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i agree but the question arises, is religion supposed to be an authority that shoves a purpose down the throats of every human being, as seems to be common.
or
is it supposed to be a structure of support and understanding, of experienced people who can help guide the development of the young and lost to find their own purpose?

to say as many assume that religion is supposed to be what it has become is like saying that food is supposed to be spoiled an rotten because if left the way it is that is what it will become. religion is supposed to be vital and living, yet the lesson of Jesus has done little to wake modern Christians up to that fact. Jesus wanted his religion to grow, as is the goal of numerous saints, growth is important attention to the soul growing within us, not strict rigidity and adherence to blind faith and generations of misunderstood good advice. codified symbolic meaning as is contained in books like the bible.
people often want the easy way, they dont want to think that they are responsible for their faults so they blame it on god but they want to take credit for their success, and selfishly use it as currency to buy their way to heaven. they don't want to think that heaven is a symbol of a good life, or that getting to heaven might require more than being a good person. they are not humbled by god nor are they responsible for the circumstances and events in their own lives.

yep

First of all, this type of blanket statement is a mistake.

It is EXTREMELY arguable that religion was created to fill a need.....or that religion was even created at all.

Religion:

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.

(dictionary.com)


Symantic arguements suggest that religion was not created by man, that people just simply believe different things and that it is man's nature to find people of like mind.

Man has a habbit of grouping together by means of similar interests, and so it isn't surprising that people who believe similar things band together and discuss what they believe in.

We call these bands (you guessed it) religions. Man didn't create them necessarily, they are a name we give to the natural process of people gathering together under similar mindsets.



Atheism the higher power is man, but I still dissagree here, religion is still just what we call people who gather together under similar mind sets.

Science is a religion too in some sense, philosophers call it scientism, evolutionISM, creationISM, determinISM.......

Get it? Most of the ISM endings in any sort of profession or discussion tend to be the more religious view points. But religions also require ritualistic practices of some sort, something that makes the people within it hold the same common mindset.

Going to church, meditating, praying toward mecha, acts of good will, resting on saturday....the list goes on an on.

Religion is far less about God then it is about finding people who practice rituals that you want to practice, or say things that speak to you more.



To say that man created God or Religions is a bold statement and I think you better be prepared for the repricussions since 97% of the planet believes that there is a God in some form or another.

Now granted there is no arguement that has been totally successful for the existance of God...but one thing that I find to be successful enough is this:

Imagine a world where no one believed in God. Where man's only purpose was to himself and making himself as good as possible. The world would destroy itself and no one on earth would ever have any hope beyond that they will be happier then anyone else and so life is about selfishness and there is no hope that we are anything more then 75-85 years of worthless living.

6.5 billion hopeless people wandering around with no morality as we know it, and zero purpose or reason to believe we even have a purpose is not my idea of a healthy humanity, and so it doesn't follow that beings created with the ability to think are as high a being as there can possibly be.

there is a strong arguement to say that reality is not constant, that it is not infinite, but that it was at one point or another, created. And if it was then so were we, and if we were created then we are not the greatest beings, we are creations. -shrugs-

In any case, the main point of all this still remains:

Religion was not created by man. Man just gave a name to the natural grouping together of people who hold similar mentalities. To claim that Man created religion for any purpose is silly. The word "religion" is just a word we assign to groups of people to associate and distinguish them from other groups of people. "Christians" "Jews" "Buhdists" "Scientologists" "idiots" (just kidding hehe).

Man didn't create these religions in any more of a sense then they sat around discussing them and refining them so that they could better understand what they all agreed uppon. Man didn't all of a sudden stand up one day and say "TODAY! Man needs a purpose! We need hope! You there! Come up with some idea that will give us some way to keep going and be happy! And you! You come up with another so we can dispute each other and have even MORE purpose!"

What you are claiming is absurd.

I think your view is extremely pessemistic and hopeless and thus proves my point but I digress....onto saying things more clearly.

1. the laws of physics state that the world (the physical world as in as the very base, sub molecular level) is constantly moving toward Chaos, that is a LAW. (The amount of entropy (chaotic energy) in the universe is increasing and will continue to increase until it is at equilibrium - 2nd Law of thermodynamics) So it could very easily be argued that the world being destroyed has literally nothing to do with humanity at all, and even if it does the acts that set it's "destruction" into place are outside of human control. Also this is an extremely pessemistic viewpoint as it could very easily be argued that the world is NOT being destroyed at all. That it is in the best state it has ever been.

2. "People are already destroying the world" and "however, at current I do not believe in a higher power and do not think of my life as worthless" Are contridictory statements. One has to be false and the other true as you cannot both have a world headed toward destruction and your life not being worthless. it's "worth" as a whole is not the same as it's "worth" to the world.



First: to claim religion as the main seperation between animals and humans is absurd. This claim has zero backing and quite literally should not have been said as I highly doubt that you really even believe it. There are so many VAST seperations between animals and humans that to say religion is THE main ONE is rediculous. (please don't take the harsh tone personally, just arguing is all).

Second: Laws came before religion. If you study your history the first set of governmental laws came about in Babalonian society esitmated around 2,500 BC - before the first pages of even the oldest versions of the old testement were even recorded as having been written down. Now it is wrong to assume that religions had not existed but there were hundreds of them and Babalonian society was known for it's cultural ethnicity and invitations for all to enter and so the king ordered a law be written that even he could not break so the society remained in tact. The laws were extremely harsh punishment wise, but none of them were religiously influenced as the king had literally no religion that he followed. His name was Hammurabi....look him up. So your assumptions about how "laws" came about is incorrect, law came before organized religion or religious texts.

Third: I agree that survival of the species would be our main goal, but the funny thing about man is that it seems throughout history that he has a tendency to destroy himself when left without purpose or guidance.

Fourth: It is a long standing theory and very relavent to point out that animals do not have the ability to reason. I don't know where you are making this claim from but their instinct to learn is based off survival, not of reasoning. The difference being that Animals purpose is not moral, it's survival. Man's ability to reason lends him also to the ability to do that which is not best for him in order to promote the greater good. Animals do not have this....animals learn, but they do not reason.

Fifth: It is remarkably broad to say that "all" those who live without a God figurehead in their lives live for here and now, and probably mostly true, but to say they live "just fine" is mostly untrue. I'd cite Neitchze here....most men who reason, reason either that God exists, or go insane because if God doesn't then man is the highest order and thus has nothing to strive for since it cannot get better then the highest.




Your claim that they "set up" their religion this way does not necessarily mean that all of mankind can be duped by it. Notice the uprising of cults....especially cults of this order, I can think of two right off the top of my head...the Manson Family and the Halebop Commet group....How many followers did they have? Manson had six or seven....hale bop had what? 36?

I don't think any philosopher would contend the fact that these people lost their ability to reason through some sort of brainwashing process...Are you suggesting that 97% of humanity has participated in some sort of brainwashing on a mass scale in order to have purpose? If that is the case then why some higher being? Why not something in particular...like a statue, or a even a person? Something tangable that can be talked to and tell us how right or wrong we are....why fool ourselves into believing in something as awespicious as God?

Is it because we WANT there to be something perfect out there? Some creator who is better then us because it would seem morally, that we can't possibly be the best there is?

Maybe I suppose. Though I find that highly contentious.



Well, after having studied Christianity pretty extensively I'd say that if you take their God away then you really would devistate them to the point of suicide.

That being said...what happens if an Atheist has God taken away? Then where is your purpose? What do you do with your time now that you aren't constantly trying to prove Christians wrong?

I think this is a good time to cite Four of the world most reknown thinkers, all claiming Christianity before their death....if the world's smartest men find God after a lifetime of arguing over it.........then it can't be completely incorrect can it?

Newton, Einstein, Charles Darwin, and CS Lewis come to mind as well as many many others.

CS Lewis and Einstein being the most pertinent here as they both were staunch Atheists and converted to the extreme opposite points of view.

One last thing I think desserves special attention:


Would you like to give me some support for this? Because as a former Biology student I have found the evidence supporting the evolution of "reason"......completely absent. We see no record of it at all....all we see is that man has always had it, and that animals never have....I see nowhere in history that supports this claim you have made.

Not only that but Charles Darwin himself refuted his own claims of evolution stating that it was most likely false and that he wished he had never written "The orrigin of the species". I don't want this to turn into an evolution debate, but if you want to claim that reason is an "evolved" ability then show me some point in the history of man....or animals....where man did not have reason and suddenly developed it.....or where animals did the same....did not have reason and suddenly developed it.

There is only one thing I'd like to cite in your statements above, and again I appologize for my tone. It is merely arguing and I am making no personal judgments about you at all. I'm sure you're a wonderful person who does your best to do the right thing. There are problems doing the right thing if there is no God but I'll avoid that for now.



In this case however, a persons intentions are probably more determined then they are "willed". In other words, a person doesn't strive to be godlike because they already are. One cannot be MORE godlike if they have already achieved it, you either are godlike or you are not like a god. It is also a hastey statement in that no one truely knows what it means to be "like" God as he is something that exists outside of the realm of human understanding. In the infinite, not the finite.

However, to remain on point let me restate that a person would not "strive to be more like god or godlike" if they already believed they were those things, in other words they have already reached the apex. They cannot get any higher and thus strive for nothing, accept perhaps to help others realize they are also godlike. And so their own goals are not personally motivated and their own lives are without real purpose. They are as good as they can get, as high as they can get, and so are other humans so there really is nothing else to strive for accept that all humans realize this truth. So in affect their life is a contridiction, gathering meaning only by helping others realize they also are at this apex, but that does not make that one person any better, they are already godlike, and thus this defies motivation for human action.

There is no real reason to help others as there is no bennefit to self. In cases of helping others we do it to illuminate ourselves, to feel better, to do SOMETHING that is benneficial to you. Perhaps you help others reach the top because you don't want to be the only one at the apex alone? I suppose that could be a motivation in some sense.