I'm on acid and i've just realized religion is trapping everyone on this earths miond in a box.making them follow all kinds of made up rules under the pain of damnation forever if they don't, while myself on the other hand lives free out amongst the tree's and rocks, free to question, to wonder to find out why? Religion puts your mind in a box, making you think things are this one way and that you have all the answers, no one has the answers, no one knows, even science which hardcore believers try to say is a religion doesn't know and scientists are th eonly "religion" (bullshit) who will admit they don't know, only that evidence suggests that way. and realy does it matter if we know how we got here and why are people fighting eachother over it? who cares were here yes it may be intesesting to know but it will not help us as a race, you need to help eachother to help our race, why does the belief of how we got here plus our values= religion? No its how I think humans first came about on this rock thats flying around in space and what my values are, two seperate things. Its like when christians try to make scientists out to be bad people, no they just think a magic being from the sky didn't put us here and it may be more likely that we changed shape from something simple to something complex over the course of millions of years, something that is unfathomable to a human becuase we live no more than 100 years at the most. Relgion is trapping peoples minds, they only look at the world the way their relgion tells them to, you must look through all the windows you can becuase nothing is better or worse only different.
what about the children who are raised (brainwashed) to belive it and go to no ends to say their ways are supreme and no other way is good, infact it's bad and evil? How is that a smart thinking human being? It's not it's a fool trapt in a box.
Religious beliefs are guidelines, you're right. But beliefs, in general, are much more than that. They are our representation of reality, like the original poster said. A religious Christian, in the most rudimentary sense, believes that Jesus was born of a virgin, is the only son of God, rose from the dead, and promised entry into paradise if you believed in him, and rejection from paradise if you do not. Because beliefs are definitions of your vision of the world, they control your behavior. If you believe your hand is on fire, you are -helpless- to behave in an appropriate manner, whether or not your hand is actually on fire. Everyone believes in something, but the reason the OP is so disturbed by religion, I believe, is because Religious Beliefs are mutually incompatible, and we are having wars based on belief. We are teaching children beliefs which are incompatible, and therefore, many of which are false and unnecessary. We are raising entire communities of people who are confident that they are in conversation with the creator of the universe, or that he or she(Somehow, it is rarely a She), actually cares about and loves you. Is this really harmless? Should this really be respected? Why don't we respect people who express some other comforting thought. How would we normally react if someone showed up at an important job interview, and expressed that he or she believes they are the strongest human being on the planet. Would you not say that this belief must be extremely comforting? Why does this belief get a reply of laughter, or why do we think the appropriate response to this belief is a phone call to the local Psychiatric ward?
i completely agree with the OP and im not trippin lol...religion is 100% fake and all it does is make you live ur life differently bc of what a book or a fake person says...religion is nothin but faith...it is what u make it im not saying that its bad to be religious...but what im saying is that i dont believe in any of that shit and i still live my life like a normal member of society...sure my values are different than one who is religious but im not a bad person...i just live my life by my rules
You live your life by the behaviors which increase survivability in human nature, actually. You are not helpless here, certainly not. For instance, if you really wanted to kill a child to prove that you are in control, you could do this. Would this be difficult though? Certainly for many of us it would, no matter what religion we belong to. Ask yourselves why that is the case.
well, its not only religions fault...it is also something that humans desire...but this generation seems to be waking up and seeing all the false claims and rules. It started off as a way to cope with life, then it was used as a way of controlling people, and these days people are starting to use it as a way of profit and power. it'll die on its own, maybe people will find a new way to cope with life when reality sets in.
i lol at people that argue about religion like they know whats up not its effect on society like you guys are, i mean when they said god demands this and god demands that shit like that
Most belief systems have the ability to "crush our minds" , not just religion . I'm not religious at all though . I agree that religious beliefs can suppress the mind , as can political beliefs , moral beliefs , and any other type of belief . I think it's because we find a belief system that we like , and then close our minds down to any other possible systems .
Hi Peaceful could you expand a bit more on what you mean by "belief systems have the ability to crush our minds?"
My main problem with religion is that it forces people to live in the past by restricting their perspective to previously learned beliefs. Instead of taking a new experience as objectively as possible, religion teaches us to look only at how it fits in with previously held beliefs learned from holy books and sermons. It seems essentially impossible for a devoutly religious person to ever fully live in the present because of this.
Sure , but I just used the phrase "crush our minds" because that's how the OP put it . I think a better word would be supress (that doesn't seem like it's spelled right) . What I meant by "crush our minds" was that holding on to a certain belief system too tightly can hinder your ability to see things any other way . For example , die-hard religious people may refuse to see things in any way other than what is in their religion , which could prevent them from learning other important things . With political systems , if you are a die-hard republican or a die-hard democrat , you tend to stick to the beliefs of whatever side you are on . So pretty much I'm saying that it's not bad to have a belief system , but just that maybe we shouldn't hold on to them so tight . Keep your mind open , don't just dive head first into the first thing that seems right . Hope that made sense .
Worth mentioning in this discussion is: Confirmation bias(wikipedia) \t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\tIn psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and to irrationally avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. Confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference, or as a form of selection bias toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study or disconfirmation of an alternative hypothesis. Confirmation bias is of interest in the teaching of critical thinking, as the skill (of thinking critically) is misused if rigorous critical scrutiny is applied only to evidence challenging a preconceived idea but not to evidence supporting it. I think this is what PeacefulBuddah is talking about. Edit: PeacefulBuddah also appears to be talking about this, also from Wikipedia: Groupthink Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness, as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might normally be obtained by making decisions as a group.[1] During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight.
Hi Peaceful, ah ok you were referring to what the OP said - yup that helps, thanks. Thanks for the additional info as well
Yeah that's kind of along the same lines of what I'm trying to say , expecially the groupthink paragraph .
Yes! AFter i typed that i thought about how politics realy doesn't bring us together it splitls us apart by marginalizing us all into "demographics" who have their own "agenda". It makes us look at the world as americans, mexicans, white people, black people, asians, women, gays, farmers............instead of just humans. We must look out for whats good for humans, not mexicans, gays, americans, blacks all individually. I think society will become a better place when people begin looking at people as just people instead of by somethign that makes them differnet from themselves.
There must be a million posts with this stuff in it. Why is religion always attacked? A religion is only what its members make it. If people want to believe something, let them. No one should or has any control over another persons beliefs. If they act on a belief in a way that hurts others, then by all means stop or penalize them, but do it for the act, not the belief. I'll use an extreme example that makes knee jerk reactions which are impossible to support. Should a child molester be put in prison? I think so. Should someone who has the urge to molest children, but never acts on it and never behaves improperly towards children be put in prison? No. They haven't done anything. Just let people believe or disbelieve what they want. I dunno. People just make things harder than they have to be. Live and let live.
\ So it's ok to raise (brainwash/program) children to think that the end is coming soon and that everyone on earth is a terrible person and that you should hate gays and the only people who will be ok are the 30 people in your church cause your church is right and everyone else is wrong. Think about how much that will mess up a childs brain, the thought they have in their head constantly is "my group is better than everyone elses, everyone out in society is a bad person and going to hell" I guess realy it's not that religion it's self isn't crushing our minds its that people are crushing their childrens minds with it by brainwashing them to believe one way or another, and the vicious cycle begins again when they have children and goes on forever unless one of their offsrping breaks the chain. either that or people are so desperate for answers they'll cling to anything and not want to go through any spiritual enlightment that would accualy take some thinking on their part. People these days just want everything now now now.