A Rant on Religions, Mythology, Christianity, & God
By Alan D Griffin
Organized religion is the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the ideas of intelligent men, women and Ideas of happiness and peace in life. Most religions consist of the same basic idea of morals and values that mankind believes they should live by. Notice I use the word idea and not belief because ideas are the thing all religions have in common and beliefs are the details and fables that separate people from each other and the basic idea that could help us live in peace .I believe that most religions started from the same source, which was a goddess culture. This goddess came into mythological existence about 10,000 B.C. in a village called Catal Huyuk in Anatolia ,Turkey. There is evidence of this goddess in southwest Asia, Asia Minor, and southwest Europe, middle America, Mexico, and Peru.
The cultural evidence of this goddess also spans thru time from as early as 10,000 B.C. to about 100 A.D. The goddess culture started to change into a god culture slowly after Semites from Syro-arabian and the Indo-Europeans began to conquer this region of Turkey and had a different set of values and believed that women were somewhat subservient to man. The goddess became the god and the myth began to change to their intent and beliefs. Some of these common beliefs reveal some version of thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal, do unto others as you would have them do to you, honor thy mother and father, and these are just a few. The reason you see these same type of moral rules is that these are the type of behavior that is detrimental to a cohesive society. It is impossible to hold a society together if the people can freely steal from each other or kill each other without consequences. This is not evidence for a common morality but common sense. The problem is people have fought wars and killed each other to defend the idea that you shall not kill. People judge each other to defend the idea that we should not judge. We build temples to worship the beliefs that tell us that the temple is not made of brick and wood but lies within ourselves. Religious men especially in Christianity ask us for donations and then tell us it is better to give than to receive. I think we have lost the ideas in worrying about the belief. Therefore we become an abomination to the very ideas we believe in.
I think religion is outdated. It did serve a purpose in its own time to teach people the differences between right and wrong and for governments to use as scare tactics to make people obey the laws of the land. We have evolved and our societies have evolved to a point that we should not need to believe in a religion but in yourself to make the decision to choose what is right in your own life.
God is just a word to describe things that science and philosophy has yet to give us the answers to or things that escape our language. God is also there to scare us into doing what our ancestors believed were the right kind of behavior needed for survival of our species or specific cultural groups. So should we follow these beliefs even if it feels wrong at our deepest instincts? I believe that what is right is what feels right in our gut. We should not deny our instincts. There is a feeling that comes over you when you know that you are doing something wrong or right based on our own subjective morality. This should be the basis for our decision making not stories that have survived throughout the centuries. We should do what we know we should do to be happy. If we do not act on this knowledge for fear that an imaginary father figure, mother figure, or other personified deity will punish us and put us on an eternal "time out" will only lead you to heartache and regret.
According to Abrahamic religions God gave us free will, which I don't believe an all- powerful, all-knowing God would have given us if he did not intend for us to use this tremendous gift to stand up for the ideas that make us who we are.
By the way God cannot be all-powerful. God may have power beyond our imagination, but everything has limits even God. God did not give us free will, it is the birthright of every living thing and
no outside force can control it not even God. The next question I will ask is considered an ad hoc fallacy But I believe that the fact I am using this argument in terms of an all -powerful all -knowing deity I believe the term fallacy does not apply in this instance. If you believe the fallacy does apply then the point I am trying to make is also proven. The question I pose is a commonly known question and is as follows: Can God create a rock he cannot move? If you say yes than God cannot move the rock, therefore he is not all-powerful. If you say no than he cannot create a rock he cannot move, therefore he is not all-powerful. Therefore nothing is all-powerful, everything has limits, but
where those limits lie is up to us and yet to be seen. The key to peace on earth is not to make everyone think the same or believe the same way, but to respect the ideas that make them who they are. I think this is the same idea as the biblical saying " judge not and ye shall not judged" another basic cultural moral we chose not to live by.
I believe the reason the bible is a constant best seller and so widely read is that for every moral sticking point there is a moral counter point written in the same book. So if in your reading of the bible you find something disagreeable read on and you will find the ideals you are looking for. So in this way everyone will find something they agree with and something they disagree with. This would account for the many religious groups who worship parts of the bible. Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Mormons, Catholics, Church of Christ, Jews, Muslims and many other religious groups who all believe certain parts of the same book. If it is not contradictory, why is there such a division in these biblical scholars?
I think the bible is more a work of literary social commentary from many different writers from many different times than the undisputed word of God. Most if not all of the stories and fables in the bible were taken from older stories and religions. The story of the first important Semitic emperor Sargon which was born of a humble mother in upper reaches of the Tigris. " She put him in a basket of rushes, which had been made watertight by pitch, and confided him to the waters of the river. He floated down the river and was pulled out of the river by a gardener of the royal estate. The goddess loved him and so he advanced in rank and presently became ruler himself." (Campbell 65-66) This is the same way the story of Moses begins yet this story is almost 2,000 years older than the story of Moses. Next there is the story of Hammurabi of Babylon. "Hammurabi received the laws from the god Shamash, the sun god. As Moses received the laws from Yahweh, so
Hammurabi received the laws from Shamash. Urnamu, the lord of the city of Ur, from which Abraham is supposed to have departed, also received the laws from the sun god. And when law comes from that kind of backing, it can't be fooled around with. The law was, of course, invented by Hammurabi but attributed to God. And we can say the same for Moses." (Campbell 69-71) The epic of Gilgamesh is almost word for word the story of Noah yet it predates the story of Noah. The idea of the half man/ half God savior is an ancient and widespread hero myth. The Greek and Roman mythologies are full of stories of children with extraordinary abilities that are born from a mortal woman and one of their gods. These stories are the basis of the stories of Jesus of Nazareth. Who I believe actually lived but was mythologized by adding attributes from ancient hero myths, other Jews around the first century that made messianic claims, and details added by the apostles and there direct disciples. I believe the story of Samson is an adaptation of the stories of Hercules which in turn is an adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Almost every fable in the bible can be traced back to predate itself in this way.
You should have faith in your own experiences not what is taught to
you. Evolution reflects my experiences more than creationism. In evolution everything was developed over a slow tedious process that took billions of years. In creationism God said it and then it was, this took seven days. Everything I have experienced reflects a slow process of hard work that will pay off over time and nothing that I have just wished for has just revealed itself to
me. Which one reflects your experiences? If it is the latter, please tell me your secrets.
The Father, the son, and the Holy Spirit are the biblical labels for the trinity which is the thought that there is one God embodied in three distinct personas. I believe this is a parable to describe the belief that our being is divided into compartments of mind, body, and soul. The Father represents the mind which is the part of us which makes decisions based on long and short term consequences and rewards. The son represents the body which is how we bring our decisions to reality by our physical actions. The Holy Spirit represents our soul or as I like to look at it our personality or who we actually are.
What I mean is the way other people perceive you and the way you perceive yourself. Your personality is just the culmination of all your life’s decisions and experiences which leaves you at your current perception of the world then, you portray those perceptions to others and they make a decision about you based on your perceptions of the world. In Conclusion, the mind AKA “The Father” makes the rules and determines rewards and consequences. The body AKA “The Son” puts the rewards and consequences into action. The personality AKA “ The Holy Spirit” is the way we perceive the mind and the body. Christians divided the god which they created which is the personification of ourselves into three distinct personas to better understand who we are and how to better these three compartments of being.
I believe the Idea of God comes from our subconscious mind and what lies between the subconscious and the conscious mind. The concept of God or gods act as a place holder, just as
the letter X does in algebra. Just like in algebra the X only remains an X until a more suitable answer can be found and the same can be said about the term God. God as X is the part of the brain we have not yet learned to use. In the beginning there was only the mind. God was only created by our own belief in him. God is not an overseer; he is combined into everything existing in the
universe. God changes as we change. God does not judge people we are left to judge ourselves at the end of our own lives. There is no sin if you do something totally because of your own beliefs and not from outside influences. God is only as cruel or kind as each individual thinks him to be. God is the complete balance of good and evil that each of us struggles with every day. God is every thought in every head of every creature spoken and not spoken written and not written seen and unseen since the beginning of our existence. We are all God and he is the personification of ourselves, we created him in our own image, not the other way around. Believe in yourself and the power of thought and emotion and everything else will believe in you to. God is quantum
theory, the observer. God is the possibility of limitless possibilities. Your thoughts should influence reality more than reality should not influence your thoughts.
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Interesting point you make about the ancient goddess of Catal Huyuk, Turkey.
It sounded like you were saying that, at the core of religious belief, are quality human values. I think in this case that you're trying to determine when it all went wrong, so to speak, or to find the 'ground zero' - the point at which perusing good values became bad behavior - and you think the goddess is it. With good reason too, probably.
You then follow-up with a list of the churches great ironies. Eg. The expense that religious administration demands, and takes for itself, in the name of charity. Ironies everywhere.
Less ironic, though, if you consider the actual function of the church; consider that churches are not resultant of an actual value of 'charity'. Rather, churches cater to those with living with the guilt, and shame, of living outside their values.
For example, 'charity' is not an actual value, in and of itself. 'Charity' is meaningless, without a specific 'charitable' act. People who value people enough to feed others at their own expense, are fulfilling their value of human life - not because 'charity'. Charity is a useful concept when you consider yourself to be distinctly lacking in a value for/of humanity, and need to define behaviors of people who seem to value humans. Enter 'charity'. People who actually value people simply act on it.
So, in summary: People feel guilt about their harmful, hate-filled behavior, and want relief. Some enterprising individual suggests that their shame can be mitigated externally (instead of self-confrontation, and ACTUAL behavior change), with money, buildings, time, etc. and voilà! The church is born.
There really is no irony in the fact that the religious gather to talk, fawn, worry, and agonise - once a week - over how they treat humanity, and on the balance, really do very little. Because that is the purpose of the church; the church offers escape.
"Opiate of the masses", or something like that.
Just one random comment on churches and charity: I can not and will not deny that good things have come from religion, and those in my community do try and help. Frankly I think they should just drop baseless ideals of religion, quite spending MILLIONS on the construction of churches, and I don't know... Maybe use that money for something good? No? Ok.
I think I know how people reading my posts feel like now...
The notion of a god, held by any single individual, will be a different notion held by any other person. It can only be a relative imagining because nothing empirical is available for all to reference. From the time of my earliest memory of being told about a god I could not understand how it was held in common acceptance when no evidence for one stood proud and undeniable. People rallied in support of it with what became more and more confusing to me as I got older: blind faith. The fact that one is given a name and certain ceremonial notoriety within a culture, or embraces a greater poly-cultural population, cannot dismiss the unresolved and problematic lack of self-evidence. It proved to be, and remains, a weapon unto itself.
There is a separate god for each person who espouses a belief in one. It can only be that way. And, even though a common cry will go up supporting a notion of a single god, the truth is no one can describe his or her god from a commonly held frame of reference. That's because there isn't one. There are only personal, intimate gods lurking in each person's psyche compelling them to believe and dismiss the innate human curiosity for exposing the truth. I think that is what also compelled certain people with a token amount of courage to seek another course we now know as atheism.
@ Alan D Griffin
“This goddess came into mythological existence about 10,000 B.C. in a village called Catal Huyuk in Anatolia ,Turkey.”
First and foremost: she was not a goddess. She was the Mothers of gods (as Mary is today) and she is present in the archaeological records since 40k years ago.
You do not seem to have a research made on the subject, so here is one for you:
https://www.academia.edu/7022266/Mother_of_gods
Dimitrios, I skimmed your work briefly, yet I failed to see the point. You compiled a timeline of fertility statues, then half way through, you speculate on the purpose of god mothers - or womb women - in Egyptian hieroglyphys; what's the link between them?
Anyway, just to prove you're sincere, you should at least disclose that views of your own academia link does add legitimacy to your work; your link benefits you directly.
On the statues: i think "fertility statues" could actually be ancient porn, and are probably representative of misogyny in the ancient world - and the basis of modern misogyny.
@Mitch
“Dimitrios, I skimmed your work briefly, yet I failed to see the point.”
Thank you!
Skimming over, however, is not enough. You have to read it properly so that you may use all the information presented there and arrive at your own conclusions.
“You compiled a timeline of fertility statues, then half way through, you speculate on the purpose of god mothers - or womb women - in Egyptian hieroglyphys; what's the link between them?”
First of all they are not fertility statues. The women did not care about fertility, they cared about conceiving and giving birth to the correct child (so that the fathering gods will not kill it). As to the link you are referring, all the stories about gods revolve around the Mother of gods, the Mother-wombs or “Wild Cows” as they are called in most of the cultures of the Old World.
“Anyway, just to prove you're sincere, you should at least disclose that views of your own academia link does add legitimacy to your work; your link benefits you directly.”
Sorry but I do not understand what you mean above. What legitimacy to my work you are talking about?
“On the statues: i think "fertility statues" could actually be ancient porn, and are probably representative of misogyny in the ancient world - and the basis of modern misogyny.”
You may not propose a theory based on “coulds” and “probablies”. :-)
I propose a theory solidly based on archaeological and textual evidence and, furthermore, there are other articles, on relevant material, that support the line of thought suggested.
I continue to try to understand the origin of theistic beliefs, and why such beliefs are so pervasive in the history of humankind. An excellent book about this is "The Believing Brain" by Michael Shermer. Recently I've become interested in Freud and his explanations. A concept that has been on my mind lately is "the trauma of consciousness". The following excerpts sum up the point quite well I think:
“Finally, a creature evolved with a brain sufficient to be self-aware, self-conscious, and to have the capacity for self-transcendence. The shock of mortality and meaningless entered history at that moment. Now the world possessed a creature who could anticipate dying, who could understand disaster, and who could view its destiny to be nothing more than decay. This was a traumatic realization and with it, definable human existence was born.”
“Religion was the coping mechanism, the human response to the trauma of self-consciousness and it was designed above all else to keep hysteria under control and to manage for these self-conscious creatures the shock of existence.”
“The first tenet in all human religion was that the powers that threatened human beings were assumed to be personal. Sun, heat, cold, wind, water and storms were defined as the manifestations of supernatural beings. If this were so then human beings were not victims of blind impersonal force unresponsive to their needs. As manifestations of the personal deity, these powers could be related to and controlled in the same way that human beings had always been able to deal with those who possessed authority. These powerful divine figures could also be placated, bargained with, flattered, or appeased. Frail and frightened human beings thus could ingratiate themselves with these external powers so that instead of being victimized by them, they could move the deity to protect or spare them instead. So it was that natural disasters were routinely interpreted to be the angry expressions of the supernatural beings or being who lived beyond this world. Those natural forces all emerged from the sky, where God was presumed to live. Therefore, they must have been designed by this deity to reward, punish, or warn according to what humans deserved. Keeping the laws of God, which were understood not as the creation of society but as the revealed will of the deity, then became of paramount importance. It was the way to keep the deity satisfied. Worshiping properly and faithfully also became the first line of defense against possible human disaster. It was a powerful system, against which few people chose to rebel. The one who had broken the rule, therefore had to be quick to confess it, to promise amends, and even to offer sacrifices if necessary to make up for the offense. If he did not, the whole people might perish.”
I haven't read this book. But it is remarkably close to my own conclusions over 10-15 years ago. Although this was much more complete and much more eloquently put then I would be able to express.
I'll have to get this book.
"I continue to try to understand the origin of theistic beliefs, and why such beliefs are so pervasive in the history of humankind."
I think that human history goes way back and it is arrogant to assume anything about human psych at that time.
The book you seem to be quoting from promotes the idea of "fear and needs" to be the main factor in creation of a supernatural being in control. This is different then Theism.
The truth is different from that.
The truth is that the concept of a Theistic god comes much much later in history. That concept applies only for the other pagan gods which were not theistic in nature.
The theistic concept started to arise from the Jews after the Babylonian exile from their promised land.
They were the ones to invent an invisible god in the sky that cares about his people and that he would send a messiah to save them.(before god was on earth but could go in the sky)
This god was not yet omnipotent and omniscient but you start to see the first hints of loving/just/fear of god.
Then the Romans(the most powerful military force ever existed at the time) when they were at war with the Jews experienced first hand the full power of this type of religion, it defeated the roman empire militarily in 66 AD and established a nation state right in the middle of the roman empire in the province called Palestine(Israel+ Iraq of today).
The Romans were so successful because they copied the good achievements of other civilizations and improved upon them.
It is no wonder that they saw the power of Mind Control as a good thing to copy since it was very successful against them.
Jews fought with few weapons and training but just sheer suicidal attacks that gave them victory since they were greater in numbers. The concept of you either kill your enemy or die trying boosted by faith.
The Jews were spreading propaganda against the Romans with the slaves of other provinces. They were trying to turn the slaves/peasants to rebel against their masters, while the Romans were doing just the same but with more money.
What were the Romans spreading as propaganda?
-Give to Cesar what is of Cesar, give to god what is of god (pay your taxes)
-Love your enemy (to the slaves, the Romans are the enemies)
-Peace (do not go to war including Rome)
-Jews are not to be trusted, they can't even recognize their own messiah.
-Forgive every time (even if Romans steal, kill your family, sell you into slavery)
-Slaves obey your masters no matter what, especially your Christian masters (masters= Romans= Christians)
Sound familiar?
The main theistic concepts come only from the rise of Christianity at the rise of a new roman testament, the Flavian dynasty AD 69 and AD 96
The gospels were written after the this propaganda campaign, after the Jews were crushed to make sure no revolts would occur and peace is maintained. After 70 AD after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.
Hard to find a working link for this video but it is nice to know the true origins of Christianity(theism):
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/174117/Caesars_Messiah__The_Roma...
@Conor
The following passage…
Quote
“The first tenet in all human religion was that the powers that threatened human beings were assumed to be personal. Sun, heat, cold, wind, water and storms were defined as the manifestations of supernatural beings. If this were so then human beings were not victims of blind impersonal force unresponsive to their needs. As manifestations of the personal deity, these powers could be related to and controlled in the same way that human beings had always been able to deal with those who possessed authority. These powerful divine figures could also be placated, bargained with, flattered, or appeased. Frail and frightened human beings thus could ingratiate themselves with these external powers so that instead of being victimized by them, they could move the deity to protect or spare them instead. So it was that natural disasters were routinely interpreted to be the angry expressions of the supernatural beings or being who lived beyond this world. Those natural forces all emerged from the sky, where God was presumed to live. Therefore, they must have been designed by this deity to reward, punish, or warn according to what humans deserved. Keeping the laws of God, which were understood not as the creation of society but as the revealed will of the deity, then became of paramount importance. It was the way to keep the deity satisfied. Worshiping properly and faithfully also became the first line of defense against possible human disaster. It was a powerful system, against which few people chose to rebel. The one who had broken the rule, therefore had to be quick to confess it, to promise amends, and even to offer sacrifices if necessary to make up for the offense. If he did not, the whole people might perish.”
Unquote
…was written by an idiot for the simple reason that he should have known that any claim and any theory proposed should be supported by evidence and not just the ignorant assumptions of the proponent.
Religion has its own history and whoever attempts to understand, criticize and analyze religion should take the trouble to study the history of religion.
Unfortunately, as academy prefers to keep scholars and laymen ignorant in religious matters, ignoramuses, as the author of the above passage, make an impression on their readers.
I think the quote is a comment on human tendency to anthropomorphise the world around them. This is a common strategy for humans to partially fill an emotional need, and is common among pet owners, for example. (Wedding ceremonies for dogs, or suggesting their dog loves them, or it's more human than humans, etc.)
You're right of course in suggesting that citation to real research would improve the text. But then, it is only one page of the book - credible sources could be cited elsewhere.
What is missing in the equation? How would understanding religious history change the way we understand human behavior, and the way we understand religion itself? Is there anything you would add?
@Mitch
“I think the quote is a comment on human tendency to anthropomorphise the world around them.”
Correct! Only he wrote: “Sun, heat, cold, wind, water and storms were defined as the manifestations of supernatural beings”, which is a filthy lie (actually it is the nonsense of an ignoramus) because once the gods were transformed into heavenly beings, the power to command natural phenomena had been endowed to them by the theologians. Common people were never that stupid to believe that one of them was up there in the clouds sending down rain and lightning.
All these supposed authors they regard themselves to be the intelligent modern human and the ancients to be the idiots who anthropomorphized the powers of nature; without taking into account the fact that common people had better things to do fighting for survival than philosophizing about why white clouds were dry while black clouds were wet.
@Mitch
“What is missing in the equation? How would understanding religious history change the way we understand human behavior, and the way we understand religion itself? Is there anything you would add?”
I would add that the history of religion is the unknown pre-history of humanity.
Please read the following carefully:
We learn, from royal instructions and decrees of the Old Kingdom period of the Egyptian civilization, that during late third millennium BCE the Egyptian rulers were operating human breeding grounds where so much fresh citizens as slaves were produced.
The women used were abducted foreign women, not of the appearance of the Egyptian lords who were mating with them. The male hybrid offspring were then examined (judged) at a certain age and those not in the image of the fathering lords were exterminated. The female half-breeds remained in the grounds to do what their mothers had been doing.
While these conditions prevailed in real life, the priesthood had the whole set transferred to an imaginary life after death where people were judged dead but continued to act as they did in real life after their judgment: working, eating and having sex. In this way the concepts of soul, immortality and Otherworld were created and were then spread to the West through the ancient Greek philosophers who went to study theology in Egypt.
Egyptologists mistranslate the mortuary literature of the Egyptians but they do their best in modifying texts when it comes to translating the official documents which constitute evidence of the existence of the human breeding grounds. A king, for example, left written instructions for his son and successor on how to treat the judging magistrates (whom he regarded too strict, killing more hybrid youths than they should) and an Egyptologist, from the Heidelberg University, informs his readers that the king was instructing his son to supervise the work of the “divine committee that passes judgment on the deceased”.
Apart from the texts there is archaeological evidence too: an ancient Egyptian village of the fifth millennium different from the other villages of the area (sedentary but with soil no good for cultivation and with no sign of any social ranking) where hundreds of graves of only women and children were found.
The main, and essentially the only, theme of the Egyptian mortuary literature (Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead) is the judgment of the men by the gods. It becomes obvious to the reader of the texts that the ancient Egyptians suffered from some sort of compulsive preoccupation with the judgment and that the judgment idea was as old as the idea of the existence of the gods (Horus was accused of impurity and had to be judged in order for his “divine” identity to be reestablished).
The various topics of the story of the gods, as it is found in all the other Near Eastern texts (cuneiform tablets), fits perfectly to a scenario based on the human breeding grounds (the fathering lords are called “Wild Bulls”, the mothers “Wild Cows” and the creation of humans was realized by a number of women called “Mother-wombs”).
From the Egyptian texts we also learn that the rapist lords became heavenly gods when it was said that they climbed a ladder each and went to live in the sky (ejected from the land by their rebellious slaves). The “ascension” of the gods to the sky is dated roughly at 15,000 years ago because that is also approximately the age of the Egyptian priesthood and the age of the oldest “temple” known (Gobekli Tepe); plus the fact that the North American Indians, who lived isolated by approximately the same time, knew of the “existence” of heavenly beings.
We are therefore to conclude that the social system of the human breeding grounds had been operating for an unbelievably long period of time and that the same was the base and the origin of religion and of the stories of the creation of humans (which theologians later expanded to include the creation of the universe).
Dawkins’ theory (actually Thomson’s theory) about the origins of religion (that we are psychologically primed for religion) is entirely wrong but only due to the conduct of the Egyptologists. If the scholars in the various fields of knowledge were aware of the inhuman social system of the ancient Near East, most probably our knowledge of the origins of religion would have been more accurate and complete long time ago.
Once the existence of the human breeding grounds with the accompanying judgment site and execution ground is confirmed officially, the myths and legends will automatically be proven to be faded reports of actual events and all the theological concepts will be shown for what they are: a great hoax taken seriously.
Just a clarification: The book quotations were not from Shermer's book, but another book that was discussing Freud. However I still highly recommend Shermer's book. It's interesting how he argues that belief had an evolutionary advantage.
I see.
Do you happen to know the book those quotes are from?
I don't know which book is being quoted from, but it sounds like the author is talking about "Die Zukunft einer Illusion", though "Civilization and its Discontents" poses some similar ideas about gods being the product of trauma at the realization of mortality, etc. etc. Freud is way too verbose for me, he obviously loved to hear himself talk, but his ideas about human transcendent experience and the crazy supernatural myths that have come from it are not bad.
All of your evidence holds ABSOLUTLY NO VALUE if it's not something we can currently see, that goddess you think it so called started with or whatever was from millions of years ago... how is that any different than believing in a man who came down from heaven a really long time ago??? Just cause scientist says it doesn't make it true... most people have no real idea of any concept of anything beyond themselves because that's just it... we are human, to think of something greater has to be whimsical because of the if we don't see it then it's not there theory... well crabs can see colors that we can't so ig those colors don't exist cause we don't see it???? Not getting mad but we use logic for soo much other stuff but when it come to religion we all run around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Ok, here's the book: "Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers In Exile"
To be clear, the author is by no means an atheist. He's more of a radical Christian reformer who proposes some sort of belief just short of atheism. I'm not actually sure of what his point is as I lost interest after the first few chapters. However, I really liked some of the things he said in the early chapters as he laid out reasons for rejecting God and Christianity. In the text I cited, the author was referencing Freud, but I don't believe he was quoting Freud, rather, summing up Freud's basic ideas on religion.
This text reached out and grabbed me, because the concept of non-existence had been an issue that I often struggled with when I first started giving up my faith. Thinking of self-awareness as something complicated and even traumatic has opened up some new thoughts for me.
Self-awareness can also be an unparalleled opportunity.
Excellent point. I would add that every experience is an opportunity. I, for one, am glad to have experienced theistic beliefs for a time, and to have believed in karma, witchcraft, etc. I'm also glad to not believe those things now.
Thanks for the book info.
To me, the problem of death is an obvious common thread through all religions and most alternative beliefs as well.
I think the human mind in general is lousy at handling certain concepts, like long time periods, vast space and of course non-existence. Just try imagining for example, 4 billion years. It's virtually impossible.
I imagine that for early humans, becoming self-aware and consequently becoming aware of death, without any safety net, must have been traumatic. I think this is the success behind religions (from early sun worship to today's religions). Of course, many other factors play in as well, but I think this is the main reason hidden under all the layers of other contributing factors.
I think that the vast majority today cannot let go of faith, cannot accept the reality of death and feel a deep need for that safety net. Therefore, many who feel that their religion doesn't quite fit, go looking for other beliefs and test out different religions or start looking into crystals and contacting souls from Atlantis. As long as the reality of death is off the table, almost anything is a potential option.
The human mind is a weird piece of work. Our defence mechanisms can distort reality to make us cope. We can even compartmentalize to hold conflicting views simultaneously. I think this allows some people to actually partially believe the same bullshit story they themselves are making up, and that this is what makes some cult leaders so convincing.
But religious leaders don't want to loose their flock, so they have evolved religions through the ages, to keep the sheep in line, to keep them loyal, to keep the herd empowering the religious leaders. Without the flock there is no power and no money.
Therefore, today religion is so much more as it is woven into language, traditions, social life, etc. But if you peel away the layers, I think that fear of death is what you will find underneath it all.
The fear of death to me was always about the loss of the existence of a conscience being (whether it be me or someone I love); The memories, the thinking, the personality, and all the unique and creative aspects of a human being, at least a good human being, surely can't simply cease to exist. Heaven provided a way of believing we could continue to exist. But eventually I begin to realize that who people are, ceases to exist even while they still live. For example, the person I was 20 years ago,to a large degree, no longer exists. People with Alzheimer's and other brain disorders cease to exist in the sense of their personalities and memories. Life is perishable, but somehow the human conscious seems to struggle with this so we tend to believe in ghosts and reincarnation and heaven.
What disturbs me now for some reason is the fact that those who believe in an afterlife will never know they were wrong. They will die, believing in heaven, and never learn otherwise.
Exactly.
There is agonisingly powerful irony in the scenario that some actually long for life after death, so they squander the life they have and in the end, there is no afterlife. And they never even get to find out.