What good is religion?

Yes I agree that you are perfect.

Some "religions" don't actually have God at all.
Some have even claimed atheist to be a "religion".

Just because scientists can't prove or disprove something
does not really have anything to do with a "need" for "religion".

I don't see any need for religion anymore. It encourages division.
We have enough of that already.

 

So, in my addressing, directly, the material that gabmux quoted-- presumably on his thread's topic-- I heartily endorsed it, and said that I believed it applied to his own viewpoint, expressed in this thread. And, in answer to the question

-- the Gabmux 8-ball says:

"Not a chance."

 

It does because while science does not have the answer for how all this came to be, religion does. The claim to that alone substantiates religion. If there is only a divine hand in the creation of life then we must think that their is a divine hand in the afterlife. It most definitely lays claim to religion.

 

I'm confident that scientists aren't losing sleep over it.

 

As they shouldn’t. Why should they? I don’t think anyone should stop trying to prove or disprove theories. But if science ever created life from nothing it would destroy religion, literally destroy it, until then it won’t happen and will always be around.

 

Yes there are many good scriptures and texts from which to gain information
other than science. But reading such books and gaining their insight
does not require any "religion" what-so-ever. I can be a Muslim and
and still find useful wisdom in the Bible or Buddhist text.

Humans created "religions". God did not create them.
God and religions are not inseparable.
Religion is a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements;[1] however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.
There are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide.[10] About 84% of the world's population is affiliated with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or some form of folk religion.[11] The religiously unaffiliated demographic includes those who do not identify with any particular religion, atheists, and agnostics. While the religiously unaffiliated have grown globally, many of the religiously unaffiliated still have various religious beliefs.

 

But there is nothing to destroy..."religion" is just a word like any other....
that humans created to describe some thoughts in their head.

"You acquire food and other goods with something called “money,” which is represented by pieces of paper and metal and even by electromagnetic waves flowing through the air, and which is also completely made up. You actively and willingly participate in this made-up world every day. It is real to you. It’s as real as your own name, which, by the way, was also made up by people."
"Humans are the only animals on this planet who can simply make things up, agree on them as a group, and they become real."

 

A number of facts confirm it.

But a woman also confirmed it. But more, hundreds of humans have confirmed it.

Real fact.
Mom woke up to tell Dad her brother just appeared to her and he was shot to death in South Korea. He told her he was fine. She says he died in a Rice paddy.
Dad tried to calm her down. This was not new for her, Mom reported this when others had died earlier.
Finally we got the letter from the Defense department Gene was missing.
Gene was combat schooled in WW2. Months later Grandma was told by the defense department they sent his body back to the SF Bay area where he was buried.

 

I want to give you a message. Why bother? You are willing to die and to never live in any form. You choose your own future. So long as you believe in final death that is your future, a final death.

 

Seems you give yourself a free pass

Its inherent to human nature

Then why are you proselytizing?

Yeh just look at all the division you are causing proselytizing and preaching theories contrary to human nature

You have been given several reasons, why are you summarily pretending they never existed

 

That’s not what many believe

 

Because there is no justification for this thread, literally. I asked what made gabmux feel qualified to render judgement on religion for all people, or for any but his own purposes. This was his non-response:

OK, gabmux, I'll do the math for you, since it's apparently too difficult. If this thread is about, "whether or not religion has any legitimate purpose"-- and I think most would agree that's this is quite a cleanup, of your OP's much less neutral, academic-sounding posit-- how can the, "debate," be judged? It's not like we can look up, or find, ourselves, a logical answer to that question. So if you say no, it doesn't, but another poster says that, to him or her, it does, what is there to debate? Isn't the opinion of the non-gabmux member, just as legitimate as your own?

You could buttress your case, by demonstrating that there is anything that makes you more qualified, in proclaiming religion's worthlessness, than any other member who is a proponent of religion; but you would not answer me that, because the authoritativeness of your opinion isn't, "anything regarding the topic." Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but it's not like you have offered anything regarding the topic, other than your opinion. But I have also offered my opinion, & yet you deem that of no value, just like religion. It is therefore a logical conclusion, that you believe your opinion is much more relevant than mine, but you won't share with us, why that would be the case.

Though I know I'm already past your word-limit, yet someone might be finding my argument interesting-- though I'm sure that you can inform me, as a fact, that no one ever will-- so I will give this analogy, nonetheless. For many topics, one's backround, accomplishments, measures of expertise relevant to that topic, are really not a factor. But, if one is writing an opinion letter on a somewhat esoteric topic-- CERN's particle-collider, for instance, or anything about nuclear physics, or a treatise on time-travel (if the author hoped to have it be taken seriously), or some deep look into international politics, or the future of stem-cell research, you get the idea-- a prestigious newspaper might not even print it, if the writer did not have the bona fides to back it up. And when someone with applicable credentials, does have their op-ed published, the newspaper will list them, because it is assumed that this will aid readers in gauging how much stock to place in opinions of things that are beyond their own sphere of competence. Is it really expecting too much, to ask what you believe validates it being your proper place, to be making such a weighty pronouncement as that all religion is useless (I mean, so that we don't just regard you as a crank)? Obviously, you feel that this decision is beyond the scope of individuals to decide for themselves, or there would be no need for this thread, whatsoever.

Further, it's not like you have been offering practical advice to seekers, or for or society, on the whole. You are merely telling us that you, Gabmux the First, has decided that this thing which millions, if not billions, of people make the central beam of support in their lives' purpose, is not just superfluous, but injurious to the human race, and so should, by all, be discarded.

Did I misread your intent?

 

But I said nothing about..."a final death"....
nor did I speak of..."future".

Both of those ideas are man-made illusions.

 

Yes! Great observation!
"Proselytism is the act or fact of religious conversion, and it also includes actions which invite such conversion."
But I'm actually doing the opposite of that...am trying to UN-convert from "religion".

 

Your illusion of "several reasons"...
1) Religion is "popular".
2) It's "been around a long time".
3) And now the one below....

All of those so called "reasons" apply equally to tobacco, alcohol/drugs, any addiction.

 

I think you may have "misread" your whole purpose...

Other than that....I can't find anything in the rest of your post
that shows any "need" for religion.

 

Do you think truth is defined by the number of people who believe something?

 

Do you think truth is defined by the number of people who believe something?

 

Lol...and yet...you are still here.
"Despite the involvement of a number of psychosocial factors, a biological process—one that is induced by repeated exposure to an addictive stimulus—is the core pathology that drives the development and maintenance of an addiction, according to the "brain disease model" of addiction."

 

"Humans are the only animals on this planet who can simply make things up, agree on them as a group, and they become real."

 

Go ahead and abandon God. That is an excellent way for you to be abandoned. Just mulling over your fight against the Creator.

 

No, if that were true, I would be going nuts over this climate change BS.
They are either real or not. I happen to side with GOD being real. If you have family, consider this. Either you perish without them or you live with them in your future forever.

 

So now you expose your own con-game. You are acting like it is possible to start from the assumption that religion is unnecessary, despite all appearances to the contrary-- and there is a wealth of psychological research, if you cared to trouble yourself, underscoring the anti-anxiety benefits, and increased peace of mind, found among those of faith-- thereby putting the onus of proof, not on the thread-creator, advocating something radical, but on anyone who wishes to contradict your, "given."

Nice work, if you can get it.

 

I think that secular law has more in common with the divine than what is admitted or said, which is inherent in our laws by virtue of religious and conscionable men and women over the centuries. Beyond that, my religion teaches me that I have a Father in heaven, to whom I am accountable beyond the reach of mans laws, when no one is looking and none the wiser. Is to comport ones behavior to trust and uprightness, not a good thing? Or the concept of us all springing from one God, not a bridge to Brotherhood? Religion is more the ties that bind civilization than what evil can undo or divine authority long deny, imo.

 

I am just memorializing, for the record, your acknowledgement that you cannot prove your case, so must take it as a given that the lack of an intrinsic, human need for religion is already a known fact, which you are requiring to be disproved, in defiance of the standard way that putting forth an argument is expected to proceed.

And LOL-- you keep quoting me, and talking about me, despite making a big show of telling me to leave &, "go start my own thread."

Hypocrites gonna be hypocritical.