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Why Religion?

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I don't think it necessarily follows that the big bang was an accident. It's entirely plausible/possible that the big bang may be the mechanism by which god (if there is one) may have created everything.
 
Just on evolution, it's important to put the Earth's years into perspective.

Western religion places the Earth at 6000 years old, or something. It seems to be quite a bit more than that from what we now understand.

Billions perhaps.

We need to pause to put that into some perspective.

Perhaps some fantastic things develop over billions of years.

And, AlterEgo, If God was omniscient etc, he would have just popped it out how he did in Genesis, surely. Why wait so long for the cake to bake?

Off topic again....
 
AlterEgo said:
I don't think it necessarily follows that the big bang was an accident. It's entirely plausible/possible that the big bang may be the mechanism by which god (if there is one) may have created everything.
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The universe and life are so staggeringly amazing on their own. The more we learn about it the more amazing it gets. Why the need to complicate it more with the addition of a supernatural figure?

But that I guess is why Kennas started this thread. Was the world just that incomprehensible to folk in the past that they needed to invent/believe in gods for it to have reason?
 

That's what i'm inclined to believe in also. What else i find interesting is the evolution of religion.

We've come from having gods for almost everything (Roman, Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Babalonian gods ect) for death, love, war ect to now a universal 1 God.

I wonder why that is and what made people move away from these "pagan" religions into what is more commonly accepted today.

And more so, what will the religions be in another 2000 years time.
 
Sith1s said:
I wonder why that is and what made people move away from these "pagan" religions into what is more commonly accepted today.
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Good question.

You need to have a general understanding of Mesopotamian cults of theday, but here goes..

(can't remember where I stole this from)

Reasons for monotheism

The first involves the changes in Israel's social structure of the family. At Ugarit, social identity was strongest at the level of the family. Legal documents were often made between the sons of one family and the sons of another. The divine situation followed suit. The divine family was expressive of Ugarit's social structure. The same was true in ancient Israel through most of the monarchy. Hence, the story of Achan in Joshua 8 suggests a picture of the extended family as the major social unit. However, the family lineages went through traumatic changes beginning already in the eighth century with major social stratification, followed by Assyrian incursions. In the seventh and sixth centuries, we begin to see expressions of individual identity (Deuteronomy 26:16; Jeremiah 31:29-30; Ezekiel 18). A culture with a diminished lineage system (deteriorating over a long period from the ninth or eighth century onward), one less embedded in traditional family patrimonies, might be more predisposed both to hold to individual human accountability for behavior (as suggested by the passages just cited) and to see an individual deity accountable for the cosmos (as suggested by monotheistic statements in this period). In short, the rise of the individual as a social unit next to the traditional family unit provided intelligibility to the rise of a single god rather than a divine family.

The second major set of conditions apparent in forming this change involved the rise of the neo-Assyrian and neo-Babylonian empires. As long as Israel was, from its own perspective, on par with the other nations, it made sense to have a religious outlook that saw Israel on par with the other nations, each one with its own patron god. (This is the basic picture described above with Deuteronomy 32:8-9.) The assumption behind this worldview was that each nation was as powerful as its patron god. However, the neo-Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom in ca. 722 altered this religious way of looking at the world, for, if the neo-Assyrian empire were so powerful, so must be its god; and conversely, if Israel could be conquered (and later Judah ca. 586), it would imply that its god in turn is hardly as powerful as Israel had traditionally taught. As a result, new thinking separated the correlation of heavenly power and earthly kingdoms. Even though Assyria and later Babylon were so powerful, the new monotheistic thinking in Israel reasoned that despite its own weakness, its god was not weak. Moreover, just as Israel's fortunes fell, those of Assyria and then Babylon rose; inversely, Israel's monotheists now reasoned that Yahweh stood at the top of divine power, and correspondingly, the gods of Mesopotamia were reckoned to be nothing. As a result, Assyria had not succeeded because of the power of its god; instead, it was Yahweh now directing all the nations. In short, the conditions of human empires provided the model for divine empire; the Assyrian and Babylonian empires pointed now not to their own power and the power of their divine patrons but to Yahweh’s guiding all the events of Israel's life. Their exile was not their shame from the power of other nations and their deities, but rather was seen now as Yahweh's plan to punish and purify the one nation which Yahweh had chosen. Accordingly, the notion arose that the new king who might help redeem Israel might not be a Judean as traditionally thought in older biblical literature (see Psalm 2). Now, even a foreigner such as Cyrus the Persian could serve as the Lord's anointed (Isaiah 44:28, 45:1). One god stood behind all these world-shaking events.
 

Kennas the free will bit always amused me " God must love that set-up for the reasons you stated
Gee he can turn it anytime to watch his favorite horror shows !
 
Sith1s said:
And more so, what will the religions be in another 2000 years time.
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Jedi perhaps? Apparently many people already list themselves as 'Jedi' as their religion on the census. Might be the next major religion. Who know?
 

Well if he exists & knowing what happens on his watch , I don't want anything to do with the sicko .
 
kennas said:
And, AlterEgo, If God was omniscient etc, he would have just popped it out how he did in Genesis, surely. Why wait so long for the cake to bake?
Click to expand...

Perhaps the creator (if there is one) is not omniscient. I should use the term ‘creator’ instead, as the term ‘god’ conjures up other images of an omniscient figure, etc. It’s difficult to believe in an omniscient creator, because if there were he wouldn’t let people suffer and die needlessly, unless he doesn’t care about us, or enjoys watching us suffer of course.
 

If you are genuinely interested in the issue, I would recommend this book as a useful starting point. The authors are Christians but their scholarship is impeccable despite a few quibbles. The footnoting, cross-referencing and interdisciplinary work makes it well worth the read even as a starting point for further research.

Nb. I am not proselytising. It's just a very useful resource based on the sheer breadth of other research it employs - even if your interest is only academic.

The Jesus myth has been broadly rejected by the majority of researchers (religious and secular) working in the field of early Christian studies.

There is plenty of credible research to review. I've spent 10 years on the question so far which is another reason why I'm reluctant to spend much time responding to the wide range of objections on a forum. I'd rather read and compare researchers in the field.
 
Kennas, one you may not have on the list.

My mum and sister went to Kenya to build houses in slums for poor people.
Not with a church, I don't think they are overly religious, if at all.
I hate it when church groups go overseas to build houses, it's almost like they have an agenda even if they are changing someone's lives.

But anyway, all the people they met in the slums in Nairobi, people with the crappest lives they could ever imagine, also had the strongest belief and praise of god of anybody they'd ever met.

So why religion for these people with nothing? I can only imagine "blind hope". I don't think anything else comes into the equation for them.

I feel very lucky that I don't need religion.
 


Derty, Your no different to the rest of the world, everyone is born an Athiest with no belief in God until the adults it trusts, attempt to indoctrinate it with whatever religious cult to which they happen to subscribe. This is a form of child abuse i believe. Kids will believe anything adults tell them , hence why they should ban religious education in schools.

No-one becomes an Atheist. Instead, they un-learn the lies they have been told and revert to a more natural state. Rarely does it affect the way they feel about themselves; it can, however, lead to suspicion of those who have shown themselves to be untrustworthy. Just thought i would clear that up for you , the best we can hope for is the others get better .
 



Trick is, some religions promise great after life if you suffer in the Earthen life, some religions even chuck in virgins if you die for the cause.
 
Happy said:
Trick is, some religions promise great after life if you suffer in the Earthen life, some religions even chuck in virgins if you die for the cause.
Click to expand...

Are "happy" so true just remember the 1st and 2nd commandments of religion , "the more you give the better you live" and the more you pay the better your stay"

So in answer to Kennas question , "why religion" because it's a multi billion dollar business and helps control and keep the population in fear and as some of the "posters" have pointed out , if they were given unequivical proof that there was no god, then they would have to all of a sudden act immoral because the only reason they do good things is because of their christian beliefs.
 
Bobby said:
Well if he exists & knowing what happens on his watch , I don't want anything to do with the sicko .
Click to expand...

So whatever the source of a religion, the head dude, is supposed to be a bouncer, prison warden, policeman or something else ... perhaps a promotion girl at the Formula One, that is good on the eye ?

Whenever a pigeon takes a crap, the head dude should 'move' the crap to the pavement, instead of some poor soul's head ... **** happens ?

Why religion ? Good question ... weakness or the need to hold onto something solid 'which apparently' religion isn't, could be replaced by, why alcoholism ? The latter substance does exist, it is real, and has a hold on many.

Most people agree shakiness of hands, not turning up to work, destroyed relationships ... this is a train wreck waiting to happen , so what is the solution ? We could replace this with another physical substance, perhaps Valium ? Where do we separate the real, from a chemical reaction, and also lies/stupidity/brainwashing .... to finding something that seems to work and makes someone functional and not a harm to others or themselves, perhaps even happy ?
 
I'm thinking if God doesn't have a sense of humour then surely thats why he invented it....
 
Happy said:
Trick is, some religions promise great after life if you suffer in the Earthen life, some religions even chuck in virgins if you die for the cause.
Click to expand...

Why not practicality if it makes you fell better (and with no adverse side effecttts) why not do it?? Is it Occams razorz the simplest solution?
 
**chuckles how people view spirituality**

This is a never ending thread lol
 

Some interesting comments here. I agree that there are few contemporary corroborations of Jesus' existence, however some do exist- Josephus (at least one reference seems to be considered genuine), and then there's the writings of Pliny the Younger and Tacitus (primarily describing the "problem" Christians posed to the Roman way of life). There are several others, including Lucian (admittedly a 2nd century Roman- not exactly contemporary, but neither is he pro-Christian. He talks of Christians as misguided creatures who "worship a man to this day").

But here's a worthwhile point to make- there are no contemporary writings refuting the existence of Jesus, even though the Romans didn't hold back on ridiculing Christians in other ways. As far as I know, the first documents denying Jesus' existence were written in the 17th/18th century, some 1700 years after his lifetime. Had they cropped up in the 1st or 2nd centuries there would be more reason to speculate.

The reason vast amounts of contemporary literature fail to mention Jesus at all is pretty straightforward- Jesus was not a significant figure during his lifetime for the Romans or Greeks etc. Not bothering to write about Jesus is one thing, denying he was real is another. To Pilate, he was simply another criminal that needed to be eliminated because he claimed to be a king.

Lastly, I find it hard to believe that so many early Christians would suffer martydom for a mythical figure.
 
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