Failure of Religion

I believe that modern religion has failed everyone who is seeking a spiritual existence in todays world. Buddhism being a possible exception.

For most people their religion is part of their culture, questioning it is immoral and frightening. Many more people than would ever admit it give no real thought to their religion, it is true to them simply because they have been taught to believe so. Some of these people are capable of acts strongly condemned by their own religion in efforts to defend it. A catch 22 they are blind to.

The focus on rites, dogma and specific translations of scripture cause a great deal of suffering in the world today. Not only must the faithful constantly be trying to convert others, they must also constantly be on guard to not make any minor mistake which could be a sin. God is watching and is eager to condemn anyone who is out of line with his divine command, or anyone who is ignorant of Gods true nature. This kind of stress on people, especially new and very devout converts, causes irrational behavior.

On top of these stresses we have a quickly evolving social reality which traditional religion is not proving capable to cope with. Archaeological,anthropological and material scientific discoveries have posed questions that do not match well with religious belief, and there has been a backlash of confusion and anger.

The sad fact is that in every religion there is a core of true spirituality. Take any religion then take away the need to conform, take away the punishments and rewards, take away the need to completely understand and completely obey every commandment, take away the need to believe every myth literally. Do all that and you will see beauty and love. For too many people though, if they do that, they can't see anything.

 

Well, though I'm an athetist, I do have a couple of points to make.

For starters, All history repeats, just never the same way twice. Could religion die out, to the point where next to nobody practices it? Yes of course.

For all the problems religion brings, it also brings a great deal of bonding as well. It can cause wars, but it can bring about masterpieces, think Renissance art.

My science teacher, went to a religious college to study biology. There she had to learn creationism as well as evoultion. Just like Thomas Aquinas, applying Aristotle's logic, her teacher thought that perhaps something could be explained as to what happened with god in the picture.

Take this as it is.

 

Religion is a man-made creation. We as people have assigned labels to natural phenomena as being the work of gods or god. We have created hyperbolic historical accounts of such natural phenomena. For example, I remember watching an episode of Planet Earth. They showed how desert locusts come in massive swarms every few years. One area where this is common is Egypt. They showed how the Saharan desert area was overflowed by a massive swarm of desert locusts. The swarm was around three to five miles long. After seeing this, I came to the conclusion, the plague of locusts was not a work of god. It was a naturally occurring phenomenon that occurs quite often in the area.

To conclude, religion is simply an organized hyperbolic historical accounts, and human created morals passed down from generation to generation, labeled as the work of a divine being who is simply the creation of the religion's founder, who utilizes what he/she created for fame, fortune, or some alternative motive.

 

Much of what the OP has said is correct (unfortunately!).

I see 'religion' as man's attempt to discover & worship God; or for too many, trying to put God in a box, constraining Him to the restrictions & limitations of their futile minds during the attempt.

Why I dont claim to be 'religious,' just a follower of the words and philosophy of a man who was dead and is now alive...

 

By the way, science is also man-made. Therefore, it can be as subjective as religion. However, it can also provide insights into the natural phenomena of the universe. One problem is that we can prove something is a natural phenomena (such a global warming, which is affected by natural species, humans, plants, etc.), yet once we give it a label, objectivity ends and subjectivity begins. We never actually know if something is truly good or truly bad because we are inherently subjective beings. To be honest, almost every concept, idea, etc. that a human produces is subjective. We essentially have the ability to know everything, but only from our perspective(s), and at the same time know nothing.

 

I believe that science 'in its fullness" shud be consistent with the manifestation of God (as in creation-Big Bang, etc.).

"In its fullness" meaning fully discovered and proven, without any doubt.

 

Both religion and science are inherently unproven. Nothing is certain in the universe because we do not have the ability to understand what is inherently certain. Like I said humans are subjective beings. Everything we understand is from our perspective, and not some unbiased, objective phenomenon or phenomena. Therefore, everything we create is subjective, and never certain beyond what we and only we know. While we know something, we also know nothing. It is the curse of being a species that supposedly has a high level of intelligence.

 

And so, science will always be imperfect & lacking. A belief in God will also be to each individual until they die and discover the finality; and if they then will have access to all knowledge (as many believe), it will remove all doubt of the totality.

 

I don't think religion can truly die out. There is a need within people to feel a spiritual presence. We can dissect everything down to its core elements and it still cannot explain conscience. The truth we innately understand is that we are something beyond our material existence. We do not know exactly what that is and we create Gods, religion and philosophy to explain it. Science is only an exploration of the natural material world, it has never been an alternative to spiritual exploration. The current battleground between science and traditional religion is unhealthy and destructive.

 

Yes, it forces one to take sides in the process, and not be impartial to all of the possibilities; and it also ignores the history of mankind and his journeys while living upon the earth. Man's history has a spiritual component for pretty much all of the many civilizations across the world.

 

um i don’t innately understand that at all i figure consciousness might be a trait matter has when it’s in certain forms

What is a spiritual presence?

 

Just a quick jump in, but Morgan Freeman's "Thru the Wormhole,' on TV yesterday talked about 'collective intelligence'--that all humans on earth are 'transmitting/receiving' and in some form of collective contact. Showed several studies to support it. Are those studies sufficient as scientific proof? And, is it mental or spiritual, I dont know. Is it part of the collective intelligence of a supreme Being?

As God is in everyone and thru out the universe, as God is everything. The ultimate collective.

 

i duno i don’t rely understand science i could be wrong I don’t see how even being a collective conscious proves a spiritual existence

if you’re going for a pantheism kind of god I guess all minds are a part of god if there in a collective or not but that seems hard to distinguish from atheism

what kind of information do are minds share I don’t know anything about you other than what you post that I read

 

Yet humans have assigned god with being in everyone and throughout the universe, mainly because we created god.

 

And I agree for the most part. Religion will always be here, and science itself can only go so far. But the war between the two, has been fought since ancient greeks if not later. If religion will always be here, then this war will always be fought.

 

Ah, an epistemological skeptic. Ok, I'll concede up to a point that we humans see the world subjectively, however the whole point of science is to make our understanding of the universe more objective. This is why science as such strict methodologies. It's not perfect, but I think it does one heck of a job at making our understanding of the universe as objective as possible.

 

You are correct as your letter case in labeling 'god,,' men do created gods for themselves.

But there is only one "God."

 

I agree to an extent. In human history, science has been a lot less subjective, and likely closer to what is truly objective than religion. Like I said in previous posts, religion is hyperbolic historical accounts with a sprinkling of morality, characterized by a man-created divine being assigned to natural phenomena. It is blatantly subjective.