Tudór:

Like I said in my first post here, man created the gods to explain away the ill understood realities of life. And like you said, these ideas evolve over millenia.

Man did not "invent" or "create" religion. Man just believed the stuff cause there was no other option. Religion is one of the oldest cultural phenomena. . .older than language/speech. It is believed that as soon as the human mind began to understand cause and effect relationships, unseen powers were believed to be at work. It is a part of who we are as a species. Just like our brains have evolved to make language easily learn-able because it helps us thrive as a species, the religious sentiment is believed to be a part of us because it was essential for humans to orient themselves in a crazy crazy world where things just happened. I understand what u mean, and to some extent i don't disagree, but it was no "creation" of man. "Human beings need a cognitive map of the universe to orient themselves and counteract ontological anxiety"

Imagine the first "conscious" humans (or even humanoids) just coming out the wild venturing into uncharted territory. Imagine the first intelligent/conscious experience of a thunder storm, death, illness, whatever. Imagine being in the middle of a hailstorm, scared shitless, and the moment you walk past, or touch, say, for example, a certain tree, the hailstorm stops. U automatically associate that tree with your safety. It isn't because u "invented" the belief, u just believed it because of some real cause and effect association (however misguided it may seem to us in the 21st century, those were the early building blocks of the knowledge we have of our world today). A relationship with that tree will give u some sort of orientation, from which u can continue your attempt to survive in a world u have not yet learned to dominate. When that stops serving its purpose, it evolves into more complex and more elaborate rituals and beliefs and whateva (over millenia of course, and in a communual setting. . . not overnight)

Tudór:

The question is, what drives this evolution and change. Among many other things is the element of deceit.

To a certain extent, IMO a very small extent (though in our major world religions today I admit to a much larger extent), deceit is a factor. But it is overly exaggerated by people with beef against religion.

This one is complicated because it will mean looking at a bunch of different religions and sorting through how they have evolved. That is too much work and unless I'm being graded or paid for it, fukc that  .

But i'll say this. A lot of the stuff atheists on Nairaland have stated as evidence for the organized hijacking of the christian faith is just plain misinformation. Some of the charges are valid. for hezampul, some small portions of the bible are believed by scholars to have been absent from original manuscripts, and manipulated by the early church. At the same time a lot of the stuff that people spew as con jobs are nonsense e.g that some men in a room decided what books go into the canon because of some power-grabbing conspiracy is mostly bullshit. Besides the Gospel of John and the book of revelation, to my knowledge (There are some other books that were excluded, but they were intended as additional readings anyways, and never scripture. e.g the didache- if u remember the post shakerz [deep-sight's friend  ] made when she was screamim propaganda and conspiracy and I called her out on it), which only barely made it in, the books that are in the canon are the books that had been accepted by the larger Christian community as valid. It was more of a council to make official what was already accepted by the christian population in the empire, than a council to choose what should be accepted as scripture based on some individual's or group's agenda. The debates about the validity of the documents (and stories) in circulation were not just between the authorities. A Christian community was already established, and these are people that had heard oral tradiditions about Jesus, some had relatives that had first hand, or second or third  hand accounts, etc. These were people that were sincere and really wanted to know about Jesus, so they rejected traditions/books/ stories that didn't match with the traditions that were believed to be rooted in the "real "stories of Jesus. SO while the canon was ultimately decided on by some guys in a room, the actual process of validating the books was done by the early christian community. U catch my drift?

Tudór:

There are thousands if not millions of different religions on this planet and its typical to human nature to selfishly move the gods so to speak to your side of the fence. This is mostly easy when the religious authority is centralised, A change for whatever reason on the leader's views or motives leads to a whole 'noda level.

If u are born and raised to believe u are a God, and the populace are born and raised in a culture where it is believed that the ruling family are divine, u , or the populace didn't invent the world-view. Society evolved and that world-view is a product of that process. It's not that what u are saying is wrong, it is that u are presenting it as a conspiracy. In ancient religions (state religions, i can't really speak for people's individual beliefs), RULERS WERE BELIEVED TO BE DIVINE,  AND THEY THEMSELVES BELIEVED THEY WERE DIVINE. SO THEIR WILL WAS THE DIVINE WILL. The bigger and stronger your empire was, the more divine and in line with the cosmic order u were believed to be. So your divinity was not validated by some supernatural revelation, but how well your empire and population thrived. Religion was a community thing, with the aim of the entire community benefiting from divine "grace". It wasn't about moral perfection and what not that we have today. . . Those types of ideas came about later. The divine didn't have to me morally upright or unselfish to be godly. Kings were responsible for their kingdoms/empires, and they themselves tried to follow the rituals and practices that were in place before they got there, while in some cases adding to them. But the process is a very complex one, and is hardly ever a one man show.

Tudór:

In times past political leaders have tried to control the religions, ever wondered why? Yea, its because once they are in then they control god. And for sure, many have succeeded.

Religion and state were one and the same. The priestly class worked hand in hand with the rulers to interact with the gods, or spirits or whateva. The state funded all the elaborate temples and communual rituals because they were a part of nation building and reinforced their identity. Again, they really believed the stuff. Before science people really believed this stuff. So that a king that believed he was divine did atrocious things does not mean he was conspiring to fukc people over,  .  he just thought he was divine doing the divine will. I'm not aruguing for the moral character of these people, I'm arguing against the claim that religion in all it's expressions are products of con-artists, and are nothing but that.

Also, name any cultural phenomena, even business, art, whateva, that are not manipulated by the powerful for selfish reasons. Does the fact that some business men pay bribes, or never do the contracts they are supposed to, destroy the credibility of all business persons? Does the fact that record labels pump out manufactured, generic "stars" mean that there are no true artists around? The fact that there are crooked people out there using belief in the supernatural for selfish reasons does little to nothing, IMO, to discredit religion. U know very well that I think religion, as understood by an overwhelming majority of Nigerians, is dangerous and messes up our chances of progress as a people. But we can't because of that pretend that all of religion is like that because it isn't. That some people refuse to inform themselves does not mean all religious people are waiting around for horses to come out of the sky or for some virgins to fukc them to stupon!!

Tudór:

You can lie to people but never to yourself. Knowing you need land and resources and therefore telling the people it is gods commandment they go kill for it. Not unless you're a psycho you'd know deep within it came from you and not some god. That is deceit.

YOu just over-simplify things. Just like most Christians here. Presenting all these things in black and white leaves us little possibility of making any progress.  If u believe in a god that wants you to survive and thrive, and u need land to survive, of course you will pray to your God to help you to survive, and if u do survive, u will give your god/king the credit.   Everything was understood in religious terms. EVERYTHING. THAT WAS THE ONLY WORLD VIEW.

Now, science gives us other possibilities, and has altered the course of most human intellectual endeavor. But I have to admit that I am one of those people who disagree that humans (big brained humanoids. . .not necessarily sapien) , in the hundreds of thousands of years we didn't have science, had not gained some true, and deep insight into existence. I believe religion and religious teachings have a lot to teach us. Where i differ from the average religionist is that what i subscribe to must be reconcilable with my own experience of reality . So I discard stuff that doesn't until I have reason to believe in it ( I dont believe in the suernatural, magical, etc ). Some people choose to cling to ideas that don't agree with their experiences, and some interpret them in ways that help them get by. To each his own

Tudór:

Belief in dieties might have begun as an innocent attempt to explain the world, but there's no doubt it most got hijacked along the way.

To some extent, yes. But that can be said for pretty much all cultural phenomena. So that does not discredit all religious beliefs and practices.


I hate making long posts like these cause by the time i'm done i always get the feeling i made little to no sense. E be like say na ADHD dey worry me.
If there is anything that sounds like jibberish please point it out and i'll try to clear it up. I admit i could have done a better job but the work too much 

Hmmm

Abu-z. . . Wetin dey happen nah? How body? 

I think say you go fire us one quote from Qu'ran sharp sharp. Are u not in the mood today?

U dey wine me abi, cheers

haha . .at all o. I juss dey hail u nah. U be my brotha from anotha motha. Abi no be so?

@Krayola: You see Viaro every day, is that not so?

@SeanT21: « #13 on: December 05, 2009, 07:45 PM »

Quote from: Krayola on December 05, 2009, 02:36 PM
How does one "make" a religion?
Say "God" were to "make" a religion, how would he do it?
Scientology anyone.

By courtesy of the people of Antioch, we have a similar situation under the fast talking L. Robert of Scientology! No?

A Jew immediately the Antioch people gave that name, could easily ask the question "Christianity, anyone?"

@post :

Islam is a man made religion. Allah is the name of the supreme rock god of kabah among the tribe of Muhammed in mecca. Muhammed's father was a pagan. The name allah was in existence centuries before Muhammed. Muhammed keep only one black stone unmolested in Kabah.
Allah is shown to be actually only Muhammad's ALTER EGO. He conveniently and cleverly put words in the 'mouth' of the unsuspecting Allah and called them 'revelations'.
In Muhammadanism, Allah is only a figurehead while Muhammad is the real driving force and the Model of Behaviour who must be closely emulated by his followers.

Muhammad's intercessory powers that get people into a Paradise full of beautiful women and boys with unlimited SENSUAL AND CARNAL PLEASURES that his followers could rarely attain on earth.

The same Allah, who, according to the Quran and Ahadith, has PRE-DESTINED humanity -thus depriving them of free will- would with bountiful mercy and compassion, send millions of them as 'UNBELIEVERS' to his Hell Fire for no fault of their own while he watched them roasted and tortured with glee and great satisfaction.

While the God of Israel forbade His followers from ever mentioning His name in vain, the Muhammadans pronounce the name Allah hundreds of times a day, every day of their lives, invariably in vain.

The moment people comprehend, that Allah is NOT the God of Israel, all of the Quran's contradictions, inconsistencies, historical dislocations, theological anomalies, grammatical errors etc, become crystal clear as the product of Muhammad's own
Alter Ego projected unto the persona and into the mouth of the unsuspecting ALLAH, the pagan rock god of the Ka'ba, and have nothing whatsoever to do with any Divine Inspirations.

@Abuzola :

Why are you opening your big mouth ? You better close your mouth before a big tsetse fly enter that mouth of yours