Why Religion?

by hillary_step 50 Replies latest jw friends

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  BurnTheShips

  WELL.

  Yes.

  Well, I think that takes care of that debate. ;)

  Why or why not Hillary?

  Cheerio,

  Burn
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  worldtraveller

  Tyrone is right. It's the fear of the unknow. Fear of your own demise.

  Plus a bit of curiosity. Who wouldn't want to know how this planet really came to be. Except for of course the truly narrow minded.
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  BurnTheShips

  HS

  Though people may think they believe in the same God, they imbue their 'God' with elements of their own personna.....People make God in their own image. This has been so since the dawn of human consciousness.

  They percieve in God what they know in themselves. God is a big thing-like an elephant. We take what we bring. You seem only to bring being, and that is all you take, unless the Elephant Itself intervenes, which he might, since I only know of the tail portion.

  A number of disciples went to the Buddha and said, "Sir, there are living here in Savatthi many wandering hermits and scholars who indulge in constant dispute, some saying that the world is infinite and eternal and others that it is finite and not eternal, some saying that the soul dies with the body and others that it lives on forever, and so forth. What, Sir, would you say concerning them?"

  The Buddha answered, "Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, 'Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place all the men of Savatthi who were born blind... and show them an elephant.' 'Very good, sire,' replied the servant, and he did as he was told. He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant.

  "When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, 'Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?'

  "Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush.

  "Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An elephant is not that!' 'Yes, it's like that!' and so on, till they came to blows over the matter.

  "Brethren, the raja was delighted with the scene.

  "Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."

  Then the Exalted One rendered this meaning by uttering this verse of uplift,

  O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
  For preacher and monk the honored name!
  For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
  Such folk see only one side of a thing.

  Jainism and Buddhism. Udana 68-69:
  Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant

  Burn
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  feenx

  Juni: I think that is a friggin great way to explain it! I completely agree.

  Someone on this thread mentioned "being." I agree that "religion" is a tool used by leaders to change the simple human function of being, and the possibilies therin, into a life of "doing." As if doing can answer questions that many people dont truly want to delve into. Rather than finding out for themselves it's much easier to simply tell yourself what this organization says is true. They are just like an alcoholic taking a drink or an addict getting high. Rather than getting to the root of their urge they satisfy themselves with something easily accessible, on the surface. IMHO the mass majority of people truly entrenched in any man made organization are burying their heads in the sand and slapping a band aid over whatever happens to pop out.

  Burntheships: I apologize, I think on another thread the other day about names that we all liked I referred to you as a "she." oops!
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  BurnTheShips

  feenx:

  I caught that post. It doesn't matter. He she. Whatever.

  Cheers,

  Burn
• 

  rimfiredancing

  Burn the Ships- "elevate us beyond the beastly material, to the divine, our natural home"
  
  Right there was the eventual crux for me: religion seeks to destroy everything natural about the world, belittling the non-human inhabitants and natural ecosystems whilst simultaneously and arrogantly raising 'humans' above everything else and bringing them to their knees. It is the foundation of racism, genocide (and no, genocide was NOT widespread practice amongst traditional communities, despite was civilisation likes to continuously bleat), Christianity as a doctrine never renounced slavery and was widely used to support and justify it (modern christians are still exhorted to be slaves for christ). Religion has nothing to do with spirituality and everything to do with control, hatred of life (including women and children as well as the natural world- and if anyone tries to tell me christianity *doesn't* hate women, have a look at a little book called Harlot on the Side of the Road), patriarchy, deliberate poverty and many other revolting things.
  
  Someone mentioned a speech of Obama's and how that was a good explanation from a religious man. I saw a youtube video of one of his campaign promotions, with lots of snappy singing and a soul stirring speech about 'we can'; in it he referred to the founding of the country and the brave settlers 'pushing into the unforgiving wilderness'. Unforgiving for whom? No mention whatsoever of the more than thousand individual Native American nations who had quite happily and abundantly existed in this 'unforgiving wilderness', no remark whatsoever on the genocidal slaughter of these same nations by people fuelled by their absolute beliefs in white and social superiority, their absolute right to aquisition of anything they desired (a right given to them 'by god'), a belief that land 'untamed' was nothing more than 'resources unplundered and ripe for the picking'. Funnily enough, the same foundation of apparently christian beliefs (if polls are to be believed) are causing the US to lead the civilised world (also founded on christian beliefs of 'assimilate or die', which is basically the foundations of both JW teachings and those of the Borg) to destroy the natural world and the indigenous peoples who would stand in the way of their 'right' of aquisition. US companies sponsor the murder of indigenous protesters. US companies assume the right of aquisition of indigenous plants, claiming their ownership of all seeds through patenting and then refusing to supply such seeds, replacing them with GE seeds that are sterile. 25,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 10 years due to their despair over inability to provide for their families and service debt to US seed companies.
  
  All done with religion's support and blessing because god- and the 'law'- is on *their* side.
  
  There is no link between religion and spirituality: religion in effect becomes another tool for control, manipulation and subjugation. Look at the history of christianity in any part of the world. Religion continues to encourage the destruction of the planet, with variations on the 'beastly material' theme: for some fun and giggles, try looking at the history of slavery in the US and the descriptions of Indians and their ways of life. Even the WT has been associated with both praise for slavery and hatred of Jews.
  
  I walked away from any idea of god when I walked away from the b0rg. There are much more beautiful, rich and amazing spiritual experiences out there than those spent in search for something that purports superiority because of its constant threat of destruction for unbelievers. I have no need of a god that demands its creations hate themselves, their phsyical state, the natural existence of the planet they are on and everything that these matrices create. I am watching with distant interest as the constructs and paper towers such self righteous and contemptuous thinking has created: soon, if people think the spiritual realm is their natural home, they're going to have an early opportunity to experience that because the eco-system, the economic system, the planet that they rely on for survival, are going to collapse under the weight of the ever increasing consumption, the poisons arrogantly spewed, the careless extinction of mass species, the unquestioned assumption, due to interesting interpretations of 'scripture', that some god 'gave' the planet to 'mankind' to 'fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection' everything on it. Interesting worldview that happens to currently be killing an entire planet. Hopefully, the remaining indigenous peoples will have learned the harsh lessons of the past and will this time simply vanish back into the wilderness and leave the invading interlopers to starve to death in the 'unforgiving wilderness'. I personally won't be helping the invaders to survive.
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  OUTLAW

  HS..Some people simply refuse to grow up..They need a parent..Someone to make decisions for them.....Religion is more than willing to take on that responsibility....And..Has made a fortune at it!...........OUTLAW
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  stillajwexelder

  This is one where I do not find Dawkins' explanation that good. Obviously there is some evolutionary benefit and hence the meme gets propagated but his explanation I did not accept. Homo Sapiens learned to recognize other species as a threat. Maybe religion helped bind groupss of people together and hence there was evolutionary benefit
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  heathen

  I think many religions were started as a control center for primitive societies , it also explained the unexplainable , such as things that go bump in the night or why the crops failed ,obviously it had to be some God that was angry about something .Today it's about tradition mostly .IMO
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  Homerovah the Almighty

  Power and social order through spiritualism