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Pastimes : THE SLIGHTLY MODERATED BOXING RING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (7616)	4/8/2002 11:17:21 AM
From: J. C. Dithers	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 21057

From religion we get morals, traditions, mythology, institutions, and a world view. This illustrates our failure to communicate. I think that the most important thing we get from religion, many, many more times important that the items you list ... is an explanation of the nature of Homo sapiens. Religion tells us that humans are the creation of God, endowed with a soul independent of the body, and created for a divine purpose. Religion tells us who we are, what we are, and why we are. To be "religious" means first and foremost that you submit your ego to the existence of God. You don't have to go to church to be religious; you don't have to belong to any religious institution; you don't have to subscribe to any set of dogma or religious tenets. You just have to believe in God. The defining characteristic of the religious is their belief in God, not their membership in a particular religion. Being an atheist does not mean that you do not go to church. It does not mean that you don't belong to a religious institution. It means that you do not believe in God. (As to "secular humanism," I leave it open as to whether that equates wholly with atheism). People who do believe in God often become members of a religious institution. They often attend a church. I think you might be surprised at how often such people are woefully ignorant of the dogma of their own church, or how often they employ a menu technique as to which of its tenets they believe or obey (to the extent that they even know the tenets). "Church", for many believers, is simply a particular place that they feel comfortable going to, so that they can commune with their God in the company of other believers. Discussions that occur here quickly devolve into arguments over particular sets of religious beliefs, as promulgated by particular religious institutions. This obscures the true and essential meaning of being a religious person. A religious person believes they were created for a purpose, which is to serve their God. Through eons of thought by philosophers and religionists, and from claimed revelations, there exists a body of wisdom as to what God expects of us; wisdom as to what is right and what is moral (e.g., the ten commandments). In the end, a believer in God has the free will to act upon their own innate conception of how they should serve God. Belief in God creates its own credo as to the nature of humankind and the ultimate source of moral authority. When the existence of God is denied, a vacuum is created which must be filled with an countervailing credo. Of course, it is always possible to simply choose not to think about the subject at all. (I cannot guess at which items in my crude credo for non-believers you find agreement with, but I thank you for taking the time to consider it. My thought was that any person who does not believe in God would have to subscribe to all of these tenets to be intellectually consistent. I see nothing pejorative in any of them, but they are open to counter-argument, just as are religious beliefs). JC