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Post #41
To answer unanswerable questions.
The creation of man, love, weather, what comes after death. All of these things are things we didn't understand when religion first came into existence, and all of which are explained by religion.
Then of course they did also establish morals and some basic order as well.
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I get what you're saying, but I take issue with the term "creation" being used there. Most religions assume man, love, weather was created, and assumes something comes after death, it does so without evidence.
I suppose religion is created (and it is, by humans) to answer unanswerable questions. But in the context of today I don't think that is relevant. We now have the scientific method to answer questions in a reputable way, and people are now latching on to the idea of not pretending to know the answers to those questions.
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Wait, what?
Christianity didn't exist before around 40AD. Don't just pull things out of your ass to make your point sound more dramatic
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The only reason was the fear that man had about what happened after he died.
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Because people are afraid to believe in themselves so they need some imaginary God to tell them what to do.
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Didn't Buddha say not to worship him though?
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Semi-related. I showed this to a christian "friend" and he was not happy with me.
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I meant AD, perhaps before jumping to a conclusion that I was making it up. I urge you to look back at my post now that I've corrected it, and then criticize it if you will.
I am talking about the inquisition and what have you and then ending in the events of WWII
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Common misconception, we have morals because we feel empathy, which we have because we are social animals
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It was, at first, a way to see beyond your capability to understand, then came Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and since then it has been a massive control scheme.
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Religion was made for comfort.
Simple.
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Religions were created to push moral beliefs onto the people. Simply put, the creators of religions wanted people to think in a way these creators wanted them to think, whether it would be for determining what the creators think is right or wrong (such as sex before marriage) or in the hopes of creating a utopian society crafted behind the image of its creators.
How would religion succeed though? It needed a reason for the people to follow these moral guidelines, and what is that usually? Life after death. The belief created that once you die in this world, your soul will still live in another place, such as heaven.
I won't criticise people who are religious though, if religion makes them peaceful and gives them a meaning for life, then I'm happy for them. I could never follow a religion because I wasn't raised in to one, and I would still know deep inside the truths about the purpose of religion. This sucks for me, usually most nights it's inevitable to think about death, and how I will fade from existence, forever. It's depressing, how I would love to go to bed at night and know that if I've done good, then there's something after life for me. I wouldn't need to be afraid.
Ironically, the above sentence just proves my point really. People find comfort in such a thing being life after death, and will happily follow the moral guidelines imposed to them.
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You could be positively nihilistic and say:
" none of this will last forever, we are all doomed to fade away from existence and all memories of us extinguished. So might as well enjoy it."
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1k+ yrs ago loving children was normal and even encouraged in some cultures. Our current culture finds it horrible, that's why people in the current culture find it horrible.
October 2011
5,902 PostsProbably because during the old times (long before christ) we were ruled by aliens who we considered as gods. Then they left but we were still used to following some higher creature, so religion was born. Now people are getting used to not serving so popularity of religion is falling.
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But apparently being happy with imagination is wrong.
20 threads on religion have resulted in bulk. I've found about two who are willing to peacefully discuss, but it's always an arguement.
It's even more deluded than arguing about an opinion.
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They aren't harming you by speaking to you. Do you support human rights only when it fits your anti-religious agenda? I believe in secularism but you have to respect all sides, otherwise you're just a biased asshole forcing your beliefs on other people, atheist or theist.
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Both religious and athiest sides have militants screaming for their ideal to be fulfilled, getting further entrenched in their opinion since they both have no common ground on which to meet, worse still they ignore most arbitrators.
I hold both of the more brash members of either side in equal amount of contempt.
Is the concept of complete freedom such a frightful idea that we have to force our own borders on others?
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Let's say there was no religion.
There will still be cults within this system.
People will call themselves thinkers, some rationalists, this, that or the other.
However what is failed to be noticed, is that CULTURE was pretty much invented by imaginative thinking.
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"people give DBS shit all the time but he's really a good guy and i'm glad he's my friend" -no one
March 2009
17,013 Posts
why should one "respect" all sides?
not all beliefs are created equal. respect is something you earn, you're not entitled to it.
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That happens everywhere already.
Look at philosophy, the arts, politics and even sports.
Each one of them already holds a myriad of 'cults' with their own unified opinion.
For example:
Pragmatists, Existensialists and Idealists in Philosophy
Surrealists, Introverts and classical artists in the arts.
Thing I love about humans is that we can take any idea in our head and twist, fold and refine it into not only a myriad of branching ideas, but a lifestyle, even a doctrine, by which we can choose to be a part of or not.
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Nice artwork and literature inspired by imaginative thinking is fine, just remember to call it fictional/mythology rather than forcing little kids to believe it as truth, with threats of eternal punishment.
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That's true. It's terrible to frighten kids.
Edited:
That's the point.
It's not the cult that matters, more the individual.
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That just made you look like a big jerk. Thanks for proving my point.
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Try relating, but don't advise.
I hear too many "It's better for people to think this"
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If he said "people" instead of "beliefs" you would have a point. He's right, not all beliefs get equal weight.
Someone's claim that thunderstorms are a result of the Greek god Zeus getting angry doesn't get equal weight with someone's claim that thunderstorms are a result of rising air currents.
It's certainly possible that one claim on one side of the debate is flat out wrong and does not deserve equal weight with claims that are backed up by evidence.
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What? If I create a cult that believes that monkeys made caravans using bananas in 24AD, why should it have the same amount of respect as the mainstream history theory?
Can I have the flying spaghetti monster's creation myth taught alongside Evolution?
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Religion exists because long ago, people were very stupid. People were scared of strange things they didn't understand, so they tried to come up with answers for those things. The answers they came up then spread around and weren't questioned, which led to them being accepted as truths. That's how religions came into existence, stupid people made bullshit stories that stupider people believed.
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"people give DBS shit all the time but he's really a good guy and i'm glad he's my friend" -no one
March 2009
17,013 Posts
It's oh-so-easy to denigrate past civilisations as "stupid" and ourselves as cultured and intelligent individuals. Their problem wasn't lack of intelligence, it was lack of information. If they were truly so dumb, then how was Rome built?
Besides, we're still not immune from the problem. Everyone here will have some illogical beliefs lurking around inside their skull and not even realise it. If it's not religion it'll be something else.
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Yes, but it is important that otherwise rational people call bullshit, instead of helping foster it. It's a never ending struggle, but it's something that must be fought.
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Either you two intentionally misconstrued my posts, or are blinded by ignorance.
Please reread.
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Or maybe we just disagree with you.
Alright lets take a look.
Agreed, to an extent. It's a bit different though when you get told often by religious people that you're going to burn for eternity because you don't buy into a particular myth.
Straw man.
I don't need to "respect" beliefs that are demonstrably false. Sure, I'll respect people who hold the beliefs, but the beliefs themselves don't deserve my respect at all.
Let's take someone who believes that the Earth is 6,000 years old for example. I can't "force" them to believe otherwise, but what I can do is present evidence that shows why their belief is completely wrong and inconsistent with reality.
Or maybe you're just a person exercising their right to free speech, using it to simply correct a horrifically flawed reasoning process that leads people to believe false things.
Instead of taking the route of whining about being offended when one's beliefs are challenged, why not present some evidence to prove them wrong?
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I'm not disagreeing with the fact that you have a right to argue with them, but some people on this board feel it is their moral obligation to eradicate religion. As ridiculous as all religions are, I respect people's rights to believe in them.
Either I did a bad job at explaining my point or you did a bad job at interpreting it.
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The simple answer is that we just don't know. We can only speculate as to how and why religion came to be. Mankind most likely has always fought the question as to why anything exists- even during our earliest years of sapience.
It's simply ignorant to claim that Man was 'stupid'. It's like calling an infant stupid for burning its hand on a stove. Man was simply ignorant and ill informed of the knowledge we know today. Bear in mind that every creature must learn, and mankind has proven to have an impressive adaptability and ingenuity to them as a species. We being among the few creatures to calculate, create, and formulate ideas. Early civilizations- from the people of Mesopotamia all the way to ancient Rome or even Mesoamerican societies- have developed means of warfare, government, law, and civilization all on their own; adapting to the region's numerous obstacles in whatever way they could (Far from from stupid). Religion was not an aspect of 'human stupidity' but of human ignorance attempting to fathom the idea of existence.
Early Man most likely surmised that something- some kind of being(s) or force(s) greater than them- must control everything around them (This idea could have easily been gathered when Man noticed the forces of nature from storms to earthquakes and oceans). But how does one project the idea of nothing creating/destroying something? How would the older and wiser members of Early Man's nomadic tribes describe and explain their 'wisdom' and experiences to future generations? Simple. Personify it. By creating an image in people's minds of these grand forces working to create/destroy the world, people gain some understanding in what is trying to be said. They do this by using aspects of what they know (that is: animals and beasts that populated the region) to create varying images to depict different meanings. But Mankind did not develop in a uniform region and thus developed different depictions of similar concepts. This is not Man being 'stupid', it is Man attempting to understand their world in the absence of science (ignorance =/= stupid). There was no reason to think anything was more than it seemed, until people began to prod and wonder and discover evidence that proved otherwise. We thought and imagined means of understanding [further] and controlling our world (and in some cases its people). Ancient alchemists, for instance, were early chemists who experimented with numerous materials and determined similar and differentiating properties of these materials.
I do not honestly believe religion was created as a 'control scheme'. Religion probably started as a means of teaching wisdom to future generations- whether it be polytheistic or monotheistic- through stories, characters, and metaphors passed down orally, simply because Early Man had no concept of 'science'. However, and unfortunately, different individuals have used these ideas to control people: Pharaohs and corrupt Popes using the beliefs to control their subjects under 'divine right' (read: greed), for example. Religion- or rather- Man's faith, has become a powerful weapon because people are manipulated to believe themselves to be vessels of 'God's Will' or 'God's Wrath' (or similar concepts) by certain figures.
Man is a young and often misguided species (even to this day), they are flawed and thus religion is flawed. However, there may be some form of truth to these ancient beliefs to some capacity that even now we are only beginning to understand. They may not be as literal as Religious texts claim but perhaps there are defining forces to the existence of the universe that can be defined as some form of 'God-like' entity.
I'm not saying any of this is 100% fact, but are, perhaps, likely scenarios.
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Religion was created to control people.
I'm not falling for it.
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It was a meme that was good at spreading. A belief that tells you to never question it and to spread it to other people is going to spread pretty fast.
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Resi wouldn't listen to me so he gave me a title about how I make love to cartoon midget horses. <3
October 2008
1,767 Posts
I think religion exists because of the simple fact that people living pre 18th century couldn't explain important things in life . The fact that people still have religion today is : they are either afraid to die or believe in something after their lives or they lack something in live.
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Well today's form of religion derives from previous religious practices such as polytheism and other pagan religious and spiritual practices which came about due to the people of those times being unable to answers certain things regarding life. Why people STILL believe in the absurdly and outrageously illogical stories religion was born from baffles me. I guess it mostly has to do with the lifestyle they're born into, ignorance of the counter arguments, or just the inability of being able to understand logic, reasoning, and probability.
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All these threads subliminally bash religious believers, you all assume that god/buddha/zeus whatever you wanna call it don't exist.
Here's an answer to why: maybe because they needed a way to worship their God/Gods?
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Stop being butt hurt. Even if there is a god the question of why religion exists is still a question. If god existed its still highly possible that they would worship a different religion. Even though I see no reason why assuming zues doesn't exist is a bad thing.
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That makes absolutely no sense, at all
