Religion

[cordeliasmarz]

I know this is a touchy subject with pretty much anyone so feel free to ignore me on this.

I'm not an insulting person at ALL, hate arguments, wish everyone would just get along.. all that good stuff.

So I don't want to upset anyone and although I'm certainly not going to say anything that I would call "offensive", I just feel the need to warn

Comments

[kylezy]

The logical part of my brain sees the need for religion as an almost selfish thing. When we die, in science, there's nothing. Our mind ceases to exist, it's black, we don't have any sense of being any more. This is the fucking scariest thought in the world. I think everybody has trouble comprehending it, no matter how learned you may be. I mean, to have your body still physically exist, but to not exist inside it, to not exist mentally at all? The nothingness, it's terrifying. And I think that's part of the reason why people create religion. I'm not just talking Christianity either, this need for an afterlife is in just about everything I know of (which I'm not saying is a lot, I'm no theology scholar), be it in heaven and hell, or the underworld, or even reincarnation (which is not quite the same but still holds true to the principle, living on after you've died). The knowledge that we won't ever really be gone is comforting, it gives us something to hold onto. I can understand that, I can respect that, I feel the same fear everyone else does.

My biggest beef with Christianity is the Bible and the fact that so many people put so much stock into this one book. I get the need for it, I do, a book full of moral codes to live your life by. It's a way to enforce without actually enforcing. Be good and go to heaven. Be bad and it's to hell with you. But it's not some holy book passed down from heaven itself. It was written by men (and just to clarify, I don't mean men as in 'male'. I mean men as in 'humans') and we're supposed to believe that just because they say it's divine law, so it must be? Think of all the crazy shit that gets carried out in the name of God, not because they feel it's what's right in their hearts, but because a book written many, many years ago tells them that THIS is good or THAT is bad.` A book which, to my knowledge, contains as yet no ACTUAL SOLID FACT. A book written by man, in whose nature it is to lie. A book which damned anyone who dared use original thought to death.

That being said, the other side of my brain thinks it is important to have faith. Faith in God, faith in science, faith in nothing but yourself. Whatever it is, having any kind of faith is a comfort, I believe. It can make you stronger in times of crisis, it can can keep you company on even your loneliest days.

Wow, tl;dr, sorry about that!

[cordeliasmarz]

Wow!
Don't apologise for that!
That was fantastic!
Thank you thank you!
Exclamation marks all around!

I don't know how to reply to that apart from.. yes?
Very well said. Everything.

Thank you so much - a LOT clearer now
Now you've written it so succinctly and clearly I understand it
I "get" it.

It's still.. bizarre how "man" hasn't "got" it yet and moved on
Realised that faith is nothing to argue about, it's something personal to each person
And sure, people should write books and follow books for advice about what's right and wrong but nothing is set in stone
You shouldn't take anything so seriously and be so set in your ways that there's no room for discussion

Ahh you're a clever lady
I wish I could write so comprehensibly!

[esoteria80]

Hi, sorry, just jumping in to agree on this; "But it's not some holy book passed down from heaven itself. It was written by men (and just to clarify, I don't mean men as in 'male'. I mean men as in 'humans') and we're supposed to believe that just because they say it's divine law, so it must be?"

I'm currently doing a history Master course and I'm focussing on historical documents written in medieval times, and we're trained when studying to look beyone what's written in the text and see the reasons why people wrote what they wrote, what point they were trying to get across, who they were protecting, who they were slagging off etc. It's not my area, but there's lots of similar stories written down contemporary with the Bible, and they're looked at in the same way, but for some reason no-one's allowed to look at the Bible like that. At best you can say some bits of it are allegorical, but as far as the New Testament goes it is taken like the writers actually wrote down exactly what happened as it happened, which as you say is counter to human nature and counter to the way we look at any other historical source. There's a lot we'll never know about Jesus because we can't study him in the same way as, say, King Arthur or Charlemagne.

Stop. Done now, honest :o)