(September 18, 2010 at 3:43 pm)FadingW Wrote: If no gods exist, then the inescapable conclusion is that all the doings of religion are caused by human beings and so human beings are responsible for whatever is justified under the banner of religion.If you strip religion back, taking away its rituals, history (good, bad and indifferent), its art, its architecture, its philosophy, theology itself. You are left holding nothing but superstition, mysticism and spirituality and reduce it to the level of astrology and crystal healing. If you leave all those things in then you are left with the legacy of man made constructs and some totally inexplicable things. What then should religion do? I don't care, they are problems for religion. But to start with they should stop misleading people about afterlives, gods, what to eat, think, who to sleep with etc. These are all a tyranny of the mind!
Therefore as a human institution, is not religion itself subject to correction? It is said that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath made for man. In the same vein, if it is a dream of humanity for utopia, the perfect society, is it an impossibility to dream of paradise, a perfect religion?
Can religion be improved? Or is it's very nature, blind reliance on questionable authority, self crippling?
If humanity is to survive, it could be argued that religion must be made to serve and uphold the betterment of humanity.
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
