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Fear in Terms of Religion - My Thoughts

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by FranklinK, May 1, 2013.

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  1. FranklinK

    FranklinK
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    I would like to speak about fear in terms of religion. The fear of death, of losing everyone around you, failure, rejection, and the unknown just to name a few major fears. We have gained mastery of our environment over the centuries and have eliminated a plethora of fears in the process. The more we discover and learn the less we have to fear.

    I would like for you to take a second to stop and think for a minute about the time before we learned to manipulate our surroundings. Before we gained mastery of time, learned about planets and space, learned that the world is in fact round and just a massive rock with a molten core, before we could calculate and make accurate predictions, before flight and mechanical transportation, before medicine, back to a time when we were brand new.

    Could you imagine just how terrifying the world would be? Every action and decision would lead to life or death, no reason as to why you are here, no explanation of death or what happens to you when you die. We needed something to provide meaning when no scientific or logical explanation could be found and so we created religion to carry us through dark times and to set some sort of order to this land of chaos and anarchy.

    For the sake of this passage I have come up with an extremely basic religion: an earth mother, a sky father, the creatures around us - our brethren, and when we die we become a part of the mother and father to complete the cycle.

    Over time we learned more and more about our environment and began to manipulate our surroundings by creating farms, herding animals for food and clothing, digging wells, using stones to make wheels, etc. Through this progression we became masters of our surroundings. This made us more powerful than our religion. We needed a religion with beings we couldn't surpass. All powerful and all knowing deities that we can't possibly become better than or gain mastery over.

    Over time we created many different religions - Wicca/NeoPaganism, Buddhism, Christianity (which offshoots to Islam, Judaism, Evangelistic, and many other religions), Hinduism, Chinese Traditional Religion, Diasporic, Sikhism, Juche, etc. Every one of these religions offers reasons as to why we are here, what happens when we die, and provides guidelines on how we should live our lives.

    These religions are much more elaborate than what we started out with, but every one of them combats several fears: the unknown, failure, losing everyone around you, rejection, etc. Religion tells us that in order to be free from these fears we need to live life exactly the way the God(s)/Goddess(es) tell us we need to and if we fail to do this we will be rejected, lose everything and everyone around us, etc.

    Religion plays off of our greatest fears and uses them as tools to manipulate us. Granted there are certain lessons in each religion that are beneficial to society; however, should we be threatened with our fears to be good people or should that be inherent? I suppose I find it sad that we can't be good to each other because we want to be. Our kind actions are no longer genuine - they stem from fear, greed, and selfishness. We help the less fortunate so that we can get ahead in our creators' eyes.

    As we move forward as a whole we are putting to rest more and more fears, but for a lot of us there is a new fear - the fear that there is no God(s)/Goddess(es). I think that more people today are truly terrified that their is no real meaning to existing or no real reward in some afterlife.

    I feel that the promise of a reward after death was the biggest dick move ever. No one can say there is and there isn't because no one comes back from the dead to talk about it. The people that die and are resuscitated experience feelings of euphoria and even visions of lights/tunnels; however, that is caused by hallucinations from a lack of oxygen.. not moving on to the 'afterlife'. Why can't our reward be setting up a great life for the upcoming generation, making life easier, discovering cures for AIDs and cancer, creating ecofriendly aircrafts, ships, and trains, etc.?

    Religion was completely necessary centuries ago, but I'd have to say that it is something we no longer need. If anything religion has become a hindrance to progress. Stem cell research is illegal for the most part due to religion, but who is going to tell that 4 year old girl that was caught in a fire that her face will be scarred for the rest of her life because stem cell research goes against 'God's word' when we have the ability to grow and graft new skin for her?

    If you think that is bad we have the Catholic missionaries in Africa who are telling tribes that condom use is against 'God's will' while AIDs is running rampant in the area (which is basically genocide), the terrorists bombing other countries and killing hundreds of thousands in the name of Allah, we can't forget about Hitler and the Jews... I mean the list goes on.

    Religion is capitalized on fear, and the only thing to combat fear is knowledge, religion is a hypothesis of the unknown.. Hypothesis is a term I use lightly, hypotheses can be tested and proven right or wrong. We can't yet prove or disprove religion. Do you see the problem here? So many lives ended or destroyed because of our fear.
     
    #1 FranklinK, May 1, 2013
  2. Alexander69

    Alexander69
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    How can you say god doesn't exist? Who created life? The world? Why are we lucky to be alive? Who created the universe? All living things? If you believe the Big Bang theory..... HOW did it start? What is the universe why is it expanding? What is beyond our universe what is our universe stretching in to? What is out side of our universe? Is it god! Heaven? We don't and will never know. I believe in god but so many questions are left unanswered. I chose to believe in god on faith. But in day the world will end, the sun will die, and so will life on earth. It's unstoppable, will god let that happen? Let all his work his creations his children die? Will he show a sing to help us not kill each other in war, why has he not showed signs to stop us killing each other! I think it is a huge fear that there is nothing after death, but what if there is? And you don't believe and you will not receive, that I the power and love of god? I have asked god pleaded an bagged for his acceptance as I am, I have screamed yelled and cried for him to help to understand me to listen to me, I have bagged pleaded asked for salvation for his love, I said god my heart is not hardened to your love your power, I never ask you of anything I have lived my life honestly and my heart is full of kindness, my soul is pure. I truly believe in god and his love for all his creations.
     
    #2 Alexander69, May 2, 2013
  3. GayAndHappylol

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    Very interesting thread.

    Religion was made to manipulate people with something uknown and major,something scary and big who always find you when you make a sin.
    First of all whats a sin?We all have to think about that term ''Sin''.Who made all these ''laws'' from above and why?To me its because they wanted to control people someohow,with the fear that if they make a sin,they will go to hell,and tortures will happen to them,burning etc.

    My mom believes in relegion,i remember discussing with her about it,i myself am a big fan of sience.I know many things about the creation and stuff,and hearing about uknown powers and that god created the universe are like a fairytale to my ears(Im sorry im not here to offend religious people,its just my point of view).

    Many people are not enjoying their life because of that.Its a very serious problem.


    Thats something i believe.Im an Agnostic.
     
    #3 GayAndHappylol, May 2, 2013
  4. Ridiculous

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    Promise of torture is worse.
     
    #4 Ridiculous, May 2, 2013
  5. Alexander69

    Alexander69
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    How very true!
     
    #5 Alexander69, May 2, 2013
  6. GayAndHappylol

    GayAndHappylol Guest

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    Exactly

    ---------- Post added 2nd May 2013 at 12:51 AM ----------
    Millions and millions of stars like sun or bigger die every day in our universe.
     
    #6 GayAndHappylol, May 2, 2013
  7. Alexander69

    Alexander69
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    Exactly life will end one day here
     
    #7 Alexander69, May 2, 2013
  8. Gaysibling

    Gaysibling
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    I can understand why people dislike the idea of their life ending. Life is so rich and amazing and full of experiences that it is sad to know that it will one day end ( although in some ways knowing it is only finite makes the brief period we have all the richer) . But I never understand why people work themselves up about worrying about 'afterwards'. For each of us there was a vast amount of time prior to our birth when we didn't exist, yet no one seems to have horror or dread of their non-existence prior to being born. I just don't understand how my future non-existence would be any different from my past non-existence.
     
    #8 Gaysibling, May 2, 2013
  9. Hexagon

    Hexagon
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    Life began (on earth, at least), as some chemical reactions, which were not 'created' by anybody. The world (earth) came into existence due to the sun's gravity about 4.5 billion years ago. The world (universe) began with the big bang, which as you say isn't the beginning of the story. There are many theories about what caused it, I like M-theory. It seems unlikely that this universe is the only one, because if it were a natural event, it could have happened more than once, so its likely there are a (possibly) infinite number of other universes out there. The universe is expanding because of a force called dark energy which works in opposition to gravity. There is no physical space beyond our universe, so asking what is beyond it is not a very effective question.

    Yes, this all will end, and there is nothing anything can do about it. God cannot create nor accept, nor love, not turn his back on you, nor do anything else because he doesn't exist, and never has.

    Oh, and I don't mean to offend you, but you did ask. And I'll ask something now.

    If the universe requires a creator or a beginning, then what created the creator? To say that one thing cannot exist without a creator, then saying another thing (the creator) exists without a creator, is completely illogical. How can god be simultaneously just and merciful? How can god be simultaneously immutable and creative? And what about the problem of evil?
     
    #9 Hexagon, May 2, 2013
  10. Alexander69

    Alexander69
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    How can there be nothing beyond ours obviously there is since we are expanding
     
    #10 Alexander69, May 2, 2013
  11. Miz Purple

    Miz Purple
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    i agree 100% with the orginal post, and i dont like that so many people do good things just to get rewards for later, i dont belive in god or religion and i do good things because it makes me feel good and its the right thing to do, not so ill get rewards, i wish more people would do that.
     
    #11 Miz Purple, May 2, 2013
  12. Alexander69

    Alexander69
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    How do you not believe in god? What is the reason?
     
    #12 Alexander69, May 2, 2013
  13. Ridiculous

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    Same reason you don't believe in Vishnu or Zeus or Pan. You don't believe in god either - at least not all of them.
     
    #13 Ridiculous, May 2, 2013
    Last edited: May 2, 2013
  14. Gaysibling

    Gaysibling
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    To be honest, I would have thought the question is actually:

    "How do you believe in god? What is the reason?"

    Let's put it this way, over the last few thousand years humans have believed in more than 2,000 different gods.

    So, do you believe in:

    * all of them ?
    * some of them ?
    * one of them ? ( and , if so, which one? )
    * none of them?

    For the record, I believe in none of them. I have simply never seen any reason to believe in one (or more) .
     
    #14 Gaysibling, May 2, 2013
  15. Miz Purple

    Miz Purple
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    why does it seem to offend you so much that some of us dont believe in god? its just our opinion , i could say the same thing how can you believe in him and all this supposed goodness, but i wont say that becauswe it doesnt bother me that you do its just your opinion and your faith and i respect that, i dont believe someone who loves us would allow all the suffering and killing and destruction to happen to people he suppose to love, maybe there is a god but if there is i dont wanna worship a god that doedsnt give a shit about his people or demandds we do what he says dnying our very selves, why give us free will then be mad at our choices?!?
     
    #15 Miz Purple, May 2, 2013
  16. CptnBeefheart

    CptnBeefheart
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    I have faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster <3
     
    #16 CptnBeefheart, May 2, 2013
  17. Incognito10

    Incognito10
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    All I am going to say is that religion and dogma has truly messed up my life and mental health.
     
    #17 Incognito10, May 2, 2013
  18. GayAndHappylol

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    Guys.First of all religion says that god created us six thousand years old.Science proves that it was billion years!Second look at around,everything has an explanation where it can be analyzed.To me most people use religion to explain some things they cannot.Also fear of death,religion says that body dies but soul remains.People are afraid of death,they use religion to feel elaborated to the life after death because of their need to live and to exist.
    Some people believe in god,other people believe in something else
    So here how it goes : To you there is no Buddha,but for people who believe in Buddha there is no God.Every type of religion has a different story to tell about the creation,some others use myths some other use fairytales and stuff.But science tells you how the world created,analyzing it to you,with arguments.Now the fact that some people are afraid to believe in science because science tells you that when you die,youre just die,is an obvious fear of death.
     
    #18 GayAndHappylol, May 2, 2013
  19. Miz Purple

    Miz Purple
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    i personally dont fear death , just dying alone, i am just happy to live my life here and have love and happiness and frienship and thats it if i live a good life who cares if there isnt an afterlife.
     
    #19 Miz Purple, May 2, 2013
  20. Fiddledeedee

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    That just means that there's more universe. It doesn't mean there's anything supernatural.

    Why I am an atheist: I have not seen good evidence for any gods, so I do not believe in any.

    How I became an atheist: Well, I used to be strongly Christian -- I was raised in a Christian household going to church once a week or more, I got saved and baptised at the age of 10, I really really did believe in God and the Bible and everything, I had many other "encounters with Jesus", I absolutely loved Bible camps....

    However, I didn't go to church for some months because I was (and am) unwell. Without that constant reinforcement of my faith, I slowly stopped believing in God, without even noticing. When I realised that, I was scared, because Christianity was all I had ever known, but I did some thinking and some talking (with Christians and non-Christians) and some research, and learned that my experiences had natural explanations, no creator was needed for the universe, and Christianity did not have a monopoly on happiness.

    Christianity was the most beautiful thing in the world whilst I was in it, but when I thought of thinking of beginning to get out, it became horrible. I decided that I didn't want to believe in God again.

    Does that make sense? I'm happy to answer questions as best I can, though this thread may not be the place.

    His Noodliness is great indeed.

    (*hug*)
     
    #20 Fiddledeedee, May 2, 2013
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