This has taken an interesting turn.
Religion, what's the point?
- Thread starter TheRedFlag
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On the subject of cold reading I always found this interesting:
Interestingly, I remember reading a thread on here regarding a famous cold reader (can't remember his name) where one poster insinuated that the cold reader may have psychic abilities himself and just isn't aware of it. It was both one of the funniest and weirdest things I have read on here.
Interestingly, I remember reading a thread on here regarding a famous cold reader (can't remember his name) where one poster insinuated that the cold reader may have psychic abilities himself and just isn't aware of it. It was both one of the funniest and weirdest things I have read on here.
I don't think I'm missing the point, but just to clarify you seem to be asking - "Why do we need to have religion, particularly given that we can believe in God without any organised form of religion?" I'd say the same thing. There is no why. There are no facts behind it. There is no logic.
To a Zen Buddhist like me, logic and rational thinking are just useful tools. They don't let us understand the world or people's behaviour in any overarching way. Trying to understand life using logic is like trying to measure time with a ruler.
Which isn't to say that there aren't simple reasons for things. Just the opposite, the simple reasons are the only reasons. Why do things fall when you let go? Gravity. Why is it warm today? The sun's out. Trying to figure out why gravity exists or why the sun shines is bound to fail. There is no why. They just do.
Why do people go to the churches of organised religions? Because they like it, because their friends are there, because they're Christians, because of the community, because they always do, because its warm, to meet people, to be saved, to avoid hell and a few billion more reasons. Not one of which stands up to scrutiny and many of which are contradictory. The reasons aren't logical, nor are people, nor is life. Trying to look for rational reasons is like looking for shapes in the clouds. You might see what you think is an elephant, but its not really there.
To a Zen Buddhist, arguments like this are inherently absurd and the creation of man. They bear no relation to the world, they're just thoughts. Any abstract argument is absurd when you follow it long enough and there's always another layer of abstraction above. Like a 3 year old, any you answer you give can be countered with another why, on and on without end. You can't ever get to the final why, above which there is no other why.
Instead to a Zen Buddhist, all that stuff is as pointless. The nature of Zen is simplicity and immediacy. Worrying about why people do what they do is meaningless. Drinking a cup of coffee is full of meaning. The why doesn’t exist, it’s a concept. The cup of coffee does, so focus on that.
People do what they do for no damn good reason.
Obviously you won’t take this answer, which itself is meaningless tat, and will continue looking, which of course you should to your satisfaction.
Kind of insulting, but I'll take it in good faith. I've meditated regularly for a decade now on the nature of that thing inside. I can say with certainty that in me, musical expression and spiritual expression come from the same place. They're not the same thing, but they’re different aspects the whole. You may be different, obviously I can't know that.
I'm afraid you were taken advantage of by a professional con artist. If there was such a thing as hell they would burn it it.
No offence intended mate, this post I found an interesting read so thank you for that my friend.
But yes, I won't say you are missing my point but looking at it from an overly complex way. Once again I'm not dismissing why people have or even true belief in religion and gods, I'm merely of the belief that they in fact make the need for themselves redundant in many ways. For example you know your religion is made by very wise men teaching you very good ways to live your life, that's not the same as most others. They believe it's god's words, when in fact it clearly is - at very best - vague interpretations of whatever a god might have said. In most cases you'd expect gods to be far less contradictory if they are so infallible no?
Of course there are many things out there we don't understand, but we can go off of what we do know to be. And we do know, for example, the bible is written by many men, translated hundreds of times over thousands of years, yes? So my question is why should I want to follow something that has been manipulated by man for so long, when I can live my life to the best I can be and still find heaven?
Like I say if you read the last few pages you'll see how I came to this. It's not a slight on religious beliefs at all, certainly not buddism because that's a different kettle of fish (unless I'm mistaken about the word of god thing in that, at very least you don't see the people writting your texts as infallible do you?), it's more of a statement about religion being twisted and manipulated by man where there's little actual need for it at all.
Feck off!You know nothing about this.
Do you believe in ghost dogs?
That British thing? I don't believe anything in particular, but I've seen and heard so much I don't disregard much either. Most of the paranormal is bs though, I'm pretty certain of that, but I can't really know.
Well the sun shines because there's a big fuik-off nuclear reaction going on - that's far more fascinating to me than a load of old bollox about a giant slinging a fireball up there or your horribly passive 'we can't know'.
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Thats how not why.
Pointless semantics or metaphysics.
What's the difference?
Well one is the mechanism by which it happens, one is the reason it happens.
There's no difference between those things.
Well if you ever find someone you care about in tears, remember to ask them why they're crying, not how they're crying.
No need to get anthropomorphic about the sun, it doesn't have consciousness - the why and how are the same - it just does it.
No they aren't the same. If I asked you why you had the kettle on, you could give me a scientific explanation of how the water molecules are heated or you could tell me you were making a cup of tea.
Similarly, I could say the sun shines because God decreed for it to be a light by day for those on the earth, just as there is a scientific explanation for how the light is given.
They are two categorically different questions. In your Universe, there is no why - stuff just is and just happens. It doesn't mean everyone else has to take the same view as you.
That's completely different. The sun doesn't have feelings.
fecking hell!And if you answered that it was because God decreed it, you'd get weird looks and distance put between yourself and me.
Except you can't demonstrate that God is a reason for the sun shining, you can show that heating water and adding it to a tea bag makes a cup of tea.
You might have a different view of the universe, but the facts are what matters when discussing scientific questions. That's why adding 'purpose' to things like the sun shining is not really of any interest to most of us.
It's like being stuck in the "why?" phase of childhood then?
It's in our nature to question our surroundings and how they work.
If we didn't and all just subscribed to the theory of a god or that "it just is" we wouldn't be having this conversation on the internet right now.
If we didn't and all just subscribed to the theory of a god or that "it just is" we wouldn't be having this conversation on the internet right now.
How do you think religions came to be? It's because there was a huge market for people questioning things. Their existence, their way of life, everything.
Belief in God isn't the problem. Mad men using it to their advantage is. Replace religious fundamentalism with say Stalinist communism and you get the same thing, masses of people comitting evil for some idea. It's not the religion or the ideology's fault, it's Stalin's and those like him. Democracy, another dangerous religion which the west is trying to impose on all. Different from the crusades? Or just different excuses for the same motivations?
Religion is not the problem. People is, and the way they think. That needs to change.
That OK and is the reuslt of a purely naturalistic worldview, but I hope you apply the same logic to your own thoughts and emotions and your reason for existence. If you call the Universe purposeless, you must accept that human life (a product of the Universe) is equally so.
If they change the way they think, there wouldn't be religion.
Religion has done nothing but cause trouble, sectarian strife, imposing stupid and oppressive rules and laws upon people, fostering animosity and anger towards people who think differently from them, in some cases religion justifies the doing of horrendous things to those who are regarded as infidels and so forth.
Man doesn't need religion to be a good person.
I'm an atheist and I do not need religion to tell me that I shouldn't steal, kill or hurt anyone. Nor does religion need to tell me that I should love my family, be kind to strangers and help those in despair. These are universal elements and as such simply believing in Mankind should suffice to be a good person.
Without religion there is at least no avoiding responsibility for one's evil deeds, no excuses. Without religion an evil person is an evil person and a good person is a good person.
People are.
For the "how?" sure but there often is no answer for the "why?" And no need for it either.
Organized religion has a bad rap, no doubt, but that again has little to do with religion itself. If religion was the cause for all these things, what then about political systems, mad kings, capitalist juggernauts and the killers and rapists in our streets? Man doesn't need religion to be evil either.
No, you don't need religion to be a good person. Far from it. But that doesn't mean some people don't need it, that society don't need it. Religion can be an amazing unifying and inspirational force if applied in a healthy way. Atheism is just another religion by the way. There's no way you can be certain of your position. It's a belief.
Well yes. Of course.
However that means you have to be sure a religion formed as the result of questions rather than a specific purpose. Like control.
Or it was formed from a god's word, in which case that changes the whole idea right?
Most religions don't answer much with any fact. They tell us negatives more than positives in a lot of ways too. But what we know as FACT is that the internet isn't here to talk to god, it's here because we have learned and created based on what we know and are ever learning.
Cue the "and god allows us to do that" stuff
From a biological point of view, my 'purpose' is to survive and pass on my genes to the next generation. Do I think I have a 'reason' to exist in the way that you put it? No. Me, you and everyone else that is living or has ever lived had/has essentially won the lottery in even having a chance to experience life.
That doesn't mean I can't add my own individual purpose and set out goals to achieve. I might as well, since in a short amount of time I won't be here and there's no evidence to suggest anything other than that being the end of me.
People just don't seem to get the point that the "how" question gets into the mechanics of the thing (the science) and the "why" concerns intention. You can't talk about human nature without the "why" and the "why" is no less important because you have a scientific explanation of how the earth orbits the sun, etc. You can tell me all you want about the science of my brain sending a message to my fingers to pull the trigger of a gun, and the way the gun went off and how it killed someone, but you'd know nothing of why I pulled the trigger.
I do.
That's why I specifically said how. Though there's nothing wrong with a why.
Yes, whatever the motivations of the men that started then, religion can be used by good people as well as bad. I have absolutely no problem with people who have faith, we all have faith in something.
No, Atheism isn't another religion. It's anti-theistic and people can be anti theistic and these people be can very different from one another and adhering to very different ideologies (capitalist, socialist whatever).
They don't believe in anything, that doesn't mean they are certain about anything. They don't have to be certain about anything since they don't believe in anything per say.
An atheist doesn't have to be certain about what they don't believe in. We are uncertain about believing in things we can't prove. At the same time there isn't any certainty in not believing. We're simply anti-theistic.
It's really ridiculous to assume it is a belief, because it clearly isn't.
The Dawkins ipse dixit.
I don't follow or worship Dawkins in the way religious people do with a deity. I'd already formed some of my views on religion and things like life's meaning long before reading or watching videos with him in them. If we happen to share the same view, then OK. I don't cling to his every word or anything though, I'm sure there's lots of things we disagree on, but it might not come across that way since this is a religion thread.