For two thousand years, man has killed man in the name of religion. In the name of religion, man have been savagly tortured to death. In the name of religion, man have done so much harm to other man that not even animals are capable off.

We stop believing in Santa Claus coming in from the North Pole by the time we are 7 but somehow, some still believe that a "Prophet" self fullfilling hellucination are the word of God? Why?

Why do sane men go to a building and believe that somehow, their God will look down on them and smile? Does God have a video camera in churches and mosques?

Is anyone going to argue that religion gives man a moral base? Does that moral base include strapping a bomb on oneself and kill? And the reward is virgins? VIRGINS? The absurity is beyond comical. And what about Christians? The burnings of "witches"? The torturing of man? The endless atrocities of the Crusades?

I renounce all religion as nothing more then a self serving virus that shackles man minds. The quicker mankind gets rid of this sickness called "religion", the quicker mankind will progress to understanding and tolerance to one another.

What is your opinion?

Are you shure to just blame religion for it? Shure many times religion lead to many misunderstandings and intolerence to different minds of ideas and sometimes was the catalist for great injustices, but in the end I think its man himself who hides behind the pretext of religion.

Religion is a set of Belief that can be found in any person, even atheists. The great injustices of history were in my opinion not commited by religion, but by weak man who coudnt tolerate different Beliefs in their surroundings and were carried by their Beliefs into the extremes.

1. Religion is man-made.

2. Why/when has religion come into existence ?

3. What is a free mind ?

4. Is religion an "apparatus" that unites a certain "groups" for a specific cause... ?

4.1.... but separates mankind as a whole in different groups ?

1. The first question is self evident.

2. People had the need to believe in something to explain the "mysteries" of the universe. We now can explain many and understand even more of those 'Mysteries" therefore we should have less need for gods.

3. A free mind is one that explores all questions and seeks answers without the preconceived notions and divisiveness of the respective religions.

4. Are you saying that religion defines man? Or are you saying that religion is what makes us civilized? CIVILIZED?

Can you argue the point in the face of the Crusades? The bomb strappers screaming the name of Allah? Are you going to argue that they are "fundamentalist" and they don't count? How about the intolerance and divisiveness of religion? The Jewish religion teaches Jews that they are the chosen ones? Are they wrong? Islam says that the Prophets word is the only true word? Are they wrong? Christianity says that Jesus was the son of God and his word is the word of God. Are they wrong?

2.
So, to some extent, we have:
knowledge/being enlightened versus belief/being illusioned

more knowledge means less illusion, means less need for "filling the lacking knowledge with pseudo knowledge", that is to say religion.

Your conclusion (that religion should experience a massive loss of importance or even its extinction) would imply that the above mentioned reason is the only reason that explains the existence of religion.

But since religion is still alive there have to be other reasons to justify its beingness, otherwise the modern existence couldn´t be explained.

So: What keeps religion(s) alive ?


3. So, religion as an apparatus of hindrance, hindrance of progression through the maintenance of "pseudo-knowledge".
Being intellectual and open to progress.


4. Civilization as the "smallest possible denominator of a certain group" therefore religion as a fraction of the apparatus that unites. That is to say, religion as a fraction to define.
This statement shouldnt be seen as an evaluation. Thus "civilizing someone" is, according to this definition, more the process to define/unite a certain group and less the "well-known" process to "free man from barbarity".

Hence, religion unites a group and simultaneously creates diversity of man.
Man(a specific group) emphasizes differences to other groups and tries to exploit the status of apparent unity of his individual group to struggle against another group.


Justifying crusades is therefore not my intention.


Atrocities made in the name of religion illustrate that religion has another, very crucial function. This function is currently again (very obviously) exploited by mankind.

Cmon... why do you disregard so much religion?

Personaly I find religion VERY useful...






















Example,
Gives us good laughs in reality shows:


:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

Spartan I would agree with you in case of dogmatic practise and perspective, which is common among the monotheistic religions. These religions base most of their faith in notion of absolutes (that the world consists only in good and wrong) and solemny believe in the superiority of their faith over all others (all monotheistic religions claim to be the final and defenite message of God) which is eventually the downfall of it.

If you are thought in this context, that the world only consists in good and wrong, think in absolutes and not being able to relativize the idea, object or act to its situation because you think this perspective is superior to all others, then I agree that such faith is actually narrowing the free mind.

But in the end I believe its not the religion which fails, but the person who acts according to the dogmatic teachings and does not think with ratio. The religion can also attribute to the free mind (especially from spiritual/philosophical perspective)

So in the end it is the "appropriate" use of a means. So the knowledge about the use of knowledge.

The individual has to have this real knowledge in order to apply it correctly, so the individual has to be taught. If it isnt, it will fall into the vicious circle of abuse. The abuse of a certain situation, the situation of an improper distribution of knowledge.

Its not religion to be blamed.. Its the people who doesnt have a clue what religions truly says and the ones that use the arrogance of others about religion for their own good to be blamed. Not religion nor God.. History of religion shows that it has been abused to its limits which makes me think religion is the victim of people not the other way around..

Pytheas, i know this has been suggested before but you really need to go back to the kindergarten you came from. The kids there already miss you and the teachers will be worried about you.. This forum is for adults..

Beleg, there is a -correct IMO- saying that goes like: "Humor is by far the most serious affair".

When I see a nun complaining nationwide that the other nuns did not invited her to their sexual orgies, well, it makes my mood and I laugh. :lol:

I think you need a , and share with us a big :D !!!

Remarkably, the attire of the orthodox nun looks lika an iranian chador....off course without the cross..

Religion is not an entity in itself nor is it a physical object. It is the creation oif the human mind and as such, it has the limitations of human kind. That it is abused and twisted to suit those that benefit from it is expected.

In my opinion.......

At one time mankind looked at the trees and marveled. Then he worshipped them. Then he looked at the sun and marveled. Then he worshipped it. Then there was a period of "prophits" and mesiahs. Now some still worships them but there are no longer any new ones. Those too will come to pass.

Religion is a virus of the free mind...

could, considering the observation that it is man-made, be compared to

Cars are the means to decrease your life-time...


Both (are)...

1. man-made
2. include the limitation factor (life - free mind)
3. linked to a problem of misuse (by the individual, by leaders, by groups...)
4. serve needs made by individual subjects to satisfy others needs
5....

and what would be the "enalaktikh lysh"?The alternative Solution...?
The human needed allways to believe somewere...

Yes and that is the point where the first question comes in:

What keeps religion(s) alive ?


Because one aspect was that mankind needed a substitution for lacking knowledge. Since this substitution become more or less obsolete, there have to be other reasons why to believe in something.

Why do we want still to believe if we could know ?

Because we are still dreaming...no ?

we are wishing...we are loving..etc etc

all this above feelings couldnt be specific...without a structur...ala Religion ?

does that mean that religion preserves "humanity", the "soft" part of human kind ?

Is mankind still religious not because he doesnt know but in order to preserve his feelings ?


At least without religion we learned how to love safely...
Although this love is based upon a direct satisfactory nature and less on the intention of most monotheistic religions.


Today, for example, we normally should know what sins really are and why mankind "commits" them.


Is religion therefore, e.g. the apparatus to install an atmosphere of sinless thoughts by still freeing mankind from them ?
Is religion calming mankind in this questions ?

Paradigm....

You have your child or some very beloved...in serjury...were do you pray ? were do you hope for hem...?
Youve been informed that a beloved person...has cancer...were do you pray?
Of corse sometimes our prays bring us nowere...But still...Hope is the power of this world...we are hoping...we are dreaming...and the way for this is religion...all kind of religions
why cant you be religious and free minded?
are there any religions which contempt free thinking ? yes yes i know there are some...lol

paradigm 2

Iam not telling you...Orthodoxy is better because its the "right" way to pray...

Nor do i tell you...to believe in a strickt written way...
But dodnt you have the balance inside you? what makes you selecting right or wrong? dont tell me insticts...
Its Love...Its hope...and this is the 90% of religion...
So you could tell me this is your religion...and i would accept it...
Iam not sticking to any koran or Byble...to be right/balanced/loving my next...etc etc
But to feelings...which have a base inside religion...

If you didnt understood my points...i could better write in greek or german...


Regards my friend

Well said Lord.

On the one hand spirituality is somehow genetic. All people in all areas of the world at all times have worshiped something. I think Spartan also makes a very important point:

But regardless of this, I aslo agree that need to have something to believe in is needed for some. Most monotheistic religions have the same end, the one god, as the main point and the details differ. The only one AFAIK that stands out is the naitive American beliefs that there is one Great Spirit, from which all comes and all goes to, and one must live in hamony with it and its creations (nature, other people), and thats about as complicated as it gets. Give me a while and I'll post the 10 N.A. commandments). Polytheistic religions have much more veriety- from not having absolutes, to worshiping different aspects of nature/human nature (ex. love, war, water, vengance/force, healing).

All of these seem to however have the comminality of love and harmonizing with your surroundings.

So, is religions blinding? well it always has that side and misulse/interpritation by people with agendas. But is it in and of itself blinding? I'd say no, only when its misinterprited. Or I would put it this way: organized religion can be much more blinding than individual spirituality.

A very honest post.

Hope and belief are indeed deeply rooted in simply every religion.



When somebody asks:
Why do you pray/ why do you hope ?
What would you reply him ?

- you hope that "bad" changes into "good" ?
- if you do not necessarily believe in this outcome is then the process of praying/hoping more a means to calm yourself/to free yourself from a certain thought/to simply let you believe that a "superpower" can help you solve a certain problem/situation
---> so is it a pure psychological means to free you from fear or sometimes even responsibility ?

There are lot of religious people which lose their balance and fall into very "dangerous" fatalistic "thought scheme". A scheme which is based upon absolute passivity. And this passivity can indeed lead to a lack of initiative and therefore lead to a deficiency of progress.


But as you said, there is not necessarily a contradiction between being religious (being hopeful in this definition) and having a free mind.
Sometimes these two "entities" can even melt without problems.


You said your decision is a result of your selection process which is based upon love as a important factor ?
- What decisions does this include ?

Good Questions...and because I have some problems going on latly i will answer in a very easy way...cause my sences are very sensitive right now...

so...excamble

You have a friend...no let us say a relevant...he is drug edicted..ok ?
now...you are 2 persons...

the atheist...what do you do?
You supposed to be the balanced guy...who knows alot...and wise...
so i suppose you bring hem to a recovering center...and support hes efforts...right ? But thats it...
The believer...
I bring hem to the center...cause i love this guy...support hem...were ever i can...plus i pray for hes soul...to find peace...hoping that maybe there is this "other" great power...

would i be an atheist..were should i rest my hopes for HEM ? to the clinic ? to the Doc ? They are Humans like me and you...making the same mistakes and sins...and paying the same visit each day to a WC...how should they be holy ?
(this is a saying by an old man i used to know...who allways said..how should i see a priest as a holy man...and kiss hes hand...he is using the same toillete like me each day///...how holy is that..simplistic thinking I know...)

damn internet ....i could write for hours about this theme...i have alot of thoughts abouted...
my personal conclusion though is...Religion is nececary...as an Oasis...in the desert of our every day life...

Of corse not...how can religion solve my fears...? Fear of what..? of the unknown...? of the future ?

The part which is called...your self honor..your self confidence..your self balance...to share and give your Love..your ethic...to solve problems...which are easy to solve for you...and not easy for the person who has this problems...(maybe for some of them...you are the answer to there paryers...did you ever thought abouted?)
Did you ever thought abouted..when you were helping someone without taking something back? without recieving anything ?...
But after some time ...you haid the luck...of finding some great oppurtunity to gain something very important for you...its the so called kyklos of life which i believe...and thats also a part of my religion...and actually...its written in our religion too...
so you see...alot of my personal standards are included in religion...
and that make me to a believer...
and between us my friend...i find it very "schaudernd" what atheists say...that there will be no "other" life..or paradise... :rolleyes:

Regards

"...You are two persons..."

atheist and believer

A: I brought my friend to a health center for drug addicts. I know he is there in the best hands.

B: You mean you believe it.

A: I never could believe. I need validation.

B: What does validation help if your best friend dies ?

A: Does your hope facilitate his healing process ?

B: I believe it does.

A: You cannot prove it. The only reason why you hope, is to calm yourself since you effectively do nothing else than I do.

B: Things happen which neither can be seen, nor be expected.

A: Your hope is nothing more than camouflaged fatalism. We both trust scientific means. If mankind keeped your infinite hope, you wouldnt now be able to enjoy this high standard of health infrastructures.

B: You completely mix up things here. I hope and you do nothing else than me. Religion wasnt a hindrance to human progress it was simply abused for political and economic reasons.

A: Your naivety is indeed great.

B: Have you never believed... ? I believe my friend is going to be healed due to my belief.

A: The doctors do the work.

B: Yes, the visible work. I do the invisible.

A: And what does this invisible work include ?

B: Enumerating my efforts is useless. My friend prayed day and night to find a way out of his misery. I heard his prayers and helped as far as I could.

A: Yes, you brought him here.

B: You do not understand...

In which religion are you using this context for? And passivity of what?

OK here they are:

The 10 Naitive American Commandments:

Remain close to the great spirit

Show great respect for your fellow beings

Give assistance and kindness wherever needed

Be truthful and honest at all times

Do what you know to be right

Look after the well being of body and mind

Treat the earth and all that dwell there on with respect

Take full responcibility for your actions

Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good

Work together for the benifit of mankind

ROFL..EXCACTLY HOW I IMAGINE THIS conversation...between a atheist and a believer...

Ok my last point...

B: It was nice talking to you...But do you realize that if I trough my believe and pray feel stronger...Than I have the energy to do much more...? I through my prays..I make my self stronger to help my "mitmenschen"...whats wrong with that?
Otherwise what else differentses me from the animals?...
I lose a battle... pray...take power through my prays...(which in this case ...dont imagine a pic me on my knees...lol...But a pray/self discussion...self analysis )

A: Yes but you could instead have better information...and maybe that would make you stronger? What i dont see..I DONT BELIEVE ....

B: yes I DONT SEE YOUR BRAIN...BUT I KNOW IT IS THERE no ...? I BELIEVE ITS THERE...no ? I pray that it is there...LOL



Regards

+1 Lord..
another grat post..

Another point of self healing process...Trough praying and self controlling i heard that alot of people...were heald...

and...(unfortune i cant remember the name of a Mexican sientistwhich analysed a method of self healing)

It was like this...

You discover a well...which suppose to have this magical water which can heal you...
so alot of people..took the walk to reach this well..

1 The rich ones....took the plane and the cars to go there...But nothing happenend...
2 Poor people...could not affort to take a plane or a car..they walked...and they walked alot of days and some of them weeks....
so the scientist assumed that the healing/self healing process...started with the expectation...and the prays...(which in this case the praying it self was a method for "aytosygentrosi" (please translate)...

Resume...In some case...the praying it self...is a method of self controll / self validation...self crtisism...etc etc

Regards

Fatalism in this context is the main basis to free yourself from reaction, from responsibility.

You free yourself from your right or at least from your opportunity to declare yourself as responsible, simply by declaring the "superpower" (a god) as the ruling power over your life.

You cannot emancipate yourself from god. Which effectively means nothing else than emancipating yourself from your thoughts/beliefs, that is to say yourself.

The individual abuses religion for not being responsible and the religion abuses the individual by denying any right to respond, causing fatalistic passivity.


Necessary to create this problem is an individual born in a religious environment, in which the process of worshiping is of exceptionally high importance. The worshiper has to believe in a "superpower".


The great American Indians cannot fall in this scheme of fatalism since the center of their maximes are they themselves and they in relation to their community and nature.
Religion in this case opens new responsibilities and doesnt inhibit.


So we have different definitions of religion.

So there are the rich and the poor.

Differences between the rich and the poor:

1. different ways to arrive at the well
2. different ways means also different "degree of concentration", so to say different degrees of belief

So the way is the goal.
From which someone could also conclude that there is no healing process without the change of personal psychology.
That is to say, you strongly believe and therefore you get cured.


This healing process resembles a bit homeopathy. Nobody can prove it but apparently it functions... simply through psychology

Thanks for the clarification 123 :friendship:

Women have also been used as an EXCUSE for all of the above in the same time period. Does that mean that we should reject them? OK, maybe the rest of you so there are more left for me! :lol:

People will use ANY excuse to justify their actions, so don't be surprised if religion is one of them. Other excuses included King, country, ethnic pride, or even... WMD's! If anyone wishes to criticize religion, then do so using the position it supports (in recorded holy texts) and not what some men claim it represents or demands (as if they have a hotline to God).

Regarding religion and God... when someone can scientifically explain to me how the first atom was created out of nothing... I'll become an atheist. When someone answers that question, then I can proceed in asking how life originates from the same matter as coal. I can keep going with the questions that science wishes to ignore.

Lord,

For all intents and purposes, I am an atheist so I can answer some of your questions.

As for morality.......

It's harder to be an atheist then a believer. As an atheist, you have to question yourself on what is right and wrong. What is moral and what is evil. In many ways, you are far truer to yourself then having the ready solution of an organized religion. If a Roman Catholic commits a sin, then all he/she has to do is go to confession, confess, pay penance and walk away. As an atheist, there is no one there to forgive you. You have to be judge and jury and pay the conscious cost. If the argument is that a religious man will be less likely to commit sins, well, I will respond that the jails are full of crosses and "I love Jesus" tattoos. Hitler was a Lutheran. Jeffrey Dahmer was a Christian.

As for love.....

Atheist love and cry too. I cried. I cried a lot when I carried the casket of my mother in law and I cried when I carried the casket of my nephew. Pain, suffering, love and hate is not related to religion or God. It's in the heart and soul of all of us.

As for your example......

If we each carried our friend to the hospital, we would both do the same thing. The difference would be is that I would suffer for his pain and curse at the misery of life, you would suffer his pain and curse God...and them pray to him.

I understand people needing their faith. If it carries them through the day and makes their life better, then it has to be good, actually GREAT. What I have issue is with organizing that faith into rituals, hierarchy and controlling of the population that organized religion represents. When I go to a wedding, I marvel at regimentality of the churches rituals. It looks so contrived and if you understand the psychology behind the rituals, you see that it was designed by man to regulate and control other man. The "head" priest wearing brighter clothes then the other priests or the alter boys. The standing up sitting down ritual which is intended as a Pavlovian condition. The burning of the incense to draw the olfactory sense into the ritual. The colored windows with with the visual message. This is not particular to the Greek Orthodox religion. You see it in EVERY religion.

As for this thread..........

Lately, with power hungry religious authorities trying to self promote and manipulate, they have caused much social distress. In the imams blind reach for political power, they willingly and gleefully demanded hate and bloodshed. The Christian fundamentalist are organizing as power blocks to control political agendas. For all I care, they can rot in hell.......if there is one.

Abolish religion and free peoples minds. Then, we can all have our personal faiths while not having the intolerance and manipulation of organized religion.

First of all sory for using Quotes..I dont have in mind to object any of your believes or opinion...But i would like to answer a bit more specific...


As for morality.......

Why shouldnt a bliever act also like that ?

The problem that occure here is the follow...I can only tell my own opinion...having allways in mind the Orthodox way of believe...which you cant compare to Catholicism..(I object alot of ways in this religion..one...is that there priests CANT married for excamble...lol)

I dont think that I ...said anywere that any "non" religious believer or Atheist cant Cried and feel pain...No doubt

Yes there isnt a true contraverse here...But i want to point out...that maybe because i would believe to God...and prayed for hem...i would have more strenght...and more strenght means more energy...That was my point...

Lol...Idont find any objection...to this ceremony my dear friend...If i would see this ceremony as a .."show" ...What should I say...to any ceremnoy made for kINGS OR PRESIDENTS...also if someone isnt believing he can choose a political marriage..(it is also much cheaper you know...lol)

.


Spartan...Iam a believer...I love Jesus Christ...Maybe I could Love The 12 Gods of the Olymp too...(especially Afrodite) or maybe Buda...But right now in this life i Believe to Jesus..
Nothing is perfect indeed...
But as i wanted to point out...Iam not a funtamentalist nor a fanatic...I gladly let other live too...help them even...maybe love them too...
This positive thinking ...you have to know...
can obtain for some people through Religion...and for some through Atheism...
Dosent matter how...it comes out..
Important is...that it excist...
I would never "kil"l another man..because he believes in another "God" OR to non God....
But i wouldnt either want any non believer telling me...that iam obsolete because I believe... ;)
Another point Spartan...
Are you not afraid that you are right...(because beeing a atheist...you dont believe in any resurection or paradise...nor the Hilisian fields...lol ) You see...If you are right...than it dosent matter/The damn worms will eat us all finally...But if there is something upon our knowledge...than i would want to be in this fields....LOL...
Regards

I think you Lord and Spartan are talking in 2 different levels. I think Lord is talking about religion on individual level while Spartan talks about religion in the institutionalised form.

Because of the danger of enforcing their dogma's on society or seeking political influence, I agree very much with Spartan that the insitutionalised religions are dangerous for a free and democratic soceity.

Regarding three aspects:

- science isnt (yet) able to explain how the first atom came into existence
- we rely heavily on science (we need validation for phenomenons)
- religion explains the creation of the first atom with a, more or less, imagined power which was able to create it


Questions:

1. How shall a certain power be able to create something when nothing exists ? Or: Where does the power come from ?

2. Fundamental question: Why does mankind invent things which cannot be proved ? Simply to install a certain "tidiness" which in fact cannot be validated and therefore is only an imagined "tidiness" ?





Concerning the topic:


Religion as part of human development could, to a certain extent, be seen as a means to give identity. Since different cultures and different religions emerged, great diversity has been set up.
Mankind therefore was divided and created arrogance to other "divisions" but this to the greatest extent only happened since all (major monotheistic religions) claimed to be superior in relation to others.
Consequently superiority for the one is inferiority for the other, so egoism versus egoism, that is to say the basis for wars was installed.

The point that should be emphasized here is that religion in its institutionalized form was abused as a means.

The "solving" conclusions to the dilemma could be:

-as Spartan says, to completely abolish religion

-or to foster dialogue between the cultures can come become reality, so that the process of artifical division leading to hatred among mankind can be reversed

Religion is good as long as you have a clear mind to also accept others opinions. I am a christian but i wouldn't be stopped in reading the coran or the book of tora, and why not adopting some of their sayings by the time i think they are good for me and the way of life i have chosen to do.....

At one point,perhaps the existence of god may be proved scientifically to a point so perhaps to say religion is a substitution of Knowledge is like saying that atheistism is a substitution for unrevealed knowledge.Thats always the problem with knowledge,even if one knows 95% the missing link may be vital.Every truth contains a dangerous lie.A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and all of us,even if we know alot are continiously discovering.

I"ve always felt that religion is at core a great way to discover god but from earliest times was hijacked for politics.Like marketers use somebody people may like as a vehicle to promote their product,polticians used god to promote their politics.

Sometimes I feel that atheists really only get turned off from god by religion.

Personally,I feel religion is good to a point but pan metron.

As they say ,even god variete to many kire lea sons.

the only thing that can stand with out religion is the ATHEISEM beliven to the HUMANITY , the HELLENISM with out the gods...ARISTOTLE SOKRATES ARCHIMEDES where such people..

i thing that HELLENISM dont need a reliogion but the Orthodox church dont hurt us ...like i respond in a other thread here..

paganizm is nice too
a little bit tree nature wind and water . wont hurt any body !! ;)

Yes paganism has got a bad name for no reason other than fear of the unknown.

And no, the church did not hurt us (much), it actualy has helped during the occupation. Clearly for various reasons, we are the exception. But in general, world-wide terms, marketed religion has facked the world up pretty well...