The beauty in religion

[Tink]

Funny isnt it?
People complain about religions starting wars - what I see are people that dont leave them alone to be happy and do their own thing.

When this world starts respecting other people, it will be a happier place

Makes me question why people have to always stick their two bobs worth in when it has nothing to do with them in their lives.. they cant relax knowing someone believes in a religion.

Plenty of threads here already started on Religion, but oh no, they have to come in THIS ONE...

well said MS+T

 

[Sean K]

Funny isnt it?

Plenty of threads here already started on Religion, but oh no, they have to come in THIS ONE...

well said MS+T

LOL

Did any of the pro religion people post in the other threads?

 

[Tink]

Yeah we did : )

Said our bit..

 

[bunyip]

In the interest of supporting the theme of this thread I've been trying to think of something positive or beautiful to do with religion.

Can't say it's been easy but I do have a friend who is devoutly religious.
Somehow we've managed to remain friends over many years, probably because we agree not to discuss religion.

Every Christmas she looks around her neighbourhood, workplace etc for anyone who might not have someone with whom to spend Christmas Day and invites these people to join her and her family. There are often a quite motley collection of people but she makes them all feel welcome and wanted.

So I reckon that's a plus for religion.

And then there's the work the Salvos do. They get down in the gutters if they have to and make no judgements.

Julia

Yes, you have to admire the Salvos for the work they do. Also people like your religious friend who show compassion and kindness to the less fortunate.
But I wonder if their kindness and compassion are motivated by religion?

I know that there's not a religious bone in your body, yet you also have given many years of selfless and unpaid voluntary service towards helping the less fortunate members of your community, and you continue to do so to this day.
Just like your religious friend and the Salvos, you've dealt with some pretty motley people, some of whom have shown no appreciation and have actually abused you for trying to help them.

This begs a number of questions.......
1. Is the kindness of your friend and the Salvos motivated by their religious beliefs?
2. What motivates your kindness?
3. Is it possible that both you and they are just kind and decent people by nature, and religion doesn't come into it?

Whatever the answer, I have great admiration for people like you and others who help people less fortunate than yourselves.

 

[bunyip]

Funny isnt it?
People complain about religions starting wars - what I see are people that dont leave them alone to be happy and do their own thing.

When this world starts respecting other people, it will be a happier place

Makes me question why people have to always stick their two bobs worth in when it has nothing to do with them in their lives.. they cant relax knowing someone believes in a religion.

Plenty of threads here already started on Religion, but oh no, they have to come in THIS ONE...

well said MS+T

I'm more than happy to leave religious people alone to do their own thing - I think most people are. But it should work both ways.
It starts wearing a bit thin when religious people start trying to impose their views on people who aren't religious.
I'm constantly pestered by Jehovah Witnesses knocking on my door, even though I've explained to them, always politely, that I'm not interested in their views and would they please stop calling on me, and would they pass this request on to their church.
We had somebody start that Bible Verse of The Day thread, because he wanted to push his religious views on to this forum.
We have religions constantly trying to expand their horizons, convert non-believers, bring their particular brand of religion to entire countries.
Now we have Islam with their publicly stated objective to make Australia an Islamic state.

Frankly I wish religious people would just leave me alone, in the same way that I leave them alone.

 

[Trevor_S]

Funny isnt it?
People complain about religions starting wars - what I see are people that dont leave them alone to be happy and do their own thing.

When this world starts respecting other people, it will be a happier place

That has to work both ways though. Unfortunately we are awash with legislation and politicians that give pre-eminence to religious beliefs over non-religion. Tony Abott and Steve Fielding to name two that spring to mind locally. Other examples would be Shari Law and it's application to non Muslims in countries that follow it for example .

I have no problem with anyone's religious beliefs, except when they use them to justify legislation that subjugates others.

There is no beauty in religion, good people will do good regardless of their religious beliefs, not because of them.

"Religion" is however the only thing that can make good people do evil things.

 

[gav]

There is no beauty in religion, good people will do good regardless of their religious beliefs, not because of them.

"Religion" is however the only thing that can make good people do evil things.

I'd laugh if I didn't think you were serious...

 

[Tink]

Sad isnt it?

Had so much I was going to write, but not even going to bother..........

They only see what they want to see..

 

[gav]

There is no beauty in religion, good people will do good regardless of their religious beliefs, not because of them.

"Religion" is however the only thing that can make good people do evil things.

This is exactly what I was referring to when I mentioned this earlier...

Exactly. Everyone is quick to jump on blaming religion when it is human beings committing these awful acts. Yet as soon as a religious person does something good (eg. helps others in need), people here are saying it is human beings doing the kind acts and religion is just taking the credit...

Something bad happen = blame religion
Something good happen = its humanity with religion taking the credit

 

[Sean K]

I'd laugh if I didn't think you were serious...

Actually, I think he has a point, to some extent.

However, there are a few reasons why a good person would do something bad.

Revenge.
War.
Um....

But, if religion indoctrinates someones into thinking a certain way, against their 'natural' tendencies, then they might well do 'evil' things because their religion demands it of them.

The Muslim extremist references are valid.
There's many other things that religion enforces on people which are bad acts. How about chopping part of a penis off a baby for a start. wtf!

 

[MS+Tradesim]

So I suppose that a bad person cannot keep their natural tendencies in check through the influence of a religion?

Anyway....

Destiny Rescue is primarily involved in saving children who have been exploited by sex traffickers or who are caught in prostitution via the poverty cycle.

http://www.destinyrescue.org/aus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24&Itemid=38

 

[Sean K]

So I suppose that a bad person cannot keep their natural tendencies in check through the influence of a religion?

Yes, religion absolutely does that and has through the ages. That is one of the reason's for it to have survived imo. As a control mechanism in the absence of more powerful incentives.

Does that make it 'beautiful' though?

 

[gav]

Actually, I think he has a point, to some extent.

However, there are a few reasons why a good person would do something bad.

Revenge.
War.
Um....

But, if religion indoctrinates someones into thinking a certain way, against their 'natural' tendencies, then they might well do 'evil' things because their religion demands it of them.

The Muslim extremist references are valid.
There's many other things that religion enforces on people which are bad acts. How about chopping part of a penis off a baby for a start. wtf!

You can add "money" to that list of reasons why a good person would do something bad...

As for religion making someone do "evil" things because they demand it, what about the flip side - people who'd normally do something bad but do something good because their religion demands it...

I am not a religious person myself however I am not that ignorant that I would dismiss the possibility of a higher spiritual being. It is amazing how people will only see one side (as stated in my earlier posts)

As for the chopping of part of a babies penis, many scientists believe this to be more hygenic and reduces the risk of spreading disease (including the World Health Organisation). However there are many that believe it makes no difference.

This is from the World Health Organisation:

The Population Reference burea (www.prb.org), in conjunction with the
Africa Population and Health Resource Center, has just published the
latest data on HIV in Africa. Africa had a long head start with HIV
before it spread to the rest of the world, and the mature epidemic
there reveals the importance of foreskins, or lack of them, in the
transmission of HIV, (The world HIV rate is 0.8; the African rate
is 4.0). Here are the latest HIV rates by region:

North Africa (virtually all circ)............. ..............0.3
West Africa (mixed circ and uncirc)..................2.5
Central Africa (mixed circ and uncirc)...............2.5
East Africa (mixed circ and uncirc)...................5.8
Southern Arica (mostly uncirc)................... ....18.5

The total African population is 967,000,000, of whom 66 percent live
on less than two dollars a day. Logistical and economic factors make
the regular, lifelong use of condoms by this population impractical.
The World Health Organization therefore recommends circumcision as a
cost-effective, one-time intervention that could drastically reduce
HIV transmission in the affected countries. Of course, circumcision
would be only one of several strategies to combat HIV, but its proven
effectiveness makes it an essential element in the arsenal.

 

[MS+Tradesim]

Does that make it 'beautiful' though?

I don't recall claiming religion was beautiful. Religion is not a uniform monolith. There are many varieties. The thread is about the beauty in religion, and to that end I have been posting among other things, specific examples of people who have taken their beliefs seriously and made/make a difference because of what they believe.

 

[happytown]

...

I am not a religious person myself however I am not that ignorant that I would dismiss the possibility of a higher spiritual being. It is amazing how people will only see one side (as stated in my earlier posts)

...

what of those that dismiss the possibility of there not being a higher spiritual being

cheers

 

[MS+Tradesim]

what of those that dismiss the possibility of there not being a higher spiritual being

cheers

The "not" makes the sentence difficult to understand so I'm going to make the assumption you didn't mean to include it. On that basis...

It would be an example of technical ignorance. The only way to know for sure that there is no higher spiritual being would be to know everything. If one does not know everything there always remains the possibility of a higher spiritual being existing outside of one's knowledge content.

Ps. I just read gav's comment and I now get what you're saying and I agree.

 

[gav]

what of those that dismiss the possibility of there not being a higher spiritual being

cheers

Yes, it goes both ways

 

[bunyip]

So I suppose that a bad person cannot keep their natural tendencies in check through the influence of a religion?

Some can, many of them can't. For example, Catholic priests who molest little kids, despite being devoutly religious themselves.
Nuns who inflicted beatings and other cruelty on kids in orphanages for such 'crimes' such as bed wetting, or crying from loneliness and lack of love.
And I'm not just singling out the Catholic religion here either, there are many other examples from other religions.

And then there are others whose worst natural tendencies are encouraged and promoted by the influence of religion. Islamic suicide bombers for example.

 

[bunyip]

Sad isnt it?

Had so much I was going to write, but not even going to bother..........

They only see what they want to see..

It can work both ways. I could give you hundreds of examples of religious people only seeing and believing what they want to see and believe.

 

[bunyip]

About 13 years ago my wife nursed with a widow who had three young kids under nine years old. She was really struggling financially and emotionally, having recently lost her husband who had no life insurance.
She bought a block of land out of town because she couldn't afford to buy a block in town, put a cheap removal house on it because she couldn't afford to build a new one.
It was an old house in need of repair, paint peeling off, no kitchen worth mentioning, very sub-standard bathroom, no floor coverings. To top things off, the house removalist did a shonky job and had damaged the roof and broken several windows, but was refusing to fix his mistakes. The roof leaked when it rained.
She couldn't afford the repairs, intended doing them bit by bit over several years whenever she had a few dollars available. She couldn't even afford to have the power connected.
She and her family faced a bleak winter in a substandard house with no power.

My wife and I told the folks at church about the plight of this widow. (yes, I went to church back in those days). It was a biggish church congregation made up of people from various occupations......we had plumbers, builders, electricians, farmers, businessmen, and people from various other occupations.
A couple of the blokes who were in trades relating to house building and renovation, visited the widow and checked out her house to see what was needed in the way of materials. A couple of farmers turned up to see what was needed in the way of fencing her block.
Within weeks we had enough materials, all donated from local business, to re-roof her house, re-wire it, renovate the bathroom and kitchen, paint it and generally do all the repairs needed to bring it up to a reasonably comfortable and liveable residence. We also got donations of fencing materials.
Over a three day long weekend, about thirty to forty blokes renovated the house and fenced the block of land, rewired the house and put the power on, spruced up the garden, generally brought things up to scratch so that the widow and her young family could live in reasonable comfort.
The church women kept us plied with sandwiches and tea throughout the day. Someone brought a mobile barbeque and we cooked up a storm after we finished work each day.

I remember the widow standing back and watching us work as tears rolled down her cheeks. After we'd finished and she stood back and surveyed what we'd done she really caved in, cried her eyes out, and of course was profuse in her thanks.

So I guess that's a pretty good example of the goodness (I'm hesitant to use the word 'beauty') in religion. Without that church congregation getting behind that widow, she would have struggled for many years to have a comfortable home for herself and her kids.