Do we want and/or need religion?

[Lono]

Hey Komodo,

Thanks for reading that post man I was sure noone would be prepared to examine it in detail after already going through the previous 6 pages.

In defence of my position though. The suggestion that religion should be replaced by a science, cosmology astronomy etc is a fine one, and it gels with my belief that sooner or later humanity will discover and define all the things we currently attribute to god. And you're right that the definition of the universe and man's role in it is usually quite rigid when interpreted from religious texts, but time and again we see that the better educated a society is then the more secular it becomes anyway.

Definitely this relies on the education being a secular one but theocracies (talibani afganistan, sharia Iran, sorry muslims I can't think of any others )which don't offer anything which contradicts the religious view, do tend to have higher rates of illiteracy than societies where there is a separation of church and state, and without education charisma more than content is what a particular point is judged on religiuos or not. So I i'm still of the opinion that as much as the church (whichever religion) would love for their idea of existence to be able to resist reinterpretation and rejection, it inevitably is by those who have access to alternate information.

I guess what I'm saying is that the way the world is structured now there will always be educated voices of reason whose arguements will make more sense than religious dogma, and because of that the existence of religious dogma does not preclude us from moving forward as a society. However for some, who would be less concerned about the advancement of human knowledge it provides a safe secure set of parameters through which to view the world, and a motivating factor in convincing them not to ruthlessly act in the interests of themselves and their immediate families but to look at community with a much wider scope, it is thereby valuable to them and to the community to which they now feel accountable.

in terms of morality, the suggestion that we need religion to tell us good from bad doesnt hold water.

You and I may not need religions structured morality. As much as Gamaos would call us arrogant for suggesting it.

shows some arrogance on your behalf, seeing yourself as so much better and more intelligent as the rest of the world.

But we live in a society which has been built around a moral code laid down by, wait for it... a religion. Albeit in a very watered down version of the dogmatic original, but the basics are are still there. But as humanity progresses generation after generation and science becomes our new religion, the morals we now hold dear are not subject to the same scrutiny. Now I admit religion is always the extreme moral view and sometimes to our detriment but it is a neccessary component of a balanced society. We need a codified moral guideline to be in existence whether we apply it or not.

as for the benefits of charity, questions exist as to how it is best delivered, and i don't see why it should be left to religious groups who have an agenda to push.

I fully agree but the fact remains that in many cases it is. When peacekeepers leave because a conflict has become a fully fledged war it is often up to local religious organisations to expand their existing humanitarian efforts and pick up the slack for the UN. Obviously it is still up to the individual to evaluate what is being preached by the organisation. I'm not suggesting thats how it should be but thats the way it is.

i might humbly indicate the kidnapping of children from aboriginal families in australia, wasnt that "religion helping the disadvantaged"?

It was democratically elected Government policy makers who instigated and organised it Perhaps the church in part gave them the facility to do it since they ran the orphanages, now whether they were complicit in the policy the orphanages were set for the benefit of children white or black, how the majority of aboriginal children came to be there had nothing to do with religious edict.

it's certainly not clear that religious aid is universally good or beneficial.

Correct but nor is anything else. And nor does it render religion completely usless, to the world.

Edited November 27, 2006 by Lono

[reptyle]

The suggestion that religion should be replaced by a science, cosmology astronomy etc is a fine one, and it gels with my belief that sooner or later humanity will discover and define all the things we currently attribute to god. And you're right that the definition of the universe and man's role in it is usually quite rigid when interpreted from religious texts, but time and again we see that the better educated a society is then the more secular it becomes anyway.

isnt that how all religions started out? as interpretations of the nature and attributes of reality wrapped in stories , examples, quotes all that contextually based bizzo.

i cant say i have seen any more rigid books than the modern interpretations of science and astronomy, infact, it would seem that the older the texts are the more open to interpretation they become, this is probably due to shifts in associable occurences, and would in my opinion make them more accessible to wider ranges of individual world views. it would appear that its when people begin to firmly belive that they have "it" figured out and find (somehow) rigidity in the nature of their experince in relation to the information they access that the problem with the carriers of that information, which occasionally happens to be religious institution, becomes apparent. people think that they have found the place that they fit in and as such start to proclaim that they are, as a representative, that thing, which in actual fact they can and never will be.

religion as organisations stretch only as far as the festivals, ceremonies, rituals and symbols during which the individual becomes part of that collective thing, it doesnt however include what that person does in their spare time, who they like/hate, who they choose to help or not or even what they say as a "representative" of that thing, that is theirs to own personally.

as for a moral code being laid down by a religion and adopted by a goverment, i would have thought that moses was kicking it on the mountiain with his burning bush talking to himself about how much he fuckin hates egyptian religious fanatic prinks and their amoral attitude towards life in the present, he ma have thought all the stuff about the boat that takes you to heaven if your rich was BS and wanted somethin differnt for the group of people he somehow got to follow him into the dessert. so he devised a set of pretty simple logical things to live by whilst they were in the desert so that as few as possible people got killed or beaten over trivial arguments thus ensuring that there were as many people as possible left to start again when they finally found "the promised land" (reminds me of an ad. for QLD that were on TV a while back), so i would posit that it was infact religions who stole that moral code thing from the Moshizle thus debassing and corrupting the story that he was living.

religion is seemingly born out of the need to remember how those lessons were learned, not the actual lessons themselves. politics on the other hand is how to control and implement those laws that are common in the people which the government wants to govern. the moral were already there so the gov't had to utilise that.

i will stand by my belief that religions serve very defintie functions for those people who understand what they can be used for, sure some people miss the point, go on living their lives with this extra baggage hanging over them, and other even use it as somethin to direct their complaints towards, but as with most things viewed under the correct lighting (maybe a strobe) it is possible to see that they provide a very useful function, especially if u want to live for ever.

its like that hopi prophecy thing that someone posted about a week or so ago, when the four races come together we will experince something we never imagined. but each race on its own seemingly starts to destroy itself. religions are races and you are the only one that will ever get to join them together...in your own head.

recipe for humble pie:

1 part monotheism

5 parts polytheism

2 parts ritual worship

1 part technology

Put into a cosmic blender until whipped.

Pour onto a base of pure energy and let sit until bored.

Garnish with psychedlicks to taste.

best pie i ever tasted, although i did find myself breathing and occasionally performing other bodily functions after consumption.

peace.

[komodo]

hey lono nice reply there, i'll keep going

what I'm saying is that the way the world is structured now there will always be educated voices of reason whose arguements will make more sense than religious dogma, and because of that the existence of religious dogma does not preclude us from moving forward as a society. However for some, who would be less concerned about the advancement of human knowledge it provides a safe secure set of parameters through which to view the world

a secure set of parameters based purely on hearsay is limiting right? thinking inside someone elses square, how is this a good thing? i think it takes the responsibility of being an intelligent free being away, so its easier to, say, just keep on shopping. i used to see rows of brand new bmw 4WD outside the church down the road every sunday, it was disgusting to think of their smug belief that they were off to heaven as they ripped their way through the third world and the ecosphere. unfortunately, the educated voices of reason are usually repressed by religion, eg. refuting evolution, no questioning the koran, burn at the stake for heresy, etc. so what you say would only hold in an ideal world where religions were benevolent and toothless, definitely not true today.

how the majority of aboriginal children came to be there had nothing to do with religious edict.

actually the churches did kidnap children sometimes, but that's almost beside the point, which was that religion "helping" isnt always helpful. to say religion is needed or good because they help things isnt entirely true. it is often misguided or unhelpful "help".

"In most cases of forcible removal government officials and agents were responsible for the removal under legislation or regulations. However, there were early cases of removal of children by missionaries without the consent of the parents. In Victoria the absence of government oversight of welfare services enabled churches and other non-government agencies to remove children from their families without any court order or other official approval."

"We do accept that there were cases where the actions of Church child welfare services and organisations were instrumental in keeping children separate from their families and in this respect the Church holds some responsibility in playing a role for the state to keep these children separate from their families"

[ http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/rsjpr...n/stolen40.html ]

isnt that how all religions started out? as interpretations of the nature and attributes of reality wrapped in stories , examples, quotes all that contextually based bizzo.

religions started in many different ways and for different reasons. i don't agree that religions are based on true stories interpreting nature and reality. many religious stories, symbols, holy days and sites are fabrications and distortions, often meant to destroy and replace earlier nature-based spiritualities, so that the energy of the people can be channelled into the structures of power and control.

religion as organisations stretch only as far as the festivals, ceremonies, rituals and symbols during which the individual becomes part of that collective thing, it doesnt however include what that person does in their spare time

now thats definitely not making it in my pie. organised religion does dictate ethics and personal morality, theres a whole psychology of guilt/sin complexes. as for hard evidence, how about the ten commandments? sharia law? halakhah and kashrut? the reason religions bribe people with some silly "heaven" with choirs and honey and hot chicks, or scare them with nasty pictures of people getting burned and tortured by monsters, is so you have a set of associations in your mind that sways your personal decision making when the priest isnt around to actually tell you what to do (a bit like the state and federal governments scare campaigns).

religions are not a pick and choose syncretic mashup, they are defined socio-political structures, highly rigid and organised with very clear boundaries. i think what reptyle is talking about is not big organised religion at all, it's more like a gnostic mystery cult, or hermeticism, rosicrucianism, something symbolic, open ended and fuzzy, definitely not abrahamic religions anyhow, which are the big guns at the moment.

Edited November 27, 2006 by komodo

[gomaos]

was just like wondering like how they like decide who get the rain from all the people that prayed? are they tryin to send it somewhere or just saying yeah god, you prolly know best where we want it, or u can just give us like 2 or 3 drops each and get us tripping off ure magick rain.

Maybe the rain is god's pee and he (it?)'s got a blockage and needs to see an urologist?

or something like that... in "god"-terms?

Edited November 27, 2006 by gomaos

[reptyle]

fabrications and distortions, often meant to destroy and replace earlier nature-based spiritualities, so that the energy of the people can be channelled into the structures of power and control. nm[/quote

channeling that energy is in the hands of the person attributing the actions of those people to the organisation they inherently cannot represent. ie you. as long as that continues to happen they can continue to claim they that are the representatives.

sort of how the aus governemtn thinks they represent me and you and us all, they dont. i would call myself an aussie, but as far as being part of the power structure...pphhttt.

whilst you look at modern religions as corrupting "nature based spirituality" whatever that is you cannot get past the surface value of what stories about angels and demons and burning witches mean in terms of what they represent as aspects of an experince in which someone learned lessons and wanted to record them in a way that wasnt forgotten. kinda like a grim nursery rhyme, that sorta true. as for nature based. whats not nature? nature of mind vs. nature of matter, vs nature of whatever else you realise exists along the way to your death and felt like writting about it guess.

organised religion does dictate ethics and personal morality, theres a whole psychology of guilt/sin complexes. as for hard evidence, how about the ten commandments? sharia law? halakhah and kashrut? the reason religions bribe people with some silly "heaven" with choirs and honey and hot chicks, or scare them with nasty pictures of people getting burned and tortured by monsters, is so you have a set of associations in your mind that sways your personal decision making when the priest isnt around to actually tell you what to do (a bit like the state and federal governments scare campaigns).

you sorta took what i said out of context here but ill give it a stab anyway. i would argue that all these things are more what people do in their spare time than the actual religion itself. the religion is the information, the method of passing the information and the implications of that information, it is separate from an individuals interpretation of that information and how they choose to act according to it. the word that represents that collection of meme canot be held resposible for itself being misunderstood, for two reasons, 1) its just a words people gather around and 2) it is defenesless against it being misunderstood as it is not existing for its own defence simply for those who would take the information as is and leave without trying to become that thing.

the australian gov't would accept criminal responsibility for the actions of individual citizens and serve their time or whatever for them would they? no. because a govt cannot serve time in prison.

i can agree that people distort the concept of what a religion is to help concentrate their energy into one action, but then this isnt really the religion its a group of people with a common goal reeled in by someone using missinformation as bait.

on a different note

can some one just explain how to use this quote function thing, i cannot figure it out.

peace

[gomaos]

quote functioning:

If you want to bold any lenght of text

first use

then insert your text however long or short

when you want the bold print to finish just type

[/(just a "b")]

hope that's readable

[reptyle]

thanks gom.

do u know how to make the quote appear in the box with "quote: blah blah" or whatever it is as the title of the box?

[komodo]

i'm just typing ["quote"] copy-paste-quoted-text-here ["/quote"] without the "" you can also do it with the little speech bubble icon on the message-making toolbar

channeling that energy is in the hands of the person attributing the actions of those people to the organisation they inherently cannot represent. ie you. as long as that continues to happen they can continue to claim they that are the representatives. sort of how the aus governemtn thinks they represent me and you and us all, they dont. i would call myself an aussie, but as far as being part of the power structure...pphhttt.

i dont really get this? sorry. are you saying religious people dont follow their religion?

modern religions as corrupting "nature based spirituality" whatever that is

finding worship and wonder in the living present natural world, eg. shamans, druids, witches, etc. monotheism and to a lesser extent pantheism is abstracted, the divine is on a different higher plane, not to be found here amongst us on earth, and therefore we have to follow some set of rules in order to "ascend" to god. this was a big shift in the concept of divinity and deity in the history of humanity and possibly the root cause of our current ecological catastrophe.

you cannot get past the surface value of what stories about angels and demons and burning witches mean in terms of what they represent as aspects of an experince in which someone learned lessons and wanted to record them in a way that wasnt forgotten. kinda like a grim nursery rhyme, that sorta true.

i'm not talking surface value, i'm talking deep seated morally judgemental dogma with harsh punishments: men who bugger other men must be stoned to death. sex with more than one person in your life will damn you to eternal torture. the zionists are the chosen people of god. to drink alcohol or smoke opium is a mortal sin. women should serve men, and can never join the priesthood. we are all born guilty and dont you forget it. true and valuable???

but then this isnt really the religion its a group of people with a common goal reeled in by someone using missinformation as bait.

religions ARE groups of people with a common goal reeled in by someone claiming divine authority! the idea that "religion" can be talked about generally as some benevolent universal conduit to good information that just wants to make us live good lives and evolve to higher awareness is vague to say the least. if you look at specific major religions, their various stated doctrines, the behaviours of their followers, and the actions of their leaders and churches you will see histories of massive repression, destruction and genocide with a bit of warm fuzzy stuff, some interesting spiritual branches (usually marginal or elite) and possibly some wise teachings that made it through the various executive edits. you can't just look at the concept, you need to consider the actual outcomes in the world as well. even contemporary religions are often comfortable homes for memes of abuse and conflict, the legacy of their repressive dark ages origins.

love and light

Edited November 28, 2006 by komodo

[reptyle]

oh ok.

i guess all i am essentially trying to get across is that we can choose to interpret these things that exist in reality so as to serve our needs and hence our progress or, to annoy and hinder our progress, it sorta depends on weather you personally want to belive that those negative things you talk of are attributes of the practice of a religion or whether you want to see the negative things as the smoke and mirrors which when performed by indiiduals, blind other individuals from being able to look past the "representatives" of said religions to the actual underlying "body" of the religion, which seems to be composed mainly of outcomes of experinces people have had which has subsequently taught them something that they wanted to share. how people use those stories as individual is up to the individual, even if another indivdiual gives them an interpretation which scares them into acting a certain way, its still up to them as a person.

it would also seem that all the "deep seated moral judgement and dogma" etc is infact the surface value and if you start to experince some of the stories for yourself metaphorically, in your everyday life, you may infact see the logic in wanting to act a certain way until you know the reasons why those actions and guidelines are not hard and fast strict rules. it seems to be the people that miss this point that go on to cause problems for the name of a religion as opposed to the actual religion doing anything as an entity.

your claim that religions as entity's do things ignros the fact that individual people are resposible for themselves, regardless of what they label themselves as. it doesnt really go any further than that i dont think.

as for "finding worship and wonder in the living present natural world". your view of the natural world may be what you can see and touch and smell but thats a sort of self referential view point from my point of view, it would seem, to me anyway, that there is much more going on than that, call me crazy but im sure im not alone. just ask some of the "shamans, druids, witches" that frequent these forums what the "natural" world is.

mono-theism seems far less abstracted than most magick and ritual based religions, all you really need to belive to be monotheistic is that there is one god and it is everything, not necessarily stuff you cant see.

ill agree that yes there are people in the world who wish only for personal power even at the expense of... lets call it mutiny cos i just watched pirates of the carribean, but its sort of irrelevant whoe is stearing the ship, they are inherently not the ship, and can never be the ship( unless they soak themselves into it i guess), merely an overbearing passenger.

getina fleet of foreign ships and studying them to find the best parts of each and combine to build a really fast, sturdy, schmiko ship with a hot siren on the front protecting it is where the game is at.

peace and un-darkness.

Edited November 28, 2006 by reptyle

[komodo]

your view of the natural world may be what you can see and touch and smell but thats a sort of self referential view point from my point of view, it would seem, to me anyway, that there is much more going on than that

well, you could try asking me for my opinion about reality and nature, which is a different discussion altogether, rather than making a pretty crude assumption

your claim that religions as entity's do things ignros the fact that individual people are resposible for themselves, regardless of what they label themselves as. it doesnt really go any further than that i dont think.

we're not on the same page, youre not talking about religion i think, but personal spirituality. can we agree that the question is re. organised hierarchical religions?

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=define%3...lient=firefox-a

religion of one is not what i've been talking about (and seems a bit of a non sequitur to me), i'm referring to the big, relatively rigid, superpersonal constructs that people identify with and adhere to that provide an identity for the divine and set out rules of good behaviour from that authority. the religious individual moulds themselves to the doctrine, not the other way around. is it actually just about personal belief? in which case i think it should read "does the world need spirituality", quite a different question.

being religious often abrogates some of the responsibility of thinking for oneself. you do what you are told is ok by your religious faith instead of thinking for yourself. in some cases, just by living in a certain region and time, you are forced to live by religious doctrine and publicly show your submission to the faith or the agents of the church will torture or murder you in some horrible way.

mono-theism seems far less abstracted than most magick and ritual based religions, all you really need to belive to be monotheistic is that there is one god and it is everything, not necessarily stuff you cant see.

thats monism, not monotheism. theism identifies specific god(s) that inhabit a particular divine elsewhere and are accessed through intermediaries. monotheism likes to get a bit mysterious on the omniGod vs daddyGod (read - contradictory) but basically, religious gods have attitudes and characteristics such as gender, a liking for the oceans, or destructive intent toward certain cultures. why i'm arguing against religion is that these characteristics are fabrications by some group of individuals (past and present), who by creating the character(s) of god(s) control the rules of the religion and to a varying extent the behaviour of those subject to it, through various devices which come on with 'divine authority', sharia law etc.

reptyle, i like the general tone but youre not making much of a case for religion, more like a case for syncretism and individuality, which are on the other side of the coin altogether. given youre advocating personal spirituality im suprised youre not agreeing with me on some of these obvious problems of religion!

Edited November 28, 2006 by komodo

[reptyle]

well, you could try asking me for my opinion about reality and nature, which is a different discussion altogether, rather than making a pretty crude assumptio

you defined your belief about definition of nature by classifying shaman,druid,witch as such and monotheism as other with this comment :

finding worship and wonder in the living present natural world, eg. shamans, druids, witches, etc. monotheism and to a lesser extent pantheism is abstracted, the divine is on a different higher plane, not to be found here amongst us on earth

my arguement is that institutional religion is like a carrier signal, its not the signal being carried.

religion is a system of beliefs usualy pertaining to a supernatural power...

the heirachy is setup by people to propagate the information from the religion. the information isnt second to the heirachy.

and as such i would draw a definite distinction between a religion and a collection of people who classify themselves under a group name because they have the same interpretation and reaction to the information that has already been propagated.

being religious often abrogates some of the responsibility of thinking for oneself

any hive mind does that, doesnt make it religious

all you really need to belive to be monotheistic is that there is one god and it is everything

im pointing out how simple and not very abstract this idea CAN be, compared to more abstract "nature" based religions

religious gods have attitudes and characteristics such as gender, a liking for the oceans, or destructive intent toward certain cultures.

i wasnt aware that those google definitions say anything other than some supernatural affiliation in most cases.

does anyone know if scientology has any gods?

i think you make a lot of personal judgements about what makes a thing a religion obviously based on and limited to your experinces. as is my attempted explaination.

in terms of whether i think religion is good or bad, i think that it exists as a conduit for information tranfer over large periods of time which when collected and collated from sources which appear to be built to complement and balance each other can unlock some very intersting information.

like cogs in a machine each having a different prime number but clicking perfetly together to make hard work easy or easy work harder.

the dust and oil that has accumulated over time stops us from being able to read the serial numbers properly

and at some stage the pieces were taken to separate places to be studied and as time passed we lost the manual that said which peice goes where. worship was started to make sure the piece wasnt lost, some people sold photos of the piece, tried to build new machines around it etc. none of this however changes the nature of the original machine which was and is religion.

just because people look at porn, maybe together sometimes. it doesnt turn them into a porn. nor does it make the porn responsible for what type of lube they buy.

(in) peaces

[komodo]

just because people look at porn, maybe together sometimes. it doesnt turn them into a porn.

oh come on, people take religion a lot more seriously than porn, i can't believe you think its all lip service.

Edited November 28, 2006 by komodo

[komodo]

i get your concept of religion being bearers of the light, vital to solving a cosmic machine puzzle of information via an ancient tributary of interesting knowledge, but having not experienced this vision myself, to me it may or may not be the case. whilst they are sources of old information i think this is the accretion of cultural fragments in a chain specific to that religion, edited and structured by those in power at the time. i think the memes they carry are of dubious origin, dusty and so riddled with psychological viruses as to be worse than useless.

what i do know is that the big organised religions of the world have a great deal of blood on their hands and long histories of repressing minorities (especially information mutants). it seems clear to me that restrictive dogma and religious law hold back human information evolution, not encourage it.

i think we'd be better off without the worlds prevailing religious structures, we can find other ways to do the few good things they do. without religious divides and ladders we could more easily come together as divine equals.

Edited November 28, 2006 by komodo

[wandjina]

You could print this up and publish it! Hell, spread it on a crackjer and eat it

what an excellent discussion...can we have some more, please?

[Guest onemind]

Talk about flogging a dead horse..

[incognito]

well u do seem to be an expert in flogging....

[komodo]

Though the training in moral discipline is listed first among the three groups of practices, it should not be regarded lightly. It is the foundation for the entire path, essential for the success of the other trainings. The Buddha himself frequently urged his disciples to adhere to the rules of discipline, "seeing danger in the slightest fault." One time, when a monk approached the Buddha and asked for the training in brief, the Buddha told him: "First establish yourself in the starting point of wholesome states, that is, in purified moral discipline and in right view. Then, when your moral discipline is purified and your view straight, you should practice the four foundations of mindfulness" (SN 47:3).

Bodhi, B. "The Noble Eightfold Path" (1984) Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy

3.3 Abstaining from harsh speech (pharusaya vacaya veramani):

"He avoids harsh language and abstains from it. He speaks such words as are gentle, soothing to the ear, loving, such words as go to the heart, and are courteous, friendly, and agreeable to many."

Edited November 30, 2006 by komodo

[komodo]

that one was for you onemind

[gomaos]

people take religion a lot more seriously than porn

really?

I seriously doubt that.

[Guest Warrioe-Sage]

All religions have value.

We have to realise that men are graded in many different categories, of many different rates of vibration.

So as this is the case there will be a religion to suit them all.

As soon as man has developed to a certain stage he will recognise the true religion as his goal, and embrace it.

Edited December 4, 2006 by Warrioe-Sage

[Slim Pickens]

well u do seem to be an expert in flogging....

LOL That is the only thing worth reading in this whole thread.

[The Dude]

LOL That is the only thing worth reading in this whole thread.

Lol so u read the rest of this bs to get to that? good to see you can wade thru shit and get such gems of spiritual insight... yeah i take issue with that, if it aint reading it aint worth even posting in.

Too cool for religious/spiritual/philosophical debate? wtf u doin in this forum? Or maybe yer of a much more enlightened level so as to decide that every opinion expressed here is worthless.

[komodo]

there will be a religion to suit them all.

not me... and seems from the poll count i'm not alone there...

Edited December 5, 2006 by komodo

[gomaos]

So as this is the case there will be a religion to suit them all.

As soon as man has developed to a certain stage he will recognise the true religion as his goal, and embrace it.

what bullshit!

[Guest Warrioe-Sage]

The new era willbring quite different conditions relative to men's spiritual life.

A World Religion will come, and will be considered the only sane, normal and natural condition.

If you were to ask a man of the far future 'what is religion?' he would look at you in suprise and answer,

'Why - everything !' The idea of a religion seperated off from education or any ofter phase of life would appear to him absurd, unnatural and unpractical'