Post by Crow on Jun 10, 2006 12:11:50 GMT -5
Ok. I've been away a lot so I haven't had time to check out the site as much as I'd like to. And what do you know; I pop up today and find the thread on religion. Now I see it also had been locked down, and to make sure I mean no disrespect I believe Idle allowed us to further our thoughts in a new forum that didn't have the negativity of the first thread. (Tell me if I'm wrong or right).
While I didn't read each and every reply thoroughly, I did read a lot of it and I did want to add my own opinions.
To give a little background, I am drawing my thoughts and beliefs after studying/skimming through various religions. True, I am a young guy, but I have had interest in religion, philosophy and the like for a long time, and it's very interesting to me to see how we're all so divided on these topics. Some disagree, like those who participated in the previous thread and many all over the world war over it. With some people it splits families.
So this is my only wish for any readers of this thread: that you respectfully agree, disagree or comment, and that you read EVERYTHING before you comment. And let me say now I am not knocking any faiths but I am going to say my thoughts on things as thoroughly as I can. If you’re tired or it is late, read the next day or coffee or tea.
In addition I should let you all know that I have studied a little bit of angelology, demonology (both of different faith/belief systems), a lot of Christianity, a lot of mythology of the older/ancient cultures, a little bit of Hinduism, Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism and the Muslim faith, and many excerpts based on philosophy (that includes Socrates, Plato, Jean Jacques Rousseau). And to round it up, we all need history to make any judgment, so that's in there too.
1) My first comments will be on whether it's fair to base a certain religion on the way to salvation or not.
Many faiths believe that if you don't believe in their faith or any faith you will go to hell or something similar. In fact, one Christian told me once that he believed that yes, it is true that a man without religion can be moral and good and kind, but because he doesn't believe in Christ he can not go to God. Christ is the "way" and because he said so, we can not get to heaven or god but through him.
Don't throw stones; I know this is only a translation through ones eyes, but my problems are the people that leaves out. Christianity is, in contrast to some beliefs, one of the later Major belief systems. If you think about it, what we call mythologies now, and Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism, all came before Christianity. Christianity and Islam came afterwards, and then the smaller religions like Jehovah witnesses or Mormonism, (remember, Christianity encompasses Catholicism, any protestant branch, and orthodox).
So my question is, based on what the New Testament says that people can only go to heaven through Christ, what does that mean for the small village of aborigines in Australia who have never heard of Christianity before the 1800s? Or the many native tribes of the Americas who never would have been converted if not for the Europeans? Did those thousands of years of millions of people all go to hell?
Doesn't make sense since they never had the chance.
2) Religion itself is a product of man, to a certain degree.
We all know that throughout history, there are things that have blamed on divinity that may not have an origin to a god at all. Not to say anything in the universe wasn't made by god, but we all know that in older cultures, when it rains the "Rain goddess" is blessing us, or when it is hot, the "Sun God" is mad at us.
We can all laugh at Egyptian mythology or Native American mythology, but its present in all religions. If the sky thunders, a person may say "Well there is a god who did that and he must be angry because the sound of thunder is so strong and deep". But we all know now, because of science, that it is a natural, random phenomenon that comes with storms.
Now if I am to up to ante, I can say that we can also see this in the words of all religious books. I must warn you, if you are an uber religious person who scorns someone who talks about the holy books, skip this part.
In the Torah, God is a very anthromorphic God, very human, with human emotions. It is the same with many older religions, and though the other religions died out in time or became "mythologies" to read and smile at, they were all very similar. No matter that many were polytheistic and some other monotheistic, they all had human gods who reflected the human way.
It isn't necessarily a wrong thing, because if God is beyond our understanding, we would have trouble identifying with God and being able to understand and interpret God.
The wrong part though, is when we say that God is a "Jealous god" or an "angry God".
3) This leads me to God as an Omni-Benevolent god and an Omniscient god.
If God was omni-benevolent, he couldn't be an angry god or jealous god because it contradicts what being benevolent is about. Omni-benevolent would mean that he is always benevolent.
4) Core beliefs
In each religion there are core beliefs that are similar or identical in each one.
Skin off all of the extra rules and such and almost every religion has:
a) Love your neighbor as yourself. Do good works and help each other.
b) Try to be a kind and good person.
c) Try to progress spiritually and help your fellow man evolve spiritually.
I may have forgotten some others I’ve thought of but those are essential.
Now if you look at all the other stuff, that was added in by culture.
For example, in the Muslim faith, I read that Muhammad had went into the desert, spoken to an angel, and had come back and shared what was said with everyone who could. BUT, he never actually wrote anything down. 100 years later, give or take, the people he gave the message too began to write down what he said as scriptures which would become the Quran. BUT, all the rules on what to eat, what women should dress like, what heaven was like, all came from the culture and the people.
Or for the Jewish tradition. You’ll find many things contradict in the Bible because the First Testament is actually the Torah from Judaism. In the first Testament there are many, many minor and major rules that are more culture based than anything a God would necessarily have to tell his people (not talking about the Ten Commandments, but I am talking about such things that are in the book of Leviticus. Take a look at ALL the rules in that book that many people ignore in present day).
Many religions that have survived for a long time were based on that era and that people.
But many of the core beliefs are all the same in almost all religions. It show what the human mind will do.
In addition, religion is also used for control. Look at the Catholic history. It is said that before the Middle Ages, there wasn’t really many rules based on sex and the like. At the time of 1000 AD, sex was a universal thing that was a reward or a task (enjoyment, recreation, or procreation).
When the Middle Ages came, and things began to go hectic and the Holy faith had little power, they began to add rules and guidelines that left little freedom. You couldn’t have sex but in the missionary position. You couldn’t masturbate (man or woman) or else a demon might seize the chance to get your weakened mind (weakened by lack of religious discipline) or your eyes might fall out, and the like.
We also would have no real idea on what angels and demons are like, and what happened to them. We can’t assign roles and personalities because we weren’t there. And how would angels and demons fight with swords and wings and cannons and the like if they are spiritual beings?
So where do you draw the line? How do you find the truth, or the closest thing to it?
5) Discarding Contradictions
Epicurus, a philosophizer, once said that he knew his Gods could only be two things according to his beliefs of what divinity meant. They could only be blessed and immortal. All of the tales of the Greek/Roman gods were humans trying to give them human traits to identify with. Socrates also believed that. And Epicurus said, whatever contradicts the definition of what a god is, should be discarded and forgotten.
Most of us believe that God is omni-presence, omniscient, and omni-benevolent (though some would argue that even being benevolent sounds like a human trait). Anything contradicting that should be discarded.
6) Heaven and Hell
If you think about it, all of us want to know that what we’re doing will reap a reward of some kid. And we’d like to believe that those who don’t work hard or be good will be punished; because it makes us believe there is a balance. And, if there is no punishment, why work hard to be good?
Again, using the omni-benevolence of God, we would have to agree that with some versions of faith, where a sinner is FOREVER and ETERNALLY cast in punishment is a contradiction of what Jesus says when he says God is a eternally forgiving and loving God.
What if a boy was born without parents. He had to survive alone. One day he is found, but his new caretakers beat the snot of him for nothing and teach him that there is nothing good about the world. That he only way to get by is through evil deeds. That boy, in turn, begins to act out his misguided and corrupted thoughts on innocent animals.
That kid now has a fractured psyche and has no belief in a higher power. It isn’t his fault though. He grows up and is even worse than as a child. He does some evil deeds when he meets other people, and dies. I it fair to send him to hell when he has had no chance to hear the words of Christ or any religion? Is it fair for him to burn eternally when he has been wronged against his whole life without the chance for happiness or good, moral goals? Not if you were an Omni-benevolent god. He should have a chance to repent or be forgiven.
And looking at Heaven, we all have these weird conceptions of Heaven. I’ll get whatever I want in Heaven because I worked so hard in life. But why would you need material things in a spiritual place?
Or why would I need the Houri, 72 virgins, to wait on me hand and foot (traditional Muslim faith)? And what do the women get for being good in that belief system?
In spiritual or New Age belief systems, they believe that everything is based on spirit and energy, and that various things are combined. Let’s take a look at that.
7) Combining Ideas
We can all agree that every living being has a consciousness of some sort. My ancestors, the Native Americans, believed that even the Earth and plants have some kind of consciousness, and plants are scientifically labeled as living organisms with some thought-systems. Along these lines, God would have the greatest consciousness, or the greatest spirit.
We all come from God, which is in every religion, so we can agree that every individual comes from this consciousness. Our minds are all forged from the first spirit, God’s.
The universe and all of Creation can be arguably said to be made by God, because there is so much detail and complexity to the universe and even the human body. One could argue that theory of Intelligent Design, which I believe states that God and the Big Bang/Evolution both occurred, and that it was God’s way of forming the universe.
I can even plucked out some verses and say that it said in the Bible that a day for God is a thousand (or so) of human days. Though we’d never know if that is true or not, we can argue that the “Six” days it took God to create the universe and Earth could arguably be the millions/billions of years it took to form the universe. Each day could be a Eon. Who knows?
Perhaps we’re here on this plane of existence to further our spiritual development. Perhaps we’re here to enhance of understanding of our own nature, and reaching that “higher consciousness” is really what Heaven is. Think along the lines of Nirvana, which is in Buddhism and other Asian religions.
Nirvana is a type of Heaven. Heaven by Christian standards and angelology, states that the highest pleasure of heaven is to be in the presence of God and his divinity, many texts saying that only the brightest/ most faithful/ most spiritual can make it to that. This is also stated in the Muslim faith, some African faiths, many mythologies, Hinduism, and more. Nirvana is the act of becoming one with the universe again when you reach that highest consciousness.
Reincarnation also states that one is not reincarnating forever, but until they reach that higher consciousness and can attain Nirvana.
Even science can back this up because it says that EVERYTHING is made of energy, and that when a thing dies, its energy goes onto something else. Perhaps our consciousness travels along with it too if we reach a high enough consciousness.
Combine these beliefs and one can say this:
We all came from the highest consciousness and spirit that is God: always present (omnipresence) and all knowing (omniscient). His spirit is energy and all things that has been created come from his energy.
On Earth our spirits inhabit bodies to learn and grow and progress. It is not about who you worship, because all religions arguably worship the same god in one incarnation or other, but how you worship, what you do, and the like. Jesus and any other prophets/saviors are focal points for faith and progression.
When one dies, if they stripped themselves of all earthly problems and negative energies they possibly can reach higher states of consciousness and either move on into something that needs higher consciousness or might reach Nirvana.
Those who remained the same or were tied down by negativity made their soul/spirit/consciousness heavy, and hell would then be a place that may be temporary and dark, depressive (think of the movie “What Dreams May Come” and their version of what hell is). Once ready to move on one reincarnates and has another chance to strengthen their consciousness.
Because of God’s freewill he has NO interference with our decisions but he has left ways for a person to reach him or learn to elevate themselves spiritually.
This also means that we are not here to be judged by being a good person, a bad person, or a sorta kinda good maybe occasionally bad person because good and evil are all perspectives of human opinion.
If you have any questions, comment, thoughts or disagreements with my incomplete theories, please leave them and we can discuss them. There is no wrong or right and neither of us know who are closer to the truth, but I do ask you to open your mind and learn as much as you can when making opinions.
While I didn't read each and every reply thoroughly, I did read a lot of it and I did want to add my own opinions.
To give a little background, I am drawing my thoughts and beliefs after studying/skimming through various religions. True, I am a young guy, but I have had interest in religion, philosophy and the like for a long time, and it's very interesting to me to see how we're all so divided on these topics. Some disagree, like those who participated in the previous thread and many all over the world war over it. With some people it splits families.
So this is my only wish for any readers of this thread: that you respectfully agree, disagree or comment, and that you read EVERYTHING before you comment. And let me say now I am not knocking any faiths but I am going to say my thoughts on things as thoroughly as I can. If you’re tired or it is late, read the next day or coffee or tea.
In addition I should let you all know that I have studied a little bit of angelology, demonology (both of different faith/belief systems), a lot of Christianity, a lot of mythology of the older/ancient cultures, a little bit of Hinduism, Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism and the Muslim faith, and many excerpts based on philosophy (that includes Socrates, Plato, Jean Jacques Rousseau). And to round it up, we all need history to make any judgment, so that's in there too.
1) My first comments will be on whether it's fair to base a certain religion on the way to salvation or not.
Many faiths believe that if you don't believe in their faith or any faith you will go to hell or something similar. In fact, one Christian told me once that he believed that yes, it is true that a man without religion can be moral and good and kind, but because he doesn't believe in Christ he can not go to God. Christ is the "way" and because he said so, we can not get to heaven or god but through him.
Don't throw stones; I know this is only a translation through ones eyes, but my problems are the people that leaves out. Christianity is, in contrast to some beliefs, one of the later Major belief systems. If you think about it, what we call mythologies now, and Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism, all came before Christianity. Christianity and Islam came afterwards, and then the smaller religions like Jehovah witnesses or Mormonism, (remember, Christianity encompasses Catholicism, any protestant branch, and orthodox).
So my question is, based on what the New Testament says that people can only go to heaven through Christ, what does that mean for the small village of aborigines in Australia who have never heard of Christianity before the 1800s? Or the many native tribes of the Americas who never would have been converted if not for the Europeans? Did those thousands of years of millions of people all go to hell?
Doesn't make sense since they never had the chance.
2) Religion itself is a product of man, to a certain degree.
We all know that throughout history, there are things that have blamed on divinity that may not have an origin to a god at all. Not to say anything in the universe wasn't made by god, but we all know that in older cultures, when it rains the "Rain goddess" is blessing us, or when it is hot, the "Sun God" is mad at us.
We can all laugh at Egyptian mythology or Native American mythology, but its present in all religions. If the sky thunders, a person may say "Well there is a god who did that and he must be angry because the sound of thunder is so strong and deep". But we all know now, because of science, that it is a natural, random phenomenon that comes with storms.
Now if I am to up to ante, I can say that we can also see this in the words of all religious books. I must warn you, if you are an uber religious person who scorns someone who talks about the holy books, skip this part.
In the Torah, God is a very anthromorphic God, very human, with human emotions. It is the same with many older religions, and though the other religions died out in time or became "mythologies" to read and smile at, they were all very similar. No matter that many were polytheistic and some other monotheistic, they all had human gods who reflected the human way.
It isn't necessarily a wrong thing, because if God is beyond our understanding, we would have trouble identifying with God and being able to understand and interpret God.
The wrong part though, is when we say that God is a "Jealous god" or an "angry God".
3) This leads me to God as an Omni-Benevolent god and an Omniscient god.
If God was omni-benevolent, he couldn't be an angry god or jealous god because it contradicts what being benevolent is about. Omni-benevolent would mean that he is always benevolent.
4) Core beliefs
In each religion there are core beliefs that are similar or identical in each one.
Skin off all of the extra rules and such and almost every religion has:
a) Love your neighbor as yourself. Do good works and help each other.
b) Try to be a kind and good person.
c) Try to progress spiritually and help your fellow man evolve spiritually.
I may have forgotten some others I’ve thought of but those are essential.
Now if you look at all the other stuff, that was added in by culture.
For example, in the Muslim faith, I read that Muhammad had went into the desert, spoken to an angel, and had come back and shared what was said with everyone who could. BUT, he never actually wrote anything down. 100 years later, give or take, the people he gave the message too began to write down what he said as scriptures which would become the Quran. BUT, all the rules on what to eat, what women should dress like, what heaven was like, all came from the culture and the people.
Or for the Jewish tradition. You’ll find many things contradict in the Bible because the First Testament is actually the Torah from Judaism. In the first Testament there are many, many minor and major rules that are more culture based than anything a God would necessarily have to tell his people (not talking about the Ten Commandments, but I am talking about such things that are in the book of Leviticus. Take a look at ALL the rules in that book that many people ignore in present day).
Many religions that have survived for a long time were based on that era and that people.
But many of the core beliefs are all the same in almost all religions. It show what the human mind will do.
In addition, religion is also used for control. Look at the Catholic history. It is said that before the Middle Ages, there wasn’t really many rules based on sex and the like. At the time of 1000 AD, sex was a universal thing that was a reward or a task (enjoyment, recreation, or procreation).
When the Middle Ages came, and things began to go hectic and the Holy faith had little power, they began to add rules and guidelines that left little freedom. You couldn’t have sex but in the missionary position. You couldn’t masturbate (man or woman) or else a demon might seize the chance to get your weakened mind (weakened by lack of religious discipline) or your eyes might fall out, and the like.
We also would have no real idea on what angels and demons are like, and what happened to them. We can’t assign roles and personalities because we weren’t there. And how would angels and demons fight with swords and wings and cannons and the like if they are spiritual beings?
So where do you draw the line? How do you find the truth, or the closest thing to it?
5) Discarding Contradictions
Epicurus, a philosophizer, once said that he knew his Gods could only be two things according to his beliefs of what divinity meant. They could only be blessed and immortal. All of the tales of the Greek/Roman gods were humans trying to give them human traits to identify with. Socrates also believed that. And Epicurus said, whatever contradicts the definition of what a god is, should be discarded and forgotten.
Most of us believe that God is omni-presence, omniscient, and omni-benevolent (though some would argue that even being benevolent sounds like a human trait). Anything contradicting that should be discarded.
6) Heaven and Hell
If you think about it, all of us want to know that what we’re doing will reap a reward of some kid. And we’d like to believe that those who don’t work hard or be good will be punished; because it makes us believe there is a balance. And, if there is no punishment, why work hard to be good?
Again, using the omni-benevolence of God, we would have to agree that with some versions of faith, where a sinner is FOREVER and ETERNALLY cast in punishment is a contradiction of what Jesus says when he says God is a eternally forgiving and loving God.
What if a boy was born without parents. He had to survive alone. One day he is found, but his new caretakers beat the snot of him for nothing and teach him that there is nothing good about the world. That he only way to get by is through evil deeds. That boy, in turn, begins to act out his misguided and corrupted thoughts on innocent animals.
That kid now has a fractured psyche and has no belief in a higher power. It isn’t his fault though. He grows up and is even worse than as a child. He does some evil deeds when he meets other people, and dies. I it fair to send him to hell when he has had no chance to hear the words of Christ or any religion? Is it fair for him to burn eternally when he has been wronged against his whole life without the chance for happiness or good, moral goals? Not if you were an Omni-benevolent god. He should have a chance to repent or be forgiven.
And looking at Heaven, we all have these weird conceptions of Heaven. I’ll get whatever I want in Heaven because I worked so hard in life. But why would you need material things in a spiritual place?
Or why would I need the Houri, 72 virgins, to wait on me hand and foot (traditional Muslim faith)? And what do the women get for being good in that belief system?
In spiritual or New Age belief systems, they believe that everything is based on spirit and energy, and that various things are combined. Let’s take a look at that.
7) Combining Ideas
We can all agree that every living being has a consciousness of some sort. My ancestors, the Native Americans, believed that even the Earth and plants have some kind of consciousness, and plants are scientifically labeled as living organisms with some thought-systems. Along these lines, God would have the greatest consciousness, or the greatest spirit.
We all come from God, which is in every religion, so we can agree that every individual comes from this consciousness. Our minds are all forged from the first spirit, God’s.
The universe and all of Creation can be arguably said to be made by God, because there is so much detail and complexity to the universe and even the human body. One could argue that theory of Intelligent Design, which I believe states that God and the Big Bang/Evolution both occurred, and that it was God’s way of forming the universe.
I can even plucked out some verses and say that it said in the Bible that a day for God is a thousand (or so) of human days. Though we’d never know if that is true or not, we can argue that the “Six” days it took God to create the universe and Earth could arguably be the millions/billions of years it took to form the universe. Each day could be a Eon. Who knows?
Perhaps we’re here on this plane of existence to further our spiritual development. Perhaps we’re here to enhance of understanding of our own nature, and reaching that “higher consciousness” is really what Heaven is. Think along the lines of Nirvana, which is in Buddhism and other Asian religions.
Nirvana is a type of Heaven. Heaven by Christian standards and angelology, states that the highest pleasure of heaven is to be in the presence of God and his divinity, many texts saying that only the brightest/ most faithful/ most spiritual can make it to that. This is also stated in the Muslim faith, some African faiths, many mythologies, Hinduism, and more. Nirvana is the act of becoming one with the universe again when you reach that highest consciousness.
Reincarnation also states that one is not reincarnating forever, but until they reach that higher consciousness and can attain Nirvana.
Even science can back this up because it says that EVERYTHING is made of energy, and that when a thing dies, its energy goes onto something else. Perhaps our consciousness travels along with it too if we reach a high enough consciousness.
Combine these beliefs and one can say this:
We all came from the highest consciousness and spirit that is God: always present (omnipresence) and all knowing (omniscient). His spirit is energy and all things that has been created come from his energy.
On Earth our spirits inhabit bodies to learn and grow and progress. It is not about who you worship, because all religions arguably worship the same god in one incarnation or other, but how you worship, what you do, and the like. Jesus and any other prophets/saviors are focal points for faith and progression.
When one dies, if they stripped themselves of all earthly problems and negative energies they possibly can reach higher states of consciousness and either move on into something that needs higher consciousness or might reach Nirvana.
Those who remained the same or were tied down by negativity made their soul/spirit/consciousness heavy, and hell would then be a place that may be temporary and dark, depressive (think of the movie “What Dreams May Come” and their version of what hell is). Once ready to move on one reincarnates and has another chance to strengthen their consciousness.
Because of God’s freewill he has NO interference with our decisions but he has left ways for a person to reach him or learn to elevate themselves spiritually.
This also means that we are not here to be judged by being a good person, a bad person, or a sorta kinda good maybe occasionally bad person because good and evil are all perspectives of human opinion.
If you have any questions, comment, thoughts or disagreements with my incomplete theories, please leave them and we can discuss them. There is no wrong or right and neither of us know who are closer to the truth, but I do ask you to open your mind and learn as much as you can when making opinions.
