I can understand how people can have religious beliefs in gods, a God, or spiritual forces but why is it that there is organized religion. How can a group of people get together and claim that they know what god wants and how he wants to be worshipped. I mean it makes no sense at all for people to think that they know what god thinks. So all of you people that are part of an organized religion whether it be Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism could you give your explanation of why you think your take on god is the correct one?

i am not religious!!i h8 religion! the answer for your question on why poeple think that they can interperate the words of god is...AROGANCE!! their is no other answer. its just like al these muslims sayin gods al powerful and we can never be at his lebvel of power...etc...yet they think they can interperate what he thinks. for example kill the west!!!i mean the islamic, jewish and christean god are the same !!!!!

I'm an emphatic opponent of organized religion, but I do understand its appeal.

For the leaders, it's a matter of power and importance. Having a hundred people take your word as gospel, following your directions and believing your interpretation of scripture... I'd imagine that would feel pretty nice.

And for the individuals, religion is reassurance and a sense of community. Just like we come to this message board to discuss and to learn and to find people who share our views, others attend a church/synagogue/temple. Most people want to be told that they're living their life properly, or at least what way would be the proper way. What could feel better than being told that you're doing what's right, that you're the all-important servant of God?

Sometimes, of course, there really are people who take part in or even lead organized religion who genuinely believe they're in the right, too. It's hard to fault a person for that, regardless of how dumb or bigoted he comes across.

There are the tithe of the believers, 1/10, maybe 1/100 Salomon wrote "I saw the sons of men, I found one out of a thousand".

Any religion is the predilection ground for those few initiates that took the path, followed it, digested it, and finally realized they are neither better nor worse than their brethren from other races/faiths. Those taste the milk and honey of religion, the others well, it's their problem: they childishly cleave to jealousy, possessivity, competition, lust for honour, hatred, blind bliss, etc...

One out of a thousand, and that is worth the whole game. Anyway if not for religion, people would be brainwashed by other vicious means, so at least religion had some fruity output: the continued lineage of real adepts that sustain human psyche and are a pillar to the world.

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Topic: Why organized religious beliefs?



Because people have to be told what to believe. They usually can't figure it out for themselves, so what organization better than the Church to make their collective minds up for them?

There is a system better than the church to tell people how to think about the spiritual, while it doesn't even start to understand it: the scientific/fanatic system...

True science doesn't pretend proving or disproving what simply escapes its investigation. Else is spam, and fanatical scientism does spam a lot because it cannot accept modesty facing the unknown: it has got the rage of defining, including what cannot be clearly defined.

that's sickness, why participate to its contagion?

Reasoned or unreasoned, that is the question. Unreasonable are the fanatics, wether religious or pseudo-scientific. Science has got the honesty of saying "we don't know about this and that", while sickoes pretend knowing about just everything, including if there is or not, a creator.

[This message has been edited by UrbnTbone (edited 07-20-2003).]

I saw this great episode of dilbert yesterday that really made a lot of sense. Dilbert, Allice, and Wally find an empty cubicle but in order to keep it for storing stuff they invent a fictional co-worker whose cubicle it is and name him Todd. They tell people he's a great worker who no one ever disliked. Soon Todd is named project manager and they become sick of doing his work so they take a really bad product idea from years ago and say Todd wants to produce it. Of course coming from Todd it is accepted and produced, it ends up selling great because it becomes part of a stupid youth fad. Anyway they eventually get arrested for killing Todd but as they're at the police station Wally calls pretending to be Todd say he's going away to do work for the government, the cop questions whether he is really Todd and Wally's response is, "Is the word of Todd not good enough for you?" After this Dogbert explains to Wally how people want to believe in Todd so when someone says something came from Todd or is Todd's word people are likely to believe it. Then there's a big going away party for Todd at the office where all these rumors about Todd are flying around. I thought it was a pretty damn piece of TV. Now if only all TV could at least have some intelligence and wit even if the message isn't something I agree with instead of retarded reality TV and people like Pat Robertson telling people to pray that supreme court justices become ill enough to have to retire.