Sun Jan 25, 2004 4:58 pm by Arcon
@Griff: i COULD do it, seriously. I dont beacause i think its a load of phooey. But i wanted to stay objective. I think any religion that tells you how to live your life day-by-day is no better than a totalitarian dictatorship, its like "the party" in 1984, you have no coice but to follow. Religion is and i think always has been about giving people pointers. Teachings about how to live your life. Like when your mum tells you not to fight with your brother or how your brought up to be nice to people, not just friends. Its guidelines to life and how to treat others. The whole creation myth and this that an the other is a backstory, a way of setting up the "speaker" (the guy who sets out the teachings) as the one you SHOULD listen to, a person all knowing so it must be the truth. Thinking about all the religions and disguarding the actual celestial beings part of it, the teachings are basically guidelines to life. Its full of morals and stories with points to them.
Religion is about getting a bunch of people beleiving that treating people fair and good is what the most powerful being in existance WANTS from you, and if you ARE nice, courteous and kind you'll spend eternity in paradise with loved ones. If not you will pay for the badness you caused. They all reward good kids and punish the bad. Its a way of keeping people to do what theyre told.
Its with THIS beleif that i consider i could be a good Christian, or a good Jew, or a good Muslim. I dont need to go to a building and listen to a guy prattle on about something, or read from a book or talk about this that and the other, i can watch re-runs of grange hill instead. But if my mum asks me to pop down the shops to get groceries, or my dad wants me to give him a hand fixing some electrics, i'll surely do it, but im not going to hell because i watch naked ladies rub oil on each other, or because i swear like a soldier or i believe homosexuality is fine and dandy, or because sex before mariage is sweet. Its MY personal life and how i conduct it is of no ones concern, and i should think an omniscient being would be as fine with that as i am. What i NEVER do, is purposefully harm, endanger, put out or victimise another person. Ive never been a bully, never picked on anyone, never hurt them (physically OR emotionally). Ive never made someone cry (at least to my knowledge and memory) or made someones life bad in the slightest.
I think religion should be scaled back. The church is a person's heart. You wanna talk to god, thats fine. I think God is a narator of a story, and its a good story, if you ignore the tripped out fantasy.