Religion - Your Take

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Decadent_Spectre

Forerunner
...like the title says...whats YOUR personal take on it

It doesn't matter whether you have extremist views such as low tolerance for other religions or whether your an atheist bent on proving god doesn't exist or just some everyday highly devout individual that must do their everyday puja....it would certainly be entertaining to read the personal beliefs of everyone here

Any philosophical ponderings also welcome...

Particularly interested in KingKrool's take on it...lol d00d...im setting you up for a fight ;)

heh...let it flow
 
Religion is all man-made stories meant to serve as guidlines for decent living.

And that's what it should be looked upon as.

There is no heaven or hell after death no matter how you lived, you simply cease to exist.
 
Sorry mate. There is a family function going on and I have term end submissions too.

Waaay too tied up to argue.

But if you want to know, as far as I am concerned, it does not affect my life much whether god exists or not, because what I have to do in this world remains pretty much the same either way.
 
There is no heaven or hell after death no matter how you lived, you simply cease to exist.
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No proof for that or vice versa too.

I think religion was invented to explain things which were not understood, and slowly for ppl who did not believe in the same were shunned. Infact in Europe Science was shunned upon very fiercely in the early-middle ages.

Infact till now religion is the biggest hindrance for science development, and yes the more you believe in one set of ideas ( religion ) in this case, the more intolerant you are to the other set.
 
saumilsingh said:
Religion is all man-made stories meant to serve as guidlines for decent living.
And that's what it should be looked upon as.

There is no heaven or hell after death no matter how you lived, you simply cease to exist.
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well said .

Although ur 2nd point is not correct. as there is no proof of existence / non existence :)
 
KingKrool said:
Sorry mate. There is a family function going on and I have term end submissions too.
Waaay too tied up to argue.

But if you want to know, as far as I am concerned, it does not affect my life much whether god exists or not, because what I have to do in this world remains pretty much the same either way.
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funny and to the point.
 
I'm more of an agnostic - I don't acknowledge the presence of God. Like what KingKrool said, the fact whether God exists or not doesn't make the slightest difference to my life. I go ahead living it the way it ought to be lived.

But I think religion, in theory, is needed. People need a set of rules to live by. There has to be something that governs your life. Either that, or you have to develop your own set of rules and live by them. That's what Existentialism is about all.
 
It's not proven, but usually the simplest explanation is correct if occam's razor is anything to go by.

I do believe faith is something to have though.
Faith in anything, be it a superior force or simply physics/chemistry that makes stuff work. Afterall gravity is just inertia on a very large scale.

But laying down rules on how to pursue that truth thinking it's gonna lead somewhere is pointless.
And that's where religion is flawed; there are so many different ways to attain this 'spiritual enlightenment' when the fact is that life on earth is meaningless no matter what one might think.
There is no higher purpose for all the routine we endure during an average lifetime, this is it.
 
@bosky - im trying to put some life into the forums...circa TA :P

@saumil - i sort of agree...but more that religion is a kind of crutch for the masses as they are are too lost to actually find something to make their life "worth" it especially today...people end up using religion as a crutch at every turn...especially at hard opressed times when they are naive enough to actually sit in fron t of a statue and "pray" hoping for a solution...

religion was the creation of a very intelligent being to keep the masses in check and society running for man kind to progress slowly through the ages

"And that's where religion is flawed; there are so many different ways to attain this 'spiritual enlightenment' when the fact is that life on earth is meaningless no matter what one might think.
There is no higher purpose for all the routine we endure during an average lifetime, this is it."

agree there

what "faith" do you have then?

@ Kingy - but you surely have some beliefs regarding the universe and your own personal beliefs?

@puns - how does one define existence except by their own perception provided by our bodies?...in which case existence does "exist" as our perception is it
 
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@ Kingy - but you surely have some beliefs regarding the universe and your own personal beliefs?
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I believe more in karma and life force...

that is why I am unconcerned with the existence of god. It would be nice to know for sure, but since we can't know I will choose to remain apathetic.

Infact till now religion is the biggest hindrance for science development, and yes the more you believe in one set of ideas ( religion ) in this case, the more intolerant you are to the other set.
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Can you be sure of that? The advent of Islam made the Arabs a learned and scientific community - quite the opposite of today huh?

A lot of scientists want to (or profess to) know the origins of the universe to "know the mind of god".

Religion is against science, but can you say much for that in the modern age? Forget certain medieval communities. Can you give me examples of this in modern Hinduism? Or even thr Roman catholic of late. Forget stem cell research, where there are issues of ethics other than religion. Sure the catholic church dislikes theories other than the big bang (it recognises creation), but has it been able to stop them of late?

But then again I think of all those sects of christianity (or rastafarianism for that matter) that disallow medicine...

Is that religion? Or is it tradition, as most religions have given up such dumb things as opposing the use of medicines en masse.

And more damage to science is done by other scientists who just don't like the opposing theory..

An interesting issue wud be that of Intelligent design vs evolution.. I agree with evolution mostly, but a lot of the detractors of ID hate it viscerally for the same reason ID supporters hate evolution - they have been trained (constanst societal and peer and academic drilling) to believe for and against.

Religion causes some of the biggest problems we face. Some of the biggest evils we have faced were due to the clergy and fanatics. But then Nehru was an atheist (as are the Marxists DS dislikes) and I am not much impressed by his work..

Then again, religion does a lot of good to a lot of people. Many "find" religion and find peace. (Unfortunately they sometimes become preachers after that preaching their gospel to evry person on the street. George W Bush has been accused of this).

Then let me tell you a story I heard. A friend of mine knew a five year old girl who had an incurable brain tumour. Doctors said she was going to die and there was no use even trying to treat her. Her parents took her to Sai Baba (the one with the afro) who blessed her. And lo and behold, she was cured.

I don't believe in Sai Baba (not b4 hearing the story, not after), but if I were in the shoes of that girl's parents I would worship hime forever. Wud you?
 
There is a big difference in religion and spirituality.

religion was meant more for the masses

Spirituality for nature's thinkers ergo Man. But not all men can think at the level of most Spiritual Philosophies. I don't think we should confuse the two
 
Or even thr Roman catholic of late
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In the early 50's US the church denounced abortion, hence it was actually illegal at that point of time. Right now the hold of religion on politics is considerably less hence we do have a certain amount of freedom of expression.

Doctors said she was going to die and there was no use even trying to treat her. Her parents took her to Sai Baba (the one with the afro) who blessed her. And lo and behold, she was cured.
I don't believe in Sai Baba (not b4 hearing the story, not after), but if I were in the shoes of that girl's parents I would worship hime forever. Wud you?
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Take it the other way round, a clergy denounces a man for his sins and says he is gonna die of some dieases. A doctor saves the man, does he worship the doctor ? Nopes because his brain is conditioned for him to believe that doctors saves life, on the other hand he has no explanation as to how the sai baba cured him, hence as I earlier stated what cannot be comprehended easily by him, its god work. So religion is nothing but a substitute to what cannot be understood by the mass.
 
I hope you are so rational when your daughter is dying of an incurable disease...

The whole thing is there was no explanation. Can you come up with a rational one?

AS I said, I don't believe in Sai Baba, so I am not trying to plug his case here, just trying to stimulate discussion.
 
Many Atheists over here....but i do believe in god,hell n heaven and rebirt(of the soul and not of a person).
I used to be an atheist but now i daily read the Bhagwad GIta regularly
 
I don't believe in religion; nor in temples. But I do have a strong belief in god. I believe my god is inside me, and as long as I'm true to myself, I'm true to God. I don't need to do puja every thursday, or fast on saturday in order to please any god. Does that make me an Atheist?
About the Gita, Bible, Koran and other holy texts. I havn't read any of them, but I'd like to know, what do they tell us that simple common sense doesn't? Be good, don't hurt anyone, respect others, etc.

Hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings. Peace.

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
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religion was made for the purpose of human advancement....the entire point of religion is to try and keep humanity on a leash so as to ensure its survival by trying to prevent the killing so rampant in every other aspect of nature...religion was that little piece of you that was taught to be "good" so you dont suffer for your "sins"...and those "sins" you werent supposed to do generally help society as a whole....the ironic thing is even though religion aimed for development via peace its actually wars that really propelled humans farther...another ironic thing is how religion has caused so many wars ...most likely by the real "intrepretation" of the religion's teaching bis...misintrepreted...

religion is kind of a more hardcore form of pride and indiviualism taken to the next level while also maintaining a collective balance within ones own religous community for a "safer" feeling....

aces has expressed well a simple law of the human mind -

when we know how something works its science...when we dont its magic....like everything else ...it too has been passed on down through time...as people evolved and knowledge became more widely available ...science gained ground...afterall what is science?...science is the "magic" we have come to understand by logic...what happens when 500 years from now perhaps the process of making a human disappear and reappear will be as common as the knowledge of ...lets say water evaporating and condensing?

"I hope you are so rational when your daughter is dying of an incurable disease..."

...only those who are stupid will worry...death is an eventuality....suppose you save her...someday she has to die...or did sai baba make her immortal?.....anyway theres always an explanation as i said in the previous para ^ ....ther eis something there...we just dont know it

knowledge is power eh?
 
death is an eventuality
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That doesn't mean it is pleasant or desirable. Do you want your family to die? I don't. I still don't worry about it. But it will be painful whenever something does happen.
 
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