On Deity, Reality, Beliefs, Honesty, Being Duped, and Whatever Else We Wander Into!

Curhurock-opboink

This starts with just bhxob and forniss, doing counterpoint and point respectively.  Anyone of you can join in, and are encouraged to.  No one is right,  no one is wrong.

Point:

After nearly 52 years of wandering through tons of literature and miles upon miles of life, I have come to a solemn conclusion. The most important question in my life has changed. It was “Is god real?” (I will use the word god as both singular and plural to satisfy all of your concepts!) Now the question has evolved. “Does it matter, do I even care about the belief in god, real or not?”

I do in an oblique way believe in supreme evil as well, i see it in the hearts of men and women all around me, in fact, its the ONLY place I see evil, nature is not evil, only the heart of mankind

Counterpoint:

I should start his off by saying that I am agnostic. I believe that I don’t honestly know.

Atheism is a belief, of a specific non-belief.

Point:

Stepping back, I have to look outward and think of this in a “We” formation for a bit. Looking out at the 6 billion or so folk who trod this worn out planet, arou

All major nd 97.3% of those folk believe in some form of deity. The other 2.7% believe in atheism, which some classify as a religion with man as god. Either way you count it, most folks believe in something supernatural, that forgoes any rational explanation. So, whether it matters to me or not, it does matter to nearly everyone else. It matters to humanity that there is deity.

Counterpoint:

All religions are just sets of beliefs, each acting as a model or guide to some aspect of the universe the user is expected to intersect with. If it is not a model, or functional in some way, it is just exposition. Fiction, in this way, also has it’s place in many religious beliefs.

Models, religious or not, can be useful tools in our individual journeys through the ridiculously small bit of the universe that we interact with. Weather models, for instance, are functional guides for predicting inclement weather and hazards. They can also be wrong, but they act as a general guide to a system which is much to complicated to be reduced into a more empirical system, at the current time. This is an example of a scientific model, however. One which was developed through research and study over long periods of time. It produces useful information, regarding happenings in the weather on this planet.

Point:

The profitable reality of belief and religion reaches back to the first shaman who accepted a hindquarter of deer for a spiritual service rendered, or curse cast. The processing and manipulating of the need to believe is singularly the most profitable enterprise mankind has ever invented. Does the hypocrisy of organized religions/beliefs have a tinker’s damn of a relationship to whether god exists?

Counterpoint:

We have many other models that determine our human action. Destructive and inane are the realms of most of them. Either useless, for providing real information to the user, or completely ineffective. The situation that most humans are living in right now, for instance. We have societies of people who have no rational explanation for its belief in a god which does not present itself in measurable ways, yet they are willing to warrant their own exceptional behaviors in that god’s name.

March 17th, 2008 by forniss | Anthropology, Capitalism, Politics, Religion, Spiritualism

2 comments

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If you dress prettier than the Jones’ who sit next to you in the pew in that great big fancy building where you go to worship your diety, and you throw more money in the little dish that floats past you, will that get you in good enough with the god to allow you to go out and create debauchery that is free of charge?

Comment by sparrow — March 24, 2008 @ 10:08 pm

Ok. So here’s my problem. This comes up for me right now because of events happening at the moment in our lives and the lives of some very close, dear friends; my twin lost at birth. Sure, there are many religions, and I fully support the rights of all people to believe whatever religion they choose to believe in; believe in whatever god, gods, goddess, sheep, goat or cow they choose to kneel in front of. In other words, I don’t have a problem with what you believe in, so please don’t harrass me about my beliefs.

My issue is with death and the concept of “afterlife”.

Each religion has it’s own idea on the afterlife and how you get there. Most popular it seems is the idea that if you are in the good graces fo your god, you will float up to a cloud somewhere and you will find a gate and some smiling man with a huge golden staff will open these gates where all loved ones who have gone on before you–those who were in the good graces anyways–will be waiting with open arms. So then what. Do they all just float around forever? Hey you! Get off of my cloud!
Those not in the good graces.. well, burn, baby, burn. Sad thought there.

There is also the concept of a heaven of sorts, only without the fire and brimstone alternative. There, the soul goes to wait it’s turn to be reincarnated. I would much rather be there, in a place where everything I ever thought beautiful or was cherished in my heart kept me company while I wait for my next journey, my next adventure as a living being….and hopefully will have had enough time there to think and reflect on past mistakes so as to not make those mistakes again. Surely there will be a new mistake or two to find in a new life.

In another religion, the Gates of Hell are opened for 15 days and ghosts visit the world. People make food offerings to relieve the ghosts’ sufferings…. ?What? What about the ghosts who aren’t in Hell? Or does everyone from that religion go to Hell? Surely not. I just thought that was a little odd.

So that brings me to my REAL question. With all these different beliefs on afterlife, are any of them true? How do we know that when the last breath is breathed, the last tiny sparkle is poofed out… thats it. No Heaven, no summerland, no Hell… just gone. Like when you’re in a deep sleep and you have no consciousness, or say you pass out. You have absolutely NO idea about anything? What if thats it. The absolute. Nothing.

Was Heaven, or it’s equal in other religions, something created to soothe the minds of those famliy members and friends left behind so they can think their loved one is calm, peaceful, out of pain and suffering? Is Hell..or whatever.. created so the dearly departed who was a less than desirable human being can be punished for as long as those who hope/wish pain and suffering on them feel better? Oh but wait.. if they wish that, do they go to Heaven or Hell? Hmmm.

So, here I sit. Still wondering. Don’t particularly care to find out anytime soon, but wondering.

Comment by sparrow — March 19, 2008 @ 11:34 pm