Are all religions just one big con trick?

This is the one and only time I will weigh in with my thoughts about religion.

To me, all religions are man made. Protestant, Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, etc, etc, etc.

They're all based in fear. "If you don't live within these parameters, you will go to Hell."

If you believe in God, your personal relationship with him is just that... personal. If it gives you peace, that's what matters.

If you choose to live by a certain code (religion), that's your choice and no one has the right to say whether you're right or wrong.

Anyway, just my two cents.
 

HoneyNut said:
I think human behavior, including sharing and caring (as well as suspicion and fear), is innate.

I think religions started as ways to try to understand the world and to control it:
"why is there thunder and lightning tonight - someone is angry - what can we do to calm him down so we don't get hit by lightning";
"why hasn't it rained - someone is angry - what can we do to get rain";
"I don't like this but I can say a prayer/sacrifice to the god and I can maybe control what is going to happen", etc).

Then religion could also be used to comfort ("bad things happened to me - don't worry the big daddy/mommy was mad at you but they still love you"; "I'm very upset because my child is dying - tell the child they don't need to be afraid because they're going to a nice place when grandma/pa is going to greet them and mom/dad will come later").

Then I think religions morphed toward controlling others behavior ("You are the reason the rain hasn't come"; "don't do that or the gods will be angry with us"; "if you tell a lie the god will know and you'll be smitten, so you must tell the truth to us"; "those others don't obey our God so make them change or kill them"; "I'm god's favorite - or a god - so obey me"; "if you question the religion's rule that I tell you, then you are committing evil - regardless of 'new revelations' causing the rules to change when I tell you they have").

You'd think now that we know about all the different religions and that kids just normally believe whatever religion their parents have (which can change due to conquered by a group with a different religion), that we'd start to realize our own are just as silly as we consider other peoples', but apparently the fear of losing the control or comfort is too strong for a lot of people.

I'm kind of chuckling while I write this because I was watching a YouTube yesterday of an ex-Mormon whose husband was hoping he'd be excommunicated from being Mormon because he bought some 'Mormon magic underwear' for her to show on her YouTube channel, which apparently is a secret to be kept from non-Mormons.
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thanks that was a well thought out rounded honey nut! I liked it sounded sensible
 
HoneyNut said:
Stonehenge? Greek Mythology (and science and math)? Native American mythology? I don't think I've ever learned about any ancient culture that didn't have all sorts of explanations of things they experienced.
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I think it is we moderns who interpret their materials in that way. More likely they served a very different purpose as previously, not all human thought revolved around facts and utility the way it does now.

In my opinion we haven’t just gained something new but also lost more than we realize.
 
gruntlabor said:
:) That is one helluva jump in logic.
*IF* all religions can't be right *THEN* some religions must be wrong.
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Okay pick one that you think is right. Are you a devout Hindu, or perhaps a devout Muslim Sunni, or Shaker, Shinto, Evangelical Protestant? You can pick a devout member of any of the hundreds of religions and he or she will proclaim without reservation that all of the evidence proves that their religion is the only true, absolute one leading to salvation. When I was a kid Baptists were certain that Catholics were destined for eternal damnation, while Catholics would denounce Baptists as going to hell. So all of you devotees who allege that your Bible, or your Quran, or your whatever is the absolute word of God, well aren't you just lucky that you happened to be born into the ONE of hundreds of religions that insures heaven for you.
 
spectratg said:
Okay pick one that you think is right. Are you a devout Hindu, or perhaps a devout Muslim Sunni, or Shaker, Shinto, Evangelical Protestant? You can pick a devout member of any of the hundreds of religions and he or she will proclaim without reservation that all of the evidence proves that their religion is the only true, absolute one leading to salvation. When I was a kid Baptists were certain that Catholics were destined for eternal damnation, while Catholics would denounce Baptists as going to hell. So all of you devotees who allege that your Bible, or your Quran, or your whatever is the absolute word of God, well aren't you just lucky that you happened to be born into the ONE of hundreds of religions that insures heaven for you.
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The other possibility is that all get at a similar truth but do so through narratives which differ in their particulars. The truth of religion resides not in how well they align with facts as we know them today and they weren't for the sake of technological prowess. They were passing on truth about who we are and what we're doing here which provided meaning in lives through uncertain times.

I don't think all religious traditions emphasize the same things and not all of them are concerned with a judgement or afterlife alternatives, though most would have an account of where the ancestors have gone and where we will go. That doesn't have to involve harps and clouds or fiery lakes and pitch forks. These are conveyed in myth - and myths are not lies but rather deep truths which only unfold their meaning to those who approach it in the right way. But modernity is having an effect on all such traditions which persist in modern societies. All traditions evolve over time but never so drastically as now, particularly with Christianity. Islam resists the modern world and so preserves more of the tradition albeit at an obvious cost.
 
More productive than making idle talk here would be to educate oneself during this modern science era on human civilization historical religious roots that does bear somewhat on our current societies and culture, that has had an evolving course over centuries and were vastly more yoked in daily Earth creature life to the natural world. Hence Ziggurats in Sumer, were like Pyramids in Egypt, like limestone temples in Mayan jungles all bearing a notion of looking up to imagined unknown superior entities in the immense universe heavens.

The notion that such entities had unlimited powers unlike that defined by philosophers of recent centuries, was not a given nor IMO likely common. Likely powers able to affect nature in unnatural to them unexplainable ways, their witch doctor types had a field day creating stories putting fear into their citizens over. Given Internet information, we are the first human generation of average persons able to study so much.

The fascinating way earliest civilizations anywhere practiced religion giving clues as to why, is on this 44 minute YouTube video. Not a small reason was to appeal to gods with limited powers that helped them as a culture and especially protected them from other nearby warmongering city states that over that whole region over centuries had a habit of pillaging materials and goods of weaker states. often killing males and stealing their attractive women.

Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

 
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smiley said:
Could we really manage without them all?
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I think so. Faith, if chosen, is a strong inner desire which then receives an inner revelation. It doesn't need an organized religion.
Ted01 said:
What is Religion
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A man-made word for man-made procedures.
OldOld said:
there is a god and there is life beyond death. I don't go to church regularly
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I began my faith journey by choosing to go to a church that resonated with my personality. I was faithful and grew in faith while attending different, similar churches, depending on where I lived. I didn't just depend on what the pastor/minister said when I was in church. I studied and prayed everyday at home. I supplemented what I learned in church with self-guided learning. My experiences in churches were good and bad. Some 30 yrs ago or so, I fell away from church attendance but I certainly did not fall away from my faith.

I have continued my personal faithfulness and have grown profoundly over the years. Regular church attendance helped me when my faith was new. I don't think, however, that I would have grown to the extent that I have had I still been attached to the umbilical cord or organized religion. Some who live by faith must always be religiously connected to an organization. Others must be unrestrained, to grow onward and upwards.
Aunt Bea said:
it’s certainly possible to live a good life without any connection to organized religion without criticizing or speculating about what others choose to believe.
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Yes, we all have been allowed to have a personal choice and accepting the choices of others can give us peace within.
smiley said:
I think our moral compasses come from some sorta religion in the beginning?
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I think we are born with an inherent, moral knowledge that comes to fruition at the age-of-consent and that is not the result of any manmade religion. It becomes apparent in varying degrees in various people.
Pepper said:
But the super religious can't stop pushing and forcing others.
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They are religious-based and pressured but I feel that no one has the right to pressure others, annoy others or pry into whether a person has chosen to have a faith or not. I believe that no one has the right to try to change anyone from what they believe or to use tactics to try to convert them.
smiley said:
if we listed them all there would be dozens and all having different types of services - some have the Eucharist meal weekly some every few months - who's making the rules around here??
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I don't feel that it matters. If a person desires to develop faith, he/she only has to search for a group of people who seem to believe similarly and who conducts meetings where the person feels comfortable. If the person is not interested, ignore it all.
Paco Dennis said:
If a person is seeking the meaning of their life, God is not a con. We have seen the changes in people when they embrace God. It can be the most significant event of their life. You will be hard pressed to make many people say that " God is a con".
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Amen! People have changed permanently, in ways that those who have known them feel that they never could or would have.
Dave03 said:
If you believe in God, your personal relationship with him is just that... personal. If it gives you peace, that's what matters.
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Yes, that is certainly what matters. What so many people need and what this world needs is peace.
spectratg said:
Well technically, you couldn't be born into the Shaker religion (now extinct) since they didn't believe in sexual intercourse.
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They're not extinct. There are 2 of them left, Brother Arnold Hadd and Sister June Carpenter. Here is a very good overview of what is happening in this Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine. Meet the last two living Shakers in the last active Shaker community in the world: Are all religions just one big con trick? I have never desired to become a Shaker but I've been reading about them for years. Their history and current activities are fascinating.

​

 
which still leaves us with the age old question " is everyone just making it up"? the truth of the matter is us humans are hurtling around the universe on a planet and can't find anyone else remotely like us and are s.......s.......that we are truly alone and so we make up " fairy stories' to convince ourselves we're not?
 
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gruntlabor said:
Unless we are less than sane, we all know the difference between right and wrong. It's innate.
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I would say partially innate and partially learned.

Tiny children that are well loved exhibit compassion but little children who are starved of love, or worse, actually illtreated will probably develop antisocial characteristics as a means of self defence.

Aristotle wrote "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man".
There is a link to religion here in that St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, also expressed the same principle.

While we are all born with innate qualities such as awareness of right and wrong, good and evil, we need to be nurtured from infancy by loving parents and other teachers who encourage children to choose the higher path, the path of righteousness that is often the harder road.
 
smiley said:

Are all religions just one big con trick?​

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Some religions have become a "con trick", some religions were created for that purpose, and some religions I dare say are not. There are Theists, Atheists, and Agnostics. We all WANT to know the meaning of life and many people NEED to know the meaninig of life. Give us a meaning and you will attract followers.
 
smiley said:
L'm of the opinion that our brother apes and chimps behave in a more honest social structure and behaviors than we humans?
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L'm of the opininion that humans have the ability to take into consider our fellow human's emotions and act accordingly. L don't think apes and chimps can to the same extent.
 
smiley said:
which still leaves us with the age old question " is everyone just making it up"? the truth of the matter is us humans are hurtling around the universe on a planet and can't find anyone else remotely like us and are s.......s.......that we are truly alone and so we make up " fairy stories' to convince ourselves we're not?
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'Making it up' sounds like people deliberately invented a fiction they know is fiction.
Other than a few cult leaders doing that to scam people - no, that isnt what happens. People genuinely believe what is their version of truth.
I can respect that whether I agree with it or not - as long as it isn't hurting others and as long as it isn't pushed on me.
 
all varied religions must have been inherited from the distant past - that deep distant humanoid past ?- now did that start in the garden of eden ; cave people or where??
 
spectratg said:
So what are the chances that you just happened to have been raised in the one, true religion out of those 100 or so? As a child I was raised (brainwashed) in one of them, but most of my neighborhood friends were not. Oh well, too bad for them!
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There are arguably thousands of religions in the world, and wondering which one is the "right one" may be misguided.
If there is a God, and you choose to acknowledge and give homage to that God, perhaps the method or manner you choose to do it really doesn't matter. This may be a poor example, but there are thousands of chili recipes, and trying to determine which one is the right one is irrelevant. (My apologies to all who believe their choice is the right one)

If you had 10 children, and each of them decided to show you their love in a different way, would it really matter to you? Maybe one decides to show that love by bringing home wildflowers. Maybe another always helps you with the dishes. Maybe another goes for walks with you and holds your hand. Are any of them wrong?

The way I see it, until someone can offer irrefutable evidence either way as to how the universe and everything in it came to be, then the odds remain at 50/50 that it was intentionally created by some force. If you believe in a God because you have felt a personal confirmation and it brings you pleasure to enjoy that connection, then perhaps knowing if you are checking all the boxes is more of a personal choice. JMO
 
spectratg said:
Okay pick one that you think is right. Are you a devout Hindu, or perhaps a devout Muslim Sunni, or Shaker, Shinto, Evangelical Protestant? You can pick a devout member of any of the hundreds of religions and he or she will proclaim without reservation that all of the evidence proves that their religion is the only true, absolute one leading to salvation. When I was a kid Baptists were certain that Catholics were destined for eternal damnation, while Catholics would denounce Baptists as going to hell. So all of you devotees who allege that your Bible, or your Quran, or your whatever is the absolute word of God, well aren't you just lucky that you happened to be born into the ONE of hundreds of religions that insures heaven for you.
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:) Okay, boss, let's see. My youth was saturated in Christianity, but here, in my decrepitude I ❤️ Buddhism. Buddhism does not even assert that there is a God, although many of its followers are believers in God and His manifestations. The more I learn of Buddhism the more I respect it.

I do see and agree with your point.
 

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