Religion

http://www.scientology.org/

StoolPigeon wrote:

He said he's a Christian in a way, because he follows Jesus' teachings, not because he believes he's a god. Just like one is a Leninist, because he/she follows Lenin's teachings, not because he/she thinks Lenin is a god. It's not the conventional way of calling oneself a Christian, but it's a valid one. And how does it make sense to be a Christian and Jewish? One doesn't have to follow ALL of one's teachings to call themself a follower of that person, either. Just because Jesus died on the cross for his people, doesn't make him a god. Martyrs have existed for millenia, he's just one of the more noteable.

but lennin never claimed to be a god. there's the difference. comparing lenin to Jesus (i love them both) doesn't accomplish anything for that argument.
and the christian/Jewish thing. Jews don't believe Jesus was the messiah. that's where i draw the similarity of a christian believing in Jesus but not in him being the savior.

Josh @ rofl

I'd say "it's not a religion, it's a cult", but then I remembered all religions are cults anyway.

Technically any sort of organized belief in a single ideal is a cult.

anarchyintheUS wrote:

Technically any sort of organized belief in a single ideal is a cult.

My point exactly. \o/

nick gives 35% wrote:

StoolPigeon wrote:

He said he's a Christian in a way, because he follows Jesus' teachings, not because he believes he's a god. Just like one is a Leninist, because he/she follows Lenin's teachings, not because he/she thinks Lenin is a god. It's not the conventional way of calling oneself a Christian, but it's a valid one. And how does it make sense to be a Christian and Jewish? One doesn't have to follow ALL of one's teachings to call themself a follower of that person, either. Just because Jesus died on the cross for his people, doesn't make him a god. Martyrs have existed for millenia, he's just one of the more noteable.

but lennin never claimed to be a god. there's the difference. comparing lenin to Jesus (i love them both) doesn't accomplish anything for that argument.
and the christian/Jewish thing. Jews don't believe Jesus was the messiah. that's where i draw the similarity of a christian believing in Jesus but not in him being the savior.

Still, you don't need to believe someone is a god to consider yourself a follower of that person. And Judaism mentions nothing about Jesus. Muslim, in that regard, is closer, considering they actually considered Jesus to be a prophet.

I think people use religion to fill in the gaps between what we know and want to believe, when really we all know nothing. And it's okay.
Before Newton everyone thought we were the center of the universe and Galileo wrote all this shit about the heavens...
Now even a religious person would be like, wtf that's ridiculous.
It seems like whenever there are advances in science that answer big question or change our outlook on things people just adjust their religion to fit. Of course if it would take too much adjusting they just claim its not true.
Not to say religion is bad. It can be good.
I just think that the role it plays is mostly to reassure people and make them feel like their lives are important (There's a god watching out for me, the universe or whatever cares about what happens to me) rather than to feel like their lives are just random and its all up to you and your luck.
But you can also have morality and a higher purpose without having a deity in the picture.

That was kind of disjointed and badly worded.
But I don't care.

Also, I think Hinduism is really interesting.

See, I'm not sure if it's so much to fill a void in their lives, we live in a rather informed age. We're not the Greeks who made up gods to answer their questions about nature. For me religion is more a means for people to feel like, almost like the weight of the world isn't on their shoulders, that there's some one much bigger than they are twitching shit to move things along. It's the same reason we continually look for causes of climate change, or start to drive and use more energy efficient shit, because we want to shrug the blame off on the heathens that still drive SUVs, like we'd want to blame our deity of choice for whatever bad happens in the world, and when good things happen, we can say, oh, it's because I believed.

Well thats true too.
But as informed as we are, we still know very little. And there are still a lot of gaps to fill in. I mean, yeah, we landed on the moon, we have all kinds of advanced technology, etc. But there are still some big questions to be answered. Like why are we here in the first place? And religion is certainly an easy way to answer them.

I do think you're both right. I mean, we really aren't much different in nature from how we were in ancient Greece. We still look for answers, and many people find their answers can be found more in religion than in science. I prefer the latter of the two, but that doesn't make religion a bad thing. I'm also inclined to believe what the Bolsheviks said, being that religion was made up by the ruling class to keep the working class oppressed. That is, they can continue their lives in the shittiest of conditions and still know that there will be an infinitely better afterlife waiting for them. Though, I'd say it's not so much made up by the ruling class, as exploited by the ruling class.

Here's my thoughts on that though. If you WANT to believe that your life amongst the dregs of society, then why not? I have this profound hatred for people who purposefully go out and try to convince people who believe in whatever religion (primarily christianity) for the sole benefit of disproving them. It reminds me of the kids who told other kids santa wasn't real, just because your life has been made miserable by that revelation doesn't mean you should push it on others. Now I know religions do go out to convert, and some are more harsh than others, and that's where I enjoy Judaism, they don't have an extremely active recruitment. But if you're going to say that Religion was created to push the people down, wouldn't it be just as easy to say that Moral law in general was created to keep people 'in their place' ? There's a quote in Blood Meridian about that:

Quote :

Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view.

- The Judge

which in some ways is very true, but it's a dark way to see the world.

Proof of God: