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Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
#11
RE: Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
Religion is an excuse to not try and understand the world. "The Lord works in mysterious ways" and "Inshallah" being two phrases which illustrate that cop-out.
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#12
RE: Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
I would agree it's more of a coping mechanism than anything else. That's why most of them are fond of an afterlife where everything works out in the end, as opposed to all the suffering and anxiety in the world. Provided the main source of that suffering and anxiety isn't directly at the hands of other religious people who expect you to conform, or die. 

That's where religion starts messing up. When it starts getting forceful, and threatening. I think we'd all do better if christians followed Jesus' softer teachings, and discarded the hellfire part, and not suffering the heathens to live.
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

10 Christ-like figures that predate Jesus. Link shortened to Chris ate Jesus for some reason...
http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-chris...ate-jesus/

Good video to watch, if you want to know how common the Jesus story really is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88GTUXvp-50

A list of biblical contradictions from the infallible word of Yahweh.
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_m...tions.html

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#13
RE: Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
Human beings are ignorant, so yes, in its initial concepts, religion is nothing more than an attempt by primitive people to make sense of a world full of natural sciences they had no comprehension of. Humans are also remarkably cunning, deceptive, and manipulative, it wasn't until it was realized what a capable conditioning and controlling tool it was, was it forged to construct it as a weapon. Lastly, humans are also incredibly arrogant, they are convinced of the extraordinary value of their own self-worth.  They confuse their own consciousness and ability to contemplate as a conduit to the divine, instead of the banal, uninspiring byproduct of evolution that it actually is.
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#14
RE: Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
I suppose that it was originally an attempt to make sense of a confusing, dangerous world.  But I agree with many of the posters above that it isn't about that anymore.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#15
RE: Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
(December 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm)no one Wrote: Human beings are ignorant, so yes, in its initial concepts, religion is nothing more than an attempt by primitive people to make sense of a world full of natural sciences they had no comprehension of.

This is more what I was trying to get at; maybe I should've been more specific in my question.

(December 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm)no one Wrote: Humans are also remarkably cunning, deceptive, and manipulative, it wasn't until it was realized what a capable conditioning and controlling tool it was, was it forged to construct it as a weapon. Lastly, humans are also incredibly arrogant, they are convinced of the extraordinary value of their own self-worth.  They confuse their own consciousness and ability to contemplate as a conduit to the divine, instead of the banal, uninspiring byproduct of evolution that it actually is.

It's fascinating to me how people interpret "divine" experiences. It's also fascinating to me that plenty of peoples in plenty of cultures, tribes and societies around the world have these so-called divine experiences while under the influence of hallucinogens, and yet consider them to be perfectly valid, "real" experiences, and not hallucinations (not that they can't be both, in a sense). Interestingly enough, one's devotion to spirituality seems to influence their psychedelic experiences, and not the other way around. No matter how many mushrooms I've eaten, I've never seen Jesus, or god in any way shape or form. Weird, huh?

It also makes me wonder how many people simply claim to have divine experiences, in the sense that there never really was any experience, but only a fabrication of their imagination used to convince the people around them how holy and great they are.
If you're frightened of dying, and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the Earth.
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#16
RE: Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
Humans tend to think alike. Almost every culture has some sort of dumpling.
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#17
RE: Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
(December 13, 2019 at 12:59 pm)no one Wrote: Humans tend to think alike. Almost every culture has some sort of dumpling.

And sausage.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#18
RE: Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
Have you ever sausage a thing?
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#19
RE: Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
As the man said:

Quote:The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
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#20
RE: Is Religion an Attempt to Understand the World?
Baloney
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