Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think the fundamentalist ideologies will be outlived. They were never useful. They become dangerous to others. In this country we see them twisting themselves with anger over same sex marriage. Their God is small, and only found between the pages of a book.
If they only knew God is so much more. I think they should change their nutrition, too.
I think the fundamentalist ideologies will be outlived. They were never useful. They become dangerous to others. In this country we see them twisting themselves with anger over same sex marriage. Their God is small, and only found between the pages of a book.
If they only knew God is so much more. I think they should change their nutrition, too.
Big or small, God exists only in the human imagination.
We all know, most of us anyway, that the whole concept of religion was developed as a mechanism to control the masses throughout time.
Well, quite honestly, society and humanity now sees religion for what it is, and the entire concept of a higher being and religion in general seems dated and silly. The fact that people still die in the name of their religion just highlights how absurd the whole thing is.
Does anyone agree with me that maybe it's just time to "cut the cord" and let it go?
You don't have to thump a Bible, hate anyone, judge anyone, goose step for a leader, reject science, proselytize or compromise your "coolness" in order to benefit greatly from the interpersonal connection that comes with fellowship in small groups. Your spirituality shouldn't be for a cause or even any external reasons... It's just for you. You don't have to live with guilt and anger - that's why people stay in the faith and that's why it hasn't outlived its usefulness.
I'm not sure what your exposure to religion is or was, but what you are expressing is a common pattern of thought borne out of youthful rebelliousness and nebulous angst / undirected anger. There are far better ways of dealing with what you are feeling than seeking fellowship from anonymous people on the internet.
You don't have to thump a Bible, hate anyone, judge anyone, goose step for a leader, reject science, proselytize or compromise your "coolness" in order to benefit greatly from the interpersonal connection that comes with fellowship in small groups. Your spirituality shouldn't be for a cause or even any external reasons... It's just for you. You don't have to live with guilt and anger - that's why people stay in the faith and that's why it hasn't outlived its usefulness.
I'm not sure what your exposure to religion is or was, but what you are expressing is a common pattern of thought borne out of youthful rebelliousness and nebulous angst / undirected anger. There are far better ways of dealing with what you are feeling than seeking fellowship from anonymous people on the internet.
Meh, you're painting with a pretty broad brush there. I'm approaching 60 years old and have no "undirected anger" or guilt. I simply don't see a justified belief so I left. There is nothing inherent to the social support and sense of community that was incidental to my membership in a church, that can't be gotten from any number of other places. And the obstacles to that are systemic in nature, in what we are becoming as a culture, and religious groups as far as I can see do little or nothing to counter that. They make the effort in this regard less because they believe in community and inclusiveness and supportiveness and reciprocity, than because the mutual belief-reinforcement compensates for the unsupportable nature of their magical thinking, and helps keep people locked in. Indeed the implicit threat of losing the social support should a person's belief falter, belies the lack of pure motive in offering it.
we need to control the masses. Also, that is only one component to religion and that is why we need separation of church and state. "we" control ourselves, not any one belief system alone should ever have that much power.
a higher being is not silly. In fact claiming we are not part of a higher order system goes against observation. so now what?
Dyeing for love, compassion, and understand is ok. There are many things that gnaw at a man's gut more than death. "oppression" and forcing a belief system on others is one of them. Even of the belief system is "atheism".
"Cut the cord"? kinda. There is no magic. Cut that cord! But helping people to be more than they thought they could be can be magical.
Dying. Dyeing is what you do to a tee shirt. And we've outgrown the need to die for our faith under normal circumstances.
Observation does indeed seem to lend to a view that something created us.
I would contend, then, that we do need a concept of belief; however, we may have outgrown organized religion. We could easily perform worship ceremonies alone on our own time, rather than having church hierarchies.
Do you have any proof there is no magic? I could actually prove the contrary, either by observation of coincidence and other phenomena, or the fact that the fundamental laws of physics seem to have rather strange underpinnings. Magnetism, for instance, has two substances due to electrical charges, and positive/negative, gravitate towards each other. But what causes the force? When we break down the laws to their constituent parts, it seems to have to do more with laws put in place by perceptional reality (as in, God, or some very powerful humans created these forces) than a normal law of cause.
The cord we need to cut is our reliance on the pope, archbishop, etc. These people are precisely the people using religion as an opiate of the masses. However, when worship from our own faith, we are less likely to be controlled by a third party. In theory.
Last edited by bulmabriefs144; 07-14-2015 at 11:28 AM..
You don't have to thump a Bible, hate anyone, judge anyone, goose step for a leader, reject science, proselytize or compromise your "coolness" in order to benefit greatly from the interpersonal connection that comes with fellowship in small groups. Your spirituality shouldn't be for a cause or even any external reasons... It's just for you. You don't have to live with guilt and anger - that's why people stay in the faith and that's why it hasn't outlived its usefulness.
I "fellowship in small groups" via non-religious relationships with friends and acquaintances... bar trivia, bowling league, board gaming groups, D&D, etc
Quote:
I'm not sure what your exposure to religion is or was, but what you are expressing is a common pattern of thought borne out of youthful rebelliousness and nebulous angst / undirected anger. There are far better ways of dealing with what you are feeling than seeking fellowship from anonymous people on the internet.
I'm angry toward the unwarranted hate being spewed on an almost daily basis by the vocal minority fundamentalist christian religious ****tards...
I "fellowship in small groups" via non-religious relationships with friends and acquaintances... bar trivia, bowling league, board gaming groups, D&D, etc
I'm angry toward the unwarranted hate being spewed on an almost daily basis by the vocal minority fundamentalist christian religious ****tards...
Small group fellowship is more like a 12-step program or counseling than it is like bowling or bar trivia. It would be difficult to explain to someone who is closed to it, but there is a lot of power in spirituality and connecting with people. You may know this already, but you're not really connecting with people at dungeons and dragons; if anything that's more like co-dependency. How many people in your life would you really be comfortable letting them see who you really are? Probably not your bowling buddies. I'm not trying to steer you into church or hit you over the head with Jesus, but I do hope that you can recognize that the charicature that you have constructed is wrong.
I'm angry at the unwarranted hate being spewed on an almost daily basis as well... That's not my idea of Christianity. I'm familiar with hatefulness; if you have hate for people it's really a reflection of something about yourself or something in your life that you want to change. Learning to let that go is a beautiful thing, and that's where religion in the modern world has its place. I'm not saying it's the only way, but it's a very good one.
How many people in your life would you really be comfortable letting them see who you really are?
The list is short and most of them are dead or dying.
However I think it is overrated. No one lies awake nights longing to know me more deeply. And in all honesty it's mutual. No one is THAT interesting, frankly. Or that reliable.
People who are more extroverted / social and sufficiently emotional / impulsive might fantasize about pouring out their innermost thoughts and feelings for group hugs all around but in practice it doesn't really work out that way. You would just end up competing with all the other's needs for validation and sympathy. If you're that needy you probably can't pull your own weight with others.
The best way to get what you're talking about is to learn how to be present for others and to cultivate real caring for others. When you can provide that for them then your personal needs have a strange way of getting met / diminished and for what is left you at least have a basis to maybe get the same levels of support based on the principle of social reciprocity.
I have tried to build up a rainy-day fund of investment in others. Maybe some day when life tries to break me in two yet again, people will remember and love me for that, and try to help me pick up the pieces. Or maybe not. It'll be what it'll be. One of the practical problems is that for whatever reasons I tend to be invested in people who are older than me, sicker than me, or both. And I'm the youngest by far of four brothers, and thus likely will be the last to turn the lights out. Indeed the eldest is already gone. So I'm self sufficient pretty much by necessity.
So this is where a church or similar affiliation supposedly comes in and I do occasionally darken the door of an unbeliever-friendly UU society "church" and have tried to fit in there. It's difficult for introverted souls like myself though. Even in my evangelical Christian past I did not observe people particularly taking care of each other at that level though. You can expect the pastor to say a few words over your corpse and people to bring your widow chicken soup for a couple of weeks but for the long haul people seem pretty much on their own and you're supposed to suck it up and not make everyone uncomfortable with your misery for very long. Your mileage may vary, of course. But human nature being what it is, church or no church, we die the way we are born and the way we live: alone. And that's not necessarily a bad thing at all; if your'e at peace with yourself you can be all the company you really need.
We all know, most of us anyway, that the whole concept of religion was developed as a mechanism to control the masses throughout time.
Well, quite honestly, society and humanity now sees religion for what it is, and the entire concept of a higher being and religion in general seems dated and silly. The fact that people still die in the name of their religion just highlights how absurd the whole thing is.
Does anyone agree with me that maybe it's just time to "cut the cord" and let it go?
I don't think you'll recruit many to this train of thought. There are people that know God and others who do not.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
