Religion rant!

[phykell]

A follower of the "Old Religion".

[mejinks]

Originally Posted by phykell

A follower of the "Old Religion".

Cthulhu is the true master

[LeperousDust]

Originally Posted by cleanbluesky/ Reuters

Nice one, I think we should stick your question on the side of buses.

cbs in non caps lock funny shocker, you worn that out yet ?

Anyway, the guy first off doesn't sound much like your friend, second sounds all too stereotypically familiar, like most people with "blind faith" in things. I personally like to think for myself, but this doesn't mean i can't learn from other religions, faiths or ways to live our lives

[Fayshun]

In Custody we hava a "Diversity Box", it contains several Holy Bibles, Qu'urans, the Bhagavad Gita, prayer mats etc.

We have to keep the Qu'urans wrapped up in plastic bags and hand them to prisoners so they take it out the bag, just so us unbelievers don't soil the holy book with our infidel hands.

Of course when they leave, we pick it up and stick it back in the bag

[Matblack]

Originally Posted by Fayshun

In Custody we hava a "Diversity Box", it contains several Holy Bibles, Qu'urans, the Bhagavad Gita, prayer mats etc.

We have to keep the Qu'urans wrapped up in plastic bags and hand them to prisoners so they take it out the bag, just so us unbelievers don't soil the holy book with our infidel hands.

Of course when they leave, we pick it up and stick it back in the bag

Hmmmmm, I think that provokes and interesting point.

It seems to me that religion can be (notice I didn't say is) down to being seen to do the right things rather than actually doing the right things. In my mind religion shouldn't be about practicing the religion to the letter of the law it should be about being a better person.

As a non believer I suspect that religion was invented to keep people in line, in most holy books the principals are that everyone should be nice to one another, if you can make people scared that if they aren't nice to one another that something bad will happen then this makes them more likely to conform.

Take these examples:

a) I tell you that if you steal I will hit you until you bleed
b) I explain to you that if you steal that someone else is liekly to suffer as a consiquence and 'that wouldn't be very nice now would it?'

Which one are you more likely to pay attention to?

Religion holds the biggest stick available, that if you are bad that you will burn for eternity and if you do what you are told you will go to heaven and get handjobs of virgins etc etc. In comparison to what rewards or punishments are available on earth these are massive incentives.

The issue as I see it is that people follow the letter of the law but don't practice what they learn outside of the religious environment, take Roman Catholicism for example, they have distilled the message to a point where you can effectively do what you bloody well like as long as you say sorry, where as 99% of the bible is designed to encorage people to do the right thing, they take the 1% which says you can do what you like as long as you apologise before you die. Your Islamist will ignore 99.99% of the Qur'an and concentrate on the bits which were written in to provoke a particular reaction at a particularly bad time for the muslim people.

I my book, The Book of Matblack 1:1 it says be a better person, don't follow rituals for the sake of it, whatever your holy book, if a disabled person needs to get a wheelchair up a step then don't be afraid to use the book to make a ramp because its better to be a better person than proclaim you are because of you have religion.

The whole Qur'an hand washing thing was probably relevant at a time when people were working in fields wiith muddy hands and books were massively expensive objects which should only be touched by a physically clean scholar but where it is the relevance now. Forget ritual and read your books as fables designed to provoke thought not manuals designed to be followed like cattle.

MB

[LeperousDust]

MB i agree 100% (i think) with everything you've just said, i've always seen religion as a clever way to keep the rabble at bay in years gone by. Whereas now it seems over analysed and taken to depths it probably wasn't intended for...

The thing with the quran, and the bible and other holy books i guess too, is it probably covers every ideal and answer you want to any question depending on how you read it. So I'm not convinced its always great rule book per se.

[semi-pro waster]

I suppose the most succinct way to express my views on religion would be to say 'feel free to believe in whatever you like, just be sure to allow others to do the same'. Your right to do whatever extends only as far as it takes to not unnecessarily impinge on the rights of another (cue three pages on the definition of unnecessary in this context).

Religion itself is neither terrible nor is it great, it is (or should be as Mat alluded to above) a incentive to better oneself and hopefully the lives of those around you, it is however unfortunate that such a powerful force has so often been used to justify or excuse evil acts.

[ElRazur]

@MB and Fayshun

It is a long running jokes among people in Nigeria that Islam is like a plate that is clean on the outside but dirty and nasty on the inside.

If you look at some of the "cleanness rituals" then compare to how their real life principles are you will be disgusted.

[AboveTheSalt]

Originally Posted by ElRazur

It is a long running jokes among people in Nigeria that Islam is like a plate that is clean on the outside but dirty and nasty on the inside.

They have plates with an "inside" and an "outside" in Nigeria then do they?

[bam]

Originally Posted by Matblack

Hmmmmm, I think that provokes and interesting point.

It seems to me that religion can be (notice I didn't say is) down to being seen to do the right things rather than actually doing the right things. In my mind religion shouldn't be about practicing the religion to the letter of the law it should be about being a better person.

As a non believer I suspect that religion was invented to keep people in line, in most holy books the principals are that everyone should be nice to one another, if you can make people scared that if they aren't nice to one another that something bad will happen then this makes them more likely to conform.

Take these examples:

a) I tell you that if you steal I will hit you until you bleed
b) I explain to you that if you steal that someone else is liekly to suffer as a consiquence and 'that wouldn't be very nice now would it?'

Which one are you more likely to pay attention to?

Religion holds the biggest stick available, that if you are bad that you will burn for eternity and if you do what you are told you will go to heaven and get handjobs of virgins etc etc. In comparison to what rewards or punishments are available on earth these are massive incentives.

MB

I see where you are coming form, but you should stop thinking of religion purely in terms of Christianity/Islam. Hell in the way your portray it above is pretty much a Christian invention which the Muslims went along with.

Judaism doesn't have a concept of a place of eternal punishment, nor do The Germanic Polytheist religions, although in their case the place you went to depended on which particular god may have a preference for you and/or how you died. Also worth noting that the compulsion to "be nice" only really extended to your kindred.

I don't think that Christianity and Islam try and scare people into believing for control reasons (although that's probably an appreciated side effect) but when you have a religion that claims exclusivity, which both do, you need numbers to support you, and one of the best ways to do that is scare people into believing/following.

Although they are all called Abrahamic faiths, IMO, Islam and Christianity are a pretty long way theologically from Judaism.