Niol
New Metal Member
Hey guys.
First of all, I would like to clarify that I am only expressing my opinion about this matter and that I am not a “militant” anything or have any less respect for people who are religious and definitely don’t want to offend anyone. Actually I rarely bother speaking about religion, but I would like to add my point of view to this conversation between sneapsters.
"You don't have faith, how could you ever expect to see God?"
You don’t need faith to see something when it is real. Worst case scenario, you will only need an open mind .Faith however, can make you “think” that something is real.
When the basis of your way of thinking is keeping an open mind and seeking the truth, you will find some real answers and a lot of questions that cannot be answered (not yet at least...).
When the basis of your way of thinking is faith ,you will only find convenient answers that suite this faith .In most cases ,these answers are already given to you by others since you were a child (The Holy Bible ,religious parents ,TV etc) .Then of course ,you realise that some things are not applicable in your era ,and you start distorting the religion in order to fit it to your needs, and ironically you feel open minded for doing that ,but that’s another story and it doesn’t happen to everyone anyway.
It is a common human characteristic (a weakness in my opinion), choosing a convenient lie over the truth.
Example: What? You don’t believe in God (or something greater than us or whatever…
? Then how was the universe created?
-Wrong answer: Hmm…yes you are right, there must be a God .
-Right answer: Well I don’t know, and I am not going to make a story to answer it .But maybe the next generations will find out.
One thing that history teaches us, is that we as a species, are constantly learning more about the world .A few centuries back, we couldn’t explain what a thunder is or how it is created, (so we made stories about gods that are angry and things like that… and now we are able travel to other planets. Imagine what knowledge will we have about the world in 500 years from now.
It is not embarrassing to say “I don’t know, but maybe someday I will find out” .What is embarrassing (especially given the history of mankind) is to create stories about things you don’t understand yet.
* To the religious person, their faith is rational, logical, and empirically verifiable. *
They see and feel the presence of God.
Agreed ,but so is the boogie man in the closet, or Santa Clause for a 6 year old…not to mention what mentally ill people see and hear .But it doesn’t mean these things are real .
• The factual validity of Jesus, the Bible, etc, doesn't matter.
• What matters is the religious stories and their power.
• Religious stories (Buddhist, Christian etc) but most importantly Christian stories, can inspire true agapeistic love. For example, the pure love that Jesus fosters in the stories of the Christian faith is one that cannot be found elsewhere.
• These stories provide a moral compass that is useful (and beyond that, are pinnacle of humanity's moral history), regardless of their empirical worth.
You don’t need religion to tell you what is moral and what is not, neither you need religion in order to feel love for someone. Btw, “love” is one word with many different levels, to describe many (not very) different human emotions ,resulting in confusions like…what is “true” love etc. PEOPLE! The human language is poorer that the human mind .If what you feel for your brother and what you feel for your girlfriend are both called “love” ,then maybe there should be different words to describe it…whatever. My point is this: Don’t let the language itself get in the way of your thinking .
• Humanity has an inherent need to search for truth.
Unfortunately, humanity has an inherent need to search for answers, not for truth. That’s why religions occurred in the first place .And as long as humanity will not have answers for everything, religions will be there to fill the gaps, and replace the truth.
• People see beauty in almost all things.
Absolutely irrelevant.
• We feel love for others. This love extends beyond love for just other humans. (The subtext here is: attraction to other people can be explained by a biological drive to reproduce, but then why would we love animals, feel love for a complete stranger of the same sex, or love old people beyond the capability for reproduction?)
Again ,you don’t need religion in order to love .
• Humanity has, for all of history, felt a very real sense that, "something is out there greater than us."
Explained above .Simply put: need answer->make a story->convince your self it’s true->that’s it!
Bottom line, I believe that religion is a mental prison, but when someone doesn’t know that he is imprisoned, is he really imprisoned? And If he is ok with it, who am I to judge…
I apologise for the size of this post, I tried to make it as small as I could. I guess I failed.
First of all, I would like to clarify that I am only expressing my opinion about this matter and that I am not a “militant” anything or have any less respect for people who are religious and definitely don’t want to offend anyone. Actually I rarely bother speaking about religion, but I would like to add my point of view to this conversation between sneapsters.
"You don't have faith, how could you ever expect to see God?"
You don’t need faith to see something when it is real. Worst case scenario, you will only need an open mind .Faith however, can make you “think” that something is real.
When the basis of your way of thinking is keeping an open mind and seeking the truth, you will find some real answers and a lot of questions that cannot be answered (not yet at least...).
When the basis of your way of thinking is faith ,you will only find convenient answers that suite this faith .In most cases ,these answers are already given to you by others since you were a child (The Holy Bible ,religious parents ,TV etc) .Then of course ,you realise that some things are not applicable in your era ,and you start distorting the religion in order to fit it to your needs, and ironically you feel open minded for doing that ,but that’s another story and it doesn’t happen to everyone anyway.
It is a common human characteristic (a weakness in my opinion), choosing a convenient lie over the truth.
Example: What? You don’t believe in God (or something greater than us or whatever…
? Then how was the universe created?-Wrong answer: Hmm…yes you are right, there must be a God .
-Right answer: Well I don’t know, and I am not going to make a story to answer it .But maybe the next generations will find out.
One thing that history teaches us, is that we as a species, are constantly learning more about the world .A few centuries back, we couldn’t explain what a thunder is or how it is created, (so we made stories about gods that are angry and things like that…
and now we are able travel to other planets. Imagine what knowledge will we have about the world in 500 years from now.It is not embarrassing to say “I don’t know, but maybe someday I will find out” .What is embarrassing (especially given the history of mankind) is to create stories about things you don’t understand yet.
* To the religious person, their faith is rational, logical, and empirically verifiable. *
They see and feel the presence of God.
Agreed ,but so is the boogie man in the closet, or Santa Clause for a 6 year old…not to mention what mentally ill people see and hear .But it doesn’t mean these things are real .
• The factual validity of Jesus, the Bible, etc, doesn't matter.
• What matters is the religious stories and their power.
• Religious stories (Buddhist, Christian etc) but most importantly Christian stories, can inspire true agapeistic love. For example, the pure love that Jesus fosters in the stories of the Christian faith is one that cannot be found elsewhere.
• These stories provide a moral compass that is useful (and beyond that, are pinnacle of humanity's moral history), regardless of their empirical worth.
You don’t need religion to tell you what is moral and what is not, neither you need religion in order to feel love for someone. Btw, “love” is one word with many different levels, to describe many (not very) different human emotions ,resulting in confusions like…what is “true” love etc. PEOPLE! The human language is poorer that the human mind .If what you feel for your brother and what you feel for your girlfriend are both called “love” ,then maybe there should be different words to describe it…whatever. My point is this: Don’t let the language itself get in the way of your thinking .
• Humanity has an inherent need to search for truth.
Unfortunately, humanity has an inherent need to search for answers, not for truth. That’s why religions occurred in the first place .And as long as humanity will not have answers for everything, religions will be there to fill the gaps, and replace the truth.
• People see beauty in almost all things.
Absolutely irrelevant.
• We feel love for others. This love extends beyond love for just other humans. (The subtext here is: attraction to other people can be explained by a biological drive to reproduce, but then why would we love animals, feel love for a complete stranger of the same sex, or love old people beyond the capability for reproduction?)
Again ,you don’t need religion in order to love .
• Humanity has, for all of history, felt a very real sense that, "something is out there greater than us."
Explained above .Simply put: need answer->make a story->convince your self it’s true->that’s it!
Bottom line, I believe that religion is a mental prison, but when someone doesn’t know that he is imprisoned, is he really imprisoned? And If he is ok with it, who am I to judge…
I apologise for the size of this post, I tried to make it as small as I could. I guess I failed.
