Religions Original Intent
Religions only function was to provide a temporary false comfort and consolation and a false hope for the thousands of downtrodden and emotional savants that lived over two thousand years ago that had no hope for the future, most were homeless and desolate, they had nothing to look forward to, except a promise of eternal life with a glimpse of streets of gold with diamonds and jewels, the envy of every peasant, beggar and king. Religion a temporary emotional psychotic placebo! Someone prove me wrong!
4 comments:
The question is, was religion necessary in those dark days to give people hope and comfort in an otherwise bleak existence? Or, by providing a palliative reason for living, did it prevent the population from rebelling against their lot in life, and forcing humanity through cultural changes at a much earlier stage of history?
It may be that religion was a useful cultural tool that enabled our ancestors to come together and pool their resources to create agricultural societies and city states that made their lives more secure. Of course, it is now a tool that has served its purpose and should now be discarded, but the problem is in persuading people to let go.
Absolutely true barry, and I'm glad you understand!
A weak analogy of indoctrination would be, after someone puts salt or pepper on your sandwich by accident, it would be difficult to remove those spices completely, if you did not want any spices on your sandwich.
In other words religious indoctrination can only be removed by the person wanting the indoctrination to be gone from their lives, until that time, nothing anyone says is likely to make any difference, that's why there are more believers than non-believers, over here, atleast.
Religion did play a very important role in the dark days, because they had no way to communicate quickly to authorities, like us here in USA, we just dial 911, and the police or rescue is on the way, in just minutes.
But religion was used to instill fear into "would-be" murderers and theives, etc. if you did not follow god's holy commandments, then you would eventually end up in hell,(rhymes with jail, btw) it worked very well, probabaly cut murder and rape and thievery down by 70%, maybe even more, just guessing, but the circumstances of gods hell needed to be constantly be repeated, just as the primative believers of today, constantly need to be reminded daily of hell, so they think, even in this modern age.
" it is now a tool that has served its purpose and should now be discarded, but the problem is in persuading people to let go."
Exactly, no longer needed or serves a practical purpose in modern times.
db, I really appreciate your comments, very thoughtful, Thank you very much!
Christianity is more like sugar in the sandwich than spice. Salt and pepper you can just get away with in a savoury snack, but sugar makes it inedible. Because the basic premise of christianity is logically unsound - ie Adam & Eve were mythical, therefore there is no such thing as original sin, therefore no need for a saviour - it is probably easier for a fundamentalist believer to lose faith once they start to question the literal truth of the bible. This is probably not so for less extreme christians who understand that the bible can't be taken literally, and who accept that the world is 4.55 billion years old, and accept evolution etc. They know the logical fallacies, but believe anyway in a more remote god who set up the laws of the universe, got it going then settled back to watch.
A fundamentalist, being an either/or, black/white, yes/no type of person is probably more likely to switch from christianity to atheism in one swoop, because once the literal truth of the bible is revealed to be false, the religion crumbles. A theist who regards the bible as myth will be much harder to deconvert.
Absolutely! Thanks Barry!
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