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**SlowwHand** · January 4, 2011, 19:42

Oh buzz off.

**giblets** · January 4, 2011, 19:46

Religion: Real or Fake

Fake
However, religious people are usually sincere in their belief

**Provost Harrison** · January 4, 2011, 19:55

Fake.

For a first post, that was kind of heavy.

**giblets** · January 4, 2011, 19:59

Why isn't there a poll?

**Kidlicious** · January 4, 2011, 20:10

Originally posted by Sting Chameleon View Post

Religion is also a great tool to control people.

By if nothing else but this statement it is true that religion is real.

**Elok** · January 4, 2011, 20:16

Wow, you never read a bible but just happened to pick two quotes relevant to what you were saying!

**Cort Haus** · January 4, 2011, 20:20

It's Drinksnacks, and I claim my £5.

**Wezil** · January 4, 2011, 22:58

I can't wait to finally hear how my fellow posters stand on this issue.

**Robert** · January 5, 2011, 06:46

Ok, I'll bite. I'm in the mood to write stuff.
And since it covers a lot of things that I'm going to 'preach' about in a special service next sunday, I'll bite

Now I've believed in and blindly followed Christianity my entire life.

It's always silly to follow anything blindly. It doesn't matter if it's any religion, any political view or even atheism.
One can choose to be not interested and just go with the flow. But that doesn't equal to 'blindly following'

But apparently you have now decided to open your eyes, which is good

Think about it, if an individual in contemporary society claimed to be the son/daughter of God, would you believe him/her? Many people have claimed to be the son/daughter of God since Jesus, and while some of them had small cult followings, they were never widely accepted as having any relation to God, biological or otherwise.

If someone gets a crowd of billions of followers, then he's certainly not just a 'someone'.
Someone should never be trusted on his/her word in such a case. One should judge one then on his/her deeds.

I think that if it's about Jesus, about everybody in this world agree that he was a very very good man. Maybe even the best one that ever lived. Criticism towards Jesus mostly are about him being weak (Nietzsche)
Islam and Hinduism have incorporated Jesus. According to the Quran Jesus was the only one who ever lived without sins.
Right now more then 3.5 billion people believe that Jesus was the best human ever alive, sent to earth with a human mission.
That's not just 'someone'. It doesn't say that it's true though either

As far as I can see is faith in Jesus more important for Christianity then believing in his status / son-of-God-ship.
From the beginning on there have been debates among Christians if Jesus was God himself, and/or if 'son of God' meant anything different then that he was a creation of God, like all of us, but then the first made one.

The more important matter to Christianity is if one would trust his life to Jesus, and would be willing to have Jesus carry his or her sins away. I'd say it's more important if you believe the message of Jesus and the interpretation / follow up on this message by the apostles, then if he is really the son or God or not. (and whatever that would mean).
I wouldn't say that the latter isn't important. It is. But it's absolutely not the most important thing.

Also look at what the Bible says, if God and his disciples love and forgive all

Do they?
I think they only forgive those who repent.
God would want to forgive everybody and reaches out his hands to everybody. But everybody grabs it.

why do the people who wrote the Bible claim that God hates LGBT individuals?

Why would God re-create a good world and then let evil people enter it who will destroy it again?

Do you want God force people to repent and to love him and to be with him.
Would that be good?

nor homosexual offenders

First of all 'homosexual' is in fact a mistranslation.
The Greek word for homosexual was 'androkoitēs' which was not used by Paul.
He invented a word: 'arsenokoitēs', which literally translates into something like 'male bed sharer'

Christianity has interpreted this in many different ways throughout it's history.
Apparently Paul did not want to talk about 'homosexuals' but about men who slept with men who (perhaps) are not homosexual.

The Greek culture was quite decadent with a lot of male-to-male sex among non-homosexuals.
Cultural homosexuality. (Like there's also been social-homosexuality in the past, where masters dominated their slaves sexually to show their dominance on their property, a form of sexual abuse nobody in modern civilization would accept!)

I'd not be surprised if Paul is deliberately speaking out against cultural-homosexual-orgies, rather then against Homosexuality in general.
There's another phrase in the Bible where Paul condemns men who sleep with men.
But there as well the actual words are more about men who sleep with male-prostitutes. In fact speaking about male-prostitution.

I do not want to say that homosexuality is not a hot topic in the Bible that is difficult to understand compared to modern societies view, it's a lot more nuanced though then simple "God hates gays".
Personally I believe that the Bible is a book that's written by humans within a certain cultural context. We should not lift it out of this cultural context. The message is for all ages. The cultural context may differ.

Same with:

why do those who wrote the Bible also claim God hated women?

Your Bible quote is quite silly (it simply says that women aren't supposed to hurt a man by hurting his testicles) but your question is fair. One could get the idea that women are less important then men in the Bible.

I think that's once again a matter of cultural context.
In Paul's age women were properties of their husbands. Less important. That's the Greek culture.
One could argue (and I do argue) that Paul actually gives more freedom and independance to the women of those days. He says that man and woman are equal for God. (as are slaves and slave-masters), factually saying that man and woman are equal in Christianity. But he also wants to let Christianity be something for everybody, and not just a vehicle for a emancipation movement. Therefore he tells women to stay silent in services, etc. For those days Paul was revolutionary emancipated! He just wanted to prevent the church to become a place where women would show off their emancipation, causing unrest around the rest of the world, making the Gospel of Jesus suddenly a Gospel for women only.

With todays eyes we consider Paul's vision dated and awkward.
But if you keep this cultural context in mind it isn't. For Paul women and men are equal.
In Genesis 2 men and women are created equal as well.
In Genesis 1 humanity is created in God's image, as man and woman.

Genesis 3 says that the curse of the falls has victimized woman. Man will dominate her.
That's not what God wanted, but a result of the stronger (man) dominating the weaker (woman), in a world where humans are gods.
For humans man and woman aren't equal. (fortunately more equal then ever in our day and age). For God they are equal.

Religion was good in the early days of humanity, when people often committed barbaric deeds without remorse (which sadly happens from time to time in the modern world), however now that we have governments that actually work, there is not much need for religious control anymore.

Religious control has never been good.
It's been a shame that it ever happened in the name of Christianity.
It's an abuse of the christian message.
Christianity has never been political, on contrary, Jesus says that his Kingdom is not of this world, for otherwise his disciples would have battled. Yet still people want to make Christianity a cause for politics or war. That's not b/c of Jesus' message but despite his message.

The Bible speaks of seemingly impossible events occurring, which could not have occurred in real life, and many religious ideas have been disproved by science. So is it time that we as people stop believing in fairy tales? Or is religion real?

I am a developer.
I have created databases and pieces of code that prevent that some things happen on my computer.
Yet as the developer I am able to circumnavigate these limits and let anything happen as I want, by creating an agent or a macro, or simply altering the code.

Impossible events can be triggered by the creator of the universe. Why not?
I doubt that it happens a lot though. God create a universe that's perfect in itself and doesn't need 'help' from outside. It's the perfect (and only) perpetuum mobile.
Judaism/christianity was the first religion where creator and creation were seperated. Not the sun was God, but God created the son. In all ancient religions the gods were a part of the world. Even the short-lived monotheism in Egypt was still focusing on worshiping a creature.

Science is all about everything that happens within the creation.
It can't be applied to God.
Biblical stories can often also not be verified by science. Apart from the fact that that's an argumentum ex silentio, it's not that weird either. A lot of Biblical stories are allegories. Not the event is important but the message the author wants to bring across by his (fictional / improved) event.
That's a very normal way to tell a message in the cultural context of the Bible writers.

Is Christianity real?
At least it has had a very huge impact on modern society.
The (former) christian countries are right now the most civilized ones where human rights are observed most. Also by (most) orthodox Christians who live there. It was b/c of the christian separation of church and state and the individual-targeted non-political message that todays human-rights based society could exist.
Humanistic thinkings have only received room to think in christian societies. Not always. Christianity has also been abused and used in political contexts. But after the reformation and a turning back to the teachings of the Bible, Christians found ways again to liberate themselves from religious dogmas.
I'm not claiming that christianity invented the modern society. It gave room to a modern society. And today christianity can adapt to the modern society as it could adapt back then to a society with slaves and sexism. Just b/c it's message is not about culture or politics (despite that many christians think so)

Is the Christian message real?
That's a personal question. Do you believe that you are a sinner who would bring evil to a good re-created world, and therefore could not enter it? Do you want to become a true human again, wanting to be guided by God, who judges on good and evil? Do you want that someone else carries the penalty on your sins? Do you believe that's the only solution?

Then that's one thing.
The other thing is then of course if such a 'solution' actually exists, or only would be very desirable.
To me personally I am sure about the first. I am a sinner and I can't redeem myself. I do doubt from time to time if there's a solution for my problem though. Despite all my rational thinking (as expressed above) it sometimes all feels like a fairy tale. Fortunately only sometimes, not always

**Provost Harrison** · January 5, 2011, 07:42

So I'll take it that's a fake then RP?

**BeBMan** · January 5, 2011, 07:47

Or is religion real?

'Fcourse it's real, if you believe in it is another question.

**MikeH** · January 5, 2011, 07:50

Religion is definitely real, I can see the evidence in the churches and religious people all around me.

Doesn't mean the views, beliefs of any religion are necessarily correct.

**Robert** · January 5, 2011, 07:58

Originally posted by Provost Harrison View Post

So I'll take it that's a fake then RP?

Can I hire you as my personal abbreviator

**Provost Harrison** · January 5, 2011, 08:02

Speak to my boss. My rates are steep I'm afraid

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