Why Religion?

Sean K · 25 May 2009

I suppose we first need to define what religion is to then ask why it exists, so that probably needs to be established first.

But after that, why does it exist?

Philosophy and science have come up with various answers which is easy to find through a Google, but I'm very interested to hear ASF'ers perspectives.

Of course, it could exist because there is a God, and gods too.

Thoughts?

Once we get a few solid explanations I'll start a poll and we can take a survey.

Garpal Gumnut · 25 May 2009

A good working definition is.

Religion is the opiate of battlers and working families.

gg

Sean K · 25 May 2009

Got this one off Wiki:

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth.

metric · 25 May 2009

throughout history, god was probably the first explination for everything we didnt understand...god being the 'maker of this sh#$t happening'.

i have no doubt that there is power in prayer. whether it be through creative visualisation, or the power of some universal force, ie; celestine prophecy. but whatever the source of that power, men have tried to explain it, harness it, sell it, understand it.

ancient egyptians, celtic druids, mayans, aztecs all created a culture around the belief in a universal power. all used mathematics to try and explain and even harness that power. some believe these cultures COULD harness some of it, and that s how they achieved so much..... secret societies today still practice the beliefs of these ancient cultures.

monotheistic religions have their roots in ancient egypt. many believe the jesus story is simply a representation of the stars, the birth of planets, and the sun. (see zeitgiest)

i believe in a universal power. i believe that we can tap into it. i believe there is secret knowledge regarding that power that only a few know of......

however, all religions are now money making schemes. and religion is used by the powers that be to control much of humanity. regardless of the religion.

metric · 25 May 2009

here is one persons view of christianity.....a google of 'luciferhorus' will expose the author.

In Christianity one of the three gods decided to have one of his fellow dieties incarnated in order that he could be brutally tortured to death at the request of the religious establishment (who placed a reward on him). In Christianity, Trinitarianism is essentially monotheistic (one god) polytheism (many gods); there are three gods but only one god; those seeking to understand polytheistic monotheism are advised to stay away from philosophical analysis and logic.

Having brutally tortured and murdered this Israelite Communist martyr, cultists were later encouraged to engage in ritual cannibalism where gorging on his flesh and blood was considered a sacrament (sacre mentis / sacred mind).

How it is that by practicing similar rites to the Sun cultists (sinners) of Babylon and the ancient world that one becomes free of Sun cultism (belief in the sacrifice of and innocent and ritual cannibalism), is not quite clear to me; however at least the Christians are mostly honest enough to admit that they are 'sinners (i.e., they are evil).

Sean K · 25 May 2009

metric said:
throughout history, god was probably the first explination for everything we didnt understand...god being the 'maker of this sh#$t happening'.

i have no doubt that there is power in prayer. whether it be through creative visualisation, or the power of some universal force, ie; celestine prophecy. but whatever the source of that power, men have tried to explain it, harness it, sell it, understand it.

ancient egyptians, celtic druids, mayans, aztecs all created a culture around the belief in a universal power. all used mathematics to try and explain and even harness that power. some believe these cultures COULD harness some of it, and that s how they achieved so much..... secret societies today still practice the beliefs of these ancient cultures.

monotheistic religions have their roots in ancient egypt. many believe the jesus story is simply a representation of the stars, the birth of planets, and the sun. (see zeitgiest)

i believe in a universal power. i believe that we can tap into it. i believe there is secret knowledge regarding that power that only a few know of......

however, all religions are now money making schemes. and religion is used by the powers that be to control much of humanity. regardless of the religion.

So,

1. An explanation for the unknown.
2. There is a 'universal power' - lets call it God/gods or religion.
3. A control mechanism.

OK summaries metric?

Sith1s · 25 May 2009

This is my religion http://www.venganza.org/

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than trying to convert all the people who come a door knocking.

They get so outraged when i try to explain it to them & makes my day.

Enjoy!

RamonR · 25 May 2009

The are parts of our brain which when stimulated give the experience of being in the presence of another being.

So I say we are hardwired to believe in things greater then us.

Sean K · 25 May 2009

RamonR said:
The are parts of our brain which when stimulated give the experience of being in the presence of another being.

So I say we are hardwired to believe in things greater then us.

Any reason why?

Question is why...

RamonR · 25 May 2009

Believing in evolution the answer is simple.

Because it helps us to survive.

I cannot elaborate much more than this other then to say that it has been proven that people who have faith in some higher power, tend to handle catastrophic events better then others.
( not the actual event but the aftermath )

Sean K · 25 May 2009

RamonR said:
Believing in evolution the answer is simple.

Because it helps us to survive.

I cannot elaborate much more than this other then to say that it has been proven that people who have faith in some higher power, tend to handle catastrophic events better then others.
( not the actual event but the aftermath )

There is a theory that survival mechanisms have resulted in a belief in God/gods and thus religion. It's caught up the flight or fight response. This has been studied a lot recently. It can be explained further.

The second point is a bit different I think. Can you expand?

Temjin · 25 May 2009

kennas said:
There is a theory that survival mechanisms have resulted in a belief in God/gods and thus religion. It's caught up the flight or fight response. This has been studied a lot recently. It can be explained further.

It's quite a valid theory. I have personally see it in my Christian friends in various aspect of their life.

The usual motto,

"Everything will be alright and be taken care of because god is with you" full stop

RamonR said:
I cannot elaborate much more than this other then to say that it has been proven that people who have faith in some higher power, tend to handle catastrophic events better then others.
( not the actual event but the aftermath )

Doesn't this goes back to the survival mechansim as above? If something extremely negative happened to the person, he/she will rely on the comfort that his/her faith in god, along with prayers, will strengthen their will to go through the hardship.

But there is no hard evidences. There are certainly alot of people with no religion can go through the same process but rely on their ownself to go through it. That is, they understand "****s" happen and life is never fair, and it is far better to face the reality and look forward to the future than trying to cling on the past. It's a sign of high self-esteem and confidence.

metric · 25 May 2009

a control mechanism. funny, i was reading this when kennas mentioned it. very much worth the read. it is a 36 page explination of the world of finance supposedly by an elite banker. below is just a small excerpt of how he explains mankind is kept clueless.......i will post some more once this has been digested....

As soon as men abandoned the life of wandering, tribal
hunters to till the soil they needed to predict the seasons.
Such knowledge was required in order to know when to
plant, when to expect floods in fertile valleys, when to expect
rainy seasons, and so on. Months of back breaking work were
wasted by the unavailability of the calendar, a convenience
we take for granted. The men who first studied and grasped
the regularities of sun, moon, and stars that presage the
seasons had a valuable commodity to sell and they milked it
to the fullest at the expense of their credulous fellowmen.
The occult priesthoods of early astronomers and mathemati-
cians such as the designers of Stonehenge, convinced their
subjects that they alone had contact with the gods, and thus,
they alone could assure the return of planting seasons and
weather favorable to bountiful harvests. The staging
(predicting) of solar and lunar eclipses was particularly
effective in awing the community The general success
resulting from following the priesthood's tilling, planting,
nurturing, and harvesting time tables insured the priest-
hood's power. Today's Christmas holiday season continues
the tradition set by ancient priesthoods, who conducted
rituals on the winter solstice to reverse the retreat of the sun
from the sky. Their invariable success was followed by wild
celebrations. Popular knowledge of seasonal regularities was
discouraged by every manner of mysticism and outlandish
ritual imaginable. Failures in prediction were blamed on sins
of the people and used to justify intensified oppression. For
centuries people who had literally no idea of the number of
days between seasons and couldn't count anyway, cheerfully
gave up a portion of their harvests, as well as their most
beautiful daughters, to their "faithful servants" in the priest-
hoods .

metric · 25 May 2009

does all the failed financial commentators ring a bell? all of them, failed to see this 'global economic recession' coming? why? well here is an explination...

The power of our finance capitalist money cult rests on a
similar secret knowledge, primarily in the field of economics.
Our power is weakened by real advances in economic science.
(Fortunately, the public at large and most revolutionaries
remain totally ignorant of economics. However, we estab-
lished money lords have been able to prolong and even
reverse our decline by systematically corrupting economic
science with fallacious and spurious doctrines. Through our
power in the universities, publishing, and mass media we
have been able to reward the sincere, professorial cranks
whose spurious doctrines happen to rationalize in terms of
"common good" the government supported institutions, laws,
and economic measures upon which our money powers
depend. Keynesianism is the highest form of phoney
economics yet developed to our benefit. The highly centraliz-
ed, mixed economy resulting from the policies advocated by
Lord Keynes for promoting "prosperity" has all the
characteristics required to make our rule invulnerable to our
twin nemeses: real private competition in the economic arena
and real democratic process in the political arena.

http://ia351410.us.archive.org/3/it...owertheArcaneSecretsOfPoliticalPower/OTAP.pdf

Sean K · 25 May 2009

metric said:
does all the failed financial commentators ring a bell? all of them, failed to see this 'global economic recession' coming? why? well here is an explination...

This has nothing to do with the topic metric.

metric · 25 May 2009

kennas said:
This has nothing to do with the topic metric.

it is an explination of how secret knowledge, or 'religion' is used against humaniy. the second last post was an example of how secret knowledge 'the calendar' was used against early people, and was considered supernatural by them.....even though it wasnt supernatural....

the last post was how that system is still used by the elite. although kensian economics may not be considered supernatural, the trick is still being used...

you did bring up control mechanisms regarding religion. i explained how one worked in earlier times, and i showd how one is still working....

but i do take your point.....the bow was cracking..

.

dhukka · 25 May 2009

kennas said:
Got this one off Wiki:

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth.

A problem with this definition is that there is an assumption that religion and spirituality go hand in hand. Some of the most religious people demonstrate no understanding of spirituality whatsoever. This extends from the practice of concretizing the narratives and symbols as 'facts', rather than what they were meant to be - metaphors for the transcendent.

What you have with Christianity is the concretizing of the myth of Jesus Christ into a fact, when the story of Jesus Christ and his life is just a vehicle designed to open you up to the transcendent, the truth, god or whatever you want to call it.

Another problem is that myths need to reflect what we know and understand about the world we live in, that obviously includes the science of the day. If they don't do this they lose their relevance. 2000 years ago it was would have been reasonable to assume that some dude lived in the sky and controlled things, we didn't know anything about the sky, the atmosphere or space and what or whom resided there. The idea in the old testament that the earth was only 6000 years old would have been as good a guess as any as we didn't know anything about evolution or dinosaur fossils.

Today we have a much better understanding of these things and thus the old myths have lost there relevance to our lives. The problem I see today is that there is nothing to replace it. We have no new myths to reflect our times and so we lurch from one ideology to the next, ie capitalism, socialism fascism etc.

derty · 25 May 2009

This excerpt from the quote in metric's post sums it up for me:

The men who first studied and grasped the regularities of sun, moon, and stars that presage the seasons had a valuable commodity to sell and they milked it to the fullest at the expense of their credulous fellowmen.
The occult priesthoods of early astronomers and mathematicians such as the designers of Stonehenge, convinced their subjects that they alone had contact with the gods, and thus, they alone could assure the return of planting seasons and weather favorable to bountiful harvests.

I see it arising as a means of power and control where the most successful became established and widespread belief systems.

metric · 25 May 2009

here is a cute yarn.....quite apt actually..

Once upon a time there was a Capitalist who was listening to a revolutionary, known for his popularity with the people, who was crying out against the tyrant oppressors of the poor, against their police and their military and against the racists and against the hypocrites of religion (the priesthood) who defend them. As he listened to the man, he noticed the police came along and dragged the man away to meet his torturers.

The man thought to himself. ‘This is wonderful, this man spoke to the masses and had ideas which many seemed to agree with, but if I behaved like that, the tyrants would have me arrested and tortured as a terrorist, the racists would burn crosses on my lawn and the priests would stone me as a heretic.’

As he walked away the man thought to himself, ‘This man was so popular with the masses that it is a shame to forget about him, after all a successful Capitalist has to have a popular product. I could turn the teachings of that revolutionary into a religion and make it palatable to the tyrants.
I could build a Temple, construct an idol of the prophet, develop a systematic theology, employ a priesthood to perform elaborate rituals in the name of the prophet, and when the victims of tyranny and of the priesthood came to my temple and heard the words of the prophet, they would be so impressed by his wrath at all the evils of the tyrants and the priesthood that I would soon have a large congregation offering me the fruits of their labour. I could even claim that there is only eternal salvation if one worships the prophet as God; I could take over the market and it would impress the rich people and the tyrants, and in time, I could even make the tyrant the honorary head of my temple. I could even take over a government and fight wars in his name and torture and exterminate all who resisted…and I could…..’

Suddenly the Devil appeared to the man and said; ‘What a wonderful idea, I will do everything in my power to assist you.’

sdmartin10 · 25 May 2009

Everyone has a religion it's just a matter of who you believe in. Some people believe in a god, money, family, it's seems most people in this thread believe in themselves. Everyone worships something, and often tries to riducule the other persons God. Pretending to be different to those "religous" people is really just another way to try to elevate your god/belief over theirs.

Why Religion?

Sean K

Moderator

Garpal Gumnut

Ross Island Hotel

Sean K

Moderator

metric

metric

Sean K

Moderator

Sith1s

RamonR

Sean K

Moderator

RamonR

Sean K

Moderator

Temjin

metric

metric

Sean K

Moderator

metric

dhukka

derty

metric

sdmartin10

Similar threads

Why Religion?

Moderator

Ross Island Hotel

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Similar threads

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency