Why are there so many religions and sects?

[Balerion]

But having said that, I will agree with you that people shouldn't go around willfully trying to burst other people's bubbles. That's inhumane, at the very least. It's also arrogant, since it assumes that the bubble-burster is intellectually superior to the individual in the bubble.

That's why I strongly and viscerally oppose religious missionaries, people who invade foreign cultures and try to subvert and destroy the beliefs of the people that they find there. Christians and Muslims are notorious for this.

And it's why I also strongly and viscerally oppose militant atheists when they gratuitously attack religion and religious people, and when they strut around like mindless little roosters, all puffed-up with the illusion of their own intellectual superiority.

So your solution is to maintain the status quo, then? To allow religion to dominate the conversation, to capitulate to them when they attack science and when they promote violence? To pretend that its persecution of homosexuals is just?

What you view as "gratuitous attacks" is just the pushback against fundamentalism.

That is an interesting idea though. I don't think that I agree with it, but it isn't totally indefensible either.

I'm imagining a doctor, who discovers that a patient has an incurable disease. The patient will feel fine and be without symptoms for maybe six months, and then will decline and be dead in a year. Should the doctor tell the patient that he's dying, and cast a dark cloud over those six remaining pain-free months? Or should the doctor say nothing and let the patient live happily during the time he has left?

Of course it's indefensible. People have a right to get their affairs in order. And your intellectual immaturity is on full display when you simply presume that someone can't find happiness while knowing that they're going to die.

 

[wynn]

I wonder why the benefits of religious and spiritual beliefs disappear when there is doubt of their existence? You just can't get that kind of joy, in so many different flavors, when there is skepticism. I think it is a shame that intellectuals like to destroy the joy of others because they have no joy. Maybe spiritual bliss is something to be conserved, like resources and the environment. Spiritual bliss is the environment of the mind. Once it is destroyed in a mind, there is only the wasteland of cynicism. Maybe innocence is something to be preserved.

If that bliss can be destroyed, simply by means of words, then it wasn't much of a bliss to begin with. (Not that this would somehow make it deserving of destruction.)

It makes more sense to seek the kind of happiness that isn't subject to decay and cessation.

 

[wynn]

So your solution is to maintain the status quo, then? To allow religion to dominate the conversation, to capitulate to them when they attack science and when they promote violence? To pretend that its persecution of homosexuals is just?

Well, you are perfectly free to take your own credo and go and find happiness while knowing that you're going to die.

 

[wynn]

That's one of the motivations for my interest in Buddhism. It dives deeper than our trying to convince ourselves that the universe is already configured in whatever way that we think will make us happy (even if that's just wishful thinking). It addresses the more psycho-spiritual issue of why we are so dependent on having to think that the universe is a particular way in order to be happy. What is generating that need, and why all the desperate grasping?

From beginningless time comes transmigration ...

Why would you as someone interested in Buddhism ask that question - "What is generating that need, and why all the desperate grasping?" - ?

But having said that, I will agree with you that people shouldn't go around willfully trying to burst other people's bubbles.

But is this even possible, to burst another person's bubble?
I'm rather skeptical about that.

That's inhumane, at the very least. It's also arrogant, since it assumes that the bubble-burster is intellectually superior to the individual in the bubble.

That's why I strongly and viscerally oppose religious missionaries, people who invade foreign cultures and try to subvert and destroy the beliefs of the people that they find there. Christians and Muslims are notorious for this.

And it's why I also strongly and viscerally oppose militant atheists when they gratuitously attack religion and religious people, and when they strut around like mindless little roosters, all puffed-up with the illusion of their own intellectual superiority.

The pursuit of Truth (with a capital T) is a gladiator sport. If one isn't willing to blind, maim and kill, nor getting blinded, maimed or killed, metaphorically, and literally, then one shouldn't enter the arena.

I'm imagining a doctor, who discovers that a patient has an incurable disease. The patient will feel fine and be without symptoms for maybe six months, and then will decline and be dead in a year. Should the doctor tell the patient that he's dying, and cast a dark cloud over those six remaining pain-free months? Or should the doctor say nothing and let the patient live happily during the time he has left?

That is strange. Given that one could die any time, that "dark cloud" is there all the time anyway.

 

[Balerion]

Well, you are perfectly free to take your own credo and go and find happiness while knowing that you're going to die.

I do know that I'm going to die, and I do have happiness. I find happiness every day.

I fail to see how your response is anything more than an adult's attempt at "If you love it so much, why don't you marry it?" Is this all you have to offer, wynn?

 

[Yazata]

Maybe spiritual bliss is something to be conserved, like resources and the environment. Spiritual bliss is the environment of the mind. Once it is destroyed in a mind, there is only the wasteland of cynicism. Maybe innocence is something to be preserved.

That certainly seems to be consistent with utilitarian ethics. Defined very roughly, utilitarianism (in its earlier and more hedonistic forms) defined 'good' or 'right' as whatever is conducive to the greatest happiness for the greatest number of human or sentient beings.

In that kind of utilitarianism, even the belief in literally false beliefs would seem to be good if those beliefs typically make more people happier than they would be if they believed in the truth.

There are different forms of utilitarianism that prefer to define 'utility' as whatever is of use to human beings (or sentient creatures generally). In this version, ascriptions of 'good' and 'right' might depend on the maximization of values other than happiness. Truth might be recognized as an independent value in its own right.

If we take that course, then we might easily be faced with situations where the ideals of maximizing happiness and maximizing truth conflict with one another.

As you suggest, that conflict might arise in the case of religion.

 

[wynn]

If we take that course, then we might easily be faced with situations where the ideals of maximizing happiness and maximizing truth conflict with one another.

If you believe that such a conflict indeed exists, then can you elaborate on the other assumptions that you implicitly work with in connection to this?


One of those assumptions seems to be that we live in an Universe in which truth and happiness can be mutually exclusive. That seems strange to me, and seems to suggest that humans are somehow aliens or impostors in this Universe.

If humans are part of this Universe (ie. function by the principles of this Universe), and happiness is a matter of being aligned with the truth, with "how things really are," then happiness and truth can never be in conflict or mutually exclusive.

As you suggest, that conflict might arise in the case of religion.

At least emically, such a conflict does not arise in the case of some religions.
It arises for mainstream Christianity (with a large percentage of the population ending up eternally miserable), but not for, say, Hinduism or Buddhism.

 

[Sarkus]

I think provides a reasonable answer to the qustion posed in the OP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGFjrsfaatY
Enjoy

 

[Asexperia]

Posted by Light:
So there is no scope for a person being tolerant of any idea they are taught as a kid, or is this a statement unique to religion? (dunno, maybe you were taught not to be tolerant of religion as a kid which might explain why you are having such difficulty at the moment - just trying to follow your line of reasoning).

Tolerance is a skill that comes with experience.

Posted by Mazulu:
I think it is a shame that intellectuals like to destroy the joy of others because they have no joy.

Intellect and faith can go hand in hand, a person can be an intellectual and still be religious.

 

[Asexperia]

Another factor to consider is the economic. There are religious groups that handle a large amount of money.

Religions get together individuals, but divide families and societies.

 

[wynn]

Tolerance is a skill that comes with experience.

No.

There are outlooks that preclude tolerance.

For example, someone with a fundamentalist outlook can never be tolerant, as long as he holds that fundamentalist outlook.

 

[lightgigantic]

Another factor to consider is the economic. There are religious groups that handle a large amount of money.

Religions get together individuals, but divide families and societies.

so does that make economics infamous or religion?
:shrug:

 

[lightgigantic]

Tolerance is a skill that comes with experience.

And this explains exactly what about being exposed to ideas as a child (given that the sojourn from childhood to adulthood is a journey of experience)

 

[Emil]

Why are there so many religions and sects?

Why not?
Each with its own god!

 

[Asexperia]

A song for reflecting. Maybe we were the only ones in the Universe.

THE SONG OF JOY.

[video=youtube;HuO47ZE545M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuO47ZE545M[/video]

 

[ChristenTruthseeker]

The dark celestial being running the planet try to divide us as many way as the can , then they can control us

 

[BeFreeAgain]

Why are there so many religions and sects?
I think it is because people somehow feel that there is something "beyond the veil". So they keep looking for all sorts of stuff that could give them some answers. But unfortunately there are always some people who are using this for greedy purposes..