The flaws of organized religion

Hey, everyone, I just had a a good conversation with a friend and thought of a philosophy that flaws most forms of organized religion in the western and Eastern world, that flaw is the concept of a heaven and a hell. I think this conflict defeats the whole purpose of most reiligions. If you plug in consequences into the whole equation then it doesn't amtter what's right because people will only do what's "right" because they wish not to suffer the consequences. Consequences is a powerful tool though in gathering followers to a religion because it controls people. Think about it, I mean this may seem very offense but when people are afraind you can make them do whatever you want, and this is how I think that most religions with this heaven and hell concept have gotten away with making some of these outlandish rules. Such as people can't eat this certain animal or you can't eat meat on this particular day of the week, or can't do this or that for a particular reason. It's like these rules are based on someone else's own personal tastes and preferences and a consequence is a good way to see that people will agree with you.
These religions are a great way to keep people in order. It's a lot like most official governments' laws systems where, when you break the law you are punished, but with an eternal twist to it. I mean if you want to set up a society you makes rules to follow to control people and have order, and if you watn to set up a religion you do the same thing, but make the consequences eternal so people who do not question have almost no choice but to follow and will agree with you no matter what and will do whatever you tell them to do. The Catholic Church of the Middle Ages is a prime example of this.
Thisd is also why people don't question and think outside of their man-made box because the religion with eternal consequences puts boundaries on people's thinking. There are plenty of examples of this. In the middle ages noone bothered to think of the idea fo a heleo-centric universe because those few who did were labeled "heretics" by the Catholic Church and were burned at the stake. The reason that people will not except evolution is because it has been slammed into them their entire lives that god created man by making him out of dirt and woman from his rib. So do you see how this holds the species back a little? It puts boundaries on people and discourages thinking and new ideas because thinking for yourself and reinventing the wheel is just too much trouble. It isolates and cages them in someone else's idea of what a perfect world should be, and if anyone did think outside of the box then you would have to reconstruct the whole thing, and what you have been building for so long would all be wrong. It's not necessarily the concept of religion that does this as is the concept of religion with consequences that does all of this. You can see how basic human instinct ties into all of this. Fear of change, fear of what's beyond, and just sheer laziness and not wanting to think and fix something if it's flawed. Therefore, yuou set up rules with a consequence to them and you have no worries of any of these things at all.
My favorite philosopher is Socrates and it is one of his teachings that is the best piece of advice that I can give you as a human being. That is "Think for your self and question authority". You should never follow because following leads to all of these things that I have talked about therefore, organized religion when your thinking in terms of human advancements and progression of new ideas because anytime you follow, with anything not just religion, you styart letting the leader think for you instead of you thinking for yourself. You rob yourself of a basic and natural human gift and right., and I think that the way popular religions are coommlonly practiced does inrfinge upon human rights because you are living your life by someone else's ideas and standards and not your own. You are letting your brain shut down and are making it just to what it is told. You do not have to believe anything if you don't want to. That is another basic human right, and most religion the way it is commonly practiced is a dictatorship that says "You have to believe oin this or else!", and that is also infringing upon your right as a human being.
When you are first born, as you progress throughout the years you have a basic understanding of what's right and wrong. It is naturally apart of you as a human being. You have what I like to call "universal morals" that you know are true (except in the case of a mentally dilluded person). You know that things like lying, cheating, and stealing, and killing are all wrong, because those are morals that bind us together as a human race. Religion, and someone else telling you what to do, how to live your life, and controlling you are not. If common monotheism were true you would know it naturally when you were born. It would be apart of the universal morals embedded in you. Someone who is never taught about these things will not believe them because it is not apart of your compassion etc., as a homo sapien sapien.
Now I am not telling you what to believe. I realize that you have the right to believe whatever you want and I wish not to take anyone's faith from them. I'm just telling you what I believe and what I think is real truth. I am not an "atheist" per-say because although I am a strong believer in science, but to add to it, I also believe in imagination and a life energy of some sort that runs through us all and some thing to explain the beauty of life in a truthful, reasonable, and maybe even a proven manner, but I don't think it's an object or a person controlling you and telling you how to live. Agree with me, disagree with, and provide great discussion, but please do not attack me for my views for I am only doing what many others before me have.... Questioning authority, surroundings, and seeking truth in my own way.

 

"Religion is the opium of the people" - Karl Marx.


You're right that religions seek to control human behaviour. In previous epochs it was perhaps one of the only ways in which social order and cohesion could be maintained.
However - the thing is that there does seem to be right and wrong/good and evil etc. So the rules, or some of the basic one's anyway, were perhaps more to ensure order here and now than in a future afterlife.
But looking at it, would a purely secular society be any better, any more free? Because it seems that laws and regulations proliferate even more under such systems than under religions.
In the USSR for example, religion was officially (and very unsuccessfully) banned, but was replaced with Marxist dogma on one hand, and a fiercely oppressive penal system, once again designed to keep people in line.

Where I disagree with your post is over the question of a moral sense. I don't think that this exists in people other than as a result of socialization, education and so on. The thing has to be instilled in people. And the basic values that western societies seek to instill are really not much different from those of religion. So in the end, you still have someone telling you what to believe, but often because of some political or other mundane consideration.

You also say that Socrates is your favorite philosopher - but in the 'Republic' a blueprint is given for a wholly totalitarian and controlled society - even to the extent of banning some kinds of music. A socity far more controlled than any christian country, for example.

But actually, I'd be interested to hear what you think of 'dis-organized religion'.

 

Univesal morality? T or F?
Can we ever escape 'consequences'?

I find these ideas interesting ...
but you guys are hard to read!
Could you use more spacing and paragraphs'
pleeeease?

 

Well, Black Bill BLake you want to know what I think about dis-organized religion? How about this...Imagine there's no country...Nothing to kill or die for...No religion too... I don't think I have to tell any of you who that's from. Organized religion with consequences is a mere ancient superstition. I am perfectly aware of the human desire to believe, but instead of believeing in a tyrannical individual who controls and squeezes out all desire to seek real truth..Who controls with fear, how about believing in our race...The human race and it's progression and goal towards real truth. If we all stood behind this dream then we would reachy our next evolutionary level then... We could know real truth... With our joined efforts and beliefs and pride in our race....Think about it..We could open our third eye.....All you have to do is what the man himself said...Imagine......

 

I would just like to point out that Thomas Hobbes said, "without the protection of government, human lives and property are endangered, and only those skilled with fists and weapons have much of a chance of survival" this is because he believed humans were not good at heart, but rather, barbaric, and without social, religious, and governmental restraints, it would be chaos. in other words, anarchy would be terrible. okay i know that leans towards a political view instead of a religous view, but it conflicts with what is written in the bible. i can't find where it's written, in Romans i believe, but it is understood, at least in the baptist tradition, that ppl ARE born with a conscience... also, it IS written in Romans that all authority is in the hands of god, so basically all government is not eternal, and we don't have to answer to it. we only have to answer to god, and his eternal "rules"

anyway.. yeah... that was a bit off topic, and if i wasn't so tired i would try to organize this better... but just wanted to point out some things to you...

edit--- this is, of course, referring only to christianity, and islam too i guess since they also read the new testament of the bible.

 

To me, the worst thing about organized religion is its use by some religious leaders to incite their followers to preach that the faith they follow is superior to all others. This is not a flaw in the religion itself, as such, but a human failing that is expressed through organized religion.

I am a big fan of John Lennon, and the lyrics of 'Imagine' are certainly worth pondering. "Imagine no possessions...I wonder if you can....No need for greed or hunger....a brotherhood of man. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one."

GoingHomeUnivesal morality? T or F?
Can we ever escape 'consequences'?


T. I look at it this way. Morals are culturally determined, and therefore differ from place to place, but ethics are more universal in nature. The idea that harming others is unethical, and helping others is ethical is an example of what I feel is a universal ethical precept, imho.

 

Yes, that's exactly it...That's exactly what I was saying. There are personal/opinionated morals such as those varying the drinking age. Some countries find it immoral to drink when you're under 21 some don't. Some countries think that weed is immoral and some realize the truth. A minor example , but you see the principle though. Universal morals are morals that all sane humans naturally have as a part of their gift as a homo sapien sapien....Universal ethics.

 

Could you give some examples of universal ethics? That is, ethics that exist in the human being prior to socialization/education.

 

Universal ethics are knowledge that all humans have of what's right and wrong such as people know that things such as killing, cheating, and stealing are all wrong.. Those are some examples for you.

 

Only in an innocence-guilt society. In an honor-shame culture, as long as the honor of the family is maintained, there is a lot that is not considered "wrong."

 

Thats true but it doesn't answer my question. The idea or the feeling that these things are wrong are present in people only because of the socialization and education processes. They are not inborn or innate values. They are part of social conditioning.

 

Does this conditioning teach us to care about the people around us?

Without the possibility of doing wrong, would we be able to actively pursue doing good?

Is it good to be able to be an active intentual proponent of good instead of a passive participant in good?

 

I think it does, or usually it does. Or at the very least, it defines our experience of and reaction to our feelings. In a sense, all morality = restraint.
And restraint is learned.

Point 2. You must be right - without the possibility of bad, good wouldn't have any meaning. But what I'm saying is that these categories are learned, at least in so far as moral injunctions such as non killing etc are concerned.
On the other hand, there is a kind of instinctive good and bad - it is quite natural for instance to avoid pain and injury.
Again, there can arise dilemmas - over the death penalty for instance. It seems to me that 'natural justice' if there is such a thing would call for child killers to be executed. But a supposedly 'higher' and certainly a more constructed moral attitude comes in and says no - it is wrong to kill under any circumstances. (often the same people though think it's ok to kill in war).

point 3. It must be better to be actively good than passively. The thing is with passivity, that it thinks 'I don't do this bad thing, so I'm alright jack' Whilst it looks the other way and does nothing to prevent abuses.

In Indian philosophy, is the concept of Ahimsa, usually translated as non-violence. But according to some commentators, more is meant than just abstaining from violence. It is said that to tolerate poverty, hunger, want is to fail in Ahimsa. It has to be active.

 

Ok, caring for someone is never learned. Can love or care be described? Almost but not completely. There's no way to actually know what these things are for sure until you have experienced them.. They're not taught, love is something that all humans are capable of and is a part of the human gift..This is what seperates us from our ancestors, and to respond to the Thomas Hobbes post, yes humans still have a trace of their primitive instinct in them because it's the origin.. The infinite. The instinct to survive, tht is in all things and always will be but we're not as primitive at heart as our homo sapiens ancestors were because we're not homo sapiens.... We're homo sapiens sapiens. Homo sapiens sapiens are physically exactly like homo sapiens but they have compassion, love, creativity, etc. that can be harnessed were as homo sapiens are just animal-like in nature and barbaric...So Hobbes was totally wrong, humans naturally know how to love and are naturally good at heart....I mean come on, you have to have more pride in your race than to actually believe what Hobbes said.
Also, I think some of you are getting to technical with the BASIC morals I talked about. I said that doing harm to others and killing, humans naturally know are wrong. Now all of the exceptional stuff like killing a murderer, or killing someone in war, that's all of the technical stuff that I mentioned nothing about because those morals are opinoinated morals... Morals often set up by the state. The exceptions are not naturally apart of us....We're not that far in our evolution yet, but the basics are... KILLING, STEALING, CHEATING, are all wrong...That's the basics that everyone has.

 

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Blueprint for a Prison Planet
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http://www.nick2211.yage.net/chips.htm

 

It might be nice to think that human nature is intrinsically good. But there is no real evidence for that.
I don't see any reason to think that people are born with any moral sense, or that they somehow know instinctively that killing is wrong, and certainly not stealing. In fact, stealing can only operate in a society where there is private property.
To say humans are capable of love doesn't prove anything either way, as they are also capable of hate. Is that an inborn quality?

 

Yes, humans are naturally born with hate because it is apart of the human spectrum of emotions , but if there's hate, there's also love, so if humans are naturally born with hate then yes, they are naturally born with love. If humans know how to hate and do evil by nature then they must know how to do good and what love is by nature also... It would be an unbalance among our own psychological existence for it not to be.

 

There is a third possiblity ~ That "hate' and "love" are selective judgements that exist amongst a single spectrum we term "emotions." Love might be violet and hate might be red, but they're still part of the rainbow.

 

No doubt the potential for the entire range of emotions exists in a sense prior to socialization. But it is precisely through education that one is told how to manifest these fellings - that hate is bad, love is good etc.

There is no independent morality. It's illustrated by the fact that our human values are so variable. EG in the EU killing is forbidden, even the state killing a criminal. In the USA, China etc, it is thought to be ok to execute criminals.
Both parties can't be right, and the descision to have the death penalty or not is based purely on cultural values, not something inate in people.

Also in some ways, morality can actually contradict 'survival values'. It seems to me that the natural impulse of every living creature must be towards self preservation, yet through conditioning, a man can be persuaded to sacrifice his life for the state - not necessarily in defence of loved ones etc, but to promote imperialist agendas and so on.
Look at NAZI Germany. The socailization process was altered in order to quite literally breed a generation of haters - the Hitler youth.
Left to their own devices, I think humans are morally neutral. The sense of morality is not inate but learned.

 

The death penalty is yet aagain one of the technicalities that I mentioned in an earlier post. Killing in general...Just the act of killing your fellow human in general...is wrong, yes ther are exceptions in the eyes of certain cultures, but that is the technical aspect of it... I just thought of something else too.... Every sane person has a councious, if you do something to break one of the universal morals that bind the race together then, your councious does let you know it. So there is some sort of psychological inner being,or energy in existence within us (commonly known as "councious") that let's us know that we are doing wrong. It is up to the indivivual and the individual alone to make the decision....Are you to be good or evil? Yes, cultural views of the technicalities of universal morals are taught, but when it comes to the realization of the fine line between good and evil...It is up to the individual...The rest is relative.