(December 9, 2014 at 11:45 pm)Quantum1Connect Wrote: As I am witnessing and identifying my thoughts and feelings more often I am identifying these few simply facts (for me):
1) The mormon church is seducing and sometimes I miss it.
2) I can't get these damn church songs out of my head!
3) My beliefs were exactly that: just a belief. Which leads me to think: do true blue believers only have beliefs? Or have they found a way to make their belief appear as fact?
4) Those who are willfully religious don't think like I do and I don't think like they do. There is nearly no hope for common ground with most religious people.
5) People are religious for the same reasons why I miss the mormon church: it's familiar, comfortable, and it hands you the answers. No reason to question or think...God already did that for us.
So through thinking about this, I see it impossible to ever find religion obsolete or defeated. Humans need religion. They might not objectively need it, but they think they need it. Everyone needs something to save them and for most, religion is the answer.
For many religious people in my sect, they spend money in their faith...alot. They spend time in their faith...alot. There are tons of catchy songs...18 years of songs. 4 years of morning seminary. Hours of scripture study. It's pure brainwash.
Put it this way, you can't convince a human to walk on four legs and insist that it is better for them. The human has already learned to walk on two and likes it that way very much.
Religion is the same way. The religious prefer to walk on all fours, they are convinced it is better. They are strong in this method and it is familiar and comfortable. They will never think or act like a human who walks on two feet. It is impossible. it is foreign, and it is scary.
I think that, ultimately, religion will never cease to exist but only mutate.
Our best hope is that religion mutates in a positive direction for a secular society.
Religion may cease to exist, but we will always need systems of belief. They are not the same.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
