What is your general opinion of religion?
Before I start, I just want to say that I have not created this thread to offend anyone of any particular brand of faith.
I am just merely looking at religion from a analytical standpoint, from the point of logic, in regards to a lot of the beliefs in it - as well as the actions of its members.
While I think that religion has some good things in it, I believe that it can often be provided to suit the sadistic pleasures of zealots and bigots.
For example, it always amazes me how racist people try to use religion to justify their racism. I was actually watching a documentary on the Ku Klux Klan on either the discovery or National Geographic Channel.
And I believe it was during one of their induction ceremonies, that the new members were holding their infant children in their arms, and there was one klansmen going around and he was saying to them: "Raise you child to be a white Christian."
And I have a hard time figuring out what they can possibly base that belief on, when the founder of Christianity - Jesus Christ - did not discriminate against anyone, but rather accepted people from all levels of society, if they believed in him.
Also, Jesus taught people to love one another, and never forced anyone to accept his message. And yet the church would oftentimes forced the local population to convert to Christianity, and persecuted and outright killed anyone who has disagreed with their beliefs.
For example during the Dark Ages, it would execute anyone that disagreed with their teachings, or who questioned their authority, by branding them a heretic, and then generally having them burned at the stake.
During World War 1 and World War 2, members of the church, on both sides of the war, believed that God was on their side, and blessed the troops to go kill fellow human beings, even though they were also members of the same faith.
Not to mention, but look at the pedophilia Scandal that rocked the church some years ago. They claim to worship God, and yet somehow, I just can't see God condoning such actions.
(Incidently, another problem that I have with Christianity in general, is that they teach that Jesus and God are one and the same person.
Yet shortly before he died, Jesus Christ is reported to have said: "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" - Mathew 27:46.
To me, someone who says that isn't God, because how can God be in heaven, and on earth in human form at the same time?
And let me just State for the record, that I think that Jesus was a real human being who actually existed, and that he was a great man - a human inspiration -yet I do not believe that he is exactly how the church portrays him - namely that they say that Jesus and God are the same person.
That whole idea is to confusing for me, personally.)
Of course it's not just Christianity that has committed such actions, but also other religions, like Islam for example, have also been guilty of these types of things.
Over in the Middle East right now, different denominations of Muslims, are constantly warring with each other, and killing anyone that does not support their faith, or their denomination of their faith.
They are also butchering Christians, Jews, basically anyone who does not belong to the Islamic religion.
They also have been guilty of sex crimes against children, and from what I have seen on the news, and have read, it is a pretty common practice over there. As is raping, torturing, and outright killing women for any reason they deem suitable.
Now I do not know what the Muslim religion teaches. But just judging by the actions of its members, it doesn't seem to be a peaceful religion as many claim.
Anyway, I think that religion in and of itself is not a bad thing, as it can gI've peoplease a sensemble of hopen and purpose. And I think the teachings of Jesus are great - like: "Love your neighbor as yourself", "Judge not, lest ye be judged", and etc.
Unfortunately though, in the wrong hands, I believe it can be used for disgusting purposes.
Comments
People can believe in whatever they want as long as it isn't hurting anybody, I don't care. I personally am an atheist.
Religion is utter nonsense. It is a drug used in an attempt to escape the reality of what existence culminates in. It is a stupid lie bought by far too many people. It allows for atrocities in it's name through people that would teach it in a horrible way (often the most reasonable way). Religion is a remnant of an unintelligent era that clings to the masses through little else than childhood indoctrination. It should be scrutinized and laughed at. It's time for the death of religion.
EDIT: Fuck religion.
Might be the condoning of slavery and genocide? Idk.
Really? I think it would find a comfortable spot amongst the other disgusting things in the Bible, which is the word of god. . . apparently.
Yeah, it's pretty fucking dumb that people would follow the vile teachings of ancient backwards people like that in a day and age where we have actual scientific answers to the problems that plagued those ancient peoples. But hey, the book is supposedly the word of god, and the people teaching it to children obviously know what they're talking about.
Yes and no. Sex crimes are rampant in "those" countries, but so are pretty much every other type of human rights crimes. The torturing and killing of women isn't rare, as neither is the torturing and killing of men.
Religion was a useful step in our progress as humans....but it's day is done....the only true religion should be the search for knowledge.
I've found the Marxian view of religion most convincing, though the Weberian perspective also has its merits.
Religious institutions, both formal and informal, tend to be linchpins of their respective communities. They serve as a place for communal feasting, news sharing and such. They also serve as an organizational hub and sponsor for various humanitarian efforts and social clubs. In many places, religions serve a ritual purpose in health, fertility, etc.
However religion also has a negative side, which Marx (negative Nelly that he was) talked about extensively. Since almost the beginning, organized religion has served as a form of class and social control, both passively and actively contributing to oppression. Passively, religion serves as, what Marx called "the soul of soulless conditions. The opiate of this masses." Marx and Bakunin argued that the religious promise of an afterlife or spiritual reward was used to mollify people living in shitty condition. The proles frustration and despair at their situation is channeled into religious fervor. You can see this idea at work in parts of the American south, as well as the Arab ghettos scattered around western Europe.
More directly, religion has long been a useful tool for tyrants, because it's as much about ordering society as it is about worship. A good example is the divine right of kings. Basically this was an arrangement between the nobility and the clergy, where the supremacy of the monarch is legitimized spiritually. People were taught that the monarchy was the will of God and that the king had a direct connection to the big man. To insult the King was blasphemy. To rise up against the monarchy was to rise up against God himself. If you want a great example of how the clergy and rulers cooperative to secure the privilege against the masses, just look at Spain throughout most of its history (Durruti did nothing wrong, Jesuits deserved it.). Even better, look at Saudi Arabia. Do you really think the absolute monarchy could survive without the system of clerics and religious police? You'll never see a royal (whom are rumored to be quite degenerate) face the long arm of Sharia Law, yet poors and migrants are regularly getting their appendages lopped off for minor (often trumped up) infractions. It's just another example of nobility, economic elites and clergy protecting their own interests. This principle is pretty much universally appplicable, even in nominally "athiest" and "Marxist" states. The only difference in these cases is that the state itself becomes the object of religious devotion.
I don't think religions is all bad, but I think that it's days as a political force are numbered. As conditions improve, science marches on, and people (hopefully) break free from social and economic domination, people will see less need to cling to organized religion.
Forgive me for rambling, but I like rambling. Think of me as the quirky political science professor you never wanted.
It's shite.
I do not like it, and would prefer for it to not exist at all.
I think it is fine. I'd hate the thought of there being nothing after death. It's quite scary.
I am religious myself. It's pretty cool, if that's the word, but what I find more important are individual experiences. I don't like just obeying the rules of a religion mindlessly, with no reason, emotion, whatsoever. It is so simple yet so complicated.
But I don't use drugs.
Belief in something, someone, should not be based on fear. One should not approach religion that way.
True I suppose.
If you're religious you might as well be.
Christianity.
Ouch. That was rather rude. But whatever yolo.
You are cool.
I was born and raised a Roman Catholic, and went to church every Sunday, as a kid growing up. I believe in God, Jesus, and all that jazz. However, I don't take the bible word-for-word. A majority of the bible stories is moral teachings, while some of it is true. I say the Hail Mary when taking off/landing when on a plane, I still go to church when I can, I pray daily, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't care who believes in what, as long as they don't insult me directly. If anyone has any questions or wants to see if I can answer a question you have, go ahead, I'd love to see if I could answer them.
The only true religion there is, is the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster! All hail his noodley appendages!
In all seriousness, I am an atheist. I don't believe in God or any other deity. However, I'm not gonna be an ass about it. Believe whatever you want to believe just as long as you're not hurting anybody.
It depends on the belief, religion is at its best something which inspires people to great acts of love and caring, and at its worst an anti-human force which convinces people to destroy each other and their own humanity. But in any cases its falsehood, and I think those same acts of love and caring can and should be based on subjective morality instead of an appeal to a poorly-defined absolute for which there is little evidence for but a lot against.
I do think that religion had a great impact on culture. Ancient sculptures were all about Ancient gods, Medieval art was based on Bible, Russian architecture started with orthodoxal churches, etc. So it's wrong to say that religion shouldn't have existed.
But we've passed all that a long time ago and I think that faith in God is pretty useless now.
I just have an issue with Christianity because the misogynistic and homophobic bible is constantly used these days to justify inequality. Seriously?
As others have said, religion was made to explain forces scientists couldn't understand. Rain would be the tears of God crying, according to them.
But now we know more. And making up mythical legends is not needed anymore, it really never was needed, just wanted.
One more thing, I'm absolutely sick of people who "pray" to people when they're dying being called heroes. A hero would save their life, not rehearse some weird prayers you learned in your church.
Sorry not sorry?
Ok.
To be honest all Religions which spawned off Judaism are horrible including Judaism. Christians complain about Islam being a religion of violence for example, but you can find plenty of passages in the Bible which encourage violence toward none believers as well. Judaism even justifies flat out genocide in it's biblical text. They're all "Our way or the high way" religious philosophies.
Christianity has tamed it's self down quite a lot over the past century, but there isn't anyone stopping "Radicalism" from rising again in Christianity, all you need is a bunch of hopeless angry fools listening to a Preacher fueling their insecurity and hatred with the worst of the Bible and walla. This is what Islamist Extremist do, and it's very effective. Being much of the Arab world economically, and infrastructure wise is garbage, it's easy to brain wash new recruits who want to find scapegoats for the life they're stuck in.
Even Judaism today suffers from Ultra Orthodox Factions which are known to be violent toward Christians, Muslims and Ethiopians in Israel for example... Then Judaism has an even worse faction known as Zionism which is more of a Nazi like faction within Judaism which members do not even have to be religious but they view Jews as a race and ethnic group, and believe in manifest destiny while anything that gets in their way is evil and must be destroyed. They will even throw away their family heritage/name and replace it with a Hebrew name just to be accepted in Zionist groups. Which is insulting to one's ancestors honestly. Then again Christianity and Islam both kind of practice forced name changing today still, Christianity Loosely, you can have a Christian name but can still use your real name if I recall.
In the Christian world we still have to deal with Christian terrorist and extremist, attacks on abortion doctors are a real thing in the USA for example. But they're just so rare anymore, though I think it has a lot to do with Christianity losing it's "Hold" on the western world, and religion just slowly fading in the west. Which has caused the Christian church to take an increasingly more liberal stance to hold onto followers year to year.
I do think that the church serves a place in the community and everything, and that us as humans are entitled to our own beliefs, but personally, I'm unsure of what I believe in.
At the end of the day...just, fucking shit, be a good person.
It's not that hard.
You're edgy as.
Why live a life where you choose to be offended by things that don't affect you? Other than the sole religion affiliated with terrorism, the others don't hurt you, let people live their lives the way they want to, and believe what they want to believe.
You're pretty rude dude.
Religion is fine. Extremists within religion are not.
I was raised a Christian but don't fully know what I believe.
Christianity is the belief a God came into existence and created everything and the world, atheism is believing a single, minute point came into existence and exploded to become an infinite universe.
Both are equally hard to understand, and justify.
I do like religion as a cultural aspect though, 99% of the beautiful buildings and monuments we have today wouldn't be there without religion.
Believe what you want as long as you aren't hurting anybody, it's that simple.
Dunno, man. As a political science teacher, you would be interesting, to say the least.
If I'm edgy when I'm being honest, then so be it.
You don't think that religion affects every single person on the planet at every given moment of the day? Do you not realize the ramifications that this ridiculous dogma has on the world we live in? I don't take offence to religion, but that doesn't mean I won't call it out as the crock o' shit that it is.
They aren't the only religion related to terrorism (though obviously they do commit the overwhelming majority of terrorist acts, which should never be forgotten), and terrorism isn't the only ill that stems from religion.
They do. And they hurt others as well.
I never said people couldn't believe what they wanted to believe. I said their beliefs are astoundingly stupid and they shouldn't believe them. I will not sit idly by and let this idiotic dogma go unchecked and unscathed, that would just be negligent of me.
Yeah. Thanks for the heads up, dude.
You mean the people that actually follow the books? Yeah, they're terrifying.
I am religious, but not by my choice.
How so?
No. First, that is not what Christianity is. Christianity has two really big books of fairytales that necessarily follow. Second, that is not what atheism is. Atheism does not necessitate the belief in the big bang (which is what I assume that drastically shallow explanation about a minute point was referring to). There are some absolutely bonkers ideas about the origins of the universe out there that fall under the term of atheistic.
Ahh yes, the philanthropic argument regarding art. The church had money, the church spent money on art. Who knows what wonderful works of art would have been created had that money been given to the artistic creators from someone/something other than the church? The church paying for art because people were giving them money because they were buying the church's bull shit is hardly a good argument for religion.
Cool runnings man.
Runnings?
Well I think of myself as a humanistic Jew. I participate in Jewish traditions, but I don't believe in an higher power or "God". Personally, I think it's silly to believe in such things. But that's just me.
I do not follow a religion nor believe that there is any kind of god. I am a science guy 100% behind big bang and evolution etc.
But I respect people beliefs so I do not involve myself, I'm not going to go out of my way to criticize someones religion.
No, joggings.
I believe it's alright, but the fanatics kiiiiinda ruin the image of every religion for me. But hey, I'm an atheist, so...
I am a christian and my views are pretty much believe whatever you want as long as you don't hurt people.