Following the hijack of Shelly's post on science research I thought I would post my thoughts on "religion" as I see it and then wait to see what happens.

I was raised Roman Catholic and have found I don't fit in with the pedophiles and those who protect them. It made me sick to my stomach.

I do believe in a higher power but can't ignore the science behind the making of "us". To me when "let there be light" was supposedly said, I believe that was the moment of the big bang and the universe was here. I say here because that's the science. It happened that fast.

Adam and Eve were nothing but great apes in the garden of eden.

Like it or not we "evolved" we weren't created, you can't ignore that science either. After 20 years in surgery I've seen and studied a lot on the human body and we arent far from the apes. There are too many similarities on the inside.

All the written words have gone through too many hands to be believed anymore. Just like a story that's started around the office, by the time it gets to someone on the other end there has been too much bullshit added or taken away from the truth of the original.

To me it's amazing that people support organized religion given that different beliefs have been the root of wars and land disputes for centuries among supposedly civilized people. They hold on to the beliefs and completely ignore the science that's being proven these days.

George Carlin said it best


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-e2NDSTuE

Everyone smiles in the same language (Unknown)

I too was raised Catholic. I no longer practice, but I believe my life values are still those I learned from my educators, the Jesuits. The ones who taught me were a remarkable group of men, which fact I only fully appreciated after I left college. Like Mize, I find the actions of the paedophile minority and those in high places in the church who misguidedly protect them abhorrent and that definitely contributed to my leaving active practice, although it was not the major reason (I married a divorcee).

50 years on I am still in constant contact with my old college, and maintain friendships with many old schoolmates even though I now live over a thousand miles away. My teachers are all gone now - the last one died last year, aged 104, but I have come to know many of their successors and have the same respect for them.

The Catholic Church has much to answer for, but it also does a great deal of good in the world. Most of that good is done at the coalface by Joe Average clergy and lay members.

Intelligent Catholics (and that definitely includes the Jesuits) recognise and acknowledge that the Old Testament is fundamentally allegory, not literal fact. Creationism is far more likely to be found in ratbag sects and southern Baptists.

I'm Jewish and somewhat religious. (Not Orthodox, but not quite Conservative either.) I'm a big believer in science, though. Is always like showing the Isaac Asimov short story How It Happened as a way of reconciling how "Let there be light" and Big Bang/Evolution/etc could both be right. Not that I think that's what literally happened, but that God knew two things:

1) Humans at the time weren't ready for a full scientific explanation of how the Universe works. It would have overwhelmed them at the time and they wouldn't have been able to understand it. You might as well teach Quantum Mechanics to a toddler.

2) Humans are great at figuring out scientific laws, but weren't as good at adhering to moral laws. So we needed a little push in the moral department.

My personal view is that the entire Bible is an allegorical tale. For example, I had an old rabbi (Holocaust survivor and the kind of guy who's forgotten more about Judaism than I'll ever know in my entire lifetime) who pointed out that there are actually TWO stories about the creation of the first man. Genesis says that man was created in God's image, but it also says he was made from mud. My rabbi said that one should go through life balancing between "I'm the most important thing in the world" and "I'm nothing more than dirt." You never get too close to either end, but stay right in the middle.

I really don't want to get into it too much, I do believe, but the problem with most organized religion is interpretation of the bible or their respective writings no matter what religion you may or may not subscribe to. I haven't found anything in the bible that says we are God's police but a lot that encourages a personal connection. I do believe that dogmatic followers of a narrow or archaic view of religion can be dangerous so some Christians have a lot in common with radicals in the Mid East. One thing that is a fact and not opinion, there is a lot of hate going around these days that does not help anybody. We are all standing on the same planet.

I completely agree. I try not to be judgmental of another person's religious beliefs. As long as they don't try to force their beliefs onto me, they can do pretty much anything they want to do in my book.

I don't try to get bacon cheeseburgers banned because they aren't kosher. That's for me to avoid since that's my religious belief. Similarly, if someone thinks I'm going to hell because I don't accept Christ, fine. They have a right to their opinion. However, if they start trying to get the government to enshrine their religious beliefs into law then I've got to oppose them.

I still maintain the only sensible position is to be agnostic.

I follow no religion but believe very much in the Creator. All of this, the Universe, EVERYTHING, had to come from somewhere. I refuse to believe that the consciousness that looks out thru my eyes, that the thing inside me that craves love and happiness, is a freak accident.

I believe that when God created us, He used a pure and perfect piece of Himself to do it, each of us a spark of pure Light and joy. But this simplicity and purity gets covered up by layer after layer of Ego as we grow and develop. With all good intentions, well, SOME of them with good intentions, society, our parents, our schools, our countries, our social class (friends), and especially our religions, try to fill us with THEIR belief systems, convinced that they are all knowing on all subjects, that they can lead us straight. (Their Egos telling them that they could not possibly be wrong about anything, especially not about religion).

Throughout history, some men have been able to get back to that simple purity, to "go back home". These men, inspired by what they saw inside of themselves, their true nature, tried to teach others how to do the same. After these men left, many of them violently since ignorant man cannot cope with hearing the truth or infuriated that their belief systems were not upheld, the followers of these great men believed that they must try to perpetuate the teaching of the Master, hence, the formations of the religions.

Each religion, or at least the vast majority, believe that theirs is "the only way", that only their scripture is the true Word of God, and their man is the only true Lord; almost all religions are identical this way. If your press them for proof you are told to read their scripture and don't question it; "you have to have faith, you have to believe". Each religion can produce people who have had "visions" while on an emotion high. For me, that is not proof; I am not the one who had the vision, and I do not trust emotional highs which probably are produced by the Ego anyway. And who knows what the original words of these Masters really were, Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, Krishna, Rama, etc., never spoke a word of English. Also, I do not trust the "inspired" men who translated these scriptures, many of them leaving out entire parts, or adding as they desired (again, THEIR Egos knew what was best for the rest of us, well at least the best for them). The God that I believe in will not send one of His own children to eternal damnation for believing in the wrong thing for 50-60 years.

I believe that it is folly to believe that you are going to go to Heaven when you die if you are not ALREADY experiencing Heaven within. If you take a mean, miserable, person who has lead a "pious" life, dies, and who suddenly finds themselves surrounded by Paradise, they will still be unhappy; your consciousness, the real you, will still be there (unless going to Heaven includes a major personality change). I believe that it is possible to be "in Heaven" while you are alive, and I believe that this is what all the great Masters throughout history tried to teach to people of their time: the Kingdom of Heaven is within; you do not have to wait till you die to get there.

Acadia

I don't know about the only sensible position, but I do not believe religion should dominate one's life. If there is a Supreme Being, I would like to believe It (avoiding the gender discussion there) is benevolent enough to overlook most human failings.

Jason, in his reply, cited Isaac Asimov as a philosophical influence. Here, the great Asimov, in his thoughts on Humanism vs Spiritualism summarizes my beliefs in a much more eloquent manner than I could ever hope to achieve:

I have never, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. The fact is that I feel no spiritual void. I have my philosophy of life, which does not include any aspect of the supernatural and which I find totally satisfying. I am, in short, a rationalist and believe only that which reason tells me is so.

I’ve never been particularly careful about what label I placed on my beliefs. I believe in the scientific method and the rule of reason as a way of understanding the natural Universe. I don’t believe in the existence of entities that cannot be reached by such a method and such a rule and that are therefore “supernatural.” I certainly don’t believe in the mythologies of our society, in Heaven and Hell, in God and angels, in Satan and demons. I’ve thought of myself as an “atheist,” but that simply described what I didn’t believe in, not what I did.

Gradually, though, I became aware that there was a movement called “humanism,” which used that name because, to put it most simply, Humanists believe that human beings produced the progressive advance of human society and also the ills that plague it. They believe that if the ills are to be alleviated, it is humanity that will have to do the job. They disbelieve in the influence of the supernatural on either the good or the bad of society, on either its ills or the alleviation of those ills.

Have I told you that I prefer “rationalism” to “atheism”? The word “atheist,” meaning “no God,” is negative and defeatist. It says what you don’t believe and puts you in an eternal position of defense. “Rationalism” on the other hand states what you DO believe; that, that which can be understood in the light of reason. The question of God and other mystical objects-of-faith are outside reason and therefore play no part in rationalism and you don’t have to waste your time in either attacking or defending that which you rule out of your philosophy altogether.

There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven. And what if I’m mistaken? The question was asked of Bertrand Russell, the famous mathematician, philosopher, and outspoken atheist. “What if you died,” he was asked, “and found yourself face to face with God? What then?”And the doughty old champion said, “I would say, ‘Lord, you should have given us more evidence.'”

My religious views were shaped long ago in in the writings of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677).

He believed that God existed in only a philosophical sense and did not control or interact in any way with human destiny. Born Jewish, he was excommunicated for his views over four centuries ago.

He once said that if a table were sentient, it would maintain that God was a great table.

Spinoza is considered one of the great philosophers of all time. Though mainly scholars are aware of his writings today.

I do not believe in an afterlife. We are limited to the mark we make during our lives and the memory s we leave, there is no heaven nor hell. We create our own in how we live our lives. What you are born does not matter, how you die does not matter what you do between those events matters.

Shelly

The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson