I read an article in the local rag about a religious group wanting something. The following is my view on the subject of religion. Now my views will be seen by some as inflammatory, ignorant, wrong,or intolerant, etc. To those who are easily offended, I suggest that you piss off now, and stop reading.
Still here ?? I'm warning you, I will brook no whinging about MY views. If yours are different fantastic, isn't freedom of thought, and speech wonderful !!!
Although I am not religious, I do believe in freedom for all to practice whatever crack-pot religion they choose to. That's what freedom means, allowing people to think what they wish, to say what they wish, to believe what they wish. Religion is one of those strange things in which no one is wrong, and everyone is right. I realize that my previous statement is contradictory, but if you think about it, and the basis of religion, I am bang on the mark. Religion is based on faith, and belief. If you have true faith, and truly believe, you cannot be wrong. So if you cannot be wrong, then that makes what you believe right. So getting into religious arguments is a bit silly, and pointless with true believers of whatever religion you happen to be dealing with. As I have mentioned, no one can be wrong, so you are only going to be banging your head against the wall when arguing with true believers.
You may ask what my religious bent is. My short answer is, I don't believe in religion. Religion was originally created to explain away the tragedies, and tribulations in life. As time went by, those in charge realized that religion worked very well as a control on the little people. Thus modern religion was born. As I said this is my view, and if you are offended by it, I suggest that you read the last sentence of the first paragraph again. I'll paraphrase it here for those too lazy to reread it. Piss off if you don't like what I'm saying. Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Once they found out that they could control the masses more easily with religion, it became a staple of Kings, and Emperors throughout history.
Think about it. Look around at your work-mates, friends, acquaintances. How many of them have an anti-authoritative streak in them. You know the "you can't tell me what to do!!", or "who died and made you ..." That sort of person. It's so much easier to say that some nebulous entity who is omniscient will punish you for eternity. All you need to do is convince them that it is possible, and their own imagination will take over. Making them much easier to control, and to get them to do what you want them to do. Want another example ?? If this way of controlling the masses wasn't good, than why did the Emperors, Kings, Pharoahs etc. all say that they were either descendants of the Gods, or were put in place by divine right. If you disagreed with the King etc you were disagreeing with the Gods. Very powerful stuff.
To aid in keeping the masses mired in ignorance, the clergy only taught to those they thought were worthy. They also only taught what they wanted the initiates to know, and didn't allow dissent. If there were questions, they diverted them into further study of the only reference material. That way assuring that the "correct" answer would be found. Powerful stuff this.
The as time marched on, languages changed, as did interpretations. Take the King James version of the bible for instance. We have a medieval king who may or may not have had a great grasp of the original Aramaic/Hebrew doing the translating. How do we know if he got it right ?? There have been scholars lately who believe that he got it wrong. One example is the parting of the Red Sea business. At the mouth of the Nile, there was an area called the Reed Sea. Did he misspell this in his translation. By deducing from other passages in the Bible, and comparing to geological occurrences that are known to have occurred, this is a distinct possibility. If he made this very basic error, what else did he mis-translate, or get wrong ?? The book itself was written over centuries, and compiled by those who were not there, and who edited what content went in.
The various bibles do make for an interesting history of the times, along with a good guideline on how to live a decent life. This I will readily agree to. Whether it was written by God himself, well the jury is out on that one. We have to remember that much of what was written, was by guys who wandered around in the desert for long periods of time, in the hot sun. Given the same circumstances today, would we so readily believe a book written by such a person, who claimed to commune directly with God ?? I'll leave you to answer that one yourself.
