Rigid, Religious Stupidity

Religion can be defined as ''a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith'' (quoted from Merriam-Webster). Anything backed up by a firm belief can thus be defined as a religion. So what's so stupid about it?

When we rely on text books to tell us what to believe in, especially if it's just one book designed to make us believe. Let's apply a little evolution to the bible. Natural selection has no foresight, but humans have evolved to gain foresight, and the bible has been rewritten more than a hundred times. It is interpreted differently by anyone who reads it, and anyone who preaches has a system of beliefs which influences their interpretation and methods of teaching.

Now to the stupid part...

Religion is, and has been for centuries, a justifier for conquests and killings. The greatest authority is the one that no one can see - God - but whose interpreters function as the link between Heaven and Earth, thus embodying the greatest authority. But what is the foundation of religion? It is love and compassion, evidenced by more than 40,000 year old burial sites, 35,000 years before writing was ever invented and employed by monarchs, priests, and powerful merchants, to further their selfish, greedy agendas.

Religion is beautiful because it involves our most powerful emotions. But religion turns into stupidity when it becomes a justifier for conflict, murder, greed, and selfish agendas. Look beyond the major religious concepts, see why and how they were created, and trace their evolution to the present. You'll see that there is one God, and that God is nothing but love and compassion. There is no need for text books, churches, or anything external, unless they bring people together, and further ''agendas'' based on love and compassion, a free religion of the intelligent mind. That's how Heaven becomes a place on Earth, and stupidity seizes to exist.

 

Doesn't everything?

 

Yep, it's just too bad when people don't break the spell because they refuse to think or stand up for themselves.

 

I don't think anyone really can think for themselves. It's more a question of being aware of what is stopping you from thinking certain ways, and making a judgment as to whether you feel okay with it or not. You can go mad looking for something objectively true to hng your beliefs on, and I'm not convinced you'd be any better for it if you found it!

 

Their are destructive social and psychological aspects of the average individual that are predominantly inherent through religion.

if everyone on earth held a meeting-
why should we change, what do we change, how do we change it, when do we stop.

if god were included, it would do nothing but spawn confusion and social inaccuracy.

 

I don't honestly believe that religion adds to the human proclivity for violent disagreement over things that are either inarguable or inconsequential. If we can argue over what each other's gods should be called, we can probably find plenty of other things of no importance to hate each other about.

Human nature abhors a vacuum. You don't notice that you have a really annoying itch when you've got other things to worry about, but that doesn't mean you won't scratch it til it bleeds when you don't, rather than reflecting that it didn't bother you before and therefore shouldn't bother you now.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Wars_of_Religion



this is not opinion

 

That graph is actually hilarious. If religion held back progress so much, how come it existed BEFORE "The Christian Dark Ages" and after them without apparently impeding science that much.

As for the examples cited, they prove nothing, and in some cases evidence my point, since most of those nations have, to my knowledge, been involved in wholly non-religious wars, civil wars, or otherwise acts of aggression. And by non-religious, I mean, not even religious in the sense of being a territorial/tactical dispute with a religious conflict used to mobilise people into fighting it.

Off the top of my head, the French have been involved in a shit-ton of wars that have had bugger all to do with religion, Japan is not particularly a religious country, and China has seen plenty of violence perpetrated in the name of explicitly non-religious Communism throughout the last 100 years. Religion might have been a factor in the Saxon Wars, but I would speculate that, as with most wars, demonising a nation's religious practise has more to do with breaking their sense of national and cultural identity generally.

And so on. Like you said, "THIS IS NOT OPINION", so I really don't know why I bother. I miss when atheism wasn't cool and those of us who came to it did so wanting to be challenged.

 

the only people iv ever met with belief systems as rigid and stagnent and as fundy christians are atheists. youv got to be willing to deeply examine your believe systems if they are to grow.
spirituality is the exploration of the phenomenon we call conciousness, it exists.... and it invokes alot of heavy questions.

 

Hoatzin...i am not by any means saying that religious folk fight about nothing but religion, in all actuality, i know it is untrue. and i did not provide sources and graphs to dispute scientific advancement.

i just don't understand how anyone can even begin to dispute how religion adds to the human proclivity for violent disagreement.

-it is not opinion, because it is fact.

 

and im not an atheist.

 

well said

arty:

 

Nice discussion! I have to make a few comments here:

I agree that religion has spawned destruction, but if you re-read the definition of religion as ''a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith'' (quoted from Merriam-Webster), you'll see that ALL beliefs/causes are religious if they are held to with ardor, and unless ALL people hold on to the exact same belief system, there's a tendency for destruction and conflict. That's why all religious concepts, whether they fall within the confines of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Atheism, whatever, needs a solid foundation of love and compassion in order to co-exist peacefully.

Stupidity is in the fear and anger caused by a perceived threat from someone believing in something different than you do.

Religious concepts unite individuals, make them believe in the same things, and so the destruction is not really a problem of individuality, but rather misinterpretations of religious concepts channeled into many minds by those in power, and using religion to justify conflicts. That's the spell of religion, the stupidity of religion, and seen through the eyes of the dangerous people using religion to get what they want - conquest/conflict - that's also the trecherous beauty of religion.

Again, that depends on your definition and interpretation of God. If God is love and compassion, God is good. If God is fear, anger, and destruction, God is Satan. The human interpreter, and how influential he/she is, is the key, and God/Satan is nothing but a reflection of human nature. God and Satan are just external projections, imagery that embody love/compassion and fear/anger. We're visual beings, doesn't mean there's a bearded man in the sky or a red, 'horny' guy under ground.

Exactly, because religion is nothing but ardor and faith. Science is also a religion if you believe in it. But Archemetis, how can you proclaim that ''Darwin had it all wrong... we never evolved from apes, but rather beams of light... its consciousness that forms matter and not the other way around'' in your signature if you have deeply examined your belief systems?

We evolve, and if the light you refer to is sunlight, then yes, humans have certainly evolved different skin colors and textures based on the amount of light they've been exposed to. Everything is consciousness because we perceive and interpret, and everything we have perceived, interpreted, and recorded, forms, and is formed by, consciousness. Whatever you focus on and repeat in your mind, becomes religion - a part of your consciousness that you believe in and want to protect. There's just nothing to protect religion/faith/ardor from except from your own irrational negative emotions, fear and anger. Stupidity.

 

Are you saying that religious folk fight more than anyone else? Because you seem to be implying here that, as well as religion, religious people fight over all kinds of other things as well, which might well be true, but I'm not sure why you'd fail to mention that non-religious people fight over those things (including religion, since any cause which seeks to rid the world of religion could lead to religious violence) just as much, if not more.

Without wishing to come off as paranoid, I wonder if the reason why no one seems to be able to produce comparative statistics on this - i.e. violent acts committed by religious people vs. violent acts committed by non-religious people - is that it might not support their argument.

I would say that it doesn't contribute any more than, say, religion, history, justice, concepts of ownership, nationality, race, culture, science, etc. I would not dispute that religion adds to people's violence (because it gives them yet one more thing to disagree about), but I don't feel that it deserves the amount of special attention that it gets from atheist zealots.

 

I don't think that invokes the need for a belief in a god, or a religion. Maybe some people don't need spirituality. It can be one way to find out about people, the world around us, etc, but there are other ways to do so. If an atheist were to drink ayahasca, they may be able to discover things that either change their beliefs or make them question their beliefs. But this may not involve a deity, god, or a spirit. you also can have a religion and be an atheist. Atheists without a religion may have their own beliefs, and these will definatley grow and change.

 

i wrote that a few years back, its not somthing i trully believe at this time, but still i like the way it sounds.

im one of those people who believes in nothing while at the same time believes in everything.

all i know is that i dont know, and i dont know that i will ever know. but i look around and i realise there is somthing here, but i do not know what it is. and so for now it will have to suffice to say that the manifest is born from the unmanifest....i have come across nothing substantial that is final.

 

"maybe some people dont need spirituality"

perhaps you are right, i see many people who seem to get along just fine in the world with no spirituality, a part of me envies them deeply. i dont know how to take on the world and the vastness of conciousness and the cosmos without continuously searching for answers to the unanswerables. it is all so horribly vast. its certainly brought me alot of pain in my life. i wonder how happy everyone else trully is deep down. whatever works for them i support fully. i need to find what works for me.

"but this may not involve a diety, god, or a spirit. you also can have a religion and be an athiest."

our definition of athiest is apparently different. when i say atheist i reffer to those iv met who claim human being are only food for the worms and oblivion awaits us....

i agree with you though when you say it is not nessesary to involve any kind of diety or god or spirits on an authentic spiritual path. they do exist for some though, of this im certain.

 

I see, I'm assuming you're a theist? Why do you need to believe ina god to understand your world? I'm not so completely aware of the worlds vastness [my little mind can't take it] but I definately reconzie it everyday, from the cells in a tree, to the variety of people on this earth, to the number of stars in the sky. Although I do definatley see all of this scientific, I do very much try to comprehend its greatness, and that its not only a matter of logic, but a amtter of beauty. But like you said, what works for you, works for you.

Some do, yes. I find that pessimistic, though. Just here to live then rot, completing the carbon cycle. I was like that when I first became an atheist. Theres all of this science around, and I carefully look at it day by day [As I love science... ALOT.] But like I said, I look at the beauty just as much as the science. My friend is jewish [but shes not really religious] and she is agnostic. dead middle, and she finds praying ridiculous, jesus walking on water ridiculous, etc. She could be an atheist and have a religion. But most atheists don't.

you can't know that for sure unless is pulled your hair and spat in your face and yelled at you.

 

sigh.....

they pave paradise, to put up a parking lot......

i feel this is an exceedingly sloppy statement, but i know what you mean

so......you agree? lol

what is or isnt the word of god?
by what power is a racist correct?
why are children afraid of the boogey monster?

contrary to what some might thing- the questions are related

Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

religion is an institution. it is not just a "thing"

 

i cant say i believe in a god unless we are to first define the term god. (which is kind of a ridiculous thing to attempt imo) im not someone who believes that an omnipotent entity is running the show. however, i recognize there is somthing at work here, some kind of life force. we can talk scientifically about cells in a tree, or cells in our bodies and how they divide....but we know nothing scientifically about the force that fuels the process.

whether creation is the perfection of an artistic creator, or the random accumulation of various factors, we are in no position to say. and ultimatly it dosent matter. the way we work with what we are given is more important.

as far as praying goes, im a big fan. prayer is focused intent...who or what it is directed towards if anything is irrelevent. the benificial part of prayer is the focusing of intent on an energetic level. as above so below, it is a form of magic really, one that invokes a responce from the sublte realms, of which our physical realm is but a dense reflection of. as far as im concerned these other realms (infinate in and of themselfs) are science. though a very subtle science.

never underestimate the vast potential of human conciousness. conciousness is "god."