is religion for living in the world, ignoring the world, or just for dying?

lately i have been amusing myself by trying to get certain christians slavering over the apocalypse to tell me one thing [which they cannot bring themselves to do]--why they preferred the message of death and destruction over that of life and peace

i did get an answer from a non-christian about illusion, which was more confusion

which led me to wonder--what is the purpose of religion [and/or philosophy]?

is it to teach one how to live one's life, to get along with others in harmony?

or is its purpose to help us to deny the world, to long for oblivion or heaven?

is the desire for armageddon a sublimation of suicidal tendencies? can a person who wants to disappear and leave us to suffer through gog vs. magog ever be trusted? and, non-christians, does the meditation on maya actually help in rush-hour traffic?

 

I guess because death is something we all know we'll experience whereas life and peace isn't.

 

i have experienced life [as i assume you have since you are typing]

and even peace in life

shouldn't we be striving for peace, or is it better to give up and wait to die?

[which might not be any better?]

 

bluska ... i thought i'd copy/paste this from something i posted once. It comes some way to describing this 'illusion' (the illusion of form) i was talking about. I did have a brief death experience years ago so i kinda understand it although it still confuses me alot, hence my interest in understanding it better. But the thing about death is that in facing it one can gain access to a greater sense of life and value life so mutch more.

Eckhart Tolle does a pretty good job with this passage...
The 'sermon on the body' from Eckhart Tolles' 'The Power of Now':

"What you percieve as a dense physical structure called the body, which is subject to disease, old age, and death, is not ultimately real - is not you. It is a misperception of your essential reality which is beyond birth and death, and is due to the limitations of your mind, which having lost touch with 'being', creates the body as evidence of it's illusory belief in separation and to justify it's state of fear. But do not turn away from the body, for within that symbol of impermanence, limitation and death that you percieve as the illusory creation of your mind is concealed the splendour of your essential and immortal reality. Do not turn your attention elsewhere in your search for the truth, for it is nowhere else to be found but within your body.
Do not fight against the body, for in doing so you are fighting against your own reality. You ARE your body. The body that you can see and touch is only a thin illusory veil. Underneath it lies the invisible inner body, the doorway into 'being', into life unmanifested. Through your inner body, you are inseparably connected to this unmanifested one life - birthless, deathless, eternally present.
Through the inner body, you are forever one with god."

Have deep roots within:

"The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body - to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transform your life. The more conciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher it's vibrational frequency becomes, mutch like a light that grows brighter as you turn up the dimmer switch and so increase the flow of electricity. At this higher energy level, negativity cannot affect you anymore, and you tend to attract new circumstances that reflect this higher frequency.
If you keep your attention in the body as mutch as possible, you will be anchored in the Now. You won't lose yourself in the external world, and you won't lose yourself in your mind. Thoughts and emotions, fears and desires, may still be there to some extent, but they won't take you over.
Please examine where your attention is at this moment. You are listening to me or you are reading these words in a book. -That is the focus of your attention. You are also peripherally aware of your surroundings, other people, and so on. Furthermore, there may be some mind activity around what you are hearing or reading, some mental commentary. Yet there is no need for any of this to absorb ALL your attention. See if you can be in touch with your inner body at the same time, - keep some of your attention within. Don't let it all flow out. Feel your whole body from within, as a single field of energy. It is almost as if you are listening or reading with your whole body.
Let this be your practice in the days and weeks to come."

And also related:
"The moment you say or think 'my life' and believe in what you are saying (rather than it just being a linguistic convention), you have entered the realm of delusion. If there is such a thing as 'my life', it follows that I and life are two separate things, and so i can also lose my life, my imaginary treasured possession. Death becomes a seeming reality and a threat. Words and concepts split life into separate segments that have no reality in themselves. We could even say that the notion 'my life' is the original delusion of separateness, the source of ego. If I and life are two, if i am separate from life, then i am separate from all things, all beings, all people. But how could i be separate from life? What 'I' could there be apart from life, apart from being? It is utterly impossible.
- So there is no such thing as 'my life', and I don't have a life ... I am life. I and life are one. It cannot be otherwise. So how can i lose my life? How can i lose something i don't have in the first place? How can i lose something that i am?
It is impossible."

... He also says somewhere that life and death are not opposites, - BIRTH and death are opposites. And life runs through both.

 

I always assumed it was just a way to control the masses.....

 

Any religion that shows any positive view's (i.e Heaven) of death is a death cult.

Any religion that show's a negative (i.e Hell) view of death is someones attempt at promoting a world view through the guise of religion.

All belief in the supernatural is for fool's.

 

care to explain why?

 

I could state fact's for pages as to why religion is man made and not the work of a supernatural power.

Care to tell me why you believe otherwise?

Did you create your OWN religion or something?

 

Well, all that is sort of besides the point. I was addressing your statement that belief in the supernatural is for fools, which really doesn't necessarily include religion at all.

I just wanted you to clarify why you think the way you think, so far my personal beliefs have yet to be established in the context of my conversation with you. I've just noticed that you frequently post very strong assertions regarding the supernatural, and I was wondering what leads you to such strong conclusions about subjects that have mystified and baffled the human mind for all of our known existence.

?

 

The supernatural is the belief in something that can't be explained by man.

Can you give the description of something not known to man without including your own beliefs or philosophies?

No you can't you would have to speculate.

Speculation lead's to superstition, superstition leads to fear and violence and god eat god mindsets that have crippled human civilization.

So why can't some people just say "I don't know." Why do they have to fool themselves first then try to fool others into thinking the same way.

You do know what a fascist is right?

I respect your opinion Neo, but I see we disagree quite a bit on this subject.

 

I guess because, if applied across the board, saying "I don't know" would see us squatting in the dark waiting for lightning to strike a tree somewhere nearby so we could cook our dinner.

And Rude, you've mentioned "the progress of mankind" and religion holding humanity back. Are you not aware that "progress" has been responsible for some of the worst atrocities in human history? Not to say that it hasn't also done some wonderful things, but your assertions seem to depend on very specific definitions of what progress (as oppose to regress?) means. Eugenics could be seen as "progress" - there's pretty much no logical argument against it - but I doubt you'd be in favour of it.


Speculation... you'll just never stop speculation, you know? The young Isaac Newton sat in a religious instruction class and made a list of all the questions about "natural philosophy" he wanted to answer. That is speculative. He should've just said "I don't know", right?

 

You can say "I don't know" and do research on whatever subject you don't understand.

That's fine it's called learning, but when you come across something you don't understand and instead of using facts you just fall back on an ancient tome or your own un-proven theories and make them fit eventually it's going to become obvious that it doesen't work the way it was originally thought to.

Saying "I don't know" does not exclude you from anything, it invites you to learn more.

Religion takes this great chance at education and distorts it by giving the learner a warped view of life that he or she may never be able to fully shake.

 

Very few people declare war or start fights just for the fun of it.

Also, striving for peace won't prevent us from dying. I guess the traditional view (not one I get to subscribe to) is that we're making the world a better place for our children and our children's children and so on.

I guess if I believe anything, it's that people should work. Idle hands and all that. Science has done some terrible things, but the things that seem to negatively affect the most people are things that are meant to make our lives easier. If we accept that life will be hard, we will probably hurt each other less.

 

So, as I said in another thread, what about "we hold these truths to be self-evident"? There are contentious issues which require us to make assumptions that we cannot possibly prove. There are situations where fence-sitting causes more problems then any decision that could be made (see the recent economic situation in the States and the UK, for example - delay in action has been far more damaging than any action taken). There are other contentious issues which we couldn't prove now, and while it would be great to, say, refuse to state that all races are equal until you can prove it, what if you can't?

There are a hell of a lot of things that can't be proved but which you yourself believe. I've as much as proved this elsewhere. I think you're incredibly naïve if you can't see that it's not enough to just wait until something can be proven and say "I don't know" in the meantime. Often you have to work with the info you've got, because simply refusing to take a position will cost you and others.

 

There are no ghosts so why should we believe in them?

Do you think you have proof of the supernatural?

Please stop calling me naive it hurts my feelings

 

No. Why would you think I did? Even the word "supernatural" is faintly ridiculous to me. "Nature" is a ridiculous word the way most people use it.

Do you have proof that fiction is harmful?

Diddums.

 

Heard of weapons of mass destruction lately?

What do you mean do I know of any fiction that is harmful?

Fiction passed off as fact is ALWAYS harmful to reality because it distorts the truth.

Whether it's a lie that ends a marriage starts a war or convinces someone to strap a bomb to there chest in order to kill for a so called paradise after they die.

A lie is a lie.

 

HARMFUL TO REALITY?! What are you, high? Reality doesn't care whether we believe it or not.

And what a lie persuades someone that, despite all evidence, there's something inherently wrong with just beating up on the weak to get whatever they want? What then?

Language is a lie that allows you to talk to me. You believe that the words you've typed mean something, but in truth, the only reason they mean anything is that people, en masse, have decided that they have to.

Equality is a lie that keeps society together. We believe that all men are created equal, that everyone deserves a chance, and that we shouldn't just discard or exploit the weak and vulnerable when they become an inconvenience. Why should we do this? All the evidence suggests that we are no better off for it!

 

First of all you act as though humans don't already do the horrid things you have described in your post.

Secondly if you need to be TOLD by some higher authority to respect life you would have to be mentally challenged in some way.

And last of all many religions do tell their followers to respect life and many hypocritically use those same text's to justify genocides.

So what is your point anyway?

Do you believe organized religion in a necessity?

 

I don't believe that I did.

And the mentally challenged should be killed in the name of progress, right?

j/k, but that's precisely my point. There are assholes in the world, and if a healthy fear of eternal damnation can reign a few of them in, where's the harm?

"Many"?

No, I believe it's inevitable. Unless you find a way to stop people speculating, they will speculate. Unless you find a way to stop people communicating their speculations, they will communicate their speculations. Unless you find a way to stop people organising under a speculative belief, they will do it. Unless you find a way to stop people pooling their resources and acting as a group rather than as individuals, you can't stop religions, cults, societies or clubs from coming about. And unless you're willing to stand up and say "Shut up everyone, because I KNOW THE ACTUAL MEANING OF LIFE AND I CAN PROVE IT BEYOND DISPUTE", you won't ever be able to persuade people that their cause should just be given up because you say so.

I also believe that we should respond to a crime committed in the name of religion by punishing the individual who committed it, rather than the millions who didn't. If religion actually made people bad, rather than simply not "curing" bad people, then we'd be a lot more sure about it than we are. Unless you can prove that a religious person would not have committed said crime if he had not been religious, you really don't have an argument, and even if you could prove that, you'd still have a lot of explaining to do as to the millions of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Jains, Sikhs, etc. who will never act with the intention of harming another human being in their lives, despite apparently being tainted by religion.