New Member- long time God Challenger
Hi everyone, just joined the community. Saw it on someone elses x-post and felt the need to check it out and share my own ideas and beliefs and hope there are people here with open minds and can think and examine things logically and rationally.
I have been researching this subject for quite a while now and have reached the following conclusion (and I am not forcing this on anyone else by any means, simply sharing and looking for feedback).
From the days of primitive man, human beings have always been ignorant of the world around them. "Why did the sun come up?" "Why did it go down at night?' "Why did it rain and storm?" etc, etc. Early humans did not know how the world worked and were afraid of it. So they began to place names and images to the objects of their fears in order to make them more tangible. These "Gods" were simply names and images given by early man to forces and things which they could not control, understand, or explain. With these early spirits and quasi-gods, they could rationalize a world they didn't understand to a certain degree, but they still feared it. So they began to try and influence and gain favor of these spirits by offering them food, making sacrifices, etc. Some people began to see patterns and began to understand how things worked to a certain degree, so they began to "predict" and "could influence" these spirits and began to use this ability to gain power and influence within their society.
When these "holy men" (such as Shamans, Medicine men, etc.) began to formailze and structure their worship of a spirit or god, then organized religion and proto-laws were formed. As human civilization became more complicated and advanced, religion became more and more complicated and advanced along with them. Early spirits and proto-gods became a pantheon of gods/goddesses that they people worshipped. Eventually, worship of the lesser gods of a pantheon diminished. Priests and holy men, realized that if all of the worshippers (and thus money, power, and followers) were condensed into just worshipping one god, they would increase their power and influence greatly and that led to the formation of the early mono-theistic religions. Judaism evolved partially from these early mono-theistic religions and some aspects of Egyptian and Mesopotamian religions taking many of the laws and stories found within them and using them in their own religion.
Thats when some jews, dissillusioned by the corrupt jewish high council and their "selling out" for the most part to the Roman empire, used a young, charismatic teacher named "Jesus" to start a new branch of Judaism. He was built up as the "son of god" (even though within their teachings god created man and woman, thus making ALL of mankind his sons and daughters, but I digress), and using quasi- magic tricks and audience plants began to form him into a "messiah" for dissillusioned Jews. The Roman Empire and Jewish High Council both saw Jesus and this new branch of judaism as a threat so they killed Jesus and turned him into a martyr for this blossoming new religion. A little over 2000 years later, with countless alterations, divisions, and rewritings of christianity in its current form shares almost nothing in common with the original teachings and message of the religion. But it does, in a certain respect, continue the main goal of all organized religion.
1: Explain what cannot be explained through rational or logical means at the time.
2: To influence and control the population of the society in which it exists.
3: To gain money, power, and influence within that society.
That is the conclusion that I have deduced from all of my readings of various religions and forms of spirituality, and from what I have learned and seen from my own experiences. I'm not saying that a god of some kind cannot exist, I just believe that the human concept of god, and the organizations that have formed to worship this concept are fundamentally flawed.
Well, looking forward to your thoughts and feedback. Glad to be a part of the community and hope I'm not ruffling too many feathers *lol*
I have been researching this subject for quite a while now and have reached the following conclusion (and I am not forcing this on anyone else by any means, simply sharing and looking for feedback).
From the days of primitive man, human beings have always been ignorant of the world around them. "Why did the sun come up?" "Why did it go down at night?' "Why did it rain and storm?" etc, etc. Early humans did not know how the world worked and were afraid of it. So they began to place names and images to the objects of their fears in order to make them more tangible. These "Gods" were simply names and images given by early man to forces and things which they could not control, understand, or explain. With these early spirits and quasi-gods, they could rationalize a world they didn't understand to a certain degree, but they still feared it. So they began to try and influence and gain favor of these spirits by offering them food, making sacrifices, etc. Some people began to see patterns and began to understand how things worked to a certain degree, so they began to "predict" and "could influence" these spirits and began to use this ability to gain power and influence within their society.
When these "holy men" (such as Shamans, Medicine men, etc.) began to formailze and structure their worship of a spirit or god, then organized religion and proto-laws were formed. As human civilization became more complicated and advanced, religion became more and more complicated and advanced along with them. Early spirits and proto-gods became a pantheon of gods/goddesses that they people worshipped. Eventually, worship of the lesser gods of a pantheon diminished. Priests and holy men, realized that if all of the worshippers (and thus money, power, and followers) were condensed into just worshipping one god, they would increase their power and influence greatly and that led to the formation of the early mono-theistic religions. Judaism evolved partially from these early mono-theistic religions and some aspects of Egyptian and Mesopotamian religions taking many of the laws and stories found within them and using them in their own religion.
Thats when some jews, dissillusioned by the corrupt jewish high council and their "selling out" for the most part to the Roman empire, used a young, charismatic teacher named "Jesus" to start a new branch of Judaism. He was built up as the "son of god" (even though within their teachings god created man and woman, thus making ALL of mankind his sons and daughters, but I digress), and using quasi- magic tricks and audience plants began to form him into a "messiah" for dissillusioned Jews. The Roman Empire and Jewish High Council both saw Jesus and this new branch of judaism as a threat so they killed Jesus and turned him into a martyr for this blossoming new religion. A little over 2000 years later, with countless alterations, divisions, and rewritings of christianity in its current form shares almost nothing in common with the original teachings and message of the religion. But it does, in a certain respect, continue the main goal of all organized religion.
1: Explain what cannot be explained through rational or logical means at the time.
2: To influence and control the population of the society in which it exists.
3: To gain money, power, and influence within that society.
That is the conclusion that I have deduced from all of my readings of various religions and forms of spirituality, and from what I have learned and seen from my own experiences. I'm not saying that a god of some kind cannot exist, I just believe that the human concept of god, and the organizations that have formed to worship this concept are fundamentally flawed.
Well, looking forward to your thoughts and feedback. Glad to be a part of the community and hope I'm not ruffling too many feathers *lol*