Why does Religion have such ownership of the world’s population?

[centristgrandpa]

Is religion a resolution or is it a catch-22 situation? Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth” reveals with clarity this benchmark issue, on the other side of this epic battle, Dr. Carl Sagan whose series “the Cosmos” describe our origins as “akin to the universe”. Both Masterpiece works equally provided the awesome burden in defining its (science and religion) rightful position. The contrasting disagreement saddles the layperson with unquestionable ascend into ambiguity. When judgment day arrives, is this how we will be judged, believing in deities as the rightful way or will we melt into the cosmos as another form of natures energy?

[JuniperLea]

1. Religion is the knot at the end of the rope...

for many people.

And many people are at the end of their rope.

[centristgrandpa]

2. i understand you point, but...

I say this respect; blind-faith in my opinion is not the way....seems medieval and naive...

[stray cat]

5. blind-faith in anything is a bad idea - and it certainly isn't limited to religion

many people seem to have blind faith in their own ideas and goodness without any knowledge of anything concrete or logical to back it up.

[centristgrandpa]

10. i agree...

blind-faith seems so synonymous with religion...

[JerseygirlCT]

12. I think that's an assumption

that's easy to make, and more difficult in reality. (The assumption that faith is necessarily blind - or that people with faith are blind about it). For some, surely. For many, anything but.

I cannot remember where, but I read an interesting take on the differences between Obama and Bush wrt their faith - (perhaps Dionne's article about his ND speech???). For Bush, faith was absolute certainty and a sort of smug calm. For obama, faith is what lives with, and comes from, doubt. It is a thoughtful choice, and an active one. For Bush, it was more about "sign me up and then I'm all set, thanks" it seems.

Just all to say that while I realize that from the outside looking in, religion and those who practice one seem to be blindly following some path or another, from the inside, the reality is often far more varied and nuanced.

[centristgrandpa]

15. there are many ways to travel through life...

this is somewhat close to my definition of blind-faith "In computer programming blind faith (also known as blind programming or blind coding) is a situation whereby a programmer develops a solution or fixes a computer bug and deploys it without ever testing his creation." I say this with the utmost respect to those who believe...

[JerseygirlCT]

21. Well, again that implies a lack of thoughtfulness

that is often not lacking in the least.

I know that can be hard to grasp from the outside looking in, when the only reasonable explanation to a non-believer for belief is simply not giving it enough thought and walking blindly into it. But I assure you, many believers have given and continue to give it a great deal of thought - more, I'd guess than non-believers give many aspects of their own lives.

It's a different result, but it's not come by blindly or without consideration. We look at the same questions and reach a different conclusion, that's all.

[centristgrandpa]

22. different conclusions...i agree mostly..

Blind-faith in my opinion is misleading, I subscribe to the notion that this type of faith based ideology is not blindness but the simple fact that looking from the outside in, those who believe are true to their conviction. What more could you ask? I just see it as "perplexing" because it involves deities. This is not about judgment, rather a simple observation...

[JerseygirlCT]

25. Well, faith of any sort - religious or not - is a leap into the

unknown, always. So, sure at some level, there is a step into something beyond what is tangible, provable... objective.

And there are most definitely people for whom it is simply a matter of blindly following what they've always done or what they've been raised to do, without giving it a great deal of thought. IMO, their faith is likely lacking something in depth though because they haven't held it to that test of doubt. Much like Obama's statement the other day, one of my old pastors liked to quote a friend of hers who would say that faith is not the absence of doubt; doubt is the leading edge of faith. A statement with which I heartily concur.

I do wonder if some of us, through either nature or nurture or some combination, just have that faith prediliction built in. And for others, it is just utterly missing. My husband is a confirmed agnostic, and my faith often mystifies him. It's just not something he seems built to understand. LOL, so that leaves me wondering where my children will find themselves as adults!

[centristgrandpa]

26. leaping lizards...

The astounding paradox about religion is "try running for public office without this stamp". It is so deeply rooted within our social fabric that without this stamp of approval, a candidate has no chance, none... Blind-faith is in all of us, our belief with science or religion in the end is sightful, a stark reminder that we all are guessing for the best ending to an amazing journey called life..

[JerseygirlCT]

27. True enough. Best ending and best journey as well! nt

[centristgrandpa]

3. opps....

miss typed the word (you), should be "your"... :freak:

[DeSwiss]

4. In answer to your OP query.....

...in my opinion, two words will suffice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism#Religious_syncretism">Religious Syncretism

[centristgrandpa]

11. i concur totally...

(source quote) Religious syncretism often takes place when foreign beliefs are introduced to an indigenous belief system and the teachings are blended. The new, heterogeneous religion then takes a shape of its own. This has been seen most clearly in Roman Catholic missionary history. Take, for example, the Roman Catholic Church's proselytizing of animistic South America. Threatened with the fear of death, natives were baptized into the church by the tens of thousands without any preaching of the Gospel whatsoever. Former temples were razed, with Catholic shrines and chapels built on the same spot. Natives were allowed to substitute praying to saints instead of gods of water, earth and air, and replaced their former idols with new images of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, the animistic religion the natives had formerly practiced was never fully replaced—it was adapted into Catholic teachings, and this new belief system was allowed to flourish.

[msongs]

6. fear: believe us you'll go to hell when you die, or we will enslave or murder you while living nt

[centristgrandpa]

8. fearless....

I am not afraid of death you a-hole idiot...:rofl:

[centristgrandpa]

17. Galsworthy is an understatement...

without sounding contrite, I never wish harm to anyone, no matter what i believe...you sound like a crusader who knows no way..how pathetic...

[provis99]

7. Karl Marx got it exactly right.

Religion is the opium of the masses.

[centristgrandpa]

9. pass the blog please....

Sheep is an understatement...

[Occam Bandage]

13. For the same reasons that commensal flora are ubiquitous in humans.

They've evolved that way.

[centristgrandpa]

14. Are you saying it's an inherent trait? passed along the DNA

(source quote) "A sense of fairness seems ubiquitous among humans, but does such a thing exist in animals as well? In humans, it is proposed that individuals who have a sense of fairness are more likely to be successful in cooperative interactions. Thus, by looking at other highly cooperative species, we can not only learn more about the animals’ social behavior, but can learn something about the evolution of cooperation and fairness in humans. Understanding the different stages of the evolutionary development of the sense of fairness allows us to understand more about why this behavior was important and how it could have evolved. The difficulty is that awareness of fairness is proposed to be based on social emotions, like envy, greed, or moral indignation, and it is challenging to uncover animals’ emotions."

Excluding humans, the wildlife flourish without earthlings interactions yet when we came into their world, the balance seemingly change, endangering the whole eco-system..

"In diagnostic microbiology, it is important to distinguish between a patient's commensal flora, and the causative agent of the infection from which they are suffering. This is not always an easy process, since in some cases microbes are normal flora at certain anatomical locations, but are considered pathogens when isolated from other sites."

[Occam Bandage]

16. Not quite.

Rather, I think religions are sets of memes, or of transmittable concepts and ideas. Rather than being inherent inside humans, I believe they can be modeled as independent and seperate entities that act very much like colonies of organisms. They 'reproduce' through transmission from generation to generation, with a chance of mutation/corruption/addition with each transmission. A variant of a religion that has mutated in such a way that it can better compete for the mental attentions of humans it encounters will be more likely to have those mutations transmitted than a religion that is less able to compete.

I think religions are not organisms per se, of course, but I do think that they do evolve much like organisms do, and evolve to survive within human societies much as commensal bacteria have evolved to survive within human bodies. Indeed, I see them as mostly commensal: not particularly beneficial, and not particularly harmful. They simply exist alongside humans as a benign parasite, or as an unhelpful symbiote. They are so common because natural selection weeds out religions that are not likely to be adopted by people, and promotes religions that are likely to be adopted by people.

[centristgrandpa]

18. in the ball park....

In the abstract sense, i could not agree more with your first paragraph. In my opinion, the bias of religion is driven by power and control while the natural evolutionary process is an interaction of survival. The two are light years apart but seemingly cousins of interplay.

[Odin2005]

19. Short answer: It's complicated and can't be reduced to pithy talking points.

Long Answer:

For most people there are 3 reasons. One is that Religion is the "common man's philosophy," it gives the average person a source of meaning and a code of morality. The second is that people simply accept what they are taught as kids and don't have the intellectual capacity and/or to question it or are by temperament and personality not self-reflective enough to question it. 3rd and finally is the fact that at the gut, instinctual level human beings are what I call "naive animists", we project agency and sapience onto non-human life and inanimate objects until we are taught not too, and even then there are times where we still treat inanimate objects as if they had a "mind of their own", this is the ultimate reason a lot of people believe in a deistic Creator God if nothing else.

For those of limited mental capacity "God" is the Big Dad in the sky. I have never met a mentally disabled person (high-functioning enough to conceive of such things of course) who wasn't religious.

For very intelligent people things are far more nuanced and complicated, especially since the intellectual's conception of "God" is far more ethereal and abstract then that of the person of average or below-average intelligence. IMO the intellectual's "God" is so different then the conception of "God" most people have that calling the latter concept "God" is mere socio-cultural convention.

[centristgrandpa]

23. pithy talking points asided...

I find your statement well written. It's not about bashing peoples choices when speaking about religion or the value of faith but the mere fact that so many follow this way of thinking. The fine line to God seems paradoxically naive but those who worship a deity, good luck...

[cosmik debris]

20. It is a life or death decision for some.

The religionists don't have to kill all the people who disagree with them. They only have to kill a few to scare the rest into submission.

Religion is just extortion.

That's how religion made it to the top, and that's how they stay there.

[centristgrandpa]

24. pass the money bowl, please...

Fear is a useful tool but power comes from religious brain-washing...I concur with your thoughts...

[Strong Atheist]

28. Welcome to DU!

:toast:

[centristgrandpa]

30. Thank you...

:beer:

[Jeffersonian Dem]

29. Judgment Day? And religions.

According to Judeo-Christian scriptures, judgment will be delivered, but not necessarily on "judgment day." In other words, the idea that a warlord-savior-king will come riding from out of the sky on a white charger is a myth. Real prophecies say something quite different, something that will come as a shock to the so-called "born-again" Christians, Zionists, Jihadists, etc.

Regarding religions and their "hold," there are about 2 billion Christians in the world, while there are about 1.3 billion Muslims and about 14 million Jews. But, the next largest population is about 1.1 billion people who are agnostics or atheists who at least understand that religions are not what they were supposed to be.

[centristgrandpa]

31. coming soon?

When judgment day arrives, i hope it is shocking...

[Jeffersonian Dem]

33. Re: Judgment, and when and how it will come.

Judgment is what most religious people fear most. All religions have prophecies about it. But it is not and will not be as they expect it.

Since Christianity is the largest and most powerful religion in the world, we should know this about how the judgment will come, and from whom.

Jesus (Yeshuah of Nazareth) said: "I tell you the truth; It is to your advantage that I go away: for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him to you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in me ; of righteousness, because I go to our Father and you see me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself ; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he declare, and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall declare it to you." (John 16:7-15)

So, one person will issue the judgment, guide humanity unto the truth, show you things to come, and glorify and declare the testimony of the Christ in heaven. However, while the Spirit of truth and Comforter can influence and inspire individuals through spiritual revelation or epiphany, the Holy Spirit-Consciousness of the Ancient One needs a messenger, a son of man, to convey and deliver the message to all humanity. It couldn’t happen otherwise. And the message reminds all the world of what the enlightened ones taught; to guide us unto the truth, clarify the truth, show us things to come, and deliver the judgment in writing so that the message can be delivered to all humanity.

Jesus also said: “The time will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. Some people will tell you, He is there, or He is here. But do not go after them, nor follow them. For the Son of Man, when his day comes, will be like the lightning that flashes and lights up one part under heaven, also lights up other parts under heaven. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected by his generation.” (Luke 17:22-25)

The wording is revised slightly, stating “when his day comes” to fit the actual reality and what Jesus meant. And the “lightening” refers to the fact that the message is delivered electronically, over the world wide Web and Internet, and can be accessed all over the world instantly, like “lightening, and in a flash.”

Of course, traditional Christian belief is that Jesus was speaking of himself in Luke 17:22-25, but that misunderstanding was because Jesus did speak of himself when he said something very similar. That is, Jesus said of himself: "... this son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain." That is similar, which is why there has been misunderstanding. However, the suffering of Jesus was not first or beforehand, but at the very end of his life and after his mission was fulfilled, whereas the modern son of man has suffered first.

Furthermore, even though Jesus was rejected by those in power (by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and by the small mob of people who rejected Jesus after he was arrested to crucify him and free the criminal Barabbus), Jesus was not rejected by his generation. In fact, Jesus was accepted by multitudes from every generation at the time. That is made clear throughout the book of Matthew and in the book of Luke. It was also confirmed by an impartial Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, who wrote at the time that Jesus "won over many Jews and many of the Greeks."

“In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord of our righteousness. For thus says the Lord: David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel.” (Jeremiah 33:15-17)

Notice that no man should or will sit upon the throne of the house of Israel. Jesus did not, and this modern son of man will not. He will not even speak as Jesus did, but tells you in writing that we shall all share the “thrones” of our nations as equal joint heirs to the new “kingdom” of God.

"Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street." (Isaiah 42:1-2)

Many Christians believe that too speaks of Jesus because one sentence in the book of Matthew claims it does. But it clearly does not. Jesus did rise up as a teacher-orator. He did cry out to make his voice heard on many occasions, and he certainly did cause his voice to be heard in the street, as is stated in Matthew 4:25; Matthew 13:14; Luke 14:25; and others.

Unlike Jesus, the current servant of God -- the son of man and the messenger for the Spirit of truth -- does not rise up, and he does not cause his voice to be heard as an orator in public. He fulfills Judaic prophecies that Jesus did not.

“(God) has made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand has he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver has he hid me; And said unto me, You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God. And now, says the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength.” (Isaiah 49:2-5)

As David wrote, God’s “tongue is the pen of a ready writer,” and, as Paul wrote, the “weapons of the Lord are not carnal (or lethal) but mighty through God for pulling down strongholds.” So, the son of man is a writer-messenger, who is hidden in the “shadow of God’s hand,” who tries to deliver the message to humanity but feels he has labored in vain because he is rejected.

“Behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.” ... and he “shall be called, Sought out, a city not forsaken.” (Isaiah 62:11-12)

“He that overcomes will I make as a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out. And I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God. And I will write upon him my new name.” (Revelation 3:12)

So, the son of man, the messenger for the Spirit of truth, serves and represents the Ancient One who is in heaven with God, who was “before Abraham.” That Ancient One is known not only as the Christ, but also the Avatar, the Buddha, the Saoshyant, the Mahdi, Melchizedek, the Spirit of truth, etc., and the modern son of man is his servant-messenger. That’s it.

Extracted from: http://reformationcomingsoon.bravehost.com/RealProphecies.html

http://www.soundclick.com/davidjnunson

[david13]

32. Fear. They are afraid of death, and being alone when they die.

Thus they need to invent something.
And make it real.
dc