Arriving to your views of Religion

[Ilus_Unistus]

I wish to know how you as religious person or not, came to be this way.

What or who influenced you and why.

For me, I do not have any faith at all in God, the Bible or anything to do with religion. How I make this conclusion for my self is several reason.

First, I live in Estonia, the worlds number 1 country to not believe in religion with I think only 12-18% of any Estonians having any kind of faith in religion and this goes back to the times when Christianity began.

Second, some years ago I study Greek Mythology in school, that being known I have read the Bible. Once I saw how similar the Bible is to Greek Mythology, and knowing Greek Mythology out dates any known type of religious Bible it was easy for me to see the Bible is nothing more than these same Greek Myths were relived through the Bible, only some names and places changed.

Just a few examples,
1) Noah's Ark, this is almost the exact story of the Myth of the Great flood of Babylon in Greek Mythology.
2) God, this sounds very similar to Zeus, god of the sky.
3) Devil, also described in Mythology as Hades.
4) Hell, sounds much like purgatory controlled by Hades and where all humans go after death to be judged and either rewarded by passing on to Zeus' domain or punished by remaining to serve Hades in purgatory.

I can go on and on about the similarities, but I think maybe you see my point by now.

Third reason, Science. To explain this I will give you what science tells me that the Bible says must not be true.

1) From what I know of the Bible and what creationist tell is, Man just out of thin air appeared one day, like poof, magic. This to me does not seem possible at all. Life is evolution, just as we evolve today we did as well trillions of years ago from bacteria to where we are now.

2) The Bible implies the Universe is a mere 6000 years old, yet, science shows repeatedly in many species of life this can not be. The dinosaurs alone is proof of this living Millions of years ago, not thousands.

3) The stars, if the farthest star to Earth is about 10 Billion light years away, then how can we possibly today see that very light from this star when it would take 10 Billion years for the light to travel here for us to see? Again proof to me the the Bibles approx 6000 year since the creation of the Universe is false.

My view of the Bible. It is a collection of stories based on Mythology written by 100's of authors as meanings to life before the technology and understanding of the world, the Universe and even man kind we know today.

I think the Bible does offer something more though. I think it can teach about morals and can show a path to living an clean honest life. But to take anything it says as literal... well read above.

 

[Wade8813]

I wish to know how you as religious person or not, came to be this way.

What or who influenced you and why.

I was raised going to church my whole life, but eventually I got to the point where too many things didn't make sense to me.

Second, some years ago I study Greek Mythology in school, that being known I have read the Bible. Once I saw how similar the Bible is to Greek Mythology, and knowing Greek Mythology out dates any known type of religious Bible it was easy for me to see the Bible is nothing more than these same Greek Myths were relived through the Bible, only some names and places changed.

Just a few examples,
1) Noah's Ark, this is almost the exact story of the Myth of the Great flood of Babylon in Greek Mythology.
2) God, this sounds very similar to Zeus, god of the sky.
3) Devil, also described in Mythology as Hades.
4) Hell, sounds much like purgatory controlled by Hades and where all humans go after death to be judged and either rewarded by passing on to Zeus' domain or punished by remaining to serve Hades in purgatory.

Actually, Christianity is (supposedly) a continuation of Judaism, which is MUCH older than Greek Mythology.

1. There are many stories of "great floods" from all over the world - that might mean the Bible was a copycat, or it might mean there actually was a flood.

2. The fact that a religion has a god of some sort isn't much of a similarity. Greeks believe in many gods, all of whom had very limited power. Christians believe in one God who has limitless power.

3. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about Greek Mythology, but I don't think Hades was supposed to be evil - he just happened to rule the underworld (I believe he and his brothers cast lots, and he got the 3rd one). Satan on the other hand is supposedly the embodiment of evil.

4. This is fairly similar, but a concept of punishing evil isn't exactly earth shattering.

Third reason, Science. To explain this I will give you what science tells me that the Bible says must not be true.

1) From what I know of the Bible and what creationist tell is, Man just out of thin air appeared one day, like poof, magic. This to me does not seem possible at all. Life is evolution, just as we evolve today we did as well trillions of years ago from bacteria to where we are now.

2) The Bible implies the Universe is a mere 6000 years old, yet, science shows repeatedly in many species of life this can not be. The dinosaurs alone is proof of this living Millions of years ago, not thousands.

3) The stars, if the farthest star to Earth is about 10 Billion light years away, then how can we possibly today see that very light from this star when it would take 10 Billion years for the light to travel here for us to see? Again proof to me the the Bibles approx 6000 year since the creation of the Universe is false.

1. Evolution doesn't explain where life comes from - just why it is the way it is. And honestly, it makes more sense to me that it was created as that a bunch of chemicals mixed together and somehow created life.

2. From what I can tell, the system used to determine how old fossils are is highly flawed.

3. There are lots of possibilities - one of which is that God created the light already traveling to earth for the purpose of letting us enjoy the starlight.

 

[Bananas]

I wish to know how you as religious person or not, came to be this way.

What or who influenced you and why.

I was very much left to my own devices.

Arriving to your views of Religion

The term views in the title of this thread are a large part of how i have come to view religion. There are so many views and all people have are these views, as there is no absolute answers and views are the best people can give (despite what they believe or will tell you) then it is how I conclude religion is just a variable of mankind. It is a branch of creative philosophy that is restricted to the minds of humans, when the humans are gone so will be their Gods.

 

[Wade8813]

The term views in the title of this thread are a large part of how i have come to view religion. There are so many views and all people have are these views, as there is no absolute answers and views are the best people can give (despite what they believe or will tell you) then it is how I conclude religion is just a variable of mankind. It is a branch of creative philosophy that is restricted to the minds of humans, when the humans are gone so will be their Gods.

Of course, then you get into whether or not your statement about religion "just being restricted to the minds of humans, that will disappear" is just a view.

Because if it is, then you haven't explained why you think that view is any better than any other view. If it isn't then it seems you've contradicted yourself - you say that the answers are unknowable, but that you know everyone else is wrong.

 

[Bananas]

Of course, then you get into whether or not your statement about religion "just being restricted to the minds of humans, that will disappear" is just a view.

It is an observation.

There have been thousands of Gods in human history, some are still worshipped, some are known as myths and legends and some have been forgotten and erased from time altogether. There are people on this planet alive today who worship Gods you have never even heard of, and there are people who have never even heard of the Gods you know. There will be religions long after you and I are gone (for as long as humans exist) and they will worship Gods and things you can not even imagine.

Religion by observation is a product of our creative minds.

Because if it is, then you haven't explained why you think that view is any better than any other view.

Is that view any better? ....I do not recall typing anything along those lines.

If it isn't then it seems you've contradicted yourself - you say that the answers are unknowable, but that you know everyone else is wrong.

Is everyone else wrong? Are the answers unknowable? .....I do not recall typing anything along those lines.

 

[AngelsPeak]

I wish to know how you as religious person or not, came to be this way.

Simply put, when I was a non-believer I had to constantly find reasons to support my disbelief.."God cannot exist because of this or that". My mind was in turmoil, but I didn't even realize it.
Now that I've climbed to the other side of the fence and found the Light, I have no questions, I know. I don't have to defend my position to myself because the truth is in me. It's completely liberating what happens to a person once their eyes have been opened.

 

[Ilus_Unistus]

2. From what I can tell, the system used to determine how old fossils are is highly flawed.

Yes it has flaws, but is not so flawed to mistake 1000's of years for Millions. The biggest flaw of how they do carbon or other testing is it is not accurate to an exact date.
Example: They test, it shows to be approx 2 Million years in age, when it could in fact be just under or just over this. It is not exact to a specific date in time. Creationist use this excuse to disregard the testing completely because if it were any where near a million years in age then the Bible's implications would be false.

I have read literature about creationist who try to disprove this testing works. By trying to disprove it is somewhat accurate, do you think they would concede it worked at all? If they did it would again prove the Bible was false. Ill trust scientist over a creationist any day.

Also, I do not recall reading of Dinosaurs in the Bible. Greek mythology tells tales of mythical creatures with 3 heads etc... but it is a fact Dinosaurs at one time dominated Earth, surely this would be worth a mention in the Bible, yes?

1. Evolution doesn't explain where life comes from - just why it is the way it is. And honestly, it makes more sense to me that it was created as that a bunch of chemicals mixed together and somehow created life.

Science can not explain exactly how life came to be, but I tend to think it is due to the fact the Earth is a perfect environment for life and perhaps trillions of years ago 2 natural chemicals combined creating life here. But to believe God just magically placed a man and woman on earth... I am to old for fairy tales.
Occam's Razor explains the simplest and most logical answer is usually the correct answer. I believe this to be true.

3. There are lots of possibilities - one of which is that God created the light already traveling to earth for the purpose of letting us enjoy the starlight.

Again, this is not the simplest or most logical answer. Is it easier to believe what you say, that a mystical power made this possible? Or that the universe is indeed Trillions of years old?

1. There are many stories of "great floods" from all over the world - that might mean the Bible was a copycat, or it might mean there actually was a flood.

Ahhh but if the Bible was a copycat as you say, would this mean the Bible is not absolute as many claim? If it is not absolute, this is exactly my point. It was written in times of little understanding as a source of answers to questions everyone wanted. Nothing scientific, just stories.


I do not put down anyone who chooses to follow the Bible, it is their life. I do not live my life to disprove the Bible either, it is not this important to me. I know what I know about it and its claims and I know what is now understood about how things really are, we are still learning, and not so much points to any claims by the Bible.

I can not say how it feels to believe in things written by men many 1000's of years ago who searched for answers to questions with little know how or technology to do so, and if anyone in this time was to use science to disprove anything the Bible said, they were persecuted and even killed. To me it is the same to say I should believe in the tooth fairy, it is just a story to me made up as a way to make little ones feel better about losing baby teeth, which otherwise would be a scary thing to children lol.

 

[Wade8813]

Yes it has flaws, but is not so flawed to mistake 1000's of years for Millions. The biggest flaw of how they do carbon or other testing is it is not accurate to an exact date.

Example: They test, it shows to be approx 2 Million years in age, when it could in fact be just under or just over this. It is not exact to a specific date in time. Creationist use this excuse to disregard the testing completely because if it were any where near a million years in age then the Bible's implications would be false.

"To determine the ages of these specimens, scientists need an isotope with a very long half-life. Some of the isotopes used for this purpose are uranium-238, uranium-235 and potassium-40, each of which has a half-life of more than a million years.

Unfortunately, these elements don't exist in dinosaur fossils themselves. Each of them typically exists in igneous rock, or rock made from cooled magma. Fossils, however, form in sedimentary rock -- sediment quickly covers a dinosaur's body, and the sediment and the bones gradually turn into rock. But this sediment doesn't typically include the necessary isotopes in measurable amounts. Fossils can't form in the igneous rock that usually does contain the isotopes. The extreme temperatures of the magma would just destroy the bones.

So to determine the age of sedimentary rock layers, researchers first have to find neighboring layers of Earth that include igneous rock, such as volcanic ash. These layers are like bookends -- they give a beginning and an end to the period of time when the sedimentary rock formed. By using radiometric dating to determine the age of igneous brackets, researchers can accurately determine the age of the sedimentary layers between them."

HowStuffWorks "How do scientists determine the age of dinosaur bones?"

There are major problems with the type of dating they have to use. First of all, since we've only been testing uranium samples for a few decades, in order for us to come up with something having a half-life of millions of years, we have to guess. Also, let's say it starts out as Uranium and decays to lead. You look at it, and notice that it's 3/4 lead, and assume it's gone through its half-life twice. But what if there was some lead present in the beginning? Your entire process will be thrown off.

Also, I do not recall reading of Dinosaurs in the Bible. Greek mythology tells tales of mythical creatures with 3 heads etc... but it is a fact Dinosaurs at one time dominated Earth, surely this would be worth a mention in the Bible, yes?

Many feel that the Behemoth and Leviathan from Job 40-41 were dinosaurs. Also, the Bible is primarily about human relations to God and each other. If dinosaurs didn't have a big enough impact on that, they wouldn't necessarily be included (especially since IIRC, I read that most dinosaurs were actually pretty small).

Science can not explain exactly how life came to be, but I tend to think it is due to the fact the Earth is a perfect environment for life and perhaps trillions of years ago 2 natural chemicals combined creating life here. But to believe God just magically placed a man and woman on earth... I am too old for fairy tales.

See, that doesn't make sense to me. You have no problem with 2 chemicals creating life, but have a problem with the God who would have created those chemicals creating life?

Occam's Razor explains the simplest [strike]and most logical answer[/strike] is usually the correct answer. I believe this to be true.

Occam's Razor is basically a tiebreaker. Also, it's not talking about simplest to understand, it's talking about the explanation that has the least assumptions. Occam's razor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ironically, Occam was a theologian.

Again, this is not the simplest or most logical answer. Is it easier to believe what you say, that a mystical power made this possible? Or that the universe is indeed Trillions of years old?

Without looking at any details, both seem incredibly easy to me. It would be simplicity itself for the creator of the universe (who created light) to make some of that light appear as starlight so we could see it.

Ahhh but if the Bible was a copycat as you say, would this mean the Bible is not absolute as many claim? If it is not absolute, this is exactly my point. It was written in times of little understanding as a source of answers to questions everyone wanted. Nothing scientific, just stories.

I didn't say the Bible was a copycat - you did. I said it might be a copycat, or there might be another explanation.

Here's the thing - there are several Flood accounts in different cultures around the world. Many of those cultures probably had little-to-no interaction with each other. Are you going to assume they ALL copied each other?

 

[Juan_Pablo]

I wish to know how you as religious person or not, came to be this way.

What or who influenced you and why.

As a religious person my family and culture has influenced me. My culture has very deep ties with Christianity. By percentage, Mexico is the most Christian country in the world with 98% - 99.5% of it's citizen's being a Christian.(excluding the micro state of the Vatican). That dates back to the before the Spanish Empire. During the middle ages the Iberian Peninsula (present day Portugal and Spain) was predominantly Muslim and was known as Al-Andalus. The various Christian kingdoms were mere city states in the north which were overpopulated with farmers and peasents as opposed to the Muslims who were smarter than the Christians and were already adpated to Physics, Mathematics and the Arts. Together the Christian kingdoms pushed the Muslims out of the Penninsula, strengthened their own kingdoms and in 1492 set sail for the Americas. The rest is history.

 

[idisrsly]

I wish to know how you as religious person or not, came to be this way.
What or who influenced you and why.

I grew up in a Christian family. My grandfather and his father and his father are/were all pastors and as such my faith has been a part of my life for all my life. That said though, Christianity is not something I just followed blindly though out my life. I have asked the hard questions and till this day look for some answers of things I do not quite get. But as a whole, my faith is indoctrinated in me and I know where to go to get my answers.

Second, some years ago I study Greek Mythology in school, that being known I have read the Bible. Once I saw how similar the Bible is to Greek Mythology, and knowing Greek Mythology out dates any known type of religious Bible it was easy for me to see the Bible is nothing more than these same Greek Myths were relived through the Bible, only some names and places changed.

Your stance on Christianity is explained perfectly in this one paragraph. You are comparing a MYTHology to a Religion. I can see where you come from with this though, coming from a country where Christianity is taboo. I know a little bit about Greek mythology myself, having studied it in my youth and I would not consider it anything like Christianity.

1) Noah's Ark, this is almost the exact story of the Myth of the Great flood of Babylon in Greek Mythology.

As Wade has pointed out already, two separate accounts of a flood is likely to mean there was a flood. Why would you conclude that one group of people are copying another in saying there was a flood? That would be like saying that the people in Phuket are copying the people in Maldives when they speak about the tsunami. That is certainly not the simplest and most logical answer. The simplest answer is that if there is more than one account told of a flood, that there was a flood!

2) God, this sounds very similar to Zeus, god of the sky.

It also sounds like every other religion and mythology out there. It would not be a religion/mythology if there was not a "higher power". Whether it is God, Zeus, Allah or Mohammed! The difference is that we believe that we serve the one true God and that He sent His son to die for our sins. That doctrine is unique to our faith and is the very pillar of our religion.

3) Devil, also described in Mythology as Hades.

The devil is not only the "keeper" of the underworld though. There is a lot more behind the origins of satan and the role he plays in Christianity. Hades is the keeper of the "afterlife", which not only consists of the place "bad" people go to, as I am sure you are aware, based on your mention of purgatory.

4) Hell, sounds much like purgatory controlled by Hades and where all humans go after death to be judged and either rewarded by passing on to Zeus' domain or punished by remaining to serve Hades in purgatory.

It's actually the reverse in Christianity. We get judged in heaven by God, not in hell by satan, but that is neither here nor there.

I can go on and on about the similarities, but I think maybe you see my point by now.

There really are not that many similarities other than the obvious ones needed for it to be considered a religion/mythology. There is a higher power. There was a flood and there is an antagonist. That's really where the similarities end.

1) From what I know of the Bible and what creationist tell is, Man just out of thin air appeared one day, like poof, magic. This to me does not seem possible at all. Life is evolution, just as we evolve today we did as well trillions of years ago from bacteria to where we are now

This to you is not possible at all. But it was possible for God. No human being can ever fathom the complete greatness of God. It was not "poof - magic". It was the works of our creator.

2) The Bible implies the Universe is a mere 6000 years old, yet, science shows repeatedly in many species of life this can not be. The dinosaurs alone is proof of this living Millions of years ago, not thousands.

There is so much debate around the 6000 year belief. Personally, I do not think the earth is 6000 years old and I don't see why believing in the bible should change this belief. The earth as we know it (after creation) is 6000 years all. To me, this argument goes back to the time argument. God created the heavens and earth. The bible does not say God then continued in the same day and created the rest of the earth as it is today. It states that the earth was formless and empty. What is to say God did not create the earth millions of years ago and then 6000 years ago started with creation of man kind? I am anticipating you asking why this would not be in the bible! What relevance would millions of years worth of dinosaurs roaming an empty barren land have on our lives today? None. So why make a bible millions of pages long if that is not relevant to what God's intention was for our lives after He created us?

My view of the Bible. It is a collection of stories based on Mythology written by 100's of authors as meanings to life before the technology and understanding of the world, the Universe and even man kind we know today.

You are entitled to your view.