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Islam 2006 (pg. 10)
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| Floorfiller |
this is what i don't understand about religious people...
-the earliest forms of religion are formed because someone saw something they couldn't explain, i.e. lightning and stuff, and came to the conclusion something more powerful then themselves made it happen.
-the idea expands and people start praying to stop these unwanted phenomenona from happening. you probably now have names to label each of these types of occurences and poof over time, they become manifested in pagan gods.
-as society organizes, you get people in positions of power who are assigned the responsibilty of communicating with the gods. these people tend to be the more educated people within society and as such they have the ability to influence those below them.
-someone realizes the powerful position they have and exploit it. their power (communication with the gods) is false and arbitrarily assigned to them by their peers, yet they use it to manipulate people for their own benefit.
enter a religion like christianity...
-you have these people in positions of power in society, who with the birth of a new religion risk the danger of losing that assigned power.
-because they are smart, as the new religion takes hold, they decide to convert and maintain their status. of course given the previous notions of these people having the ability to communicate with the gods, they are presumed to have the ability to communicate with the new god aswell and become the priests and holy men of the new religion.
-these church leaders get together and basically create the edicts and decrees of the new religion. this gives them a unified canon which will help bring people under a common thought. in order to make the transition as painless as possible, traditional pagan aspects are converted into similar christian holidays and ceremonies. they create written works (they are the only ones capable of writing) to further justify their conclusions.
-those that refuse the agreed upon canon are persecuted in order to eliminate competition. also it generates fear, causing many people to simply convert.
-that introduces the main motivation behind religion, control. it is a lot easier to maintain civil cooperation if people are afraid of retribution for actions. not from a king or emperor, but from something they can't escape, a god.
now to some it up...
given all of that, what is the basis of religions like christianity? religions have become such powerful institutions people don't even ask questions, instead they just believe without justification. people like to justify that ignorance by calling it faith, but faith in what? there is nothing divine about a bunch of powerful politicians deciding what the basis of a religion will be.
i just don't understand why people will read this and not even consider it. i was born into a catholic family...i went to sunday school and church. i just feel like i can see through it, i think others could too if they weren't so unwilling to try.
nothing wrong with having certain beliefs and ideals...i just think people should decide what those are for themselves. mass religions are ridiculous... |
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| XoxidE |
| wth is in that black box? |
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| Jocker |
| quote: | Originally posted by XoxidE
wth is in that black box? |
afaik, a stone on which mohammed inscripted his prophecies? |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by Floorfiller
this is what i don't understand about religious people...
-the earliest forms of religion are formed because someone saw something they couldn't explain, i.e. lightning and stuff, and came to the conclusion something more powerful then themselves made it happen.
-the idea expands and people start praying to stop these unwanted phenomenona from happening. you probably now have names to label each of these types of occurences and poof over time, they become manifested in pagan gods.
-as society organizes, you get people in positions of power who are assigned the responsibilty of communicating with the gods. these people tend to be the more educated people within society and as such they have the ability to influence those below them.
-someone realizes the powerful position they have and exploit it. their power (communication with the gods) is false and arbitrarily assigned to them by their peers, yet they use it to manipulate people for their own benefit.
enter a religion like christianity...
-you have these people in positions of power in society, who with the birth of a new religion risk the danger of losing that assigned power.
-because they are smart, as the new religion takes hold, they decide to convert and maintain their status. of course given the previous notions of these people having the ability to communicate with the gods, they are presumed to have the ability to communicate with the new god aswell and become the priests and holy men of the new religion.
-these church leaders get together and basically create the edicts and decrees of the new religion. this gives them a unified canon which will help bring people under a common thought. in order to make the transition as painless as possible, traditional pagan aspects are converted into similar christian holidays and ceremonies. they create written works (they are the only ones capable of writing) to further justify their conclusions.
-those that refuse the agreed upon canon are persecuted in order to eliminate competition. also it generates fear, causing many people to simply convert.
-that introduces the main motivation behind religion, control. it is a lot easier to maintain civil cooperation if people are afraid of retribution for actions. not from a king or emperor, but from something they can't escape, a god.
now to some it up...
given all of that, what is the basis of religions like christianity? religions have become such powerful institutions people don't even ask questions, instead they just believe without justification. people like to justify that ignorance by calling it faith, but faith in what? there is nothing divine about a bunch of powerful politicians deciding what the basis of a religion will be.
i just don't understand why people will read this and not even consider it. i was born into a catholic family...i went to sunday school and church. i just feel like i can see through it, i think others could too if they weren't so unwilling to try.
nothing wrong with having certain beliefs and ideals...i just think people should decide what those are for themselves. mass religions are ridiculous... |
lol, there's enough knowledge about how christianity came to be powerful, what methods it used, etc to gather conclusions about christianity from. a lot of your post just drew a scenario that most probably never occured.
the facts are out there and can be accessed (unless you wanna go all epistemology on my ass), base yourself on them next time rather than make up a theory of how things went ;) |
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| Floorfiller |
| quote: | Originally posted by Psy-T
lol, there's enough knowledge about how christianity came to be powerful, what methods it used, etc to gather conclusions about christianity from. a lot of your post just drew a scenario that most probably never occured.
the facts are out there and can be accessed (unless you wanna go all epistemology on my ass), base yourself on them next time rather than make up a theory of how things went ;) |
that's interesting because i've read plenty about the formation of christianity and the scenario i posted doesn't seem that far fetched to me. not only that, but a lot of it is also based on religious classes i've taken. sure i could've been more detailed bla bla...but in the interest of time, that's what we get hehehe.
i'd be interested if you cited which of the statements i made weren't probable, so i could attempt to explain my ideas about them better. it's kind of cheap to just dismiss what i said without supplying some ideas as to why i'm incorrect about what i said. |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jocker
but this picture astonished me - just because of their unanimity. all are one. most of them - not all, but most - are fanatics, whose life is built around the religion.... |
first of all, you're an idiot.
second of all, let's just focus on this one quote... see i'm so convinced of your idiocy that i'm sure anything beyond what i'm gonna write below is gonna go straight over your head:
count how many people go to sunday mass all around the world.
third of all, you're still an idiot. :( |
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| THE_Chris |
One thing about Christianity.
I was brought up on it by my parents and believed it for 20 years. Then I realised it was and stupid. Ive decided to help other people overcome the brainwashing that is the catholic faith.
You go to mass, you hear the messages. They give you a cut down version of the bible in the form of readings. If you just go to mass and nothing else, its believable.
But 99.99% of catholics NEVER read the bible, apart from the carefully chosen stuff from mass. If you read the bible or look it up at all, the whole of christianity crumbles very quickly.
Case in point ->
Mary is supposed to be a virgin. Its the cornerstone of the catholic faith. Everyone believes she is an "Everlasting Virgin".
If you read the bible, you see reference to "James, the brother of Jesus". This isnt brother as in other people, but a BROTHER BY BLOOD.
MARY IS JAMES' MOTHER TOO. SHE IS NOT A VIRGIN. A whole family of brothers and sisters are mentioned too.
Its when you look outside the box of catholisism that you realise what a crock of e it really is. Yes, Jesus did exist but he was only a man and did no miracles.
Case in point 2 ->
There were originally two branches of the faith. The Paulian side and the James (or John, cant remember) side. Paul himself believed that Jesus was divine, he invented the concept. John followed Jesus and wrote about him - he never believed he was divine.
A power struggle took place which Paul won. All copies of Johns writings were destroyed.
Paul rewrote the whole story, and those are the gospels we read today.
So, Cathloic Faith = . |
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| fastmp3 |
| Joker you're one big ignorant (i wanted to say idiot, but you're not, you're ignorant). |
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| Radagast |
| If our family went to church every Sunday since as far back as I can remember, why do I not remember ever believing in God? |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by Floorfiller
that's interesting because i've read plenty about the formation of christianity and the scenario i posted doesn't seem that far fetched to me. not only that, but a lot of it is also based on religious classes i've taken. sure i could've been more detailed bla bla...but in the interest of time, that's what we get hehehe.
i'd be interested if you cited which of the statements i made weren't probable, so i could attempt to explain my ideas about them better. it's kind of cheap to just dismiss what i said without supplying some ideas as to why i'm incorrect about what i said. |
you drew a direct link from paganism to christianism, while paganism was hardly evident in the relavant places & times, in most places paganism wasnt well orginised (on christian standards) at the relavant times to be more than a nuisance bar one or two exceptions. |
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| Floorfiller |
| quote: | Originally posted by Psy-T
you drew a direct link from paganism to christianism, while paganism was hardly evident in the relavant places & times, in most places paganism wasnt well orginised (on christian standards) at the relavant times to be more than a nuisance bar one or two exceptions. |
i have books written by experts and professors in late roman empire history and the early formation of chirstianity at home that deal directly with what i said...i'll wait to reply until tonight so that i may cite the books directly... |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by Radagast
If our family went to church every Sunday since as far back as I can remember, why do I not remember ever believing in God? |
either because you forgot, or because you didn't believe in god. |
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