All About RELIGION Here

[kebotDiNaMute]

---

As to the standards of god believers,,,im not saying "all god believers" bro kebs.
I know that they have altar kebs including rituals,,my little girls baptismal ceremony was in the buddhist temple.

And for the first time your right- i dont know everything about the world.
Specially GOD, i dont know him/her/it kebs...all i know about god is ,,,i dont know.

then why are you taking about god when you don't know about it?

How do you know this standards of god believers? may i ask?

because from what i believe brad, its not the standard of men, its the standard of god... so if you say the standard of Gods believers, its kinda mixed up... please enlighten...

[Malic]

then why are you taking about god when you don't know about it?

How do you know this standards of god believers? may i ask?

because from what i believe brad, its not the standard of men, its the standard of god... so if you say the standard of Gods believers, its kinda mixed up... please enlighten...

In effect kebs, what Mr.Fish is saying is, he doesn't want to speculate about the concept of God.

[Sinyalan]

Do we really need religion? The question is, do you really need god?

[josephdc]

I remember my nephew arguing with his mother about not going to his pre-school class; he want's to go straight to college so that he will become an astronaut..

Yeah, I think that's the main purpose of religion, to help us grow in our spiritual life. I remember this sermon a priest once gave about this tension between Law and Grace. He said that that's the purpose of the laws (the commandments) in Christianity, to help us mature spiritually. He compares it to playing the game of golf. Anyone can play golf, but only a few can play it really well. And to play it well requires discipline and the practice of certain techniques. The angle of the club, the posture of the body, the timing, the frame of mind, etc., all play a part in you playing the sport well. It takes a lot of practice and of course self-discipline. The priest says it's the same with religion, there are many rules, techniques, practices, etc., but these are not designed to hinder you in any way. Rather, they're there to help you grow spiritually, to cultivate you and help you become a better person, a better Christian. Jesus himself in the Gospels warned about being caught up in the letter of the law and missing its spirit.

[josephdc]

those rules or law are all artificial/man made, they are put there because they have no other way to control people. That is the role of religion for society, to control people's minds. The only law that's important to be aware of are natural laws.

I guess that's one way to look at it. Powerful men in history did indeed use religion to subdue their own people and control their minds. But that tells us about the misuse of religion, it doesn't tell us I think about the religion itself, whether its truth claims are valid or not.

[josephdc]

Looks like it or si Dawkins or Weinberg? Heard this words from Dawkins sa iyang documentary "The Root of All Evil." Sorry if I missed to put the credit. Anyways, I get to think they are also right. Religion needs to be told sometimes.



Yes. "But for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” <--- religion can be enslaving even to the minds of good people -- it gives good people the bad reasons to be good. Example, how many good people forego their rationality for believing that the Bible is the only source of truth in this world? How many good people have given up their marriages simply because the other party/partner is an "unbeliever." If religion is said to ennoble the love between persons, why can't Christians agree to abandon their religion for the sake of love? Mas matibang ba gyud diay ang religion kay sa paghigugma?

I think that tells us about the behavior (misbehavior?) of some believers and not really religion itself, its validity?

[josephdc]

ka balaknon nimo karon BP.

Agree ko ani. I saw people professing to be Religious , muslims and christians, because they hold the laws of their religion above their love for their children would punish their kids for violating a holy precept, like, for listening to a secular music or talking to a certain person with a different religious background would get a cold shoulder from mom or dad for a month or more as punishment for the violation.

Maka-turn off jud bitaw kanang bad behavior sa uban believers.

[josephdc]

If you are still a materialistic person of course you need religion.
But if you elevated your soul's personality and become a multi-sensory (soul) personality--
then you do not need a religion anymore.

Religion is just a badge, a symbol, or a group that gives you a sense of belonging.
If you put religion as center of your life--your life sooner or later will become imbalanced.
What you need is principles.
The right principles.
This is what gives your life balance--and not religion.

But religion bro does teach about principles also...

And I don't think religion is just a club. Simply going to Church doesn't make anyone a Christian. It takes more than that. It takes discipleship, something that's not easy to do.

[josephdc]

based on that argument, MORALITY after all is BIOLOGICAL and not religious. we cannot say that GOD gave us our senses of what is good or bad, therefore, we cannot say GOD is good. hence, you are probably right, that morality is instinctive, but that is just one part of the whole morality picture. the morality i was trying to present is, the determination of our senses to choose what is right and wrong.

I think God is ultimately the foundation for morality.

[brownprose]

hirit lang ko BP ha..pero i don't entirely agree to this one..seeing the effects of religion today..especially militant religions i don't think i can equate that to spirituality..sa akoa religion is only arbitrary..i think religion is not a/the product of spirituality but religion is a/the product of belief.

We probably vary in our definitions on spirituality. My definition is more of psycho-social and anthropological while yours is maybe "theological" (if I'm not mistaken) which prompted you to think that religion "is not" a/the product of spirituality.

Just to clarify, spirituality (from the point of anthropology) was already observed by early humans (Neanderthals) in a form of reverence for or worship of sacred objects, offering and burial ceremonies etc... long before the first religion was built. In essence, humans are particularly "spiritual" or "seeking" in nature according to cognitive science.

And when humans came to learn how to write, came also the various authors in different regions all attempting to write their spiritual traditions, their myths and legends, their codes of conduct all poured into their writings forming adherents and believers taking them as "absolute truths" or divinely inspired or sacred. Thus, the birth of many religions.

So why are there many religious militants today? Religious militancy is not something new. In the past, people even fought to prove who the better god was. As I have said in another thread, there were more than 2,000 recorded events related to religious war and violence as religions matured sometime in 1000 CE. Even today, because religions vary in their concept and exercise of spirituality, it has also become a cause of friction. Thus your observation is correct when you said of the militants as the "effects of religion."