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See The true living Creator came and interacted with man , and this man is God answer to a family for God , which usurp the previous family God had which was the devil and demons and God Holy Angel in which a portion of Gods angels rebelled against God ..........So God made man and then the devil created confusion against God and his family plans to make God something that was not true and divide against God and who He is ..........So in some regions strange religions of myths , and some religions of godless naturalism rose by the manipulation of the devil which to confuse man and create a will against God ........... There is a spirit of religion and strife which is white serpents and a fallen angel, which is white and clean on the outside and evil and corrupt of the inside of the heart , Like in some religious building Temple of man design man must take a shower of water before they enter the temple to be clean on the outside ...... Lord Jesus Christ told converts to forsake these inheritance of religion and turn to Christ for eternal life ...
Or, it could mean that something greater than us, a creator possibly, is obvious.
The disparate nature of the religions belies that assumption.
Religion exists because of fear of the unknown and the inability of humans to live happily under the cloud of the unknowable. It fills a gap that knowledge of truth literally could never fill. Since there is no truth to fill the gap, we fill it with fabrication, and so the answer to the OP's question "Why?" is "Because we humans are a very creative, diverse group of people."
The disparate nature of the religions belies that assumption.
Religion exists because of fear of the unknown and the inability of humans to live happily under the cloud of the unknowable. It fills a gap that knowledge of truth literally could never fill. Since there is no truth to fill the gap, we fill it with fabrication, and so the answer to the OP's question "Why?" is "Because we humans are a very creative, diverse group of people."
I disagree, and that's why I said "something greater". It doesn't necessarily have to be a god.
Gods are invented by humans and project their aspirations, hopes, and fears. There are different gods because there are, culturally and individually, differences in what we want in a god.
There are so many denominations for the same reason. You are attracted towards Catholic, Episcopal, Mennonite or Church of God in Christ because something in what is on offer scratches an itch or soothes a fear of some kind. Of course that is mixed with what your family, tribe, or society expects of you. If you had been born somewhere in Eurasia, the above four random examples wouldn't even be an option. You'd be, perhaps Buddhist, and at most, thinking about leaving the Tibetian sect for the Forest sect. Or you'd be Hindu and would choose different family gods than your father did.
There are so many different religions because there are so many different gods.
And we have a lot of different religions for the same reason we have a lot of different languages.
The point here is one I realized ..ooooohh...a LONG time ago, IF there is a god, it is not the god of any particular religion. It is not the god described and revealed in any particular Holy Book and certainly does not fight on anybody's side.
Since it was clear long ago that the stick and carrot of the afterlife or after-death punishment was a dud cheque, God was actually irrelevant, rather like the sun, which will shine or go Nova, irrespective of anything we do about it.
The move towards UR and the Pope's recent 'atheists will go to heaven' is a lurch towards the half -admission that religion earns you nothing, and if there is an afterlife, it is one we all get, so, like the adverts said, it's nothing to worry about. Just live your life as though it was the only one you got.
Because God chose all of us in Jesus regardless of beliefs, [God] groups us all in an unconditional love category.
If God set that example of unconditional love for us, then it behooves us to follow the same example regardless of religious or non/ religious beliefs.
The spirit of love is what units us, not religious beliefs.
There are, unfortunately, beliefs which [en]gender hate and harm in the mistaken belief of personal righteousness of which we are entitled to defend against.
If you love God, by whatever means you chose to honor Him, that is credited to your faith as long as it does not alienate and or harm others of different beliefs.
Build on your faith, peace to all mankind and good will.
That is my view of things and that is what I practice.
That's an unusually evolved and inclusive theism and I applaud you for it. It's still hard for many theists to accept the likes of me, though, because in their mind if I don't believe in their god, I'm rejecting / dishonoring / insulting him -- and by extension, theists. Even your final summary says I have to "build on my faith" when in fact I reject faith in favor of reason.
That is the problem of conservative theists talking to liberal theists talking to atheists ... one can make a statement consisting of words that each group can understand completely differently. I suspect you think I can honor God by being loving and kind regardless of what I (do or don't) believe about God and so that includes me as "God lover" and a person of "faith" (both rather loosely and non-literally defined). This is not something that, on the one hand, a fundamentalist is capable of (because of a much more limited definition of these things) or that a rationalist such as myself can really be comfortable with (because to me, you can't say anything about god or beliefs about god without a specific and precise definition of god and related terminology such as "faith").
Ironically, fundamentalism and I still have common cause in that we feel words must have meanings -- the only difference being which meanings we choose and I suppose what beliefs we choose -- I choose or reject beliefs based on evidence regardless of where that evidence leads and a fundamentalist chooses only beliefs consistent with his/her interpretation of scripture regardless of evidence. Heck, a fundamentalist's definition of what is accepted into evidence is not even the same.
It's no wonder we have so many religions -- each person tends to gravitate toward a belief-system that fits their perception and awareness (or lack thereof) and addresses their particular fears and hopes and needs.
Even atheists (to the extent they are intellectual / rationalist) tend to gravitate toward atheism because for them it makes the most sense. Some atheists like myself aren't totally comfortable in atheism but accept that it is the best explanation for facts on the ground, even if it denies us the rainbows-and-unicorns deepities that should, in theory, make life SEEM more comprehensible, fair, and welcoming.
Last edited by june 7th; 09-20-2013 at 09:13 AM..
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