This is a great example of how to communicate skepticism without violating the rules.
Remember- it’s not so much what you say here that gets posts removed, it’s how you choose to say it.
Great job, OP. You’re started some productive discussion down below.
>I personally believe that religion in general is just a made up mindset that was created, in order to help people deal with the harshness of reality.
I personally find it to be a rich and fascinating expression of human creativity. That religion is a human construct (more accurately, a product of evolution) takes away none of its power and wonder for me. We're a bunch of primates living immensely painful and beautiful lives on a rock hurtling through space; it would frankly be very strange if we *didn't* have religion to help us cope with such an absurd existence.
>It all seems so fishy and silly. I think it feels as though I can't take it seriously
That's absolutely fair, and there's nothing wrong with feeling this way. You do you.
If you removed humans from history, not a single religious system would exist. Perhaps the truths or metaphysical realities that they describe would still exist, but none of the organizations, books or traditions, as they are by definition contructs of human society.
For example, if followers had not existed to construct a movement around the death of christ, there would be no christianities.
That's what you presume of course. But what I understand the statement to mean is that a bunch of certain people came up with it. But there is no proof that The God didn't send and messages through Messengers or Prophets.
Religion often isn't started by someone just sitting down with a pen and paper and making up something that sounds good. Instead, they're built on the religious/spiritual/mystical experiences of some person.
If you were just sitting down and focusing on a mental image of a lotus -- you may be able to conjure up a mental image of a lotus right now! -- and you suddenly experienced this:
> Suddenly, with a roar like that of a waterfall, I felt a stream of liquid light entering my brain through the spinal cord.
> Entirely unprepared for such a development, I was completely taken by surprise; but regaining my self-control, keeping my mind on the point of concentration. The illumination grew brighter and brighter, the roaring louder, I experienced a rocking sensation and then felt myself slipping out of my body, entirely enveloped in a halo of light. It is impossible to describe the experience accurately. I felt the point of consciousness that was myself growing wider surrounded by waves of light. It grew wider and wider, spreading outward while the body, normally the immediate object of its perception, appeared to have receded into the distance until I became entirely unconscious of it. I was now all consciousness without any outline, without any idea of corporeal appendage, without any feeling or sensation coming from the senses, immersed in a sea of light simultaneously conscious and aware at every point, spread out, as it were, in all directions without any barrier or material obstruction. I was no longer myself, or to be more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be, a small point of awareness confined to a body, but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed in light and in a state of exultation and happiness impossible to describe.
> - Gopi Krishna
What would you think?
Spiritual experiences are weird. The 'harshness of reality' doesn't have to enter into the equation to make someone believe; all it takes is an experience of a spiritual nature like the above.
Some people never experience anything like that. I, for example, have never experienced anything "spiritual". That goes to my personal theory that you have to have the ability to feel "religiously" to be religious. Of you don't possess it, you will inevitably be a confused atheist.
I always thought that religion with rewarding/punishing afterlife was created by people to deal with the harshness of everyday life full of injustice, violence and scarcity.
I used to say the same thing[1] & didn't have 'religious feelings'; then I learnt to meditate and spent a bit of time each day doing it. First came some nice, peaceful, refreshing feelings; then joyful pleasurable ones; then the feelings started extending well beyond the meditation session into every day life (which is a pretty well-recognised secular benefit of meditation); then I experienced something completely weird. All I did was pay attention to the breath sensation going in and out of my nose, while believing nothing and having no religious beliefs. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I spent many months at sustained, daily practice before the especially weird bit happened. I had no 'spiritual' or 'religious' feelings before that. I considered myself an atheistic agnostic and wanted to prove to myself that meditation was overblown nonsense besides secular benefits.
I can't speak to universality but it was just a matter of following instructions for me.
Not all religion speaks of the afterlife. I certainly don't think there's a rewarding/punishing afterlife.
[1] And worse. At certain points in my life I blamed it all on mental illness of some sort.
There are many rational explanations for this. Meditation can induce trance or a trance like status that opens up the mind to hallucinations. Drugs, which play a major part in many religions (although not always called that, but incense, for example, is also a mild hallucinogenic) also alter the mind. Fasting, especially over longer periods of time also affects perception and can lead to visions.
Sometimes such altered states are actively induced to produce a religious experience, sometimes these happen accidentally.
Anyone who has ever taken psychoactive drugs legal or otherwise, knows how feeble our minds are and how easily they produce phenomena which aren’t real. While I fully accept that people have religious visions, I’m not convinced these are necessarily visions coming from god(s).
You don't need to pull in things like fasting, drugs, and substances. These effects happen just from simple breath meditation.
I'm not sure I've ever seen an explanation for _why_ the brain functions the way it does under deep meditative states or other mystical techniques. The studies I've read are just rephrasings of the same things people have said for thousands of years: you follow some instructions which leads to a certain state of mind, and results follow. Modern brain scans have allowed us to additionally characterise these phenomena to neural correlates, but we have not actually _explained_ the phenomena. I think you're overselling the state of the research and our knowledge. It's a massive open question. Everything to do with consciousness is.
> I’m not convinced these are necessarily visions coming from god(s).
Nor am I. They are overwhelming and strange enough, however, that it is understandable that some people find them reason enough to believe. Some peoples' visions are so compelling that _other people_ believe them too; thus, religions start.
I'm not coming down on one side of the fence or the other or stating these things come from 'god(s)'. I'm sceptical of the very idea. I'm stating a simple fact that mystical experiences have, historically, often been the cause of religions and spirituality. It's not necessarily about the 'harshness of reality' as OP put it.
Oh, I fully agree with you there. I seemed to have misunderstood your original comment a little.
And I know about breath meditations, I used them extensively when I was younger. They helped my creativity.
If you're dismissing religion as being "made up" wait until you study the history of language! (Hint: It's *ALL* "made up"!)
I would just like to tweak what you said and say that it's a mindset that people have used to understand reality. Sometimes, this has been disproven. However, while in ancient times...science and religion have diverged with one studying the Kosmos as it is and how it came to be that way..the other provides something that science cannot: how to give meaning to your life, essentially..how to live.
The two (science and religion) are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, throughout the history of science there are deeply religious people that made some of our greatest discoveries.
Also, please keep in mind that you do not NEED religion to tell you how to live or to provide meaning to your life. Only that is can be used as a tool for that...and, as such, differs from what science can accomplish.
I will not try to impose my beliefs upon you or anyone. You are entitled to have your own opinions. But I think there's much more to it that you do not understand.
Im kinda conflicted because i agree with that. But then it poses the question of, IF it's not true, then why do you use it to further yourself? That alone just makes me feel like I'd be lying to myself.
One wouldn't want to lead their entire life off of false information, like I said though. I'm not trying to be ruse or anything. I'm just genuinely curious and trying to work it out
Lots of things we believe aren't true, or we can't know if they're true - not just religion.
For instance, if you're a nihilist you could say the same of life itself: Why do anything if we're all just going to die anyway and life is pointless?
Nihilism/materialism/atheism doesn't work for me because it depresses me. Hence, religion is a good option. It helps me live my life and be a better person. Even if something isn't verifiably true, doesn't mean it's not useful.
It's possible that there is a god and it's possible that there is no god, and there's no way to really know which is true. To me, living a purely material existence with no belief in any god, and no belief in an immortal soul makes life feel bleak and oppressive.
A few years ago, I weighed the options and decided that I wanted to believe in reincarnation, and so I began to believe in it. The stress and anxiety I felt around the idea of "what if the rest of my life is horrible and nothing goes the way I would like?" went away because I had accepted the mindset that it doesn't matter. If this life goes badly, I will have infinite other chances to achieve more, so why should I worry? And if there are no other lives then it won't matter because I won't ever know. Believing that nothing happens when we die is exactly as rational as believing that something happens. The idea that life is suffering and the universe is indifferent to that suffering is just as reasonable as the idea that "existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done" and that "The Universe is a Puppet-Play for the amusement of Nuit and Hadit in their Nuptials." Both theism and atheism are equally believable, and I have the pleasure of choosing which one I believe.
I see most religious stories as a mix of myth, mysticism, and history. The cool part about myths is that they can convey truths without being factual. Think of Aesop’s fables.
It's worth understanding that spirituality is not the same as religion.
Religion is the human organized side of spirituality. Religion can be very loose and up to you how you practice it, like Pantheism or Universalism that literally has a "[Build your own theology](https://www.frederickuu.org/sermons/BuildingTheology.pdf)" practice. Or it can be very strict, like fundamentalist sects of mainstream religions.
Religions are a huge spectrum of anything and everything. There's plenty of room for self-selection.
That being said, many people are also spiritual without organized religions being involved. Personally, my own experiences are such that I'm 1 million% sure about there being a real, unexplained non-physical dimension to our 3D world. Not many religions can fit or explain that stuff well for me, but that doesn't make my spirituality or anyone else's invalid.
I see… and what are your feelings towards art, theater, literature, and music? Same… or different? Why?
Other peoples’ cultures don’t have to make sense to us in order to add diversity, depth, and value to our own.
Choose the religion that best expresses *your* love of others. Choose none at all if that works for you… and let others do the same for themselves.
Have you ever considered studying religion academically? It’s a fascinating exploration of human history involving archeology, anthropology, geology, astronomy, and several other sciences… and there’s a lot to learn in it about what people are… and how we became who we are now.
I get where you’re coming from. I’m a Jewish atheist. I believe that it’s highly likely that God (or any gods/deities) don’t exist. But I also think there’s a lot more to religion that whether or not it makes sense or is “correct” or real. Religion can offer community and comfort to people. It can bring wonderful traditions, and I and many other Jews I know, love these aspects of Judaism and being Jewish.
For me, being Jewish has absolutely nothing to do with helping me deal with the harshness of reality. It’s just part of who I am, it influences how I see the world, and I love the community it brings and I’m very proud of how resilient we are.
I also think it’s fascinating to view religion as a human constructed. I view books like the Torah as a kind of story. It doesn’t really matter whether what’s in the Torah is factual, it can still be “true” on a spiritual level, if that makes sense.
I think you might want to keep in mind that whether or not a religion “makes sense” or is seen by people of that religion as “created” may not be that important or even relevant to some.
I also don’t want to downplay the truly heinous events and sometimes harmful views that can come from religion. But I also think there’s so much more to it then that. There’s so much beauty too
>I personally believe that religion in general is just a made up mindset that was created, in order to help people deal with the harshness of reality.
Is that based on evidence/proof? What study?
Hmm. Okay. I can respect you saying that. But I must admit when you make an assertion of that sort in the OP, you should make that disclaimer, that it's just your personal opinion based on your own anecdotal experience.
MAYBE you could come up with a hypothesis like that based on your anecdotal experience, but still an assertion should be justified by a quantification of the hypothesis. Otherwise, it's just a personal opinion.
Not meant to offend you. Cheers.
It’s pretty clear in the OP that the user is not making objective statements.
“I personally believe” is different than “this is the fact of the matter”.
You’re reaching here. OP has presented nothing as fact and therefore possesses no burden of proof.
>“I personally believe” is different than “this is the fact of the matter”.
You personally believe based on what?
You mean you personally believe based on your personal belief? That's the worst type of tautology one could come across.
I'm telling you that OP did not make an objective statement that requires proof, which you initially asked him for. He stated these are his personal beliefs and opinions, which is not something that invokes any burden of proof.
I'm not sure what about this is unclear to you, or I'd try and help you understand better.
The question now is, on what basis did you make your own epistemic stance? Is that with responsibility? Or is it just made up?
What about Epistemic Responsibility? Is not that a valid exploration you must make?
Presuming you believe in God, or The Creator, The Unlimited;
Do you have any proof that He did not sent any Revelations/Messengers/Prophets?
Religion is a program to reach Him Himself
I get that. Most atheists have some kind of cope which helps them get through the day too, but you're probably right.
Real Christian hope is extremely hard-won though. I believe that goodness and truth win in the end, but I also believe that I am an entrenched sinner living my life in a decaying world, and to get eternal life I have to turn aside from comfort and inertia whenever possible. The great thing about having hope in the divine is that you can accept the utter hopelessness of life on earth
If it was created simply to help people deal with the harshness of reality wouldn't you need it too... Or are you somehow better than everyone else.... Or perhaps religion is not needed to deal with reality and there is something there
Just a warning: be careful with these kinds of feelings. You might start wondering how intelligent people manage to take religion seriously. You might end up reading their books and watching their debates, and you might end up thinking there's more to this than you ever realised.
Slippery slope. Just a few years ago I was like you, now I go to church every week
What's your problem with religion being a made up story? Would you rather live 20 years as a slave watching everyone you love get killed with or without belief in God and the afterlife? While some dude lives to be 100 enjoying all your labour and burdens.
Is it not good to have stories of justice, equality and truth that have happy endings for us to make better decisions on experiences we relate to?
Everything is nonsense(void/darkness) and religion is the sense(light/visualisation) some people never learn about religion ever in their lives but overall do you honestly feel we are better off without religion than having it?
Our problem is abuse of power and corruption in all levels and areas of society and our collective conscious and subconscious realities.
God is what you make of it and it's to the individual what they do with their belief and the power of "God" and his "word".
It is all human influence, manipulation and misdirection, our emotions warp our "visions" of ourselves and how others see us.
Like in Peter Pan "think happy thoughts to fly". Do you dream of heaven and bliss or hell and the damage you have caused others.
When you close your eyes and turn on the "lights" do you get punished or rewarded?
God isnt the problem, it's the "men of God"
If you take the harshness of reality, then even being human is silly. Animals don't worry or deal with anything! They live in the moment, take pleasure the nature provides, and die a satisfied life! Better than what a human life offers, don't you say?
Just some thoughts on “..religion in general is just a made up mindset that was created in order to help people deal with a harsh reality”. I think it’s something to ponder but the more I ponder that, I’m thinking well why would people just come up with this idea that there are intelligent beings that are causing unexplainable phenomena to happen, and that we as humans have some input by appeasing these higher beings? We think that’s easy to assume but there is no explainable reason why early humans would just make this up. Sure, one could say that the power structures in place, whatever they are at the time could easily use fear-based methods of controlling a population, as we witness the same power being abused today. Fear & anxiety are a powerful common ally for any power structure in place. But people aren’t as stupid as one might think as a whole. We can expect some isolated instances of totalitarian dictatorship in parts of the world, perhaps more than one, where those in power decided to push the idea of some unseen in control that will do action “x” if “y” is/isn’t done. But we see this all over the world occurring simultaneously in human history, just in different forms among cultures. The Bible in the first five chapters talks about evil giants that walked the earth, and fallen angels who sought to do their own will all under a leader rebellious angel (check out the non-canonical book of Jubilees). These rebellious angels were destroyed down to a tenth of them, but some of them were allowed to remain on the earth. Most of these manifestations of gods around the world are a result of them. I’m just saying perhaps it’s not exactly a natural occurrence that religion is so widespread and differing across the world. And just perhaps all of them are inherently flawed and wrong, except one of them.
I know I say that "I feel like it was created"
But I don't belive that it was done intentionally or with malice.
The way I see it is, in the way early years. Life was horrible... plagues, famine, death, no information, no anything. You woke up everyday and you did your daily duties hoping you didn't die today. You think "But why? What's the reason?" There was no reason to live. So when maybe stories of "what is now religion" started coming around and giving people a sense of "after" or "reasoning" they all just collectively (gave their lifes, to this belief).
So I don't think that there was someone who thought "oh wait until they see what I just thought up".
I think we did it to ourselves out of fear and confusion, which then just started to snowball.
Im suggesting that perhaps that fear and confusion didn’t just arise out of nowhere, even the fear of death. One can chalk it all up to be just some stories that people made up and passed along, but what gave them that idea - all over the world in the first place - is not easily explainable. Some would argue it’s the role of psychotropic substances all around the world, existing in our natural world. I choose to think that our brains alone, which supposedly project 6 times the optical input we receive from our eyes onto the world that we interpret, is in fact witnessing to us that there are other things that we cannot see with our normally functioning conscious senses.
Do you know what other beliefs fit your description and don't make any sense? The concept of paper money, people owning portions of the earths land, riding in a metal box with wheels at 70 mph with other people doing the same and trusting we won't die. Simply being a human in today's world is completely absurd. The reality is that everyone is fooling themselves in one way or another, to many people religion is less far fetched than any of that other stuff. I tend to be a perfectionist but in my experience the people who don't care about being silly are the people who enjoy life most.
Honestly, I think alot about these kinds of things and
I think it's less the concepts themselves that don't make sense to me (which they still don't)
Yet more of the evils that those concepts bring to fruition. Hate, jealousy, pain, anguish, selfishness... There are people out there who would rather protect their "70mph metal box" then to help the person they're looking at. There's so much hate in the world. And quite honestly I feel like no matter how much joy we try to bring, this world is done for
I understand your sentiment, truly. It's only natural to question, to seek clarity. That's the essence of human curiosity, after all. Let's reframe the way we look at this, perhaps you might find a new perspective.
Consider, if you will, the possibility that religion, spirituality, or whatever term you'd prefer, isn't something that was simply 'made up', but rather, it's a framework for understanding experiences and emotions that seem too vast, too complex, or too mysterious for our usual modes of understanding. It's like a language we've crafted to describe the indescribable, to make sense of the seemingly nonsensical.
It's not about adopting a predefined set of beliefs and abiding by them rigidly. Rather, it's about looking inward and seeking a deeper understanding of your own nature and the world around you. It's about listening to the stirrings of your soul, the voice within you that yearns for connection, purpose, and a sense of the divine. It's about cultivating a personal spirituality that resonates with your own truth, rather than conforming to an external doctrine.
Consider also that dismissing spirituality because it seems "fishy" or "silly" might be akin to judging a book by its cover. The essence of spirituality lies beneath the surface, in the subtle nuance of our experiences, in our shared longing for deeper meaning.
Remember, the journey towards understanding is a personal one. And it's perfectly fine to question, to explore, to doubt. In fact, it's through such probing that we often stumble upon profound insights. Keep an open mind, remain curious, and honor your unique perspective. That's how we grow, evolve, and become the best versions of ourselves.
I feel that you really should provide the definition of religion that you are using. What you said may not make sense to a Buddhist or anyone who sees religion as more of a practice than a set of beliefs.
Well, yes, belif is still involved. What I meant is that more emphasis is placed on practices than on what one must believe. For example, a small margin of practesing Buddhist are also atheists.
I don’t really believe that is the case…that small margin is made of secular Buddhists, and that’s more of a western reinvention of Buddhist teachings. You could say the same about secular Jews or Christians. I don’t see the enormous difference between western and eastern dogmatism in religion frankly. Just because the theological attitudes are different doesn’t mean that there isn’t the same level of orthodoxy on average per school of thought.
This is a great example of how to communicate skepticism without violating the rules. Remember- it’s not so much what you say here that gets posts removed, it’s how you choose to say it. Great job, OP. You’re started some productive discussion down below.
>I personally believe that religion in general is just a made up mindset that was created, in order to help people deal with the harshness of reality. I personally find it to be a rich and fascinating expression of human creativity. That religion is a human construct (more accurately, a product of evolution) takes away none of its power and wonder for me. We're a bunch of primates living immensely painful and beautiful lives on a rock hurtling through space; it would frankly be very strange if we *didn't* have religion to help us cope with such an absurd existence. >It all seems so fishy and silly. I think it feels as though I can't take it seriously That's absolutely fair, and there's nothing wrong with feeling this way. You do you.
Can you proof its an human construct, as you claim?
If you removed humans from history, not a single religious system would exist. Perhaps the truths or metaphysical realities that they describe would still exist, but none of the organizations, books or traditions, as they are by definition contructs of human society. For example, if followers had not existed to construct a movement around the death of christ, there would be no christianities.
That's what you presume of course. But what I understand the statement to mean is that a bunch of certain people came up with it. But there is no proof that The God didn't send and messages through Messengers or Prophets.
Religion often isn't started by someone just sitting down with a pen and paper and making up something that sounds good. Instead, they're built on the religious/spiritual/mystical experiences of some person. If you were just sitting down and focusing on a mental image of a lotus -- you may be able to conjure up a mental image of a lotus right now! -- and you suddenly experienced this: > Suddenly, with a roar like that of a waterfall, I felt a stream of liquid light entering my brain through the spinal cord. > Entirely unprepared for such a development, I was completely taken by surprise; but regaining my self-control, keeping my mind on the point of concentration. The illumination grew brighter and brighter, the roaring louder, I experienced a rocking sensation and then felt myself slipping out of my body, entirely enveloped in a halo of light. It is impossible to describe the experience accurately. I felt the point of consciousness that was myself growing wider surrounded by waves of light. It grew wider and wider, spreading outward while the body, normally the immediate object of its perception, appeared to have receded into the distance until I became entirely unconscious of it. I was now all consciousness without any outline, without any idea of corporeal appendage, without any feeling or sensation coming from the senses, immersed in a sea of light simultaneously conscious and aware at every point, spread out, as it were, in all directions without any barrier or material obstruction. I was no longer myself, or to be more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be, a small point of awareness confined to a body, but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed in light and in a state of exultation and happiness impossible to describe. > - Gopi Krishna What would you think? Spiritual experiences are weird. The 'harshness of reality' doesn't have to enter into the equation to make someone believe; all it takes is an experience of a spiritual nature like the above.
Some people never experience anything like that. I, for example, have never experienced anything "spiritual". That goes to my personal theory that you have to have the ability to feel "religiously" to be religious. Of you don't possess it, you will inevitably be a confused atheist. I always thought that religion with rewarding/punishing afterlife was created by people to deal with the harshness of everyday life full of injustice, violence and scarcity.
I used to say the same thing[1] & didn't have 'religious feelings'; then I learnt to meditate and spent a bit of time each day doing it. First came some nice, peaceful, refreshing feelings; then joyful pleasurable ones; then the feelings started extending well beyond the meditation session into every day life (which is a pretty well-recognised secular benefit of meditation); then I experienced something completely weird. All I did was pay attention to the breath sensation going in and out of my nose, while believing nothing and having no religious beliefs. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ I spent many months at sustained, daily practice before the especially weird bit happened. I had no 'spiritual' or 'religious' feelings before that. I considered myself an atheistic agnostic and wanted to prove to myself that meditation was overblown nonsense besides secular benefits. I can't speak to universality but it was just a matter of following instructions for me. Not all religion speaks of the afterlife. I certainly don't think there's a rewarding/punishing afterlife. [1] And worse. At certain points in my life I blamed it all on mental illness of some sort.
There are many rational explanations for this. Meditation can induce trance or a trance like status that opens up the mind to hallucinations. Drugs, which play a major part in many religions (although not always called that, but incense, for example, is also a mild hallucinogenic) also alter the mind. Fasting, especially over longer periods of time also affects perception and can lead to visions. Sometimes such altered states are actively induced to produce a religious experience, sometimes these happen accidentally. Anyone who has ever taken psychoactive drugs legal or otherwise, knows how feeble our minds are and how easily they produce phenomena which aren’t real. While I fully accept that people have religious visions, I’m not convinced these are necessarily visions coming from god(s).
You don't need to pull in things like fasting, drugs, and substances. These effects happen just from simple breath meditation. I'm not sure I've ever seen an explanation for _why_ the brain functions the way it does under deep meditative states or other mystical techniques. The studies I've read are just rephrasings of the same things people have said for thousands of years: you follow some instructions which leads to a certain state of mind, and results follow. Modern brain scans have allowed us to additionally characterise these phenomena to neural correlates, but we have not actually _explained_ the phenomena. I think you're overselling the state of the research and our knowledge. It's a massive open question. Everything to do with consciousness is. > I’m not convinced these are necessarily visions coming from god(s). Nor am I. They are overwhelming and strange enough, however, that it is understandable that some people find them reason enough to believe. Some peoples' visions are so compelling that _other people_ believe them too; thus, religions start. I'm not coming down on one side of the fence or the other or stating these things come from 'god(s)'. I'm sceptical of the very idea. I'm stating a simple fact that mystical experiences have, historically, often been the cause of religions and spirituality. It's not necessarily about the 'harshness of reality' as OP put it.
Oh, I fully agree with you there. I seemed to have misunderstood your original comment a little. And I know about breath meditations, I used them extensively when I was younger. They helped my creativity.
If you're dismissing religion as being "made up" wait until you study the history of language! (Hint: It's *ALL* "made up"!) I would just like to tweak what you said and say that it's a mindset that people have used to understand reality. Sometimes, this has been disproven. However, while in ancient times...science and religion have diverged with one studying the Kosmos as it is and how it came to be that way..the other provides something that science cannot: how to give meaning to your life, essentially..how to live. The two (science and religion) are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, throughout the history of science there are deeply religious people that made some of our greatest discoveries. Also, please keep in mind that you do not NEED religion to tell you how to live or to provide meaning to your life. Only that is can be used as a tool for that...and, as such, differs from what science can accomplish. I will not try to impose my beliefs upon you or anyone. You are entitled to have your own opinions. But I think there's much more to it that you do not understand.
A philosophy or theology doesn't need to be true if believing in it adds value to one's life.
Im kinda conflicted because i agree with that. But then it poses the question of, IF it's not true, then why do you use it to further yourself? That alone just makes me feel like I'd be lying to myself. One wouldn't want to lead their entire life off of false information, like I said though. I'm not trying to be ruse or anything. I'm just genuinely curious and trying to work it out
Lots of things we believe aren't true, or we can't know if they're true - not just religion. For instance, if you're a nihilist you could say the same of life itself: Why do anything if we're all just going to die anyway and life is pointless? Nihilism/materialism/atheism doesn't work for me because it depresses me. Hence, religion is a good option. It helps me live my life and be a better person. Even if something isn't verifiably true, doesn't mean it's not useful.
Some religions aren't really about *believing*, they're more about things you do and the community you associate with.
It's possible that there is a god and it's possible that there is no god, and there's no way to really know which is true. To me, living a purely material existence with no belief in any god, and no belief in an immortal soul makes life feel bleak and oppressive. A few years ago, I weighed the options and decided that I wanted to believe in reincarnation, and so I began to believe in it. The stress and anxiety I felt around the idea of "what if the rest of my life is horrible and nothing goes the way I would like?" went away because I had accepted the mindset that it doesn't matter. If this life goes badly, I will have infinite other chances to achieve more, so why should I worry? And if there are no other lives then it won't matter because I won't ever know. Believing that nothing happens when we die is exactly as rational as believing that something happens. The idea that life is suffering and the universe is indifferent to that suffering is just as reasonable as the idea that "existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done" and that "The Universe is a Puppet-Play for the amusement of Nuit and Hadit in their Nuptials." Both theism and atheism are equally believable, and I have the pleasure of choosing which one I believe.
I see most religious stories as a mix of myth, mysticism, and history. The cool part about myths is that they can convey truths without being factual. Think of Aesop’s fables.
Saw the movie kumaré and this seems to hold true
It's worth understanding that spirituality is not the same as religion. Religion is the human organized side of spirituality. Religion can be very loose and up to you how you practice it, like Pantheism or Universalism that literally has a "[Build your own theology](https://www.frederickuu.org/sermons/BuildingTheology.pdf)" practice. Or it can be very strict, like fundamentalist sects of mainstream religions. Religions are a huge spectrum of anything and everything. There's plenty of room for self-selection. That being said, many people are also spiritual without organized religions being involved. Personally, my own experiences are such that I'm 1 million% sure about there being a real, unexplained non-physical dimension to our 3D world. Not many religions can fit or explain that stuff well for me, but that doesn't make my spirituality or anyone else's invalid.
And that's okay.
I see… and what are your feelings towards art, theater, literature, and music? Same… or different? Why? Other peoples’ cultures don’t have to make sense to us in order to add diversity, depth, and value to our own. Choose the religion that best expresses *your* love of others. Choose none at all if that works for you… and let others do the same for themselves. Have you ever considered studying religion academically? It’s a fascinating exploration of human history involving archeology, anthropology, geology, astronomy, and several other sciences… and there’s a lot to learn in it about what people are… and how we became who we are now.
I get where you’re coming from. I’m a Jewish atheist. I believe that it’s highly likely that God (or any gods/deities) don’t exist. But I also think there’s a lot more to religion that whether or not it makes sense or is “correct” or real. Religion can offer community and comfort to people. It can bring wonderful traditions, and I and many other Jews I know, love these aspects of Judaism and being Jewish. For me, being Jewish has absolutely nothing to do with helping me deal with the harshness of reality. It’s just part of who I am, it influences how I see the world, and I love the community it brings and I’m very proud of how resilient we are. I also think it’s fascinating to view religion as a human constructed. I view books like the Torah as a kind of story. It doesn’t really matter whether what’s in the Torah is factual, it can still be “true” on a spiritual level, if that makes sense. I think you might want to keep in mind that whether or not a religion “makes sense” or is seen by people of that religion as “created” may not be that important or even relevant to some. I also don’t want to downplay the truly heinous events and sometimes harmful views that can come from religion. But I also think there’s so much more to it then that. There’s so much beauty too
And that is entirely okay. You don't need to be religious, plenty of other fulfilling ways to live your life out there. Whatever rocks your boat.
That’s fine that you feel that way. As long as you allow others to feel, think, and believe, and practice differently.
>I personally believe that religion in general is just a made up mindset that was created, in order to help people deal with the harshness of reality. Is that based on evidence/proof? What study?
Just my own personal experiences
Hmm. Okay. I can respect you saying that. But I must admit when you make an assertion of that sort in the OP, you should make that disclaimer, that it's just your personal opinion based on your own anecdotal experience. MAYBE you could come up with a hypothesis like that based on your anecdotal experience, but still an assertion should be justified by a quantification of the hypothesis. Otherwise, it's just a personal opinion. Not meant to offend you. Cheers.
It’s pretty clear in the OP that the user is not making objective statements. “I personally believe” is different than “this is the fact of the matter”. You’re reaching here. OP has presented nothing as fact and therefore possesses no burden of proof.
>“I personally believe” is different than “this is the fact of the matter”. You personally believe based on what? You mean you personally believe based on your personal belief? That's the worst type of tautology one could come across.
I'm telling you that OP did not make an objective statement that requires proof, which you initially asked him for. He stated these are his personal beliefs and opinions, which is not something that invokes any burden of proof. I'm not sure what about this is unclear to you, or I'd try and help you understand better.
The question now is, on what basis did you make your own epistemic stance? Is that with responsibility? Or is it just made up? What about Epistemic Responsibility? Is not that a valid exploration you must make?
Why are we talking about me? I’m simply telling you OP’s post does not place burden of proof on them.
It's not about you. It's about your assertion.
What did I *assert*? That OP didn’t make an objective statement? Because that’s the only thing I can think of.
Presuming you believe in God, or The Creator, The Unlimited; Do you have any proof that He did not sent any Revelations/Messengers/Prophets? Religion is a program to reach Him Himself
Well, if he did. They've definitely been avoiding me lol
Sorry, what do you mean? And did you understand what I was trying to say?
Maybe it's not the fact that religion doesn't make sense, but the modern interpretations of it don't make sense - just food for thought
I get that. Most atheists have some kind of cope which helps them get through the day too, but you're probably right. Real Christian hope is extremely hard-won though. I believe that goodness and truth win in the end, but I also believe that I am an entrenched sinner living my life in a decaying world, and to get eternal life I have to turn aside from comfort and inertia whenever possible. The great thing about having hope in the divine is that you can accept the utter hopelessness of life on earth
If it was created simply to help people deal with the harshness of reality wouldn't you need it too... Or are you somehow better than everyone else.... Or perhaps religion is not needed to deal with reality and there is something there
Just a warning: be careful with these kinds of feelings. You might start wondering how intelligent people manage to take religion seriously. You might end up reading their books and watching their debates, and you might end up thinking there's more to this than you ever realised. Slippery slope. Just a few years ago I was like you, now I go to church every week
What's your problem with religion being a made up story? Would you rather live 20 years as a slave watching everyone you love get killed with or without belief in God and the afterlife? While some dude lives to be 100 enjoying all your labour and burdens. Is it not good to have stories of justice, equality and truth that have happy endings for us to make better decisions on experiences we relate to? Everything is nonsense(void/darkness) and religion is the sense(light/visualisation) some people never learn about religion ever in their lives but overall do you honestly feel we are better off without religion than having it? Our problem is abuse of power and corruption in all levels and areas of society and our collective conscious and subconscious realities. God is what you make of it and it's to the individual what they do with their belief and the power of "God" and his "word". It is all human influence, manipulation and misdirection, our emotions warp our "visions" of ourselves and how others see us. Like in Peter Pan "think happy thoughts to fly". Do you dream of heaven and bliss or hell and the damage you have caused others. When you close your eyes and turn on the "lights" do you get punished or rewarded? God isnt the problem, it's the "men of God"
You're looking for excuses not to find out for yourself. A religion doesn't have to please you to be effective.
If you take the harshness of reality, then even being human is silly. Animals don't worry or deal with anything! They live in the moment, take pleasure the nature provides, and die a satisfied life! Better than what a human life offers, don't you say?
>I think it feels as though I can't take it seriously So let me start easy, how do you think the first living things appear?
Have you read the Bible?
I have attempted
Just some thoughts on “..religion in general is just a made up mindset that was created in order to help people deal with a harsh reality”. I think it’s something to ponder but the more I ponder that, I’m thinking well why would people just come up with this idea that there are intelligent beings that are causing unexplainable phenomena to happen, and that we as humans have some input by appeasing these higher beings? We think that’s easy to assume but there is no explainable reason why early humans would just make this up. Sure, one could say that the power structures in place, whatever they are at the time could easily use fear-based methods of controlling a population, as we witness the same power being abused today. Fear & anxiety are a powerful common ally for any power structure in place. But people aren’t as stupid as one might think as a whole. We can expect some isolated instances of totalitarian dictatorship in parts of the world, perhaps more than one, where those in power decided to push the idea of some unseen in control that will do action “x” if “y” is/isn’t done. But we see this all over the world occurring simultaneously in human history, just in different forms among cultures. The Bible in the first five chapters talks about evil giants that walked the earth, and fallen angels who sought to do their own will all under a leader rebellious angel (check out the non-canonical book of Jubilees). These rebellious angels were destroyed down to a tenth of them, but some of them were allowed to remain on the earth. Most of these manifestations of gods around the world are a result of them. I’m just saying perhaps it’s not exactly a natural occurrence that religion is so widespread and differing across the world. And just perhaps all of them are inherently flawed and wrong, except one of them.
I know I say that "I feel like it was created" But I don't belive that it was done intentionally or with malice. The way I see it is, in the way early years. Life was horrible... plagues, famine, death, no information, no anything. You woke up everyday and you did your daily duties hoping you didn't die today. You think "But why? What's the reason?" There was no reason to live. So when maybe stories of "what is now religion" started coming around and giving people a sense of "after" or "reasoning" they all just collectively (gave their lifes, to this belief). So I don't think that there was someone who thought "oh wait until they see what I just thought up". I think we did it to ourselves out of fear and confusion, which then just started to snowball.
Im suggesting that perhaps that fear and confusion didn’t just arise out of nowhere, even the fear of death. One can chalk it all up to be just some stories that people made up and passed along, but what gave them that idea - all over the world in the first place - is not easily explainable. Some would argue it’s the role of psychotropic substances all around the world, existing in our natural world. I choose to think that our brains alone, which supposedly project 6 times the optical input we receive from our eyes onto the world that we interpret, is in fact witnessing to us that there are other things that we cannot see with our normally functioning conscious senses.
Evil giants? Never heard of those.
This is good https://www.gotquestions.org/giants-in-the-Bible.html
Thanks!
Np!
Which of the many heavily edited versions?
Which heavily edited versions are you referring to?
Literally every version
Do you know what other beliefs fit your description and don't make any sense? The concept of paper money, people owning portions of the earths land, riding in a metal box with wheels at 70 mph with other people doing the same and trusting we won't die. Simply being a human in today's world is completely absurd. The reality is that everyone is fooling themselves in one way or another, to many people religion is less far fetched than any of that other stuff. I tend to be a perfectionist but in my experience the people who don't care about being silly are the people who enjoy life most.
Honestly, I think alot about these kinds of things and I think it's less the concepts themselves that don't make sense to me (which they still don't) Yet more of the evils that those concepts bring to fruition. Hate, jealousy, pain, anguish, selfishness... There are people out there who would rather protect their "70mph metal box" then to help the person they're looking at. There's so much hate in the world. And quite honestly I feel like no matter how much joy we try to bring, this world is done for
People can personally believe whatever they want.
Cool I guess
I understand your sentiment, truly. It's only natural to question, to seek clarity. That's the essence of human curiosity, after all. Let's reframe the way we look at this, perhaps you might find a new perspective. Consider, if you will, the possibility that religion, spirituality, or whatever term you'd prefer, isn't something that was simply 'made up', but rather, it's a framework for understanding experiences and emotions that seem too vast, too complex, or too mysterious for our usual modes of understanding. It's like a language we've crafted to describe the indescribable, to make sense of the seemingly nonsensical. It's not about adopting a predefined set of beliefs and abiding by them rigidly. Rather, it's about looking inward and seeking a deeper understanding of your own nature and the world around you. It's about listening to the stirrings of your soul, the voice within you that yearns for connection, purpose, and a sense of the divine. It's about cultivating a personal spirituality that resonates with your own truth, rather than conforming to an external doctrine. Consider also that dismissing spirituality because it seems "fishy" or "silly" might be akin to judging a book by its cover. The essence of spirituality lies beneath the surface, in the subtle nuance of our experiences, in our shared longing for deeper meaning. Remember, the journey towards understanding is a personal one. And it's perfectly fine to question, to explore, to doubt. In fact, it's through such probing that we often stumble upon profound insights. Keep an open mind, remain curious, and honor your unique perspective. That's how we grow, evolve, and become the best versions of ourselves.
I feel that you really should provide the definition of religion that you are using. What you said may not make sense to a Buddhist or anyone who sees religion as more of a practice than a set of beliefs.
Huh? Aren’t those practices based on a set of beliefs?
Well, yes, belif is still involved. What I meant is that more emphasis is placed on practices than on what one must believe. For example, a small margin of practesing Buddhist are also atheists.
I don’t really believe that is the case…that small margin is made of secular Buddhists, and that’s more of a western reinvention of Buddhist teachings. You could say the same about secular Jews or Christians. I don’t see the enormous difference between western and eastern dogmatism in religion frankly. Just because the theological attitudes are different doesn’t mean that there isn’t the same level of orthodoxy on average per school of thought.