An Examination of Religion

[Buffy]

It is Yin and Yang: without the mind there is no heart, without the heart, there is no mind.

 

Onngh Yanngh,

Buffy

[HydrogenBond]

I believe in God. But on other hand, the Psychology of Carl Jung talks about the collective unconscious, which amounts to collective personality software within the brain that is common to all humans. For example, falling in love is a timeless human dynamics independant of time in history or culture. The ego tailors the generic software output to its own experience in time and culture. When one is in love they do not see objective reality, rather an internal projection of an ideal image (program) overlaying reality.

 

That being said, other archetypes (programs) can also compel the ego similar to falling in love. Some of these have a religious significance. They become projected, overlayed into the reality and personified in the variety of temporal religions. We are all speaking about the same thing, but like falling in love, we each have a unique story in time and culture to tell, even though the underlying dynamics are the same for all of us. God the reality should be above the ego and the projections stemming from the personality software.

[Southtown]

It is Yin and Yang: without the mind there is no heart, without the heart, there is no mind.

 

Onngh Yanngh,

Buffy

Are you saying there is neither such a thing as idiots nor *mean people*?

 

Also the yin/yang is fallacy. Light and dark are equal but opposite? When was the last time you opened your closet and darkness spilled out into the well-lit room? Perhaps they can't exist apart from each other but that is not valid everywhere. Peace can exist without war, love can exist without hate, generosity can exist without selfishness, unity can exist without chaos. But the reciprocals to these are not true because nothing can exist in disharmony. Everything is dependent on something. Good is superior to evil because it is self-sustaining, while the other is self-destructive.

 

While heart and mind may sometimes be in competition, they aren't necessarily opposites. A person can be both intelligent and compassionate. My intended meaning was to convey a superiority of one over the other, as in the closet analogy.

[Southtown]

A dictionary explanation is rather futile. Actually the 'resurrection from the dead' and 'the spirit going to paradise after death of the body' are two completely different things.

. . .

Your other comments are simply reiterating the same thing over and over again.

You are right. We agree on resurrection, and that it happens after the second coming. Sorry, I overdid resurrection, and got interrupted before getting to the point. We disagree basically on the state of the dead between death and the second coming, correct? If so, I will discuss it as soon as I get a few hours to myself.

 

Jesus said to the thief on his right, "Today you will be with me in paradise." So then if the resurrection from the dead is 'something which is to come', what part of the thief went to be with Jesus that very day???

Less than seriously, we can thank Einstein for proving that time is relative to the observer. LOL But seriously, the untranslated NT had no punctuation. So the sentence could just as easily be interpreted as, "Surely I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise."

 

A couple other points: 1) Was Jesus in paradise that day? He was dead until his resurrection on Sunday. [Matthew 12:40 nkjv] And 2) if I'm right, and people are unconscious while dead, it would appear to the thief that no time passes between death and the second coming. So regardless of assumed punctuation, we have instant paradise à la Einstein. LOL

 

So then you must be able to explain what soul and spirit are? LOL

Well according to scripture, the soul is the breath of life in all breathing organisms [Strong's] that God breathed into Adam's nostrils. [Genesis 2:7] I consider the spirit to be a more of a purpose toward which a given soul/breath is intended (or direction of "wind," as a spirit is usually translated.) A sort of "intent of a soul" if you will, i.e. a spirit of pride a spirit of humility. But for the most part, "spirit" actually means "breath/wind" also, and context must be used for both words to differentiate between these meanings.

 

Assuming we can agree on these definitions, or that they are used loosely enough to be interchangeable, then we can discuss the state of the dead between death and the second coming.

[infamous]

Are you saying there is neither such a thing as idiots nor assholes?

 

.

Some of the membership may find that last expletive offensive Southtown, can you please find another way to express yourself.

[Southtown]

Some of the membership may find that last expletive offensive Southtown, can you please find another way to express yourself.

Well it wasn't in the thesaurus... :eek2: sorry.

[infamous]

Well it wasn't in the thesaurus... :lol: sorry.

I'm not putting demands upon you Southtown, only making suggestions. Anyone interested in harmony should be sensitive to the wishes of others regarding the use of such vulgarities. I'm sure your intelligent enough to find more appropriate words to explain your point of view.

[Southtown]

Thanks, and point taken. :lol:

[CraigD]

Are you saying there is neither such a thing as idiots nor *excretory openings*?

Some of the membership may find that last expletive offensive Southtown, can you please find another way to express yourself.

Argh! LOL! :lol:

 

The replacement text, “*excretory openings*”, is more explicit, and potentially offensive to sensitive readers, than the text it replaces!

 

In context, the potentially offensive idiom in question's general usage meaning is (very approximately) “an annoying person”. Maybe “*annoying person*” would have been a more apt replacement. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have been nearly as amusing.

 

If I ever observe Southtown using an expletive like “pizzle” or “mung”, I’ll be certain not to ask him to express himself differently!

[Southtown]

If I ever observe Southtown using an expletive like “pizzle” or “mung”, I’ll be certain not to ask him to express himself differently!

Sorry. (LOL) That was not my intention. *sigh* And each attempt gets quoted. :lol:

[HydrogenBond]

The tension of opposites are part of the personality software. They represent the sum of the human psyche. Religion is the science of the collective psyche or software that is up potential of the ego. Western religion polarizing them using their extreme personification of good and evil. The ego helps program the good and evil through our choices. When Christ spoke of wicked or evil thinks in heavenly places (paraphrased crudely), this was the dark side of the personality software which is up potential of the ego. The darkness is within and without. Law give power to both the goodside and the darkside by programming both good and evil at the same time, ie., tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life is like natural human instinct where the polarization of law (tree of knowledge of good and evil) is changed into natural animal and divine.

[Erasmus00]

Also the yin/yang is fallacy. Light and dark are equal but opposite? When was the last time you opened your closet and darkness spilled out into the well-lit room? Perhaps they can't exist apart from each other but that is not valid everywhere. Peace can exist without war, love can exist without hate, generosity can exist without selfishness, unity can exist without chaos. But the reciprocals to these are not true because nothing can exist in disharmony. Everything is dependent on something.

 

Without light, how would you know you were in darkness? Without darkness, how would you know you are in the light? Without selfishness, generosity is the norm, not the extraordinary. Without war, peace is neither special, nor cherished. Without a dual, how can the notion of unity mean anything? As you say at the end EVERYTHING is dependant on something.

-Will

[Southtown]

Without selfishness, generosity is the norm, not the extraordinary. Without war, peace is neither special, nor cherished. Without a dual, how can the notion of unity mean anything? As you say at the end EVERYTHING is dependant on something.

-Will

Because these "norm"s would perpetuate coexistence, while their antonyms would destroy it, and hence degenerate from existence. I didn't say they would be perceived the same as they are today. I said they could exist (perpetually) by themselves, while their antonyms (the supposed equals) could not.

 

My point is that most dualistic relationships that are sported as exemplifying yin-yang ideology are not equal, just as darkness is totally submissive to the actions of light and does not react whatsoever.

[paultrr]

Because these "norm"s would perpetuate coexistence, while their antonyms would destroy it, and hence degenerate from existence. I didn't say they would be perceived the same as they are today. I said they could exist (perpetually) by themselves, while their antonyms (the supposed equals) could not.

 

My point is that most dualistic relationships that are sported as exemplifying yin-yang ideology are not equal, just as darkness is totally submissive to the actions of light and does not react whatsoever.

 

If I was going to quote scripture on all of this I refer to that passage in the OT that mentioned God as having formed light and darkness for his own purpose. No where is it ever assumed they existed by themselves without a first cause in the Bible. Yin-Yang ideas spring out of eastern thought with the only close example being light and darkness in the Bible of western thought. The eastern picture is everything in nature is in ballance. No moral concept is attached to this. Under eastern thought it is our own actions that unballance everything. It would be our actions that would be seen as having a morality attached to them. Under western thought somewhat the same applies with the one difference being that darkness is seen as wrong because it was not till God had formed light to go with the darkness that he found everything as good. In eastern thought neither is good or bad. But the perfect path is one which is ballanced. It is a subtile difference between the two.

[lawtonfogle]

Human beings can 'only' be healthy emotionally when they can be 'real' - which means they must be able to 'speak the truth' about what 'they're really feeling'. However, in western (I don't know what it's like in other) countries it has become popular to be politically correct - which means 'most people aren't saying what they really feel' and it's creating anarchy. Democracy is becoming Hypocrisy!

 

 

very interesting.

[lawtonfogle]

now in light of my small post, I will do a big one.

 

 

since you refer to the devil, I will take this from a Christian standpoint.

 

 

Many people examine religion. But, they examine the teachings and beliefs of religion. In this short paper, I will be giving an examination of religion itself. The primary focus will be on modern religions which stem from the bible, although the principles are the same throughout most, if not all, religions.

 

#1: Religions do everything they can to ensure you do not lose faith or change religions.

Actaully, this is true, though you seem to state for other reasons. It is only logical that the religion would want you to be of that faith, of if it did not, it would not be a religion. So then this is nor really a fact that needs to be stated.

#2: Religions have their good God's and bad God's. The purpose of the good God is obvious, but what is the real purpose of the bad God? I've come to the conclusion the real purpose is simply to take attention away from the good God. Bad things happen in life, and if people think it's their God's fault, they lose faith. So - create the devil and blame every bad thing on him.

Satn is not a god. Only God is, in the Christian religion. And if you really examine it, the Christian religion does not say the devil did it. It says God is responsible for everything that happens, though not as in He caused it sense. For sake of free will, He allows us to make bad choices. So then this fact is proven false.

#3: Religions use the technique of talking about things which cannot be proven or disproven, or so they hope. The most brilliant of their ideas is to utilize the mystery of life after death. Since we cannot prove what happens after we die, religions can say anything they want about it and we cannot say they are wrong.

This almost has the same as point one. The problem here is that what is proven. First off you cannot define a word without cirular deffinition problems. Yet many do not like this argument, so I will do another.

 

Is gravity proven. Or is it just a theory. Yes, everytime we drop a heavy object on out toe, we are sure gravity works, the problem is, how do we know it will in the future. To say it will in the future requires that you do know what will happen, and if the uncertainity principle is true, it is impossible to say for 100% something will happen. There is a small chance that when two cars hit, they quantum tunnel though each other. So you cannot say that the divers in a two car crash where each was going faster than 100mph will be seriously hurt. But the chances are high enough it is something one will bet their life on. Nothing is 100% certain, at least not scientifically, so then, why should we worry about proving what a religion says if we cannot prove 100% of science.

 

#4: Religions use what I call "Advanced Terrorism". The way they use this is mainly in conjunction with #2. Here is the difference between advanced terrorism and normal terrorism:

 

Normal terrorists say, "If you do not meet our demands, we will kill you/hostages/etc. If you meet the demands, no one will get hurt."

 

Advanced - "If you do not meet our demands, we will kill you/hostages/etc. If you meet the demands, no one will get hurt, and we will give you a million dollars."

 

I have never heard of a church promising such things. Anyways, only extremist say they will kill you, and almost 100% of the time, it is against the religion they are trying to force.

#5: Blowing things into 'biblical' proportion. They take all their ideas and multiply them by infinity. They say if you turn your back on (our) God, you go to hell. They make their good God a being of pure good and their evil God a being of pure evil. They take life after death and say it lasts for eternity. And instead of threatening to hurt you in this life, they say you will spend all of eternity in either the most extreme pleasure or extreme pain.

Yes, i will admit that this is what Christainity claims. But then, the everything after this life does last till time ends, or forever. Now claiming it will only be one way or the other is based off the fact that this life decides what will happen in the next life(s). Basically, it is like claiming that everything after 100 continues on forever, which it does.

 

If you think about those a little more, you'll see countless examples of them taking place in various religions. Those five are the basic principles behind (successful) religion. And what do they equate to? The most brilliant form of mind-control in the history of our civilization. A book which uses psychological techniques to control millions of people for thousands of years. It's even designed in a way which gives money to the people who spread the word and entrap more minds (priests, nuns etc.). Pure genius, all of it.

 

even if you are right, I would wonder why you be against it. The religion claims such things as do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, and other such things that are bad for you. Now the things we do not know if they are bad for you are not, may be proven to be bad for you later. Like not eating pigs. Science proves that pigs can carry diseases so close to humans that humans could catch many. That is why we have laws that do not allow you to feed market pigs table scrabs unless they undergo certain types of 'purification'. Now, would you rather tell someone pigs are unhealthy, or sit down with someone who does not know what biology is and try to explain to them this all. And God could have, He would have to explain this to all the people, and then imagine how technologically advance they would be come. Far to advanc for their time.

 

That being said, I think religion has been for the best. Any given thing can be used for either good or evil. And, I think, contrary to the belief of some, religion has done more good than harm. The reason I think so is because of the nature of living creatures. Look at how easily we go to war. What if we didn't have religion controlling people's minds, telling people not to kill? Our civilization may not have reached the point it has. But, I think we are approaching the age, if we're not already there, where religion will do more harm than good. The age where we no longer need religious control to stop us from self-destructing.

 

You at least agree that religion was helpful. Now for us coming to a point where we will not destroy ourselfs. Maybe you should just visit my school and you will change your minds about upcoming generations. I don't really know if there was a time we needed something like religion more than now.

That is the end of the examination. But, on a side note; None of this means there isn't a God out there. I think it's strange how we're always taught never to repeat history, yet that's exactly what we've been doing with religions/Gods. There was a time when there were God's/religions, and they turned out to be bogus. Why then do we auto-accept (to use a computer term), the idea that any current religious God's are legit? Not all people do, but most of the ones who don't are atheists and others who make the jump, "I don't like this God, so i'll believe in no God.", instead of the jump, "I don't like this God, maybe it isn't a real God.". Remember, there's no reason to lose faith in the possibility a real God exists.

 

 

Very interesting, seems you controdict yourself some, but it works out for an overall purpose. Now, we could discuss atheism, but I would wait till another time.

[alexander]

now in light of my small post, I will do a big one.

Oh man, i havent followed this for a while, but i'm back :)

since you refer to the devil, I will take this from a Christian standpoint.

is that as in, well i beleive in something elses, but that is irrelevant.

Satn is not a god. Only God is, in the Christian religion. And if you really examine it, the Christian religion does not say the devil did it. It says God is responsible for everything that happens, though not as in He caused it sense. For sake of free will, He allows us to make bad choices. So then this fact is proven false.

Well, say in Satanism he is. and secndly, I'm pretty sure that you werent supposed to take the word god literaly, it was a bad thing to refer to by the original writer, but to make his point more correct, lets change "god" to force or movement :D. Oh and how do you know that God is a He? and if you take forces, that does not prove false at all, infact quite backwards. And lastly, it says that god gives everyone free will, devil wanted to do something, therefore devil did it, not god.

This almost has the same as point one. The problem here is that what is proven. First off you cannot define a word without cirular deffinition problems. Yet many do not like this argument, so I will do another.

 

Is gravity proven. Or is it just a theory. Yes, everytime we drop a heavy object on out toe, we are sure gravity works, the problem is, how do we know it will in the future. To say it will in the future requires that you do know what will happen, and if the uncertainity principle is true, it is impossible to say for 100% something will happen. There is a small chance that when two cars hit, they quantum tunnel though each other. So you cannot say that the divers in a two car crash where each was going faster than 100mph will be seriously hurt. But the chances are high enough it is something one will bet their life on. Nothing is 100% certain, at least not scientifically, so then, why should we worry about proving what a religion says if we cannot prove 100% of science.

whoah there, i think you have taken probability quite far from its intention. And the force of gravity is always present, no matter how small a particle is, gravity is there. Now, will the gravity always be there with reference to an object, even taking the most dense objects, it is proven, by Hopkins, that even black holes give off particles and will eventually deminish... Oh and I will argue that there is more religion to prove then science, the religious concept is based on a power that can otherwise not be seen, felt, prove, heard or mathematically expressed. Concept of science: well we study and describe things, very much proven...

 

I have never heard of a church promising such things. Anyways, only extremist say they will kill you, and almost 100% of the time, it is against the religion they are trying to force.

nontheless, history proves countless times where murder was used as means to enforce religion, and many times it was the very religion that you took a stand for...

 

even if you are right, I would wonder why you be against it. The religion claims such things as do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, and other such things that are bad for you.

Yet religious concept is based on lying for the reason of stealing and it is acheived by killing, isnt that odd?

 

You at least agree that religion was helpful. Now for us coming to a point where we will not destroy ourselfs. Maybe you should just visit my school and you will change your minds about upcoming generations. I don't really know if there was a time we needed something like religion more than now.

Religion is one of foundation blocks of civilization, it's more then helpful, it is necessary, or used to be, civilization would not exist without religion, originally anyways, i think that since about 3-400 years ago, man has not needed religion to continue to civilize since we have hit a point of no return. And there have been thousands of years where man has needed religion more then we need it now, thousands of years!

 

No offense meant, hope you choose another religion for the continuation of this discussion, because i got quite a lot on christianity, and now have material that explains the motivation behind the bible to a certain extent, we cant travel back in time, fortunately or not, that it was written by people, to, just like most other pre AD religious documents, control other people who were otherwise out of control...