Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

[arek4321]

The way I see it, religion is just a "teddy-bear" for adults. People believe blindly without questioning, which is exactly how movements like Nazi-ism began. Believe what you are told, ask no questions. Religion is just something to give people comfort, so that they can sleep every night. Because the idea that there is no "great, omnipotent being" is just too much of a mental burden for some people, and they can't live with the fact knowing that everything is up to them. I believe religion was invented by several of the social elite centuries ago, to make people behave the way the elite want them to. What better way to make people behave than to make them believe if they live good lives, they get a false reward and at the same time if they do not choose to follow it, there will be dire consequences in the form of "eternal torture in the depths of hell". Just think about how many human accomplishments have been credited to "God". Wrong, that was all you, the human who started and finished the great accomplishment, stop giving some invisible man credit for everything you do. Also, more people have been tortured and killed in the name of religion than anything else. Assuming for a second that religion wasn't made for that purpose, even if there was a "God" his message has been greatly skewed and corrupted many times over due to "organized Christianity". Even if at first it had noble beginnings, the Vatican and other similarly led groups, ruined it even more.

[BMcGilly07]

Some may argue that the benefit of religion is like the mole who knew how to live and not be smoked out and killed because he had chosen to burrow into a sacred hill.

Some have argued that religions have ensured a niche where wise people could seek God with a support system of sorts, and not have to live in utter poverty on ones own. I look at this as a cop-out, to use religion for this purpose is complicity with the ignorant actions of the hierarchy under which they hide.

[Malik]

Nietzsche said 'God is dead'. And he went crazy afterwards and the reason is he went to the negative and completely abandoned the positive. Without his Godly baby sitter, he had nobody to throw the blame on, and he went nuts.

This is the thing, is the question whether God exists or not even an important question? And if it’s not even an important question what would be the reason to believe or disbelieve?

[DHodges]

Without his Godly baby sitter, he had nobody to throw the blame on, and he went nuts.

Correlation does not equal causation. That his mental problems were caused by his philosophy is speculative. It could have been caused by syphilis.

This is the thing, is the question whether God exists or not even an important question? And if it’s not even an important question what would be the reason to believe or disbelieve?

It's not a question that can be addressed until you define "God." Whether it is important or not (to you personally) is completely subjective. If you are agnostic then it is of no particular importance.

[arek4321]

Their god is just a fabrication simply to make them feel better about their situation, and/or to give them a false sense of knowing the answers to the big questions that haunt every human being at one point or another (hopefully). And at the same time, some go even far enough to misinterpret the fairy tale, and because of that think they are better than others, and deserve something. Why is it so hard to accept the truth that their beliefs are just a massive illusion and nothing else, and when shown the evidence, still have the nerve to deny it, on grounds of skepticism. One can take the horse to the water, but can't make them drink. Who am I to say they are not allowed to blindly believe whatever they choose? To each his own i guess...

P.S. Maybe i just live in a world where blind following outweighs reason, logic and investigation?

[Dan Rowden]

Nietzsche said 'God is dead'. And he went crazy afterwards and the reason is he went to the negative and completely abandoned the positive.

That is the absolute opposite of Nietzsche's philosophy. You obviously haven't actually read any of it.

[paco]

Nietzsche said 'God is dead'. And he went crazy afterwards and the reason is he went to the negative and completely abandoned the positive. Without his Godly baby sitter, he had nobody to throw the blame on, and he went nuts.

This is the thing, is the question whether God exists or not even an important question? And if it’s not even an important question what would be the reason to believe or disbelieve?

Malik,

His own thoughts poisoned/deceived him! Imagine going outside and seeing a perfect world(sun, trees, animals, etc.), then falling in love with them, later, to discover that the only imperfections are coming not from them but from you. Complete innocense violated by you're presence. It sucks.

[BMcGilly07]

Nietzsche said 'God is dead'. And he went crazy afterwards and the reason is he went to the negative and completely abandoned the positive. Without his Godly baby sitter, he had nobody to throw the blame on, and he went nuts.

This is the thing, is the question whether God exists or not even an important question? And if it’s not even an important question what would be the reason to believe or disbelieve?

Malik,

His own thoughts poisoned/deceived him! Imagine going outside and seeing a perfect world(sun, trees, animals, etc.), then falling in love with them, later, to discover that the only imperfections are coming not from them but from you. Complete innocense violated by you're presence. It sucks.

Paco, as Dan had mentioned to Malik, you don't understand what Nietzsche meant by saying that. What does it mean to you?

[paco]

They should change the definition of 'God'

[Philosophaster]

The psychological argument is familiar: religious people just want to be comforted and told what to believe so that they can remove fear and uncertainty from their lives, and they need an external motivation like "heaven" in order to do good deeds. But the problem with using that sort of analysis is that it can be turned around quite easily: "non-religious people just want to avoid any feeling of duty or strict morality so that they can satisfy their own urges and whims without ever feeling guilty. They think that if there's no moral certainty and no God, nobody has the right to condemn them for what they do and all they have to worry about is whether they get caught. They have an authority problem: like petulant children, they can't bear being told what to do, even if the orders come from someone much wiser and more intelligent than they are." This sort of analysis seems pretty inconclusive and pointless to me, even if it makes the people who use it feel superior to the supposedly "childish" religious or non-religious people they're analyzing.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Religion: wisdom for dummies.

Not sure what this would make an atheist or agnostic. Necessarily wise or extremely dumb? It appears to me it depends: dishing the divine because you're too rich for it now or dumping it because you could never afford it anyway.

[David Quinn]

We could say: atheists/agnostics - rejection of wisdom by dummies.

But that would make them sound too intelligent. So I would go with: rejection of religion by dummies.

If a person is too wise for religion, then he would also be too wise for atheism and agnosticism.


-

[Robert]

I spend a little (too much) time at the Dawkins forum. What it does well is provide a platform for a science based discussion board on the common fallacies found in evolutionary theory and the like. What it does poorly, or rather what it reflects well given the sheer volume of posters, is the general resistance to having any discussion of wisdom where words like faith and God can't be understood to mean anything different to what they want to mean, forever binding them to the empirical. The word wisdom itself is never really considered in any other sense than the superficial, the obvious. It's actually a few of the xtians and ex-buddhist types that are the most interesting characters, which isn't surprising I suppose, since they have at least a passing interest in spiritual matters.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

The only important thread in the philosophy section, What is Reality (Truth)?, isn't doing very well. If a thread asking what reality is can't even get one correct answer, I guarantee you that there won't be a single other thread on the forum that has anything to do with reality.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

K, fuckit. I'll give these guys another chance, but I'll only talk to the OP of that thread, since he's the only one who actually knows enough about spirituality to have much of an opinion. My old "mookestink" account is still there.

[paco]

Nietzsche said 'God is dead'. And he went crazy afterwards and the reason is he went to the negative and completely abandoned the positive. Without his Godly baby sitter, he had nobody to throw the blame on, and he went nuts.

This is the thing, is the question whether God exists or not even an important question? And if it’s not even an important question what would be the reason to believe or disbelieve?

Malik,

His own thoughts poisoned/deceived him! Imagine going outside and seeing a perfect world(sun, trees, animals, etc.), then falling in love with them, later, to discover that the only imperfections are coming not from them but from you. Complete innocense violated by you're presence. It sucks.

Paco, as Dan had mentioned to Malik, you don't understand what Nietzsche meant by saying that. What does it mean to you?

It doesn't mean anything at all!

[Robert]

K, fuckit. I'll give these guys another chance, but I'll only talk to the OP of that thread, since he's the only one who actually knows enough about spirituality to have much of an opinion. My old "mookestink" account is still there.

Temptation was too great, eh? That place is a real trap, full of faux atheists, trolls, POEs and what not (I'm one of the what-nots, I guess).
My account is RobD, I don't post much, just take the occasional jibe at what looks promising.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

I'm considerably less annoyed this time around. I suppose that time logged on the SA forums has numbed me to Internet. (I won't give GF any credit for me being wiser.)

[Ataraxia]

I see you've quickly become aquainted with that Jerome wanker, Trevor. He is the grand pooh-bah of preening noobz. Enjoy.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Yeah, the resident janitor. You can hate them as much as you like, but as long as you respect the forum, they won't make your life a living hell.

[Tomas]

.



-arek4321-
The way I see it, religion is just a "teddy-bear" for adults.

-tomas-
Religion is more for the non-committed adult. My mom tossed my teddy bear when I was about age-11. I had planned on giving it to one of my future sons. She was and still is a very masculine thinker. Too bad she's too old and frail to express herself anymore. A right-sided stroke in late 2006 pushed her semi-crippled, with a tad of slurred speech.


-arek4321-
People believe blindly without questioning, which is exactly how movements like Nazi-ism began. Believe what you are told, ask no questions.

-tomas-
Modern life has its disadvantages :-(


-arek4321-
Religion is just something to give people comfort, so that they can sleep every night.

-tomas-
Especially when the church organist plays staccato.


-arek4321-
Because the idea that there is no "great, omnipotent being" is just too much of a mental burden for some people, and they can't live with the fact knowing that everything is up to them.

-tomas-
Oh, in my opinion, the universe is full of organisms I'll discover in the next life.


-arek4321-
I believe religion was invented by several of the social elite centuries ago, to make people behave the way the elite want them to.

-tomas-
Yup, a stone-age monopoly.


-arek4321-
What better way to make people behave than to make them believe if they live good lives, they get a false reward and at the same time if they do not choose to follow it, there will be dire consequences in the form of "eternal torture in the depths of hell".

-tomas-
Yes and no. The yes is that what else is there to do in one's spare time? The no is that hell is just another word for the grave, dust, if you will.


-arek4321-
Just think about how many human accomplishments have been credited to "God".

-tomas-
We will all be judged by our every thought, word and deed.


-arek4321-
Wrong, that was all you, the human who started and finished the great accomplishment, stop giving some invisible man credit for everything you do.

-arek4321-
The girlfriend would beg to differ.


-arek4321-
Also, more people have been tortured and killed in the name of religion than anything else.

-tomas-
Perhaps in the Westerized nations (world).


-arek4321-
Assuming for a second that religion wasn't made for that purpose, even if there was a "God" his message has been greatly skewed and corrupted many times over due to "organized Christianity".

-tomas-
Ah, you reveal your ignorance as to who the real greek mythos represented..


-arek4321-
Even if at first it had noble beginnings, the Vatican and other similarly led groups, ruined it even more.

-tomas-
It was the old-testament version of paganism. It's simply changed it name from Saturnalia to Rome, hence christianity.

Note the solar wheel..

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Sympathy for the Devil

An omnipotent God cannot be eternal because he cannot end his own life. I also question whether he can be moral because he cannot do so.

[brokenhead]

Sympathy for the Devil

An omnipotent God cannot be eternal because he cannot end his own life. I also question whether he can be moral because he cannot do so.

Please permit me to introduce myself...

This quote is illogical, Trev. I think I see what you were going for, but you didn't quite say it.

Of course, if a God is omnipotent, why could he not end his own life? He can, because he is omnipotent. He is also eternal, because he has not chosen to do so. What is your objection, exactly?

You are thinking inside the box. Your questioning of his morality on these grounds misses the point. It is like saying the Rules Commission for the CFL does not play by the rules. Of course they don't. They are responsible for constructing and maintaining the game, not for playing it. They serve the needs of others. This, by the way, is my objection to organized religion. It is people declaring themselves to be outside the game and declaring everyone else to be in it, thereby assigning themselves an authority not mutually agreed upon by those presumptively subject to the rules. They therefore arrogate to themselves the status of minor gods.

[David Quinn]

Of course, if a God is omnipotent, why could he not end his own life? He can, because he is omnipotent. He is also eternal, because he has not chosen to do so. What is your objection, exactly?

An eternal God lacks the power to commit suicide.

Can an omnipotent God experience regret after taking his own life?

-

[Nick]

Of course, if a God is omnipotent, why could he not end his own life? He can, because he is omnipotent. He is also eternal, because he has not chosen to do so.

Questions like this and "can god make an object so heavy that even he can't lift it?" is a result of a misunderstanding about the true nature of God. When one truly understands what it means to be infinite, omnipotent, and boundless all these questions are exposed as the fallacies that they are.

An eternal God lacks the power to commit suicide.

Does it really make sense to say God lacks something like power though? I mean, power is only has meaning when being applied to something finite, because to have power means a thing has power over another thing. It's a category error, kind of like saying the color red lacks the smell of flowers. It doesn't really mean anything.