me to read comprehensively

the paragraph, because my eye jumps to the next sentence and can jumble the meaning..

But if faith is what you are addressing and a humans continuing need for it..

Think of it as this, faith does not have to be defined by scientific proof, to be relevant. It can be, but is not necessary.

That is why people who insist on trying to have faith issues taught has scientific fact, are actually faithless.

Creationism, is a faith issue, and if taught to be put to the scientific process by nature it destroys the very issue they are so hot about.

Needless to say, I am not a creationist, but I am a dedicated person of faith..

[msongs]

20. sunset/sunrise = the original death/resurrection - all else has built on that for $$ & control nt

[immoderate]

21. So how do you explain...

Atheists comprise only .02% of prison populations? Religion does not promote morality, it promotes "rules" and "orthodoxy." The Inquisition and honor killings are part of religion. That is not morality. Why do the most secular societies on earth also have the lowest crime rates?

The very same people who claim that fear of god promotes morality do not act like it does. Consider:

Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things -- that takes religion.
-- Steven Weinberg

Also remember that atheists don't believe in god because they think they are right. They don't have any more knowledge than you potentially do. They don't believe in god because it doesn't make sense.

And not to be a grammar nazi, but if your intent is to communicate, you can facilitate that by breaking your sentences up into paragraphs which makes it easier read. And using numerals 4 words identifies you as a teenager. :)

--imm

[NashVegas]

22. The Average Human IS Stupid Enough to Shit Where They Live

And can't be reasoned with not to, without ages and ages of repeating until it becomes something they don't have to think about but will just accept.

So we have religion.

Seriously.

That's what it's about.

[54anickel]

25. What was the question again?

[cosmik debris]

26. LOL!

"...there is little disagreement as to what is acceptable human behavior."

You must live in a world where there is no Fred Phelps or Ayatollah Khomeini.

You should stay in your fantasy world because the real world is not nearly as simplistic as the one you inhabit.

The purpose of religion is not to establish order. Religion was invented to consolidate power.

Your understanding of history and your theology seem incredibly naive to me.