Unless, hear me out, god is a golden retriever and needs to be reminded how much of a good boy He is
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts
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this golden retriever has committed many atrocities in the old testament
"Bad god!" hits god with a rolled up newspaper
Lots of good discussion going on here, majority of folks have covered off on the pitfalls and deceitfulness that comes with religion so thought I'd give an alternative perspective.
I think in some ways religion is a very helpful tool. It provides people with guidelines to live a good life - 'as long as you do these things everything is gonna be alright'. It takes away uncertainty. It gives people purpose. Pretty sure they attribute a lot of humanity's early adoption of cleanliness and hygiene standards to religion. The whole 'invisible man in the sky is watching you' thing does wonders for keeping people accountable behind closed doors.
Whether or not it's fake is up to the individual. Personally I define religion as a 'way of living' (a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion). Do I subscribe to organised religion? No. Do I think that it's fake for those that do? Definitely not. Can different faiths be praying to the same god/s? Yes, I think it's possible, we are all connected.
What I'm getting at here is that even if you think it's fake, it's important to continue questioning and exploring the spiritual or religious aspects of the human condition and develop your own understanding for yourself.
Religion has typically been used as a tool for controlling the masses but to dismiss it solely as a manipulation tactic is an injustice. There is more there to be uncovered if you are willing to look.
The world needs more faith.
Counterpoint: faith and religion have caused more wars, misery, and death than any other single source in human history. We've had literally thousands of years of being led by religious leaders, maybe it's time to try something different. The world needs LESS faith.
I am in complete agreement with your statement, excepting the final line.
Organised religion leading society's and their involvement in government is definitely detrimental.
What I aim to bring to light here is that religion, belief and faith in something greater than oneself is (in my belief) healthy for humanity when it is driven by personnel introspection.
I feel that all too often we have very intelligent people who completely ignore the entire prospect or field of spirituality due to the negative light it is cast in.
I'm also happy for people to ignore it but speaking from my own experience, I never thought to investigate this side of the human condition as I had wrapped all notions of spirituality up with the atrocities and lack of logic or reasoning of organised religion. Religion was bad and stupid and I wanted nothing to do with it. But I've since grown and adapted my world views & hope to share my experiences from an empathic viewpoint to maybe assist others who can relate.
When I say we need more faith, I don't really mean faith in any particular god, entity, alien or higher power. I mean more so that faith in oneself, faith in the connected nature of all things and faith in the universe, this form of faith is a very empowering source of energy that we as a collective can draw upon.
It's open to interpretation and appreciate your response.
It sounds like you are replacing the words faith with confidence or certainty. You can be confident in yourself but you can’t have faith in yourself because faith necessitates not having knowledge otherwise it would be knowledge.
I can’t really say much more about your idea of faith since most of what you said is the standard vague wishy washy stuff that doesn’t tell me anything exact
As an agnostic, faith isn't confidence. It provides the wanderlust to go on along with a small ego boost for following morals.
Praying works: "Thank God!111!"
Praying doesn't work: "God works in mysterious ways... 🤷♀️"
Like sure if you need that as a way to cope with a depressing reality. But that is the main function of religion: to keep folks complacent, governable and prevent systemic change
(dw am not some kind of "religion bad!! no, I never interacted with organized spirituality, why do you ask?"-person. That's just what growing up with ~~real /j~~ Orthodox Christianity and two hours of liturgy on most Sundays does to a critically inclined mf lol)
My go to phrase for Mormons is something like "I believe that, if there is a God, he wouldn't be so vain as to require constant worship, and instead he would just want us to 'live in his image'".
It's fun watching the cogs turn in their heads when you say something like that.
Little know trivia in the Book of Mormon, you get a chance to convert after death if you haven't already!
Pretty sure there are lines in the Bible that directly state it is enough to pray in your heart, without any outward symbols or churches or the like. So yeah, that's not only a witty comeback, but also a good point from the consistency view
I remember a song from my childhood which was sung in the church regularly. And a part of it says something along the lines of "where two or three come together in my name, I'll be among them". Which seems to be a "quote" from Jesus. It's not only written in their books but also in their songs but the whole "we need your money to build bigger churches otherwise God can't hear us" scheme is still going..