My philosophy about Religion

[Belacqua]

There is overwhelming evidence that religion is man-made; 

Well, sure. That seems pretty obvious. But what you claimed was that "Religion was created as a tool for social control." And that's a big claim. I'm just curious as to how you demonstrate that it's so.

I don't wanna go look around for evidence right now because it would be a little mentally exhausting for me to look for hours on end

It seems to me that if you want to discuss your views here, instead of just having everyone blindly accept them, then giving reasons and listening to other people's reasons would be part of the discussion. If you're not interested in supporting your claims then I don't see how discussion is possible. 

But if it's too tiring I understand.

but If I were to point you in the right direction I recommended looking at YouTube channels like Theramintrees and Underlings, and other channels like these if you can find some.

I'd rather discuss it with you, rather than look at a bunch of videos. Again, if you're here to present your philosophy then I'll discuss it with you.

If religion was created to feel connected to nature, then why force it upon other members of the tribe?  Obviously they probably won't listen to you if you say to them "Don't do this because you will feel bad!" So telling them of a higher power not physically there who will retaliate against them for their choices they make after death will keep them in line. 

Yes, good questions. 

There is no doubt that religious justifications have been used to enforce social norms. People who are convinced they know what is best will almost always try to enforce their views on society, religious or not.

My question was: why do you think religion was created for this purpose? Is it religion's only purpose? For religions everywhere? 

What I'm saying is, if Judaism came first, and they claim to have the true and only version of God, then why not stick with them?  if anything these religions are like a competition, a competition of who has the right and just version. 

The history of how Christianity split from Judaism is an interesting story. The Christians disagreed with the Jews, and made arguments. 

One version is that Judaism relies too heavily on the 613 commandments, which enable them to conform to the letter of the law but not the spirit. Christians say that Jesus wanted us to change this into one big law ("love everybody as yourself") which is written not in scripture but in the heart. This was a more difficult demand, because it requires everyone to think for himself about what is best in a given situation. Obviously Jews see it differently. 

But if you really want to know why the different religions disagree with each other, there is a great deal you can read on the subject.

3. Because God (and Jesus) says one thing, then says something else. "You only need faith to come to Heaven" then "You need faith and good works to come to Heaven" and then in another text "You will lose your salvation if you sin" and one last example "All sins are forgivable" then "Blasphemy can never be forgiven". Its just contradiction after contradiction and it's like the Bible can't make up its mind, which is probably why Christianity (and Judaism and Islam) have little "sub-religions" aka sects/denominations (Catholicism, Orthodox, Lutheran, Mormonism etc.) God want's his followers to agree with his viewpoints, and if a follower say converts to another religion like Buddhism or say Paganism or disagree with him entirely and dis-believes in him and creates his own morals,views etc, God will think what he/she is doing is "sinful"or "blasphemous". Clearly this god does not wish for humanity to think for themselves unless they wan't a one-way ticket to Hell! 

Many Christians say that exactly the opposite is true: that different parts of the Bible that are hard to reconcile precisely because one written text cannot cover every possible case. By providing a variety of different parables and directions, each believer is challenged to decide for himself what is best in a given case. 

So what you say is "clearly" is not so clear to many people. 

4. Thats just an example of the possibilities religion was created

An imaginary possibility, but not one that can be supported with evidence. 

5. Even if ancient cavemen were intelligent, they wen't intelligent enough to actually use their brains and scare their fellow man into submission with stories of super beings, now you could say religion could be considered free thinking, but religion isn't a rational and logical answer to their existence since they really didn't have any evidence their gods/spirits existed.

As you say, people didn't know as much science back then. To people at the time, these answers seemed reasonable and logical. 

I mean you wanna know how Zeus came to be? Because early Greeks were scared by the lightning and thought there must be a force of some sort behind it, so they thought up of some old guy in the sky who throws lightning strikes down to Earth. Same can be said for other early religions that involved lightning/thunder gods. But back then we didn't know better, we weren't really advanced in terms of scientific advancements and knowledge.

This may be so for some gods. How do you prove it? Are there historical sources? Or is this a just-so story that seems right to you? I mean, it wouldn't do to invent imaginary origin myths that seem reasonable and logical if we don't really know. Especially when you're criticizing earlier people for doing exactly that.

Also I don't agree with you that our more advanced science can solve questions traditionally addressed by religion. Science can tell us how to pursue our goals more efficiently, but not what goals are good to pursue.

6. Empathy and sympathy=philosophical thinking=morality. It's that simple.   

It's not that simple. It may seem simple to you, but you haven't provided any evidence or argument as for why anyone else should believe it. 

Again, are you just wanting us to agree with your unsupported assertions? Because if you just want to repeat them I won't bother you.

7. The thing is, if you begin to doubt your religion and start to stray away from it, according to whatever scriptures it uses, it's god/gods/spirits etc will be angry if you think differently then the established guidelines and codes of conduct. Pslam 141 "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good." 

Boy, you're just like a TV  evangelist, cherry-picking scripture to prove a point! There is a huge body of religious literature about doubt, and many cases in history of religious people who thought for themselves and departed from their religion's orthodoxy. Sometimes they spoke out, and sometimes they didn't. 

Laws do not need religion for their justification of enforcement, knowing that you wouldn't wan't to murder someone because you know how it would feel for them is good enough!

It's true that laws don't require religion.

But empathy is certainly not sufficient. There are many more arguments for morality than just empathy.

But if you have an argument as to why in fact laws come from empathy (rather than just an assertion) I'm curious to read it.

11. God is also bipolar, he feels fine one moment (love) then he gets pissed for no reason (threats of hell, eternal damnation). Plus Christians say we must be FEARFUL of God, as can destroy "both body and soul" etc. How is that love? 

This is true according to Bible literalists, and naive popular religion. 

Any theologian you can name, from Anselm to Buber, does not agree. For them, God is impassible, is incapable of getting angry, etc. 

If you want to limit your criticism to the naive literalists you'll have more success. But what you say is not true of more educated Christians or Jews. 

Fear comes from violence, violence leads to religion, which leads to both violence and fear. Religion was made to spread fear and keep order, when order could just simply be obtained through peaceful means, empathy. There is no need to tell tales of beings who will either reward or punish them for whatever route they take, just tell the "wrong-doer" to ask him to think about what he's doing and think hard.

Again, this sounds like a creation myth. No doubt it seems reasonable to you, but I think you're oversimplifying. And I think your dislike of religion may be causing you to cherry-pick reasons, when lots of others are possible. 

Again, if you have some arguments beyond assertions I'd be interested in reading them.