If we accept as inevitable our own mortality, are we then free to use our resources to attempt to make life better for ourselves and those around us (including the wider community) rather the waste time and energy on who is right about which faith to follow?
2006-07-15 13:47:48 · 37 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
The fear of death is a significant part of the dogma of all religions. How they handle death is a little different but all try to pretend death is not the end. This is because the evolutionary role of the self or ego is to keep itself alive, which keeps the body alive. The self/ego is not too smart in dealing with death. It wants to keep itself going so badly that it is easily fooled by promises of afterlife. That is a major attraction that religions have. Only people who are fairly open minded and intelligent can see that promise is a sham.
That said, religions do have a more honest use in society. They are usually involved in helping those who cannot help themselves. caring for others. That, to me, is their only ligitimate use in society. Everything else is a con artist trip. And there are plenty of gullable people who buy their nonsense. Humanity is not too bright.
2006-07-15 14:10:17 · answer #1 · answered by Alan Turing 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Hey, let it begin with you. You do what you feel a moral imperative to do.................feel free.....I know I do.However when it really hits the fan ,it's the church that responds-the body of believers throughout time... catholic and protestants together.....not the group of agnostics and atheists gathering together to use their resources to make life better for themselves and those around them.Why is it the majority of great art, and invention have been done by Christians? Why is it many of our greatest Universities and research hospitals were established by Christians. I don't think anyone was impressed with the work non-believers did as a group after Katrina. Do you think this is some innovative new idea for people to do as they see fit?Hmmmmmm.The book of Judges chronicles a period of time in which Israel had no King,no Lord, when every man did what was right in their own mind.....It is the bloodiest most violent of books in the Bible. I think most of the people looting and perpetrating the violence would have been in the group you are thinking about ....maybe History is good for getting to know Human nature.......imagining all wars are caused by religion is a conclusion drawn from a lack of insight into human nature.
2006-07-15 14:38:04 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Death is a big part of people's need for God. But also keep in mind that there are also a lot of other factors like disease, and having enough food, shelter, money, sex, marriage and kids and all that. People worry about those things and expect that there is a God watching over and controlling all of it. People figure that if they pay their tithing and go to church, that God will reward them with the good things in life.
There's also the need that many people feel for social control. They fear that without a God to be punishing the bad guys, in this life and the afterlife, that there will be social anarchy on earth.
2006-07-15 13:54:38 · answer #3 · answered by idspudnik 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The afterlife serves no purpose than to let people overcome their fear of death. Death is inevitable, but a little imagination about going to a place where everything is happy can't hurt, can it? Unless of course you believe it so much that you don't live your life to the fullest because you are saving the fun for a possibly non-existent afterlife.
2006-07-15 13:55:57 · answer #4 · answered by =_= 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Those are some deep thoughts there, my friend. Actually, I was thinking, and I may be wrong, that the meaning of life in all it's peculiarities is the root of all religions. From what I've heard, Muhammed lived in a city of central religions. Back then people believed in more than one god, most of the time. But he went out and came back with the belief in monotheism, one of the most up to date and modern philosophies of that time. He wasn't the first of the time, but he was the first in his area, and it caught on like wildfire...
The religions that stayed with us are the ones that help humanity deal with human problems, and death is only one of them.
2006-07-15 13:54:21 · answer #5 · answered by merlin_steele 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Unbelievers have no fear death?Check and see the charities,hospitals,food banks and the Christians and Churces that run them.
John 3:15-18
Romans 10
Eph 2:8-9
Jude
Malchi 4
Rev 19-22
2006-07-15 14:04:51 · answer #6 · answered by robert p 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Religion invented gods and spirits to enable uneducated people explain natural phenomena. For example, when I was living in Papua New Guinea, a man was working under his car on a hill. It rolled down the hill, running over him and killing him. The local people thought that the spirit of the car was evil for doing that and would not touch the car.
2006-07-15 13:54:25 · answer #7 · answered by Nemesis 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think the fear of what comes after death is the root of all religion. If people weren't afraid of burning in hell I believe that they probably would be motivated to live their lives differently.
2006-07-15 13:52:13 · answer #8 · answered by kibbie01 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You are correct.
These people fear death so much that they are forced to make up unbelievably childish stories about some magical candy-land that they'll be transported to after they die.
And if that wasn't enough, they fabricate a hell to frighten the sheep into staying on the straight and narrow and not to leave the flock...
Honestly, they really are pathetic.
2006-07-15 13:51:52 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, I think lack of knowledge about the world around us is the root of all religion. The first people probably didn't understand mortality.
2006-07-15 13:51:24 · answer #10 · answered by ubathby 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋