What is everyone's religion/non religion?(NO Arguments plz)

Bleh. All hail Xenu.

How did the Bible, or the Torah, or the Qur'an come to this world? God created those books, so you can't argue on that.

On the contrary God did not create those books. Man created those books based on what they supposedly heard from God.
And for dear lord (pardon my language) are we still on about this science vs religion debate? This isn't going to be like the Scopes trial is it?

Can't we all find a happy medium between religious beliefs and science? Too much of one can't be any good, can it?

As far as I see religion's a combination of two scientific theories into one: how the world was created and how the world will end. According to believable sources, no one alive at this moment was alive during the world's creation and none of us have yet experienced the world's end. I suppose that doesn't disprove anything indefinitely, but it's a good enough reason for me not to really care either way.

Like Bael, I happen to resent the psychological manipulation involved with extreme religious practices. The biggest story in Texas right now is about a Mormon compound (Yearning for Zion Ranch) in the western end of the state that just got busted. A girl (16) called the police after being forced to have sex with her husband (52). Afterward the feds broke in and salvaged about 400 children. Men had multiple wives at the compound, women wore their hair in buns - they never cut it, because then they couldn't wash Jesus's feet on the second coming - and covered up completely from the neck down so as not to be provocative. Children were taught that if they left the colony they'd be tainted by the chaotic outside world, and were made to fear black people.

Someone recently made a Wikipedia article about the joint.

I feel a large amount of the joy of life is cheapened by constantly convincing oneself perfect living is only in death. I suppose it's fine for people to live how they want, but then they're taught to interrogate others and convert them. Mormons go door to door on bicycles here. I don't match religious resentment toward blasphemy by resenting every single person that holds religious beliefs, but I do hold strong resentment if I'm wronged and the offender feels justified because attacking me is their "religious duty".

I am Catholic, but the older i get the less i believe in anything. I am currently reading a book called "The God Delusion"

www.listal.com/book/the-god-delusion-richard-dawkins-3281563

When i bought it my Mum was a bit annoyed at me, as my nan had just died the day before and it was Easter and i had just started a book about the flaws of religion.

Since reading the book i have been taught quite a lot about religion that i never knew, for example Jews, Christians and Muslims are all "Abrahamic Religions"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religion

Judaism came first, and then Christianity was a branch of Judaism and then Islam another Branch about 300 years or so afterwards. This happened because originally Judaism was a very strict and God fearing religion (he calls it a desert cult in the book...) which was very restrictive and was very exclusive. Christianity was a branch from this, believing in a more loving God which was less ruthless and foreboding.
Islam was then the reversion back to Judaisms uncompromising strict rules and regulations, but without the exclusiveness, they included the ethos of spreading their religion throughout the world (and in turn so did Christianity) Both had their own books obviously, the Koran teaching that military conquest was the route to spreading their faith, and the Bible which the Romans used to conquer and build their empire.
The gist of what it says above is that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the same religion, the same God, the same ideals etc. Just Twisted different ways depending on whatever was important to the people doing it at the time. (Heck since then, all 3 of them have split into hundreds of different sects and churches, all with their own beliefs and deletions of the original stories. Hell Catholics ignore the Gospels of Thomas, Peter, Nicodemus, Philip, Bartholomew and Mary Magdalen) These were either removed because they were deemed "unrealistic" eg As a child in Thomas' Gospel Jesus apparently helped Joseph as a carpenter by extending the sizes of a pieces of wood. And also as a child he used to mischievously turn his friends into goats and sparrows (I mean wtf?! that is insane, but apparently its in Thomas' Gospel which was discounted by Christianity as rediculous, whilst walking on water/rising from the dead etc is plausible!)

A lot of what is written in the Bible about Jesus and his life, is actually written long after he was around, the story of his birth is parts taken from several different other religions from earlier eras, and also historically a lot of the parts never happened. Eg it says that Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem because of a census at the time. There firstly was no Census until several centuries later, and secondly it was only written that Jesus had to of been born in Bethlehem because in the Old testament it predicts that a child WILL be born in Bethlehem, so whoever actually wrote the story down all the centuries after Jesus existed, has just assumed that this must of been the place because if it wasn't the Old Testament is wrong, there is no proof of this having happened. Another oddity is that the word used for "young woman" in ancient Hebrew is Almah, which when translating the bible, was done into Greek as Parthenos which is Greek for Virgin! So the phrase "The Virgin Mary" may have just been mistranslated when it should have said Young Woman. (Joseph being a carpenter may also be wrong, considering the word was naggar originally, which means learned man or craftsman, which when translated into Greek became tekton which is carpenter, so he could of been a teacher or something for all we know!)

Another thing iv seen a few times elsewhere, not in this book, is the ancient religion of Mythras. I first saw it mentioned on QI and so i wikipedia searched it

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythras

Coincidently, Mythras was a person like Jesus, who

"had twelve followers with whom he had shared a last sacramental meal. He had sacrificed himself to redeem mankind. Descending into the underworld, he had conquered death and had risen to life again on the third day. The holy day for this sun god was, of course, Sunday (Christians continued to follow the Jewish Sabbath until the fourth century). His many titles included ‘the Truth,’ ‘the Light,’ and ‘the Good Shepherd.’ For those who worshipped him, invoking the name of Mithras healed the sick and worked miracles. Mithras could dispense mercy and grant immortality; to his devotees he offered hope. By drinking his blood and eating his flesh (by proxy, from a slain bull) they too could conquer death. On a Day of Judgement those already dead would be raised back to life."

(Copied from the quite possibly biased

www.jesusneverexisted.com/Mithraism.html

but still backed up by many other websites)


the religion was one the Romans were a part of, which seems to have had influences on modern Christianity somewhere along the way. If you google search it too, i once found a long list of similarities between mythraic religion and Christianity.

I could go on and on and on, but im probably being boring. The point i am making is if you begin to read about religion and what not, you find that most of the stories within the books, most of the beliefs etc, are all taken from older religions that go far beyond the origins of anything we know today. Most of these ancient religions are seen as primitive or wrong, eg Stone Age religion is thought to have been quite magical and involved a lot of demons and monsters, they believed in curses, and devils living inside your head. All things we now consider to be headaches and brain tumors they thought were mythical beasts trying to kill them! No one truely believes that these religions are plausible, yet now days wars are still being fought and won over things that are rooted deep in these "implausible fantasies"

Its a bloody interesting topic though, one of my favorites! Good thread Wolf Paw :) Sorry to go on n on though, and if any of this doesn't make sense tell me and il edit it or explain it further.

(And yes, i do *know* this stuff i can remember things iv read in books and online etc haha! Although i did go and get the book to find the exact Greek/Hebrew words and the names of the Gospels left out of the bible)

Buddhism, taoism etc are not even religions Wolfie they are more "ways of life" and "philosophies" religion is just a word we use i guess.

Religions have never truely been about uniting people and saving the world etc, they have been groups of people deciding that THEIR way of life is the way to go, and then ENFORCING that way of life on others. Religion and God are not the same thing, God is an idea, a belief that there is something which exists as "the most" in everything the number 1, the first and the creator. That has to exist really as something has to be THE most everything etc otherwise there would be no varying degrees of anything.

Religion, is all the parts of everyones beliefs constantly being taken apart and reconstructed into something new and more plausible. Todays religions are just the future worlds history lessons where they laugh at how primitive we are. If we sat down and between us threw out everything that was rediculous about all the religions in the world, and grouped together all the things we considered factual, we would just be doing what they already did with the Abrahamic religions.

I wouldnt call believing in God a scientific theory and believing in Religion a non scientific theory. Its just that it is Fact there has to be a God of some form, wether it be a person, an object, some atom deep in space, whatever it is, it has to be the highest form of existence in the universe, if you lined up everything that existed from lowest to highest whichever was at the highest end would be God.
Religion just expands on that idea with infinite different beliefs as to the rest of it etc. The trouble is Nunns, priests, preachers etc of whatever religion, are never likely to read anything contrary to their beliefs otherwise they would never be in the positions they are. If i had kids and trapped them in a room from birth telling them that Gemlil was God and anyone who says otherwise should be killed, Whilst Wolf Paw told his that The Antagonist was God and said the same, the kids would destroy each other over their beliefs as its all they know.

I agree with what you say robelanator, it is quite vein of humanity to think that they have a connection with something powerful enough to create the universe, iv never really thought about it like that to be honest, why would we hold preference over animals? God could be a chicken for all we know, they out populate us dont they?! hehe.

Practicing what you want and not preaching doesn't lead to as much profit though ;o) hows the Pope gonna fuel the Pope Mobile without all the money he gets! Hehe. I agree completely that preaching should be off limits, although society has fixed that to some extent as most preachers are seen as a bit mental, at least in England they are.

In all honesty, I'm all for the concept of religion. I see it as something that has an immense capacity for bringing neighbourhoods and people together under one banner to lead a beneficial and altruistic life that can benefit themselves and those around them. Something like that can never be a bad thing.

I believe in the concept of a God who created life. I think the further I evolve as a scientist [no pun intended], the more difficult it is to believe that intricate life has occurred by chance. The symphony of synchronised cellular activity that exists purely to keep me sitting upright, alive, typing on this keyboard is completely overwhelming. On the other hand, evolution doesn't disprove the existence of a God at all. You make life and then give it the capacity to survive - that's evolution. The minor details of specific religions are too far-fetched and modified throughout the years for me to find any credence in them though. Even today I could go to the bookshop to buy a bible and find about 5 different versions in front of me. That's no way to practice a religion.

The justification of a religion is pretty easy. People worship a God in order to give thanks to their creator. It's difficult to come up with an answer to the meaning of life, so if people think they're here to live a good life and to serve their God then they have an answer to that question.

I don't think it is instinctual to worship a God, that's why we have people preaching still today. If anything, I think it's almost regarded as counter-intuitive these days to follow a religion. I assume you were talking about the early days though, in which case religion can be used as a crutch for support throughout your life, something to turn for answers in the face of the inexplicable. But it can also be wielded as a tool of control. People might not care much for a prison sentence for their crime, but eternal damnation in the afterlife might get them into line.

...Yama, you are made up of thousands of cells, that's scientific fact. What's not to believe about that?

Wolfie, it does seem a bit rediculous that you dont believe we are made up of thousands of cells. Im not trying to start an argument with you etc or belittle your beliefs, but if you got a microscope and looked through it at your arm, or took a sample of your skin etc, you would see for yourself, all the cells that go into one fraction of your being. You kinda picked one of the few things which are proven fact. Evolution is only a theory yes, but there is a lot of striking evidence to support that theory. As i said above, the Bible is historically inaccurate, translated poorly and written by men who were around hundreds of years after Jesus existed. It is commonly respected that Jesus is likely to have existed, a LOT of historical facts and discoveries support this. However, when it is so easy and renowned that a lot of key parts of the Bible are wrong, inaccurate or slightly implausible, and thats coming from a catholic! Evolution does not have quite as many disprovable qualities, since we have dug up remains of animals, researched genetics etc etc.

Why dont you write your questions down here, and let people answer them for you? No one is going to post lies are they, you can easily look up their answers on google/wikipedia etc. Tis what the internet is for, answers.

Each and every cell doesn't collectively think for itself, it has been fine-tuned over hundreds of years to care about nothing other than it's own perpetuation and the survival of the organism it comprises. That's why we lose hundreds of cells an hour from shedding skin and that's why some cells sacrifice themselves if they contain viruses or mutate into tumours - they kill themselves to stop anything bad happening to the collective organism. It doesn't think, it doesn't have a conscious, it just has to survive and copy itself for the next generation of cell to live on.

Cells have learned over years of evolution that by working together they have the greatest chance of survival. As a result, they all work to serve the tissue that they're a part of, which works in turn to function as an organ, which then works to help the whole organism survive.

Life isn't about thinking, it's purely about surviving. Most of the life on earth is geared solely around surviving and doesn't stop to think about it for a second. Look at insects colonies for example. They don't think about the best course of action to take, they are just propelled by instincts that will find them food, shelter and a place to lay eggs or whatnot. That leads to the question of 'What is the point of surviving, just for survivals sake?' there is no end to it. There is no meaning of life if you just want to be there, existing.

The trouble now is Wolfie, what do ya do when you realize that there is no *meaning* to life and that everything is surviving for survivals sake?! Do ya survive, have a kid and further your species like your supposed to, not do it and end your blood line, or is there something more to it all?