Religions > Atheism > When I realized these 10 simple truths about God and religion, the yoke fell off and I was free forever
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Carl Sagans billions" |
| Date: |
01 Sep 2007 12:13:44 AM |
| Object: |
When I realized these 10 simple truths about God and religion, the yoke fell off and I was free forever |
10 Simple Truths:
1. All religions and gods are 'man' made. Made and made up
by humans. Not necessarily to deceive but as a result
of new ideas and concepts that evolved and were
accepted as the (new) truth, the (new) philosophy of life,
the (new) gospel, or the (new) 'true' religion.
2. The Christian concept and definition of a 'soul' is untenable.
Why? Evolution is a fact but nowhere in the long line of evolution
was the 'soul' (or something like the soul that makes us immortal)
suddenly inserted in a certain species at a discrete point in time.
If I assume that the soul was suddenly inserted in a living
being, e.g. 1 million years ago, we must then argue that his
or her father and mother did not have a soul. We cannot.
This means:
All living beings have a soul or no living beings have a soul. As I
don't believe a worm has a soul, I must conclude that the concept
of a soul in each human being can only be a manmade construct.
A manmade construct because we have a need to believe that
we (or at least our 'spirit' or our 'soul') will exist forever.
We fear death, we fear being gone forever.
We want to deny death, we need to believe we are immortal.
We have a need to fabricate a reason for our existence.
3. There is no heaven and hell. All religions are manmade, and
the concepts of heaven and hell are manmade. They were created
when social groups evolved culturally: To keep individual behavior in
line and within boundaries - to be beneficial to the group or to
its leaders. Heaven was a carrot, hell was the stick.
4. The Christian dogma of sin, with human beings having free choice
to obey or disobey, is untenable, as 'sin', killing, fighting, etc.,
already existed millions of years before human beings
came about.
That means in the long line of evolution there was never a discrete
point where the 'first' human being suddenly had free choice to obey
or disobey. That also means the dogma of Christ's death at the cross
to atone for our sins is untenable. Human beings evolved and never
(suddenly) had free choice to obey or dis-obey (=sin).
The manmade Christian God sacrificed his son to atone for all
sins forever for all times. That brilliant idea arose from much older
pagan religions that had human sacrifices at their core. The ultimate
sacrifice for redemption was to offer your own son, as in the
Abraham-Isaac story. That's why man came up with the idea that
Christ - the Son - was sacrificed by the Father and died for all
mankind.
As homo sapiens evolved over millions of years, there was
never an Adam and Eve 6000 years ago. That means Eve disobeying
God and eating from the fruit never happened. That means the 'fall'
in the garden of Eden never happened. That also means a 'fall' e.g.
a million years earlier never happened. That means the philosophy
of Christ having to die for our original sin, for us disobeying God,
has no basis in fact. Our ancestors millions of years ago did
not have the brains nor the choice to obey or disobey.
5. The Christian concept that you can only be saved by accepting
Christ as your savior is untenable. As over 4.5 billion on earth are
not Christians and don't even know about Jesus Christ,
it is illogical to assume that God automatically condemns
4.5 billion out of 6.5 billion to hell = eternal suffering.
In addition, there are over 200 billion stars in our galaxy,
with a total of 100-200 billion galaxies in the universe, containing
billions and billions of inhabited planets. It is illogical to assume
that God sacrificed his son on billions of planets.
6. All religions are manmade, which explains the huge variety of
religions. Any evolving human society develops beliefs about life and
death, which then often morph into absolute beliefs and then
finally into structured beliefs = religion. That's why there are so
many religions, so many spin-offs of existing religions, and why so
many new spin-offs and denominations are created all the time,
all over the world. There are always new thinkers with new ideas,
who strongly reject the old ideas.
7. All religions and their spin-offs are manmade, and the concept of
'God' including the 'God' of Christianity, Islam and Judaism is man
made.
As nowhere in the material world we see physical acts/actions by
a 'God' on matter, there is no reason to assume that an 'immaterial'
God like the Christian God (who controls, guards, acts on matter
= interferes in our world) exists.
8. So we have to face the fact, with courage and logic, and conclude
that: GOD IS ABSENT, DEAD OR DOES NOT EXIST.
As I find it illogical that if an all powerful God existed, he would
decide to disappear from our material world = universe into some
other universe, or even die, i.e., disappear from all possible
universes, there is only one conclusion left:
There is no God applying material forces on or into our physical
environment.
That means all physical and chemical occurrences
can be explained (sooner or later) without having to introduce a
supernatural and 'immaterial' being capable of and actively
acting on matter. Therefore the conclusion is that (the Christian)
God does not exist.
You can only exist if you are matter or tied to matter.
You only exist if you can act upon matter. When tied to matter, it
can be observed, measured, etc., and thus be proven to exist.
Example:
In the tsunami near Sumatra up to 100,000 innocent children
were killed in just one hour.
'God' did not do it.
'Satan' did not do it.
Humans did not do it.
The earth core is cooling, forcing huge plates to move,
which occasionally rupture or fracture into earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions, etc., which then can cause terrible
natural catastrophes such as this tsunami.
Nowhere did or does the 'hand of God' act anywhere.
9. The mystery of matter and the most crucial question and
profound mystery of all
--- 'WHY WE (made of matter) EXIST' ----
does not mean we have to assume an all powerful being like the
Christian God who creates, controls, acts on matter,
and rules and monitors everything.
In the last 1000 years more and more mysteries have been explained.
In the coming thousands of years many more mysteries will be
resolved. That means religious beliefs get pushed back more and
more, away from the current simple absolute religious 'truths'
and beliefs as described in 'holy' books. Religions consist of a
mixture of man made philosophies, myths, theories,
taboos, legends, laws, remnants of pagan religions, etc.,
explanations from hundreds of years or even much longer ago,
and are being pushed back or voided by science and much
more rational explanations.
That also means a religion such as Christianity can only survive if
it develops a much better explanation and rationale for the mystery
of matter and life, and for our existence. However Christianity cannot
're-engineer' itself. It cannot offer a science-based explanation of
life, or even reform itself into a more rational philosophy of life.
So it will remain an anti-scientific belief system based on fixed
explanations for life and death, made by men and women
who lived hundreds and even thousands of years ago.
The contradiction between what we learn from science and the
fixed explanations from hundreds and thousands of years ago
will grow. Christianity and other similar religions likely will
slowly disappear. The psychological human need for spirituality
will not disappear, but the dogmas and beliefs of religions such
as Christianity, Islam and Judaism will become less and less
acceptable to more and more people.
10. The core issue is a direct conflict between:
o the religious/emotional/non-scientific approach or persona and
o the scientific/rational approach or persona
Spirituality will stay in various forms, but dogmatic religions based
on ancient beliefs will slowly disappear or remain with smaller
and smaller groups of the uneducated or un-enlightened
or the desperate or the frightened or the indoctrinated.
There may be long religious revivals and reactions but
on longer terms science and associated education
will (albeit slowly) void ancient belief systems.
However, religions can very well hang on for a long long time,
even while becoming unsatisfactory to many people, e.g. if
and when there are no other enticing spiritual/social frameworks
as substitutes or replacements. For scientists that could well be
science and the wonders and beauty of the physical universe.
But the masses are poorly educated and never get enthralled
in or by science or scientific exploration and thought.
This basic conflict is also why so many religions, including
Christianity and Islam, in their core are so anti-science. They can
never embrace a much more rational belief system that so clearly
exposes the fallacies in their inherited belief system.
Michael M. Terra
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| User: "jacob navia" |
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| Title: Re: When I realized these 10 simple truths about God and religion,the yoke fell off and I was free forever |
01 Sep 2007 07:49:42 AM |
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Carl Sagan's billions wrote:
[snip]
2. The Christian concept and definition of a 'soul' is untenable.
Why? Evolution is a fact but nowhere in the long line of evolution
was the 'soul' (or something like the soul that makes us immortal)
suddenly inserted in a certain species at a discrete point in time.
If I assume that the soul was suddenly inserted in a living
being, e.g. 1 million years ago, we must then argue that his
or her father and mother did not have a soul. We cannot.
This means:
All living beings have a soul or no living beings have a soul. As I
don't believe a worm has a soul, I must conclude that the concept
of a soul in each human being can only be a manmade construct.
A manmade construct because we have a need to believe that
we (or at least our 'spirit' or our 'soul') will exist forever.
We fear death, we fear being gone forever.
We want to deny death, we need to believe we are immortal.
We have a need to fabricate a reason for our existence.
You do not know. There is no proof for the existence of the soul
neither there is a fact that makes that impossible.
Lately, astronomers are starting to realize that most of the
mass in the universe is in the form of some "dark" matter, that
is completely invisible. Since there is FAR more dark matter
than ordinary, visible matter, if my soul was made out of dark matter,
and the ratio of dark to visible matter is around 5 : 1, my
soul would be around 400Kg, surely too heavy to go to heaven...
That is one of the reasons I do not believe in heaven and hell.
Even a slim saint massing only 50 Kg would have a 300 Kg soul...
He would need quite a helping boost to go to heaven...
Maybe that is why the bible says that there are only 144 000
saints. At 60 Kg per saint, that makes 360 x 144 000=51 840 TONS
of saint's mass!
Of course you could argue that the soul keeps the same mass
since birth. Since you are only around 3 Kg at birth, you would
keep a light 30 Kg soul all your life.
But why would the soul not grow, as the body?
If you feed the soul during your life, reading interesting books,
hearing nice music, etc, it could very well be that those 3 Kg
multiply even faster than the body, making for heavy 1/2 ton souls!
The problem is of course, that Hell is below, and Heaven is above. It
would be much more convenient the other way around!
.
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| User: "Carl Sagans billions" |
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| Title: Re: When I realized these 10 simple truths about God and religion, the yoke fell off and I was free forever |
01 Sep 2007 11:45:39 AM |
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jacob navia wrote:
Carl Sagan's billions wrote:
[snip]
2. The Christian concept and definition of a 'soul' is untenable.
Why? Evolution is a fact but nowhere in the long line of evolution
was the 'soul' (or something like the soul that makes us immortal)
suddenly inserted in a certain species at a discrete point in time.
If I assume that the soul was suddenly inserted in a living
being, e.g. 1 million years ago, we must then argue that his
or her father and mother did not have a soul. We cannot.
This means:
All living beings have a soul or no living beings have a soul. As I
don't believe a worm has a soul, I must conclude that the concept
of a soul in each human being can only be a manmade construct.
A manmade construct because we have a need to believe that
we (or at least our 'spirit' or our 'soul') will exist forever.
We fear death, we fear being gone forever.
We want to deny death, we need to believe we are immortal.
We have a need to fabricate a reason for our existence.
You do not know. There is no proof for the existence of the soul
neither there is a fact that makes that impossible.
Lately, astronomers are starting to realize that most of the
mass in the universe is in the form of some "dark" matter, that
is completely invisible. Since there is FAR more dark matter
than ordinary, visible matter, if my soul was made out of dark matter,
and the ratio of dark to visible matter is around 5 : 1, my
soul would be around 400Kg, surely too heavy to go to heaven...
That is one of the reasons I do not believe in heaven and hell.
Even a slim saint massing only 50 Kg would have a 300 Kg soul...
He would need quite a helping boost to go to heaven...
Maybe that is why the bible says that there are only 144 000
saints. At 60 Kg per saint, that makes 360 x 144 000=51 840 TONS
of saint's mass!
Of course you could argue that the soul keeps the same mass
since birth. Since you are only around 3 Kg at birth, you would
keep a light 30 Kg soul all your life.
But why would the soul not grow, as the body?
If you feed the soul during your life, reading interesting books,
hearing nice music, etc, it could very well be that those 3 Kg
multiply even faster than the body, making for heavy 1/2 ton souls!
The problem is of course, that Hell is below, and Heaven is above. It
would be much more convenient the other way around!
Surely, you joke.
Assumptions:
If we had a soul
If there is dark matter
If there is a soul
If the soul is made up out of dark matter
If the soul is part of our body
If there is a heaven
If heaven is a physical place
If there is a hell
If hell is a physical place
If heaven is above
If hell is down
If our soul needs to move to get 'there'
etc.
Surely, you joke. Liked your post.
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