Marx's opinion of religion is simple: it is an illusion whose chief purpose is to provide reasons and excuses to keep society functioning just as it is. Religion takes our qualities - our highest ideals and aspirations - and alienates us from them, projecting them onto an alien and unknowable being called a god.
Religion is intoxicating like opium.
According to Sigmund Freud, religion is a form of mass neurosis and exists only as a response to deep emotional conflicts and weaknesses.
Also like Marx, religion (god) is an illusion.
But how do you define god?
- omnipotent?
- as a personal relationship?
- creator and sustainer of existence?
- transcendent and immanent?
- etc.
__________________
I am not driven by people’ s praise and I am not slowed down by people’ s criticism.
You only live once. But if you live it right, once is enough. Wrong. We only die once, we live every day!
Make poverty history.
personaly I feel strongly that society, every society does it, made up God. Like said in the matrix: Hope it is the quintessential human dellusion simultaniously the source of our greatest strenght and our greatest weakness. I think you can place faith in the same category people can do great things when they believe in something but it is also one of our greatest weaknesses as history has shown.
__________________ Be smart, be cool, be sexy = be LIBERAL!
but I do agree on most parts with marx about religion being nothing more then hope to get a better live (the hope of having a good live in heaven after getting kicked around in 'RL')
The simple fact is no one will truly ever know untill we die. Everyone can debate and debate, but this gets noone anywhere. For every argument that can be contributed to eigther side Of eigther God or No God .there canl always be another argument made that will contridict or defy the previously made statment.
So whenever someone tells you they know there is no god then they are very ignorant, because no one knows. there is a scary fact that comes from religoun though, and this is the inspiration of other religouns from one belief. There are certain religouns out there that were created with no kind of substance or beliefs. It was started with nothing more than a good idea.
There has always been some type of believed religoun dating back as far as humanity knows. When people try and dissuade someone from a certain belief this is the most ignorant thing any one could ever do, because no one knows. The same goes for when people try and convince someone to practice a religoun. You shouldnt try and convince someone to devote there life on an idea.
__________________ "If you tell the truth, you never have to remember anything" -Twain
(sig by Scythe)
saying that we can only know after we die, automaticly insinuates that there is a heaven, but on which grounds do you think there is one?
there are religions that say that after life everything is done and over, that there are no afterlives....
imho, it's also ignorant to say there IS a god, because also no-one knows if he DOES exist.
I'd like to add, of course, that that is not necessarily a dig at religion, which depends upon faith, which has little or nothing to do with scientific rationality, but it is unfair to call someone ignorant for requriing proof to believe that something exists.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Religion can be classified into one of two types: functional or substantive.
Accepting a substantive definition of religion means looking at religion as simply a type of philosophy, a system of bizarre beliefs, or perhaps just a primitive understanding of nature and reality. From the substantive or essentialist perspective, religion is all about trying to understand ourselves or our world and really has nothing to do with our social or psychological lives.
For those who focus on functionalist definitions, religion is all about what it does: if your belief system plays some particular role either in your social life, in your society, or in your psychological life, then it is a religion; otherwise, it's something else (like a philosophy). Examples of functionalist definitions include describing religion as something which binds together a community or which alleviates a person's fear of mortality.
Btw, I find Descartes' proof based on doubt very interesting and somehow it makes sense imo.
__________________
I am not driven by people’ s praise and I am not slowed down by people’ s criticism.
You only live once. But if you live it right, once is enough. Wrong. We only die once, we live every day!
Make poverty history.
KMC Community Forums
Oct 23rd, 2003 07:27 AM
