Religion Thread

Yes, but why would he care about us any more than a worm?

Worms are, in the grand scheme, better than humans. Morally, and for the world.

I don't know if we should get into the whole "humanity's worth" discussion here.

Perhaps not, but it certainly ties into religion.

Christianity just strikes me as a very.... Arrogant belief system.

Me, with my beliefs, can accept that I could be wrong. The Christian God could exist, and I could be mistaken this whole time.

Chriastians, on the other hand, CANNOT give me the same courtesy. To them, I am simply mislead, and I am wrong, and they are right, because they are right. They literally cannot accept the fact that they may be wrong about this, because their religion says they aren't, so they aren't.



EDIT: I am just using Christianity as an example. Other religions are like this too, of course.

Top Hat Zebra wrote:Alright, if we're going to do this, I might as well join in.



So..

I find organized religion to be ardous and unneccessary. There is, in my opinion, no need at all for a governing body for religion.

I believe that every single religion is wrong. Every single one of them.

The odds of us even being able to understand a divine being, are literally zero. The human mind simply cannot do it. When people read the Bible, or any religios texts, and take it literally, it frustrates me.

The Bible makes as much sense as Aesop's Fables. Yes, it teaches some good lessons, but you shouldn't take everything it says as reality. Nor should you think it's the Word of God. The idea that a god would even care about what we do is, frankly, wishful thinking.


In my opinion, the Christain God, were he to exist, is not worth worshipping. He is, at best, a dick. He has wiped out huge amounts of people at least twice, that I can think of off the top of my head. Plus, he has the power to end all suffering, and yet he doesn't. Thus, he is not worthy of my worship, or even love. He is a jealous, spiteful thing. If he was human, people would consider him a tyrant, and he would be killed in a Coup.


I much prefer the Eastern religions. Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, etc.

Because, for one, two of those are not religions. They are philosophies. They are all the good parts of religion (The morals, the love, the kindness, etc.) without all the bullshit.


Even Hinduism, which is a religion, handles it better than Christianity. Hinduism says, "We don't really understand the gods and/ or God, so just worship him however you want, as long as you're a good person."

That is how religion should be.

I perfectly agree with that last statement. The rest, though...

In my opinion, the Christain God, were he to exist, is not worth worshipping. He is, at best, a dick. He has wiped out huge amounts of people at least twice, that I can think of off the top of my head. Plus, he has the power to end all suffering, and yet he doesn't. Thus, he is not worthy of my worship, or even love. He is a jealous, spiteful thing. If he was human, people would consider him a tyrant, and he would be killed in a Coup.

No.

He did wipe out huge amounts of people with Noah, but the Bible tells us that litteraly everyone EXCEPT Noah and his family were being massive dicks, just flat out not listening to anything that God commanded. And He didn't want to do this, but he had no choice. The people who died couldn't be saved. At all. To prove that God did not enjoy this, he clearly promised, at the end of the flood, to never do something like that ever again.

He CAN end all suffering. He doesn't. That doesn't make him a dick. It's a thing called free will. Without it, there is litteraly no reason at all for us to be on Earth. With free will, you can choose what you want to do when you want to do it. There is crime and awful things, but that's because the people doing these things have free will. And besides, us humans are bitchy and whiney at heart. If he decided to stop all the problems in the world tomorrow, many people will go out and say ''Well, shit, God, why weren't you there sooner, when Hitler and Stalin were around?''. And you can be sure that shit will hit the fan yet again in a maximum of 24 hours. The human race is like that.

Top Hat Zebra wrote:Perhaps not, but it certainly ties into religion.

Christianity just strikes me as a very.... Arrogant belief system.

Me, with my beliefs, can accept that I could be wrong. The Christian God could exist, and I could be mistaken this whole time.

Chriastians, on the other hand, CANNOT give me the same courtesy. To them, I am simply mislead, and I am wrong, and they are right, because they are right. They literally cannot accept the fact that they may be wrong about this, because their religion says they aren't, so they aren't.



EDIT: I am just using Christianity as an example. Other religions are like this too, of course.

No, now I believe you're mistaking Christianity with the Catholic religion. Us Mormons are Christians, and if you don't believe in God and don't want to listen to our teachings, we'll just shrug and move on. No forcing it down your throat, no saying that you'll burn in hell forever and all that crap.

For the first thing, that is my point. He killed everyone in the world, because they wouldn't listen to him. That is fucked up.

They couldn't be saved. That doesn't mean you fucking wipe out the entire human race. It's their job to listen to you, not your job tp make them.


for the second thing, that's exactly what I mean. He is a hypocrite, in allowing us to do these things, but then telling us we're not allowed to do these things.

What the hell? Is it a test? Why would you test us? Why not just not allow us to kill people.

Or, even better, kill a person as soon as they tried to do anything bad. That would end all crime pretty fast.









That's not what I meant. I don't mean they try to force it down my throat.

It's the fact that they will not accept that they could be wrong. You cannot do it either, because it's in your religion.

Well think about why people don't like to accept that they're wrong about religion. For a lot of us, it's something that we grow up knowing. We learn it from our parents, if we go to church, then we learn it there, and overall, it tends to leave a pretty big imprint in childhood. So, even if you're in a civil debate with someone over whether or not they could be wrong, and you pull up as much evidence as possible to prove this, they still won't believe you, because that would mean that one of the key things about them was just a load of crap.

It's not necessarily because "it's in their religion," but it's because it being wrong makes them rethink their whole life.

No, it would be fucked up if they didn't listen to him once and then he sent in the flood. He tried many, many times to get them straight. Many, many times. They wanted nothing of it. Even when Noah came up and told them that if they keep it up, God will be pissed and take them all down with a flood, they didn't listen.

I believe he did send us down here on Earth as some sort of test. I could explain what my religion believes and all, but you'd be better off talking to some Missionaries from my church if you want the full details. They can explain it better than I could.

Also, I can perfectly admit that I am wrong. But there is nothing to prove that God doesn't exist, the same way that there's nothing to prove he does exist. I believe he does, I prayed and got myself a testimony of it all, and if you have different beliefs, hey, that's fine.

Also, what Dewmann said

But it IS in their religion.

I'm not saying they ARE wrong. Im just saying they should think about the fact that maybe, possibly, they could be.

I have. I have thougt, "What if I'm wrong?" Then, I would be wrong. I still lived a great life, and I still was nice to everyone, and cared about them, and didn't fuck up everyone's shit.

I accept that I could be wrong.


But religious people don't, because they can't. They cannot be wrong, because that would go against the whole "Faith" thing.



@Someguy: It does not matter. It is fucked up, killing everyone on earth. There is no possible way that can be considered moral, or justified. God should have accepted that we weren't going to listen, and just moved on.

Unrelated to the topic at hand; I just feel like sharing. Sometimes "god" just feels, like, huge. The idea, in itself, of a higher power seems pretty phenomenal. I don't think that if I were born into a world without the idea of higher powers that I would ever have that idea. To go from "where did we come from? Why are we here?" to "god" seems a monumental leap. Sometimes I think that maybe the idea of a god is proof of a god.

Oh, I guess I'll also post this picture I picked up a while ago.
Spoiled because it's pretty long.

Spoiler:

I don't know. I can kind of see where God came from.


He didn't just magically spring into people's brains.


I think, first, we worshipped what we understood. The hunt, rain, the trees, the ground, etc.

Then came things that we could not understand. Death being one of them.

I think God comes directly from The Gods. And those gods came from us not understanding natural, normal events.

Also, I guess this goes here...

Alright. About the "god is a dick" thing. He is. He totally and undeniably is.

Especially in the old testament. Not only did he wipe out nearly all humanity because apparently "kill everyone" is the logical thing to use his omnipotence for, he's also absolutely awful to humans in general. There's a particularly horrid bit in the story about Sodom, where he singled out the one guy worth saving in the whole city (again with the mass murdering...) and sent an angel to him. The guy's house is surrounded by other cityfolk who want to love tenderly the angel, because that's apparently what happens to strangers there. And this guy, the one guy deemed worthy of saving, compromises by giving his own daughters to an angry, love tenderly-y crowd. And the lord doth smiled upon him. (And this happens again at some point with someone else, because the guys who wrote the bible apparently liked the theme)

I don't like religion, especially the 'gods and miracles' varieties. I'm OK with things like Buddhism because as Zebra mentioned, they're more philosophies than religions.
I also don't think religions deserve any kind of respect, because it has done nothing to earn it apart from mass indoctrination. It only stands in the way of progress because it pretends to hold all the answers, however ridiculous they may be. You also don't need religion to be a good person. If you're only being good because of the threat of Hell and not from your own free will, something's wrong with you. It's only purpose now, it seems, is too fill the holes still left by science, claiming victory by default, for no good reason other than being the theological version of "first!" posts.

I'll believe in a god when he comes down and proves it. And don't give me that whole "but it's about having faith" crap, because it isn't. People wouldn't take a man who believes in flying purple unicorns seriously just because he has "faith", they only believe the stuff you've been indoctrinated with since they were a child, even though both theories have exactly the same amount of empirical evidence backing them up. None.

Especially in the old testament. Not only did he wipe out nearly all humanity because apparently "kill everyone" is the logical thing to use his omnipotence for, he's also absolutely awful to humans in general. There's a particularly horrid bit in the story about Sodom, where he singled out the one guy worth saving in the whole city (again with the mass murdering...) and sent an angel to him. The guy's house is surrounded by other cityfolk who want to love tenderly the angel, because that's apparently what happens to strangers there. And this guy, the one guy deemed worthy of saving, compromises by giving his own daughters to an angry, love tenderly-y crowd. And the lord doth smiled upon him. (And this happens again at some point with someone else, because the guys who wrote the bible apparently liked the theme)

Alright, I'll repeat myself here for a second. If God simply killed everyone everytime a small problem happened, fine. I would agree with you. But the Bible and even the Book of Mormon (from my religion) clearly states that this was a final, no other choice solution. He did try to send prophets and other people to tell the sinners to quit it, but they either never listened or even killed the people sent by God. The only solutions left were to either force them to do good, which would destroy free will, or get rid of them so they wouldn't spread their sinful ways and bring hundreds or even thousands down.

About the Sodom story, let's look at the past a bit. Not thousands of years, just a hundred. In 1912, it was socially acceptable for blacks to be considered inferior and women to be considered baby factories that cooked and cleaned. When we look at it today, with our mentality, it seems awful, but, back then, it was fine. The story in Sodom happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Back then, it was socially acceptable to give your daughters as protection for a male traveller, the same way it was socially acceptable to stone people and many other things that seem creepy and wrong in the Bible.

And where is it written that God liked that stuff? Nowhere, it's simply implied since it's not written. God didn't command ''Hey, give your daughters to protect that guy''. Whoever wrote this part in the Bible was simply stating what the father did, and what happened was considered perfectly normal to them.

I'll believe in a god when he comes down and proves it.

Ah, that's the big question. Would you?

The Hebrews that Moses got out of Egypt saw the many plagues, the red sea open up, and countless miracles that God gave them. Yet, some of them still didn't look at a fucking stick with a snake on it, even when Moses was telling them that it would cure them from the disease that was slowly killing them. The Book of Mormon has a slightly similar exemple, with the brothers of one of the prophets downright seeing one of God's angels stand in front of them, telling them to quit being dicks. A few chapters later, they're still dicks.

If God decided ''Screw it, I'm going down there to show them I'm real'', sure, maybe some atheists would suddenly turn to religion. Others, however, would call bullshit. They'd claim it's just another whackjob pretending to be God, that everything he does to prove it are staged and special effects, and would deny everything God would tell them, the same way that Christians seem to deny what science keeps sending their way.


Finally, I believe this thread was a terrible idea. We could argue for weeks, it'll end the same way all religious debates end on the internet: no one wins, no one changed mentality, and everyone hates each other.

Top Hat Zebra wrote:If you want to worship Princess Celestia as our divine saviour, go ahead.

I think the brony community already does that, actually. That, or Lauren Faust.

I'm a strict atheist. Not so much in a militant way, but I don't believe in God and in my (narrow) experience religion more often than not is a force for intolerance and division more than anything else. I think it can be a good way of bringing people together, but I don't think you necessarily need religion to do that or indeed reach out to the community around you.

I would also take issue with Dewmann's comment on religion being a big part of childhood. I mean, it was a pretty big part of my childhood: we prayed at the start of every school lunchtime, did RE, sang hymns, went to church, did the christingle...we weren't really devout or regular worshippers, but it was there. Maybe that's why I feel differently about it, but the point is even if something is a big part of your life doesn't mean you can't move on from it or look back with a critical eye.

The point is that he's supposed to be omnipotent. He literally has infinite possibilities here that don't involve genocide. He could change their opinions manually if he wanted to, and no one would have to die. There shouldn't have to be any sin or suffering in the first place because he has the power to make it all go away. And if it's supposed to be some sort of "test", what's he interfering for anyway? He's either a genocidal bully drunk on power or he's not as infallible and omnipotent as we're supposed to think he is.

As for the Sodom story, God clearly didn't have a problem with it because he still saved the damn guy! Yes, you can write it off as being dated and from a different time, but who's to say if God's moral code changed along with ours?

That's what I mean.

Kill them all? Really, God? Those people have families. Children, cousins, mothers, fathers, friends, teachers, neighbors, mailmen, policemen, ect. (Probably. Im not actually 100% certain Sodom had any sort of city watch or postal service, but you get my point.)

Sure, you can choose to be evil and what not, but apparently, that's exactly the same as choosing to die. And not just choosing your death. Choosing your children's death, and your parents, and your friends, etc.

I mean, he's God, for Christ sake! (Hehe) He can literally, invent some other way of bringing them back into the fold. One that we would never think of. Why, then, did he simply kill all those people?

Sounds like a pretty dickish thing, to me.



As to the believeing it when I see it, I don't know. I don't know if I would believe with 100% that a divine being was real if I saw it. I am of the belief that us, all of us, humans, simply cannot understand a divine being. I don't think our minds can comprehend it.



@Jonny: You know, (No offence) I've always laughed at Atheism. I used to be Atheist back in Middle School, but I just thought it meant, "Don't believe in God."

Apparently not. Apparently, Atheism is an organised religion that is all about being against organised religion. Kind of a strange way of going about it, huh?

Atheism is a bit more nuanced than a collective "we don't believe in god". It's generally something people come into on their own, rather than being pushed by family or the people around them via subtle threats of eternal damnation. It's also much more personal, compared to religion's 'strength in numbers' way of operating.
There isn't a real belief system, unless you count science and empirical evidence, I guess? The key difference is, as I mentioned earlier, that atheists in general don't pretend to have all the answers.

I don't think it's comparable with a religion at all. Our interpretation of the world doesn't stem from our beliefs, it's the other way around.

It's an.... Organised, Anti-religion.


I understand your point, but it's still funny that they (Certain people, not all of them) try to make themselves look like a religion. It's listed as a religion along with all the real ones.

I don't see why all atheists can't just be atheists. Why do they have to set themselves up as a big, hot-shot religion and try to take on Christianity?

Top Hat Zebra wrote:I don't see why all atheists can't just be atheists. Why do they have to set themselves up as a big, hot-shot religion and try to take on Christianity?

That's a pretty sweeping generalization.

Gorgro wrote:I also don't think religions deserve any kind of respect, because it has done nothing to earn it apart from mass indoctrination. It only stands in the way of progress because it pretends to hold all the answers, however ridiculous they may be.

So is that. People can be religious without being close minded assholes.

No, but religion is problematic for me in that it's sometimes based upon principles that are fixed and immovable. Look at the row from the churches over gay marriage. Heck, look at the church's whole attitude to homosexuality.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/09/archbishop-of-canterbury-crown-nominations-commission

This article seems to be saying that many church figures/Christians see homosexual behaviour as intrinsically wrong and harmful, something that has to be compensated for and suppressed. And why? Because of a piece of writing written however long ago that says this stance is the right one. Why do we attribute authority to this piece of writing? Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to feel looked down on by people because of this belief system? Saying you disapprove of homosexual relationships (whilst still accepting them and not saying anything about them) isn't really an answer.

Right.

There is just so much wrong with the religions of the world, but there is nothing good that can only come from them. They are unnecessary, and they only cause problems.

I don't care if you believe in God. I don't care if you believe in Chuck Norris. I don't care if you believe in the Easter Bunny. But keep the politics out of it, and stop following all these made up rules like sheep.

Or, let me rephrase that:



Stop forcing other people to do so on pain of death, or worse.

And that's every religion, not just Christianity.

Actually, Judaism does not really try to convert people. And they also have the Talmud, which is a text pretty much made for discussing beliefs and what they mean to different people.

Judaism is.... Odd.


It sort of feels like Jews don't want other people to be Jews.

It's not just about conversion, it's about the rules religions force upon their followers.