Critique of religion, my critique:
25 Jun '14 13:46I have always said all religions are just made up by men and attributes given to some god or other with the idea that making a god with human like attributes can help to gain followers who could not follow more complex concepts.
That said, this is in response to Vistesd post in my other thread about what I though a god should be like:
I said a god would above all show total love. Even that may be a human attribute we would give to a god.
So what may a real god be like? Perhaps as a guide. It would know what the universe would be doing at the beginning, middle and end.
So knowing there are various kinds of evolution going on in the universe, evolution of energy, gasses, evolution of all that into stars, into galaxies and so forth, stars come and go, the brightest and most energetic lasting only a few million years, the smaller ones hanging around for billions of years, the galaxies in their stately evolution, crashing into one another, generating black holes and such changing shapes from spiral to elliptical after a couple of galactic collisions and so forth.
Then the generation of planets from the dust of older stars that blew up and gave the universe the heavy elements, iron, uranium, argon, oxygen, and so forth, all in the dust that pervades most of inter galactic space.
Those planets developing with different evolutionary paths depending on the distance to its host star, and how the planets shuffle each other around after they get big.
We know all that because we see stars and galaxies by the billions and therefore have from our small world and slice of time, we can put together what came first and how they develop so we can suss out the evolution so far of the universe based on evidence.
We see the same thing here on Earth, the evidence for biological evolution based on close observations of Earth by literally millions of scientists over the last 500 or so years in every field, from Astronomy to Zoology.
Some of you say there is this vast conspiracy to keep creationism out of the picture but it is clearly that we in the 21st century have a much better handle on how things got the way they are today than we ever had a thousand, or ten thousand years ago.
So back then, as now, genius appears, like the first known medical genius Immotep, who pretty much founded modern medicine thousands of years ago.
So these geniuses come along maybe every hundred to three hundred years or so, most of their genius lost to humanity because say, one particular genius dies at the age of 2 because of disease, another lives his or her lifespan fully but is in a tribe isolated from humanity like say, the deep jungles of the Amazon and so their genius pretty much dies with them.
One example is the ancient Byzantium battery. Electricity was known to them and they even invented electro-chemistry and were able to put gold and silver plate onto brass and such.
The genius who invented all that, however, was tied to the religion of the day, probably some buried monk, and he invented the battery and electrochemistry.
But my thesis is he died before he could give his story to his acolytes and then, no more knowledge of electricity for a few thousand years.
The idea there is we need feedback to keep something like that alive.
In religion, we have all these disparate religions, usually at each other's throats and each one was started by some genius who saw what was happening around him or her in the civilization he or she lived in and saw what could make it better.
My stance is they invent what they thought attributes a god should have that would make sense to ordinary people who could not think very complex thoughts and so followed the originator because he or she referred to this god as the inspiration.
Now that religion gets started and it begins to evolve like everything else.
Take Islam as an example. Mohammed starts his religion, we may feel he is some kind of genius who saw things as they were and wanted to change them, so Islam was born. But after his death two brothers fought with each other and now they are Sunni vs Shia, and they are killing each other today.
And the same with Christianity, Jesus had his genius ways and tried to get them spread into the community but after his death, the people left over started making it into their own version, like Paul who wanted to impress the Romans and ended up with Rome converting to Christianity but something far removed from the teachings of Jesus.
I am leading to a point here!
What I see is this: A real god I have always said would not say it was a jealous god because a god, being so far above us in morality and such would at best show unconditional love for everything it created in this universe, assuming this god created the universe and all in it.
That may not even be the case but for the sake of argument we suppose this god invented the universe and would know the beginning, middle and end of said universe and would know what planets develop life and which ones don't and so forth, and on the planets with life would know each stage of its development as far as lifeforms are concerned.
So what do I see as missing from modern religions, the Abrahamic ones and the rest?
Feedback. It was lack of feedback that lost electricity to mankind for thousands of years and it is lack of godly feedback that keeps all these disparate religions at war with each other from time to time and for varying levels of time for the wars, like Islam V Christianity, been going on for over a thousand years.
A god, a REAL god, one who with a wave of its rhetorical hands, poofed our universe into reality, knowing the beginning, middle and end, would know full well the outcome of religions supposedly inspired by said god.
So suppose the god of Mohammed inspired Islam. It would have known well in advance the brothers would be fighting over the spoils and would start wars with one another.
Lack of feedback about that situation which could not be a good thing from this god's POV, this god not speaking out to the brothers when it could have avoided all that future bloodshed, says to me a god would not start a religion only to abandon it to its fate later from the effects of lesser men taking over. Only feedback would have kept these people in line and present a united front to the world.
No united front tells me there was no godly inspiration at all, just the thoughts of one genius who could only personally effect the lives of those physically around him or her during their life. After they die, it is up to other, lesser minds to keep up the 'good work'.
But being lesser minds they fritter away the original meaning and it deteriorates to wars even among themselves.
This lack of feedback is clear from all the religions on Earth, a religion starts and may be all love and flower children at first but then it inevitably deteriorates later when the originator dies.
My thesis is, a god would not stand by and let lesser minds pervert the original message and it would take said god sticking its rhetorical nose in it every few years to keep a religion on the original track.
So suppose a real god started a religion, say ten thousand years ago.
I say, a real god would not need to make a hierarchical religion at all.
I say a real god could just speak out its mind to every mind on the planet and to every mind on every planet in its time.
That is my take on it but suppose that is wrong, it WANTS a hierarchical religion.
So it gives its message to a lucky recipient and the word spreads. That is, till the messenger dies.
Then lesser minds take over, pervert the religion with results we see so sadly today.
That lack of feedback to keep a religion on its original track is what I say is the most damning evidence all these religions are man made in the first place.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
That said, this is in response to Vistesd post in my other thread about what I though a god should be like:
I said a god would above all show total love. Even that may be a human attribute we would give to a god.
So what may a real god be like? Perhaps as a guide. It would know what the universe would be doing at the beginning, middle and end.
So knowing there are various kinds of evolution going on in the universe, evolution of energy, gasses, evolution of all that into stars, into galaxies and so forth, stars come and go, the brightest and most energetic lasting only a few million years, the smaller ones hanging around for billions of years, the galaxies in their stately evolution, crashing into one another, generating black holes and such changing shapes from spiral to elliptical after a couple of galactic collisions and so forth.
Then the generation of planets from the dust of older stars that blew up and gave the universe the heavy elements, iron, uranium, argon, oxygen, and so forth, all in the dust that pervades most of inter galactic space.
Those planets developing with different evolutionary paths depending on the distance to its host star, and how the planets shuffle each other around after they get big.
We know all that because we see stars and galaxies by the billions and therefore have from our small world and slice of time, we can put together what came first and how they develop so we can suss out the evolution so far of the universe based on evidence.
We see the same thing here on Earth, the evidence for biological evolution based on close observations of Earth by literally millions of scientists over the last 500 or so years in every field, from Astronomy to Zoology.
Some of you say there is this vast conspiracy to keep creationism out of the picture but it is clearly that we in the 21st century have a much better handle on how things got the way they are today than we ever had a thousand, or ten thousand years ago.
So back then, as now, genius appears, like the first known medical genius Immotep, who pretty much founded modern medicine thousands of years ago.
So these geniuses come along maybe every hundred to three hundred years or so, most of their genius lost to humanity because say, one particular genius dies at the age of 2 because of disease, another lives his or her lifespan fully but is in a tribe isolated from humanity like say, the deep jungles of the Amazon and so their genius pretty much dies with them.
One example is the ancient Byzantium battery. Electricity was known to them and they even invented electro-chemistry and were able to put gold and silver plate onto brass and such.
The genius who invented all that, however, was tied to the religion of the day, probably some buried monk, and he invented the battery and electrochemistry.
But my thesis is he died before he could give his story to his acolytes and then, no more knowledge of electricity for a few thousand years.
The idea there is we need feedback to keep something like that alive.
In religion, we have all these disparate religions, usually at each other's throats and each one was started by some genius who saw what was happening around him or her in the civilization he or she lived in and saw what could make it better.
My stance is they invent what they thought attributes a god should have that would make sense to ordinary people who could not think very complex thoughts and so followed the originator because he or she referred to this god as the inspiration.
Now that religion gets started and it begins to evolve like everything else.
Take Islam as an example. Mohammed starts his religion, we may feel he is some kind of genius who saw things as they were and wanted to change them, so Islam was born. But after his death two brothers fought with each other and now they are Sunni vs Shia, and they are killing each other today.
And the same with Christianity, Jesus had his genius ways and tried to get them spread into the community but after his death, the people left over started making it into their own version, like Paul who wanted to impress the Romans and ended up with Rome converting to Christianity but something far removed from the teachings of Jesus.
I am leading to a point here!
What I see is this: A real god I have always said would not say it was a jealous god because a god, being so far above us in morality and such would at best show unconditional love for everything it created in this universe, assuming this god created the universe and all in it.
That may not even be the case but for the sake of argument we suppose this god invented the universe and would know the beginning, middle and end of said universe and would know what planets develop life and which ones don't and so forth, and on the planets with life would know each stage of its development as far as lifeforms are concerned.
So what do I see as missing from modern religions, the Abrahamic ones and the rest?
Feedback. It was lack of feedback that lost electricity to mankind for thousands of years and it is lack of godly feedback that keeps all these disparate religions at war with each other from time to time and for varying levels of time for the wars, like Islam V Christianity, been going on for over a thousand years.
A god, a REAL god, one who with a wave of its rhetorical hands, poofed our universe into reality, knowing the beginning, middle and end, would know full well the outcome of religions supposedly inspired by said god.
So suppose the god of Mohammed inspired Islam. It would have known well in advance the brothers would be fighting over the spoils and would start wars with one another.
Lack of feedback about that situation which could not be a good thing from this god's POV, this god not speaking out to the brothers when it could have avoided all that future bloodshed, says to me a god would not start a religion only to abandon it to its fate later from the effects of lesser men taking over. Only feedback would have kept these people in line and present a united front to the world.
No united front tells me there was no godly inspiration at all, just the thoughts of one genius who could only personally effect the lives of those physically around him or her during their life. After they die, it is up to other, lesser minds to keep up the 'good work'.
But being lesser minds they fritter away the original meaning and it deteriorates to wars even among themselves.
This lack of feedback is clear from all the religions on Earth, a religion starts and may be all love and flower children at first but then it inevitably deteriorates later when the originator dies.
My thesis is, a god would not stand by and let lesser minds pervert the original message and it would take said god sticking its rhetorical nose in it every few years to keep a religion on the original track.
So suppose a real god started a religion, say ten thousand years ago.
I say, a real god would not need to make a hierarchical religion at all.
I say a real god could just speak out its mind to every mind on the planet and to every mind on every planet in its time.
That is my take on it but suppose that is wrong, it WANTS a hierarchical religion.
So it gives its message to a lucky recipient and the word spreads. That is, till the messenger dies.
Then lesser minds take over, pervert the religion with results we see so sadly today.
That lack of feedback to keep a religion on its original track is what I say is the most damning evidence all these religions are man made in the first place.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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