Who does religion care?

[Skipper]

On a small scale I'd like to know why the religious people who post here, bother. Some seem genuinely interested in thoughts of "non believers" but still try to argue their case of why their religion is right so if not directly seem unavoidably linked to the other types of people who post here. The ones who preach their religion as correct and actively try and convert others.

This brings me on to the wider scale of why does religion feel the need to get involved of all aspects of everyone's lives? The churches dish out rules and regulations that can and do change over time, such as what it's believers (and I guess all those they are actively trying to recruit) should believe, like evolution. On more local scales you get individual members of churches handing out leaflets, and preaching outside schools to try and convert people. You get religious lobbies in centres of power trying to effect government policy.

Why is all this? Why can't religion be contempt with it's message and see that if it held true value people would come looking for it, without having it forced down their necks. Why can't religion see that in countries that where religious people are less numerous, overall society can and does benefit (sweden, denmark, holland are all good examples). Why cant religion learn from it's mistakes of the past where it's spread has only come at the cost of lives and happiness? Why can't religion just be a personal thing closer to the beliefs of the apologists who claim it's a loving and tolerant thing (despite it clearly not being that at all?)

As much as a rant as a question, because to me I see it that as a man made thing, religion has man made traits of wanting control, power and influence over it's fellow man. But I would honestly like to hear opinions of others on the board, both religious and not.

[tackattack]

I agree completely that religion should be content and if people want to come looking for it, without having it forced down their necks, they can. I came here personally to question my beliefs, and gain an understanding of topics outside my primary studies. Once they were don'e I've enjoyed the ability to share and exchange ideas. Misconceptions are boundless as are the want for power, control and influence. They have no boundaries based on belief or social structure. Trying to sort out what is true false and indicative is a part of the pursuit of truth, which I think we all here are a part of.

[The Omnissiunt One]

As Penn says, if you genuinely believe that non-believers will fry in Hell, and belivers will get to eternal paradise, then it'd be damn cruel not to prosetylize. Fortunately, it's probably not true. That's a paradox of religious pluralism, as I see it. More traditional believers would be pretty awful people if they were more tolerant of others' beliefs. That said, I wish they'd shut up.

[Minimalist]

On a small scale I'd like to know why the religious people who post here, bother.

Because we terrify them. We can exist without their fairy tales. This idea is such anathema to them that like moths to a flame the fly around in circles until they are consumed.

[blood_pardon]

On a small scale I'd like to know why the religious people who post here, bother

Man I just find this question so convicting. I want to tell you that I love you enough to warn you about an impending judgement. I want it to be true, I really do! I question my motives though and I just dont know if my hearts right or not. I just want to please God and I feel led to share this truth.

I know Im on thin ice but this bible verse is the only answer I can give:

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? Romans 10:14

[solja247]

Iron sharpens iron

[Anomalocaris]

Not all religions exhibit an overwhelming tendency to get involved in every aspect of people's lives. But Christianity, from the moment the sectarian, megalomaniacally narcissistic, and sadomasochistically unhinged "prince of peace" first inserted the ghastly concept of everlasting torture of the dead into the then sputtering religion of the needy, capricious, favorite playing beduin despot in the sky, has been particularly well equipped to make openings where none existed before, and particularly without scruples in penetrating every opening it finds in the afflicted.

1. Christianity, by overwhelmed the gullible's innate but finite powers of observation and deduction with threats of infinite punishment and temptation of infinite reward, makes every aspect of lives of the afflicted vulnerable to its unholy penetration, as it were

2. Abrahamic faiths, being already of such a nature as to be without any impulse to offer the least evidentiary collateral with even the most extravagant claims of being the alpha and omega of everything from creation to now, has added to this, in the form of Christianity, a new lack of restraint in threatening infinite punishment from now to the end of time. A class of religion that has gotten so far by virtue of corralling the gullible through the absence of intellectual moderation could hardly be expected to suddenly find in itself a seemly aversion to wanton overreach and volunteer any restraint when confronted with vulnerabilities to penetration in the lives of afflicted.

When not restrained with a very strong and vigorous external secular clearheadedness, Christianity would never refrain from claiming the supreme and final authority on anything to anyone who could be cajoled or coerced into listening. Maximally invasive overreach without inhibition is the alpha and omega of Christianity.

[downbeatplumb]

It would be very boring here if there were no theists around.
It would be all 'theres no god' and the answer would be 'yes I know'.

I'm still trying to insight into the theist mind cos i just dont get it.
I have never believed for a second and I dont know why others do.

[tackattack]

@Chuck, that's an untrue generaliztaion.Proselytizing comes down to a matter of practicality. Any good orator knows, you get more flies with honey. That doesn't mean sweet talk and lie, that would not be in accordance with Christian values, nor does it mean ignoring the bad. It simply means the methodology best suited is kindness and compassion, which also exemplifies a good Christian understanding. Maximally invasive overreach without inhibition sounds more secular than religious, unless you count the Holy crusade

[Anomalocaris]

@Chuck, ....., that would not be in accordance with Christian values, nor does it mean ignoring the bad. It simply means the methodology best suited is kindness and compassion, which also exemplifies a good Christian understanding.

When "Vicar of Christ" Joseph Ratzinger choose to put one Cardinal John Henry Newmen on the path to sainthood just 2 weeks ago, he presumably has a favorable opinion of Newman's Christian values, Christian understanding, kindness and compassion.

Newman had a reasonably high opinion of his own Christian values as well. Enough so that he wrote them down, lest there be any confusion at a later date, such as when a Pope might wish to study his thoughts for evidence of exceptional Christian understanding. What he wrote down was this:

"The Catholic Church holds it better for the Sun and Moon to drop from Heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die from starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal understanding goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse".

Maximally invasive overreach without inhibition sounds more secular than religious, unless you cont the Holy crusade

No need to go back so far. We can compare present theology, partially expressed as by Cardinal Newman, with the most formidable modern secular examples. On the secular side I'll put up NAZI Germany, Stalinist Soviet Union, Maoist China, and Dynastic North Korea. Here, in an errie analogue, if not equivalent, of Cardinal Newman's understanding of proper Christian kindness, many millions are indeed allowed to starve to death in extremest agony while not one, Herr leader, comrade Secretary, Chairman or Dear Leader willing, should be allowed to overtly sin against the correct ideology.

If we overlook the distinction between overt sin and covert sin, then up to here the secular and the divine are competitive at least in spirit. Admittedly the inquisition didn't quite rack up the body count of Auschwitz, but then the divine didn't want for effort when it had the influence and the means several centuries ago. Whose fault is it if, despite access to omniscience, the divine missed the scientific, technological and organizational boat and as a result possessed neither the authority nor the means in the 20th century. As to what the Christ's Vicar thinks of Auschwitz and its sister camps, how many nominally Catholic NAZI executioners did the Pope Pious, in his Christian understanding, excommunicate or threaten with excommunication? Silly question. Answer is Zero. Has the current or last Pope excommunicated the Rowandan priest who participated in modern day genocide? No. One has to be a physician aborting a barely differentiated blob of "unborn" cells, conceived of rape or incest and hasn't yet developed any conceivable mechanism for consciousness, to run the risk of excommunication.

But beyond this the secular definitely falls short both materially and spiritually. When the grave close over you even the Gestapo, the NKVD, the red guards and its North Korean equivalent, is done with you. When you think contrary to the ideology but don't actually sin against it, the state more or less admit it wouldn't know the difference. If death does not daunt you from your beliefs, then state admits it can't do more, unless it remembers to put your relatives in the concentration camp or Gulag, which it does not always do.

But not so limited is the putatively divine. Here not even death is left as your private preserve, even inaction is not an sactuary. The omniscient trinity of infinite kindness will smite you with its omnipotence unless you gravel before the graven image of an instrument of barbaric Etruscan torture. Even if you restrict your freedom to disobey purely to thought, or are so firm in your belief that you are willing to die, the dominion of Christ will still try to convince you that you are subject to infinite retaliation in the great beyond.

In one case you are allowed at least in principle an opportunity to weigh all you have versus all you believe in. In another even that choice is attempted to be wrestled from you.