Explain religion to me?

I just don't get it. All I see it as is hope. For now I'm athiest.

 

A religion is an organised approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth.

It may be expressed through prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, among other things. It may focus on specific supernatural, metaphysical, and moral claims about reality (the cosmos and human nature) which may yield a set of religious laws, ethics, and a particular lifestyle. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.

The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction. "Religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system," but it is more socially defined than personal convictions, and it entails specific behaviors, respectively.

The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultures. It considers psychological and social roots, along with origins and historical development.

I'd stay atheist if I were you.

 

i was the same way at your age.

 

CARTOONS of naked chicks? Really? You've given up on actual human flesh and will settle for a mass-produced rendition of one? Sad...

Anyway, I'm not going to explain religion, since it is not necessary to have in order to believe in God. The two can (and oftentimes should) be separated. Now, are you really curious about religion, or are you wondering more about the belief in God? I've noticed that atheists like to keep the two together, since it makes it easier to refute God as a negative thing.

There are many reasons for believing in God, some of them unhealthy, some of them extraordinarily beautiful. Let me ask you this...

Have you ever cried tears of gratitude?
Have you ever felt your mind surrender to an invisible force (while completely sober) in order to see yourself through an act of compassion?
Have you ever thrown your life away, only to be given a second chance by a complete stranger for no logical reason?
Have you ever felt unconditional love?
Have you ever wondered what lies outside the boundaries of logic, reason, and predictability?
Have you ever wondered why all the great, influential, admirable lives throughout history--Mother Theresa, Ghandi, MLK, Harriet Tubman, St. Francis, Florence Nightingale...have all been theists? I'm not suggesting that atheists can't have compassion, I am merely suggesting that to go above and beyond the basic, Joe-smoe, ordinary, predictable existence requires submission to something grander than yourself. Some of us call this God.

 

Strawberry Fields

That was a wicked answer

I would say that religion is having faith that there's something more. Well, that's not necessarily religion, but that kind of thing.

 

Worship the Joo Joo at the bottom of the mountain...

Or else... :boxing_smiley:

 

You get yourself an idea (we will supply a basic premise ,if you so choose)and you formulate some rules around your idea(People seem to like ideas that have rules of conduct)concerning proper behaviour of your likely/willing adherants, relative to attaining eternal life in exactly the same form as they see themselves now.Convince/convert enough adherants to your idea/basic premise and soon it may be prudent to acquire an ediface of large enough proportion to hold present and (hopefully)future adherants.This ediface must have the air of sanctity sincerity and seriousness about it at all times which can be fascilitated by whispering within it's walls and the installation of a properly large musical instrument to be played prior to the expounding of the idea.Determine which day of the week you want to favour your adherants with the details of your idea (any day that's comfortable to you and of course a day when most can come and contribute to the ediface building fund.There must always be a building fund,in addition to a weekly offering, or stipend,said funds to be used somewhere in the distant future to improve (purportedly)the initial ediface).Now that you have place,time,adherants--the rest is up to you.If they like your idea and they think you genuinely have----"THE ANSWER"you should be able to continue to make a nice enough living,have a comfortable place to live,make friends if you wish,have the pick of the single women and continue to live off the fruits of others labor for as long as you conduct yourself according the rules of your IDEA.Force,as effectively used in the past to keep or discipline adherants or blasphemers is no longer possible.If your idea requires the use of small boys and girls,perquisites that WERE available are no longer as such.------------Please enjoy your new life as a pastor/priest/evangelist/. (first payment 0f 169.99 to be received no later than August 1st,2009.Thank you. Reverand Joel. )

 

Ok when the hell did i say anthing about giving up on real women? I thought it was a good picture so i put it as my signature.

 

Sorry if i seemed rude. i had a bad day today, i didn't get a job i wanted.

 

discipline

 

it's a belief, if you don't believe it will be hard for you to understand

 

Religion is what you need to tell you that you're incapable of virtue unless you're being constantly watched. The people who invented it are the same people who now are convinced that anyone who isn't openly racist has been brainwashed by the PC thugs or some shit. I haven't got much time for atheism either because I feel that not caring whether a god exists is a far healthier position than labelling yourself a NotCaringWhetherGodExists-ist. Proverbs are better than religion any day.

 

nothing wrong with not believing anyone knows what they're talking about.
just the thing is, that doesn't really mean anything can't exist either.

strangeness exists, and with it more then we can see.
much can be felt and experienced that cannot be objectively proven.
but again, that doesn't mean it has to resemble anyone's idea of it.

 

why bother. If your mind is very closed you'll pick it up pretty quickly on your own

 

Go about it scientifically if you want to.

 

I don't see how any of these are reasons to believe in god? Can you explain?

I think there are much better reasons to believe in god than this. But they also do not point toward such an ideal fantasy god as the one you speak of.

god is not a person. It does not feel emotions - or I suppose you could say it feels every emotion being felt everywhere throughout time and space simultaneously. God is really nothing more than sum of all things. It is organized energy, some of which we perceive as matter. I suppose you could also say that the laws of physics are part of god.

What I'm trying to say, but failing to put very clearly, is that god is no more like you or me than an electron in one of the atoms in one of the cells in your liver is like yourself. We like to see god as compassionate or perfect but there is no logical reason to believe this other than wanting to. People claim to know god exists with these qualities because they can "feel" it.

What you have to consider is that people will believe what they want to believe, see what they want to see, feel what they want to feel, and hear what they want to hear (ever wonder how a significant chunk of the population could, say, continue to support bush near the end of his presidency despite him clearly being one of the worst things to ever happen to the country?). And "knowing" that a god cares about you and has some kind of existence planned for you after your inevitable death is a very comforting thing. It clears up a whole batch of the cognitive dissonance and fear created by knowing that you must die one way or another - a much more compelling reason to believe the impossible than some political affiliation. Its no wonder so many people believe so strongly in this human-like god despite no remotely concrete or verifiable reason to believe it.

Compassion and love are things god only experiences in that infinitesimal part of himself that is the human experience. To believe that it feels these things towards or about us, and therefore outside of our minds, is silly. As is the idea that god places some high value on these traits and demands that we show them to eachother, other than the part of god that is evolution killing off the humans that couldn't feel compassion and love and that therefore never worked together or helped eachother out.

 

Worship my god, or suffer an eternity of agony.

 

Yeah I don't see what any of that has to do with religion, or [SIZE=-1]Yahweh.[/SIZE]

 

Mother Theresa in the later years of her life admitted to never having "felt" the holy ghost and in fact was put into such a depression by her own self admittance of doubt that the Roman church fruitlessly had her exorcised.

"Where is my faith? Even deep down ... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness ... If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul ... How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, ... What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true." - Mother Theresa

Mother Teresa's organization, the Missionaries of Charity, was a cult dedicated to the promotion of suffering for it's own financial ends, people didn't visit to become healthy they went there to die.

And by the way Ghandi was a notorious racist.

 

Religion was man kinds first and worst answer to the questions about the universe and the world in which he lived, it came into being when we had no idea why the earth sometimes shook beneath our feet or lighting shot from the sky, when we had no clue that bacteria and virus's were abundant and deadly and life was terrifying and more often than not far to short.

It is used as a type of mental balm to take some of the sting away from the thought of death and in some respects goes as far as to say that in death you will find a paradise waiting for you.

It is a means of control and an easy way to sway public opinion, religion is unnecessary.