Quote:
Originally Posted by fable 
Not the case at all, except in a very few religions. Which would be fine if you wanted to deal only with monotheistic literalists, but not if you're going to claim this is true of worshipers in general.
|
Primarily monotheistic. But that doesn't let out the others by any means! After all, what's the point of a priest or shaman if he/she isn't a direct link to the god?
Quote:
Originally Posted by fable No, you have to take it on face value that the gods are real. |
Why? The existence/non-existence of a god or gods is totally unverifiable, so taking the existence of a god/gods on face value as real is a bit... unrealistic. Besides, there are so darn MANY of 'em! And a lot of 'em are THE ONE TRUE GOD in the view of their adherants.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fable For most believers, they simply are. More to the point, most believers aren't interested in proving any claims about their god/s. |
True. They sit back and take the word of some human. It's easier than thinking...
Quote:
Originally Posted by fable Problems arise specifically with a few religions that insist their beliefs are historically verifiable. |
This is also to a large extent true. Not totally, but to a large extent. Did you miss the point I made about Hinduism (as an example)?
Quote:
Originally Posted by fable Unfortunately for us, we live in a time when a very few of those religions descended from one specific religious branch have a large number of adherents, and are very, very loud about in attempting to convince everybody of their truths. |
True. But how about the peoples the Aztecs slaughtered (for example) when they took over the land from the previous inhabitants? They were not affiliated with any Abrahamic religion, but they appear to have been just as murderous a lot as those the Hebrews took over from. Pagans are not always 'nice' either!
Quote:
Originally Posted by fable The fault for not living up to our highest aspirations lies in ourselves, not necessarily our aspirations. Believe it or not, if you remove religion from the equation, people have been still known to go to war. A lot. All the time. |
True. Never said they didn't! Just pointing out that religion is/has always been, a huge factor in warfare.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fable No, they definitely wouldn't!  Religions have absolutely nothing to do with relieving poverty, or hunger, or slavery. They are about the state of an individual and their relationship to a particular deity or deities. That's all. |
Wrong. May be true of some religions, but the Sermon on the Mount teaches love for god and one's fellow men as primary, ahead of all other things. If you love people you do not let them starve, murder them wage war against them, steal from them. You place the care of your fellow creatures only second to your love of god and your obedience to him. Alongside that, you have to care for your environment, because your environment is what sustains the life of your fellow men, and besides which, in Genesis, the biblical god told man to CARE for the earth and the creatures of the earth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fable The precepts of a prophet or a godly avatar are attempts to formulate standards by which humans may live with one another in societies, but these are separate from the religion as a whole. And really, this kind of advice is an aberration among religions, too. See above.
And those 10 commandments? There aren't 10, there are over 100. |
True. The Ten Commandments were a concise summary of the body of the Law.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fable Those are only the first 10. And some of them...? Like stoning to death a person who wears cloth woven from two different kinds of thread...? Do you really think that would bring peace on earth? |
No. that's one of the things (one of many!) that made me start thinking the biblical god was a bit of a bastard!
Jesus Sermon on the Mount was much better. We are told that Jesus is the very personification of the god of the Hebrews. He ain't. Not by any means. But the Christianised Jews of the first century very quickly turned him into a Jahweh figure in Revelation. They really loved the idea, seems to me, of a nasty vengeful god who took pleasure in killing off his own creations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fable I'm thinking the codification of 4000 year old cultural laws of a renegade Babylonian herder tribe are that tribe's business. If they want to make it mine, then the fault doesn't lie with a god, but with the way people have since time immemorial thought they always knew what was best for their neighbors. |
And often what the god OUGHT to have done/thought, imo!
