Religion

[r.soleofsalford]

It occurs to me that religion is a bit like a library or indeed the internet.
What you get out of it is largely down to you.
And just as some people don't need a library or the internet, some people don't need any form of religion.
I wish I could articulate my real feelings about religion. I don't have the necessary command of words, but I do find certain churches deeply spiritual places. Others are just like an office or a pub. Nothing special.
Ultimately, I believe there is something 'bigger' than us. But I also feel we can no more fully understand it than an ant can understand me.
Religion is capable of being abused because all humans are fallible and a minority are wicked.

Humans beings are gullable fuckers.

 

[Paladin]

Excellent church service this morning, in Brooklands. First Sunday of Advent. Very uplifting.

 

[I'm no cynic but...]

As I said previously, we are nought but a virus.

That's as good a response as we are likely to get here and I think you call it right. All it needs now is for some folk to go back to the early stages of this thread and, to settle some people's minds, look at the origins of religion from the aspect of The Laws of Thermodynamics which we were taught at school and which tells us that energy [another word for matter] can neither be created nor destroyed. In other words, no God, no creation, no ending. All that can be said is there will be an evolution of sorts but we won't be around to know about it.

 

[KS55]

It occurs to me that religion is a bit like a library or indeed the internet.
What you get out of it is largely down to you.
And just as some people don't need a library or the internet, some people don't need any form of religion.
I wish I could articulate my real feelings about religion. I don't have the necessary command of words, but I do find certain churches deeply spiritual places. Others are just like an office or a pub. Nothing special.
Ultimately, I believe there is something 'bigger' than us. But I also feel we can no more fully understand it than an ant can understand me.
Religion is capable of being abused because all humans are fallible and a minority are wicked.

Ants understand you enough to bite you in the bum.

 

[Nascent Blues]

The ultimate manifestation of suspension of disbelief.

 

[BrianW]

Ants understand you enough to bite you in the bum.

Maybe we annoy God* in the same way with our 'religions'.

It's no use going to church (or equivalent) once a week and telling God how you love him and how you worship him if you spend the other six days shitting on your fellow humans.

*God - convenient shorthand for whatever is out there, not necessarily some old guy with a beard.

 

[tonea2003]

wont be long before no religion outstrips being Christian in this country
and i bet a good few who chose Christian aren't really practising in any case

 

[somapop]

It occurs to me that religion is a bit like a library or indeed the internet.
What you get out of it is largely down to you.
And just as some people don't need a library or the internet, some people don't need any form of religion.
I wish I could articulate my real feelings about religion. I don't have the necessary command of words, but I do find certain churches deeply spiritual places. Others are just like an office or a pub. Nothing special.
Ultimately, I believe there is something 'bigger' than us. But I also feel we can no more fully understand it than an ant can understand me.
Religion is capable of being abused because all humans are fallible and a minority are wicked.

Absolutely this.
I was in Norwich cathedral last year and it's absolutely beautiful inside.
Add a choir singing and it can get emotional rather quickly.
Imagine having none of that and all the sublime music out ancestors built around such faith.

And also because of patterns, reputations in the universe it's quite easy to cast an eye towards a grand designer.

But then you try and imagine the scale of the universe (observable never mind other dimensions) and again the scale of the quantum world and I kind of give up.

Experience from atoms, memories made from atoms. Frustrates me sometimes so best to try and surf along with the experience and try not to be a c-unit.

 

[JASR]

wont be long before no religion outstrips being Christian in this country
and i bet a good few who chose Christian aren't really practising in any case

Well, it’s nice to know we’re not a majority Christian country now… sadly we’re still a majority religious country, but slowly getting there…

as pointed out, there must be a hefty proportion of people who put ‘Christian’ when they haven’t done anything religious for years.

census’s are meant to influence policy decisions at local and national level, I do hope that this statistic (and trend) is taken on board

 

[journolud]

Well, it’s nice to know we’re not a majority Christian country now… sadly we’re still a majority religious country, but slowly getting there…

as pointed out, there must be a hefty proportion of people who put ‘Christian’ when they haven’t done anything religious for years.

census’s are meant to influence policy decisions at local and national level, I do hope that this statistic (and trend) is taken on board

The problem is the amount of cunts in the country not the amount of Christians. Sometimes but not always the same thing

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

Am presently reading a remarkable book on Christian Zen by Ruben Habito. Habito is a Jesuit priest who has been formally recognised by two Zen masters as having achieved a profound depth of realization in this essentially atheistic tradition.

Before that it was Elaine Pagels’ autobiography. Pagels is a professor of religion who specialises in the history of early Christianity with special reference to the gnostic gospels. In her personal life Pagels had to endure the almost unimaginable loss of her young son and then her husband in quick succession but eventually found solace in an apocryphal gnostic text called The Gospel of Truth.

And before even that, had the pleasure of reading the octogenarian former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway’s sublime reflections on life and death in one of his books called Waiting for the Last Bus. Holloway comes across as having lost his faith but can’t be sure.

Last of all, the postie has just dropped off a secondhand copy of John Barton’s acclaimed history of the Bible.

Does this mean that I am religious?

Not really. Have never been vouchsafed any kind of spiritual experience and do not self-identify as belonging to any faith.

Is there a God? No idea.

Same when it comes to life after death.

So would probably still describe myself as having no religion.

Religion could be a right load of old bollocks for all I know but as a phenomenon I still find it endlessly fascinating.

 

[MadchesterCity]

Excellent church service this morning, in Brooklands. First Sunday of Advent. Very uplifting.

There was an outdoor service beside my local church on Sunday, it’s one of, if not the only services we attend all year, albeit we stood at bottom of the hill not in the paying crowd. Was really good seeing kids singing and the Christmas tree being lit, the focus wasn’t on pushing religion, rather the enjoyment of the kids which was befitting.

 

[Koniec]

Am presently reading a remarkable book on Christian Zen by Ruben Habito. Habito is a Jesuit priest who has been formally recognised by two Zen masters as having achieved a profound depth of realization in this essentially atheistic tradition.

Before that it was Elaine Pagels’ autobiography. Pagels is a professor of religion who specialises in the history of early Christianity with special reference to the gnostic gospels. In her personal life Pagels had to endure the almost unimaginable loss of her young son and then her husband in quick succession but eventually found solace in an apocryphal gnostic text called The Gospel of Truth.

And before even that, had the pleasure of reading the octogenarian former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway’s sublime reflections on life and death in one of his books called Waiting for the Last Bus. Holloway comes across as having lost his faith but can’t be sure.

Last of all, the postie has just dropped off a secondhand copy of John Barton’s acclaimed history of the Bible.

Does this mean that I am religious?

Not really. Have never been vouchsafed any kind of spiritual experience and do not self-identify as belonging to any faith.

Is there a God? No idea.

Same when it comes to life after death.

So would probably still describe myself as having no religion.

Religion could be a right load of old bollocks for all I know but as a phenomenon I still find it endlessly fascinating.

That Barton book looks interesting, I need something new to get wired into.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

wont be long before no religion outstrips being Christian in this country
and i bet a good few who chose Christian aren't really practising in any case

We’re on the rise!

 

[Blue Mist]

Absolutely this.
I was in Norwich cathedral last year and it's absolutely beautiful inside.
Add a choir singing and it can get emotional rather quickly.
Imagine having none of that and all the sublime music out ancestors built around such faith.

And also because of patterns, reputations in the universe it's quite easy to cast an eye towards a grand designer.

But then you try and imagine the scale of the universe (observable never mind other dimensions) and again the scale of the quantum world and I kind of give up.

Experience from atoms, memories made from atoms. Frustrates me sometimes so best to try and surf along with the experience and try not to be a c-unit.

Somapop. Norwich cathedral cost a fortune to build, all the while the local population was struggling to put bread on the table. I seem to remember something about not building false idols, so why was it OK to build the biggest, most expensive, grandest building simply to 'worship' a god. Wouldn't a wooden hut be as good and then the money could pay for food ?

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Am presently reading a remarkable book on Christian Zen by Ruben Habito. Habito is a Jesuit priest who has been formally recognised by two Zen masters as having achieved a profound depth of realization in this essentially atheistic tradition.

Before that it was Elaine Pagels’ autobiography. Pagels is a professor of religion who specialises in the history of early Christianity with special reference to the gnostic gospels. In her personal life Pagels had to endure the almost unimaginable loss of her young son and then her husband in quick succession but eventually found solace in an apocryphal gnostic text called The Gospel of Truth.

And before even that, had the pleasure of reading the octogenarian former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway’s sublime reflections on life and death in one of his books called Waiting for the Last Bus. Holloway comes across as having lost his faith but can’t be sure.

Last of all, the postie has just dropped off a secondhand copy of John Barton’s acclaimed history of the Bible.

Does this mean that I am religious?

Not really. Have never been vouchsafed any kind of spiritual experience and do not self-identify as belonging to any faith.

Is there a God? No idea.

Same when it comes to life after death.

So would probably still describe myself as having no religion.

Religion could be a right load of old bollocks for all I know but as a phenomenon I still find it endlessly fascinating.

Religion is one of the most interesting topics there is for me and I don’t believe in or follow any of them.

I reckon we’ve been attaching gods to things since we went through our cognitive revolution around 70,000 years ago. Religion and modern homosapiens are intertwined. Peugeot the cave lion god from about 35,000 years ago is as far back as we can go but we’ll have been doing it for tens of thousands of years before that.

But I think it will be a big step forward for our species when we finally leave religion behind.

 

[somapop]

Somapop. Norwich cathedral cost a fortune to build, all the while the local population was struggling to put bread on the table. I seem to remember something about not building false idols, so why was it OK to build the biggest, most expensive, grandest building simply to 'worship' a god. Wouldn't a wooden hut be as good and then the money could pay for food ?

There's absolutely that side to it as well.

 

[dronefromsector7G]

We’re on the rise!

Thank God

;-)

 

[bluethrunthru]

Religion is increasingly irrelevant to more people in the UK. Seems funny because its not about the rise of other religions over Christianity its about people just not having any interest in religion at all ( as witnessed by falling attendances at churches )
What is amusing is the misrepresentation of the census facts that is is some sort of Islamification of the UK ( it isn't) and that it is being pushed by right wing wankers who probably haven't seen the inside of a church since the last family wedding or Christening

 

[I'm no cynic but...]

The C of E are now under pressure to see God as a gender neutral entity and may have to rewrite the Lords Prayer. Father and pronouns nouns such as He and Her will have to go. I can't see the RC church doing likewise, let alone the Jehovas Witnesses and the Happy Clappers in theirs. Islam would be stoning such reformers for even suggesting it. It will be interesting to stand back and watch the fireworks.