Religion:The stupidest thing invented by mankind?

again, I restate my theory of religion:
Religion as influenced by Natural Selection

Religions act like psychological viruses. They don't exist as life, yet they feed off of the lives and minds of others, and use them to reproduce. Parents pass their beleifs onto their children, and infect the next generation, evangelists pass their beleifs onto bystanders and infect over long distances.

A god is nothing without followers, because a god has no body and no real power. It is only when thousands of people beleive in a god that the god gains any power, per se. A god may not be real, but when it has a billion followers all willing to do work in what they think is his name, that god becomes very real in the world. But all in all, gods are only phenomenon and products of our minds.

Religions therefore require followers to survive. Followers give religion power, and so they are the fitness factor in the evolution of religion. So, religions with different doctrine (traits), preform differentley in the world based on how well they gain and keep followers. And thus religion is a product of natural selection.

Thus, religions have evolved throughout time in terms of these things:

1. Spread-(evangalism): A religion or god with a maximum emphasis on spread will gain more members, and will be more powerful.

2. Faith- A religion or god that insists that its members beleive it above all else, in spite of evidence, logic or reason has powerful antibodies against skepticism. Skepticism is a "cure" for the virus of a religion, but over time religion has developed the antibody of faith to get rid of it.

3. Ritual- A religion or god promoting absolute rituals and laws gives more order to itself, and is less likely to dissolve or be taken over by another religion.

4. Violence- A religion that uses violence or armed conflict to spread is even more likely to succeed due to the fact that all opposition is killed.

5. Structure- A religion that is structured and heirarchial will not only be more likely to spread through exisisting government bodies, like christianity through the Roman Empire, but it will become more ritualistic and therefore more real to its followers, and more likely to sustain itself


Thus, over time, the thousands of religions that have come to be have fought it out with each other over the minds and souls of the human race, and those that have come out on top are naturally evangelical, faithful, ritualistic, sometimes violent, and highly structured.
 
My biggest thing is, why should anything happen to a person after he dies?

Think about it, how we think, how we move, everything about us, infact everything about the world is just a series of reactions on a subatomic level. It is a chain-reaction. Everything that you think, everything around you is a part of a chain-reaction that has been going on over the course of X-years. X could be billions, trillions, centillions.... So even if you think you have free will or even if you think you are making a decision.. you arn't. Free will really does not exist because every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

So "death" is simply the easy way of saying what happens when the subatomic particles inside of us massively change structure so our brains are no longer what we consider "a working brain".
 
*vomits*
Kinda of sickening. Disecting the beliefs that people hold, like it's a 7th grade science class.
While, I'm spiritual as opposed to 'religious', popular culture often suggests they fall under the same catagory.

theotherguy said:
5. Structure- A religion that is structured and heirarchial will not only be more likely to spread through exisisting government bodies, like christianity through the Roman Empire, but it will become more ritualistic and therefore more real to its followers, and more likely to sustain itself
Meh, Constantine's rape of "Christianity" huh? The example you suggested is 'religion' ,a system of control, and spiritual supression and so forth; that is ever so changing.
but Christianity was never meant to be a religion and really isn't, but a relationship with it's Founder, hench it's name sake.

*wanders off*
 
If the Bible is indeed the word of God, then Christianity is a religion.
 
Why are religious beleifs immune to study?

We study political and philosophical beleifs, why not religion?

There are thousands of them, and all of them are different. They are an incredibly diverse array of ideas that deserve an explaination, an understanding.

People are considered rude when they critisize another's religion and heretical when they critisize their own.

It's time we stopped being so damned respectful of religion and started paying attention to what it's doing to us, and taking it for what it really is.

EDIT: Christianity is a modification, a mutation if you will on Judaism which gave it a much higher likelyhood of success. Christianity is more successful than Judaism because it is more open and evangelical, just as an antibiotic-resistant bacterium is more successful because it can't be killed by antibiotics.
 
Mecha...I think that's the most retarded interpretation of the 10 commandments...ever.

Wrong. What is retarded is pretending that god doesn't command you to kill people.
Seriously, the ten commandments are punishable by death. It says right there.
Are you calling almighty god a liar?

Damning yourself to hell is retarded.

As recorded in the Bible alone, god has personally killed a minimum of 2,000,000 people (not really counting the largest genocides from which no-one was left to count the dead).

I don't mean by accident or through the natural order of things.

I'm talking about sweet, merciful god himself, flying down from heaven and shooting huge jets of flame out of his eyes, disemboweling old men and tossing people into bottomless pits.
He's gone all "Exorcist" possessing people and driving them around like meat-based mechwarriors with swords, killing thirty men in a go.
God has personally assassinated infants who displeased him and has performed mass abortions on the women of his enemies.

So is it really retarded to think that god would want the entire world to die?
He's already brought about the apocalypse several times and he's planning to do it again, I hear.

I don't know why he hasn't been smiting lately, but he has still commanded christians to destroy the world for him.
Perhaps it's one of those tests he's always performing on his believers, and currently only a select few are winning.

The evangelists taking contraception away from the destitute are currently in the lead.
 
I'm so tempted to get into this debate, but I think I'm gonna stay away for a bit. D:
 
" Religion:The stupidest thing invented by mankind? "
IMHO, yes.
But in a way, people in general need something to look toward.
By some characteristics, I would call gaming with my friends
a type of religion, despite the absense of an actual 'god' figure (unless you count Valve :p)
 
God sends two bears to kill children for making fun of Elisha's bald head

Lol. Not only Superman is a dick it seems.
 
I think God knew that the Earth would be overpopulated in a few dozen centuries, and wanted to have some population control by making people kill people for not following the commandments. :/ :p
 
I think God knew that the Earth would be overpopulated in a few dozen centuries, and wanted to have some population control by making people kill people for not following the commandments. :/
Plagues? HIV? Cancer?
 
That and floods, earthquakes, gay marriage :)P), ect...
 
Religion, ultimately is a set of beliefs, values, and practices like any other system of understanding the world. The reality is not that religion is the stupidest thing ever invented, because stupidity is always present in the beholder.
For example, Fission isnt a stupid thing that has been invented (arguably discovered, but that argument is irrelevant to the point). It is humans that have used fission for the production of nuclear weapons that is stupid.

Same with religion. Religion isn't stupid, It's the humans within chrisitianity that have used religion to wage war or commit gennocide that is stupid.

That being said, the actual question that I believe you meant to ask was this: Is religion the most harmful/unstable/worst thing invented in regards to the whole of the human race?

I would disagree, because although religion has caused alot of wars and bloodshed in the past millinenia, modern things that have been invented, (and take your pick here) such as nationalism, facisim, industrialism, capitalism, communism have most probably caused more bloodshed in the past few centuries then all the past millinia of religious rule combined.
 
'The Law is permanent for all future generations. You must add nothing to what I command you, nor subtract anything from it, but keep the commandments of Yahweh your God just as I lay them down for you.'
(Numbers 15:15, Deuteronomy 4:2)

Here is the law (accidentally commiting a crime is equally punishable unless marked otherwise):

Death Penalty:
-Killing someone while angry at them.
-Killing someone while not angry at them (unless you stay in a City of Refuge (a safe zone built by the government).
-Killing someone with a weapon.
-Leaving a City of Refuge.
-Bestiality.
-Attempted Bestiality.^
-Homosexuality.
-Having sex with your mother, daughter or sister (actual genetic relation not required).
-Having sex with your father, son or brother (actual genetic relation not required).^
-Being married to both a mother and her daughter.
-Adultery.
-Raping a married woman.
-Being raped (while married in an urban area).^
-Being accused of having premarital sex by your husband (and not being able to prove otherwise).^
-Beating your slave until he dies.
-Disobeying your parents.
-False prophecy (asking people to worship anything other than Jehovah. This includes jesus and the holy spirit).
-Living in a town where a false prophet is.
-Performing magic tricks, or any illusion.
-Ingesting blood.

Torture:
-Hitting a man in the crotch - your hand is cut off.*^
-Starting a dispute - beaten up to 40 times.
-Injuring a pregnant woman - equal trauma on yourself.
-Falsely accusing your wife of having premarital sex - beating.

Quarantine:
-Ejaculating (24 hours).
-Having sex (24 hours).
-Menstruating (7 days).^
Having sex with a menstruating woman (7 days).
-Living in a town where a false prophet is (eternity).
-Being castrated (eternity).

Small fines:
-Hitting a man with a rock, as long as he does not die.*
-Causing an abortion.
-Menstruating (four birds).^
-Rape.
-Falsely accusing your wife of having premarital sex (100 silver coins).

Specifically Unpunished:
-Killing a man who leaves a City of Refuge.*
-Being raped in a non-urban area.
-Male genocide (only during war).*
-Adultery.^
-Slavery.
-Beating your slave (as long as he survives).
-Racial segregation.

* = Accidents (negligence, passion, etc.) not included.
^ = Female-specific crimes.

-----------------------
There are many more, but those not listed here are not strictly illegal; they (along with the above) are auto-punished by god, so human intervention is not required.

Even if you are not caught, you will be tortured to death by god for commiting any of these crimes and those not listed.

Disagreeing with the law - death by god.
Failure to follow the law - torture by god.
Making any law other than those listed above (such as, say, requiring drivers to use a license. Or outlawing pedophilia.) - torture by god.

And then you'll be in hell.
 
It doesn't.

Confession is an addition to those laws, and is therefore punishable with death by god's torture.

Christian priests are supposed to be killed on sight anyways because they are false prophets.
Then, you burn down the town they live in, kill the entire population, burn everything within city limits to ash, salt the earth and then quarantine the area for eternity.

If you don't, you are punished with death by god's torture.
 
Nope.

Religious tolerance is stupid.
How can you read the bible, whose key message I have summarized for you, and say it's not incredibly stupid?
That omniscient god was incapable of predicting the automobile, or that he is indifferent to pedophilia?

Pretty much all of the major religions advocate genocide.
The only reason we don't have more genocide is that the entire population of the earth has grown complacent.
Religious moderates are failures at thier own scripture.
Most gods specifically forbid them from existing.

The religions you tolerate are failures. The laws, such as those I have listed above, are unequivocal.
It says specifically that YOU MUST FOLLOW THOSE EXACT INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LETTER OR YOU DO NOT QUALIFY AS RELIGIOUS.
If you fail to do so, you are a failure at religion.
Do we tolerate failed scientists? Do we say "oh well you got half the car built properly so that's good enough" and then throw an Edsel on the market?
No!
Do we tolerate a nuclear plant where only half of the safety regulations are followed?
No!
Do we tolerate House of the Dead instead of Dawn of the Dead?
No!

So why must we tolerate people who are so blatantly half-assed with their faith?
Religions are stupid and religious people are failing at stupidity.

I will only tolerate people who follow their bibles properly, and not exclude whatever nasty, retarded passages they wish.

It's the whole deal or no deal, and by that standard there are basically no truly religious people on Earth.
If you only use half of your bible, you aren't following god - so it can't be a religion.

You're either evil, delusional or both - but you're not religious.

There are no exceptions.
 
Personally, I firmly believe that mankind's stupidest invention is, in fact, the pet rock.
 
''Yahweh, Yahweh, God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, forgiving sin, yet letting nothing go unchecked, punishing the children and grandchildren for the parent's fault to the third and fourth generation!''
(Exodus 34:6-7)

A deeper look at the ten commandments, followed by the punishment humans must give to those who disobey (where applicable):

One:
-Do not believe in any other god.*
-Do not say the name of any other god.*
-Do not make sacrifices to any other god. (DEATH PENALTY)

Two:
-Do not make a carved image of anything.*

Three:
-Do not misuse Jehovah's name.*

Four:
-Do not do any work on a sunday. (DEATH PENALTY)

Five:
-Honour your father and/or mother.*
-Do not hit your father and/or mother. (DEATH PENALTY)
-Do not curse your father and/or mother. (DEATH PENALTY)

Six:
-Do not strike a man and kill him. (DEATH PENALTY)

Seven:
-Do not sleep with another man's wife. (DEATH PENALTY for both people)

Eight:
-Do not steal from another man. (DEATH PENALTY)

Nine:
-Do not give false testimony about your neighbor.*

Ten:
-Do not covet your neighbor's house.*
-Do not set your heart on your neighbor's wife.*
-Do not set your heart on any of your neighbor's posessions.*

* = Human punishment is not required. breaking these commandments brings about the wrath of god and he will automatically torture and kill the people for you.

-----------------

If you don't follow those rules, you are not a religious person. A religious person is someone who follows the rules properly.
A person who does not follow the rules is either a false prophet who must die, or a sinner who will be tortured and killed by god.
 
Religion is one of two things:

1) Religion is a series of primarily illogical rules that there is no logical reason to follow.
So they are enforced through the evocation of invisible scaremonsters.
Thus, powerless people invent religion in order to scare people into doing stupid things and/or things that cannot be enforced.
(If they were smart, enforceable things, there would be no need for invisible scaremonsters.)

or

2) Religion is the honest actual word of god(s), spoken to the masses using the nearest political candidate as a speakerbox.
After the message leaves the totally honest man, it is promptly bastardized and selectively edited until any original meaning is lost.
The people use their personal remix of god's word to justify their most questionable delusions, with little or no societal reprecussions.


A religion is therefore a collection of people who have agreed to live in giant self-insertion fanfiction, with all the consequences that entails.
 
I used to think it was because 'they' want to keep us in a type of control...I still dont fully deny that.
 
Oh, they definitely do want to control us all.
That's god's will: Kill those who do not convert.
The only reason christians aren't killing more people is that they're trying to make a bible fanfiction - not follow the actual bible.

The actual bible says "kill everyone."

The bible fanfiction says "be tolerant" and "stop killing so much" and permits (some) secularism - but it still demands conversion and societal control.

The real bible prohibits pretty much all aspects of today's society.

The bible fanfictioners pick and choose those that make them feel good and decry the rest as unholy.
 
Religion actually emerges even before the rise of society. The inviolable power offered by religion is just a side effect. Let's say, there are always some questions which can be neither explained by science nor our forebears' experience. For instance, where does our consciousness go when we expired? Is there are any premundane world? Questions like these have inevitably annoyed us for millions of years. The turmoil within our heart cannot be quelled when all of these questions are left unanswered. Sagacious ancestors had ingeniously initiated a new idea - the invisible omnificent gods, the sacred religions. Only this can comfort our heart and eliminate all our anxieties and dreads. It seems that only the religions, the beliefs, can expunge these unanswerable questions. We can merely earn this mental tranquility by religions. However, nowadays, people are too busy. We don't have time to think of any of the above problems. So we cannot deeply descry how important religions are, but just superficially glance at the dark veil of them.
 
Mecha, everything you've posted so far has come from the Old Testament rght?
 
Mecha if you think the bible is bad, read the Quran. Did you know that Mohammed for instance was a pedophile? one of his many wives, Aisha was only six when the "prophet" married her. She was only nine when they had sex. And this is only mildly disturbing compared to the other shit you'll find out.
 
bbson: That's acting as though the (stupid) question of an afterlife and the (stupid) question of a universal creator (answer: neither exists) were so vastly relevant to everyday life in the survival of the species that all rationality needed to be jettisoned to stuff the shrinking metaphysical void with a placebo dose of nonsense.

There is nothing that religion can acheive that rationality can't, except mass delusion.

I find it infinitely troubling, the various boons people ascribe to delusion.

"Look at all delusion has brought us", they cry.
"Society could not exist, if not for self-deception and arcane rituality."

If religion is so great, why is no-one commiting god's genocides?

The answer, plainly, is that religion only functions today in name only because all its very most horrible irrational elements have been steadily eroded over time.
Jesus fits the definition of a false prophet perfectly, yet he wasn't killed.
Why?
Because society defeated religion.
What the people wanted defeated what god wanted.

Society and religion are enemies, not symbiotes.


Gunner: I'm talking about the bible because that's what I know the most about, having (half-assedly) been raised as a christian myself. Nearly all religions are identical though.
The only reason Islam is so much more violent and "extremist" compared to christians is that they are better at religion.
Thier fan-fiction is truer to the source material.


Deathtrap: It doesn't matter which testament it's from. It's the word of god.
God himself calls jesus a false prophet and asks you not to add anything onto the old testament.
You're not calling god a liar, are you?

Did omniscient almighty god make a mistake and forget something on his LIST OF LAWS THAT WILL NEVER CHANGE?

Accepting the new testament means you fail at religion and accept fanfiction.
 
I believe the basis for Religion was originally developed to answer questions that couldn't be answered at the time. At the time they were the most logical answer.

These answers were then minipulated. Your child is disobeying you...what do you do? You apply your current logic. This logic would be Gods. They apply Gods and utilize them to help there children behave. Eventually as these Gods got passed down by generation the beliefs slowly changed. People banded togeather because of similar beliefs.

Now Science comes a long in the past 200 - 300 years. Science begins to answer questions and shows flaws in beliefs that are thousands of years old. People arn't willing to give up beliefs so easy because there minds have been plagued with it since they were born. They fail to realize the origin of there beliefs were based around logic and science. However over thousands of years we have begun to develop better logic and science. Infact we have applied our new logic and science to everything around us. By applying it to everything around us and seeing it work we know we are headed in the right direction with it.

People who believe in gods and religions are believing in extremely old science and logic. Logic that now has been improved upon and applied to our day to day activities.
 
Some questions are not yet answered: what is beyond death? My point is not what is our afterlife, but whither does the consciousness go? Of course you can answer brainlessly that it vanished upon the wind when the moment that our brain activities stopped. But can you imagine our sight, our sensations, our mind just gone, perished into nothing? As if you are a materialist. I have a silly thought. If everything works by physics laws, chemical rules, biological principles, how come we have a first-person-consciousness? We can still move, act like a real human without the consciousness, and in fact there can be no difference. Everything is dominated by atoms and force, it is essentially impossible for us to have a fps feeling, sensation, consciousness. But we have consciousness, as a matter of fact. So there must be something beyond science. Okay, probably by language is too bad, you may not be able to understand my concept... Hope you understand my definition of "consciousness".


p.s. Religions somtimes developed into wickedness and corruption, or even extremism, not because of the inborn essence of them. With the progression of science and technology, people can live safely and stilly. People focus more on new invention and knowledge. The leaders of communions fear that they may lost their fortune, the flame and the might. The only way to preserve all they have is to repetitively exaggerat and reiterate the previous unanswerable question, even turning some into a threat. The way the patriarchs and priests frighten their people can generally extended their own power. At the same time, people may strike on the clergies via questioning their credibility, doubting their inviolable power. The clergies have to either annihilate the defiers, or enhance their means to deceive people. That is where extremism comes from. That is not religion's fault.
 
Cole: I wouldn't call it science or logic. Regardless of cultural or historical context, no religion can be described as "logical" or "scientific."

The closest religions to being "logical" were the anti-religions (deism, etc.) that sprung up during the Enlightenment only a few centuries ago - and they served more as thought puzzles than true religions.
(A true religion is one which makes concrete statements relatable to the world we experience. Otherwise, they are irrelevant. What good is it to speculate of a god who maybe abandonned the universe a billion years ago?)


bbson: I can imagine my sight, sensation and mind gone. It happens every night while I sleep, and does not stop until I am awake.
Why should we have "FPS functioning?" Because that's how our brain is wired to our eyes in a world that has the up-and-down of gravity.
Eyes allow us to see ourselves, and the brain allows us to understand ourselves. Thus, we have consciousness.

Extremism is a myth. The bible promotes genocide in no uncertain terms as a requirement of being religious.
Today's worst terrorists are still pussies by comparison to what the bible and Koran command of their followers.
And, if the stories of characters like Moses are halfways real, he really was a terrible person.
He was a guy who rallied the disenfranchised poor and exterminated large groups of nonbelievers (including some of his own followers), while invading several countries - under the direct order of god, and following god's law almost perfectly.
Sorry to evoke Godwin, but it's a perfect parallel to the rise of hitler. The only difference is that the jews were the chosen people instead of the ones getting killed by the chosen people this time.

My favorite part is where, after slaying all the males in an entire country, Moses demands that all the non-virgin women and children be massacred too. Then the remaining virgin women and children are divided amongst his troops.
42 virgins go to his head priest, because they are now god's official sex slaves.

A true follower of god would follow this example. The bible tells you to right there.

The only "extremists" are the people who have become extreme pussies over the years, ignoring the fundamental bloodlust that defines their god and re-writing the bible to fit their comfortable heathen lifestyle.

Saying "it's not religion's fault there are just a few bad eggs" implies to me that you haven't even read the bible.
 
I wouldn't call it science or logic. Regardless of cultural or historical context, no religion can be described as "logical" or "scientific."

The closest religions to being "logical" were the anti-religions (deism, etc.) that sprung up during the Enlightenment only a few centuries ago and served more as thought puzzles than true religions.
(A true religion is one which makes concrete statements relatable to the world we experience. Otherwise, they are irrelevant. What good is it to speculate of a god who maybe abandonned the universe many a billion years ago?)
I'm talking at the time. At the time it was logical to think a God created everything because...well anyone got a better explanation? No one really did at the time. Today however it simply is silly and illogical. I'm talking thousands of years ago.
 
First, religion's never logical or scientific. In fact, it is not necessary to be logical or scientific. As I said before, bleh bleh...
Second, the world we are experiencing has so much we must experience but we are not yet experienced them and they are quite inconceivable to us, like death. That is why religions' here.

I can imagine my sight, sensation and mind gone. It happens every night while I sleep, and does not stop until I am awake.

That is when you will awake. When you sleep, it all goes black and you wake up at the morning (assumed you don't have a dream). It just like the whole night is passed within a second. Imagine you are in this sleeping state forever without awake. Strange? Did your consciousness goes to the infinitely far in the future within a second? Where did it go?
Note: my consciousness is no medical term or ordinay definition.


As for the bibble, hmmm, my fault, or my theory's flaw. I have totally missed a important factor. Christianity is not the first tide of religion in the world. They are religions before Christianity. The previous religion may affect the later one. So Christianity may probably built for power anf might. So it promotes genocide. :/ After all, bibble has been "modified" several times...
 
"When you sleep, it all goes black and you wake up at the morning (assumed you don't have dream)."
It goes "black" when you close your eyes while awake.
When you are asleep, you see nothing:

"It just like the whole night is passed within a second."
Exactly. Your ability to remember (which is what I would call consciousness) is disabled.
The parts of your brain related to consciousness go into standby, not too different from what you would experience during a total shutdown.

"Imagine you are in this sleeping state forever without awake. Strange?"
No. When it does happen, I will be incapable of imagination, or any form of experience.
Sleeping forever is no different from sleeping eight hours, except for the waking up part.
The utter lack of sensation would be identical.

"Did your consciousness goes to the infinitely far in the future within a second?"
No. Your consciousness shuts down for approximately eight hours to give your brain rest.
You lose your ability to create memory, so you do not remember eight hours of pitch blackness.
You do not time-travel while asleep.
 
"Did your consciousness goes to the infinitely far in the future within a second?"
No. Your consciousness shuts down for approximately eight hours to give your brain rest.
You lose your ability to create memory, so you do not remember eight hours of pitch blackness.
You do not time-travel while asleep.

I mean when you die. (A sleep which you won't be awake again) Since you compare death with sleep.

After all, my subjustive consciousness is the best argument. But it is too hard for me to present.
 
Mecha, I have a question. Do you actually hate religion + religious people or are you just saying that it's stupid in a somewhat angry tone?
 
Religion is one of two things:

1) Religion is a series of primarily illogical rules that there is no logical reason to follow.
So they are enforced through the evocation of invisible scaremonsters.
Thus, powerless people invent religion in order to scare people into doing stupid things and/or things that cannot be enforced.
(If they were smart, enforceable things, there would be no need for invisible scaremonsters.)

In fact, a lot of the 'illogical rules' in the Bible were in fact very logical, but only really applicable back in the time in which it was written. The laws against homosexuality exisit simply because there weren't that many people. Therefore the emphasis on sex for procreation.

Religion tends to develop alside a structured society, as I've mentioned before - seemingly to justify the existance of the status quo - for example the emphasis on poverty as a viture, and in a sense justify the existance of the govermental system.
 
In fact, a lot of the 'illogical rules' in the Bible were in fact very logical, but only really applicable back in the time in which it was written. The laws against homosexuality exisit simply because there weren't that many people. Therefore the emphasis on sex for procreation.

Like Muslim can have seven wives because in the old days, war was common in middle-east and most of the male had gone to a war and died. So man had to get more wives as a balance.
 
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