Religion - The End of Civilization
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well they do all go on about the end of the world. atheists never do that.
religions are a major FLAW in our humanity, i totally agree.
it causes discrepencies between cultures, and leads to WARs.
but, it seems we are moving away from Religion these days, alot of people have made the transition from being "Religious" to just being "Spiritual"
i think being Spiritual is what matters, not any pre-ordained Religion. Religion is not necesary to be Spiritual, and everyone should realize that.
we can see religions are flawed now, so lets throw them out the window !!
(besided religions have been twisted and used for purposed of controlling masses)
power players and elites use religions for their own motives. and the Roman Catholic church is one pretty greedy sect, consuming alot of peoples. some say the mark of the beast was actually the Roman Empire's Catholic Church.
whats funny is how Bush visited the Vatican and asked the popes to back him up ... hah
it causes discrepencies between cultures, and leads to WARs.
but, it seems we are moving away from Religion these days, alot of people have made the transition from being "Religious" to just being "Spiritual"
i think being Spiritual is what matters, not any pre-ordained Religion. Religion is not necesary to be Spiritual, and everyone should realize that.
we can see religions are flawed now, so lets throw them out the window !!
(besided religions have been twisted and used for purposed of controlling masses)
power players and elites use religions for their own motives. and the Roman Catholic church is one pretty greedy sect, consuming alot of peoples. some say the mark of the beast was actually the Roman Empire's Catholic Church.
whats funny is how Bush visited the Vatican and asked the popes to back him up ... hah
"have led to uproar and eventually destruction" 
Takes an atheist to blame someone else for his troubles.
// Just look at the thread where people are blaming God for Adam and Eve choosing their fate. Or blaming God for allowing sin into the world, when it is humans, not God, who sin.
Oh brother..
Takes an atheist to blame someone else for his troubles.
// Just look at the thread where people are blaming God for Adam and Eve choosing their fate. Or blaming God for allowing sin into the world, when it is humans, not God, who sin.
Oh brother..
What uproar is leading to the destruction of civilization? Nuclear war could accomplish that, but I don't think religion is responsible for nukes.
Adam and Eve may have chosen their fate, but it was God who created the choices. If God is the creator of everything, then he certainly can be blamed for everything, (which is probably the appeal of the idea). Free will be damned, that's like offering someone the electric chair or the firing squad, and then blaming them if they die (oh, well, it was their choice).
Adam and Eve may have chosen their fate, but it was God who created the choices. If God is the creator of everything, then he certainly can be blamed for everything, (which is probably the appeal of the idea). Free will be damned, that's like offering someone the electric chair or the firing squad, and then blaming them if they die (oh, well, it was their choice).
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
It's not all religions. It's the ones with the strongest need to believe in something supernatural because they have so little faith in themselves. It's primarily the Abrahamic religions: The monotheistic, patriarchal sects that keep oozing out of the Middle East.
Their basic model of the human spirit -- one-dimensional, everything can only be good or bad or somewhere in between, no other factors -- is so lame, so constricting, so counterintuitive, that people who get conned into trying to live by it end up suppressing huge portions of their own spirit. But they can't suppress stuff forever, and after festering in the dark for years or decades or even generations, iit blows its way out. When a bunch of Abrahamists get into synchronization and their dark sides take control of them all at once, you get what we've gotten for the past two thousand years, since Abrahamism began to dominate the earth.
The polytheistic faiths allow their followers more space. If your particular life doesn't happen to conform to the model of Apollo, then perhaps you can let Hermes be your guide, or Diana.
The early polytheistic civilizations certainly didn't set any records for tolerance and kindness, but they had one advantage that the Abrahamists seemingly cannot grasp, which is the ability to see themselves in each other. The Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, etc., all realized upon even the briefest acquaintance that their gods were the same ones, only with different names. Not a great leap of insight when the gods are all stylized, exaggerated facets of your own personality. It's really ironic that all of the Abrahamists actually claim to worship the same "one god" and even share some of the same holy books, but they always find a reason to hate each other over their interpretation of those books. The polytheists rarely fought over religion, it was always just power. They never threatened to destroy the whole planet the way the Christians and Muslims have for the past 1,300 years. (Not to give the Jews a bye. Considering how disgustingly the Orthodox and Reform Jews, or the Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, treat each other in Israel, I'm sure that if Jewry ever gained enough population to become a world power they'd be just as bad-ass as their spinoffs.)
But the "religions" that do the best for their own people and for the rest of us are the ones that simply have the least emphasis on the supernatural at all, the ones that encourage faith in ourselves as individuals and as a community. The Dao, Confucianism, and most of all Buddhism in its least superstitious forms. (The reincarnation hokum and the divinity of Buddha is by no means universally shared by all Buddhists.)
So it's really only one religion that threatens to bring about "the end of civilization": Abrahamism. The Catholics and Protestants; the Sunni and Shia and Sufi and Wahhabi and Hashemite; the Reformed and Conservative and Orthodox; and at a larger level the Christians, Jews, and Muslims collectively; they all identify subtle differences among themselves that justifies their hatred -- a hatred so powerful that they don't give a second thought to collateral damage in their spiteful campaigns to wipe each other out. But from the our less superstitiously influenced perspective as outsiders, they're all the same. Patriarchal and monotheistic. There's only one god and it's got a penis.
Whoopee. What a rich (not to mention fair) belief system to base a culture on.
Their basic model of the human spirit -- one-dimensional, everything can only be good or bad or somewhere in between, no other factors -- is so lame, so constricting, so counterintuitive, that people who get conned into trying to live by it end up suppressing huge portions of their own spirit. But they can't suppress stuff forever, and after festering in the dark for years or decades or even generations, iit blows its way out. When a bunch of Abrahamists get into synchronization and their dark sides take control of them all at once, you get what we've gotten for the past two thousand years, since Abrahamism began to dominate the earth.
The polytheistic faiths allow their followers more space. If your particular life doesn't happen to conform to the model of Apollo, then perhaps you can let Hermes be your guide, or Diana.
The early polytheistic civilizations certainly didn't set any records for tolerance and kindness, but they had one advantage that the Abrahamists seemingly cannot grasp, which is the ability to see themselves in each other. The Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, etc., all realized upon even the briefest acquaintance that their gods were the same ones, only with different names. Not a great leap of insight when the gods are all stylized, exaggerated facets of your own personality. It's really ironic that all of the Abrahamists actually claim to worship the same "one god" and even share some of the same holy books, but they always find a reason to hate each other over their interpretation of those books. The polytheists rarely fought over religion, it was always just power. They never threatened to destroy the whole planet the way the Christians and Muslims have for the past 1,300 years. (Not to give the Jews a bye. Considering how disgustingly the Orthodox and Reform Jews, or the Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, treat each other in Israel, I'm sure that if Jewry ever gained enough population to become a world power they'd be just as bad-ass as their spinoffs.)
But the "religions" that do the best for their own people and for the rest of us are the ones that simply have the least emphasis on the supernatural at all, the ones that encourage faith in ourselves as individuals and as a community. The Dao, Confucianism, and most of all Buddhism in its least superstitious forms. (The reincarnation hokum and the divinity of Buddha is by no means universally shared by all Buddhists.)
So it's really only one religion that threatens to bring about "the end of civilization": Abrahamism. The Catholics and Protestants; the Sunni and Shia and Sufi and Wahhabi and Hashemite; the Reformed and Conservative and Orthodox; and at a larger level the Christians, Jews, and Muslims collectively; they all identify subtle differences among themselves that justifies their hatred -- a hatred so powerful that they don't give a second thought to collateral damage in their spiteful campaigns to wipe each other out. But from the our less superstitiously influenced perspective as outsiders, they're all the same. Patriarchal and monotheistic. There's only one god and it's got a penis.
Whoopee. What a rich (not to mention fair) belief system to base a culture on.
§outh§tar said:"have led to uproar and eventually destruction"
Takes an atheist to blame someone else for his troubles.
Oh brother..
Well, being an atheist would rule out them starting a "holy war" for sure. So I guess they ARE blaming the ones who are to blame. It would (obviously) be religious people creating wars over religion but I guess you feel that's not the case.
§outh§tar said:
Sorry, I don't get your point. We are talking about religious people starting "holy wars" and the fact that atheists would/could not be the cause of such an action.
Hi dudes,
Quote SouthStar:
"// Just look at the thread where people are blaming God for Adam and Eve choosing their fate. Or blaming God for allowing sin into the world, when it is humans, not God, who sin.//"
Is`nt it cool never having to take responsibility for your own actions, including biblical "sins" by referring all ones misdemeanours back to Adam, Eve and their god? Fast forwarding to the redemption of Christ and forgiveness of all sins by simply "believing" that Jesus is the Christ and becoming "reborn"! Eesh... Humans do commit wrongs. Simply because we are human. Why is that so hard to understand or to accept?
Quote Fraggle Rocker:
"Their basic model of the human spirit -- one-dimensional, everything can only be good or bad or somewhere in between, no other factors -- is so lame, so constricting, so counterintuitive, that people who get conned into trying to live by it end up suppressing huge portions of their own spirit. But they can't suppress stuff forever, and after festering in the dark for years or decades or even generations, iit blows its way out. When a bunch of Abrahamists get into synchronization and their dark sides take control of them all at once, you get what we've gotten for the past two thousand years, since Abrahamism began to dominate the earth."
I agree totally Fraggle (love that nic) In my opinion the sooner we accept our human nature as is, the good and the bad, and stop trying to find outside (god, satan, etc.) reasons for our behaviours, the sooner we can move forward and embrace our true nature. I don`t need Adam to convince me of, or relieve me of, my very own self-sufficient potential for doing evil. The spiritual side of my nature helps me to make the correct choices regarding so called - "right" and "wrong".
Allcare.
Quote SouthStar:
"// Just look at the thread where people are blaming God for Adam and Eve choosing their fate. Or blaming God for allowing sin into the world, when it is humans, not God, who sin.//"
Is`nt it cool never having to take responsibility for your own actions, including biblical "sins" by referring all ones misdemeanours back to Adam, Eve and their god? Fast forwarding to the redemption of Christ and forgiveness of all sins by simply "believing" that Jesus is the Christ and becoming "reborn"! Eesh... Humans do commit wrongs. Simply because we are human. Why is that so hard to understand or to accept?
Quote Fraggle Rocker:
"Their basic model of the human spirit -- one-dimensional, everything can only be good or bad or somewhere in between, no other factors -- is so lame, so constricting, so counterintuitive, that people who get conned into trying to live by it end up suppressing huge portions of their own spirit. But they can't suppress stuff forever, and after festering in the dark for years or decades or even generations, iit blows its way out. When a bunch of Abrahamists get into synchronization and their dark sides take control of them all at once, you get what we've gotten for the past two thousand years, since Abrahamism began to dominate the earth."
I agree totally Fraggle (love that nic) In my opinion the sooner we accept our human nature as is, the good and the bad, and stop trying to find outside (god, satan, etc.) reasons for our behaviours, the sooner we can move forward and embrace our true nature. I don`t need Adam to convince me of, or relieve me of, my very own self-sufficient potential for doing evil. The spiritual side of my nature helps me to make the correct choices regarding so called - "right" and "wrong".
Allcare.
oh brother is right, you are one sad individual.§outh§tar said:"have led to uproar and eventually destruction"
Takes an atheist to blame someone else for his troubles.
// Just look at the thread where people are blaming God for Adam and Eve choosing their fate. Or blaming God for allowing sin into the world, when it is humans, not God, who sin.
Oh brother..
your the one, that's moaning.
you agreed, you where wrong on that thread (adam and eve).
you cant blame a nonexistant, can you.
I suppose that civilization will sometimes overcome religion.
Why? Because religion developes, but religion is just an opinion, and opinions change over the time.
Religion also changes, and it appears to have different stages.
First people around did idolize certain things, for example trees, fire and similar things. Thus, the first gods were created, ruling over various domains.
Soon, the minds of people (and the capacity of thought) grew, they began to generalize things, creating gods that had a bigger domain, e.g. one god to rule over nature, one to rule over the stars, the dead, the sun, and so on.
But people developed further, and their gods became more and more generalized, until there is only one god who created and guides all.
But does it stop there? I don´t think so, I suppose that people will change their opinions again. The idea of one god will become a thing of the past and something other will be the new aim of worship. It might be money, or sex or wisdom, something that needs no god. Or perhaps people will stop worship altogether. The development I stated above seems to be narrowing down, it is an inverted pyramid. The next step might be a step into nothingness, or into everything, or both. Bot it will surely not be focused on one god, a big creator, anymore.
I don´t think that the future will have a place for god.
So I suppose that religion won´t be the end of civilization, civilization will more likely be the end of religion.
Why? Because religion developes, but religion is just an opinion, and opinions change over the time.
Religion also changes, and it appears to have different stages.
First people around did idolize certain things, for example trees, fire and similar things. Thus, the first gods were created, ruling over various domains.
Soon, the minds of people (and the capacity of thought) grew, they began to generalize things, creating gods that had a bigger domain, e.g. one god to rule over nature, one to rule over the stars, the dead, the sun, and so on.
But people developed further, and their gods became more and more generalized, until there is only one god who created and guides all.
But does it stop there? I don´t think so, I suppose that people will change their opinions again. The idea of one god will become a thing of the past and something other will be the new aim of worship. It might be money, or sex or wisdom, something that needs no god. Or perhaps people will stop worship altogether. The development I stated above seems to be narrowing down, it is an inverted pyramid. The next step might be a step into nothingness, or into everything, or both. Bot it will surely not be focused on one god, a big creator, anymore.
I don´t think that the future will have a place for god.
So I suppose that religion won´t be the end of civilization, civilization will more likely be the end of religion.