'and No Religion Too...'


pushka
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This is a thread I found on another site I visit often... www.bagism.com It caught my attention because of it's reference to Religion and obviously because it's by one of my favourite singers, John Lennon...The following is a post from one of the other members of that web forum, FrankJ, from the UK...I tend to agree with many of his posts on all sorts of issues and thought this would be an interesting one to bring to this forum...what are your thoughts please?

Yeah, you could argue that God is just God, religion is all the dogma, rituals, Latin, in-fighting, rules, books, sacraments, sects, divisions, wars, suppression, mind-control, etc - all the stupid things that muddy the clarity of one all-powerful creator being. I’m an atheist, but I’ll grant the theists the possibility of a God. What I don’t think, though, is that this pure and all-powerful being would be very happy about either the war and divisions that are wrought in his name, or that people are so arrogant that they think they know the best way to worship him. I really doubt any kind of genuine creator of ALL THINGS – this is all things, don’t forget, from planets to waterfalls to people to lions to EVERYTHING!! – would insist that he be praised in Latin, or that you need to stand a particular way to do it, or wear a particular colour robe, or indeed would be so insecure that he needed all that constant buttering-up and praise. Give the guy a break! If you think about it, really think about what you do when you go to church, it’s pretty funny if you imagine the most powerful being EVER would really be impressed by any of it. I think it’s funny. People do all this for their own benefit anyway – I can’t imagine him saying, “Well, I would answer that prayer, but he didn’t put his hands together or kneel or say Amen at the end”, or “Well, that guy’s a Jew, so he’s out”.

Incidentally, do you get the impression that when you say, “I don’t believe in God” many theists take that to mean, “I do believe there is a God, I just choose to ignore Him and His works”. It’s worded badly – it should be “I don’t believe there is a God”.

http://www.bagism.com/webboard/msg/14829.html

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I think God may not say those things mentioned at the end, nor do I think He is pleased by the fighting tween the sects, but I do believe 'choice' was the main idea with experience being the prize at the end, causing the heart and mind to work and search.

I don't think God is a passive God, nor does He endorse passiveness, as it is stated that being neither hot nor cold, but luke warm is spewwed out.

Christ stated this:33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

Matt 10:

34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his dlife for my sake shall find it.

40 He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.

41 He that areceiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s breward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.

42 And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.

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Thanks Amillia...that is a very interesting reply...If you don't mind, I'm going to reprint it on the bagism forum and see what FrankJ has to say about it...it would be very interesting to see what he thinks of the words of Jesus...I must admit that I find them very disturbing...

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Guest TheProudDuck

Push,

I would say that worship is for our benefit more than God's, who, being perfect, is not added to nor taken away from by our praise or our failure to offer it. The Latin, the rituals, the reverence, etc. is to help us contemplate the perfection of the being after whom we are supposed to model ourselves. (Mormonism takes this concept a little farther than others, by its doctrine of exaltation, but all of Judeo-Christianity is under the commandment to be holy because God is holy.)

As for religious wars, I would say that people have found all kinds of reasons to fight independent of religion. The last purely religious war was probably the Thirty Years' War in the mid-1600s (including the English Civil War), and even then, secular realpolitik considerations had come to predominate by the end. (The wars against Israel by its neighbors have a religious component, but there's plenty of old-style ethnic rivalry, too.) The monster wars of the 20th century were started by governments dominated by the atheistic ideologies of fascism and communism. (Again, there was a religious component to the Japanese society that started World War II, but the military clique that dominated the government and set out to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was motivated primarily by good old 1930s-style gangster government: "Nice stuff (oil, rubber, etc.) you've got there. We'll take it."

Truly, more wars have been motivated by worship of the State than by worship of God. If the crowd that goes on and on about "religious wars" were consistent, they'd all be radical libertarians.

I don't think it's "arrogant" for a person to think he's found a better way to worship God than another. To hold otherwise is to embrace relativism. I'm surprised that 2500 years after Socrates, people are still taking the side of the Sophists that did him in. The truth is that different cultures perceive things differently because of their naturally different experiences, with the result that their conclusions as to morality and divinity may differ. (Although there are some broad themes that nearly all major religions seem to share.) The conclusion to draw from this is not that all morality is relative; it's that the true moral truth is hard to find, and everybody is going to make some mistakes. All we can do is to do our best to discern the truth as well we can, and trust whatever gods there be to make allowance for our limitations.

Ideological secularists have gone from demanding (rightly) that this inherent uncertainty compels us to tolerate others' different beliefs, and gone on to insist that for us even to believe our beliefs more accurate than those we've rejected is arrogant; witness Maureen Dowd's New York Times column the other day despising the new Pope because (surprise) he thinks Catholicism is a truer religion than others.

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Originally posted by pushka@Apr 23 2005, 12:41 PM

Thanks Amillia...that is a very interesting reply...If you don't mind, I'm going to reprint it on the bagism forum and see what FrankJ has to say about it...it would be very interesting to see what he thinks of the words of Jesus...I must admit that I find them very disturbing...

You're welcome to post it over there. :D
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Guest curvette

Originally posted by pushka@Apr 23 2005, 11:41 AM

Thanks Amillia...that is a very interesting reply...If you don't mind, I'm going to reprint it on the bagism forum and see what FrankJ has to say about it...it would be very interesting to see what he thinks of the words of Jesus...I must admit that I find them very disturbing...

I've never interpreted that scripture as Jesus' endorsement of religious war. It sounds much more to me that he's talking about the war or conflict in families that is destined to occur when a person decides to follow Christ above the objections of the family.
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Originally posted by curvette+Apr 23 2005, 06:05 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (curvette @ Apr 23 2005, 06:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--pushka@Apr 23 2005, 11:41 AM

Thanks Amillia...that is a very interesting reply...If you don't mind, I'm going to reprint it on the bagism forum and see what FrankJ has to say about it...it would be very interesting to see what he thinks of the words of Jesus...I must admit that I find them very disturbing...

I've never interpreted that scripture as Jesus' endorsement of religious war. It sounds much more to me that he's talking about the war or conflict in families that is destined to occur when a person decides to follow Christ above the objections of the family.

I heard a discussion once by some institute guys who stated that if you study history, that Christ is always at the center of conflict, starting with the pre-existent war.

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Originally posted by curvette+Apr 23 2005, 05:05 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (curvette @ Apr 23 2005, 05:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--pushka@Apr 23 2005, 11:41 AM

Thanks Amillia...that is a very interesting reply...If you don't mind, I'm going to reprint it on the bagism forum and see what FrankJ has to say about it...it would be very interesting to see what he thinks of the words of Jesus...I must admit that I find them very disturbing...

I've never interpreted that scripture as Jesus' endorsement of religious war. It sounds much more to me that he's talking about the war or conflict in families that is destined to occur when a person decides to follow Christ above the objections of the family.

Thank you Curvette...that is how I always interpreted those scriptures too...it was interesting to see them interpreted in a different way...

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I guess the author of the post waddn't bright enough to notice the irony in his complaint... he says "that people are so arrogant that they think they know the best way to worship him" yet he/she is so arrogant that he think he himself knows how God would think and feel and act, etc.

Righttt.

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Originally posted by Snow@Apr 23 2005, 10:12 PM

I guess the author of the post waddn't bright enough to notice the irony in his complaint... he says "that people are so arrogant that they think they know the best way to worship him" yet he/she is so arrogant that he think he himself knows how God would think and feel and act, etc.

Righttt.

Good point Snow!
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