One of Christianity's basic dogmas is that you can only be saved
through Christ or accepting Christ. As at least 4 billion out of 6.5
billion people in the world are not Christians, through no fault of
their own, per this dogma they will not go to heaven.
In Christianity there are only two options, heaven and hell, so
Christianity basically condemns 4 out of 6.5 billion people.
That does not make sense whatsoever. I am sure many will deny it or
weaselword themselves out of it. It just does not make sense.
It cannot be explained away.
That is one reason why after my first 23 years of Christian life I
clearly had to reject Christianity, as it does not have answers, does
not make sense, does not agree with science. It only offers too many
illogical constructs and out-of-date dogmas.
This is what I posted before and why I see Christianity as a manmade
religion, as all other religions, consisting of many intertwined
manmade philosophies of life that evolved in human groups, tribes and
larger societies in the last five to ten thousands years.
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All religions, and all gods at their center, are man made.
This includes monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Islam
and Judaism.
Nowhere do I see or observe any physical acts of a god or gods.
The reality is matter and physics tied to matter.
Physical laws govern the universe and nowhere do I observe
any or sudden interference of those by an all powerful being,
so we must assume there is none or he is not acting.
Nowhere can we point to a 'hand of God' acting in the physical
universe.
So it is self-evident to me that religions are made--and 'made up'--
solely by human beings, based on dreams, thoughts, mysticism,
philosophies and explanations of life and death, the sun, the moon,
etc., interwoven with legends, myths, superstition, social laws,
and the many many taboos of the ages.
There is no 'Divine Inspiration'. There is no 'Word of God'.
'Word of God' is a claim, a claim made and made up by humans.
The Bible, the Koran, the book of Mormon, and so many other books
that are claimed to be the word of God coming direcly from 'above',
are all created, written and assembled by humans (philosophers,
leaders, scholars, prophets, clerics, fanatics, zealots, you name it,
a wide variety of authors, with a wide variety of opinions, beliefs,
thoughts, etc.). They did not come from a god. But religious leaders
always claim they do, claim, yes, claim.
But it is all not based on any physical reality.
In a sense it has been grabbed out of thin air over the ages.
It does not mean it is worthless, it may offer many people a pacifier,
an explanation of the mysteries, of pain and misery, and a dream of
hope. But it is all a dream, kind of a self-hypnosis that something
better awaits us after this life, wishful thinking, denial of despair.
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It is really a failure or lack of courage to face reality:
That we do not know why matter, life and we ourselves exist.
Because we do not know, we desperately seem to need a pacifying
explanation.
So over the ages we made (up) many, and we still make up more,
all the time.
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However 'we do not know' does not mean we should
assume an all-powerful being/creator/ruler. We do not know, so
the all-powerful being created by man over the ages, is nothing more
than a man-made idea and explanation, based on nothing physical,
based on no proofs, based on no physical signs of gods anywhere.
It is all wishful thinking, not based on rational thinking, not in
agreement with science, not in agreement with what I observe and
can observe: E.g., the tsunami happened because the earth core is
cooling, there was no 'hand of God' who caused it, there was no
'hand of God' who saved or killed 100,000 little children.
It is all based on a 'belief' in what is unknown, in the
unknowable. That means it is all based on sand = on ideas.
It is very elaborate but in its basic essence it is all 'made up'.
Why has it been 'made up' over the ages? To pacify and soothe, to
explain, to provide some relief of the hard daily life, to provide
some kind of social cohesion via shared beliefs, to help support or
enforce the many unwritten laws in tribes and larger groups, etc.
'Made up' does not mean that the authors and spiritual leaders
necessarily lied, they just built their explanations on top of
what they inherited and learned, so the philosophies of life got
enriched, diluted, modified, re-interpreted all the time.
(That is even clear from the Bible, with so many different writers,
so many often contradictory interpretations and explanations.)
New interpretations: That is also what many over the ages have been
doing. But that is fine, that gives their life meaning.
It matches and agrees with their own thinking, life experiences, etc.,
and they use lots of creative thinking to build on that.
But those beliefs will never be mine because these religious beliefs
are man-made, and historically grown beliefs divorced from physical
reality, and really only one set of beliefs out of the multitude
designed by man over the ages.
Why should I believe in somebody else's beliefs, one out of
so many, about the unknown?
My beliefs are based on what I can observe and understand, not in
beliefs inherited from others - about the unknown and unknowable.
So I am free to walk my own path.
You are free to walk your own path!
Free of the bounds imposed by any man made religion!
In a sense 'walking one's own path' is also what many are doing,
but mostly still within some of the bounds of a religion.
For me, there is no hold of 'inherited beliefs' on me whatsoever.
Of course one can learn from the past, one can learn from religions,
but these can never tell me what to believe and how to live.
That choice is mine.
And my choice is a clear rejection of Christianity and its beliefs
(as well as other religions that claim to know the unknowable),
the reasons are described in the list of my self-evident truths
(see the list after my name).
That is irrevocable because it is based on personal insights and
understanding that cannot be revoked. It includes a basic
understanding of comparitive religions and that any new religion
rests on the shoulders of one or more previous religions and belief
systems. Belief systems that evolve in all primitive societies.
Belief systems as a necessary part of cultural development, not
originated from words or books directly received from gods.
As Galileo's belief in the earth not being the center of the solar
system and even of the universe, was --in his mind-- irrevocable.
Because he understood, he understood what he observed, he understood
physical reality, he could not deny physical reality.
The choice between what he understood from physical reality and what
he understood from what the church = religion wanted him to believe,
was very very simple.
With regards,
Michael M Terra
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Self-evident truths for me:
(Whatever is self-evident for one is not necessarily self-evident
for someone else)
1. All religions are man made, all gods are man made
2. The Christian concept of a soul is untenable, as nowhere in the long
line of evolution the soul was suddenly inserted at a discrete point.
I.e., if we assume that the soul was inserted in a living being 1
million years ago, can we then reasonably 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. The concept of
a soul in each human being then must be a man made construct.
3. There is no heaven and hell. All religions are man-made which means
these two concepts are man-made. They were created when social groups
evolved, to keep individual behavior in-line and within boundaries
so as to be beneficial to the group and its leaders.
4. The Christian dogma of sin, based on 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 beings 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, to give us salvation, is untenable. Human beings evolved
over millions of years and never (suddenly) had free choice to obey or
disobey (=sin). The main Christian dogma therefore is in direct
conflict
with evolution.
5. The Christian concept that you can only be saved through accepting
Christ as your savior is untenable. As 4 billion on earth are not
Christians, it is illogical to assume that God automatically condemns
4 billion out of a total of 6.5 billion to hell.
6. All religions are man made, which explains the huge variety of
religions. Any evolving human society evolves beliefs which then evolve
in absolute beliefs and then in absolute structured beliefs = religion.
It also explains the similarity of so many religions.
7. As all religions are man made, the concept of God itself is
man made.
As nowhere in the physical world we see any physical acts/actions by
God, there is no reason to assume that a God like the Christian God
exists. Either God is absent, is dead or does not exist.
In the recent tsunami over 100,000 innocent children were killed.
'God' did not do it. 'Satan' did not do it. The earth core is cooling,
forcing huge plates to move, which occasionaly rupture into
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc., which cause natural
catastrophes such as the recent tsunami. All physical phenomena.
Nowhere did the 'hand of God' act anywhere.
8. The mystery of matter and why we exist does not mean we need to
assume that an all powerful being like the Christian God (or other
or similar God as in Islam and Judaism) exists.
In the last 10,000 years more and more mysteries have been
explained, and 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 simplistic absolute 'truths' and
beliefs as described in 'holy' books. That means these are manmade
legends, philosophies, myths, etc., being pushed back or even voided
by science and other rational explanations. That means a current
religion such as Christianity can only survive on longer terms if
it develops a much better explanation and rationale for the mystery
of matter and life and our existence.
However I think Christianity cannot 're-engineer' or even 're-
vitalize' itself, so it is likely it will slowly die.
I am not saying that the general human need for spirituality will
disappear, but the dogmas, beliefs and concepts of a religion such
as Christianity (and Islam and Judaism) will become less and less
acceptable to more and more people.
There may be occasional 'revivals' of religious fervor, even lasting
for decades, but the longer-term trend is away from reliance on and
belief in man-made religions.
The core issue is a direct conflict between the religious/emotional
approach and the scientific/rational approach. Spirituality will stay;
structured dogmatic religions based on inherited beliefs will slowly
disappear or remain with smaller and smaller groups of the
'un-enlightened'.
.
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