Quote:
Originally Posted by Whatsitoosit
and that's one to grow on!
I attended church last Sunday and must say it was an interesting sermon. While dissecting all of my former knowledge and trying to piece it all together in a way I can truly understand the priest (coincidentally) made an analogy to "understanding something completely" to understanding the workings of a car. One must take it apart and analyze its individual contents and then try to put it back together again until it works. I guess if after one takes religion apart piece by piece and can truly put it back together and it works for them in their life then it makes sense for them to maintain their faith. At least that's how I came to perceive it, he may have been just talking about the teachings of Jesus but my mind chose to see it in that way since I am pondering so much these days.
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I've tried to understand religion in that sense - by taking apart the pieces. Religions are made up by many thoughts or "ideas". The idea there is a god, the idea there is a hell, the idea that you can gain supernatural powers over things you normally have no control of, the idea that you'll get rewarded if you live "right", the idea that you should mission, the idea that you should alienate and exclude those who are not part of or leave your faith.
Christianity (broadly speaking) has all these ideas and more :
- There's a god
- There's a hell you and others go to if you don't live life according to what's "right"
- There's a heaven which is a reward for living your life according to the religion
- You can gain power over things you normally have no power over - for example by prayers or healing
- You should convert others (mission)
- Extremists and particularly isolist groups use alienation/exclusion as a way to keep people in the fold
These are not just found in christianity. They're just some of very few ideas that can be used to make up any religion - like parts of a car might add to making a working vehicle. What I've come to conclude is that religions evolve and change over time, adopting or creating new ideas and abolishing others. It's an adaptive process and for a religion to be successful, it has to contain ideas that either appeal to people (ex. heaven/healing) or scare people into beliving/motivate them to converting others whom they care about for their "own good" (ex. hell/mission).
When you analyse the above "parts", you'll start to understand they're highly successful ideas that make up many religions and it makes sense that they have all "evolved" independently of eachother many times. They make religions competitive. If we wipe the slate clean and make everyone forget and then let religions form again, these ideas are sure to reappear, wether true or made up.
It's part us - what we need, what we fear and what we strive for - and part consequence because competition between religions will result in a selection or "favour" for ideas in that religion which recruits more followers and makes it more competivite against others.
In other words, religions will appear wether or not they are actually true. Most followers of religions have to agree with me on that simply by looking at how many religions there are out there.
I doubt that's the point the priest wanted to make though
