Human Experience?

Question

How do you define human experience? And do you think religion limits, stifles, and smothers natural human experience to an extent? Sex, partying, fun, philosophy, individual expression, individual thought process, bawdiness, humor, being wild, feeling carefree, believing in many paths...etc is all sinful in some way or other. So do you think religion, labeling so much of human experience as "sin" (almost everything in fact), is limiting many people?

Or do you think it keeps them docile, shameful, obedient, grim, naive, and obtuse --- and are those good qualities to have in a day and age where violence and craziness runs rampant?

Thoughts?

Please play nice, everyone :)

Mozbabe:

I am not an Atheist. I was raised Catholic, and I believe in god and Jesus. I believe the body has a soul, or spiritual form. I took no issue with God, Jesus, nor the existence of a soul. Didn't you notice that?

I took exception to religion. Religion is not run by God, it is run by Man. And while some of our religious rules teach us ethics, morals, and set undertandable limits, still others are there to control and limit us as humans.

Notice I said "sex" and you immediately equated that with promiscuity. I did not mean that it was "okay" for a girl to be promiscuous, sleazy, and have no respect for herself. I was talking about "normal" women, who have a few sexual partner throughout their lifetime. (Say four, all in comitted relationships.)

But that is neither here nor there. You missed my point about religion itself and went straight to Atheists vs. God. I was asking if the dogma of religion was a good thing when it limits normal human experience.

Answer 1

SMACK! Rarely have I seen such a powerful style. Your kung fu is strong, you must teach us.

And yes human experience is extremly limited when you let religious nutters tell you what to think.

Answer 2

I am a Chrisitan and I do not feel shameful, stifled or smothered. I am definitely not docile or naive. I have lived a very fullfilled life. It has not always been in line with what I believe God wants of me. I have a large family by today's standards so obviously I enjoy sex. I drink alcohol when I want. Was it not Jesus that turned water into wine. The party could have ended right there. I cannot think of one thing listed that I cannot enjoy. I think for myself and do not follow anyone blindly. There are ten commandments outside of that one should use there own judgment. It is my belief that God convicts you personally of those things which are harmful to you. This does not mean that I run around doing anything I want to. Your morality is within you, the ten commandments are a good thing. Outside of that, I won't let man condemn me for things God will not.

Answer 3

We are in the image of God, who is spirit. So we are spiritual beings. I still can't accept though, that we are just having a human experience since we will always have a body. We will be raised up at the end of time, to have a body like the one, Jesus came back in at his first appearing, after he rose again. You could touch it, Jesus ate food, it was a physical body. But I wouldn't consider it a human body with blood coursing through his veins either. It was a whole new type of body that the world has not seen yet. One that can just appear in a room as Jesus did . If I had to choose I would go with the first one but something about that statement just bothers me. I don't think we were put on this Earth just to experience being human. That makes no sense to me. I think the main reason we live and die is to learn that we are nothing without God. We need him, it is in him and through him, we live and breath and have our being. Without him, we are nothing. Just a vapor who can be extinguished in the twinkling of an eye.

Answer 4

There is a fundamental difference between an atheists view of a human, and a Christians view of a human. For atheists the human experience would only be for physical pleasures and selfish gain. For a Christian his body is made up of a physical form, as well as a spirit and soul. Christians see bodily pleasures as the least important and gratifying of the three. There is nothing on this earth more rewarding than being able to know God and making Him a part of yourself.
There is a misconception that Christians dont enjoy sex (or did you mean disrespectfully giving your body away to anyone who likes to use this for their own human experience?), we also have lots of fun, we do enjoy conversation about philosophy, individual expressions, we are humorous and boy, we do have a reason to be carefee, because we have a God that is looking out for us. God wants us to enjoy life. It is a gift. Christian religion is just based on having fun without anybody getting hurt, including yourself.

Answer 5

There are no editions of the Bible that are flawless. Look into the history. Books were thrown out. Pieces of it were put together from different parts of the book like a puzzle. Books were hidden when Christians were persecuted and killed. (Read the Gnostic Codices). Before the Bible was let loose to the people, many people edited it for content. Also it was written two centuries after Christ was crucified.
Also with the coming of the Christ, the Old Testament was no longer necessary. Christ fulfilled all the Prophecies . When He was asked about Commandments, at one time he said to: Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as you love yourself. In following this one Commandment, you cannot break any of them. The Commandments were given to us just so we wouldn't destroy one another anyway. Do you really think God so small, and possessive that he is jealous? Not so. He is God for God's sake. We as humans limit him, when He is limitless.
Blessed Be

Answer 6

If organized religion could do what you said about oppressing the sinful our prisons wouldn't be overflowing.
You didn't mention anything I had to give up to be a Christian. I love sex with my wife. I enjoy (fun) debating any issue pick a side. Individualism? You've never met one of me before I promise. I still do all these things but my focus is on the glory of Jesus. All people sin all the time. So tell him your sorry. Don't crawl don't whine.
Stand up on your hind legs and get serious.Lord forgive my weakness and add to my strength. Stop the insanity. Stop doing the same things over and over and expect for different results
If you ask Jesus to reveal himself to you he will and he want push on you like a well fanatic. He lets you choose the time. Hope you do soon. Most of us expect to leave this planet soon. God Bless!

Answer 7

That we are going to have to co-articulate our instincts so as to coordinate, cooperate, or collaborate with reality is a given and accepted behavior that has helped us get along this far. Some things must be stifled and smothered and stroking and getting stroked in the meantime is what it is all about. Some would even make that a sin if it succeeded in stifling the more basic human needs. Religion is the ability to obtain these stimulation's and regulate them within where all this takes place. And then artfully insert oneself in all this activity both within and without into a social activity of individual dimensions.

Answer 8

the human experience is many different things to many different ppl. but it's mostly split into two lifestyles: the intellectuals and the idiots.

intellectuals think about things like this. idiots do not.

anywhoo, evangelical religion kind of reminds me of the borg from star trek at times. "You will be assimilated!" and when someone is assimilated, they've been reprogrammed to do only one task: assimilate others. also, their cyborg minds can't take in anything that creates an invalid page fault or whatever in their CPU. like say.. sex, partying, fun, philosophy, individual expression, individual thought process, bawdiness, humour, being wild, living carefree, believing in many paths...... etc.

so yeah, it limits ppl.

Answer 9

I don't think that religion should stifle anything. I think that God created this world and everything in it, including us. He has said, "Here it is, go have fun!" However, He has also said, because He knows His creation, that there must be laws to follow to fully enjoy His creation. So enjoy, but do it within the confines of God's Laws.
Sex, within the confines of marriage. Partying and fun, go ahead (don't be too stupid, though). Individual expression and thinking, there are plenty of creative Christians out there. Humor, (geesh, what is your view of us?). Really, the only thing that wouldn't fit into a christian worldview is the "many paths" philosophy.

Answer 10

I think the human experience is rooted in the knowledge of our finite lives in terms of both inevitable mortality and our place in a much vaster and largely unknowable universe.

I think that religion or myths are ideas we adopt to cope with our ultimate lack of control over our environment and future. I don't think religion is bad in themself. I do think that individuals can decide how they want to deal with their place in this world, and if they are prone to letting fear rule their decisions, they will use whatever they have at their disposal, whether is it religion or anything else.

Although I am Agnostic, I don't have an antipathy to organized religion. I support any part of any ideology that works for a common good, just as I will battle any element that works against it.

Answer 11

Human experience derives from human nature itself. As individuals, we think, feel, etc. for ourselves. Human experience is to living your life as an individual, doing what you want in life to make the most of it until you die. Initially, we don't limit ourselves. Not everyone. This is why you have the murders, the partyers, the thieves, the philantropists, and everything else. Anything we want to become, we strive to become, regardless of the difficulty to go down that path.

Religion originally is to guide one to happiness, to self-fulfillment. But it offers a certain way to do it, through teaching, practices, and doctrines. Religion does limit human experience based on the teachings they preach and the laws they enforce. But it's not only religion that limits people on living life the way they want. Government law also does this. For if everyone were to live their lives exactly the way they wanted to, the world would fall into chaos (well, even more so than it is now), with no order and discipline. Religious or not, you will follow government law, lest you want to suffer the consequences of your violations. Religion is only a further limitation on human experience. However, it is needed. Deftly needed. Imagine a country without a democratic process and leadership. Or a country without a royal lineage to rule the people. Or even a tyrannical rule. All of these things have one thing in common: to keep everyone in line. Yes, we can still go out and live life in the fast lane, but even so, we are limited as to how far we can take it. From freedom of speech to sexual acts, the government limits us to how far we can take it so that we do not cause a fuss, and do harm to each other. And religion limits that even moreso to those who follow government law. People don't realize that even though we're living in a free world, we are still being overly controlled, and monitored closely. This is why law enforcement exists. This is why militaries exist. We take it upon ourselves to watch each other's back, but to ease off so that we may live our lives. And there are still those why defy government and religious rule alike, namely, criminals. The way they want to live their lives do not fall under the rule of man and God, and so, they are unallowed to. It's easy to chalk up the lack of fun to religion, because it only puts further emphasis on what one can and can't do. Because to be spiritually enlightened, you must live a good clean life. They care about what you do to yourself and others on a deeper note, and so they condemn the sinful and praise the worthy. The government does the same exact thing, except on a lesser extent. They don't care if you go out and party every single night and have sex with many different people. They don't care if you're homosexual, or suicidal, or anything of the sort. As long as you abide their generic set of laws, rules, and regulations, you can do whatever the hell you want. So we are limited, because we limit ourselves. Religion and government alike are concepts created by Man, and Man sought to keep the world in order by applying these sets of rules. And for good clean living, or debaucherous high profile living, we've got to abide by the rules, so that we may continue to live in the conditions that we live in today. God bless America, eh?