Religion is a mental illness
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Curious about something, and maybe this is the wrong thread for the question, but here goes.. I see people on both sides of the religious question basically become elitist die hards in their opinions. Only the atheists have the true logical answers, because if something cannot be empirically proven, it cant be true. Believers in (insert religious affiliation here) tell those atheist's that they have the truth of belief, and the holy words handed down to prove their side, and the others must be wrong. My quetion is this.. do we REALLY want to prove or disprove the existence of GOD? If we were to disprove the existence of ANY of the gods of the worlds religions we would be destroying the cultures and heritages developed over thousands of years. While I know that the history of almost every religion has its dark periods, those religions also have thousands of good and honest souls who have given their life work to furthering their religions message in peaceful ways. Taking something so fundamental to their being away from them doesn't sound very noble to me.... Now suppose we prove that GOD does exist in a fashion which even the most ardent atheist would have to accept. What we are telling that person is that his very life's work and belief system is nothing. that the safe world of logic, predictable physics, and well thought out theory's can be blown away at the whim of an all powerful creator. Again, not a very noble thing to do. Maybe its just better if both sides agree to disagree, have a beer, and use the efforts they put into this argument to solve more pressing issues like ,oh I don't know .. end world hunger?
mnvkng76 wrote:
Only the atheists have the true logical answers, because if something cannot be empirically proven, it cant be true.
That's actually not correct. Only the agnostics have it right, since you really can't prove nor disprove God's existence.
mnvkng76 wrote:
What we are telling that person is that his very life's work and belief system is nothing.
So, you are in the camp that Atheism is a "belief"?
This statement was never false.
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mnvkng76 wrote:
If we were to disprove the existence of ANY of the gods of the worlds religions we would be destroying the cultures and heritages developed over thousands of years.
Happens all the time: where is Zeus now? Or Thor? Yet the Greeks and the Scandinavians appear to be surviving; I mean, hubba-hubba, have you seen some of those Scandinavian women??? Yeehah! (sorry, I'm being a redneck and I've never even been to the Ozarks or wherever they come from).
mnvkng76 wrote:
Now suppose we prove that GOD does exist in a fashion which even the most ardent atheist would have to accept.
So what if god does exist? Would it change my life other than that I've been proved wrong? No, not really. I would still not become a religious adherent since what would be the point? A real god does not need worshipping: what sort of a god requires its ego massaged on that scale Not much of a god, I would have thought.
mnvkng76 wrote:
Maybe its just better if both sides agree to disagree, have a beer, and use the efforts they put into this argument to solve more pressing issues like ,oh I don't know .. end world hunger?
Yeah, right...
digital man wrote:
A real god does not need worshipping: what sort of a god requires its ego massaged on that scale Not much of a god, I would have thought.
I agree with this sentiment. Organized relgion needs to grow up and mature. What I think the point of it though, is not ego massaging, but rather a dedication of focus that leads, or rather guides the direction of the individual. Such that by focusing on the spiritual it allows you to expand your capacity in this regard. Same with prayer. A mechanism to expand spiritual capacity, or dimensional awareness. Also, say for instance that there isn't a God, but that we do indeed have the potential to expand our consciousness to a more cosmic level. Say we could by virtue of our actions and meditations prepare our spirit for continuity outside our physical manifest. Then a concept of God would be useful to prevent individual selfishness, and Godheads from claiming the position in a hierarchical format. Pure theory and conjecture, but a possibility that even as we grow dimensionally, we could use a centralized superior, even if its an aggregate resultant from a collective super conscious, to maintain a balance of freedom with differing levels of attainment by various personalities. Or in otherwords, a safety valve to prevent the equivalent of spiritual dictators. I like watching Stargate SG 1 for this perspective. Where all of our lore is resultant of ascendant human beings and other sentient races throughout the galaxy. Most of mythology is derived from these interactions, mistaken for the one true God. I also like how they treat all of this from a materialist perspective, but don't even deal with the concept of God. Even when extrapolating the truth out to being ascendant humans, and aliens being responsible for religious myth, they still can't effectively deal with confronting the concept of God. And I think this will be true throughout eternity. The concept will always be a concept no matter how advanced we become. For some they'll have an experience which speaks otherwise, but it will always be personal. I should state probably for the record, that I find no value in organized religion. Its a social construct for people who want to share something they think is in common. But in my view, that's it. I think its actually a deterrant.
This statement was never false.
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mnvkng76 wrote:
Only the atheists have the true logical answers, because if something cannot be empirically proven, it cant be true.
That's actually not correct. Only the agnostics have it right, since you really can't prove nor disprove God's existence.
mnvkng76 wrote:
What we are telling that person is that his very life's work and belief system is nothing.
So, you are in the camp that Atheism is a "belief"?
This statement was never false.
this statement
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
Only the atheists have the true logical answers, because if something cannot be empirically proven, it cant be true.
Was meant to be almost tongue in cheek. It was synopsis of atheists viewpoints, which admittedly may be putting it a bit simplistically.
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
So, you are in the camp that Atheism is a "belief"?
Of course its a belief. Even lack of belief in a God is belief in something. In this case the person in question believes there is no God. SO it is a belief.
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digital man wrote:
A real god does not need worshipping: what sort of a god requires its ego massaged on that scale Not much of a god, I would have thought.
I agree with this sentiment. Organized relgion needs to grow up and mature. What I think the point of it though, is not ego massaging, but rather a dedication of focus that leads, or rather guides the direction of the individual. Such that by focusing on the spiritual it allows you to expand your capacity in this regard. Same with prayer. A mechanism to expand spiritual capacity, or dimensional awareness. Also, say for instance that there isn't a God, but that we do indeed have the potential to expand our consciousness to a more cosmic level. Say we could by virtue of our actions and meditations prepare our spirit for continuity outside our physical manifest. Then a concept of God would be useful to prevent individual selfishness, and Godheads from claiming the position in a hierarchical format. Pure theory and conjecture, but a possibility that even as we grow dimensionally, we could use a centralized superior, even if its an aggregate resultant from a collective super conscious, to maintain a balance of freedom with differing levels of attainment by various personalities. Or in otherwords, a safety valve to prevent the equivalent of spiritual dictators. I like watching Stargate SG 1 for this perspective. Where all of our lore is resultant of ascendant human beings and other sentient races throughout the galaxy. Most of mythology is derived from these interactions, mistaken for the one true God. I also like how they treat all of this from a materialist perspective, but don't even deal with the concept of God. Even when extrapolating the truth out to being ascendant humans, and aliens being responsible for religious myth, they still can't effectively deal with confronting the concept of God. And I think this will be true throughout eternity. The concept will always be a concept no matter how advanced we become. For some they'll have an experience which speaks otherwise, but it will always be personal. I should state probably for the record, that I find no value in organized religion. Its a social construct for people who want to share something they think is in common. But in my view, that's it. I think its actually a deterrant.
This statement was never false.
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
A real god does not need worshipping: what sort of a god requires its ego massaged on that scale Not much of a god, I would have thought.
The problem with this statement is two fold. One, not everygod NEEDS to be worshipped. In Many religions, you have the free will to choose whether you worship or not. If you don't follow the path that those religions lay out, there will be consequences. This isn't unreasonable in the fact that humankind sees the need to create laws for itself, as if there were no laws or order, then chaos would ensue. I don't see much difference. If you don't follow the law in your country, you suffer consequences, the same in most religions. It's not Organized religion that needs to grow up so much as the individuals in this world who either think that being "religous" makes them right and so may judge every one, or who think that religion itself is to blame for all the worlds woes, and want to be able to do or say anything they want without consequence. The truth is that on both sides of the fence the individuals, not neccesarily the atheist viewpoint, or the religious viewpoint, than is the problem. People just want to point fingers, say their better than one another and yet never want to takle responsibility for themseleves or others who need thier help. The worlds a messed up place no matter where you live, and we need to wake up and stop this stupidity. Whether or not God exists isn't the question, the question is why are we wasting time with that when we should be working on making ourselves beter people in general? The second problem with that statement is assumes that the writer has knowledge about a how a GOD should act, when the author indicates that he or she doesn't beleive in a god. You cannot judge how a thing or person should act, if you don't acknowledge its existance, or possible existance.