Warning: If you are easily offended or have strong religious beliefs it may be best not to view this topic, if you decide to carry on and do get offended, don't post some hateful comment, you chose to read. ---------------------------------- Ever since I was little I have been raised in a Christian family. My mother / grandparents were all religious and for many years we were ''forced'' to go to church etc until about the age of 14. During all that time I never learned anything of any worth from the church, all that we were told were the ''nice'' stories from the bible which had no real impact on what we were doing in our lives so never really sunk in. The rest of the time it was listening to preaching, singing hymns and attending the church youth club which was pretty much just an indoor BBQ. I was so glad not to have to go and very rarely went when it was my own choice. During my older years (around about 16 years old) I went into higher level religious studies which included Philosophy, Ethics, Moral Authority, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and various others. The subject it'self is / was of great interest me and I did very well on it in an academic point of view. To compliment this I also spend alot of time looking at scientific research which include mainly physics, space exploration, biology, evolution, chemistry and various fields of studies. While I am certainly not a science professor I think I can grasp most concepts pretty well. Science in fact has taught me far more about the world than religion did and I have since becoming an adult delved into Christianity again to no avail. Not only does it explain how we are here but also that we are not the center of everything, just a piece of a much bigger picture. It lets us appreciate the glorious wonder of things and how they work rather than just having a book tell us that things are the way they are and thats it. As Richard Dawkins often talks about why should we have to give the Bible and other holy text any moral authority whatsoever and it's quite insulting to say that we must get our Morals from a book written over 2000 years ago. We as human beings are by far intelligent enough to be good, honest people with consciousness and well developed morals. In fact most Morals out of the Bible (for example) are very cherry picked. People forget the old testament of God slaughtering people because they were homosexual, plaguing entire nations and killing children because their fathers happened to worship different God's at the time or awful stories like Lot and the angels. To me personally, Religion is not relevant one bit in todays society. That does not mean it doesn't have it's merits, it can provide people with comfort, purpose, saftey and happiness which is very important. But in to many ways does it try to dictate the way people live, the way the should be, and use vague concepts like heaven and hell as an attempt to bribe / scare people into the way they think. Again these are just my views, this is in the serious discussion section, so please reply in a serious way and not with childish hate comments or rebuke
I like the way you posted this; I didn't find it disrespectful, and it all seemed to be given an appropriate amount of thought. I'd have to reply by nit-picking your word choice; ideas of relevancy or irrelevancy are based in pretty broad assessments of what people think about things in general and what people observe around themselves. Religion is, to me, obviously relevant to our society, as evidenced by the fact that we can't stop talking about it. People are always bringing it up, so we're making it relevant. It's a common thing, being religious, and so its relevancy appears self-evident. Do I think religion is necessary? Is it ideal? Is it the sort of thing that has a place in an ideal society? No, no, and no. Those are my opinions. But do I think religion is relevant? Yes, and I think you'd really have a hard time arguing otherwise. Probably, the concept of relevancy just doesn't accurately describe the failings of religion in our society.
I feel that the bad aspects are often covered up, causing religion to seem greater then it is, I think that it is a bit obsolete, but can come with certain goodness. Personally, I've never been religious, but I have been exposed to it, attending a month worth of Sundays at a church, I found it all a bit... Silly, I guess. It seemed too fake to me. (offence is not intended)
It depends on your definition of religion I suppose. Many people these days-myself included identify as Christian, yet never attend church or gather with others of like faith. I've heard many preachers speak of religion as if it were a bad word. In my experience, to box something as complex as faith in like that isn't useful if you're trying to understand how it affects people in today's society. There are different opinions on the Bible-one only needs to turn on the t.v or radio to know that. Personally I've never liked to have anyone else chew my food for me-so I study and pray by myself or with my wife and children. I believe as I do. I never push those beliefs on others, or use them as an excuse to judge others-and ask those who know of my faith to do me the same courtesy. I suppose the only way I can answer the OP's original question is to say that religion is a set of rules, mostly made up by men who wanted to control people. A world away from a one on one relationship with God, where you come to Him as a child to their Father.
I agree 100% with you, and you put quite possibly better than I could have put it myself. This is essentially how I live, though I do go to church anyways, I use it as a reminder of my faith to prevent myself from becoming apathetic or lazy about it. There is certainly no requirement that you must go to church to be a Christian, however. And I think you've separated religion and faith very well. Yes. Religion is not so bad as you make it seem though, I think, in terms of intent; it wasn't designed to be a brainwashing tool, it is simply used as one. Maybe I'm just optimistic, but I like to believe it originated out of good intentions. I really like how you describe the difference, though. Reading this, it makes me realize how much work we as Christians have, and how poorly we are doing at that work. The impression I get is that nobody ever bothered to show many of you the important parts of our beliefs, and just threw a slew of old stories at you and expected you to put them together and say, "Yeah, that makes sense, now I am a Christian!" That is disappointing, because that won't help anybody, and as you guys display, it will in fact push people away from us.
Religion has no relevance in my life anymore, it does for other people, but not for me. It is fun to discuss however.
I think religion is especially important for children in their formative years. Children raised in the Judeo-Christian religions are given a basis of morality that they tend to keep their entire lives, even if they eventually move away from the church. I've seen too many kids raised by amoral people who grow up to become amoral themselves.
I respectfully disagree. I was brought up in a completely un-religious household, as were most of the people I know, and we still know the difference between right and wrong. One of the purposes or religion is to give moral guidance, true, but it's not the only way of teaching it. Besides which, there are plenty of very amoral people who would identify as religious; if a kid's raised by a devout Catholic family, who also happen to be in organised crime, then that religious influence alone ain't gonna make them a saint. I'm not arguing as to whether raising kids in a religious environment is a good or bad thing, but I am saying it's only one of a great number of factors that dictate what kind of a person that kid's going to grow up to be.
I'm not saying that it's impossible or even unlikely for a child raised without religion to grow up to be a decent person. I'm just saying that, especially for a child who has difficulty understanding the reasons why things are done, teaching them about a deity that rewards goodness and punishes misbehavior is an excellent way of keeping them in line. It's kinda like the Santa Clause thing, but it works all year.
That's teaching them to behave for the wrong reasons though. If you manage to convince a child that they'll go to hell for hurting others, and that's the only reason they don't hurt anyone, that doesn't make them a moral person, that just means they're jumping through hoops to avoid being punished. The driving force behind morality is empathy, which can't be taught through fire and brimstone sermons, it's just something which develops as the child grows, and can be encouraged through good parenting, irrespective of religious beliefs or influences.
Kids are kinda dumb, though. Some of them may be able to understand that they should be good for no good reason, but most of 'em... nah. Until they're old enough to understand the concept of morality for morality's sake, they need a reason to behave. A magical sky grandpa who burns bad people is as good a threat as any.
Yeah, but laying a whole complex belief system like religion on a suggestible kid just to get them to behave doesn't seem to me to be the only or the best way to go about it. I was a pretty difficult child, by all accounts, but my mum managed to keep me in check with the right combination of punishment and reward where appropriate, and I'd like to think I turned out more or less okay. Obviously, I'm somewhat biased, but then everyone who hasn't carried out a thorough and scientific study of child development and behavioural patterns in different environments would be; the only true and complete picture most of us will have are our own childhoods. It's impossible to really know exactly what factors are at play in other people's.
Well the best function of religion as I see it is to provide some existential purpose, and a support system, be that support from other members of the religious community, or comfort in the belief of a higher power. If religion could simply provide that to those who want it, without being used to promote intolerance of others, then I think that would solve a lot of problems right there. But that's a different and broad issue, and not one that's likely to be solved, so I'll step down off my soapbox now.
I don't think Christians are inherently better or more well-behaved than any other people. That is kind of a crucial part of Christianity, is realizing that we are no better than the rest of humanity I still don't understand how people can come to that conclusion when so many places in the bible discourage it...
Well I personally don't believe in religion or support beliefs in it. I think it is morally wrong to threaten people, especially children, using it and Even though I know not all of them are like this. The big ones that go to church or even run the churches usually are and they can have the most impact in your life. especially if you are a child who can not understand that people are trying to take control of you. From the Start of history Religion was a way to take control of people. They almost always told people that if you don't do something i agree with then you are gonna be punished in the worst possible way. People also used religion for reasons to kill innocent people. If you look at the modern world. The biggest reason for inequality is because of religion. Now once again i know not everyone is like this but lots of times the everyday normal christian or Muslim doesn't have a big impact on what is forced onto others. Many of my beliefs may just stem from how religion affected me , my life and family and honestly they could be wrong but this is how I em.
