Enlighten Yourselves

[Delicate]

You're joking, of course - have you even seen the wealth oozing out of the Catholic Church, for one?

Yeah.



Pope's obviously living the high life off of his made-up religion.

---

Even today, people, who are very flawed and human hardly have time to manufacture grand myths and struggle to live in accordance to them.

I mean, most of the myths I hear concocted are designed to serve some person's interests. David Koresh, or Charles Manson. Most religions don't have such a feature.

Right.... back then, the rulers used a previously established religion to strengthen their hold on the people.... nowadays, the pre-existing religions already have too strong a hold on the people (and there are many more people) for new cults to grow enough.... also, "Separation of church and state" tends to help.

It doesn't worry you, the ad hoc nature of your explanations?

[Norman Humann]

Yeah and the gold cross is just painted cardboard, isn't it? And the priests' sports cars are second hand, aren't they?

[Cyberman]

All religions are made up.

[pocaracas]

Right.... back then, the rulers used a previously established religion to strengthen their hold on the people.... nowadays, the pre-existing religions already have too strong a hold on the people (and there are many more people) for new cults to grow enough.... also, "Separation of church and state" tends to help.

It doesn't worry you, the ad hoc nature of your explanations?

Doesn't it worry you that there are more than one religion?
That there is more than one belief?
That there is more than one deity in recorded history?

If any one deity is real, how would it allow others? why?
If it made itself known to some people, why wouldn't it make itself known to other people? Why would it rely on the faulty human transmission method? Why would it allow that method to incubate the astonishing diversity of beliefs we know of, today?

My explanations are based on human psychology, politics, power hunger, population control...
Any theist explanation is based on woo and hearsay.
Considering we have no access to the actual origin of the woo, we have to rely on some sort of probabilities...
Which strikes you as more reliable? woo or psychology?

[daver49]

All religions are made up.

And they have hair stylists too!

[Delicate]

It doesn't worry you, the ad hoc nature of your explanations?

Doesn't it worry you that there are more than one religion?
That there is more than one belief?
That there is more than one deity in recorded history?

If any one deity is real, how would it allow others? why?
If it made itself known to some people, why wouldn't it make itself known to other people? Why would it rely on the faulty human transmission method? Why would it allow that method to incubate the astonishing diversity of beliefs we know of, today?

My explanations are based on human psychology, politics, power hunger, population control...
Any theist explanation is based on woo and hearsay.
Considering we have no access to the actual origin of the woo, we have to rely on some sort of probabilities...
Which strikes you as more reliable? woo or psychology?

I'm not worried by religious pluralism or pluralism of any sort. To me it's the same as aesthetic and musical diversity. Linguistic diversity and other forms of cultural diversity.

But I don't think you can avoid the ad hocness of your explanations by asking me a different question. Your explanations are ad hoc, and this weakness of theirs remains, right?

[abaris]

To me it's the same as aesthetic and musical diversity. Linguistic diversity and other forms of cultural diversity.

Except that noone has been killed over a musical dispute. Well, maybe in a drunken bar brawl.

Btw, don't you want to drop that Poe and take some actual stance?

[pocaracas]

I'm not worried by religious pluralism or pluralism of any sort. To me it's the same as aesthetic and musical diversity. Linguistic diversity and other forms of cultural diversity.

But I don't think you can avoid the ad hocness of your explanations by asking me a different question. Your explanations are ad hoc, and this weakness of theirs remains, right?

Forgive me, milady.... I was mistaken as to the meaning of "ad hoc"....
Now that I've taken the time to instruct myself, I must kindly disagree.

My explanation is far from ad hoc.
It flows from our slim knowledge of how life was back then and our present knowledge of human psychology.... and takes a few hints from today's missing divine.
Nothing ad hoc about it as it is quite applicable to any civilization. Many strategies have been devised, throughout the years... centuries, or even millennia, in order to keep a substantial number of people living together without them becoming a violent mess.
Religion has the merit of being one of the best methods yet found... If it was minimally thought out at the start or if it evolved into the control mechanism it became, I cannot tell.... there is no record of it... or, if there is, it hasn't been brought to my attention. And, if there ever was such evidence, it would stand to reason that the people in control and possession of it would be very interested in having it destroyed.

But the themes in the various cults do seem to have suffered some form of path from a simpler, more nature-oriented version (such as can be found in animism and shamanism) to the widely known present-day transcendental one.

[Delicate]

To me it's the same as aesthetic and musical diversity. Linguistic diversity and other forms of cultural diversity.

Except that noone has been killed over a musical dispute. Well, maybe in a drunken bar brawl.

Btw, don't you want to drop that Poe and take some actual stance?

Not to mention the east coast/west coast rap thing.

And what Poe?

[downbeatplumb]

I'm not worried by religious pluralism or pluralism of any sort. To me it's the same as aesthetic and musical diversity.

Thou shalt not shake thy booty to any but contemporary pop.
I am a jealous musical genre and shall brook no truck with country and western.

Linguistic diversity

Cough. Tower of Bable. cough.

and other forms of cultural diversity.

Because religions are so understanding of cultural diversity eh.
Seen what ISIS are up to at the Mo.

But I don't think you can avoid the ad hocness of your explanations by asking me a different question. Your explanations are ad hoc, and this weakness of theirs remains, right?

Your funny.