Is religion still supportable?

[tease]

Well, I know this is a tough topic, especially since my english isn't the best, so I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.
I really don't want to start a flaming war here, and everybody is entiteld to his opinion, but this is a topic that bugs me personaly since quite some time now and I want to hear somebody elses opinion.
So let's try to keep it human, alright?

The thing is, I don't understand how in this time and day, religion (and I'm not talking christianity only here, I mean every religion there is) has such a strong impact on our life.
In the medieval ages people didn't know better and they didn't understand this thing called life. Where we came from and how the earth and humans function.
Nearly everything the bible or the old/new testament (I'm solely going to instance christianity, because I know what I'm talking about there) tells is prooved wrong meanwhile.
I mean, who really believes in the procreation of Jesus, or the zoogenesis of Life generally or humams in special? Ever heard of Darwin and evolution?

Back then they believed in the holy trinity. The heavens above, then in the middle is the earth and below us is hell. That's why they were so hateful towards the natural science, because those guys prooved it all wrong.
It started with the world not being flat but round instead (the proove that above isn't the "heaven" and below isn't a place called "hell"but the core of the earth and gone was the idea of the holy trinity!) and it goes further to the human developing from little bacteria (which arised from gigantic energies) and not being put on earth from god on the sevend day of existence of the world. (Well then, when did the dinosaur and all the other animals come onto the scene?)

It goes on and on. Almost every little bit can be explained nowadays without putting Jesus (or Muhammed or Ghandi, ...) into the game.

So, that leaves me wondering how there is all this hate and war on earth because when you come to think about it we're living in times where mankind is in a global war of religion and not a war of nationalism anymore.

Like I said before, I don't want this to become a thread full of hate, but I really would like to know how some "believers" think of all this.
Because at the moment I tend to believe that those people simply want to believe something that guides them through life. And that is perfectly fine with me, because if my daughters would come to me one day and ask me why her mother died (just for examle), I would also tell her that she is now at a better place and such. But I couln't believe in all that.

Another thing that bothers me, is that (I don't want to say all but) very many people who say they are christians don't really act like one. I don't want to offend anybody here, but it seems that thats a lot happening on this board also. I mean just look at the "We didn't start the war" thread or almost any other political related thread.
There are people claiming to be christians and they seem to believe in it and one minute later they are all for bombing the whole Iraq away. Sorry, but I simply can't understand this attitude.
Same thing with all those girls who look up to the pope but same time take birth control pills and are all for the equal opportunities between men and women (which the Vatican isn't exactly known for). It all just seems wrong and faked to me.

It really seems to me that some peolpe aren't educated well enough to see that and are just keeping to their traditions that they don't want to let go.


Sorry, but had to get this off my chest!

[Mikey Metalhead]

selling skin
selling god
the numbers are the same on their credit cards.


I am with you 100%
there are 1000's of religions in the world and only one at most
can be real. common sense alone tells you something is wrong with that.
I believe religion still has a purpose if it helps people find their way and give them reason and faith.
unfortunately, it is only used for that purpose rarely these days.
I personally have never needed religion to do the right thing, to enjoy life, to treat others with respect and to find my way.
I believe it has a lot to do with our childhood
, and I had a great childhood...without religion.

[SactoFan]

Nearly everything the bible or the old/new testament (I'm solely going to instance christianity, because I know what I'm talking about there) tells is prooved wrong meanwhile.
I mean, who really believes in the procreation of Jesus, or the zoogenesis of Life generally or humams in special? Ever heard of Darwin and evolution?

Faith is always going to be a question. However, your idea that almost everything in the Bible is proven wrong is just that. In fact, much of the Bible is supported through archaeological research. The miracles...that's a matter of faith and can't be proved or disproved.

Darwin and evolution? That's been proven to be correct? Since when?

As far as Christians being against war...have you read Revelation? Yes, the greatest commandment is to love, but what did Christ do to the hustlers and scam artists in the temple?

I think part of your problem comes from an inadequate view of who Christ is/was. Yes, he commanded his followers to love, but He was also no pushover.

[wham bam will rock]

Organized religion is the cause of most of the world's pain.

Has been for a very long time and obviously will continue.

More people have been killed in the name of God than all diseases throughout history, combined.

It's would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.

[WinterlessIceness]

I can easily say nothing said on this topic would upset me, in one way or another. I've been thru extreme faith, then extreme neglect, then thru lots of research and theories of the Creation and various related blah. Faith is good, I was lucky to have a couple of discussions with priests and they seem to be far more educated and life-smart than most of the people I ever talked to. I'm not even saying that I'm not returning back to religion once I hit a certain age. For now I just don't care. As I said in another thread - dreams of Paradise ceased to lurk my head many years ago - I just don't want it.

[billy007]

I still believe in God - and until someone can convince me that the body we live in, whose heart beats at just the correct pace to send just the correct amount of blood through our body while processing just the correct amount of oxygen provided by our planet with just the correct atmosphere and gravitational pull, a body with a brain that sends just the correct signals to just the correct limbs to provide movement at just the right times, allowing our eyes vision and our ears hearing, if someone can convince me that that all happened out of some cosmic accident, then maybe I wouldn't believe, that the rain that falls from the sky and runs down the mountains and collects in the rivers is (until poisoned by man) capable of sustaining life and nourishing the land to grow food that is edible to man and beast and this great symbiotic relationship we all share, all put in motion by something; someone - God. I have however become leary of "organized" religion. Is my God the right God? I think so, but even if I'm wrong, I do believe there is a God and as long as your right to worship (or not) your God doesn't harm me in my right to worship my God, I'm okay with you believing (or not) in a "different" God.

[Axxman300]

Man, it's great being an Episcapalian. I haven't been to church since 1979 and nobody says jack.

Going to an Episcapal Church while I was growing up was cool, especially in the early 1970s, when you had a lot of young, Hippie priests coming into the fold and experamenting with everything. We'd have folk-masses where we'd sit on the floor just below the alter and they'd play guitar and we'd sing. Sunday school was fun, we'd usually learn Old Testiment stuff and have arts & crafts projects around various themes (Noah, Moses, David) and as we got older we also got the New Testiment and doscussed the parables and what they meant and how we felt they related to our lives today.

Every step of the way the young-Hippie-Priests, under the guidence of the older, cool priests, engaged us to THINK about the Bible and THINK about faith. At no point did they force anything down our throats, nor did they condemn us if there was something in the Bible we just didn't buy. The Epsicapal Church in the 1970s was a HEALTHY place to be.

At my church in Carmel, we had some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in America sitting in the same pews as people of the simplest means. The one name you'd know is Firestone, Mrs. Firestone was the coolest lady you'd ever meet. She drove a VW Beetle and usually ran the kitchen at the potlucks, at not time did she ever come across as being above anybody else, nor would she look down on anybody who didn't have a cool country club memebership. She had more money than God, so she'd give him some. There are a lot of people in Monterey county and around the world who've bennifitted from her genorocity. That's a life lesson you can't learn anywhere else but at church.

I never got any of that stuff in school


The 1970s were a time where you'd have decorated WWII veterans hugging anti-war hippies when it came time for the "Peace Of The Lord" howdydo. Durring Passover, we'd stage a special dinner and invite the local Rabbi to perform the Satre (sp). It was cool because Jesus was a Rabbi too so it was like having him there, especially when the Rabbi would speak in Aramaaic (sp).
We were taught to get along with our neighbors, be charitable and to be the good neighbor. since we were also taught to THINK we also discussed the "Render under Ceasar what is Ceaser's" and how this meant that sometimes you had to do what you had to do. This meant going to war, paying taxes and kicking the shit out of someone who was threatening your life. We also were challeneged to develope the strength to seperate FACT from FAITH. In our Sunday discussions we learned that Science was going places and while on the one hand; you had archiologists digging up or discovering sites in the Bible along with the Dead Sea Scrolls which reenforced much of the Old Testiment, you also had Science expolring evolution and DNA which lead in an interesting path too. John Paul II said it best when he said that Genesis wasn't meant to be an accurate account of the Earth's creation, only that God made it. Later on, I actually saw the genious of God while I studied Marine Science, but that's another thread.

I have a solid Faith in God. There's no point in argueing and it's against my Faith to argue with people who either don't believe at all or go to a different church or belong to a different religion all together. They've got their thing, I've got mine.

[SactoFan]

Good post, Axx...

[WinterlessIceness]

I still believe in God - and until someone can convince me that the body we live in, whose heart beats at just the correct pace to send just the correct amount of blood through our body while processing just the correct amount of oxygen provided by our planet with just the correct atmosphere and gravitational pull, a body with a brain that sends just the correct signals to just the correct limbs to provide movement at just the right times, allowing our eyes vision and our ears hearing, if someone can convince me that that all happened out of some cosmic accident, then maybe I wouldn't believe, that the rain that falls from the sky and runs down the mountains and collects in the rivers is (until poisoned by man) capable of sustaining life and nourishing the land to grow food that is edible to man and beast and this great symbiotic relationship we all share, all put in motion by something; someone - God. I have however become leary of "organized" religion. Is my God the right God? I think so, but even if I'm wrong, I do believe there is a God and as long as your right to worship (or not) your God doesn't harm me in my right to worship my God, I'm okay with you believing (or not) in a "different" God.

You know, Billy, there's is a thing about The Bible which makes me put it into the perspective - the line about God making a human alike himself (or herself - I can't quote coz I didn't learn it in English). What I mean there's nothing more humanly-logical than whichever processes occur on the Earth or beyond it. There's nothing human mind couldn't understand, replicate or even 'crack'. For some reason I doubt a living form was supposed to be able to replicate the process which makes the stars shine and heat (split the atoms). Neither I think a living form was supposed to produce a light many times brighter than the Sun (laser beams). Or stop the light, from the other end. And basically just within some 100 years. There's no way to neglect the universe couldn't have been done with a human mind.

[vistadelrey]

Another thing that bothers me, is that (I don't want to say all but) very many people who say they are christians don't really act like one. I don't want to offend anybody here, but it seems that thats a lot happening on this board also. I mean just look at the "We didn't start the war" thread or almost any other political related thread.
There are people claiming to be christians and they seem to believe in it and one minute later they are all for bombing the whole Iraq away. Sorry, but I simply can't understand this attitude.
Same thing with all those girls who look up to the pope but same time take birth control pills and are all for the equal opportunities between men and women (which the Vatican isn't exactly known for). It all just seems wrong and faked to me.

It really seems to me that some peolpe aren't educated well enough to see that and are just keeping to their traditions that they don't want to let go.

Sorry, but had to get this off my chest!

Supporting the War and being Christian is consistent and it is not ignorant yet educated. There are exceptions to this understanding as in any realm of any religion.

Again. Christians who do not oppose the War are not neccessarily ignorant.

[LLFHS]

I think that once upon a time, religion had its heart in the right place.
Then someone said, "Hey.....I can control people....with an idea!"

It all went downhill from there and humanity has never recovered.

[weesfreewheelin]

Where did God come from? Was there ever just nothing? Is this life some kind of a lesson? Reward? Punishment?

Could it really all be over when you draw your last breath?

[LLFHS]

Where did God come from? Was there ever just nothing? Is this life some kind of a lesson? Reward? Punishment?

Could it really all be over when you draw your last breath?

All of these are questions I do not have the answers to. However, I don't buy the 'explanations' given up to this point by the world's religions.

My belief is this.....yes, we get one shot. Make it count.

[FORD]

Supporting the War and being Christian is consistent and it is not ignorant yet educated. There are exceptions to this understanding as in any realm of any religion.

Again. Christians who do not oppose the War are not neccessarily ignorant.

Where in the Gospels did Jesus Christ endorse war? I seem to recall Him saying just the opposite......

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

- Jesus Christ, Sermon on the Mount

[VH122]

The questions that you have about religion seem to parallel the same questions that I have about science.
Why can't mankind find a cure for the common cold?
Does the abominable snowman exist?
Who or what made the Yonaguni monument?
Why do atheists love the movie Wizard Of Oz?
Sorry,but I just had to get this off my chest!