Creating a Religion

[TINNY]

Originally posted by: Freethinker

1.Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2.God began to exist.

3.Therefore, God had a cause, i.e. the Universe

 

What are you trying to say? God did not begin to exist, and is not involved in time. Therefore, cause and effect does not apply to God. God 'created cause and effect'.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: rileyj

not my opinion, thatwas in artical. i haven't looked into that so i don't know

So here we find the jest of tinny's entire original post and attempt at reply.

 

He copied ssome article the didn't even read thru, much less understand. one based on antiquated attempts to construction of logic in order to supprt an illogical assertion.

Originally posted by: rileyj

"QM Uncertainty"

 

talked about in artical

See? Wouldn't have expected Tinny to come up with this himself, or even to bother reading and understanding it before he cut and pasted it.

 

If he had read it and understood it he would have seen that yes, the authoer, that may have tried to understand what he wrote, did TRY to address it. And if Tinny had read and undertood both the "artical" he cut and pasted and my reply, he would have seen where I refuted the weak attempt the actual author had made against QM.

Originally posted by: rileyj

"So by pretending that giving a word a defintion proves it is so?"

 

name giving to the cause

Ya and just because someone gave it a name does not mean some entity exists based on the cute name someone gave it!

 

But:

Originally posted by: rileyj

not my opinion, thatwas in artical. i haven't looked into that so i don't know

So we would not expect you to undertand.

 

Tel ya what, read something and understand it before posting it and we'll talk further.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: TINNY

Originally posted by: Freethinker

1.Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2.God began to exist.

3.Therefore, God had a cause, i.e. the Universe

What are you trying to say?

I actually thought you might be able to "get it" without having to have it explained to you.

 

It was to show how easy it is to throw some series of words together and how little value it is in actually proving something.

 

My combinations of words is just as valid and well supported as yours.

 

Prove it isn't.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: TINNY

God did not begin to exist, and is not involved in time.

Easy to type, PROVE it!

God 'created cause and effect'.

WRONG, the Great Invisible Pink Unicorn did.

 

Prove I am wrong.

[Stargazer]

Originally posted by: NoBigDeal

I found it interesting that it can be very easy for a number of people-or maybe just one person, to come up with a religion.

 

 

 

Try and guess which religion this came from

 

 

 

"After you pass, your body is done, your soul shall move to the high heavens, on the tip of the universe, past everything known and unknown, sights seen and unseen, back into another world in which life would start over. Different times and different rules would make up of this new world, in which all deceased have traveled to."

 

 

 

Well, sounds like a religion, no? Well, seeing as how I made it up as I went, and I am only 13, I find it troubling how easy this type of thing can be.

 

 

 

So, I came here to ask people with brains...somewhat like mine, mostly larger, wider, but, what do you think? How easy IS it to create a religion? What religions do you think are made up, or do you think they ALL are?

 

 

 

I'd like to know....

 

 

 

Josh

Indeed it is simple to come up with a religion. You only need a little imagination. To spread the religion as if it is the truth, however, would require some less admirable qualities than a vivid imagination. That is the scary and worrying part; how easy it is to spread religions and make people believe just about anything. I don't see why religion is necessary at all - what has it accomplished that we couldn't have done without fooling ourselves and each other in the process?

 

 

 

Personally I find the concept silly. People who are born in the western world would either become christians of whatever flavour, or agnostic/atheist. If they were born and raised in the Middle East, they would likely become muslims. If they were born in Scandinavia 1500 years ago they'd believe in the Norse gods. It seems strange that something is so true that it's worth fighting for simply on the basis on where you happened to be born.

[Uncle Martin]

Originally posted by: Stargazer

I don't see why religion is necessary at all..... Personally I find the concept silly..

Welcome to Hypography Stargazer,... you are going to fit right in. Your above comments are in line with my thoughts completely.

[Tim_Lou]

"I don't see why religion is necessary at all..... Personally I find the concept silly.."

 

but you never know. what wouldve happened in human's history without religions.

[Tim_Lou]

perhaps its a tendency of us. ive never seen a culture without religions.

[Tormod]

It does depend a bit on how we defined the term "religion". If any set of supersticious beliefs constitutes a religion, then I agree, there is no such thing as culture without religion.

[Stargazer]

I think I read about one culture that did not have a religion... if I find the info again I'll post it here. Anyway, it would still be just one exception. Religion is very common and seems very important to some people. I can somehow understand if people used myths and tales to fill the gaps. I wonder if the first religions were believed as the literal truth or not. Anyway, it's possible that there is something that we would recognize as god-like or posess god-like qualities, an intelligent creator and all that. But without any evidence, we really have nothing. Also, I do realise it's easy for me to say that religions are unnecessary, as science is more important now than ever before. But that is also why I have somewhat greater understanding for religions in the past than now, since we understand more now than ever before. For example it would be just strange to interpret the Genesis as the literal truth, since there is nothing that support that view and plenty that support other views. However, the existence of god (any god) is simply unsupported and not disproved.

[TINNY]

what about the great progress and advancement made by Muslims during their glory era when Europe was going through the Dark Ages? I'm absolutely sure it was Islam that provided the impetus for the progress of the Arabs at that time.

In this issue, I think you can argue for two points:

1) Whether there was progress (I'm sure the Islamic Empire had a huge influence in the renaissance and modern science; therefore there had been progress in comparison with Europeans in the Dark Ages)

2) If yes, what was the main source for the progress (The 'progress' occured immediately after Islam was introduced, and after the Islamic Syariah was slowly abandoned and secularized in the Othmaniyyah period, that was the fall of Islam's glory)

[Tormod]

The "Dark Ages" of Europe is mostly a myth. Here is an interesting account of the term:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages

 

But the way you have written your post it makes a bit difficult to discuss it (in my eyes) - you pose two questions but it would be interesting to see you elaborate on them. The Eastern empire undoubtedly had a lot of influence on Europe.

 

Mostly I am interested in more information about why you attribute the progress to Islam. Since this is (has become) a thread about the position of religion in human culture, it is also important to ask what was before Islam? Which religions did it replace and why did this replacement cause progress?

 

You write about "the fall of Islam's glory". Do you mean that after this there was no progress in Arabic culture?

[Stargazer]

As far as I know, the age starting around 400 and going on for about 900 years wasn't exactly the best time to live in, either. I don't think it's a myth that it was generally a bad time for scientists and philosophers and "witches", etc. There was progress in the Muslim world during the Dark Ages of Europe, but that ended for some reason. That part of the world seem to be in a state of fundamentalism, which is bad. It's never a good idea to have religion and government tied closely to each other. The risk is that dogma and ideology comes before fact and reason.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Stargazer

Indeed it is simple to come up with a religion. You only need a little imagination. To spread the religion as if it is the truth, however, would require some less admirable qualities than a vivid imagination. That is the scary and worrying part;

Hi StarG. Welcome. I think you and I are going to get along just fine! :-)

 

Yes, it would seem that Imagination is an integral part with the foundation of a religion. That along with Ignorance, possibly on the part of the inventor, but definately on the part of the "believer".

 

ANd yes it takes evil intent to promote it from there. The desire to control and force one's desires on others. A power grab.

I don't see why religion is necessary at all - what has it accomplished that we couldn't have done without fooling ourselves and each other in the process?

There were a few interesting articlews on this by Richard Dawkins and others in Free Inquiry Mag.

 

http://www.secularhumanism.org/fi/

 

Unfortunately those specific articles are not avail on line. But Dawkins gives an interesting perspective based on if Religion would provide an Evolutionary/ Survival advantage. And if not, why it would continue. What thought process would promote acceptance/ following of religion and is that harmful or helpful to the continued existence of humans.

 

I think it is easy to see how religious thought developed out of ignorance and early social development. As our species became more evolved, more intellectual, we started to consciously recognize patterns. Pattern Recognition is the most active and powerful part of our brain. The sun "went down" and seemed to always come back up. The seasons changed. Plus there was less repetitive events such as storms, lightning, droughts, .... Add to this certain processs that seemed to have advanatageous results. If we got a cut, putting this plant on it helped, or made it worse. And some plants and or processes made us feel strange in either good or bad ways.

 

In early society, the primary method of gaining power was brute strength. The best warrior became leader by beating the competition. But the guy that seemed to recognize patterns hand a unigue advantage which had benefit to the power leader. The perhaps less strong, perhaps other gendered person could claim divinations, insites, cure illness, make good juju... This could create a cooperative effort between the strong and the wise. Each working to keep the other in power. And the more "mystical" the "wise" would make it the more ritual, the more that person was needed and revered.

 

IT is easy to see how this developed into formal religions. It is also easy to see why religion has a direct path to ignorance (to protect the standing of the religious authority) to aggressive warfare (my god is stronger than your god).

Personally I find the concept silly. People who are born in the western world would either become christians of whatever flavour, or agnostic/atheist. ... It seems strange that something is so true that it's worth fighting for simply on the basis on where you happened to be born.

Interestingly Tom Jefferson had a direct comment on this:

 

"I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism." (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814)

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Tim_Lou

"I don't see why religion is necessary at all..... Personally I find the concept silly.."

 

but you never know. what wouldve happened in human's history without religions.

Yes, how mauch farther along would society be if it had not had to fight religious ignorance and superstitious nonsnese at every turn? The harm to society has been unimaginable!

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Tim_Lou

perhaps its a tendency of us. ive never seen a culture without religions.

 

You have to wonder quite frankly, if it was possible for one before now. As the human mind is based on pattern recognition, there is and always has been a drive to identify patterns. To understand causality. Until Scince identifies more reasoned, better researched and proven causal processes, the gaps were filled with various gods.

 

Early on, everything was handled by it's specific god(ess), love, war, sun, moon, thunder, .... was explained by it's anthropomorthic projection of an entity. As we exposed the ignorance of each of these claims, we filled the gaps with KNOWLEDGE and dropped the gods.

 

Today there are still some that find gaps to stuff their gods into.

 

Education fills the gaps and drops the gods.

 

That is why we find a direct and inversly proportional correlation between the educational level of a person and their tendency to religious belief.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: TINNY

what about the great progress and advancement made by Muslims during their glory era when Europe was going through the Dark Ages?

Interesting. This statement has the unstated assertion that Islam is on the down side of it's value/ era. Agreed!

 

Yes it is interesting how, during the time that Christianity was most aggressively attacking the advancement of knowledge, the Muslem world was embracing knowledge and reason. If it had not been for Islam, many of the great preChristian works would have been lost. Destroyed by intentional and aggressive Christian efforts to suppress knowledge and any philosophy that contradicted it in any way.

 

Now we find somewhat of a reversal. e.g. Saudi Arabia passed a law in 1992 that can issue the death penalty for teaching the earth to not be flat. All based on the Koran and Islam.