Thread: What is wrong Western Religion?

Specifically talking about religion with roots in Judaism, Egypt, Greece, Babylon and all those big ancient societies that make up the roots of Western Culture, as well as Christianity, Islam, Judaism and all modern derivitives.

First of all I'd like tot state that just because one may revoke their religion and join a different following or none at all, their upbringing and culture are still completely tied to their society's belief system and though traditions can change you can't really start new, only build on what's already in place. People that are completely removed from their original culture begin again on the bottom floor of the new culture, as the criminals and homeless. Along with their culture, they lose ethics and pride. My source? Immigrants, aboriginals in australia, slave societies, etc...

So here are some generalized differences between Western and Eastern Philosophy:

- WS claims God is a separate entity that created life, ES claims God is just the conscious accumulation of all life

- WS claims God is loving though life sucks and he keeps making terrible things happen, not to mention according to different spiritual leaders he is utterly prejudice, ES claims we put ourselves through suffering through our own actions because we create the universe as we exist in it and everything done to the outside is done to the inside.

Okay I'm going to jump to my point. God did not make everything, the Father that Christ referred to is known in code as "saklas" by some ancient gnostic texts and you should look him up. Most creations have some sort of King appointed, like a leader in charge of keeping order. Of course this King is just another little drop of awareness in a vast pool that, with Western Religion, I suppose you would have to call the Holy Ghost.

So this rule Saklas has had over the world has been... pretty crappy. At some point we get the snake, which symbolizes dishonesty between people, I believe. People began to deceive each other and without being able to just be completely honest with each other we lost our ability at telepathy. Jesus Christ comes along and does nothing more but bare himself earnestly like all human beings used to be able to do. For being honest, we was tortured and killed, serving as an example of what happens when people try to return to the ancient times of harmony and love.

This harmony and love IS the garden of Eden. I don't know exactly how to put this, but honesty does not mean telling everybody your judgments, it means allowing the world to exist earnestly and unconditionally. It means facing what is naturally there, to stop lying to yourself. Don't be afraid of your thoughts even if they create doubt in your mind, because trying to convince yourself the world is what you think it is will not make you any happier. What is worrying but an attempt for someone to convince themselves their future is going to turn out alright?

Until we just learn to drop this necessity to be right we won't be able to switch from a competitive mode to a cooperative mode. It's this competitive mode that creates a nebulus of ideas, creation and beauty but there comes a period when it's time to switch over and instead of fighting for our own ideas like our lives depended on it, harmonize ourselves with society and love each other. You could say not everyone deserves love, a very LeVayist attitude, but I believe everybody does. The thing is, real unconditional love implies absolutely nothing, that's what makes it unconditional. It implies no matter what we have to do to each other whether we have to kill or punish each other to do what we determine is best, we still treat people like ourselves.

The greatest thing is, now with all this technology we can sync up on a Global Level, and we can do everything from harnessing huge amounts of energy to exploring space and getting in space battles with aliens and all that cool shit. People have to let go of themselves though. Every human being has necessities, but why do almost any that have the opportunity to just save up fortunes that could feed the whole world several times over and then they waste it on bullshit.

So in conclusion, right now most of us have wetsern roots that are on this forum, but are apart of the counter-culture: we are atheists, agnostics, or have chosen to look at Eastern or other ancient philosophies.

Here's my question, why does it have to be one or the other? What is with everybody antagonizing each other when we have so many hundreds of pairs of eyes and interested minds we could be using to learn more about our natural world? It seems like so many people listen to others just long enough to figure out what category to put them in, and then respond in talking points from their pastor or whatever source they trust. Even those that refer to their own opinions barely every try to build each other's ideas, just tear them down. Critiquing in good and all but nobody is going to drop all their old opinions and start new so maybe instead of just making people feel upset or ashamed with our criticisms, we could help construct their ideas by adding our own experiences and evidence. Just because you reject the image of divine consciousness delivered to you in your upbringing does not mean you can stop looking once you create logical concept of the universe without it because like it or not you still apply the same cultural teachings that contain a divine consciousness, subliminally.

That why I use terms like atheist clergy, to denote the similarities atheists have to Christians. Even if they've altered the beliefs, they were still raised by a Christian society and will neve be nothing more than a sect of Christianity. It's evolution, if a creature from the weasel family evolves to become a skunk, it does not mean he's no longer a weasel, he just found a new, better way to be a weasel.

Just some of my crazy thoughts.

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

That why I use terms like atheist clergy, to denote the similarities atheists have to Christians. Even if they've altered the beliefs, they were still raised by a Christian society and will neve be nothing more than a sect of Christianity. It's evolution, if a creature from the weasel family evolves to become a skunk, it does not mean he's no longer a weasel, he just found a new, better way to be a weasel.

No. A skunk is not a weasel. Society isn't Christian, it's secular and driven by secular morals. You're a collectivist, go to China.

The rest of your thread was actually a pretty good read.

I don't understand how this is collectivism. This is individuality to its finest because people allow others to be individuals as well. Even if they show slower progress in their intellectual development, I think it's better to build on their foundation with new information and points of view instead of just looking at their argument for holes. I think the latter is actually self-justification, like an attempt to prove one's one ideas to themselves and testing them against other people. I don't see why people are so attached to their ideas like that.

First of all accept that as crazy as some ideas are, what's true in our minds might as well be true because at the end of the day as much controlled, objective and natural evidence as we may acquire, we can't get out of this subjective viewpoint. That's why we have Science, because we can't excape our own perspectives and how is society ever going to progress if it's just one perspective vs another? We needed a system that doesn't allow subjective influence so that no one can say, "That's just your opinion." I'll admit to falling back to that claim very often on this forum because I believe it's true, opinions and science are two different things, science doesn't have an opinion, only results. Eastern and Western religion and Philosophy do not oppose Science, science emerged from these philosophies. It's the traditionalists, those clinging to things they thought were true and don't want to accept may not be, that oppose Science.

People jump to conclusions by studying evidence but scientific evidence does not represent knowledge, just information. When you make the jump from having information and knowing something, it's like if that thing is then later proven false you lose something.

It's like now if God is proven to exist, you're wrong and all those fucking retards that believe the most ridiculous shit get to yell at your face as well as promote they're incredibly prejudice ideas, assuming they're now justified because all those damned atheists were wrong.

So I guess I believe you're right, a skunk is not a weasel, it only came from a muselid(?) and then became a skunk. However, perhaps if it understood where it came from better, it would understand where it is now.

Religion is not the only part of Western Society, but it is certainly not secular in its roots. I would like you to define secular anyway, if you don't mind, because I kind of see it as having an unbiased position on esoteric matters. The thing is, all early societies that we originally came from were not secular. When democracy arrived, we separated Church and Government as a change to our original system, but we did not remove religion. They could now only influence the people that chose to be influenced, that's all. People were allowed to freely live the lifestyles they chose.

And then what happened? They started hating on each other for picking different lifestyles, and if someone with the antique belief system wandered in, they would all join together and hate on that person. I understand that back when religion and government were tied, people of different beliefs had it pretty bad. You could even say Christianity deserves to be bashed a little bit, what with the Crusades, Inquisition, Mary Queen of Scots, Conquistadors, The Witch Trials, Manifest Destiny, The KKK, etc. It's bad... it's really bad. The thing is, we're really only holding a grudge against an idea, and like V said, ideas are bulletproof. No matter how much we hate on Christians, Christianity will still be bullet proof and all we succeed in doing is making the Christian feel down, or pissed off, and mostly likely more attached to their beliefs. With attachment to beliefs comes value, and the more value, the more it hurts if we accept these beliefs are wrong. I say fuck beliefs, even ones based on pure scientific evidence because the wonder of science is new things can be discovered at any time. It is not locked into true and false.

The trick to my life, I guess, is that I don't think my imagination is any less real than the world, it's simply more real on a personal level and less on a collective level.

Sorry but being black in white society doesn't make you white.

Yeah, exactly, and you were raised white then decided one day you were black. No, you still have the foundation of a Christian belief system, you've simply editted a few parts to make the concept more logical.

So, in being a Western atheist, how am I like a Christian?

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

That why I use terms like atheist clergy, to denote the similarities atheists have to Christians. Even if they've altered the beliefs, they were still raised by a Christian society and will neve be nothing more than a sect of Christianity. It's evolution, if a creature from the weasel family evolves to become a skunk, it does not mean he's no longer a weasel, he just found a new, better way to be a weasel.

Bravo! Nothing changes except that "Converted" Atheists trade the "I believe" for "I don't believe" rhetoric while their behavior, MO, mentality, morality and everything else that comes with it remains status quo. I find them to be just another off-shoot of Christianity. If you want to see proof of this, wander thru any Atheist blog and you'll quickly see what I mean. You can only see true Atheism in someone who has been raised from birth in a totally secular environment, anything else is pure pseudo-atheism and hypocrisy.