Religion is just mans poor attempt to define the undefinable concept of God. They are like a childs attempt to explain a complicated mechanism, oversimplified and often getting it bass ackwards wrong.

The way I see it God is not going to save anyone from the ravages of nature, bad luck or evil men. That is not what he is about. He gave us the ability for independent thought and He gave us this sometimes dangerous playground called Earth to exercise it in order to show Him by our thoughts and deeds that we are worthy of an afterlife. Either you will or you won't but it won't be by how well you follow rules written by other men.

Hi August. I take you believe in this 'being'. Fair enough, thats up to the individual. But if any god (note I do not use a capital letter) was as good and kind as the fraudulently corrupt catholic church claims, then he, or it, is a total fraud.

Look at the state of the earth for the past 2000 years, especially now. Do you think a kindly god looks at us? Or a being watching a comedy channel? No, there is no divinity of any religion, its totally impossible.

A wise man once said, "If there is anything like a god, we carry it inside our minds, our soul".

And the scrolls say that JC said that a church (place of worship) is not a building, it is here all around us, even under this stone. You all take it with you.

Religion is a device for ignorant humankind of days gone by to explain the unexplainable. And I hate that stupid phrase 'its gods will'.

And the religions who take from the rich and poor in masses, for the poor, and keep it is testimony to the lies and deceit of the gimme or perish clergy. Look at the wealth of the Vatican, the poor will never see any of it.

As for an afterlife. Yes, I think its probable. Why? Because I had a message from my mother, died 1999, long after, from a medium who has never seen me or heard of me. If its not possible what a waste of our lives, but its nothing to do with a religion.

Don't wanna derail this thread to much I have however a comment to Red Devils comment.
Red Devil wrote
"was as good and kind as the fraudulently corrupt catholic church claims, then he, or it, is a total fraud."

I have been told that God gave us free will-Free will to do good or bad.

Markus

If you choose to see only the negative you will continue to be blind to everything else.

In addition to being the foremost providers of aid to the poor by far throughout human history, religions provide both a moral code and a societal structure which are important blocks to build a civilization.

It has, for all it's warts, served our species well in the past few millennia. Whereas man has yet to prove that a religion-less society can even survive for very long. Ever since ours mostly abandoned our religion we've been slowly crumbling and I expect that to continue.

Hi. Thats the excuse of religious people to placate, or attempt to, when people say WHY does god allow this? 'Its gods will.'

Totally different thing than what he said.

Just FWIW and IMHO, I don't allow religion to guide me in how I interact with any of you. :O:

In other words, take a guess on my views. You're probably right. Back when I was in the Navy, this was our version of "Don't ask, don't tell". :03:

When you're walking on the thin ice, think about it before you hit that Submit button. :up:

Thanks. Yes, the bottom line is its only my opinion.


August: I did not say, in that post 'him' I referred to religion as a whole.

Anyway. as I said earlier religion is up to the individual and should always be that way, but don't let it influence opinion or reality.

I'll leave it at that, its an interesting thread though.

So you'd rather not have people trying to do Gods work feeding and sheltering the poor? Like I said earlier the overwhelming amount of charity aid comes from religious groups. Now maybe they are just buying themselves a stairway to heaven so to speak but without their money and effort who will take up their slack?

Tell me why the Vatican has more wealth that a lot of country's and why the Church of England has £100m to spend on 'saying sorry for the past' = then you say doing gods work for the poor, dont make me laugh. For 2 millinaia the churchs have been stealing from the poor and allowing nobility to 'buy their way to heaven' -its a damn rip off.

No more, sorry but we re in the wrong arena for this sort of rubbish.

Whatever. Go ahead and tell 1.3 billion Catholics and God knows how many CoE Heretics that the billions they give to charity annually is a rip off. That all the orphanages and missions they operate, volunteer for and finance are rubbish. Then break out your wallet and take up their slack.

Finances are rubbish, you hit the nail on the head. The Churches have ALL the money but the poor get, from them ,sod all.

The churches have the money that was given to them by their members. They didn't take it from you. How many orphanages do you run? How many soup kitchens, vaccination programs, schools, or food drives have you built or organized? The churches pay for all of that.

That's not entirely accurate. I know of one Christian church that REQUIRES a tithe on your income to remain good standing with GOD. :03:

Yeah?, what is the churches name?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The Mormons? You're not talking about tithing that they recommend to gain access to one of their temples (not exactly heaven) are you? Even Catholics pass the donation basket during mass but that is not the same thing as requiring it.

To get a "Temple recommend" you need to be deemed "worthy", and part of that is being current on tithes.

Guess them 410 missions come with a hefty cost. But these tithes are certainly not enough to build that stairway to heaven as the Mormons believe that only 144K souls total will get in.