I'm wondering if religious people actually believe the things that they claim, or if it is more of a case of the emperor having no clothes and people being afraid to say what's really in their mind.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what it means to believe something, so maybe someone can help me with the semantics of this.

Yes they do. Sure there are many things that are learned responses and are repeated based on habit and upbringing, not necessarily the result of detailed analysis on the merits. And sure there are many people that repeat pieties they don't believe in because of afriad of the social consequences of not doing so. But in general there is little reason to doubt that religion generally believe the things they say they do. For instance, if someone informs me they have a spiritual experience, I rarely doubt the authenticity that they believe they had a spiritual experience.

Not all of them.

Growing up in and having my mom take me to Catholic Mass every Sunday, the old people were always early, lighting candles (for a cost), and talking with the priest.

I personally think death scares people....but even at a very young age I remember thinking about the "idea" or "heaven" of living forever. Forever.....That is kind of scary.

Do you remember what life was like before you were born? No. Of course, not. I expect death to be the same.


For the record, I have no ill will against anyone who believes, as long as they don't want to harm others because of it. People are simple. We all basically want the same thing. Food, water, shelter, love, friendship, that is universal. If some people need to believe that something else happens to you when you die, so be it and don't argue.

I don't believe in god, nor do I believe in afterlife, but i'd argue that the religions of the world have done much more good than they have done harm.

Do you mean the religious believe literally - something like the young earth - or believe metaphorically - that things maybe taken as metaphors for a view of the human condition?

I think if someone truely believed with every ounce of their being they would live their lives according to every last word of their chosen religion.

I'm guessing that this is just tautological for you--you define belief in terms of action. Otherwise this because very implausible.

What got me thinking about it was this Muslim guy I was having an argument with, and he said, "I just can't believe that all this suffering is all their is," or something like that. And in retrospect I really wanted to say to him "so you don't even believe but your life sucks so you just go along with it?"

Obv not a case of the emperor having no clothes.

Was his belief helping him end the suffering?

Non-Militant Atheism, such a pleasure to read and see on this board. Good post.

I think there is such a difference between something that has yet to begin and something that comes to a complete and utter end (I mean subjectively, obviously not objectively). We have such a gradual recollection of our early lives, and probably no memories whatsoever of our initial weeks or months, that softens the line of our existence before we were born.
Death otoh is often a sudden and clear point in time, after which there is just nothing. It's a rather different idea in that way (in practice, it could be long and drawn out, but I don't think it changes my point in how we think about our existence). We are also in the position of being able to contemplate our impending and looming demise, while it was impossible for us to contemplate our birth!

I don't think I am explaining myself very well, and I really struggle with the idea of death (esp recently). In fact I sometimes have feelings of real panic when I try to conceptualize it. I think it's partly the idea that there is no opportunity to reflect on what happened, and reflection is how we come to understand things, and partly about how the things we think about, plan for, worry about etc become so trivially meaningless if we happen to die in our sleep that night. Add to that the fact that non-existence is just utterly beyond our scope of conceptualizing, I reject that meme about how it is after death is really no different to how it was before you were born.

It's very dangerous to assume people who don't agree with you do not actually hold their beliefs. It is a way of forcing your "subjective" experiences and perceptions to be "objective" and general.

This of course makes the world a much nicer and more logical place, but the process isn't too different from the same kind of paranoia that plagues hardcore conspiracy theorists. Instead of actually accepting evidence that the world is complex, divided and that "truth" is therefore very difficult to prove with certainty, one makes these "ideas" that what you see or what people express isn't real: Much simpler answers are being hidden from you.

It's fine to assume religious belief comes in varying degrees, and it is fine to assume not all people are honest about their beliefs - but that religion should somehow exist without actual belief is a conspiracy theory that dwarfs holocaust-denial by a wide margin.

Going with what Tame was saying:

It also is good to note that two people can look at the same situation, with the same evidence, and the same intelligence and come up with two different conclusions based on what they know. Not because one is choosing not to believe what he sees or having his conclusion because that's what he wants it to be, but that is genuinely what he has deemed to be correct.

It certainly doesn't mean that because Person B comes up with something that is different from Person A that B is somehow being willfully ignorant of the "evidence" it's just that they have come up with a different conclusion. Like "Make a sum of 4" I say, "2+2." You say "3+1." Who has made their sum the best way? I don't know. If I believe I did because it is more symmetrical does that make yours any less valid? I hope not...

I think a lot of it comes down to whether people are truly capable of the beautifully conceptualised Orwellian doublethink.

In so far as we accept that doublethink is possible, we can appreciate how other people can hold religious beliefs that do not coincide with either their actions or other beliefs.

For instance, I know far more devout Catholics than I know Catholics that don't use contraception.

I would also say that, in a forum mostly containing above average intelligence philosophically minded thinkers, we have all at some point had a discussion in which we found two of our beliefs to be incongruous; but prior to that revelation we believed both to be true.

Most religious belief I imagine to be similar to this. And I say that in the context of growing up in lower/middle-class UK where most people have a religious identity that in no way penetrates their daily life.

That's at least how I imagine, from my sceptic atheist standing, people can have religious beliefs that they don't follow, or beliefs that are irrational. Of course, like all branches of people, some are just not that smart.

I don't believe in "religion".

I believe in "Jesus" = Yeshua, the Messiah.

This, jesus himself was against religion

No He wasnt, He never told people not to go to the synagogues or temples. He himself went many times and took part in the "religion". What He spoke against was using the religion to further your own goals, pad your peen, or use it to ignore social injustice.

In other words, using the worship of His father to be a douche.

Name me one time where he told an everyday person not do their sacrifices or chastised them for doing so!

Whatever semantic point you think you're making is at best a distinction without a difference.

fyp

racist ban imo

"Jesus" (= Yeshua ) is the Savior of the world; has "religion" saved anyone?

Yeshua is the greatest human being; "religion" could refer to a human or demonic construct. The most popular religion is Roman Catholicism, and this "harlot" would go against Yeshua's talmidim who were quartodecimanists. This "harlot" essentially hides the fourth "word" of the Decalogue; what more needs to be said ?

When you eat an apple, are you also eating a fruit?

Various surveys have shown that members of the clergy don't believe a lot of the claims made by Christianity. Not sure how many of them would admit to such things in their sermons though.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...urrection.html

Modern use of 'religion' is increasingly used in a negative way.
Christianity responds by re-categorizing itself as a philosophy, or makes comments such as manglers, or that weird spoken-word pointy-hands video "Why I Hate Religion".

Your belief in Yeshua is a subset of what is termed religion. It seems like it would be too narrow for the OP to have referred specifically to your beliefs when it wants to encompass

I really dislike creating a new label when the one used in the OP is clearly understood by everyone here.

Christians like that are just saying "It's not religion because I don't call it that". Ok, whatever you want to call it instead, but it's easier when we use a common label.

Right, first of all, the guy is full of BS but thats not what we are here to talk about...

During my university days I took a philosophy of religion class and we talked about the three things that all religions must have.

A Creed: A unifying ideal, belief or philosophy creating a communal entity.
A Code: A set of concrete rules that govern the entity in what they do.
A Cult: A group of people who regularly identify themselves as that entity and are recognizable to each other.

Now if you are missing one or more of these, then what you have cant really be considered a religion. I fail to see how Christianity doesnt qualify.

I think a lot of people either don't really believe or believe in only the most vulgar forn of Pascal's Wager.

But there definitely are serious believers. I have met people who cook meals for the homeless every week because they truly believe that God wants them to do so. There are clearly fundamentalists in many religions who go to great extremes to follow religious rules. Some of those people surely, deeply believe.

So yes, there are believers. But then there are a ton of others who really don't, but espouse belief for other reasons.