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| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
You cannot deny that religion is largely marketed as a big self-help doctrine. It's most successful that way. Religion primarily began as a systematic transmission of taboos from one generation to the next - a meme in nature that lends itself to a formidable word-of-mouth association - so of course anecdotal relations are probably going to be primarily positive and appeal to the self, were it not, you probably would not know about it. |
This is speculative since the formation of religious practice is prehistoric. I would say Religion began when man became self aware and started questioning why things happened the way they did. In most cases he was ill-equipped to answer these questions correctly, the taboos that were later passed on orally emerged from this questioning. This subsequently this gave birth to philosophy which in turn gave rise to science.
What is important to remember is that it started with an attitude of "questioning" which remains at the heart of science, true philosophy and true religious thought (ie that which remains untainted by existential bad faith).
The approach of religion as a set of rules that are to be accepted without question and followed blindly are a product of human nature. The same phenomena - a well-intentioned philosophy overtaken by power-hungry politicians and used to their own ends, often to justify actions contrary to the original philosophy - applied to communism as it was practiced in the USSR (or is currently practiced in North Korea). I think McCarthyism in the US was an example of a similar phenomenon.
Unfortunately most people want their lives to be morally simple. They want someone to tell them what's right and wrong rather than having to choose for themselves. An on the other side of the coin will always be people who will want to gain power by controlling an ideology and it's dominant meanings (read Foucault on this - one of the most practically applicable philosophers).
| quote: | | God requires belief though - the notion of anything imperceptible requires some semblance of faith. Your laptop - your desk - these things can be sensed in a universal fashion: I can see, touch, feel, taste, etc. such items - I do not need faith to know that they exist. God, however, cannot be sensed in our conventional methods - or at least the sensory ones. |
In the post I quoted you seemed to imply a dichotomy between belief in a god and belief in self. You suggested that a belief in something other than oneself lessened a belief in oneself.
I'm not going to get into whether one can objectively observe the existance of oneself.. but that certainly is an interesting question.
But secondly you're suggesting that all religions require belief in a deity.. which is also not true.
| quote: | | Now is where someone religious comes in to let me know that *they* can see, smell, taste, feel and hear God at all times - because he is real - and because they have faith and I do not. The problem was me all along! |
Idiots make up most of humanity, and I have no reason to believe that intelligent life anywhere else is any different. As far as I'm concerned the universe consists of mostly hydrogen and ignorance. If someone replies stupidly to your post it will be more a symptom of humanity rather than their religiosity imho.
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