The least original religion on earth is...

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Magical Realist, May 8, 2013.

  1. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Quite so. I've been trying to get the same point across.
     
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  3. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Coincidentally, the Porche 911 is also 50 years old.
    So, figuratively, the church's views look like this:

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Added later.
    Mmmh..... picture seems to have disappeared.
    It was an expensive shiny old gas guzzler, a bit like the RC church.
    (Insert scurrilous joke here)
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2013
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Right, appealing to the immature, but deadly and impractical.
     
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  7. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    But I like them, and I'm not immature.
    Just imagine driving one . It'd be great.
    Vroom ! Vroom!
     
  8. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    I'm still struggling to understand why Tiassa hasn't been by to denounce this thread.

    I mean, I'm given to understand he's all about not criticizing religions.

    I wish I could follow how this omission juxtaposes with his usual slant.

    Ah well.
     
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    While "fear and awe of the 'unknown" is probably as old as the first hominid capable od abstract thought. But as an organized and written religion I believe that Hinduism may reliably called the oldest formal religion.

    http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_oldest_known_religion_in_the_world
     
  10. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I don't agree that's true. Nor am I convinced that it's important.

    The same thing would be true of every religion on earth, right? And every scientific theory, for that matter. They all take ideas, concepts, methods and practices that were already floating around, and combine them in new and original ways.

    Is that a bad thing? Is any idea ever 100% original?

    Your own beliefs are all derivative too. Your speculations about the universe being a Matrix-style "simulation" are just the ancient speculations about 'higher-planes-of-being', repackaged in modernistic drag. Your decidedly non-physicalist and philosophically idealist ideas about the mind look like a similar repackaging of the transcendent nature of mankind's supposed 'immortal soul'.

    That seems to be the same kind of phenomenon that you criticise Christianity for being. An example of people taking ideas that already exist in their culture, ideas that have some kind of emotional appeal, and then recombining and repackaging them in new forms that seem to be more in keeping with their desires, needs and with the times, whenever those times might be.

    Christianity repackaged Judaism, and then added a big dose of late-Greek speculation to create philosophical theology. Judaism repackaged earlier Semitic religiosity to highlight their own tribal god and their own unique self-appointed role as that god's nation of priests. The religions of the first urbanized empires repackaged many of the older themes of neolithic farming village fertility religions with a new and more legalistic orders-from-a-divine-king model. Islam repackaged Judaism and Christianity, in the name of returning to an earlier-style Semitic prophetism, which they identified as the original God-revealed religion of Adam and Eve. Modernists among the Christians and Jews have been busily repackaging their own traditions in more rationalistic modernized forms for several hundred years now, in large part as a reaction to the successes and cultural prestige of science.

    Things are always changing, in both religion and in all of life, and they never change in a cultural vacuum.
     
  11. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Ahh but then I'm not the one claiming my truths came straight from God himself. Christianity does and has always claimed that. If your going to claim a revelatory source for your doctrines and rituals, then it speaks against that claim if those doctrines and rituals came from other religions.
     
  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    True, but assigning an "intelligent motive" to that which know nothing off is worse that saying, this is what we have observed and from our scientific observation we "know" there is structure to the universe, but there is not the slightest evidence for a "motivated intelligence".

    Why this seemingly unsolvable mystery should therefore be considered true, is in itself a mystery. There seems to be no necessity for an sentient intelligence and according to Ockham's razor, that which is not necessary need not be considered.
     
  13. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Nor do I. For all Christianity copies, Islam is basically plagiarized Christianity, just angrier.

    And I'm sure there are more modern religions that are knowing ripoffs of multiple ancient faiths. Scientology comes to mind.

    Agreed.

    That doesn't address his question, does it? He's asking how it's possible to believe in something so blatantly false, not condemning the concept of building upon previous ideas. It's the difference between a work being inspired by another, and simply ripping another off.

    To your question, however, I would say yes. In this context, believing in something that is so obviously untrue is a bad thing. What does it say about someone who believes in something despite all evidence to the contrary?
     
  14. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    yes, it's so obviously untrue that people all over the globe has believed it for centuries.
    apparently it isn't as obvious as you wish to believe.
     
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, but no one believes the same thing so how can that be any kind of confirmation. In fact religions have gone to war for the very reason that another religion is "blasphemy" or "witchcraft". The original Inquisition was formed not to seek truth, but to forcibly convert people on pain of death.

    Fundamentally, IMO, awareness of "an unseen force" has been known since animals acquired the ability to observe natural phenomena and wonder why.
    All gods started as symbolic representation of natural phenomena, Thor, Zeus, Athena, Zephyrus, Diana, the list goes on. Monotheism came much later. But then we just could not let go of all those beneficial and harmful deities (with all the foibles of humans), we just renamed them angels and demons.
     
  16. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    So?

    Which part is is about the light? The heinous torture and mutilation of the scapegoat, or the countless victims that were slaughtered over the millenia on his behalf?

    There is duality in the composition of the human brain, and compartmentalization of functions. So?

    What is you native language? This is not a coherent sentence in any idiom of English.

    You mean you can make good choices all the time? On what planet?

    You keep repeating that. What it is supposed to mean? That you harbor some kind of anti-Semitic slant? What's your point?

    You do understand that it it's a hodgepodge of superstitious legend, myth and fable, blended with a hodgepodge of historical half-truths, and probably not even committed to its recorded form (the O.T.) until the Babylonian captivity. The "message" is one of horrific violence and naive ideations of human origins and natural history, wouldn't you agree?

    That's absurd. Historical references to Herod and the Roman destruction of the Temple tell you that the earliest documents were written 6 or 7 decades after his birth, if in fact somebody named Jesus was in fact ever actually lived.

    Based on what? Some ax to grind with the Semites? Just considering the atrocitities inflicted upon Jewish people over history by the followers of Jesus, it would appear the opposite is true.

    Also absurd. They clearly elevate a man named Jesus to the status of Son of God. It's as if you have no sense whatsoever of some of the most basic material from a junior high history class.

    Also absurd. They believe they were led by the Patriarchs, through divine intervention into a program they called the Covenant. It was designed to replace Elohim with Yahweh as the Creator-God, who cemented his superiority by commanding them to worship him alone. That, too, is junior high material.

    There's no audible evidence in the historical record. It's pure artifacts. All you have to do is open your eyes and familiarize yourself with even just a few of them. What's so hard about speaking about this with the most basic information at your disposal that you should have received in school? Did you drop out at age 12, or were you locked in a basement?

    It doesn't work that way. People take for granted that you mean what you say, to the extent it's halfway coherent. Beyond that all you're doing is posting gibberish. You leave no option for anyone to take what they want. You've constrained us to address you as a nut case.

    Nothing you've said so far has any bearing on the content of either set of documents. Have you considered propounding something that halfway resembles basic knowledge of the subject?

    You've said that at least a dozen times. So what? Why not just say "people are imperfect" and be done with it?

    You keep saying that too, but presumably you know it's specious. You ought to take your own claims to heart and get off that dark road. Turn on a lamp or a computer screen and read an article on the history of the religions you keep mangling.

    It's the winter solstice, the time of least light in the Northern Hemisphere where the religion took root, so again your statement is absurd.

    You know that's not true, so why keep it up?

    Who's this "we"? Speak for yourself, especially since you have no idea what other people are doing in their churches and synagogues, much less what they've been doing over the last several millennia.

    So far you are anti-knowledge. You are introducing statements that appear to based on some kind of bizarre ignorance of the history of western religions.

    Why would a person who believes in Jesus like to be told that they are worshiping the sun?

    So far you are against common knowledge. It's as if history never happened, no museums and monuments of ancient events exist, no writings, and all the academic progress in interpreting history has vanished - from archaeology to the seminary schools or universities and academia in general - and basic knowledge is your enemy. I wonder what that's all about. Problems in school at a young age?

    That's got to be the worst explanation I've ever heard. If you're trying to explain the origins of early Christian ritual, you are way off base. Obviously early Christians believed in the N.T. accounts of the nativity of Jesus. Common sense says there had to be a day that it took place. It's purely logical that they would pick a day to do their ritual commemorating the event. If you dig just a little bit (maybe a task that exceeds your basic skills) you will find several plausible explanations for choosing the winter solstice. The references to the sun are probably vestigial influences of Mithraism. You seem to have Mithra confused with Jesus. One explanation is that the sun disappears for about three days and re-emerges around the 25th - although that would depend on your latitude and elevation. In any case that's about as close as you can get with the analogy. Otherwise, your statement is meaningless nonsense.

    If we define darkness as willful ignorance of elementary subjects in history, there's many a Jew who would consider your own lamp to be long extinguished. Considering their collective access to science and historical evidence, and their many schools and universities, it appears that the average Jewish person would stump you in any contest with both hands tied behind their back.

    A lot of bigots and murderers throughout history said the same thing. The Holocaust would not have been possible without a perverse version of the same statement taking root in perhaps a million Christians or more. Denial that it constitutes hatred is also a rationale that's consistent with the pathological thinking that accompanies Anti-Semitism.

    I think you've painted yourself into a corner. Why not just try to post something that's at least reasonably accurate factually, rather than this endless rant?
     
  17. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Belief isn't validation. Anyone who cares to study the history of religion will see for themselves that it's all myth. That's why the question raised in the OP is so significant.
     
  18. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    The same people evidently believed the world was flat. How does the promulgation of myth, and the subsequent myth-busting that refutes it, inform us about the connection you are making here?
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    A little musing.

    The concept of god is the least original religious concept. It stems from the earliest survival responses of 'flight', when confused by a play of shadows. (is that shadow a clump of leaves or is it a tiger?). Flight on the assumption of a more powerful adversary. This response is found in almost all species except the insect.

    We like to imagine things; how many sacred likenesses of Jesus or Maria or the Devil or Elvis Presley do we find in potatoes, water stains, clouds in the sky, shadow play, omens?

    I also believe the Brahmanic teachings contain some generically logical parables. Of course, scientific "equations" of potential (latent excellence) came much later.

    I am willing to consider a "holographic universe" or "holomovement"
    http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/holomovement
     
  20. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    When modern humans appear about 6000-10,000 years ago, what appears with them is an active and spontaneous imagination. Active imagination broke the connection the pre-humans had with natural instinct. The prehuman appeared over a million years ago and declined with the start of civilization, as modern humans killed, enslaved and bred them out; selective advantage due to imagination.

    Relative to the early modern human with a strong imagination, picture if a lion while hunting, started to use too much spontaneous imagination. He sees things that are not there, distance are misjudged, or another angry male lions is imagined as being his long lost brother, etc., The bottom line is the DNA based instincts, that evolved over eons, are disrupted due to this new wild card. Instinct is based on long term cause and effect with the environment. Once you add to much non casual imaginary fuzzy, the script is disrupted.

    One pressing need for the new humans, was need a way to separate the imagination, from the DNA instincts; into two realms. Rituals appears to separate the realms of the spirits and ethereal (imagination) from that of this physical world; instincts.

    The next question is what type of image from the imagination would need to be spontaneously generated to override instinctive compulsion? Say you are very hungry and will do almost anything to eat, what type of imaginary image would stop you in your tracks? Or say there is a lion and you want to run, what image behind you will make you charge the lion? It has to be powerful and they gave it a word; God. God may be the least original because it is part of the human psyche; newest area of the human personality firmware.

    One advantage of this new spontaneous imagination, is it was not stuck in reality as it is. It can add new things, not in nature, like farming. It would also generate new inventions at an accelerated rate, until the needs of the civilization appear in a short time. The ancients gave this source of human creation its respect due; learned this is how you get the firmware to work for you, instead of against you. It was not them who know how to build the pyramids but the gods within.

    The second side of the new firmware is connected to imaginary inductions that are regressive, to below natural instinct. For example, the natural instinct of eating is balanced in animals so they are fit and trim. You don't see a herd of obese deer or gazelle. The human imagination can regress this natural set point with spontaneously induced excessive appetite, until the body is no longer in line with natural trim. The ancients saw this and this became the dark side gods which pushed instincts toward the bestial; needs zoo keepers. From this beginning the concepts evolved but each system addresses this newest personality firmware in light of original natural firmware.

    Polytheism changes to monotheism. This reflects a change of perception from observation of the firmware to the CPU from which all firmware will be induced. The Christian concept of the trinity, anticipates the original core becoming a multi processor core. This why humanity has under gone rapid acceleration in terms of using the imagination to improve and extend the natural limits in ways to accelerate humans. Religions are useful since they build upon ancient observations, from a time when natural and imagination were simpler.
     
  21. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    5,902
    I don't like to use the word "plagiarize" for this kind of thing.

    Islam is more of a development of Judaism, I think. To the extent that it recognizes Jesus, it recognizes him as being a Jewish-style prophet. (Ironically, I think that's probably closer to how Jesus thought of himself than subsequent Christian doctrine is.) Of course Mohammed is supposed to be a far greater prophet. (The ultimate and final prophet.)

    Islam inserts the Mohammed revelation into the existing context of basic Jewish mythology. The idea seems to be that God made an initial revelation of true religion to Adam and Eve there in Eden. But Adam and Eve screwed it up. God made a similar revelation of true religion to Noah and his family. But human beings once again screwed it up. That kept happening through a succession of prophets. Jesus is supposed to be another attempt by God to send a prophet in order to get people back to the true and original religion of Adam and Eve, but the Christians immediately went off the rails by claiming that Jesus was God himself. So God said 'screw this' and sent his revelation through Mohammed, who along with the subsequent Islamic tradition, finally got things right.

    The relevance to this thread is that when it comes to Islam, MR's condemnation of lack of originality doesn't seem to work. Islam doesn't claim to be new and totally original. Instead, it purports to be the return of the original, true and God-taught form of monotheism that's existed ever since creation.
     
  22. Balerion Banned Banned

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    It's not definitionally correct, but it serves.

    So is Christianity. That's the point. Islam parrots Christianity in that it is the "last word" of God, the final revelation. Obviously both are developments of Judaism, but Islam specifically gets its mojo from Christian theology.

    A religion doesn't have to claim to be original or new in order to qualify as being a ripoff. Islam stands as its own faith, therefore it can be criticized for being unoriginal.
     

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