Whats very wrong with all Religion?

There is nothing else. Only God.

All of creation is molded from this same clay.

Imagination. Imagination is not the same as perception. I look, then attempt to explain what I see. I don't make things up and then write them down.




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That's what you are missing. If you believe something such as a religion , that is what is true. Otherwise there would be no need to believe.

You can't compare bands to God. That isn't how it works.

There is individual truth yes, in most things, not just religion. Some people just don't want to accept even the possibility that there is something bigger out there, so decide to hide from the truth. So they mostly will say that God is not true! It works both ways, you can't make truth an athesist tool!

If there were only opinions, life would get nowhere. I know my truth - you can't say I don't because you are not me. Nothing will change that.

Or in otherwords...... in my opinion it is my truth.

 

Moonbeam has a point. The problem is Ultimate Truth is currently incomprehensible. Kant convinced most of us long ago that reality and what we perceive reality to be with our limited senses are two different things. Then came relativity theory and quantum theory. The consensus of experts on the latter is that if you think you understand it, you don't know what you're talking about. But it works! And to integrate these two partial theories, we have superstring theory, which hasn't been and maybe never will be empirically tested, positing an indescribable Whatsit of vibrating filaments in multiple dimensions that is the source of matter, energy, space and time. And that is science? So what's a poor okie to do? The best that I can, flying by the seat of my pants, with the aid of obviously limited facts and logic supplemented by intuitive risktaking, aka "faith". There ultimately may be only one truth, but since we don't know what it is, I opt for the pragmatic approach of William James: truth is what works--for each of us.

 

Beliefs need to be examined, and if found to be lacking and without basis, these "beliefs" need to be repudiated, otherwise, it can cause a lot of trouble.

For example, if you believe that the earth is flat, you need to re-think your belief in light of scientific evidence to the contrary. Otherwise, you might find air travel to be quite difficult.

 

I agree. But how are you planning to prove/ disprove the existance of God?

Isn't that what a faith is?

 

What need to be disproved is "faith" based on blind faith alone.

For example, I have faith that I will get paid my paycheck this weekend, because, there is hard evidence (I put in the hours), it is reproducible ( I have been paid consistently before) etc.

Faith that rain will come, simply because you prayed for rain is "faith" based on blind faith. Or, that you will be saved, whatever that means, or that Heaven awaits you, simply because that's what you've been told, amounts to nothing more than hearsay.

 

Were you ever a Christian?

It isn't blind faith, prayer is a very strong thing.

You didn't really answer mu question, you say that "blind faith" should be disproved - how?

Again it appears that you are saying atheism is the only thing that is right?

 

Perhaps, but even stupidity is a very strong thing.
Please don't take this personally, I think, you're a kind hearted person, but the problem is that there are many, many stupid people who blindly follow all sorts of religions.

Going back to what you mentioned about prayer.
Whom do you pray to?

 

How do you mean stupidity in this context?

I don't think that believing in a God is stupid? Think it is wise to look into it for yourse;lf and find out more and question everything, but if you come back with the same conclusion then it isn't stupid.

 

Ok, but all you are doing is changing the definition of truth. They are two different concepts, and I really think it devalues both of them to use the same word.

Moonbeam - Who is prayer powerful for? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

I suppose it might have some beneficial effect on the person doing the praying, but I think it is more ritual than anything else.

The reason belief in god is blind faith is that there no evidence that he exists. Of course you can't prove a universal negative (e.g. that god doesn't exist), so the burden of evidence must rest on those claiming that he does. All an atheist can do to argue their views is to point out how religious evidence is faulty, misused, or easily explainable by natural processes.

 

Prayer is powerful, for yourself and for others. Have you ever tried it? Or are you just dsaying this because you don't believe in God?



There is no evidence that He doesn't either. SO you can't say that your eay is any better. It is just as blind to not consider a God.

 

Try this.
Do us a favor. Get a scalpel, take your brain out, then come back and tell us everything else that you perceive.

 

How much of my post did you read? In the study done on the power of prayer, it was shown that prayer was ineffective in a healing situation. Completely. Not like "Oh, there was a slight correlation, but not enough to be noteworthy." It didn't do anything. If anything, people that were told they were being prayed for did worse.
And yes, I have done it. It was not a life-altering (or notable) experience.

I told you that you can't prove a negative. There is a good deal of evidence that specific gods don't exist, usually in the form of logical fallacies or mistakes, outlandish myths, etc., but no, we can't know for sure that there is no higher power. It should be obvious by now that I certainly DO consider the possibility that there is a god, as should any logical atheist. I also DO believe that my way is better, or I wouldn't choose it. If you want to have a discussion like that, we can do that.

But I don't center my life and beliefs around my atheism.

 

I was born a Christian.
Actually, I have tried them all, Taoism, Buddhism, even Hinduism.

My conclusion, religion is a drug. Religion is the opium of the masses. Not only is religion a drug, but even to some, religion is cyanide (poison). :leaving:

Religion is a tool to control people. All religions are just cults of various degrees.

 

I can presently conceive a few reasons why religion exists:

God revealed himself to man in reality, and the man passed on the experience, and in turn others sought god and literally found him, or god preemptively revealed himself to others.

God revealed himself once to humankind, and others used the experience as a precedent to site their own, hallucinated or otherwise, communications with god.

God never revealed himself, but gave man a powerful and convincing mind to feel his reality without ever seeing him.

A. God never existed, but energy and matter did, resulting in a complex and overwhelming advanced consciousness in humans.

'a' is true, and people invented religion to cope with the hardships of mortality

'a' is true, and people invented religion in an effort to feel more blessed and special than rich people who opressed them

'a' is true and people formed religion simply to make some sense of the complex universe that surrounds them

'a' is true, and religion was formed by a worthy attempt to define a code of ethics for a given population, since common folk weren't educated enough to come to their own moral code.

and so on...

What I mostly want to get across is the unmitigated power of persuasion that the human mind possesses, at least to the person in whom it dwells. It's all a person knows; you might even say the human mind is god, since it dictates all that we do and all our allegiances. Whether our minds were gift from god or a fluke of nature, they have divine attributes. And with them not only came advanced awareness, but advanced and complicated emotions. It is our divine calling to understand, manage, clarify, and contain emotions.

Emotions tend to dictate our morals, and emotions are often partially a product of a culture or a generation. It is easy to say that our prophetic ancestors knew what was up, but they aren't here to tell us that what they believed is something they knew firsthand, something they assumed, or something involving the responsibility deferred to them by even earlier generations. Uncertainty is one of the toughest emotions to feel. We want to be certain of things, so it makes it easier to believe that our ancestors were certain, so we can be too. Truth is, they were just as clueless as we are.

Do I think religion can be used for good? sure. Do I think it is necessary? not if a person is able to construct a viable system of ethics on their own, based on what they know and how content their code makes them and those around them. The best way to do that is to be tolerant, broad-minded, and educated in all things. I think that was one thing those guys were trying to get across with the talk about "taking sides." Taking sides creates unneccessary enemies, and having enemies limits your tolerance levels, which are needed for true spiritual communion. It is our insistence on "knowing" that creates these dichotomies. No one knows or will ever know, but let's all try to figure it out together anyway. Pursuing the unknown is great for cultivating tolerance, as long as you don't come to quick conclusions. Pursuing what is supposedly 'known' and feeling certain with spiritual truth can be an enemy to collective good.

moon_beam said something about how most faithful people question and doubt their faith sometimes. Probably, but it doesn't do them any good, since they're working backwards from the notion that they can know something with certainty. It's good to question spiritual matters as long as you keep it open-ended.

Moonbeam, you also said that atheists believe what they believe and christains believe what they believe. A key difference is that agnostics/atheists don't flatter themselves into thinking they are capable of reserving the right to believe something. The truth-seeking ones realize that all they really know is that their mind arose from organic material. And since organic and living material is so infinitely complex, we should try to understand their nature itself, rather than the nature of a supposed being that created them. So I'm saying that a lot of religious people assume that their minds are simple, humble, created by god, and point them toward simple truths, rather than understand that the mind is totally ineffable and mysterious, so why use it to understand something even more complex, like an eternal god?

stev90 said something about how religion is a form of addiction, and when the belief is threatened, the mind works hard to justify to the believer that he's on the true course. That is a very good point because the same thing happens with a chemical addiction. When the mind is told it's an addict, it provides a very convincing argument that it is correct since it doesn't want its comfortable chemical habit to be abated.

With this post I really tried to remain as nonpartisan as I could. if anyone's offended, it wasn't meant that way. Like moonbeam said, I can only speak the truth that I can readily perceive. But I've been on both "sides" of the debate. I even went on a two year religious mission, asserting to others that I 'knew' a truth. I always reserved my objectivity in the back of my mind, though.

PS I also like the comment from someone about how we shouldn't assume that there's a whole and that the glimpses we see are manifestations of that whole, but rather try to put together all the clues we can discern and seek to understand the great whole.

 

If I get out of my car, I can still see.

If I get out of my body...guess what?


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No offense, but I don't think you "try" Taoism- by trying you are only getting farther away. Buddhism is similar, you just are. By seeking enlightenment, you stray farther away. This is a point I think you are missing about both "religions."

Peace and love

 

misfeed.

 

Evidence for the power of prayer, or "meditation": http://www.alltm.org/pages/crime-arrested.html

 

Really.

So, you mean people were "Taoist" or "Buddhist" even before they could walk, think and talk.

Then, why did they bother defining themselves as such, as opposed to Christian, Muslim or Hindu later on?

By defining themselves as such, and conforming according to what a certain tradition requires, i.e. The Four Noble Truths, The Noble Eightfold Path, (Buddhism), etc, they were seeking something, following a path.

Following a path, is seeking. A path, like a map, leads to a goal.
Using a map, a path, to reach a goal is a process of seeking.


When you state that, "seeking enlightenment, you stray further away",
you're statement suggests that the Dalai Lama, and other practicing Buddhists, have actually strayed further away from enlightenment.