All of you fools who refuse to acknowledge the beauty, wisdom, grace, sovereignty, and general kick-assedness of Athena deserve nothing but scorn.
I’d say it was familiarity that makes a religious practice appear ludicrous. The more you explore them, the deeper you get in stupid. If religion is meant to be a unifying force, it is failing miserably.
For sake of argument, you believe that painting the left side of your face blue protects your soul from evil. The people next door believe that painting the right side of their face green protects their sould from evil.
Who am I to say that one of you is wrong and the other is correct? Perhaps both of you are right, you bluians, and those greenians both preserve your souls, just in different rituals.
If you behave in a particular manner because you believe some guy named Jesus Christ died for your sins, and in doing so you will go to heaven then I believe that you will go to heaven. Just because you believe in Jesus and will attain your heaven in your way does not mean that Achmed believing in Allah as preached by Mohammad won’t get to his version of heaven if he behaves in his religiously prescribed manner, and that Shakuntala holds Sarasvasti dear because she wants to emphasize learning and inspiration in her life, and Tanaka meditates to center his soul won’t manage to order their lives according to their beliefs, and attain them. I believe that whatever you want to consider godhead is percieved by everybody in their own manner, and each is equally valid. I am not going to tell you not to worship in the christian manner, that you are wrong. I don’t know if you are wrong or right, but it is your choice to worship in that manner. I would just like you to respect that I do not worship in your manner, and that I am not wrong in worshipping in my manner. Be respectful to me as I am respectful of you.
I will note that certain concepts of demons and devils is purely christian, and that ‘satanism’ and certain forms of ceremonial magic are very derivative of christianity, and are to all appearances the equivalent to a child throwing a tantrum and behaving in a contrary manner to show disdain for authority figures - the black mass is a perfect example of this. That is my viewpoint of particular behaviors, but I will not stop you from having your black mass, as long as you do not try to sacrifice one of my pets to do it.
Is that helpful?
Yeah, but almost all of these religions come with the idea that the other people’s ideas of god and heaven are wrong. So if you hold the belief that you’re exclusively right, you have to be wrong about at least that aspect of it.
Yes, when people of different religions start worshipping in the same place( preferably, that would be in their own heads, or at least their own homes.), I might then start showing them a little more respect, but until then…
From the first moment we hear it. Unfortunately, religions are real good at brainwashing small children who are very gullible and unless they are incredibly fortunate, the child will not overcome the brainwashing and will grow up, have kids, and inflict religion on them in turn. This is how religions propagate themselves from one generation to the next.
You had it right. The founders/inventors of any religion are nothing but con men.
aruvqan, I find your idea to be literally incoherent.
My friend Liz believes I am going to hell due to my lack of acceptance of Jesus Christ as my personal savior.
I believe that it is not the case that I am going to hell due to my lack of acceptance of Jesus Christ as my personal savior.
How does it make sense to say that we are both right?
Lefty–
I might be overreaching myself to speak for aryvqan, but he(?) seemed to be saying that what a believer belives for himself is relevant and important for their soul, while what they believe for others is not important.
Now, I may believe I am approaching the deity correctly by denouncing your beliefs or lack thereof, but that only applies to me – it has no real bearing on your your path.
In your own example, Liz can be “right” for believing that you are jeopardizing your soul because that belief is “right” for her path. Her belief does not constrain the deity from accepting your path (if you even have one consciously), nor does it prevent any given deity from accepting that she is sincerely trying her best to get you on the path she recognizes.
This is a good way to express it. A religious idea can be totally wrong, yet lead to a “close enough” good result. Like, say, the idea that the sun is the same size as the moon, and both the sun and the moon revolve around the earth. It’s totally untrue, and yet this belief about the sun doesn’t lead to egregious errors in most cases. Most people could go about their lives holding this ludicrously false belief, and it wouldn’t make any difference.
Beliefs in souls, and afterlives, and deities seem to me to often be the same sort of thing. It’s not true, but in many cases it doesn’t matter that much–you go about your life pretty much the same way. Except when you don’t. Like, you believe in Heaven, so you try to be a nice person most of the time, and you dress up and sit in a building and sing on Sunday mornings instead of watching football. But that same belief becomes pathological when you kill your children so they can get to Heaven. But some people are just crazy, so it’s no suprise that crazy people do crazy things. It seems to me that the suicide bomber who blows up a marketplace is pretty much psychologically equivalent to a nut who goes on a rampage and shoots up a school.
The trouble comes when these false beliefs lead non-crazy people to actions which are rational given the premises, but are actually destructive. Fortuneately these sorts of issues tend to be fairly rare, because destructive religious beliefs tend to burn themselves out, while benign ones don’t. Beliefs that kill the belief-holder and destroy their society can’t last long, while beliefs that lead to stable societies do. And this is only partly related to how accurate those beliefs are, some innaccurate beliefs are horribly pernicious, others are wrong but don’t cause much trouble.
Is there a point when religious beliefs become flat out ridiculous?
In the beginning.
Lefty, Doc seems to have what I was trying to explain right.
Though Liz would drive me nuts trying to convert me because I neither want nor need conversion according to my beliefs, and her continual trying would cause me to end any relationship with her. That is when religion is overstepping its bounds IMHO. Although, I will not denounce your diety because it isn’t my diety.
I think the reason why Scientology is ridiculed more so than other religions is that the founder actually admitted it was a money-making scam at one point. You really have to pay out the ass to advance to the various “Levels”, with a lot of dubious medical treatments (some just a lot of bullshit, some could actually be considered dangerous.)
And yeah, while the whole “Xenu” story might be comparible to other religious beliefs, keep in mind that they don’t give it to you right away – you only find out once you’ve been in the organization for years. Before the internet and South Park, it was considered this big, BIG secret.
For Christianity to be like Scientology, it would be as if they didn’t tell you about Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection until you had been a Christian for years.
They’re also known for sueing people at the drop of a hat.
It’s not like Scientology invented the mystery cult. They were quite common back in classical times. You had to join the religion at a low level and work your way up to the point where they could tell you the secret stuff.
I expect quite a few are lunatics, not con men as such.
Please. There’s the Catholic Church spreading lies about condoms and the rest of the whole anti-sex part of Christianity, the Christians hating the Jews for 2000 years, and all sorts of destructive religious beliefs that have lasted for centuries or millennia. Unless a belief is so destructive as to destroy the society hosting it, your burnout scenario won’t happen. For that matter, given that they are beliefs and not people they are perfectly capable of destroying a society and surviving in another one for that matter.
Naturally. I’m just saying as to why NOW they’re considered so shady. And again, the key word is “cult.”
Somehow you have to believe some man has a pipeline to god and can teach you ye way. That is a high hurdle for me. The guys who say it are not very admirable. From the pope and his coverups, the buggering priests, gestapo nuns of the Catholics, through the shysters of Scientology and the modifying Mormon beliefs, they all leave me cold. I find nothing that makes me think they are special people who can tell me anything about god and right and wrong. Toss in the absurd televangelists and their wealth grabbing, and sexual scandals, and I wonder what is wrong with people who can convince themselves there is something in there to hold on to.
Hey, I used to be in one of those organizations! I learned all the secret passwords, secret handshakes, and secret Mormon underwear that can turn mortals into gods, and embarassingly it took over a decade before I declared “bullshit.”
No, I wasn’t crazy, and neither are the majority of Mormons (or believers in equally wacky shtuff). Just immersed in the local culture and a little too lazy/comfortable to step back and examine the beliefs from an outsider’s viewpoint. I suspect even the skeptics in a religion often weigh the benefits vs the costs of continuing to profess belief, and desperately look for ways to rationalize ther faith.
“I think we can take a cue from psychology and say that when your religious beliefs interfere with your ability to lead a normal life then it is a problem”
I would say its more when their religious beliefs start significantly interfering with my ability to lead a normal life that the real problems start.
As in an occasional loon on the street meh, daily visits to my house, not so good.
Otara
Lisa: The mound builders worshipped turtles as well as badgers, snakes and other animals.
Bart: Thank god we’ve come to our senses and worship a carpenter who lived 2000 years ago.
To a large degree how silly a religion is depends on how established it is in your culture. So yeah, praying to Zeus is absurd in this culture. But worshipping a carpenter who was executed would be silly to other cultures.
When a religion starts making predictions that never happen it becomes silly. The world will end in 1973. Make that 1977. Wait, 1981. etc. etc.