Many make you sing 100 year old hymns, even if you have no love of singing. Oh, I am sure you can refuse, But it gets the odd look or two. In fact, most protestant services have not changed the itenery in 200 years. It is always Benediction, talk a little bit, sing, talk a bit more, sing, talk even more, offering plate, then pray. This is even "atheist friendly" places like UU. Can't we shake it up a bit?
Actually, the issue of how to balance stability and novelty in prayers is an old one, which is an issue for believers as well.
But, the stodgy nature of many churches make it feel like a chore to go to. Unless you are a kid and get to meet other kids not in your school you would never meet otherwise in between being bombarded with Bible stuff. It is just not fun.
I think part of that may be due to not knowing the language most of the hymns are written in. If they were translated to English, it might be more enjoyable.
Only during certain, select few times in life will anyone change. And, they will only change if there is something deeply wrong, the current religion is not meeting needs, they get married to a zealot and must compromise, a gun is to their head, or they get tired of the BS and move from agnostic to atheist.
And depending on how committed they are, those might also fail (well, except "get married to a zealot", where their commitment will more likely prevent the marriage in the first place.)
Indeed. And that's why religion scares me because, like any ideal it can be manipulated by the corrupt. Religion is even worse for it though because you are tapping into something spiritual for people, and spirituality is a VERY sensitive and to the heart subject for most people.
On the flip side, what's the alternative? Avoid powerful ideals?
There's danger, but there's also potential for good. (Those usually go together, actually.)
Religion's in my eyes are very horrid in this sense in that its trying to directly control your spirituality and interpretation of it, and if you add in those malevolent cons and "false prophets" you end up in a world of hurt.
On the other hand, can't uncontrolled spirituality (i.e. determined by the person) also lead to similar problems due to people simply making mistakes? It seems the best form would be to have a highly legalistic approach; such approaches, by nature of their inertia, are resistant (though not immune) to both malevolent cons and dangerous mistakes.
Which to me shows that it just seems like its a tradition people uphold only for social peer pressure, really. I never found any comfort from a religion initially in my life as a child, and when I discovered it later if anything I was disturbed by its most basic views. I find an all powerful god that created the universe and all with it, and judges everyone in it (even though HE was the creator who designed us like this, according to said religions) scares and makes me uncomfortable. Not only that it slightly disgusts me in the sense that it feels like a parent who judges their child, not bothering to raise that child and teach them things and just letting them grow up on their own, and then when they are adults who had to survive on the streets they scold them for what they developed into.
What makes you think God doesn't bother to "raise" and influence us? Admittedly, He usually does it on a societal or even global, rather than individual, level, but it's still the same idea.
Also, on another note my daughter sent me this a while back: made me laugh and I think its relevant...
Not sure I see the relevance...[/quote]
Yeah Jarlwolf....
Telling kids stuff like this is scary. Forget the "shadow people", forget the boogie man... want to scare the hell out of a kid? Tell them the story below...
Welcome to this World
Yeah, that is the reason they push for kids. Adults who are rational would have issues with the reality of the above tale unless they had it drilled in at a young age. Listen to it. It is messed up.
To take the points one at a time:
-All people are born sinful: IIRC, this is actually borne out by secular knowledge as well; humans are naturally fairly selfish (especially when dealing with people they do not know personally), and while there is some innate morality, it is primarily cultural factors that civilize us.
-Various forms of transferred guilt: Unfortunately for whoever wrote this video, the Bible itself (most notably Ezekiel) contradicts it. (There are passages that seem to imply there is some sort of transferred guilt, but the contradiction is generally resolved (with significant textual support) that if someone does something wrong, they're held accountable for their ancestors also doing the same thing (but only up to 4 generations), but if they don't imitate the evils of past generations they are not culpable for them.)
-Not seeing God's acceptance of offerings or audibly hearing His voice, etc: This is the current state of things (likely what Deuteronomy 31 means by God "hiding His face", ironically on that first page of the Bible that they show), but is not a permanent situation.
-Not knowing the language of the most important book for knowing God: This is a criticism pretty much unique to Christianity.
-The burden to convert others: This is a feature of many religions (though not mine, at least with regard to gentiles), and perhaps the greatest criticism of them from a non-believer's perspective (from a believer's perspective, teaching the truth is of course good, so the only criticism is if it specifies bad methods to use).
-Heaven: It is not so clear what happens there; while it is plausible (if the last verse of Psalms 115 can be explained away) that there is praise of God due simply to its demographics, there is no indication that this is the full-time project there; it seems more likely to me that it is more a matter of the clear knowledge that you did the right thing and the creator of the universe approves, a sort of beneficial form of the
Total Perspective Vortex.
-Eternity of Heaven: Not clear; there are a few sources in the Bible that say that the dead will eventually be resurrected, and one source that
may indicate future immortality for God's servants; put those together, and you get the idea (though it's unclear whether such is actually the case) that the "forever and ever" state is actually in this universe (or a future physical universe once this one is no longer usable due to heat death or whatever.)
-Pledging your entire life to the service of God: While some streams of various religions believe this (with the type of service depending on the religion), it is not well-supported, and many do not believe it. (The fact that I post here should sort of give that away.)
-Hell: The idea of eternal torture for a large number of people is one of the biggest criticisms of Christianity...but it does seem to be unique to Christianity. (Judaism does have sources that indicate eternal torture, but that's for singular individuals, the sort whose atrocities make the history books. Most people are punished for their sins only temporarily, but rewarded eternally for their good deeds.)
-Serving God out of love rather than fear: This is an ideal, but not mandatory.
-Response to things that seem to indicate otherwise: One should respond to everything with love of God...but if someone doesn't, God understands. (This seems to be one of the main points of the book of Job.) Faith and the belief that God is good are presumably the same situation (although I suspect, admittedly without any source other than my own intuition, that if someone went so far as to respond to their plight by attempting to persuade
others not to believe or not to serve God, God would be somewhat less tolerant).
-Passing it on to descendants: I'm pretty sure this is done with all value systems, be they religious, humanistic (e.g. communism, secular humanism), or evil (e.g. objectivism).
So it's something like (as very rough estimates) 25% outright misrepresentation, 40% things believed by some people as supposedly part of the religion, but not actually supported by the religion, 25% things that aren't actually bad, and 10% legitimate criticisms of one particular religion.
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