Why people want to believe in religion even though it could be wrong?

[wellwisher]

Do we need God to tell us what is right or wrong?
Right or wrong about something is relative,
determined by men for their own interest,
homosexuality, is it right or wrong?
It is subjective, not absolute.

Right and wrong was symbolically the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The problem with law, which separates into right and wrong is it is not always easy to differentiate subjective from objective laws. Objective has a logic to it, while subjective is more about emotional appeal and is not objective since it may not apply to all but will be force upon like it is objective.

For example, stealing is objectively wrong because it creates costs/defensiveness within in all cultures at any time in history. The height of a women's skirt would be subjective knowledge/law of right or wrong, since it changes with time and/or culture. The subjective aspect of knowledge of good and evil is relative, but the objective standard is not.

If I throw a rock and hit your head this is wrong because the cause and effect of physics will result in injury. This will be consistent with all humans, in any culture, at any time in history. This would be law of God. If say a particular word, and it bothers you, this sound/reaction may not apply to all humans, in all cultures at any time in history (gosh darn it). This subjective law of good and evil and is relative. The first is law of god and the second is law of man and can lead to problems not solutions.

As afar as sexuality laws, the primary purpose of sex is procreation at the level of the DNA. Because this prime directive is so important to survival, nature evolved carrots on the string make sure the prime directive is satisfied. The compulsion and pleasure of sex is the lure or a means to an ends and is not the ends by itself. The carrot on the string is subjective. Homosexuality, cannot by definition. lead to procreation. It is stuck at the carrot on string, horse running in circles for the carrot; firmware glitch.

An analogy is eating, which is needed for the fuel and nutrient requirements of the body. Since this is also a prime directive connected to survival and health, there is also a carrot on the string which is the pleasure of eating. This pleasure is designed to assure we eat enough to satisfy the base requirements of the prime directive. If food had no taste or pleasure people would not eat enough. A dog will eat road kill that has been sitting because their carrot is strong assuring their survival.

Relative to eating, some people get stuck at the carrot on the string and eat only for pleasure even beyond the needs of the body. The horse is busy chasing the carrot and is not moving forward to goal; water, in an objective way. The natural firmware; driver, has lost control of the horse due to a firmware glitch. This type of behavior does not follow natural law, but is based on subjective law at the level of the carrot.

Laws that address the carrots on the string, like some foods are clean and other foods are dirty (good and evil foods) are subjective laws of man which change from culture to culture and time to time. The prime directive is objective and will result in predictable cause and effect based on bio-chemistry; obesity/sickness or health.

Laws against gluttony would address the objectivity of the prime directive. To remove subjective law, there would be no food choice laws, other than moderation. Science would agree, if the goal is health.

I remember thinking about ancients laws against eating shell fish. But if you think about it, shell fish in a hot climate without refrigeration can spoil quickly. This carrot would be restricted not due to law of man but objective laws that science could support based on those primitive conditions. This objective law does not apply today if precautions are used. It has become more of a subjective law for today; only used by certain cultures.

In modern times, science and medicine are used to mop up after people. I could eat bad fish and then go to the emergency room to get my stomached pumped without any net impact on health. I can eat to I become 500 pounds and then check into a medical facility for a restricted diet to cheat nature. These modern mops can confuse things. It is not natural to eat rocks but if I have a medical staff on call I can create the illusion this is arbitrary and subjective and not based on objective standards. I go back to natural and mop free and then do the logic analysis to make sure objectivity is not being made into subjective because of prosthesis. God's law is based on no mops.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Saint,

Eating pork is a sin for Muslims, do you agree with that?

yes.

Do u eat pork?

no.

Eating pork is right or wrong? Can u tell me?

It's not ''wrong'' to eat pork, neither is it wrong to eat feathers, pooh, scorpians, or orchids.
But for those with good intelligence, none of these foods are conducive with development of self-realisation.

Muslim, Judaism, Christianity's God, are from the same source, but why different rule?

What's the difference?

Do we need God to tell us what is right or wrong?
I don't think so, because God can also change his rule.

Where does God tell humans in general what is right and wrong?

jan.

 

[Hapsburg]

Religious beliefs, and this is coming from someone who is religious, are just opinions. And like all opinions, they are subjective interpretations of the things we experience. Any of them might be wrong; but the important thing is how you feel, and if what you think matches up with what you've experienced. I don't claim any kind of objectivity here.

 

[Saint]

Religion can support you to kill people who are against this religion, its God can forgive you, so,it is not reliable to depend on religion to know morality

 

[C C]

Why people want to believe in religion even though it could be wrong?

If you go by their own personal accounts, there have been mafia hit-men who still considered themselves Catholic. So often religion is just part of one's cultural identity. Someone like Thomas Jefferson could drop the supernatural part and regard Christianity only as a moral philosophy; others are less able to do that because the momentum of their earlier life is still carrying them. Some believe it is producing the very personalities of the community of people they like and get along with (good Mennonite neighbors, etc) and don't want to jeopardize the way of life that system produces by tampering radically with it. Here's an excerpt from an old Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead) interview:

Question: What's your concept of God if you have one?

Jerry: I was raised a Catholic so it's very hard for me to get out of that way of thinking. Fundamentally I'm a Christian in that I believe that to love your enemy is a good idea somehow. Also, I feel that I'm enclosed within a Christian framework so huge that I don't believe it's possible to escape it, it's so much a part of the western point of view. So I admit it, and I also believe that real christianity is okay. I just don't like the exclusivity clause.

But as far as God goes, I think that there is a higher order of intelligence something along the lines of whatever it is that makes the DNA work. Whatever it is that keeps our bodies functioning and our cells changing, the organizing principle - whatever it is that created all these wonderful life-forms that we're surrounded by in its incredible detail.

There's definitely a huge vast wisdom of some kind at work here. Whether it's personal - whether there's a point of view in there, or whether we're the point of view, I think is up for discussion. I don't believe in a supernatural being.

 

[wellwisher]

Eating pork is right or wrong? Can u tell me?

Pork contains parasites and is one of those meats that need to be cooked through to be safe to eat. Picture in the ancient times, they were not cooking pork steaks over a gas grill with a meat thermometer, but a whole pig in a wood fire pit. There was a good chance some of the pork would be served rare and therefore making people vulnerable to parasites in the pork; there was no FDA oversight. Some of the ancient prophets (wise), saw the cause and effect; people got sick after eating. They could not explain why, but they knew it was not clean to eat; law of God.

In modern times, we know the reason for the cause and effect between pork and sickness. The ancient rule is no longer practical in the modern sense, but has become more of a subjective tradition that connects to the past.

If you think in terms of the times, many of these laws had a practical common sense to them. This is harder to see today since we now has prosthesis and explanation to compensate, and many can't seem to separate past and present. Shellfish were taboo in many ancient mid-east cultures, since there was no refrigeration and shell fish spoils quickly in a hot land of poor hungry people; disaster waiting to happen. A law would make in unclean.

I often assume atheism is a religion, since the above should be part of science common sense, but it seems to escape the atheists who just assume this was all arbitrary and based on superstition.