Is religion necessary?

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Originally Posted by Nightcrewman

Yes absolutely if it was not for religion there would be millions of people on a Sunday with nothing to do, they would all probably want to go down the pub for a few beers and a game of pool, that would mean I'd never get near the bar for a drink so in my opinion they are better off going to church.

NCM

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You have a point. "The Devil finds work for idle hands to do"

Not necessary for sure. Sure religion tries to give people a good moral direction, but you would find that direction yourself without religion.

But unfortunately since that moral direction is forced on the followers, they will accept other things forced upon them. Do you think it's a coincidence that the most religious industrialized country in the world is turning into a police state?

And what about those who do not accept what religion tries to force upon them? They will often in their anger go and do the exact opposite that they've been told to do. Look up some statistics on the correlation between religousness and murder rate by country. The more religous a country is, the higher the murder rate.

Does religion bring people together? Sure, if they are belong to the same religion. But I've found that it is the religous people that can hate the most when they have no reason to.

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Originally Posted by McLeodGanja

Both are equally as stubborn, I think.

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."-Albert Einstein

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Your credability just went through the roof in my books!

Enlightenment is a path of open mindedness (of non limitation), interpretation involves ego and representation (limitation); enlightenment involves peace and understanding.


Peace,
Denial

I think religion is a way for our brains to understand things that are impossible to understand. All civilizations do it. Like the ones that didn't understand volcanoes so it must be god right? They believed they were bad and the volcano god blew them up...

It is a way for us to handle the loss of a love one too I think religion is a pretty amazing phenomena when you think it encompasses all civilizations in one way or another.

When we (I'm talking humans as a whole) can't understand something then we say it must be God.

I am as guilty as everyone else. I am agnostic as well but when I climb up high and see snow capped mountains as far as the eye can see and beautiful colors in rocks and the glaciers, they are a fantastic color of blue all their own...anyway I catch myself saying there must be a God.

Then I come back down and the rational side kicks in again you know what I mean? Do you do that?

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Originally Posted by BlueCat00

I think religion is a way for our brains to understand things that are impossible to understand. All civilizations do it. Like the ones that didn't understand volcanoes so it must be god right? They believed they were bad and the volcano god blew them up...

It is a way for us to handle the loss of a love one too I think religion is a pretty amazing phenomena when you think it encompasses all civilizations in one way or another.

When we (I'm talking humans as a whole) can't understand something then we say it must be God.

I am as guilty as everyone else. I am agnostic as well but when I climb up high and see snow capped mountains as far as the eye can see and beautiful colors in rocks and the glaciers, they are a fantastic color of blue all their own...anyway I catch myself saying there must be a God.

Then I come back down and the rational side kicks in again you know what I mean? Do you do that?

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The question that always gets me is what is the driving force for life. What makes all these chemicals come together to create humans and cannabis plants? But it is far too easy to say God did it. That to me is giving up. I have pondered at times that there may be a creator but because it can not at this time be fully known then it is still open to question. Maybe we see beauty as a genetic preservation. If everything was bleak and dire we may want to destroy it.

Peace.

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Originally Posted by McLeodGanja

Both are equally as stubborn, I think.

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."-Albert Einstein

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From Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion...

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One of Einstein's most eagerly quoted remarks is 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.' But Einstein also said,

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

Does it seem that Einstein contradicted himself? That his words can be cherry-picked for quotes to support both sides of an argument? No. By 'religion' Einstein meant something entirely different from what is conventionally meant. As I continue to clarify the distinction between supernatural religion on the one hand and Einsteinian religion on the other, bear in mind that I am calling only supernatural gods delusional.

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Originally Posted by denial102

Your credability just went through the roof in my books!
Peace,
Denial

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I tend to flirt a lot with both ends of the spectrum of re-cognition. :jointsmile:

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Originally Posted by bhouncy

The question that always gets me is what is the driving force for life. What makes all these chemicals come together to create humans and cannabis plants?

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Autopoiesis.

It's a scientific hypothesis that will make you believe in anything, including perhaps even the most far fetched notion of a god. It's a theory that brings creationism and evolution together into one, emergence.

If we emerged out of nothing, and came into being through the magic of thought, then so must thought have. Ever thought of that, one?

It's a mind fuck, science was never meant to be easy to understand.

The chemicals that make us up are constructs of our mind, not the other way about. We create answers to the questions we are born with, it's a continual cycle that without which life would probably be a questionless mean.

I've started talking zen bollocks again, and I've forgotten what point I was trying to make. I going through to the kitchen to see if my potatoes are ready to take off the boil.

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Originally Posted by McLeodGanja

Autopoiesis.

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Thanks for the new word.

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Originally Posted by bhouncy

Thanks for the new word.

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Don't thank me.

Autopoiesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia